New Paint in Rulon's Room

Okay, this is the before picture to show how BORING the walls were in Rulon's room before our painting project. Rulon was just beside himself with boredome due to his all white walls. Sooo, after a field trip to the paint store, chosing the right shades of blue and green, and a super nice Kwal Paint employee showing the boys the computer color mixing machine and the paint shaker and giving us "contractor pricing"... we started our de-boring the room project.
Rulon could not wait to start painting, good thing he had preschool in between buying the paint and starting the job so that I could prep the room!!

He seriously painted with me ALL DAY LONG and loved it. He called himself "Big" since he had the roller and I was "Little" since I had the paint brush. We were a good team!

The green area is his "secret spot" under the stairs, the rest of the room is blue.

And here is the AFTER!!!! We are really happy about the totally cool room!! Especially Rulon! Thanks goodness!

Beautiful Beckett!!

We were so excited that Beckett and his mom and dad decided to stop and see us on their way back home to St. George!!! I finally got to hold the little angel, though he felt more like a little feather than a baby!! Kent and Brittney are amazing, they don't even seem like they are tired and like their last 2 weeks have been super crazy and stressful.

I think they are geting him drunk for the drive home, go Beckett, drain that bottle!!!!

I did not want to give him back to Brittney or Kent... he was such a little bundle of perfection!! My boys were fascinated by how tiny he is!! And Mads smiled from ear to ear as he called him baby Buckett. :)

I think everyone who ever sees Beckett will fall instantly in love with him!! we did!

Mountain Man to not so Mountain Man?

Chester got the nicest haircut... see for yourselves!! I told him it was a shame he forgot the hair on his chinny chin chin :)

I love you sexy husband, beard and all. There I said it!!!

Baby Belly

(this is an updated post so it has some past comments already)
Well, my baby is staring to take up some space!! She moves around a lot for such a tiny thing. I am happy and feel great and the boys (Chester included) love to rub and kiss and talk to this little baby in my tummy. It's pretty cute!!! This picture is actually an old one, from 20 weeks pregnant.

This one is about a week ago at 24 weeks. Bit of a difference in the ol' profile!!

This is also 24 weeks but I thought it was cute with the boys and plus I'm dressed cute for church thanks to Lindsay & Ethan's Christmas gift card to Motherhood Maternity!! (Thanks guys!)

I love this baby already!!! But she can stay in my belly for a while longer!

Ribs!!

Is there any doubt who Rulon's dad is?? Nope, didn't think so. Chester cooked ribs the other night and I don't know if anyone enjoyed them more than Rulon. Part of it might have been the privilege of staying up late to eat them picnic style on the living room floor with mom and dad. The other part might have been getting his hands as messy as possible just because he could. Either way, it was fun to watch! And clean up?

Chester turns 33!

I managed one photo from Chester's 33rd birthday... which is a shame because it was a great birthday!! Thanks to Melissa being amazing and undaunted by my asking her to take the boys overnight despite having Dan's family in town for the holidays, I got to sneakily kidnap Chester to SLC for the day and night!! We stayedin Salt Lake and went window shopping then to dinner at Tucanos (gotta love the free Bday meal coupon), then to a movie, then to our hotel before it was even late enough for me to be a tired pregnant lady. The next morning was our complimentary breakfast at the Copper(something) restaurant and off to get the boys from Melissa's house. Happy birthday my husand, it may not have been a Bosch but what would Chester want with a Bosch anyway!!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was great, the boys didn't wake up til after 8am!! Rulon was vey worried when the Christmas stockings were missing from the basement hanging spot, until I tild him to check upstairs by the Christmas tree... Santa usually puts them there with the gifts! They each got a new semi truck that hauled a different kind of plane. The trucks and planes light up and have moving parts too, very impresseive Ebay find Santa!!
And Santa made good on the train and trax too, now can the boys handle sharing with eachother? Nice rear shot mom.

Mads might not EVER take off his fireman boots, for real!!!

And Mads finally has a big dump truck like his brother!! They boys pushed each other around in that thing all afternoon... if they weren't hauling each other they were hauling their new toys, candy, etc.

It was a super, great, wonderful, fun, happy morning... and we were just getting started. Brett was with us for Christmas eve/day and we had a big meal to cook and eat!!

We all think this turkey was the best most juicy turky ever!!! And thank goodness for Chester to do all the turkey work like a pro. Who am I kidding he does the gravy and potatoes too, though I did convince him to let me mash the potatoes since he had gravy to tend to. I think Rulon is being a reindeer in the photo with his fork & spoon as antlers.

Brett kept saying he was full but kept having just a little more turkey... it really was that good. But eventually we all had to draw the line. Afterall there was ice cream and brownies for dessert if we could handle it.

Brett should do Christmas with us next year too, we loved him in our home. The boys still call the basement guest room "Uncle Brett's room" :)

Santa Visit

Not many people can get ahold of Santa and arrange for him to show up in person on Christmas Eve, but Chester has very special connections.
Each boy got to sit on Santa's lap and give a last minute recap of what they wanted for Christmas. Rulon was captivated by Santa and could not stop smiling and looking right into his eyes. I haven't had a crying child on Santa's lap yet and it is pretty cool! Rulon said he probably wanted a new truck or trains (whew).

Mads said he wanted "some gifts". That's nice and open!!

The boys were quick to remind Santa to come back that night when they were sleeping and not to eat the cookies we gave him all at once or he might get a sick belly.

A Christmas Surprise to Remember

Our friends the Butlers did the most amazing thing!!! Now the fact that they are amazing is not a news flash, Taunya is a good friend of mine and I always feel like she is doing more for me that she should... but this takes the cake. The Butler family showed up on the doorstep with a Christmas surprise that still has the boys googley eyed and climbing the walls with excitement! NEW CARS! A black truck for Rulon and a red car for Mads... What?!?!?! Now, it was cold outside but I tell you the boys did not want to park those cars and see what else the Butlers had in their hands for them!

They also had little gifts like socks, sticker books, magnets, and coloring books for the boys. AND a gift card for Chester and me to go out to dinner!!!! I was totally dry eyed... for a while... what an amazing thing to do for our little family!!

Holiday Catch Up

A post a day for a few days to catch up... here we go!

CHRISTMAS EVE

We were invited to Christie and Bjorn's house for their traditional Norwegian Christmas Eve dinner!! I must admit I fished just a little for the invitation but only because Christie had said we were invited any Christmas Eve that we were in town (granted she said that years ago) :) It was sooo much fun and I swear they are those kind of friends that seem like we spend every weekend together even though the truth is much more disappointing.

Dinner was a tasty meat and gravy recipe that is handed down from genetarion to generation in Norway. This was the first year they tried it with beef instead of reindeer meat (since you cannot get reindeer meat anymore) and it tasted just the same, amazing! Bjorn's family was there also and we love to see Desire and Axel, they seem amazingly like family to us!

The kids opened up new pajamas and were ready for Santa to come any minute!! To pass the time the boys played Rock Band and had a good time making the rest of us laugh a lot!