Out with the Old...

As of this year, our house is 9 years old. And it's showing it. I can't believe how many things we've had to replace in the 5 years we've lived here, most of which have actually been within the past year. Last year alone, we replaced our fridge, water softener, and dishwasher. Good times! And as of this year, we have completely repainted, re-done all our plants and flowers in the front yard, and re-carpeted. Although I will say, the recarpeting was NOT planned. It all started last November...

Our piece of junk dishwasher started to have issues for the umpteenth time, and we were tired of repairing it. So we opted for a new one, which I let my handy-dandy husband install. After a couple trips to Lowe's having difficulty finding the exact right plumbing parts for the installation, he thought he'd found one that was going to work and got it installed with no hang-ups.

Fast foward a few months... We had my family up for dinner one evening and stuffed the dishwasher pretty darn full. I started the dishwasher about 10 that night and went to bed. Ella was fussing in the middle of the night so I got up to give her her binky, and thought that something felt weird in the house. Almost a humid feeling. But I was too tired to care so I gave Ella her binky, and went back to bed. 6:30 rolls around and again I wake up, noticing the same humid feeling, but just like before, I'm too tired to care, especially because the kids were off school that day. I wanted to sleep in! Finally, 8:00 rolls around and Ella is awake and hungry. So I drag myself out of bed to go make her a bottle and as I am going downstairs, I notice a weird sound, like water is running. I also see all of our windows are dripping with humidity. I discovered the sound was coming from the kitchen, where our floor was covered in about 2 inches of water and water was rapidly flowing out from under our dishwasher! I yelled at Greg to come downstairs and bring towels, LOTS OF TOWELS! He rushed down and slipped on all the water, giving me towels that literally did not even make a dent in the water. I thought that maybe we had stuffed the dishwasher too full and it had started leaking out the front. But by the time Greg finally got the water turned off and the dishwasher pulled out, he found that the hot water line from the back had come disconnected at one point and that was the source of the problem - and as some of you may know, the line into the dishwasher does not have low pressure, trust me! It was spraying everywhere! As the day progressed and we got the kitchen as dry as we could, we found that the water had spread to other places we didn't even realize - our living room, our storage room beneath the kitchen, and our toy room beneath the living room. It was an extremely overwhelming day, to say the least.

As the week went on and we kept finding more and more water, we decided it was time to call our homeowner's insurance and get some help! They sent out a flood company to help dry things out. Even a week later, our sheetrock in our kitchen was 80% water! It was nuts! Luckily, they got things dried out very quickly with no mold issues, so we didn't have to replace any of that. But as we got into the carpet area, we noticed that the backing to the carpeting was pealing apart from the fibers, which means it cannot be stretched again. Some people may find this exciting, but I was worried out of my mind because we hadn't budgeted for new carpet, and I figured the insurance company would only pay for the rooms that got wet - about 20% of the carpet in our house. Fortunately, we got an awesome insurance adjustor who decided to give us money for any room you could see from the rooms that got wet. For those of you who have been in our house, you know it is extremely open. So in the end, the insurance gave us money for every single room in our house, except our bedrooms (living room, family room, stairs, hallways, and our toy room). In the end, we spent $550 out of pocket for our whole house to be re-carpeted! It was awesome! :) And we love the new carpet - it is so soft and thick!

So here's the BEFORE (I just had to find a random picture that showed our old carpet, so you get to see a cute pic of Ella at the same time!):

And AFTER:

Sorry if it's kind of hard to see, but you can tell it is darker and A LOT thicker than what we had before!

I also wanted to quickly post some pictures of Ella's nursery. After a year, it is FINALLY completely done! :) Well, it was done when Ella was born - I just wanted some cute curtains too. So my mom was so sweet and made some for me! And I LOVE them! When we switch Ella's room to a big girl room in a few years, I am basing everything around her curtains so I can keep them because they are so adorable! So here are some before pics when Ty was in there:

And here it is AFTER (sorry that the first couple of pictures are a bit dark):








Aww, doing a girl's room is SO much more fun than a boy's! :)

Well, that's all for now. :) -Ash

Yes, Miracles Do Happen!

I know this is a HUGE shocker to you all, but I'm back! And when I say "you all", I know I'm probably talking to a few members of my family because everybody else has given up on this blog. :) Life has just been nuts, and frankly, I've grown tired of blogging. But I realized recently that even though I'm sick of it, it's the only journaling I do so I need to keep on top of it!

Since I've obviously missed so much over the past 8 months, I'm just going to do a "condensed" overview of what's gone on with all of us since I wrote last! (Well, as "condensed as I - the ultimate talker - can be!)

Greg is doing well and staying busy. Back in the fall, he completed an entire kitchen cabinet job which was a big deal for him! It was a huge kitchen so obviously it was a lot of work, but he did a great job and the family was really happy with it. Since then, the cabinets have come to a stop though because of the BEST NEWS EVER! :) Greg finally got out of T-Mobile and got an awesome new job! He is now working for Marketstar in Ogden as a North American Field Marketing Manager. Basically, he manages their marketing account for HTC phones for all of North America. He has about 100 people below him spread out all over Canada and the United States, so obviously some travelling is involved, but he is absolutely loving it and so am I! It's so great to finally have him not working weekends anymore, and also not be micro-managed so much. His confidence has gone through the roof because he finally has managers who trust him to make good decisions, and praise him when he does. So different from T-Mobile!

As for me, I'm just keeping busy with 3 kiddos! Some days are great, and others are a struggle, but I have to admit that having 3 has been easier than I expected. I'm really loving it and feel like our family is complete with our sweet little Ella! I am still teaching piano lessons, but am going to be done at the end of May. After almost 4 years of doing it in this neighborhood, it is definitely a bittersweet thing. I've really come to love all of my students and seeing them progress, but at the same time, it takes time away from my kids that I can't get back. Plus, it's pure chaos when I teach, with my boys' extreme noisieness and Ella wanting to be on my lap playing the piano. I also got called as the YW President in our ward last November, which has only added to my craziness! We currently have just over 40 Young Women, so it definitely keeps me busy. I am fortunate though to have great counselors and advisors who help out A LOT. :)

It's hard to believe that Gavin is 6 already and almost done with Kindergarten! He started all-day Kindergarten back in September and has excelled at an unbelievable rate. I am so proud of him! He is already reading at a 1st grade level, and as of his last progress report in March, he had hit every Kindergarten benchmark with the highest scores possible! While he and Ty sometimes struggle together (I'm sure because their boys), Gavin is still such a great big brother. He is always looking out for Ty, especially when other kids are around, and absolutely LOVES Ella. Gavin is definitely our outdoors boy, which means he's been an active kid the past few weeks! He's really gotten into soccer lately and will start T-Ball next month. He also taught himself how to ride his bike without training wheels last Friday! Greg had tried numerous times with him, but he just always struggled and wanted to stop trying. Well, we got new carpet last Friday (another post for another day!) so his bike with training wheels was stuck in the garage behind our old carpet. He kept begging Greg to get it out, but Greg was busy and kept telling him, "Just a minute." So he decided to get out his old bike (with no training wheels) and came back in 5 minutes later saying, "Don't worry about it, Dad. I taught myself how to ride my bike with no training wheels." What a kid!

Ty is 4 now, and started his first year of preschool back in September. Of course, he loves it and like Gavin, has really excelled. At his parent-teacher conference, his teacher told us he is at the top of his class and is even above where he should be. I owe this to Gavin who loves to play school with him! He is still our cuddly, sweet boy. In fact, we've started calling him "our monkey" because he will climb all over you given the chance! Ty's also taken a huge liking to any kind of video game - Wii, computer games, his Leapster - to the point that I've had to put MAJOR limits on them! I'm so afraid of having a "gamer" child! Luckily, now that the weather is warming up, he is loving being outside which definitely helps with that addiction. :)

And Ella - where do I even start?! She has grown up SO much! I can't believe that in 10 days, she will be 11 months! Her first birthday will be here before I know it, and it makes me so sad! I have absolutely loved having a baby again, and it's hard for me to see her grow out of that "baby" stage. But at the same time, it has been a blast to see her do so many new fun things! She now waves, plays patty-cake, sits up perfectly, and will maneuver herself around the floor with her arms and legs. She still isn't crawling though and I'm not expecting it anytime soon. She absolutely refuses to put any weight on her legs, which I think will delay the crawling and walking stage! Her doctor isn't worried about her - we just think she's being lazy - but my guess is she will probably have to start some kind of physical therapy if she isn't doing it by her birthday. She is still such a happy, sweet, smiley baby. You just look at her and she will give you a huge grin. She's also been cracking us up lately because when we look at her, she puts her arms up in the air almost like she's saying, "Ta-Da!" It's too cute! Maybe she's watched the Price is Right a few too many times with me, and is aspiring to be a model. :) Ella is still healthy as can be, despite her rough start at life. She did contract RSV in February, but was never hospitalized - I never even had to take her up to the RSV clinic at the hospital, so I felt fortunate for that!

Well there's a "condensed" version of the past 8 months. I have lots more to tell, but better "condense" them into other posts! Along with more pics... :) -Ashlee