bathroom makeover

I was never happy with our guest bath.  It was like a closet.  You could barely get around the door & sink to turn around & sit on the toilet.  And this was the bathroom used the most by the boys & neighbor kids.  So you can just imagine.  No amount of cleaning fluid....

And then there was the frequent toilet plugging.......

It was time.

Before....

And After......

We pushed it out 2 feet, and boy does 2 feet make a big difference!

I'm in love with it.  I smile every time I walk by it, which is about 3 million times a day.

My little bro Ben did it for us.  Every part of it.  He's amazing.

And then for the best part......

This bad boy.  The Champion 4.

It may be the best $300 we've ever spent.

Check it...

Words just can't describe the peace of mind.

We're trying to ban Gus from the new bathroom until his aim improves.

But then he ends up going in my bathroom, which is the next closest.

I need to set up some sort of urination certification program or something.

And I don't know what I was thinking with the white hand towels.

I really should know better.

a new little cousin

This is Noah, our newest little cousin.

Isn't he beautiful?

Good thing I got my tubes tied.

Man, newborn pictures are hard.  So much harder than it looks.  Two different shoots to get a few good ones.

But it's worth it.  It's only been a week or so since these were taken, and he's probably already changed so much!

Congratulations Shawn & Colette!

He's definitely a keeper!!  :)

Marlee turns 17!

My little girl turned 17 in January.

We snuck gobs of balloons in to her room the night before her birthday (idea courtesy of Pinterest)  

so she would wake up to this......

Some of the strings were so long that they tickled her face & kind of freaked her out in the middle of the night.  Ha ha!

She wanted to go skiing for her birthday, so Brian took her & Jake up to Utah for the weekend.

and now for.........

Marlee's Favorite Things at Seventeen:

food   -    Tia Rosa's bean burritos, wings, & Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple Cheesecake

ice cream   -   Haagen Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter

school class   -   English

sport  -  volleyball & snow skiing

book   -  'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell

thing to do with free time   -   sleep!   or play the piano

vacation spot   -   Deer Valley to ski

comedian   -   Brian Regan

person to text   -   Weston

TV show   -   The Walking Dead

insults   -   nub, fudgewad, & poopskid

things to say to Mom & Dad   -   "Oh calm down"  or things in Spanish that we don't understand.

place to go   -   anywhere out of the country

thing to dream about   -   being away at college

interesting fact   -   was the President of the Mt. View Ukulele Club

bands to see in concert   -   Young the Giant, & the Muse

movies   -   Sherlock Holmes, Mean Girls, Megamind, Despicable Me

sister  -  Caroline  :)

Happy Birthday Mars!!!

Fro-Motion

Brian ran his first Ragnar a couple weeks ago, and Good Lord, I just might have to do it next year too.  It looked like alot of fun.

200 mile relay that goes on through the night & into the next day. Following in a van with your other stinky Ragnar-mates. Little, if any, sleep.

Sign me up!

They all ran with the wigs on.   Crazy.

Their van was freakin' sweet.

It won the coolest van award.  Duh.

They even had a generator & sound system hooked onto the back & played a groovy funk mix the whole time.

Yes.  He wore the glasses the whole time he was running too.

Brian Evans was the final runner.

And he was still gettin' his groove on til the very end.

Will Fro-Motion be back next year?

You better believe it.

Random acts of violence

I beat the snot out of a smoke detector last night.
It got ugly.
I swear to you it had a life of its own.  Wouldn't stop chirping no matter what I did.  Fresh batteries, disconnected from the ceiling, no batteries, disconnected and no batteries.......still chirping.
Until I took a shovel to it in the garage.  While all my babies were somehow still fast asleep inside.

I tend to let things build up and build up, until...... like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back..... I snap.  And just like an out-of-body experience, I helplessly watch myself become a literal crazy person, and can't do a thing about it.  Just watch & cringe & wait til it's over.

It's not usually physical violence.  It's usually nervous breakdown stuff.  You know, like crying, sobbing, saying things I don't really mean even though I do mean them at that moment.  Driving off in the Suburban in my sweats & slippers just to get away and driving around aimlessly for awhile until I'm all cried out.  Fantasizing about being home alone for a whole week so I can get some things accomplished.

Lately it's about trying to fit everything in.  And it's not fitting. 
Too many demands.  Too many things I need to do.  Too many things I want to do.  Too many things I'll feel guilty about if I don't do.

Why is it that my favorite pictures are always the ones I wasn't planning?

The ones that happen by accident.

Caroline had snagged a bag of Reese's Puffs out of the pantry & headed to the couch for a little snack.

I love how you can see her little pigeon-toed walk.

She really throws her left leg in when she walks, and we thought she would have out-grown it by now.   Not too sure how that's going to work with her dance career....

Why do they have to grow up so fast?

And why am I afraid that if I didn't take a picture of something, then it's like it never happened?

And while I'm wondering about random things......

Is it wrong to pray to lose weight?

Why do I seem to have less & less self-discipline the older I get?  Shouldn't it be the other way around?

And why do I still get zits at 40?  Why didn't someone tell me this when I was a teenager so I could be mentally prepared to be dealing with acne for the next 4 decades, instead of falsely hoping that the end was just around the corner?

Why can't this kid keep his shoes on?

And what in heaven's name was he thinking when he took a dump on our front lawn the other day?!!!

Why do I dare myself to think inappropriate things while I'm sitting in church?

And how come, when I'm talking to myself, it's usually in an English accent, or in Gloria from Modern Family's accent?

Why does our grapefruit tree put out these massive mongoloid grapefruits?

And how did I get so hooked on a zombie show that I used to mock when Brian & Marlee would watch it?

Better go.  It's Walking Dead time.