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| The Frankenstein crowd at the ward Halloween party. |
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| Ammon and I sang with other ward members at the Stake BBQ in November. We sang John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed". It was so much fun! |
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| Look at those hill-billies! Several of us blacked-out a front tooth. "Do I have something right here? |
Christmas
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| Angry bird snowman... |
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| Coo-coo for legos |
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| What is it? |
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| So happy with her new stroller to push her baby. |
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| A pogo stick |
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| Goofball...for Romney! |
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| The aftermath... |
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| Peek-a-boo |
New Year's Eve
We headed to Tohono Chul Park as a family. What a beautiful botanical garden. We enjoyed it!
Visitors
Ammon's family came just after Christmas but how it is possible that I don't have any pictures but one that I can't even get to transfer from my phone is beyond me...Thanks for visiting us Larsens!
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| My sister Laura came to visit in January with her daughter Olivia. One day we went to Sabino Canyon. Here are Olivia and Amelia climbing onto the tram. |
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| Cousins snuggling and reading. |
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| My mom came for my last chemo in February. |
Thanks Mom, Laura and Olivia for coming to see us!
The Tree House
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| Starting the tree house project by digging post holes. |
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| Lots of hard work but Connor is the one looking tired. |
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| "Hooray! Good job dad getting those huge rocks and dirt out to build my tree house." |
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| The framework is up. |
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| Shaping the rungs of the ladder. |
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| Twisting in the anchor for the monkey swing. |
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| Testing said swing. Amelia loves to be sung the "coo-coo clock" song as she swings. |
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| Platform installed. Connor tests it out with his friend Hayden. |
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| Amelia enjoying the new access to the otherwise too-tall tree the tree house allows her. |
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| A little assistance still required. |
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| Even mom takes a few moments to enjoy the tree house. |
The tree house is not yet complete because of what happened next...
Winter Storm!
In January, we had a leak in our ceiling that gushed down the walls and ceilings nearly flooding our entire first floor!!
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| The gold is where the plumber repaired the destructive leak. |
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| Here is the ceiling all swollen and puckering. |
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| Ammon helping to clean up the water on the floor. It was actively leaking where the pots are located. I had already moved the furniture outside before Ammon arrived home from work. I had also already removed several gallons of water in that little 1-gallon wet-dry vac you see there. Not fun! |
We realized the job was too big for us so the "professionals" came in and did this...
It was shocking to see our walls and ceilings ripped out to the studs! (When Connor saw our house like this, he said it looked like a haunted ghost house ! He was afraid to sleep in it the first night.)... Thankfully, our insurance paid for everything to be repaired.
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| The first thing we did with the insurance money was replace the offending polybutylene pipes. The red and blue tubes are the new pipes. |
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| We had the contractors make a few changes to the space while the walls were open. We added recessed lights, more A/C lines, thicker insulation in the walls and ceilings, and removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room adding an arch instead. |
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| Once the contractors came in and re-drywall and textured everything, we decided to do the painting ourselves. That turned out to be the biggest job! Besides doing most of it, I was sick from my last chemo. | |
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| I actually did smile a few times during the process...it was caught on camera! |
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| Ammon finishing up the ceiling. |
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| Little helper. |
After we finished painting, we enjoyed it for maybe a week when we decided to redo the flooring...
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| Mostly intact kitchen floor with the broken up floor in the distance. The life-saving removal tool we rented. Worth..every..cent! |
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| I love how you can see a huge cloud of dust even in the picture from the tile demolition. Maybe I shouldn't have painted first...it looks good though, huh? |
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| Utter...destruction |
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| Same room as above cleared out, crack filled (red), and first line of tile laid in the distance. |
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| My man working the wet saw. |
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| We did hire some help to give him guidance and because I feared it would never get done if not! Thankfully, was all done in a week. Good job Ammon! |
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| My Ammon's pretty handy. I love that he did much of the tiling himself. |
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| Connor so cracks me up sometimes!! Trying out the new floor...uh...face down with his bears. |
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| Moved the furniture back in and it's messy already again! But Amelia looks happy with her bear that's nearly as big as she is! |
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| Kids enjoying the new tile in the kitchen... | Connor loves to play Angry Birds with his magnets on the dishwasher. Amelia has found the magnet bowl is a great seat. Both kids are pretty creative. | (As a side note, can you see Connor's knee? For one of my mending projects I made some of Connor's holey jeans' knees into monster knees. Now his multiple pairs of ripped jeans can be worn to school again!) |
Ammon put the baseboards in last week (mid-April) and we painted them Saturday and touched up the walls. We plan to have the house finally all straightened up this week. Can't wait!
Birthdays
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Melanie is...flaming old!
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| Amelia turned 2... |
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| ...and enjoys her brother. |
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| What a goofball! |
