What $35 dollars can do...MAGIC!

5 hundred 25 thousand 600 minutes...

WOHA! OK, we've been in our little Salt Lake home for a year now!! Time has just flown by and it's been awesome! We've really loved this area and being close to Justin's parents and grand patents and our neighbors are just the best neighbors in the world!

Anyway, we've still got a long way to go on our little 'sugar' house...making it our own, etc. etc. But we thought it would be fun to show little changes that we have made, that we haven't blogged about yet... you know a little 'before and after' goodness!

Hope you enjoy the ride... (time warp, more like it... ha!)

FRONT ROOM: Before, I hate to say it, but this white carpet didn't even last one week! Between our kids and the cat... it was doomed the minute we walked in...

Refinished hard wood floors... Oooo!

New Paint... Ahhhh! I love watching a man work! (but we are a good team... i do around the corners and edges... J does the walls!) Mmmm. like bread and butter!

...and new painted trim! Panda's work at it's finest!
New windows and new (to us, Thanks to Nana and Papa Williams!!) couch and chairs!! LOVE THEM! The table is from Justin's parents!
Don't mind the blue tape, actually i don't even notice it any more... It's like part of the house! (this picture was taken about a month ago... and now I've got the first coat of window trim done... and I'll finish that on up this coming week. I hope!)

Were also going to get plantation shutters put in (eventually...) and we'll get a nice rug, frame the mirror, quarter round on baseboards, and a few pictures up on the walls... I'd love a piano in this room too... (not sure where I'd put it... or how to play it...) but guess I'll just have to hope, pray and wait till one drops from the sky... or just shows up on my door step. :)

New front window and chairs... Sorry, this is so dark... but you get what you pay for, "What reading my blog is free???... Oh, yeah... there you go!"

"Excellent!"

"Ex-cell-ent!"

"Wait... did you just say Excellent because i said Excellent?"

"Uhh... (thinking)...No!"

(bragging rights... if you can name that movie!!!)

ANYWAY...

THE KITCHEN: Before: decked out in blue,yellow and white pansies!

After:
We still have the back room to show... but the fire place is having another 'bad hair day' so we'll catch that another time... However... here's the latest addition to the family... :)

Love it! Happy Anniversary to us... Whoopee 1 year!

St. George Trip!

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know i posted about our trip to St. George... but i started it a few days ago... and posted it today... so you have to scroll down to see it! Enjoy!

J & A

Our week in review!

Thursday:

Caitlin's friend Isabelle came over today... We played dress up, had a tea-party and watched a little bit of Enchanted (till it started skipping) and a little bit of Peter Pan!! Then they played 'keep away' from Will for a little bit!! We had so much fun!

Cinderella:
Tinkerbell:

Wednesday: Justin took me on a date to go see IRON MAN, our Friends Yung and Damon watched the kids... we had a great time! Awesome movie!!
Tuesday:

Caitlin came to me and said she wanted to carry her piggy around in her shirt. Instead...I showed her how to make a baby sling so she could carry "Wilbur" around... So cute to see her play with this little piggy!

she wasn't really ready when i took this picture... but i liked how it displayed the sling!
That's better! I think even the pig is smiling!

Caitlin left the piggy out on the table... with the baby bottle it came with. Will found it, and started feeding him... He will make a great daddy some day! SOME DAY! (woah!)

Monday:

We spent Monday night FHE taking care of the yard! Justin mowed the lawn, I took care of weeds and trimmings. Then we took the kids get tomato plants and then to 'Shivers' for dinner (burger and ice cream joint that has a cute toy train where the kids could eat their dinner... with a 'Candy Land' theme, real cute!)

My Peony bush was overflowing with beautiful fluffy-ness... i cut some and gave them to the neighbor and also made this bouquet... they are my favorite and they smell just heavenly!!

This just made me laugh! i said smile... and she smiled! she must get the 'make a goofy smile' face from Justin... this was right after he planted the garden!

Our Strawberries have made a strong return this year!! Whoopy! back off snails!

Yea! Our little garden is finally planted!! We hope this spot works for growing our veggies. For years it was covered by concrete, as part of the driveway... but we took it out so we could put in the rest of the fence. Instead of covering it with sod, we thought we'd make a garden out of it... it's half the size of our garden we had in Layton... but we are still excited to have a garden of our own... 'a bit of earth.'!!!

Planted: from Left to right, Pumpkin, Red Bell Peppers, Tomatoes- grape and Big Boy, Sugar snap peas and that brown stick thing (right hand corner) is a raspberry or blackberry plant...

There you have it! Our week so far.

St. George Trip!!

Thursday before Memorial day we decided to take a trip to go see some buddies down south! We left Salt Lake around 4:30 pm and were glad to be leaving the 'rainy city' behind... this is Justin's Ninja Driving Warrior face... LOTs of Traffic... and Rain... but we were still having a good time! Yea, for Vacations!! and this weekend was the PERFECT get away...


Justin with his mission buddy Brandon!! We only got to visit for about a half a day... but it was time well spent... he and his wife and kids are so awesome!! We had a wonderful breakfast and the kids had fun jumping on the tramp and playing at the park...

Beautiful back yard... with a creek. This is right by the trampoline...

Caitlin and Dallin had so much fun together! Instant buddies!

I love this picture... Caitlin's got some air!! whooo-hooo!

Will, having a blast on the Tram. look at those cute curls!

Someone was looking for attention... He kept throwing himself down and bouncing and laughing!

Park fun! Brandon, Megan, Justin and Caitlin!

Panda and Wilbur, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

This is us, having fun!

On the road again...

This is a "fake conversation" we had after we took this picture...

"So, can you tell me what you were doing at the time of the collision?"

"Well, officer... documenting our trip... duh!"

Next J and A (Justin and Amanda) went to visit A and J... (Aja and Jonah) in Beautiful St. George, Utah! What a weekend... truly it was one to remember! The weather for St. George was unlike we've ever seen... (upper 60's-low 70's... and just breath taking!) It was a pleasant surprise.

SO, Here we are taking a walk... that ended in climbing a fence and taking a killer awesome hike to some HUGE red rock caves behind the neighborhood! (see pic below!) It was so SO beautiful! It really inspired us to want to take more nature walks/hikes with the kids this summer... they did surprisingly well for ages 2 and 3!!

This is just so beautiful... I guess I never realized that cactus had flowers, maybe because I've always seen them in the dead of summer... there were many others like this along the road with the most beautiful orange colored flowers... So pretty!

This is after we jumped the fence... Will would stop walking every now and then...look at me... and then smile. (That was my cue he was ready for me to strat the count off!)

"One... Two... Three... GO!" and he'd run as fast as he could!! What a cutie!

Caitlin and Cam! (posing as Dora and Diego!) These two were so cute to watch all weekend!

Jonah, and awesome view from the caves!

Looking into the cave... you can see Justin and Jonah there...

Family Photo Time...

Cam and Caitlies

Cam doing his 'spider walk' down the steep parts...

I LOVE this picture of my men!!

Coming down the mountain was the FUN part for Will and Caitlin!! They wanted to slide down EVERYTHING... even when it was totally flat... they'd sit down and say 'wheeeeee'... it doesn't take much to please our 'city folk' kids! RED BUTTE! haha

Hike #2...

This was the best! We headed a little further into Snow Canyon so we could check out the petrified sand dunes, and lava caves! Jonah, Justin, me, Cam, Caitlin, Will and Elsie. (Aja took Ana to her horse riding lessons! We missed them dearly, but know that Ana was pretty much in heaven with her horses!)

So, here's Justin (stretching before the big hike... haha!) I wanted to point out their awesome Car in the back ground!! "Fish n' Chip" is what the plate says... CUTE! You'll get it in a sec... Here's a funny story about our way up the canyon...

We stop at the 'gate' where you show your pass (if you have one) or you pay...so you can visit the canyon. Jo is talking to the Ranger and all of a sudden she says... "Wow, it's smells like a BBQ... have you guys been BBQing already today??" (It was sometime before 10 am!) We all laugh... and then Jo says... "Nah... it's my car... it runs on used Vegetable Oil..." It was funny, i guess you almost had to be there...

Since our visit... Justin has been researching Diesel cars that you can convert into running on grease/ oil... that you can get for FREE at McDonald's, Chinese buffets, fish n' chip places... etc... Talk about SMART car! our buddies haven't payed for gas in almost 2 years... Wouldn't you like to say the same???

OH...knock the breath right out of me... I'm so in love with this... wow! I mean WOW!

petrified sand dunes...

looking for the lava caves...

found them... or one...

After our hike! Cam and Caitlin... Chillen in the back of Fish N'Chip. We headed over the mountain to a cute little town... to a local dinner and had some really yummy pizza! nothing like pizza after a long hike! Yeah!

My two little buddies... Will and Elsie...(Will shared his cheese crackers and juice with cute little Elsie...)

We decided to go swimming when we got home... it was pretty chilly, so we spent most of the time in the hot tub and worked on our tans!!

Justin actually got Caitles to jump into the pool to him!! so cute!

Will just walked around the pool and teased us... he was just busy showing off his beach body! (nice six pack dude!!)

"It's hard lookin' this good!"

mini concert form our two C's (Cam and Caitles!)

Elsie was my little buddy all weekend... she'd come crawl into my lap and just sit and look at me... what a sweetheart!

Will got a sweet lizzard Kite from Nans and Pops for his birthday... SO glad we brought it... we had a good time trying it out...

These two clapped and cheered everytime it went up... or when it would come crazhing down on me... yeah, that really made them laugh! Yeah, halarious!

No day is compleate without fishing!

AND... No day is perfect without a visit to burger heaven it'self... IN-N-OUT BURGER, UTAH!!

This was the cherry on top of our vacation! lines out the doors and into the parking lot... What a Blast! (IN-N-OUT Salt lake? I'm deffinitly feeling it! )

Thanks again A and J... we had such a great time with you guys... and plan on comming down again in July for a little musical theatre goodness, at Tucahn!!

Will pretty much fell a sleep right away, Caitlin watched a movie or two.. and loved having the player all to herself... what a kick...

YEAH! hope you enjoyed... can't wait to report on the next Cracroft Family Fun adventure!!