Birthdays and Remodels!

We've definitely been keeping busy the past few weeks. Once Christmas was over, then it was time to get ready for Aubrey's birthday! We had her first party with all her friends over the weekend. In the past we've just celebrated with family, and last year we took her to Disneyland, so this year was a great year to have all her friends over.

We've also been doing a remodel in our house (pictures at the end of this post). We have a really big mudroom/bathroom/laundry room area. It's a big space that doesn't really get used much, so we decided it would be more effective to remodel and add a bedroom in that space. So Mathis is pretty much gutting the whole thing and moving walls around, and when he's done, we'll have a good sized bedroom downstairs. Now we'll have an actual guest room, instead of a toy room that doubles as a guest room. I'm already sick of the dust, but excited for when it's finished!

Here's pictures of us at Chuck E. Cheese's on Aubrey's birthday. She got to pick which restauraunt she wanted to go to, and of course, that's where we went.

Birthday girl!

This is Aubrey's preschool class. It was her "special day" on her birthday and she got to bring treats for her class. I made a poster board with all her pictures on it, and she got a prize from her teachers "treasure chest." She loved all the attention. :)

Her prize she picked. Princess...of course.

Aubrey showing off her shoes she got from Aunt Cindy at her birthday party.


We had a slight melt down when Mathis helped her blow out her candles since she was having trouble doing it herself. Aubrey is much too independent to get help with things like that, so we had to re-light the candles and blow them out again, and all was well. :)

Here's Austin's latest trick. He's been standing up on EVERYTHING. On this day he had obviously figured out how to stand in his crib (we've since moved it lower so he won't fall out). Other things he's started in the past couple weeks are: jabbering more and more, and he seems to understand a few simple words, and he CRAWLS! He's been doing some serious army crawling for quite some time now, but he finally got up on all fours and did it the "normal" way. It was pretty funny to see him zipping around on his belly all the time, though.

Of course, if we're ever taking a picture of Austin, Aubrey HAS to do what he's doing. So here she is, showing us that she can stand in a crib too. Way to go Aubrey, lol!

...And finally, here's a picture of our mud room before we tore it all apart. That door opens into a big bathroom and then the laundry room is by the bathroom. So there's a whole lot of space, especially in the mudroom, and the only thing we really use that room for is to keep our shoes and hang our coats. A bedroom will be MUCH more useful.

There's Mathis's big mess. That sure was fun to clean up. :p

Those steps aren't there anymore. Neither is the wall on the left of the steps. I'll post pictures as we get further along.