The floors are done!

Our Current Living Conditions

Last Friday Jordan called me from work, and said that he knew something that I didn't. And that I wouldn't find out what is was for a month. (I hate it when he does this!) I kept making guesses about what it could be. Did it have something to do with work, with church, with any of our friends. But, no luck. Later he told me it might just be a couple weeks before I found out the news. Then he told me I would find out the next day.

So on Saturday, Jordan's mom took me and the boys to lunch and a movie. And when I came home, this was the scene that I encountered.

ALL of the flooring on the main level of our house had been ripped out! We are getting all new flooring!!! Our old carpet was sooooooo gross! We are getting a beautiful hardwood floor in the kitchen, and new, nice carpet in the living room(where shoes are going to be absolutely forbidden!). Jordan picked out all the flooring himself, then later took me to the showroom to see what it looks like. The lady that works there said she had never seen any husband do that before! I think he did a pretty good job picking everything out.

So for the last week we have been living on the plywood floor. Not the most exciting thing, but it will be worth it! (He had to rip it out a week early, because that's when he had the manpower to do it. A bunch of the guys from church came to help him.) The new carpet comes tomorrow, and the hardwood floors will be put in over the course of next week. I am so excited to see how this all looks, and I will post lots of pictures!

The boys being frogs at the Great Wolf Lodge

Caution: The background is VERY noisy in this video, so you might want to turn your sound down.

The Great Wolf Lodge!

This year for Christmas we were supposed to go to Utah, but we decided not to because it was too expensive. But, we still wanted to do something fun for the boys. So we gave them a choice. They could get gifts, or we could take a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City(which is about three and a half hours from us). The Great Wolf lodge is a HUGE hotel with an indoor water park. The boys decided on the trip.

Our room had a little section called the Wolfs Den. It looked like a little forest in the corner of the room, and there was a set up bunk beds in there that Mason and Miles used.

The Great Wolf Lodge Lobby

After we checked into our room, we went to play in the water park for a while. It was awesome! All the slides were ones that Mason and Miles could ride, and there were a couple kiddie slides for younger kids like Vance. Not that he wanted to try them out! He was kind intimidated by the size of the place, and was not very willing to try anything! And he wasn't feeling all that well either, so he spent most of the time clinging to Jordan or me.

Mason and Miles LOVED the slides, and strangely enough, one of their favorite activities was the hot tub! They wanted to go back there constantly!

After we were finished with the water park for the evening, we decided to drive around town and find a place for dinner. We saw a barbeque place, and decided to give it a try. We were the only customers there, which kind of worried us for a while! But, the place ending up being pretty good, and we got special attention because they had no one else to wait on.

After we got back from dinner, the hotel had a story time for the kids. They had some automated animals put on a little show(it was kind of lame) and then they sang some songs.

The last song they sang was "Let it Snow", and fake snow starting falling from the ceiling. The kids loved that!

Vance was sooooo tired by the end of the evening. I was really worried about how he would sleep in a different place, but he did great. All the boys did. They slept until 8:00, which was fantastic. Too bad Jordan and I both slept like crap!

They had a Christmas tree display, and I had to take a picture of this Twilight tree!

The next day we went back to the water park. Vance was still not liking the whole deal, and clung on to Mom and Dad for dear life!

This is Miles jumping across the lily pads. He was quite the frog!

Here's Mason going across

Towards the end, Vance finally started to try more things. Ten minutes before we left, he started going down the kiddie slides, and then he did not want to leave!! He was having so much fun. I'm really glad that he ended up enjoying himself.

Vance and Miles making some baskets with an assist from Dad.

Christmas Photo Session

The last couple of years, I have tried to take some pictures of the boys in their nice Christmas outfits. This year, the boys were very good, but the camera (and maybe the photographer) was not. All of the pictures turned out a little blurry, but I think you can still see how dang cute these boys are!

And the three wise men rode in to Bethlehem on their T-Rex

I was showing Vance my in-laws nativity scene, and pointing to the various figurines, asking him what they were. He was doing pretty well, until I pointed to the camel. When I asked him what that was, he replied, "A T-Rex!"

I know that birth of Jesus was a long time ago, but not that long. :)

Let there be light!!

We had a really bad lighting problem in our living room, and it was obnoxious every time we tried to read in there, or have any sort of gathering.

Jordan, who is completely addicted to Craigslist, found this beautiful light on that site. It was only $65, and Jordan talked them down to $50. It was new in the box, and had never been opened. It was probably $400 when it was first purchased.

Jordan and his dad managed to install it the same evening we bought it(it's SO great having a handy husband), and now our living room is as bright as the mid-day sun! We love it! I'm a little worried about the wattage the thing is using, and the effect it's going to have on my power bill. So I have become a total light nazi, turning lights off all over the house!