Home Sweet Home

 Daisy you are so fun. I love watching you run almost straight legged down the hallway with your arms flapping. Your excitement at life and your emerging personality is such a blessing to observe. You make me smile and laugh often. Your laughs are getting louder and more obnoxious in the sweet way that children's laughs do when they are wanting the play to continue. You still take two 2-3hr naps a day and almost never cry when going down or waking up. You just sit there and nuzzle your blanket to your lips and turn your head side to side so your lips can run along your soft velvety blanket. Such a cute thing to watch. I can't get you out of the crib now without you pointing back at your blanket and fussing until I pick it up to take it with us. As I walk you down the hallway to your room for naptime, sometimes you recognize what we are doing and start to fuss a little, but as soon as your blanket gets close you stop fussing and just want me to cover you with it from head to toe...

So with the prospect of selling our house now that we bought the other lot, we have made a super long list of small to large projects we want to finish before we list so we can feel good commanding top dollar and getting all we can out of this house. One of the things I always envisioned having was a stone surround on the fireplace.  I love watching HGTV and all the remodel shows, and on one of them I saw a super awesome looking split faced travertine tile used on a fireplace surround. Yep, THAT was going to be my fireplace. Before We also needed a mantle. Those HGTV shows are always making stuff out of scrap parts, so we went out to the wood pile and found this diamond in the rough. Sure it was beat up, dusty, covered in bird poop, and had been sitting out there for 4 years, but it would work! I really enjoy woodworking projects so this one was mine. We started by cutting it to the right length. Then I beat it up a little more with a hammer and screw driver, picked a f...

 Funny Faces Money Faces (you thought you were so cool because you made a color copy of a dollar bill and tried to pass it off to Dad as real) Don't mess with me this morning faces  "Mom is so in trouble when I'm a teenager" faces  What? Say Cheese Faces! Messy Faces  Too much of my big sister faces  Toothless (and oh so cute) faces Lots of faces around here the past few months! Only one I didn't get was my own, and I actually went through the pictures and there aren't any of me, so I missed the cut on this one.

 Sorry kids, blogging slipped down a notch on my to do list these past few months as I've been preoccupied with other things. Here is your latest visit up north to visit Grandma Jo and Grandpa Dale. Mom needed an emotional and physical break, so Dad was kind enough to take all of you up for the weekend. Here's Grandpa with the younger two sweethearts Grandma Jo has TONS of dress up outfits. I think Adaira looks forward to that the most.  No dress up for Daisy. Still so sweet even with a dirty face.  That outfit...WOW  Dale has a thing for fire trucks and fireman hats  Adaira & Brighton I love your poses  This might be my favorite picture. Adaira so seriously posing. The most serious thing about this picture is how SERIOUSLY beautiful you are!  Secure enough with his man boyhood to try on ANY costume...  Oh Brighton, just setting yourself up to be blackmailed in a few years...  This pi...

A Note from Audra:  A month or so ago, Brighton and Adaira were scrolling through old blog posts (they enjoy doing this and reminiscing about memories of our activities) and they paused on this video. Que it to the 1:00 mark and you will see the scene that had them laughing hysterically over and over and over and over (a good dozen times).    While they were enjoying themselves, I watched them and thought about the real reason for this blog. It's fun to get comments from other people and everything, but the real reason for the documentation of our lives here is for our kids. I turn these posts into a family book every year, and I hope that it helps them remember their childhood and the good memories they made. With that thought, I decided that I really should direct the words on this blog to them, rather than write a narrative. I want it to be more personal to them when they read it in the future. So starting in 2013, the verbal format will include more referenc...