L O V E

You two light up my life, and it is exponentially sweeter when you two love each other!

You two take care of each other and me so sweetly.

I love our bedtime routine and am so glad we finally got it in order!

All four of take turns reading scriptures, we usually make it through a chapter a night, currently in the New Testament.  It is so sweet to hear your voices repeat the words of the scriptures.  And we get no breaks, which is good.  Now that it's part of our routine you two don't let us skip it.  Thank you!  We then pray around the bed on our knees.  Well, sort of.  You each like to sit on my knees while we pray which is super sweetness, too.  Then we brush your teeth.  Then you both, at the same time, hop on Papa's back for a ride to your room.  

I love this hilarious ride each night. 

Unloading.

There you each pick a book, one of which I read, the other Papa reads.  During this Papa or I fill your humidifier, close the window coverings, pass out any needed medicine, and turn on the chandelier and music.  Then you each demand a hug and a kiss.  If you don't get it you'll be at our door demanding it.

Adaiah, you fall asleep quickly, since you've given up naps.  Denver, you goof around a little bit.  Lately, your scheme is to demand that I wipe your nose with a booger wipe.  Then I snuggle you in bed, sitting next to you with my arm under your neck.  You roll over and snuggle in, facing away from me.  I undoubtedly nuzzle and kiss on you.  You are a funny bunny about singing, though.  You yell "no, no!"  ha.  I'm really an okay singer, funny boy.  But that's okay.   

Then I tell you I'm going to head to bed and you pop your head up without fuss so I can remove my arm and you let me go without complaint.  Sweet boy.

Crazy cute clean Kids!

These two stayed and played in this shower until there was absolutely no more hot water available.  They were hilarious :D

 Afterward they practiced a Lewis family favorite, each claiming their own heating vent.

I did have to turn up the thermostat for them, I couldn't resist.

 Snuggle time!

Tired!

Denver and I have been under the weather lately and it's taken it's toll and that cutie.

We got home after grabbing a snack at Sonic, hence the burrito in his hand.

So many unusual things here...  He never lays himself to sleep, it was a couple hours before his regular naptime, he doesn't sleep on his belly or with shoes on.  He was just good old fashioned tired, sweet boy.

He stayed asleep through my moving him into bed, sans burrito.

I love his boy and he is better now and I hope he continues to get healthy!

Soon... Or not.

This boy keeps wanting the novelty of peeing on the toilet. 

But I know how this goes.  It could well be another year before this is a full time commitment.  Or a few days.  But either way, here's a sneak peak and some cute nekkedness, which I heart.

 Extra funny, he has a little training toilet but he likes to use the toilet Adaiah uses, ha.

That's my sassy boy :D

I'm ridiculous. Brian's awesome.

I like my Craigslist.org deals.  I found a beautiful bedroom set for a good price up in Fruita.  I find a lot of things in Fruita.  Our Jeep was a Fruita craigslist find.  Anyway.  I talked Brian into looking at it, then buying it.  It is gargantuan.  We had to rent an open trailer because the set is too large for an enclosed one.  The chifferobe is nearly as tall as I.

We got it home and I loathed it.  It in and of itself is gorgeous, but it was SO BIG.  Of course we had to some serious rearranging and distribution of our other dressers, which we received for free when we got married and have served us well, and will continue to do so in other capacities.

I felt so bad.  The set is a lot of money and a lot of physical work for the hubs and Greggers to get in our home.  The bed, of course comes apart, and thankfully the armoire does.  That chifferobe, however, is one giant, single piece.  

Brian was fantastically empathetic at my ridiculous buyers remorse scene, which included loads of apologies to him for hauling and paying for it.

Ha ha.  Well we both love the chifferobe and like all the rest.  We agreed to let it sit and simmer and see how it wears on me.  Brian commented it is nice to have a cohesive bedroom set, so it was nice he's enjoying it.  It is growing on me, since I finished rearranging and making it fit.  We moved the armoire into Adaiah's room, which helps a great deal.  That thing is a beast and we had no good place for it.  Gosh, our bedroom sure did look big enough to accomodate it all!  It blew me away when we squished it all in and shrunk our room.  

Both kids easily fit into the nightstands and could easily fit one more, maybe even two.  THE NIGHTSTANDS.  Those are our small pieces!

 On a side note I got those lamps for a screaming deal, $16 each at Hobby Lobby.  They're neutral enough to work with and I really do like the ambient lighting they provide.

I'm considering creating vinyl designs to personalize it a bit, in the spaces on the headboard, the doors on the nightstands, and the chifferobe doors.  It would lighten up the feel of the set for me and be removable...

I do have to point out the details I love.  I like the posts and the coordinating hand carved medallions on each of the pieces.

I threw on the quilt Brian's mom gave us for our wedding which I love but hate to ruin so never use...  Dumb I know but I mean it.

I wanted something light to brighten up the set and the room and am loving having it out.

 This is the chifferobe that is taller than my eyes!  

The armoire is in Adaiah's room.  It is super deep and oh so tall.  Denver's expression is funny here.

I have to show off the inset of the quilt.  It is the temple Brian and I were sealed/married at.  I've always been especially smitten by the Angel Moroni in metallic gold thread.

The MIL is amazing.  There are bows and roses quilted around the perimeter.

The current stance is I'm growing comfortable with it and will figure out how to personalize it.  It really is nice having furniture in the kids rooms, beyond just their beds and lingerie dressers, a matching set that was given to us by the same person that gave us the oak dressers we had in our room.  This house is FULL of oak, as a side note :)

Small Joys

I bought this great basket/shelf thing from Hobby Lobby, not positive what I was going to do with it.  But I really like it.

It's been laying around for awhile and today I was looking at our super overflowing fruit bowl and thought that fruit could use a new home...

Not at all what I had been envisioning for those baskets but up it went and in went the fruit and I love it.

I love the hooks underneath to hang dry my Norwex cloths.  Ridiculous but I'm a big fan of them :D

And yes, I like it enough I gave the photo the glamour shot treatment!

Valentines Day

We made our first ever batch of homemade Valentine's on Friday.  I was SUPER proud of being on my game and getting it done in advance.  So much so that we made them for all the Lewis and Ballantyne cousins.  Then I realized that there was no way the mail would reach them in time. But they were too cute not to send.

I nabbed the idea from good 'ol Pinterest.  I had the kiddos do quite a bit of the work.  I Exacto knifed all crayon wrappers (we used a box of 48 crayons we got from the dollar store) and the kids stripped them while watching Rumpelstiltskin, which, on a side, note, I later found out was one of Brian's fave films when he was a kid...  It was a 3 for $5 deal at Wal-Mart, some fairytales done in the 80's.  They are produced by MGM so I figured they'd be decent.  It was a bonus to find out Brian was a fan, even though I'd never heard of them.

ANYWAY.

The kids also broke the crayons into bits and filled the Target heart ice tray with them.  I baked them at 250F for 20 minutes while the kiddos colored all the Valentines.  

I hot glued the crayons on and wrote "You melt my <3" on each of them.

I really like them.  So did Adaiah.  Denver's pretty indifferent, even passed on coloring the latter Valentines.

I ended up bagging the ones we were mailing and I sure thought they were cute.

Here are the two proud cuties when all was said and done.  I was trying to get a picture of them holding basket, which they are, but it ended up behind them in this ridiculous cute pose.

As I say, they are always having fun.

I got Brian a massager and he made the family dinner.  It was crazy yum garlic shrimp.

I do have to tease, though.  That was all it was.  No veggies.  No couscous.  No nothing.  Just like 6 shrimp a piece, ha.  Just cute.

I was talking to a friend and she said her hubs makes dinner the same way.  Entree only.  I threw on some frozen Brussels sprouts which were great with his butter garlic sauce to complement his shrimp.  

It was just lovely to have him undertake the charge, though!

One more note, our store did well this year for V-day.  Bri said it easily surpassed all three previous years in Delta. 

I think it's Greg's shmexiness working ;)