Making some fun out of nothing.....

No school today. And this girl needed to GET OUT of the house. Nate decided he needed to work today which is probably a good thing since MOST of the other attorneys were in the office too. I thought about taking the boys to another movie, or going somewhere fun for lunch. Really though, I just wanted to go outside and see some sunshine.

The weather people have been ranting for the past few days about this huge storms rolling this a' way so I wanted to get outside before the snow clouds hit.

Parker has been DYING to drive his remote controlled boat for some time so I thought, Hey....lets take it for a little spin a roo. We packed up the boat, some new batteries and headed over to the only little pond that I could think of over in Snake River Landing. Sure enough though........totally frozen over. Parker hysterical. I told him not to get his hopes up but obviously he didn't listen.

While heading back home I remembered we were near new little man made fishing lake and decided to swing by to see if it was frozen over as well. Most of it was but we got out of the car, walked along the paths and enjoyed throwing rocks on the ice/ sliding the rocks into the water towards the middle. The boys were laughing, running around and having a great time.

 They loved seeing the little frozen over waterfalls as well.

 Then some ice fishers came and we watched them dig through the ice and set up their tent. They boys were fascinated by the whole thing.

When our cheeks and fingers started hurting from the cold we piled in to the car to head home. I was thinking how we had made some fun little memories even if we didn't get to drive the little remote controlled boat. What a great afternoon!

Then Parker sighs and says, "Well, that day was a total WASTE!"

Seriously?

Who's little PUNK kid is this?

A great day.

Today has just been.......really good. I feel blessed becuase of it and wanted to write it down so I could remember that not all January days are totally blah.

The weather over here has been AMAZING this winter. Sunny days, warmer temps and hardly any snow. I know the farmers are worried but I can't complain. I've LOVED it. It's like a Boise winter.....I can handle this! It is clear and sunny again today. I love opening up the windows and soaking up the vitamin D!

I am finally feeling better. I've only puked 2 times in the past 4 days. Yee Haw!

Nate was featured in the newspaper today. They interviewed him yesterday and did a write up on the newly formed Eagle Rock bike racing club. Nate is the official race director of the new team. I love how he has taken his passion for biking over here and how he continues to help the sport grow on this side of the state. He is getting so invovled in our little community and I love it.

I took my Dallin to the orthodontist today. I swear, everywhere I go in this town I see someone I know.....of course I just so happend to know the woman at the front desk (she is in my ward and in the scouts with Dallin). The Dr. is good friends with our dentist friend back in Boise. The nurse's old basketball coach moved to Boise and ended up being my sister's basketball coach back in the day. The ortho lives right by one of the partners that Nate works with. EVERYONE knows EVERYONE here. I absolutely ♥ it! Oh, and my Dallin gets braces in 2 weeks! I'm SOOO happy for him. I'm grateful for GOOD insurance that will help cover a lot of the cost.

I got a letter in the mail from a great high school friend. Made me smile.

I got a phone call from my best college friend (Marcy). It was great to catch up. I love that girl.

I took a gift to a friend who just had a baby girl. She was the cutest little thing ever. Oh how I want a girl.

I had a friend stop by for a visit this afternoon. It was fun to show her my new and improved house....espiecially since it is still clean. We'll see how long that lasts! ☺

I'm going to lunch with a bunch of girlfriends tomorrow. I love lunch with friends on a Friday.

I watched my sweet husband and my cute son trot off to basketball practice. I love that Nate coaches Parker's team. It really just makes my heart happy.


A good day.......a really good day. ☺

Be our guest!

I did it! I finished the guest room today. I primed, painted, put the bed back together and hung some things on the wall.

FAREWELL nasty green wall and room o' crap!

Hello guest room!

I'm so tired now....I think I'll just climb on in and take a little nap!

Extreme Makeover....Starnes Edition

Haven't blogged in awhile. How come? I have been one BUSY BEE!

I'm not sure what exactly got me started. Maybe this new baby coming, but it seems a little early for "nesting" already. Whatever the case....I have been in major musical chairs mode with the house the past few days.

This isn't our house. We only plan on living here one more year but for the time being, I have decided to try my darnedest to make this house a little bit more FUNCTIONAL for our family. When we go to buy again......I can assure you I am going to be ONE extremely PICKY gal!!!

First off, the kitchen eating area has been WAY too small for our family. We haven't been able to have a sit down dinner as a family for so long. I decided to make a drastic change. We moved the family room downstairs and turned the family room into a dining area. Now my big table can be out all the time and we can all SEE EACH OTHER when we eat. And surprisingly enough....I have quite enjoyed having no TV upstairs. It is so much more peaceful when I am in the kitchen. We moved the computer upstairs also so I can monitor what is going on a little bit easier. The front room is still upstairs so we do still have a place to sit and hang out upstairs.

We're really like the family room being downstairs....it's so much more comfortable and it's nice having all 3 couches together.

Next we moved Landon into Dallin and Parker's old "sports" room:

(He LOVES it!)

 Then we moved Dallin and Parker downstairs into the basement. We got them some new bunkbeds and they are absolutely in heaven. Boys and bunkbeds....they just go together! We still need to find some things to hang on the wall.

 So now Landon's old room will sit and wait a few more weeks until we see if we leave the wall BLUE or paint it PINK!

Nate moved his bike room into my old craft room. I really didn't need all that room for craft projects anyway.

So, now to the old bike room. This is the current project in action. It is a total and complete DISASTER area! Tomorrow I am painting that nasty green wall and getting everything all set up. New guest room coming soon! See, we still have room for visitors! AKA.....come and visit us!

Pictures to come in the next day or so!

And yes....that is a large scary shark hovering in the corner. It's pretty much a $100 balloon. It was my mom's Christmas present to Dallin. It swims around using a remote control and absolutely

 TERRIFIES our cat.

(Which I secretly find VERY amusing)

My girls.

I've got Activity Days on the brain since we had it today! I thought I'd do a little recap of some of our recent activities for my few friends out there who share the same calling. (Fully expecting you to do the SAME! ☺)

A few weeks back I hosted a little "Manners and Courtesy" tea party at my house for my girls. A tea party? These are words not EVER used in Starnes vocabulary! We had so much fun! I went to the DI and bought some cute little tea cups for .25 a cup since I didn't really want the girls using my nice china ones. We had some hot cider, croissant sandwiches, little pumpkin muffins and tea cookies.

We had the girls all wear hats and dresses which was really fun. We started by talking about basic manners and what you should/should not do when at fancy event. I love these cute girls. We have such a great time learning fun things together.

 We later played some fun games like "who can keep the book on their head the longest?" We also played a game where the girls had to draw a picture of, act out, or sculpt out of play dough, one of the manner rules we discussed earlier.

A few months back we mod podged some darling frames and put clear pictures of the Idaho Falls temple in front. The girls put their own pictures behind them to remind them to have their sights set on the temple.

And today we talked about goals. Each girl had to set 2 goals, one spiritual and one personal goal for the year. Each girl had to fill out a worksheet and write how she would achieve her goal, what things might get in the way of her getting there, and the steps that she should take to accomplish it.

Even if this baby isn't a little girl...I am SO happy that I get my girl fix every month. They are SO different than my boys and I have LOVED getting to know each of them and their little personalities.

1st belly shot.

What a difference 10 years and 3 pregnancies can do to your body. I was looking back through my old pregnancy journals the other day and couldn't help but laugh.

Here I am a whole 5 months (almost 6) with Dallin. Ummmmm.....what belly?? I only WISH my stomach was that little now...meaning when I am NOT pregnant. ☺

And here we are today in all of our matronly glory:

Almost 14 weeks and BAM! There it is! Haha!

10 years older, wiser, and maybe a little more squishy. I like it that way. ☺

New Year

Happy 2012. Seriously, 2012? Wasn't it JUST Y2K? Years are literally flying by. What an amazing year 2011 has been for us. We've had our ups and our downs. We have most definitely ended this year on a high though. We've had such clarity and understanding as to why things happen. It has strengthened my faith, and validated the times where I've had to leave my frustrations with the Lord. We've made SO many memories and been blessed beyond our wildest dreams.

It is incredibly hard for me to believe that we have lived in Idaho Falls now for almost 2 years. I came here kicking and screaming. I never thought I could be happy here. I thought it would be a temporary means to an end before we could go somewhere that I WANTED to be. Well, I was wrong. My husband LOVES his job here. Not many men can say that about the place that they work. He is excited to go to work every day. The men he works with are such great men who respect him and appreciate him. They talk about home teaching in their monthly meetings and they only serve water and lemonade at the annual Christmas party. Pretty awesome compared to where we have been. We fit here. We belong here. They take such good care of him and have made a genuine investment in him. At his end of the year review he was told to tell his wife to "Go ahead and buy a house here.....you aren't going anywhere!" It's such a huge blessing to know that we will indeed be able to pay off all of these darn loans and much quicker then we ever though possible.

We have great friends here. They have become our family while we are away from ours. I'm grateful for my preschool mom friends. It's been wonderful getting to know all of them even better and knowing I always have someone to call if I ever need anything. I'm grateful for Nate's Aunt and for her never ending love and concern for us. She has made us apart of her family and for that I am so appreciative. My kids go to a great school. It is 3 minutes away from our house and I love that they get to spend less time on the bus and more time with me. I love my calling with my Activity Day girls. I love how they will look over at me in church and smile and wave.

I love living near some of the most beautiful places in the world. I'm glad my kids have a passion to explore and see the world just like their mom and their Great Grandma. We've done a TON of that this year. Good thing since it looks like this summer we're going to be forced to slow down a lot.....for good reason though. ☺ Seeing the Grand Canyon, going to Yellowstone again, heading to Bozeman, Zions, and the usual down to Lake Powell. I know that these are the things my children will remember when they are grown.

It's been a year of milestones! We celebrated 10 years of marriage, I turned 30 years old, and after much struggle we found our our 4th child will be joining our family. We went on some fantastic vacations both with children and without. I will forever cherish our trip to Washington DC, our alone time in Jackson Hole and our Indian Summer days spent in McCall.

We continue to love, grow closer and appreciate each other more and more.

 I'm looking forward to the adventures and changes happening for our family in 2012!



New Year's Eve

Almost 3 months ago Nathan and I flew to DC to see our sweet friends the Perry's. It's a DARN good thing we went to visit them when we did. Tom was offered a fantastic job back in Boise and so during Christmas Break they DROVE back to Idaho to stay!! On the way they stopped to stay with US! YIPPEE!!! If we hadn't gone when we did we never would have made the trip! So happy we decided to go and make those amazing memories. ☺

We had so much fun for the couple of days they were here. We took the kids to Leo's place to play and run wild and then we came home and threw a pretty fantastic last minute New Year's Party because ME (with my pregnancy BRAIN) didn't realize Saturday was New Year's Eve. I thought it was on Sunday. I'm an idiot.

We made TONS of food. Played lots of fun games (the candy bar game, Wits and Wagers, Game of Things) AND we made GOO with the kids.

James and Nate playing some sweet air guitar:

Candy bar game is ALWAYS a hit:

Lots of yummy food: Bacon wrapped shrimp, crescent covered smokies, cheese ball, veggies, cookies, cowboy salsa............ugh. I was so FULL I could hardly drink my sparkling cider at the end of the night!

We did a little pretend countdown for the kids at about 9:00. They had been awake since 5 am and we (the adults) were READY for them to go to SLEEP! After we got them to bed we cranked on the Pandora and played games and danced. It was hilarious.

Next morning they left. It's so funny how NOW it feels like we're pretty much just neighbors again becuase we'll get to see them SO much more. 4 hours is NOTHING compared to and entire DAYS trip on an airplane! Welcome back to the POTATO STATE Perry's!!

Christmas in Boise

Christmas was WONDERFUL in Boise this year. I had to fight the husband to get him to go for Christmas Eve. He is ready to stay home for Christmas Eve...I pleaded for one more year. After all, this was the last year with my little brother as he is preparing to go on a mission here in the next few months. We had such a great time......Nate agreed that we had made the right decision. ☺

I wish I had taken more pictures, alas I guess I was enjoying myself to much. Living in the minute is a good thing though.

When we got there we immediately headed over to this really FUN/ a tad bit on the CrAzY Santa's house. He made his 4 wheeler and a trailer into Santa's sleigh and takes people around the neighborhood. He takes it very seriously. It was really fun....and REALLY cold.

We had a fantastic Christmas Eve spent together....minus James and Sierra. We had a fantastic dinner and testimony meeting. It was fun hanging out all day together. We went to a movie (The Muppets) and went bowling. ☺

Everyone was spoiled rotten Christmas morning. We got up EARLY so we could attend church by 9. It was special being able to go to church on actual Christmas Day.

Later on during the week we had a great time seeing many of the friends that we miss so much. We went out for dinner, movies, and had a great game night. I'm so glad so many of them still take the time to see us. ☺

Somehow we were able to CRAM everything into the car and make it back home in one piece. It was a great Christmas. I'm so blessed to have such an amazing family and so many great friends. Gotta admit though, feels nice to be back home!