2014

Oh this year! Where do I even start? So many good things. So many crazy things. So much stuff. This year was full. I just went through my iPhoto pictures to remind myself of everything that happened and started pulling out shots to upload to this post. When I got through I had 110 photos. Yeah, that's not going to work. So here's a slightly more brief synopsis, in less than 110 photos, though I make no claim to it being short, of some highlights this year. And apparently they're not going to be in order, and I choose not to fight with Blogger tonight to fix that, so enjoy our year a bit out of order. :)

 We painted our toenails, Spencer included. We all had a great time and no one was the wiser that only girls are supposed to do that. ;)

 I got very, very hugely pregnant. It was insane. I basically couldn't move the last bit. This is me at 39 weeks.

I got this squishy chunk of amazingness as a reward. Worth every second of that horrendous pregnancy.

 He discovered his fingers early on and now they're nearly always in his mouth. The two fingers on his right hand are his favorite.

 I learned to make soap, along with a plethora of other home and personal care products. I basically buy nothing packaged from the store anymore. It's awesome and way cheaper.

 Genevieve took dressing herself to new heights. She has style, I can say that.

 I built a bunk bed for the kids. Genevieve sleeps on the bottom on that huge full size bed. My foresight in building it that big is amazing because Bill or I regularly sleep chunks of the night in there with her. The space is worth every bit of squished room having that big of a bed creates.

 We didn't do a lot of camping or being outside in general this summer as a result of already mentioned awesome Aaron being born in the dead heat of summer in July. So we set the tent up inside instead.

 Genevieve discovered just how much she loves to sit on Bill and use him as a jungle gym. She still loves it, much to his chagrin.

 Lots of Bill's family came a few weeks after Aaron was born and we blessed him while they were here.

 My mom came and saved my bacon for the first two weeks of Aaron's life. She is the best person to have around when you have a new baby.

 We spent Thanksgiving in southern Virginia with my sister and her family. It was awesome. We're planning to do it again next year. :)

 The kids discovered how awesome headstands are, or "headstanders" as we call them around here.

 Genevieve continued her love affair with food. Bless her for wanting to eat everything.

 It snowed! Okay, it dusted the ground a bit, but we all loved it.

 The kids discovered they love blue ice cream. Sadly, this place closed, but we do our best to eat ice cream regularly, just elsewhere. :)

 We bought a van! It's my dream car, at least for now.

Bill discovered her loves bow ties. He rocks them. This is one we actually made for him to see if we could do it. I have a stack of fabric on my sewing table ready to make some more now that we discovered it again in our move.

 Aaron was born with long, luscious hair, and then, just like Spencer, he lost it all a few weeks later. Look at how skinny he was back then! Not anymore!

 We went hiking all together when Aaron was just a couple months old. Haven't been since, but hey, it was great fun. We'll do it again one of these days.

 Aaron started smiling. His smile brightens any room.

 Bill got to go to Utah for his sister's wedding and other sister's return from her mission. It was quick, but fantastic.

 We cut down our own tree again this year. It was chilly that day. Last year we walked all over to find the perfect tree. This year we found the perfect tree in about 30 seconds of leaving the car.

 I got to take a trip to Utah in early December and particularly made an effort to see these two favorite guys in my life. Aaron loved both his grandpa and great grandpa. Great Grandpa definitely passed on some of his good looks to this lucky boy.

 I got to see some of Bill's family too. Oh how I love these sister-in-laws of mine!

 This picture pretty much epitomizes Christmas and December in general. Poor Spencer coughing his lungs out. We haven't had the whole family well since Thanksgiving. Here's to a healthier January!

But we still had an awesome Christmas and capped the year off by moving from our apartment into a house with an amazing yard. I'll take some pictures once we're all unpacked, but suffice it to say we're very pleased with the move.

This year has been full. We've struggled some, been blessed more than I can express, made some good quality progress on Bill's PhD program, and are just grateful to be an awesome family of five(!) living the good life. Here's to 2015 being just as good.

Trip to Utah

Since I went to college I have taken a number of international trips and worked at various places around the country. It never failed that every time I went somewhere where it was hard to get home easily, my dad had a medical emergency that scared the pants off of all of his family. When we moved to South Carolina I had hoped that trend would stop but sure enough, he's had at least two major hospitals stay since we've been here and unfortunately his health has deteriorated significantly in the past two years. I don't really have the resources to fly out to Utah just anytime, but the opportunity presented itself recently and I jumped at the chance.

Aaron and I flew out to Utah the morning after Bill turned in his last project for the semester, and he was able to stay home with the older two kids while I enjoyed a fantastic trip for five whole days. It was lovely.

I made it a priority for this trip that I didn't want to cram it full of bouncing from place to place to see folks for a bit, but instead tried to have some really quality time with my family, specifically my dad and my grandpa, who is also quite a bit older and who knows how many years he has left on this earth. I feel like I accomplished just that, plus a bit more. It was an awesome trip.

I got to see all my siblings that live in the area, had some really quality time with my parents, and spent a lovely afternoon with my grandparents. I got to see my Ashman family too the first and last day I was there, which was fantastic. Everyone met Aaron. I got to meet my niece Gracie, who could be Aaron's twin. She is seven weeks older than him, and they look uncannily similar. He is at least a pound bigger than her, which is kind of crazy, but they look very similar and on top of that they have very similar facial expressions. It was cool to see such strong similarities between cousins.

As I flew into Utah I felt like I was coming home. Not to my current home, but to my family home. It's kind of funny because while I lived in Utah for 12+ years, I always say I'm from Colorado because that is where I grew up. However, it's been 14 years since I lived there and I don't have any family there anymore. They're in Utah. So that really has become home, which both surprises and pleases me. It really is a lovely place. I'm not sure Bill and I will ever actually live there again, but it's delightful to be able to go back there to visit both sides of our family.

Asleep on the plane ride over. I had to wake him up at 4AM to leave for the airport. He was pooped. I woke up at 3:15AM, so I was pooped too. :)

Sleepy after our flight and happy to no longer be in my arms or front pack.

With his beloved Grandma Suzanne

My dad motors around in a snazzy little wheelchair these days. Aaron had a great time driving with him.

Discovering the favorite baby toy at Grandma Jones' house.

The twinners. He was pretty cranky at the family party we had Saturday night, especially compared to Gracie, who was happy as could be.

She thought she needed to help them with their toys/steal them. Classic 2-year old behavior.

See? Uncannily similar.

They started trying to take toys from each other.

I love this picture. It's just from my cell phone but I caught just the perfect moment.

My lovely visit with my grandparents.

Aaron has a special place in his heart for both his grandmas. It's heartwarming.

He got introduced to my grandparent's dog while we were there and it was love at first sight. These two were both in heaven together.

Aunt Megan

Aunt Miriam and Hillary

They are going to have beautiful children, though I'm pretty sure they won't look anything like Aaron. :)

He was so pleased to be laying in his own seat on the plane. I had to pick him up for takeoff and landing and he was not amused.

Little engineer in training. He examined this "beam" in minute detail.

Tools and an old story

Back in the day about six years ago Bill and I got married and happened to move into a furnished apartment. We happily used all our gift cards and wedding money on curtains and bedding and kitchen stuff and generally setting up our new life together. Then a year or so later we moved to Las Vegas to do an internship and found a normal, unfurnished apartment to move into when we went back to BYU. There was one complication: we didn't own a stick of furniture beyond our bed and two bar stools, and we didn't have a big chunk of money to purchase couches, tables, etc. Fortuitously Bill and I had made a deal that whoever got an internship opportunity first, that is where we would go and the other person would figure something out when we got there. Bill's came through first, so Las Vegas is where we went. I actually had several opportunities come up, but didn't take them because of said agreement. Instead I worked at my current contract job long distance all summer and grew a baby along the way.

Another fortuitous thing happened that summer. As I was contemplating what we were going to do for furniture the following Fall, I stumbled across a new blog called Knock-Off Wood from a lady named Ana White that lots of people are familiar with now, but was just a few months old at the time.  She wrote plans for building furniture that were knock offs of mostly Pottery Barn pieces. I'd taken wood classes in middle and high school, but that had been ten years previous, so it's not like I was up to date on those skills. However, it intrigued me, we had a need, I had a whole lot of time on my hands and a desire to focus on something besides morning sickness, so a new hobby was born. It's funny how such a little thing has turned into so much more, a lifestyle change really. That summer I built my first pieces of furniture: two end tables, a coffee table, two nightstands, six kitchen chairs, and I stripped and refinished a kitchen table Bill's dad kindly passed along to us that had been damaged. If I remember right the total cost, including purchasing a compound miter saw and an electric sander, came up to about $500. We were able to take an extra couch with us that Bill's parents had, plus long term borrow their lovesac, and we were in business going back to Utah.

The only pieces of furniture I still have from that original group are the nightstands and the kitchen table but a hobby truly was born that summer and I have since made scores of different pieces. I love it. I learned my way around the inside of Lowes and Home Depot. I figured out how to use power tools. I found an outlet for a creative need I didn't even know I had. I changed the way I think of furnishing my house. When I see a cute piece of furniture at a store or online, I invariably start thinking how I could replicate it for a fraction of the cost.  I have a list on my Pinterest page of at least a dozen projects I plan to make. Every time I move to a new place now more things go on that list as I see needs and find ways to fill them.

My electric sander kicked the bucket a few months ago and with all the things going on financially since then I haven't prioritized getting a new one, so I haven't done much building of late. It's like there is a hole there that perpetually bugs me. Hopefully I will take care of that soon because moving into our new house next week, I already have a bunch of ideas of things I want to build to fit particular spaces.

As I was planning my trip to Utah a few months ago my dad mentioned that he had a number of tools he wanted to give me. He's been slowly trimming down some of his own tools, as he can't use them anymore, and I'm the only child of his that is really interested in things that would use a lot of them. I happen to live 2,000 miles away at the moment, so it takes a bit of planning to get what he's ready to pass on, but I brought a half empty, large suitcase with me on my trip and borrowed another bag just for this purpose.

I ended up flying home with two big bags, one weighing 50 lbs on the dot, the other at 49.3 lbs. I even borrowed a small carry on bag to bring a few other things I had acquired that just didn't fit in the checked bags. So essentially I maxed out all available space to bring stuff home from Utah, and save for the clothes I had brought for Aaron and I, all of that was taken up by Christmas presents from both sides of the family and tools from my dad. I probably carted 75 lbs of tools back with me. It was my own little Christmas gift, or actually not a little Christmas gift since the tools he gave me represent a pretty significant investment over many years.

I brought home a router and router table, a finish sander, an electric screwdriver, a coping saw, a finish nailer, a dremel multi-tool, and scores of bits and brads and other random things to go along with all the tools. My dad has quite a few other tools he will pass onto me when I have room to bring them too. He was always a do-it-yourself kind of guy. We had a running family joke that he bought a new tool every time he did a new project, so the garage and basement looked like anyone's dream workshop. I had no idea I would follow in his footsteps, but boy howdy have I done that and it is so fun. I felt blessed beyond reason to receive all those tools from him and am already planning all the awesome things I'll be able to do with them on future projects.

Family Photos

Last month my friend, who I normally have take our family pictures, did a fun little fall photo session for kids. I got some great pictures there, but we decided to follow up this month with a family photo session to get a good whole family photo. I thought it would be no big deal to do. We headed over to Clemson and got going taking a few photos. Yeah, let's just say the only kid cooperating was Aaron. We tried a bunch of different poses and locations, and by some magic my friend managed to get a few good shots. No idea how. Bless her. The older ones were having a grand old time, they just didn't want to sit for a photo. It all worked out though. We had fun and got a couple great shots, which is all I needed, and we're set for another year.

Our kids each have such unique coloring and features that we often peg specific standout features in them. Aaron has unique skin/hair tones. Genevieve has the red hair. Spencer has the stellar eye color. Even in black and white you can see that here. I really, really love this photo.

Everybody always says Spencer and Aaron look a lot alike, but comparing side-by-side, I'm seeing huge resemblances between Aaron and Genevieve if you disregard coloring. 

This captured how the session really went. :)

This photo makes me chuckle. Bill and I have smiles a bit plastered on because both of us have a death grip on our children. Hey, my bicep and forearm look quite impressive, so I'm not complaining. lol

Bill needed a professional photo done, and Sandy was happy to oblige. He has been growing his beard the last month and a half or so and I never thought I'd say this, but I love how it looks. It's good for this photo shoot too because hopefully he looks a little closer to his age than the 20-ish year old most people peg him at. Don't tell anyone, but he's turning 30 next year. :)

Thanksgiving recap

Vacationing with my sister and her family was just as good as I had imagined and hoped. We had a delightful time. The house was perfect for our kids, save for the one we were worried would fall down the staircases, but that is kind of a universal problem for that age. The food was great. The kids just loved each other to pieces. Spencer and Genevieve kept saying at the end that they did not want their cousins to go home. That makes it a winner in my book!

My niece Juliet is 16 or 17 months old. She decided Bill and I were her best friends and Bill in particular spent a good portion of the few days with her in his lap or his arms. She's got a feisty little personality that makes me smile every time.

We ate good food, watched lots of movies, threw rocks in the lake behind the house, wandered our the little town's version of a mall, meaning a big building with tons of tiny booths smashed together in it, played lots of games, and chatted long into the night. Good times were had by all. I think this may become a tradition. :)