Kids

I sure love my kiddies! I saw this poem (below) on the internet and I thought it summed up how I feel about being a mom. It truly is all I've ever wanted in life. They are Russ and I's purpose in life and I am forever grateful for my family. 

We have quite a large couch yet all 3 kids snuggled up on one seat designed for maybe 1.5 people 

I began decorating for Christmas and I found rolo candy wrappers hidden in one of my vases in my kitchen. Sneaky kids.

Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house this year

My mom hosted a "Grinch" party the day after Thanksgiving. The kids had fun watching The Grinch movie, had breakfast and lunch and played games. 

Countertops

I have hated our granite kitchen countertops since we moved in and I saw that they looked like. When we designed the house, they gave us a tiny sample of what the countertops would look like. They looked mostly white but in actuality they were a little white and very busy with tons of other colors. Several years ago Russ told me we could get new countertops. We searched and searched and received quotes but I never fell in love with a countertop that I wanted to pull the trigger on. So, we stopped looking for a few years. 

Recently I had the urge to start looking again. Probably because one of my good friends, mom from Hallie's soccer team, got new countertops and I felt inspired again. So the search began again. The poor countertop worker has had to be so patient with me. I made them pull several big slabs I was interested in so I wouldn't be surprised of what they look like once installed. I had chatgtp even make mock ups of what it would look like in my kitchen. 

We still don't have a countertop in our basement when we finished our kitchenette. So we decided to get a quote for that tiny area as well. And then that lead to us thinking why not get a quote to replace our bathroom countertops as well (they just had cheap laminate counters) and our laundry room. It was about 22,000 and Russ had just gotten a pay out from his previous employer and we decided to use some of that money to pay for it.

Chatgpt mockups

They measured wrong with our island and had to take it back to the shop to re-cut it. We were without an island for about a week. 

Finished product of the kitchen. I am working on "warming up" the kitchen space. I got new lights, a new rug and plan to have Russ add some wood features to the kitchen (on the island, pantry door and faux range hood).

Here is my inspo pic

Super happy with the end result. I had to live without a kitchen sink for about 5 days because Russ was out of town for most of the install and that was gross. Haha. The countertops looks so nice with the waterfall edge and I feel it looks more luxury.  

Brooks

 Brooks lost 2 teeth this month, is playing a whole bunch of basketball (Invictus and Jr. Jazz) and asked me to "keep stats" for him (see picture below of what he created for me to do that with. If that doesn't scream "little Russell" I'm not sure what would. Haha!), hung out with his friend Griffey a lot (play dates, Jazz game, Mammoth hockey game), and went to Utah football game with Russ. He wants to be strong and big so badly and loves looking at his abs in the mirror. He created a homemade basketball hoop out of cardboard and put one on each side of his room to play a basketball game with it. Haha! His loves for basketball runs deep and we love it. He is killing it with his reading and I just wish he believed it when we told him he is just as good at reading as everyone else in his class. He destroys in Jr. Jazz and it is evident that he was certainly ready to move on from Jr. Jazz and play basketball more competitively. 

"Six Sevvvven"

"Right by it was a hot tub and a full basketball court and 1000000,000000000000 dollars. I get to live with all the Dodgers baseball players and it has a robot that can do anything I ask for and I have my own Santa Claus that gives me anything I ask for."