Video (or Rodeo as we silly adults call it)

Last week, we went to the Denver Stock Show with the MacLennans and Dan and Kippy. Just as last year, they loved the animals (and the horsey ride) and loved the rodeo for the first hour(ish). After awhile, though, Karly and Graham were done with the animals. 

Karly pushing baby Audrey in the stroller

 This was the only picture I got where you could at least see the front of both of their faces.

 Enjoying the rodeo!

 Holding their tokens for the horsey ride!

 Train ride

 Audrey's free horsey ride

Baby shower

My awesome friends/young women in our (now old) ward threw me a baby shower for Mr. Boy. I was so excited at how many people got to come and overwhelmed with all the amazing gifts to help us get ready for this little guy! We literally had almost no clothing for the poor kid - I'd been too focused on house stuff to be spending much time thinking about baby stuff (which is probably good since I'm already overly anxious for him to be here!).

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the day. Thanks to all of you who were able to come and your amazing gifts!

The AMAZING cake my amazing friend Lacey made. So cute. And SO yummy. My gluten intolerant sister-in-law even ate it, knowing the pain she would be in later. It was THAT good. :)

 Just some shots of the people who came...

 And of course the big sis! She was very helpful at opening presents, of course. :)

 I tried to find a semi-flattering shot of me, but let's be honest. I'm huge and VERY pregnant. Flattering shots don't exist of me (though I have seen some cute ones of my pregnant friends and cousins - why can't I look like that when I'm pregnant?!). I'll try to remember to take a standing one soon, so I at least have a decent picture of my measuring big belly (at every dr. appt. I measure at least a week big, but we did an ultrasound and this little guy is measuring right on track - it's just me that's big).

It was so fun to get to spend the time with so many friends and feel so loved and blessed!

Responsibility?

All of the sudden, I feel like an adult.

I own a house. With my husband. And we have (almost) 2 kids.

That's what adults do, and it's really weird and kind of still surreal (mostly the house thing. I've had 9 months and a constant reminder to get ready for the 2 kids thing).

So as a quick update (because in about 9 days or less I have a feeling I won't have/want to take time to blog about this kind of stuff), we are officially homeowners! We closed on Jan. 12 and moved in on the 13th. Nate was actually out of town for work for the actual closing, so I had got to do the closing all by my lonesome. I had to do power of attorney for Nate, which basically means on every document, I signed not only my name, but "Nathan Frakes by Alisa Frakes as Attorney in Fact." EVERY document. You ever closed on a house? There are a LOT of papers. I got really fast by the end.

I need to give a shout out to Dan, Kippy, Lindsey, Connor, Mike, Blake and Nellie for helping us move/take care of Karly/unpack our house/fix things. We have had a ton of help and its' been great!

The house we bought was a foreclosure and is 30 years old, so there has been plenty for us to do since moving in. Poor Nate, who is in the midst of busy season has been working like 12 hour days and then coming home to work on the house for 2-3 hours. Most of it has been pretty basic stuff, but STILL. He's superman. We have about a million ideas for projects and paint colors and things to change, but a lot of it will be waiting until after March (busy season) or just summer. We love it and are so excited to be here! And we have an extra bedroom (with a real mattress in it) and an entire empty basement, so guess what? You can come visit. :)

I took pictures of the whole house shortly after we moved in, just so we had "before" shots of everything. Here are a few of them:

Kitchen/dining room

 Family Room

 Living room/dining area (that we are still trying to decide what to do with for now since we have the other dining area)

 Backyard/1000 Sq. foot deck (that is being ripped out as the morons who built the massive, orange deck didn't even put the thing on cement pylons)

 Basement

 One of our many projects (master bedroom "closet" - there is a walk in closet on the other side of that cedar planked wall and this one has a cable connection and outlet. And cedar wood. And gold, full length mirrors. It's all gotta go.)

 Master bath. This project is actually already almost completed. Ugly, dirty gold doors are gone, replaced by a cute shower curtain. Bottom tiles have been regrouted and sealed and we are working on finding a way to get the base cleaner...

Not on my list...

I have about 10 million things I should be doing instead of this, but I'm stressed and I'm hoping that writing on here for a minute will help. I told Nate I was stressed and didn't know why. His response? "packing, baby, moving, house? busy season? pregnancy?" 


Oh yeah - maybe those things. 


I haven't mentioned anything on here about the packing/moving/house stuff - that really deserves it's own post - but for today suffice it to say, we will be closing on a house next Thursday! We are SO excited and I'll try to post pictures and a more detailed story of the process in the next few weeks (or months, depending on when Mr. Boy decides to make his debut...). I wanted to make sure I posted about Christmas stuff, though, before it got too late and never happened. 


Nate had the Friday before Christmas and the whole week after off work, plus this past Monday. Needless to say, Karly and I were spoiled by having him around all day and going through withdrawals now that he's back at work. It's only going to get worse since we're entering busy season too! Nate made good use of the time he had off and spent TONS of time playing with Karly. It was awesome. 


Christmas Eve morning, Nate and Karly built a gingerbread house village. Gingerbread houses were never really a tradition in my family, but they were in Nate's and one he definitely wants to continue (though he did say next year he wants each person to have an individual house - I think the OCD came out in him with Karly trying to decorate with him...). 

Later in the day, Nate and Karly built a snowman and Dan and Kippy's house (there isn't really anywhere by our apartment to do it properly - next year it will be in our own back yard!). It was actually more like Nate building a snowman while Karly ate snow and told him to put eyes, a nose, mouth, hat, etc. on "Frosty." 

(Little Miss I'm-done-taking-naps had cold feet and a total meltdown when we took these pictures. Still cute though. :) 


The Monday after Christmas, we went sledding. Karly didn't seem to be having fun at first (might have been the face plant into the snow), but quickly warmed up to it and she and Nate ended up going the next day again while I was at the dentist. 

We got to do Christmas morning in our own place for the first time this year and we loved waking up in our own beds, getting up with Karly and seeing what Santa brought and opening presents together. Despite totally missing my family in Arizona, it was so nice to be home. We'll just have to make sure we spend good quality summer time with my family! 

These are not the best Christmas morning pictures, but we were having too much fun watching Karly open all her presents! 

It was a great Christmas break and, like I said, so nice to have Nate around so much, especially since he'll be pretty absent for the next couple of months. 

On to the craziness! 

Maybe now I can go get something accomplished....