Well, our house is coming along and we just can't wait to move in! All of the exterior is done and the interior painting, trim doors etc are done. The only things left are tile, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, carpet and fixtures! The picture above is the archway into our front room. The one below is the kitchen (with a corner pantry) and the dining room. We are hoping to be in by mid- March! 
For our Valentine's date last Saturday, Kyle and I got to meet the Food Nanny! I don't know how many of you have heard of her but she has a TV show through BYU-TV where she goes to people's houses to help them with their dinnertime. I have been watching her show lately and was so excited that she was coming down! She has some great ideas about meal planning and making dinnertime a priority. Basically, she shows people how to make a theme for each day of the week (i.e. Monday-Comfort Food, Tuesday-Italian etc) and then make a two week menu plan based on your themes. She is such a fun lady. Thanks for the date, honey;) You can go to her website to get recipes and ideas at www.thefoodnanny.org.
It is so fun to see our house going up next door! We even have a great aerial view from the upstairs of our house. I'm sure the workers think I'm a weirdo whenever I go up there and take pictures, but oh, well:) Here's the basement about a week ago.
These three were all taken TODAY! The one above was at 8:00 this morning the next one at noon and the last one at 5:00. It's is so crazy how fast they can put up a house!
Kirsten's Christmas program was on the 15th and she did a great job! Her part was the star on top of the tree. But can you tell from the next two pictures what she really wanted to be? But she bucked up and played the star anyway:) It made her feel better when we decided maybe she could be a bunny for Halloween next year.
Some Christmas Eve jammy photos. As soon as Kyle got out the camera they all started dancing around and posing. Jannika is usually goofy like this but it was so funny to see Kirsten and Claire get into it!
The morning finally came! Some favorite presents: a doctor's kit, a BB gun for Jannika (no, she hasn't shot her eye out:), a scooter for Kirsten, a new baby doll and doll swing for Claire and of course, Pillowpets! They have all loved their pillowpets! It was a great Christmas.
I asked Kirsten what she wanted to do for her birthday party a few weeks ago and she wasn't sure but she did want to invite boys. Sooooo, no princess girly party:) We decided to do a pirate party. Huge success! We delivered pirate map invitations that were burnt around the edge and rolled up and put in a bottle. We asked the kids to wear a striped shirt or any other pirate stuff that they had. The day of the party, I went on a treasure hunt of my own to find some piratey things for the picture backdrop. I had the door in my house already and I horked the chest from my mom's house and then I had to go to Price and was gone for a few hours. When I got back, my awesome sister, LeAnne, had found all the rest of the stuff and set it up in my house! So now are we glad my dad never threw anything away? Yeah, because this was a pretty awesome setup. And LeAnne was so creative to come up with all the stuff!
I made the hooks with a paper cup and a piece of cardboard cut out like a hooked and covered with tinfoil. When the kids came, they decorated their hats and then we took a picture of each of them by the piratey stuff.
We had this ship cake and the kids went on a treasure hunt and their treasure was a little tin box shaped like a treasure chest that I had painted brown filled with root beer barrels, chocolate coins and candy necklaces. 
We had two great Thanksgiving dinners, one on Thursday and one on Saturday. Kyle's family came down and we had lots of fun making these apple turkeys. It was a great activity to keep the kids busy while we got the food ready. We have so much to be thankful for and I am glad that we have a holiday that reminds us of that:)
We celebrated Kirsten's birthday too. It was yesterday. I remember being big prego with her 5 years ago when Kyle's family came to Logan for Thanksgiving when we lived there. Now she's a big 5 year old!
I was so excited about this I just had to post it! I found this website the other day called naptimecrafters.blogspot.com and saw this dress and I HAD to make it! I didn't have any sweaters I wanted to cut up so I went to DI and bought this one for $3. I followed her instructions and in 30 (yes, 3-0 minutes) I cut out and sewed this dress. It was so easy!
On the instructions she cuts hers into two pieces and gathers the bottom. I liked the idea of just having one piece and having it straight and flared a bit on the bottom.
