Slowly but surely

It has been 6 months since we moved into our house. I have come to realize that it will never look exactly perfect, but that's just part of owning your own home. My sister recently did a lot of painting in her house and said to me, "Maybe now when you walk into my house you won't know it was built in 1946." To which I replied, "Yeah, maybe someday when you walk into my house you won't know that we built it." Because let's face it, we basically did. The work that we put into it is SO fullfilling though...unless you've done work on your own home you won't quite understand it. There is just something so gratifying about putting time and effort into something you own and making it better. I truly feel like my quality of life has been enriched by living here.

And so, slowly but surely we are improving our home. The latest additions are a BBQ that cost 100 bucks less than it should have thanks to a sweet online deal (Finn seriously can't wait to use it and asked me to cook our ham and cheese sandwiches on it for lunch today) and this little gem that makes me happy every time I step on it:

I always knew we needed a rug for this room but have never been able to find something cheap enough that was big enough and cute enough. Enter this little baby that I found online from a local dealer. It's real flokati wool and only cost 99 dollars! These kind of rugs get better with time because the more the fibres break apart the softer it gets AND I can wash it in my washing machine! I love the texture it adds to the room and I seriously change my course through the house sometimes so I can step on it. Here's what the living room looked like without it:

Still to do in this room are: hanging that mirror (yes, it's been sitting against the wall for several months), family pics on the walls, and a couple end tables and lamps. But we're getting there!

Something else coming slowly but surely? Kate's hair. She definitely has more than Finn had at this age (hallelujah), but it is still really thin. I was so happy the other day when I realized it was legitimately long enough for pig taills!



And these two little kiddos are both growing up slowly but surely. But it is still too fast for me.

The best surprise ever

Yes! I am pregnant! The actual pregnancy was planned though...the surprise came a little later.

We had been trying for a while and on New Year's Eve, it became evident that once again, I wasn't pregnant. I was surprisingly really sad about it and was just kind of depressed for a few days. At the beginning of February though, a home pregnancy test came back positive and we were elated. I made my first doctor's appointment for March 9th which put me at about 9-10 weeks pregnant.

My doctor always does an ultrasound at the first appointment which I love. It just makes everything seem real. During the ultrasound, the tech said, "when did you say your last period was again?" After I told her, she said, "well, I'm measuring your baby at over 13 weeks...so whatever that was it wasn't a period. Congrats on by-passing your first trimester!"

Seriously?! I was totally shocked. Aaron pointed out how ironic it was that I was actually pregnant when I was so depressed about not being pregnant. I thought I had a solid three weeks left of my first trimester and I am already in my second!

So now the baby is due September 12th instead of October 5th. And that is the best surprise ever.

Kateisms

Kate is a VERY messy eater. I'm sure most kids her age are, but she usually one-ups them by tipping over her bowl or plate at EVERY meal time and scattering/smearing the contents on the table. We're working on this.

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A couple of months ago I caught Kate in this get-up. It's my sports bra, toque and part of a Wii controller. Kate LOVES to dress up. Finn didn't start liking dress-ups till he was 3, but Kate already brings me her Snow White costume at any/all times of day to put on. She is also constantly wearing my, Aaron and Finn's shoes around the house.

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Kate has started squinting her eyes at me when she is trying to talk nicely and be cute. I realized this is because I usually squint my eyes at her when I am telling her how cute she is. She also can't say 'cheese' for the camera without squinting, as evidenced in the above picture.

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Kate's favorite part of the backyard by far is our little slide. She shouts 'sliiiiide!!!' as soon as the gate opens and makes a bee-line for it. Pretty impressive that she can climb up the ladder in all her winter gear.

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Kate's favorite words right now:

SHOW (I know, bad mom.) She always get's sooooo excited when I turn a show on and exclaims 'shoooooowwww!' several times on her way to her seat
OWIE (hmmm, maybe I shouldn't be sharing these.) Unfortunately, Kate's first real word was 'ow'. Finn's was 'balloon'...much sweeter.
NO (uuhhh, are these getting worse?) Kate does not say yes or yeah. She says no. To everything. She is just barely starting to say 'kay' in response to a question that ends in 'okay?'. But if you ask her if she wants something, she says no, even if she wants it desperately. It's a very polite no, almost like a question, like this "no?" so right now we don't really mind.
PLEASE (ok, I'm just putting this one in to counter the other ones) But she signs please ALL THE TIME. Girl knows how to get what she wants.

HAPPY Not sure if she actually knows the true meaning of this word, but we like to think she does. She goes around the house saying it over and over and over again. Cutest. Thing. Ever.

We love this little gal. She is so loving and a total snuggler. She worships Finn and is just growing up so fast!

Finnisms

He had been quiet for a while and when I checked on him I found this. He said he was pretending to be a girl. Awesome.

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Finn and I were singing the primary song, "I know the scriptures are true" and completely on his own, without ever hearing his dad or other kids do this, he changed the words to: 'the spirit will guide, and deep inside, I know the scriptures are poo!" He was so proud of himself for thinking of a different word that rhymed with true, I don't even think he was trying to be rude. I cracked up, but made sure to tell him that things like that are funny once, and ONLY once...since he likes to reprise anything that gets a laugh. So far so good.

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While on the potty word topic, I will say that his latest tactic is to spout off some potty words and then say, "it's okay mom, I was talking about the LETTER, P (substitute 'the FOOD Pea, here as well)

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Finn was asked to give a talk in Primary. When I asked him about it, he said, "Yeah. Is my talk going to be in Sacrament Meeting or Primary?" I thought it was so cute that he would have been totally fine with either.

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In Provo and Orem, we are surrounded by mountains. While driving in the car, Finn looked out the window and said, "Hey Mom, can we climb up that mountain really quick?" He said it as if all I needed to do was pull over and we could take a quick 5 minute hike.

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Over the Christmas holidays, Finn loved singing Christmas carols. One day I heard him sing (accidentally), "Joy to the World! The Lord is gone!". Hmmm...kind of changes the meaning of Christmas just a bit.

This makes me feel old

This is Finn's first time reading these pages in Hop on Pop. The video was taken a couple weeks ago and he's already doing so much better! I promise we're not pushing this on a three-year-old, he's just so interested in letters and reading and soaks it all up faster than I can teach him. The other day he read the word Elmo and said, "Mom! His name's not El-mo it's O-mo!" After I explained that he read it right and his name really is Elmo, his reality was shaken...but he's coping with it well.

Where We Live

So this post is only about 6 months overdue, whatevs. I have been meaning to post pictures of our new house, but have been waiting until more renovations are done and more pictures are on the walls etc. Well I've realized that our home is pretty much going to be a constant work in progress so I might as well show you the 'befores' and 'afters' now...and I will post more pics as we get more done. All these before pictures were actually taken after we started demolition, so you can't quite appreciate what the house looked like before...but at least you can see what a wreck it was in the middle!

Living Room: (This is after we ripped the carpet out)

Office/Guest Room:

Kitchen...One of two rooms left untouched:

Bathroom: (other untouched room)

Finn and Kate's Room:

View Down the Stairs:

Basement: These pictures don't match up, but you can still get a feel for what we changed. I didn't take pictures of our master bathroom which has a tub, primed walls, and plumbing done, but will be finished in a few months.

Part of previous store room, now our Master Bathroom is built here:

Looking from current master bath area, through a wall we knocked down into the master bedroom: (That door is to an extra closet that we knocked down later)

Here's what the master bedroom looks like now. The master bath is to my left.Our Backyard! Looks a lot better in the late summer when all my grape vines are grown in!
We still have a lot to do (baseboards in the basement, pictures on the walls, plants all around etc etc etc) but seriously, I can't believe how much the place has changed. We love it here.

Christmas 2010

I didn't take nearly enough quality pictures during this Christmas season. Albeit undocumented, we did have a pretty amazing holiday. Let's start off with this little gem:
I hope you didn't get queasy at the end...I thought that the shot would look better with more Christmas tree in it and wrongly assumed that the camera would adjust when I flipped it like it does with still shots...my brain shocks me sometimes. Notice the guitar Finn's using? On a Saturday I went out to run errands while Aaron stayed with the kids and when I got back, he had made that for Finn. It's actually really sweet. He cut the shape out of cardboard, figured out a way to staple the elastics in securely, spray painted it and spray painted the letters to glue on it. Wow. If Finn had asked me to make him a guitar, I would have handed him the one from Guitar Hero and called it good. Finn LOVES this one that Aaron made for him and plays it all the time. Thanks Super Dad.

We were all impressed when Aaron got the tree up in record time this year without any frustration. We sipped egg nog and listened to Christmas music while decorating it. Kate was in awe of all the different ornaments. She managed not to shatter any, but it wasn't from lack of effort. She pointed and said, "stah!" (star) a lot and exclaimed "oooooooh!" amid the grandeur of it all. She might actually think Christmas trees are called ooooohs, I'm not sure. Finn was a good sport and helped Daddy with the lights and got to put the star at the top again. We DID take pictures of this, but I think Finn deleted them since I can't find them on my camera and there is a new suspicious picture of a tape measurer on there. At least we have a couple videos...I just don't have the patience to wait for those to upload :)

The whole Harker crew (even my sister's fam from Calgary!) was in Utah for Christmas this year and it was pretty fantastic. My parents stayed with us and it was so fun having them here on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning. We all got together for two big family meals and just spent a lot of time hanging out with eachother and playing games. Also, my Dad did a TON of work on our house while they were here and fixed a million little things that we wouldn't have gotten to for months. Best Christmas present ever.

On Christmas morning, Finn had to walk past the tree to get to our room and he woke me up saying, "Mom! My stocking's filled up! It is!" and I said, "Oh that's great Finn, (and then because it was so blasted early) why don't you snuggle me for a while and then we'll go up and see what Santa brought you." and he replied, "OK Mom, I will snuggle for ONE minute." I thought that was funny because that's what I tell him sometimes. After he layed by me for a few seconds he said, "I'm getting up now" and went upstairs alone to check out the tree. Finn NEVER gets up without me alongside him so that was pretty huge.

My mom helping Kate with her stocking while Finn opens candy from his. He kept waiting for me to tell him to put the candy away and when I didn't he said joyfully, "We get to have LOTS of treats on Christmas!"

Kate's favorite present by far. She could hardly wait for me to put it together before she started pushing her new Winnie the Pooh around in it.

LEGOS: Extreme Edition

Finn really got into the true meaning of Christmas this year and had a great time playing with his nativity and singing Christmas hymns. He had a cute book from the library called "Twas the Night: The Nativity Story" and while reading this part to him I felt the truth of the words, "...all the animals were awed, to know that this child was the TRUE Son of God!". I am so thankful for this season, and it's power to remind me of the Savior's birth and the life that he lived for me, and all of us.