Look at him go!

Ben has gone from walking about 5 or 6 steps at a time to walking across rooms this weekend. I love the very solid slap-slap-slap of toddler feet.

And here's Max slammin' it home in the basement:

So excited!

OK, so we are so excited we could just jump up and down: the basement is done. Yes, you read that right, the basement is complete. We are so pleased with the results. I will call the city next week for the final inspection. Hopefully everything will be OK and we can move more furniture in. Yeah!! So here are some pics of our new space (complete with cleaning supplies and tools :) ).

Going down the steps to the basement:

These are all of the great room from various angles. Right side:Left side: The boys' fun little cubby:

The Rest of the Basement

Beautiful bathroom: The closet under the steps: Large storage closet off great room:Guest room (closet doors to be hung soon):

Solving Another Dilemma

We also were going to have a chandelier installed in the dining room. The contractor said "no problem" when I asked if it would be possible. However, upon actually talking to the contractor's electrician, it sounded like there would be lot of cutting into sheetrock and patching involved. We were nervous about the patching because it seems like you can almost always tell there's a patch; it never blends in totally. So we decided to nix the chandelier and go with lamps instead. All of the outlets in the room are "top is hot, bottom is not," so they all flip on with the flip of a single wall-switch, which is kind of nice. An added bonus, we can take the lamps with us the next time we move. :) So here are the lamps - we thought they were actually pretty cool. I was pleasantly surprised at the options available when I was lamp shopping. Imagine them one day with some decor on them (or bric-a-brac, as Whitney says :) ), but with 2 toddlers, they are minimalist for now.

Updates...

First, some pictures of the boys. Max in his oh-so-cute jammies: Ben at dinner tonight in all his glory. Hair courtesy of banana mush (you can't really tell in the picture, but it's all slicked back and stuck to his head), and that's either a sweet potato or a peach hanging off his nose. Mmmmm!
We have turned an exciting corner at the Shier household. Since about mid-December, we have been in a transitional stage with Ben. He was only napping once a day when he really needed two, so he was therefore Mr. Crankypants most of the time and Mom was getting really frustrated. Anyways, we solved the problem a couple of weeks ago. Ben is now taking one nap a day (at the same time as Max - woo-hoo!), but we started putting him to bed really early to compensate for the sleep. He is now such a happy camper- it's wonderful! This also means that we have a newfound freedom in our days, so we have jumped in to the toddler scene. We have been having fun doing storytime and music class and all of the other fun things for little tots. Ben is now walking about 4 or 5 steps at a time and then crashing when he remembers that this is a new skill and panics. So close! Max is also very into the cooking channel lately. He gets up from his nap and the first words out of his mouth are "I want to watch cooking." His favorite is Giada.

On the home-project scene, we will be done with the basement tomorrow. Yee-ha! Our contractor finished all his work a week or so ago. Our carpet-installer got all the tack-strips and padding down today. The carpet is cut and in the basement and will be installed tomorrow. In the meantime, the house is a balmy 74 degrees to help the carpet stretch. Luckily, we have two furnaces, so the upstairs (where we sleep) is bearable. I will take some pics soon. We are so excited for it!!

Anyways, I don't want to type anymore until I get some more pictures. I know the words can get boring and the pictures are more entertaining.

Hmph

This was in Paul Rolly's column today in the Salt Lake Tribune:

What's in a word? Richard Lainhart took a last-minute package filled with
Christmas gifts to the U.S. Postal Service's self-service Salt Lake City Sunnyside branch to mail it just before Christmas. The next day, the postal carrier brought the package back to Lainhart's house as "undeliverable." The carrier said the box couldn't be mailed because it contained the label "Wine Glasses." In Utah, just the word "wine" made the contents contraband, even though they had nothing to do with wine.

A Very White Christmas

Well, we made it in and out of Colorado safely for Christmas. So many people had their holiday plans changed; we are thankful that ours were relatively unaffected. Our drive home was a bit sporty for the first 100 miles, lots of other cars spinning out, but after that, the roads were completely dry. We had a wonderful time with the family. Here are Jody & Whitney Christmas morning. They were in remarkably good moods considering that their plans for Georgia got cancelled.

The boys got a kitchen/patio set from Santa. It has a "manly" grill on the patio side. Just trying to teach the boys to follow their dad's great example - kitchens aren't just for girls!

Other random thoughts...this week I kept thinking about the idea that you get out of things what you put into them. Whether it's the little start-up church that we've been going to or just making a life and new friends in Utah, it seems to be a recurring theme. Then in church this week, the pastor spoke of "without a gardener, there is no garden." Once again, same theme...thanks God, got it.

So anyways, looking forward to what's in store for us in 2007. Happy New Year everyone!

So Much Snow!

Although we didn't get to see as many friends as we had initially planned on because of the snow, we did manage to see our old neighbors. Oh my gosh, the kids had so much fun in the snow! The family that bought our house has a little girl named Chloe who, for some reason, was really excited to see us. As our truck drove down the street, she waved her little heart out at the top of the snow hill and then ran over to greet us as we got out of the truck. She was cracking me up - what a sweetie! Here is Chloe pulling Ben through the snow:Here is Max sawing some logs on Grandma and Grandpa's bed. Too much excitement!