Video of our Sweet baby girl!

My brother is on his mission in Indianapolis, Indiana and I am so proud of him and the things he is learning, accomplishing, and the time he is spending serving the lord.  I wanted to add a video I took recently of Brenae so he can see her personality and how much she has grown-since he left weeks before she was born. Anyway, to all who see it, enjoy! She certainly is a sweet girl and we have loved having her.  Logan is just stricken with her! She is pretty good, but when she wants attention or to be held she will cry until she gets what she wants.  She also, when she is throwing fits, will stiffen her body almost like she is planking.  It is kind of funny and I'm sure is something she will continue to do as she gets older. She is full of smiles in the morning and can put any sleep deprived mom in a good mood.  She also will giggle when people around her are laughing and really enjoys when people talk directly to her.  What a fun girl she is and we can't wait to see how she grows and develops but at the same time we want her to stay little cause she is soooo adorable.

WOW! Time Flies!

I realized that it has been quite a while since I have updated the blog and decided that it was time! It seems time has flown by with how busy our life has been. So I will do a short update on us all and post some recent pictures.

Logan- Still in school, has started his Mechanical Engineering program! He is so excited to be making progress on his chosen career and makes the classes a little more bearable! :) We are so proud of him and his hard work, working 30 hours a week and going to school full time!  Logan just started a local biggest loser contest and has high expectations of making all his personal goals and winning the competition, so far he is doing really well and is very motivated!

Tracie- Is staying at home with Jake which I love and is currently pregnant.  This pregnancy has been very different than the last one.  For starters, I have had pretty bad morning sickness from about 6 weeks until about 14 weeks. That has been a challenge, but I like to look at it as a blessing in disguise; my goal this pregnancy was to not gain so much extra or unneeded weight, because I have been so sick, I have lost my appetite for a lot of foods I used to enjoy and don't feel the need to eat junk food a lot.  So far I have only gained 5 pounds and am so happy and hope that I can keep it up!  Besides keeping up with Jake and helping Logan where I can, I am in the Young Women's in my ward and am loving it! They sure keep me busy between mutual and teaching on Sundays.

 Jake- Is growing up too fast! He is a speed runner, a ball of joy, and very loveable!  He is recently working on saying words, we have been kinda concerned about it cause he should know how to say more words than he does, but I have come to realize that Jake is very stubborn and will say words when he wants to.  So far, he can say pretty clearly: Stop, no, don't, please, baby, mom, and dad.  He know a few sign language signs that help out a lot such as: more and all done.  He seems to be understanding and learning more and more every day and is sure fun!  He is very busy and keeps me on my toes every day, but tries to be a good boy.

Anyway, that's just a short update on what we have been up to and hope you are all healthy and doing well!

Project Update: Complete!

Whew!! These last five months have been busy and crazy full of hard work on our house.  We have only updated the upper level of the house, but it is finally complete! (Well, there are a few minor things that need to be done, but not a big deal!) I am so excited to be able to enjoy the house and take a breather for a while.  So, I am going to attempt to post before and after pics of the house, but, I think it is much easier if you just come pay a visit :).
Living Room Before's:

Living Room After's:

 The living room was probably the easiest to do, the walls and carpets just needed to be cleaned, and add some new paint and you are good :)

Master Bedroom Before:

 Master Bedroom After:

This bedroom was pretty simple, it just needed a good cleaning and a new paint job too.  We received some new carpet as a gift and installed new carpet in here as well.

Second Bedroom Before's:

 Second Bedroom After's:

 This room was a bit of a challenge.  The blue wallpaper took a while to get off but turned out really nice.  We also received carpet as a gift for this room too, and we are so thankful for it cause this room needed it sooooo bad!

Now for the Kitchen Before's:

 Kitchen After's:

 The kitchen took us about 3 weeks to do.  As you can see, we had a lot of work.  One thing that I am really glad we did while updating the house, is adding a dishwasher.  It makes it soooo nice!

 For this update, we painted the cabinets, installed the dishwasher, put on new countertops, painted, and put in new flooring. 

Dining Room Before:

 Dining Room After:

This room is conjoined with the kitchen so most of what we did in the kitchen we continued into here.
Bathroom Before:

 Bathroom After:

 The bathroom was a bit tricky, the people who owned the house before us had painted the bathtub and the paint started to peel and so in the process of fixing that up, we decided to do the rest, and I am so glad!

So that's  the house and all the work that was put into it! I'm glad it's done and Logan is too! Ha ha!  I hope you enjoy the pics and when you come visit next, we would love to give you a tour :)

Busy Quarter

The past few months we have been SUPER busy!  We bought a house at the end of January and did some updating on it before moving in around the end of February.  We are still working on the house and it is slowly coming along.  There are lots of finishing work to finish and some painting to be done which I am hoping to finish this summer.

Logan has been in school this last quarter and with all the projects we have taken on with the house has been struggling with school.  We are hoping that next semester will be a bit easier where he can focus on only school and work.

With the warm weather comes yard cleanup and gardening.  Logan and I are starting our first garden and it has been going pretty well.  Logan tilled up the grass in a section of our back yard and chopped down the bushes in the area so we could get ready.  With the warm weather we went ahead and planted our garden and are hoping that the weather doesn't get too cold.  Our yard is in pretty decent shape, there are some things we need to clean up such as a bathtub that was put in the ground (not sure what it was used for) and instead of pouring a sidewalk to lead to the back yard, the previous owner just used broken up tile and stone.  Plus, there is a lot of paint and other garbage that they left that we need to get rid of.  I will be busy making some garden beds and giving the yard some more curb appeal.

With how busy we have been, I haven't really noticed how big and grown up our little Jake has gotten.  He is no longer a helpless baby, he is mobile!  He started crawling and even though he is still getting the hang of it, he wants to get into everything!  He is so much fun and I am so glad that I can quite my job this summer and be able to spend more time with him.  He is the sunshine in my day and he sure loves to be around people, he does not like to be alone very much.

Well that is a quick update about us and I will post pictures later of the before and after's of our house.

The Holidays of 2011

The Holidays this year have been great so far. We spent Thanksgiving with Logan's family. We had dinner at Cindy's house with lots of family there. It was great to spend time doing crafts and such with the girls. :) We then had to go to Twin Falls on Friday night because one of our vehicles needed the timing belt changed, and Tracie's sister-in-law's baby shower was on Saturday. Logan was sad that he didn't get to spend as much time with his family, but was glad we were able to save a lot of money by having my dad help him out with fixing the car.

Christmas was crazy! We spent Christmas with Tracie's family and boy did we get spoiled! We had lots of fun. We traveled to Twin Falls the morning of Christmas Eve and spent the day getting settled, visiting with family that stopped by, and playing games. My family also does a gift exchange where we draw names and get them a gift. We exchanged those gifts on Christmas Eve, because it is tradition in my family to open a gift on Christmas Eve and we thought those would be good ones to open. The next morning, Christmas morning, we woke up to a surprise from Santa ;). We must have been on the nice list because we got plenty! Even Jake got plenty to last him a while! My dad had Jake's name for gift exchange and he looked all over town to find his gift and fortunatly, was able to get the last one in town! He got Jake a little rocking horse that talks and sings. It was so cute putting him on it! I have a video of him on it, if I can get it to upload. Logan spoiled me this year and got me a sewing machine, and I got him (but let him pick it out) a home theatre system.

Anyway, we love our families and are very grateful for the spirit and meaning of the holidays. We want to thank everyone for your support and gifts you have given us for Christmas and throughout the year. We love you all and wish you a Happy New Year!

My Cute and handsome boys!

Our gifts from Santa!

Jake opening his present!

Me and my cutie!-just after his haircut

Jake on his rocking horse for the first time!

My, How He's Grown!

Well it has been a while since my last post and thought I would update. We have been so busy with the holidays and Logan finishing school, and me going back to work, that it has been hard to find time to update.
Logan finished his first semester of College with some B's and C's and is proud but knows he needs to up his game if he wants to get into Dental School. He finally finished registering for this next semester and is excited about some of his classes.
Tracie stopped nursing Jake since she went back to work and has been having a hard time losing the extra weight that she gained while pregnant. So she started dieting the 1st of November and lost 20 pounds in the month of November.
Jake, who is the highlight of our life, is learning so many new things. He is doing better with sitting up, has found out he has a voice and uses it, giggles, and is learning to grab things. He is just as cute as can be and we love having him in our life.
Here is a few pics of Jake as of late:

SSSSSSSOOOOOO CUTE!!!!

His Second haircut in 3 & 1/2 Months!!!

Baby Update!

have been so busy enjoying Jake that I haven't blogged in a while. At the end of September, Jake and I went down to Twin Falls for a couple days to stay with my family. We had lots of fun going to watch my sister play volleyball and hanging out with my mom and sisters.
We blessed Jake the week after Conference on October 9th, and he needed a hair cut before the blessing. So Logan held Jake while I tried my best to get his hair even.

The hair we cut off!

Jake's 5th Generation Picture. Great Grandpa Merrill (to the Left of me) is the only living great-grandparent both Logan and I have. It was nice to have him able to attend and be able to take such a rare picture!
Jake weighed in at 11 lbs at his one month WIC appointment and is growing so well! It seems he learns something new everyday! The latest one that I am enjoying is he sleeps all night! Between 6-8 hours, with only a few night here and there that he wakes up every 3 or 4 hours-but it has been really nice to sleep!

He loves to bath, shower, and be in the water-the second he hears the water turn on, he quiets down and is so content. (See video below-his funny shower face!)

I love the little things he does, such as, eating his fist when he starts getting hungry. He has started using his tongue more too, so we like to play with him a little and have him lick an "invisible popcicle".

He has also become more vocal over the last couple weeks and will "talk" with me. I love it cause he smiles so much more and just seems so happy! (See video below.)

The last week or 2, I have been trying to get out and exercise more and decided we needed a stroller so I could go walking whenever I wanted to. So since we got it, Jake and I have been walking up to the school to meet Logan just when he finishes his classes for the day and then walks home with us. It is nice cause it gives me about an hour of exercise and Jake either sleeps the whole time or sits so contently and enjoys being outside.