This last Wednesday my sister in-law Haylee invited me and the kids to attend the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point with her, Preslie and Colter and her friend Leslie and her kids, Jayda and new baby Jackson. The kids all had a blast and after the museum they all went and ate dino nuggets at the cafe. Thanks Haylee for inviting us to tag along. We all had a lot of fun.
Yesterday Houston turned 9 months old and today when I took him to his well check up he weighed 24 pounds 9 ounces and was 30.8 inches tall. He is in the 95% for weight and above the 97% for height for his age. He is getting so big and so much fun. He is such a happy little man and just so mellow. He is finally getting so close to crawling. He gets up on his knees and takes a couple steps but still gets around real quick army crawling and rolling and has started to get into things he's not supposed to. He loves to walk with my hands and likes to stand up against things. He is still the best little sleeper. He sleeps for 12 hours straight through at night and then still looks forward to his 2 or so hour nap in the morning and another in the afternoon.
So we are finally finishing our basement. We started about a week before Christmas and have just been working on it here and there. When it is all said and done it will have 2 spare bedrooms, a toy room, 2 storage rooms, 1 bathroom, a large family room, and a bar. It is pretty much all framed with the exception of the heat duct and a couple closets, insullation is in, the heating/air is all done and the electrical is about 90% complete. We just need to have some can lights hung in the bar once we drop the ceiling and then just the covers installed on the outlets and switches once the sheet rock is up and painted. Bradyn a lot of the framing with a big help from my dad, we had our friend Chad come out and do the HVAC and my cousin Calie's husband Dave came out and did our electrical. Thanks to everybody who has helped us on our basement so far. Next Bradyn needs to finish the framing and then we will start on the sheet rock. I am hoping that once we get the sheet rock hung then the rest will go fast. However we are pretty much doing everything else ourselves like the painting, tiling, trim, etc. so we will see. I just want it done by October before all the holidays hit and as long as we don't run out of money:). Here are some pictures of what we have done so far.
This is looking from the toy room towards the 2 spare bedrooms
This is looking from the spare bedrooms towards the toy room and the bathroom
This is looking from the family room down the hall towards the bedrooms, toy room and bathroom. The storage rooms are on the left.
This is Bradyn's favorite part. THE BAR! We plan to frame it with old barn wood and roofing tin complete with a mini fridge, sink and microwave. Oh and don't forget the margarita maker. I hope it all turns out. Dave even talked us into wiring for a flat screen TV so when its all done we plan to hang one in the upper left corner of the bar.
This is looking out from inside the bar towards the family room.
For the last couple years Peyton has gone to New Mexico a couple times a year for 2 weeks or sometimes even a month at a time to spend time with my parents and brother. A week ago this last Wednesday my dad came to town to pick her up and take her down with him so she could spend a couple weeks with all of them. He will be bringing her back around this next Wednesday. It sounds like she has been having fun as always, she loves it down there. Thanks mom and dad for taking her. I know she really looks forward to it and is something she will remember forever. I know that some of my favorite memories are from when I would go and spend time with my grandparents like Peyton has done with you. Maybe next year Houston will be old enough to go too and then Bradyn and I can actually go on a vacation just the two of us.:) My mom sends me a picture everyday so here are just a few of what Peyton has been doing.
Grandpa Wes, Peyton and Houston the night before they left (if it was to Peyton they would have left that night instead of waiting for morning)
Peyton and her new cat Licorice doing her homework for preschool
Peyton and Grandpa Wes working 
Peyton feeding Cody The Count
I hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day, I know we did. If you are anything like us then you know what it's like when you have little kids at home and you probably didn't do a whole lot because it's too hard to get a babysitter. It was still nice though. My birthday was on the 12th so we naturally just kind of combine the two. For Valentine's we decided not to waste money on flowers or something stupid and we wanted a Wii so that was our gift to each other plus for my birthday. We actually got it last Sunday and have been playing it all week and I have to tell you that it is quite a workout. On my birthday Bradyn did suprise me with another gift and a card and brought home crab legs and we just had a nice dinner at home. And on Valentines I made a big breakfast which included heart shaped pancakes, we just hung out around the house all day and ate homeade chili verde for dinner. I think when you have kids, Valentine's becomes just as much their holiday as does it yours especially with all the presents my kids received between use and their grandparents.
A couple months ago I invited both of my Grandma's to go to the Draper Temple open house with me. I was excited to see this Temple because I work for Draper City and wanted to see the finished product that I was involved in. The open house started on January 15th and goes until March 14th. We attended the open house just this last Wednesday, February 11th. The Temple was very beautiful and had such a peaceful presence about it. After we visited the Temple we went and had a nice lunch. I had a lot of fun and it was really nice to just spend the day with both of my Grandma's. Thanks ReNae for watching my kids. It made it a lot easier to enjoy the day.
I feel like I am always posting about Peyton and my mom pointed out that I have only posted a couple of pictures of Houston since Christmas. So I decided that this post would be about Houston and a little bit about Peyton (I can't help myself).
Well Houston just keeps getting bigger and bigger everyday. He will be 8 months on the 15th of this month. When I took him in for his 6 month appointment a week before Christmas he weighed 22 lbs 3 oz and was 29 inches tall. I suppose by now he is probably at least 24 or 25 lbs and another 1 or 2 inches taller. Last night I finally put away the infant carseat and broke out the toddler one. I just finally got sick of packing him around because between him and the carseat it is quite a load. Plus I was noticing for the first time last night that the infant carseat is for babies that weigh 20 lbs or less and are 26 inches or less tall. Oops!
Houston has been such a good baby so far. He has been sleeping through night for several months now and still loves his 2 long naps during the day. He is very content just playing on the floor, in his walker or in his jumperoo and he is constantly laughing at his big sister. She can just walk by him and he starts cracking up. He sits up real well now, rolls all over the place and gets around pretty good by scooting with his arms and legs but he has yet to crawl. I know it is still early but it just seems that because he is so big he should be crawling by now. Soon I suppose. He is quite the eater. Tonight he had a jar of carrots, 1/2 jar of pears, a hand full of sweet potato puffs and a whole banana cream pudding all to himself. Plus he'll have his bottle before he goes to bed. But he might be up late tonight with a little sugar in him. Here are some recent pictures of him. The ones of him sitting up on the floor were from a couple days ago and the ones of Peyton feeding him pudding were from tonight.
