Friends, friends, and more friends!

Memorial weekend was SO much fun for us! It all started Saturday when we had our good friends the Hurtado's over! :)

Jared, Emily and their adorable daughter, Halle!

Halle and Kaden had fun playing!

Halle posing for a picture :)

Sunday through Monday we went on our annual camp out with the Bailey's and the Halverson's!! Last August we went to Payson Lake for (what was supposed to be) 2 nights and 3 days of fun in the sun. Well, Kaden was teething and he had a really high fever because of the teeth, so after getting 2 hours of sleep the first night and him not taking a nap at all the 2nd day, we left after the 2nd day. Not an experience I was looking forward to repeating. This year, we all have babies 6 months or younger, so the brilliant Yuki suggested we go to a hotel in Park City! Her husband, Josiah, gets to go there free since he served in Iraq, so the price was perfect. :) There was a pool that was half indoors and half outdoors that they kept at 85 degrees and the hot tub was a dwonderful 104 degrees. The hotel room had a full kitchen area, a huge living room (with a DVD player and a pullout bed), a master bedroom (TV and DVD player here also) with a master bathroom (jetted tub!), another bedroom (with TV and DVD player...think there were enough?), another bathroom, and a closet with a washer and dryer in it!! It was AWESOME! Here are some pictures....
Logan and Kaden playing with trains and cars while they wait for the grown ups to get ready to swim!

Logan, Kai, and Kaden (in the back)...still waiting to go swim.

The kitchen (that, by the way, we were told to NOT to the dishes that we used! Woo!)

The living room...and all the men holding their babies. :)

Shane and Lexi

Josiah and Lily

Chad (being his usual cooperative self...)

Kenzie, Gaines, and Chad

Yuki with Kai, Chad with Logan, and me with Kaden (who was SCARED to DEATH in the pool....I dunked him to see if it would help....it didn't.)

Lexi hanging out by the hot tub

Hanging out in the hot tub: Logan, Kai, Kenzie, Josiah, and Yuki

Kenzie and Kaden playing in the pool

Dinner was Papa Murphy's pizza, chips, and soda. Kai managed to get a hold of one of the bags of chips and he and Kaden and Logan all took advantage of it. Haha :)

The oh so cute Logan eating chips

The babies!! Lexi (born 12/12/08), Gaines (born 1/26/09), and Lily (born 11/20/09). So, Lily is 3 weeks and one day older than Lexi, and Lexi is 6 weeks and 3 days older than Gaines. Yet, Gaines is bigger than them all! :) He is four months old and already 27 inches long!

They were so cute together! Gaines was working it with two ladies.... :)

All 6 kids!! From top left: Kai, Logan, Kaden, Lily, Gaines, and Lexi

Monday morning-Lexi and Lily hanging out and holding hands. Girls have to stick together, right? :)

We went shopping at the outlet malls on Monday. We got there before Carter's opened (the first store we wanted to hit) so the boys took the boys to the playground area there. :) Sunday night we watched Bride Wars and Mall Cop, then stayed up talking way past our bedtimes. It was SO fun and WAY better than last year's camping trip. :D This is my kind of camping!

Are you watching closely?

I know I just did a post yesterday (scroll down if you haven't seen my before and after pics-of the house, not me-haha), but I had to share this funny, funny story! So, the other day Shane put a piece of chocolate halfway in his mouth and leaned towards me to get the other half. Awwww, sweet, right? Well, today Kaden was eating pretzels and put half in his mouth, then got right in my face and tried to get the other half in my mouth!! Hahahaha I was laughing so hard! This isn't the first time Kaden has copied something Daddy has done, and I doubt it will be the last. I will have to tell Shane to keep the romantic stuff for AFTER the kiddos are in bed. Lol

My adorable copycat....at least he is good at sharing, right? :)

Before and after

Well, besides a bit more cleaning, the basement apartment is FINALLY ready to rent! YAY! I have the before and after pictures for you, but only of the basement. The upstairs will be another day (after the day where I clean to take pictures...). The basement is about 1250 sq. ft. and a LOT of work (and money!) went into it. Enjoy!

This is the master bedroom before. There was water damage under the windows, so Shane had fun tearing stuff out and then fixing it.

We put new carpet in the bedrooms...and new paint. It's amazing what some paint can do for a place!

This is the second bedroom (the medium sized one). You can see the water damage around the windows here.

The 2nd bedroom after! We still need to go buy doors for the closets. They didn't come with them.

Before....this is the 3rd bedroom (and smallest). I figure it can either be a baby's room (they don't need much room, right?) or an office. I absolutely HATED painting the paneling. I didn't like that color, though, so I knew I had to do it.

3rd bedroom after!

Massively huge bathroom before.

Ta-Da! Shane put in a new toilet (the other one was NASTY!), there was no fan-so Shane put that in as well. Luckily, the previous owners actually did the tile right in here (you will understand why I say that after I do the upstairs pictures...), so we didn't have to put new tile in.

Another view of the bathroom before. It's big, huh?!

And after!

This is the living room area before...that cord coming in was a quick-fix way to hook cable up.

And the living room after!

This is more living room/getting into the kitchen area....before...

After!

And I saved my favorite for last: the kitchen...before..

Before...the fridge is leaning to one side, the dishwasher may or may not work and it's missing the bottom cover part, and the oven and disposal don't work at all. (It STUNK before Shane got the disposal working-yuck! It had been sitting there for at least a year-sick!)

AFTER! YAY! We brought down the fridge and dishwasher from upstairs and bought a brand new oven (I am SO jealous!), painted (the cabinets, too!!), and fixed the disposal (and lit a few candles). :D It looks SO much better!

Another view of the kitchen after-so pretty!

Another view as you come into the apartment of the living room.

So, not exactly Extreme Home Makeover or anything, but it is at least decent to rent now! Woo!

Happy Birthday Shane!

Yesterday was Shane's 26th birthday! He hates surprises, but I LOVE surprising people, so I decided it is time for him to learn to love it. :D It started with a surprise party on Saturday. I kept it very small because Shane likes smaller groups rather than huge ones. He had absolutely no idea and was a great sport about it. Our friends kidnapped Shane Saturday morning so that I could get everything ready. I had everyone wait in the kitchen and told them I would somehow get Shane in there one way or another. It worked out perfectly because Shane and Danny (the kidnapper) had gone to Lowe's and bought yet more stuff for our basement. Shane walked in the door and headed straight for the kitchen so that he could take the stuff downstairs. It was perfect!

Some of the people waiting...(from left: half of my mom, Shane's 18 year old sister Janelle, Shane's 15 year old sister Breanne, Shane's mom)

Shane was thoroughly surprised...this is as much of a reaction as you will get out of him. :)

Shane was a great sport and I loved it!

We had brownies and ice cream instead of cake and ice cream because Shane LOVES, LOVES, LOVES brownies. :) The numbers say 36 instead of 26 because the 2 is still in a box somewhere apparently. Oops.... :D But it did make for some good jokes.

More people (well, the same ones, just moved around). haha

Shane reading a card....here is Danny (the kidnapper). Thanks Danny!

Shane's family on the couch, Steph (Danny's wife) in the green shirt, Kelly (brunette) next to my cousin Jessica (blonde...haha).

My mom playing with Lexi...who do you think is having more fun? ;)

The Crystal Light was yummy!

Shane excited about some computer thingy he got.

Shane and Kaden

Kaden knows what he wants! :D

Lexi loves her daddy

So, Monday (Shane's actual birthday) I took him to see Wolverine and then to Red Robin, then to Cold Stone. :D Kelly was awesome enough to babysit the kids for us. It was the first time in 2 years that we have gone on a date (except temple outings) without kids. It was so nice! Thanks Kelly!!

We were the only ones in the theater (until 4 more people showed up right before it started....but we still basically had the place to ourselves). I was trying to take a picture, but it hurt Shane's eyes so he kept blinking when the flash went off (his eyes hurt because of his eye disease...). We tried one more picture and Shane promised to keep his eyes open...

LOL....he kept his eyes open! :D

Red Robin was delicious, of course, as well as Cold Stone. While we were gone, Kelly was beating our children....(totally kidding! Kelly is awesome!)

Kaden was really, really excited to see Liz and he ran into a corner of a glass table. Poor kid, but honestly, he's had worse. This wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. :)

He looks like I put eye shadow on him. :)

And now, a message from Lexi:
(p.s. she literally does this ALL day-I think it is hysterical!)