Here are some songs I put together awhile ago with our recording program. They are really rough cuts and you'll definitely notice some funny mistakes and what not. I think the second one down is my favorite, however it's also pretty messed up. The glockenspiel, yes that's right a glockenspiel, is way off beat. So just disregard that and imagine that you're in the final montage scene of an episode of Lost where Hurley walks around with his headphones on noticing how life is so grand on the Island as you listen to it, or something like that.

Beautiful Chapel

There are several streets near our home where the very expensive million dollar houses of Sugarhouse reside. They are amazing. Pete and I love to drive down Yale and Harvard Avenue and see them. It sort of looks like Berkshire LC but the houses are more ornate and old. Their are some really darling tudor cottages. Anyway, one day when Pete and I were driving through these streets we came across a beautiful old LDS chapel. At first we thought it was a mansion. It has a very large stone gate around it. The backyard of this chapel is amazing. It has a waterfall that flows into a pond with ducks. When I took Leah there she remembered that she had heard about this church and that there was a very long wait of people who wanted to have their reception. On Sunday we drove to the church to let Noelle play. She really loved it. Here are some pics.

Finally a color!

I have been to both Lowes and Home Depot searching through their thousands of color paint choices and narrowed my search down to 6 choices. I have had the color swatches up on my wall for a month now debating which color works the best. All of the choices are in the olive green family and have very warm tones to try and pick up on the cherry wood floors and moldings. I am close to deciding on a color and can't wait to start painting. Noelle will most likely make it very difficult. She loves paints and getting into messy things. Our ugly rocker recliner broke last week and I was in a huge hurry to go shopping and buy a new one. I went to RC Willey and they really didn't have anything that I liked. Actually they did have this beautiful LazyBoy that I really wanted but it was $520 which is way too much. I ended up getting a Lane brand recliner. I absolutely did not want anything remotely like microfiber. This Lane recliner was 50% off of $600 and a great deal. It was a beige fabric and looked decent enough so I impulsively bought it. When we brought it home it was horrible. I don't know what I was thinking. I just was in such a rush at RCWilley and picked the first thing I saw. The color didn't go with the rest of the room and it seriously looked like something that was just bought at the Salvation Army. I think it looks 60's or 70's. It's sad to think that I have to live with such an ugly thing for so long. It's funny because Pete usually doesn't have an opinion on furniture and decor and likes pretty much anything. He also trusts my judgement. When he first saw the chair he said "Wow that looks pretty ghetto what a random choice." Thats when you know it is really bad. Oh well i'll just throw a blanket over it when we have visitors.

4th Of July Weekend

We had a lot of fun this weekend. Unfortunately I had brought my camera to take pictures of Noelle and it was out of batteries. We bought this little $20 pack of fireworks at walmart and lit them in back of our house. Noelle loved them. She kept saying "more fireworks." Sugarhouse park has one of the best firework shows in the state. People had been waiting at the park from early morning on to reserve themselves a spot. It was really crowded and the parking was filled. We parked at the grocery to get on top of the car and watch them. Noelle didn't seem too interested in the parks firework display. Pete and I both love The Twilight Zone so we recorded some of our favorites on DVR and have been watching them together.

We are so lucky. We live next to three parks. Noelle and I go to the park almost every day. Liberty park is my favorite because it has rides, a pool, a fun water area for the kids and a lake with paddle boats. Then there is Sugarhouse park. It is enormous like Libery park and has a river running through it that flows into a very large lake. Westminster park is just two blocks down from our house. it is small but cute. Today we went to Sugarhouse park which is Pete's favorite. Noelle demanded her swing for about an hour so it was a little boring. Then we went down to the river and then the lake. Nellies was playing in the water in her diapers. The water was freezing cold. She was trying to get close to the ducks and started walking in the deeper area of the lake. She slipped on some moss and fell in screaming. Luckily Pete went in and got her before her head went under. She was pretty upset. We went home after that.

This has been a crazy week. The Winstead's flew in on Tuesday for a visit. Then leah flew in on Friday as well as the rest of the Kelley clan. Leah left today after a five day visit. We have had alot of fun visiting with everyone. Noelle loves her cousins, Grandparents and aunts so much. Here are some pics of the finished wood floors. The top pics are Noelle picking the strawberries from our garden. We have hundreds of them growing. They taste horrible. I'll write again soon. Pete wants to finish watching 24.

Fun Times!

Finally after much work and money the hardwood floors are finished. Pete and I stayed in a hotel for three day while our floor guy Wes finished them. I can't say that they look extremely professional but they are really nice. They are 100 year old floors after all so there is only so much you can do. He charged us $725.00 for about 600 square feet which is a steal. We traded favors. We promised him a good referral and he gave us a great deal. Tomorrow he is coming to finish of the trim along the bottom molding which has been discolored from the old carpet. I promise that I will get some pictures of the new floors on the blog tomorrow.

We had a fun filled night tonight. Claire and the boys don't get here until later on tonight so we took advantage of the extra hotel room last night. Noelle went to bed really early so we were all able to visit and chat.

Our new ward is offering discount tickets to Lagoon so we are really excited. For any of you who will be in California in September Pete, Noelle and I have a free trip to Disneyland. We won a round trip air ticket, and two night hotel stay and some food coupons. Disneyland with Noelle for the first time will be a treat. I can't even imagine her shock with the small world ride. She loves her dollies! Anyway I will post some pics tomorrow.

Our New House

I promise I will be taking pictures of out new house very shortly. I have been so busy with my Etsy shop they I literally have not had time for anything more! Hopefully we will be refinishing our hardwood floors next week so I am really excited. I thought I would share a quick story. Noelle and I went to old navy today to find a black skirt for Grandma's funeral. They have these cartoon looking mannequin children. Noelle was just intrigued by them. She was afraid to touch them though. She kept calling them "Big Dollys." One of them was holding a dog leash with a dog attached. She especially loved the doggie. So we walked over to the adult section and there were mannequins without their heads on. Pretty typical because most of them usually don't. She was pointing and saying "Mama, Mama." I pulled our cart next to one of them and she started screaming. She was so confused. Then she said "Why does mom torture me so." Just kidding. But that's what she was probably thinking. Poor Nellies, it's so hard being a baby!

finally an update!

okay, just kidding.
this is amanda. brian, katherine and i are visiting the winsteads at their new house!- regan wanted me to change her blog background and stuff, and in exchange i made her promise to update at least once a week- lets see if she listens :)
katherine and noellies are playing together, and it is very cute, they love eachother.

Some pics I took

One night it was really foggy so I decided to take some pictures. I love fog, and apparently I love taking pictures of things through trees.

Christmas Stuff

Here are some pics from our Warner Bros Tour, with pictures of the set of Friends, the Batpod, the alley scene from the first Spiderman, the Warner Bros water tower, and a picture of me standing in front of the area where the scene from the final episode of Seinfeld was shot where they all get arrested after witnessing the mugging.

Noelle and the tree :)

On Thursday Noelle and I found the prettiest little tree. Noelle is curious why there is a tree in our family room now. She loves it. We bought some gorgeous ornaments at walmart and decorated it on Sunday. We decorated while listening to Mannheim Steamroller which is a classic Christmas album that Pete and I both grew up on. I've hesitatingly come to terms with the fact that anything beautiful or delicate is instantly destroyed by babies. A lit and decorated tree is the perfect playing ground for a toddler. I knew when I bought the ornaments that Noelle would try and rip them off the tree or break them. They have been up for a day now and so far she has only broken two which for Noelle is quite the feat. I have heard of parents decorating the upper half of the tree so the kids can't reach. I just couldn't bring myself to only decorating half a tree. It just doesn't seem right. We'll see how long it stays nice for.
It snowed all weekend. It makes for the perfect Christmas ambiance. We are so excited to leave cold snowy Utah for sunny Cali on Friday. Pete can't stop talking about how excited he is for California. The doll pictured below is Noelle's new favorite baby. The doll actually comes with a twin. Noelle takes turns caring for each baby. She'll wrap them in small blankets and pat their bummies. She won't let anyone talk while she tries to put them to sleep and puts her finger to her mouth and says Shuuuuu!!! She has drawn all over their poor heads. Pete and I joke that this is how she christens her new dollies. It's pretty funny. This picture I took of the tree is horrible. I couldn't get the right lighting and the camera took a very inaccurate picture. In person it is stunning!

This baby was really resisting taking pictures. It was a miracle I got a few decent ones.

Santa's Chair

On bottom floor of the Discovery Gateway museum they have a darling Christmas setup. Santa sits in the purple chair and kids come and take pictures with him. Noelle and I snuck in and took some photos after Santa and his elves left.

Finally a kiss!!!

After much coercing Noelle finally gives Grandpa Winstead a goodbye kiss. I'm sure he was thrilled.

Noelle with the four Curious George monkeys G-Pa Winstead bought her.

Mascot Bear

Getting back from the game!

It has been a fun filled month. Pete's work gave him some very expensive tickets to the Jazz game. It was sort of a gift because of his great work. We are not fans of the Jazz but thought we should take advantage. I was really worried about bringing Noelle. These games can last up to three hours. They are difficult to sit through especially for a toddler. When we got there it was enormous and full of energy. We were right up in the front. Noelle really ended up loving it. Every time the crowd would cheer Noelle clapped along with them. They have this great mascot dressed up in a bear costume. She absolutely loved this bear! You have to wonder what goes through a baby's mind when they see something like that. She was probably wondering what a giant bear was doing wandering around a basketball game. She loved his tail.

Something terrible happened to my Nellies last week. On our way to walmart we stopped at a McDonald's to play on their huge playground. She was a little scared at first to climb through the tunnels and go down the gigantic slide but she got up the courage to try and loved it. Soon she was laughing her head off. There was this mother and son. The mother appeared to be deaf and was signing to her son. I never found out if the little boy was deaf like his mother. The boy was probably around 2 or 3 years old. Noelle climbed up high into one of the tubes. All of a sudden I heard Noelle screaming hysterically. Luckily she was by one of the window peep holes so I could see what was going on. One of the little boys was violently slamming her head against the wall and hitting her in the face with his other hand. I was yelling for him to stop. Noelle was screaming "mama." This kid was going crazy on my baby. I couldn't see which child it was. Luckily Noelle got away even though we was grabbing onto her. I think the little boy realized he was in some serious trouble. By this time all of the children had come out of the play area and were circled around me. I asked the other kids where the boy was who hit Noelle and one of the kids went up into the slide and brought him down. It ended up being the boy with the deaf mother. I had no idea if he could speak or hear but I was so outraged I didn't care at that point. The other kids were telling me that he had been terrorizing them as well. I scolded him and said "you do not hit other children." He just looked at me with this blank stare. I couldn't believe that his parents were nowhere in sight. I was infuriated that I had to do the disciplining for this child. I wondered what his parents had done to have provoked such violent anger in him. I can imagine that parents of children with severe disabilities let these children get away with quite a bit out of guilt or just plain exhaustion. I would have been horrified if the situation were reversed and my child had been responsible for such a terrible act. Noelle remembers pretty clearly what happened. She ended up with a big bruise on her forehead from the incident. At least once a day Noelle will say "babies" and hit herself in the head. Nellies has an incredible memory. She refuses to play at McDonald's now.

The Winstead's are here this week and we have had tons of fun so far. They brought a little baby girl doll with them with clothes and accessories. Noelle loves her. We always know when Noelle loves a doll because she will immediately take it's clothes off. She loves to see belly buttons. We went to Barnes and Noble last night and Grandpa Winstead bought Noelle a few Curious George animals. Noelle begs me to buy them every time we go and I always say no so she was ecstatic that she suckered grandpa into getting them for her. She has been carrying them around all day with her.

We went to Carrie's funeral last Saturday. Annie and Cody were there. It was great to see everyone. There were relatives that I had never met. It was obvious that Carrie was loved by many. She was always so thoughtful and kind to our family that I felt like it was really important to be there. Dad's half brother and Phil spoke. The Betz family was very emotional. I can imagine that it brought back sad memories of Erin's funeral. I'm sure they have had a difficult year. The girls Kaylee and Kelby were in good spirits. They are strong sweet little girls :) Jeez sorry this is so long.

Nellies loves pretending to read magazines. This was a particularly funny moment.

Looked cool from the outside. Sucked on the inside.

Once it started raining we headed to Discovery Gateway and played there until they closed. Noelle had her baby dolls and was perfectly content.

Not Much

Unfortunately it started raining about 20 minutes into it. The funny thing is it NEVER rains in SLC so it was rather ironic that it happen to have rained on Halloween. Poor Nellies didn't end up with much. She actually only ended up eating one miniature peanut butter cup and wouldn't try anything else. We just threw the rest away. I think Noelle could be the ONLY kid in America that hates candy.

Trick Or Treating At McDonalds ????

We actually decided to trick or treat at the mall. The majority of the stores had candy for the kids. There were a few snobby upscale stores that didn't. Pete made sure to give them each a hard time which they didn't appreciate.
The best was when we decided to try the food court. McDonald's gave Noelle a hot apple pie.

So stubborn!!!

The costume came with this cute little antler hood but Noelle wanted nothing to do with it.

I loved the little wings on this costume.