Blessed!

We had a double baby blessing with Jeff and Carole blessing baby Gabriella. This was the first gathering with the Souths and Millers combined, since our wedding. That is a lot of people! Carole and I had a lot of fun preparing for this special night. It was pretty convenient that both of the baby's names start with G. We had lots of fun decorating with them. We served a yummy dessert buffet. Thanks to everyone who helped bring treats!

These pictures make me laugh. I don't know how to say it without sounding bad but it's funny because it looks like Jesus is presenting the babies, which is good, but the pictures are just funny...

Marc gave Griffin a beautiful blessing. Griffin was so peaceful through it. He is such a good baby and we are so thankful to be his parents.

Too Late for Christmas?

Perhaps but here we go anyway... This is our holiday season in photos.

We started the month off right with a photo shoot of this cute babe. My intention was to send out a card to everyone, but obviously that didn't happen. Here are the adorable pictures though. Thanks Cort, for your mad skills behind the lense! This hat is so cute! Thanks to Aunt Jeni for sending it to us from Kentucky!

PARTIES

South Family Christmas party at Marc's brother Mikle's house. We made and decorated gingerbread houses and had delicious fondue. Grandpa Lapworth surprised us with a visit all the way from Washington!We had the Miller family Christmas party in Mona. Our family starred as Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus for the traditional nativity. I'm very grateful for Mary and so very grateful that I didn't have to give birth in a stable. I have a totally new perspective on that now.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Jolly Old Saint Mickolas
Griffin's first Christmas was a great one. He was so cute in his Christmas Jammies. We had a nice relaxing morning followed by a long nap. This is the first nap that I have taken since he was born and it was fabulous!
CHRISTMAS AFTERNOON

Arrggh Matie!

Griffin sported his holiday pirate apparael. Ok so it had nothing to do with the holidays but it was adorable and Auntie Em gave it to him for Christmas! Griffin got to meet Aunt Em for the first time, but unfortunately I have no pictures.

We enjoyed our holidays completely!

3 Months Already!

Please ignore my annoying voice, greasy hair and large schnoz. Just listen to that cute, sweet baby!

I never knew how awesome this mom business would be!

I CAN'T PUT MY ARMS DOWN!

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This Old House

Once upon a time we had a dream. We thought that we could make this little old house (originally built in 1907) our dream home. We put two and a half years of work into it. No, we did not work the entire time. We definitely went through spurts of motivation and bouts of no motivation at all. But when we did work we worked hard. We had no idea that 900 square feet could be so much work. Through all of this work we fought with American Fork City to try and subdivide the property so that we could buy the house. But after two and half frustrating years of run around we finally gave up and decided to move. Here are some pictures of our efforts .

Let's start with the bathroom. I've already done a post on this but here is a refresher.
Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

What we did
Paint
New counter top
New mirror
Gas line for the washer and dryer
New fabulous towels and shower curtain

Nursery Before

Nursery After

What we did
Do you remember this post? And this one?
Destroyed all walls
Moved doorway
Vaulted the ceiling
Insulated walls and ceiling
Added closet
New windows
Beautiful Wainscot
Paint
This room was the only room in the house that we did everything that we wanted to from start to finish. It was my favorite and would have been so perfect for our little babe. It's so sad to think that he never got to see it!

Bedroom Before

Bedroom After

What we did

Painted

Baseboard

Added 2 BIG closets

Ceiling Fan

Made entrance through the hall instead of the family room

Family Room Before

Family Room After

We added the fireplace

Finished Fireplace

What we did

Closed entrance to master bedroom

Painted

Added fireplace

Kitchen Before Kitchen After

What we did
Stripped off Wallpaper, then pulled off tile that was under the wallpaper

Put up bead board

Sanded cabinets, painted cabinets RED, replaced knobs

New faucet at sink

New stainless steel appliances

Other things not pictured:
Marc did all new electrical throughout the house. It was still running on fuses and was un-insurable.
He also moved the furnace from the middle of the hallway, into the attic.
We put in an on demand water heater... it was amazing and we NEVER EVER ran out of hot water.
New blinds throughout the house.
Tore down the grainery and Marc built a darling little shed (I can't find my pictures of it... I've SEARCHED! I'll go over there and take some and post them later).
Poured a concrete patio in the backyard
Laid sod in the backyard
I'm sure that after I post this I will remember some more things that we did. But for now this is it. Marc is amazing and did a lot of the work all by himself.

We didn't really do anything to the exterior of the house that we would have liked to do. We had big plans but they involved big money. Now that we don't live there I can say that it was "fun" to remodel and transform this nasty house into our cute little home. I can also say that I truly miss it. We made a lot of memories there and it is really hard to put all of that work into something and then have someone else move in.

If you are still reading this...thank you! But now you should go read someone elses blog that is more interesting.

For the mom who still needs to vacuum, clean, craft, blog, and so much more! It's so nice to have both hands again. And how convenient is it that his sweet little head is always right there for me to kiss and sniff?! I just love it!