New Bathroom & New (used) Car!!

One down, one to go! Jeremy just finished installing all the new stuff for our guest/hall bathroom- it looks AWESOME!!! It is amazing how it kept adding up in cost, I thought we got lucky w/ Jer doing the tile for around $60ish and got the pedestal sink on craigslist for $50, but then there are all new accesories and hardware, etc......oh well. We still saved a bundle! This is the only good pic I have of the before, and this is even before we bought the house & moved in. It was ugly and the linolium around the toilet (that got a leak) was soggy and gross.

The new look, very relaxing I think! Though I having a hard time towel color matching or finding a good contrast color. The wall color is called Sahara, something like tanish/greenish/?, back to the store tomorrow....

Jer's lovely tile job. He wants me to buy a couple big rugs to cover his floors and hide some "tiny" flaws. Not happening, I like the look.

It's weird how the mirror is reflecting on the clock, hmm. Now that this is finished, Jeremy is actually ready to go rip out the shower in the next bathroom, crazy man. And he starts his new job in a week, he'll be going up to Seattle for a week of Orientation on the 22nd. What will I do all alone w/ Ava???? This will be a 1st! We'll eat out every night! :)

Oh, and to the new (used) car.....Daddy found this for his princess at a garage sale. She LOVES it, she'll get in and say "vroom, vroom" over and over. Then practice climbing in and out about 10 times over. Silly girl!

COASTAL DAY TRIP!

Poor guy, that is a 30lb Toddler on his back and the hike up was all UP HILL!

Rugged little cabins w/ 2 sets of bunk beds for those that want to camp out!

The Oregon Coast! Sooooo beautiful...

Ava fell and got her pants wet, she was not happy about that! Plus its freezing cold water!

We got out of the house! Sometimes I have to beg Jeremy to do fun stuff, and since he finally had a weekend off, I got what I wanted. He spent all day Friday slaving in the bathroom & other projects, but last Saturday we took off to the Coast (about a 1hr45min drive there). The weather NEVER cooperates for us when we visit, so of course it was overcast with a light drizzle on and off, and a high of 57! Thanks! Oh well, we still had fun hiking and playing on the beach. Then we went to a little coastal town and got salt water taffy and Ice Cream. Ava got to ride on the Carousel twice, lucky girl. The funniest part of our day out was Ava falling down and getting dirty, then throwing a tantrum because her hands were DIRTY. So sad! :) I should have recorded it though, people were walking by laughing to Ava crying out "dirty, dirty." Good times!

And the work continues......

The hard part is OVER! The tile is done (he did finish the back splash after I took this picture) and Jeremy did great for his 1st attempt. He even did a great design, instead of just side by side tile. He's in there now re-texturing some areas of the wall. He's been told the texture stuff can make you high, so I need to keep an eye on him tonight!

Sunday was gorgeous, so we did a little "exploring" to the waterfalls nearby-only a 15min drive away! We even ran into a guy from church and his little boy. We were trying to justify how we weren't all actually breaking the sabbath. Who says going for a walk on sunday is a bad thing??? We were enjoying God's beautiful creations!

Ava discovered that throwing rocks into the creek is fun, I had to help her learn this though. She didn't like getting her feet wet, but still had fun.

A little cuddling w/ Daddy and Jake. She even grabbed his face and planted a wet one right on his lips. Pretty yucky!!!! This evening she wanted to walk Jake, so I hooked on his leash and she dragged him around the house for about 10 minutes, poor dog (but he's lazy and needed some exercise anyways!).

Our weekend in WA

Last weekend, Ava and I journeyed up to WA to visit the family and my sister Melissa (who was home for a wedding). It's like the 6th or 7th wedding she's been a bridesmaid, poor girl, someday she'll be the Bride.

Ava attacking Aunt Melissa's face. She had fun w/ her, as long as I wasn't too far away!

While Melissa was doing her Bridesmaid duties, the rest of us went hiking. It was awesome weather and a beautiful trail by a creek.

But the Forest Rangers hadn't been out yet to remove fallen trees, so my brothers Brian & Andrew had to help the ladies and children over the big trees. This big tree fell on the bridge that crosses the creek, would have been a scary fall.

Cute cousins! Ava, Kiera, & Kael ready for snack time.

Kiera & Ava jumping on the little trampoline together! They are going to be best friends!

A CHANGE IS COMING....

Hooray, Hooray! Jeremy got a call this past thursday from the IRS......though not a bad one. He got a job w/ them!!! He applied like last SUMMER, interviewed in March and will start June 22nd!!! What will he do w/out the Post Office?? He's not too sure, as it is an easy job and he'll have to think doing Accounting work. But he'll do great and start working toward his CPA license soon. I'm MOST excited about him having every weekend off! Since we've been married he's never had the weekends off consistently. He gets Fri/Sat off together every 6 weeks w/ the Post office, his days off rotates. We can go camping, hiking, exploring Portland and all sorts of stuff together as a family now. How fun! Anywho, I'll have more pics to post tomorrow of my weekend in WA visiting family. Later!

It's finally started.....

It's taken a couple years of begging and nagging, followed by ultimatums (ex. I agreed to re-finan. the house & stay longer if it gets done this year or I'm just going to secretly fly my brother Mark here to do it for you!) to get to this point. Our bathrooms are in dire need of remodeling, due to mold and just being ugly! Out of nowhere Jeremy announced he was going to rip up one of them yesterday and started at it. Now that it's started, it BETTER get FINISHED! He even found a good Pedestal sink on Craigslist last night. Hooray!! This is our front bathroom, just needed a new floor, paint and new sink, but our bathroom needs gutted. Let the fun begin...

Of course I had to add pics of my Ava. Her latest thing is wanting to play in the front seat of the car. I got home from work the other day and Jeremy let her into the garage, she came running to the door and dragged me out with all her might and shoved me out of the way. Then climbed up, wanted the door shut and just goofed off in my seat. Sooooo funny!

Just a silly face!

We had sun last weekend! I even got a little burn, but made sure to cover up little white girl twice w/ sunscreen. All smiles!

Mommy & Ava.....only pics we get together are the ones I take of us. Jeremy rarely touches the camera, oh well.

Hope all of you Mother's had a great Mother's Day last Sunday!!! Jeremy and Ava were good too me. They got me flowers, a balloon (really for Ava's amusement), a card and a new vacuum. After going through a couple vacuums in 9 years, we decided to splurge and got and expensive Dyson one. Works great! I told Jer since I got a vacuum for Mother's Day, he's either getting a new dish washer or water heater for Father's day, he's not going for it though!

Having fun outside

Just some more pics of Ava goofing around outside, her FAVORITE place to be! You have to go out when it's sunny, it just doesn't happen that often in the spring. And I LOVE when my tulips are up, they won't last much longer, but they are beautiful and I have LOTS of them all over the side yard.

I had another pic of Ava kissing Jake (the dog), but this was cute to of her eating dirt. Just before I took this she was stacking bark dust/dirt on my pant leg. I'm still getting used to "letting" her get dirty, I try to avoid brushing her off all the time, guess I just need to accept that she going to be getting dirty for years to come!

Okay, I know it's not Thanksgiving or Halloween, but we had a Relief Society dinner that celebrated the Seasons of the year and the seasons of our lives as women. I was supposed to find people to make desserts for my 2 tables, but I procrastinated and ended up doing it myself (with the help of my partner in our Enrichment committee). But I found the cute idea for the cupcake turkey's and she put them together while I did the spider. Jeremy says the spider is my best cake so far, he wasn't a fan of Ava's ladybug cake apparently. Pretty cool, huh?? I want to take a decorating class to learn more, it's kind of fun.

And my allergies are sooooooo much better, love the Rx Drugs!!! Unfortunatly, I have to stop them in the coming weeks so I can pump myself full of hormones to try for baby #2, but I'll take the relief while I can! No, I'm not giving details on when exactly our next baby attempt is happening, but will be w/ in the next 2 months. I'm sooo freaking excited, and yet sooo nervous that it won't work again. We have 5 frozen babies, but who knows how many will have survived being frozen and then thawing out when the time comes. Infertility sucks! But hey, Ava was worth every bit of what we had to go through!!! Keep ya'll posted......