Rennovations

After 8 very long, painful months filled with blood (mostly Dave's), sweat (mostly Dave's), and tears (mostly mine) the upstairs of our home is officially renovated!

I thought I would post some before and after pictures to:

1. Document the pain
2. Remind us how far we have come
3. Motivate us to turn our attentions to the dungeon/basement.

Before / after pictures will come over the course of the next few days...


This picture almost makes it look fun. Trust me. It wasn't.

Bath Time

Bath time with dad is definitely more fun.

Snowmaggedon, part 3

I took some pictures of the most recent snowstorm, intending to post them and garner some sympathy. Too bad I was so busy shoveling all day and never got around to sitting at my computer!


The snow was basically the consistency of wet cement. After about an hour, I had to switch to the kid sized shovel because my aching arms could no longer lift the big one.





Scout was in charge of Crosby while I was shoveling the back deck. We've had some water get in, so I was shoveling the snow away from the house. When I came in, I found this mess:


But he was alive, so it was all good. I did find a couple of plastic beads in his poopy diaper two days later. Yum.


These two were marginally helpful with the shoveling. They preferred to spend the bulk of the day digging out holes for snow forts. I might have thought that was fun too, in December. But as for now, I'm done with winter.


Done.

I am sick of Winter

The end.

My monthly post

We went to Colorado for Christmas, and about halfway through (well after Christmas day) Travis downloaded Shake it photo for my iPhone, so I took a few pictures. I really hope to be better about blogging this year (one of my resolutions!) because more than anything, it serves as a journal for me. I love going back and reading old posts. So, here is a really brief accounting of our Colorado adventures:

We did several things every day. Like most days, Rand, Carrie and I would pile on Rand's warmest clothes and go for a run. We would have loved for Laura to join us, but she often got sick of waiting around for us and would leave before we had gotten out of our pajamas. I liked the running. But there were other activities that took place EVERY DAY I could have done without. Such as the daily (or bi-daily) games of RISK.

Hm. What is Carrie wearing in this picture? Oh yeah, this was the day that Dave forgot to load her suitcase into the car, so she dipped into Nana's sweatshirt stash.

More freaking Risk.

Another thing you see a lot of when the Lewises all get together is many, many Hanna Anderson pajamas. I caught two really cute boys on a Wii break in theirs.

We can be quite loud, and at times it is too much for the Croz. We tried to not be offended when he plugged his ears during all the hymns we sang while acting out the nativity.

We tried to keep things interesting by never sleeping in the same place more than 2 consecutive nights. We spent 2 in Boulder, then Christmas Eve at Rand's, then back to Boulder, then back to Rand's. The packing and unpacking and trying to keep track of everyone's Christmas presents was enough to drive me mad, so I was really happy when we finally got up to the mountain house and stayed put. Here's a picture of a very full hot tub. Right after I took this, Trav, Oz and I hopped in as well. C did about 27 dares per hot tub session, many of them involving him putting his butt in the snow. Excellent.

One of the big highlights of snowboarding was my new outfit. Although I was warm and looked hot, I was a little sad to no longer be riding as a member of "Team Lewis". Laura gave her green North Face to Tanner this year, so we really would have looked awesome all matching.

But here I am in my cool new outfit. It's very motorcycle-ish, right? I love all the silver zippers.

Here's a shot of Carrie and Dave. I can't believe they let us stop to eat lunch! If I had known we would be stopping, I would not have eaten TWO Clif bars before we left in the morning. I always make the mistake of over-eating in the morning and then feeling like I'm going to throw up for the rest of the day. I vow to never eat two Clif bars in one sitting ever again.

And the highlight (or one of them, anyway) was when we left all the kids with Nana (she is fearless) and went to see Avatar. In 3-D. I'm pretty sure Rand took his glasses home and is tooling around Denver wearing them right now. Looking just like Robert Pattinson.


I skipped a lot of parts, like all the fun we had with Nana and Yah Yah watching movies and Psych, and Brig's obsession with everyone else's toys and no interest in his own, especially the Princess "Makeover" vanity that Sydney got, and all the good food that Leslie made, and how excited I was about my new ski outfit. Oh no wait, I covered that. I wish everyone in the world could have as awesome of a family as I do.

Things I will miss when she's grown

One of my favorite things about my daughter is the inventive way she plays. I'm always finding little groupings of things that she's been playing with. I came across this one today, and had so many questions:

1. Why is there a 4th wise man? And why is he a snowman?

2. How do the sea shells enter in?

3. At the "real" nativity, was there a panda, blue whale, and hamster grouped around the baby Jesus?

I love to eavesdrop while she plays in her room. Thinking about her growing up, and the playing ending, makes my throat tight. I hope it never happens, and yet how weird would it be if it didn't?!

Sometimes, even though you've forgotten your blog exists, you hear a conversation you just have to post

S: We're learning all about the layers of the atmosphere in school. I can't believe the ozone layer has holes in it! It's so terrible. So I raised my hand and said, "That's why we should go back to riding horses."

C: Riding on sweaty animals isn't going to save the environment.

Those two. They kill me.