A New Nephew!

Dave's sister Larissa and her husband Jon had their second child this afternoon! A little boy!

Welcome Mitchell Ford Nelson!
He was born at 1:08 pm today, he is 7 lbs. 15 oz. and is 19 1/2 inches long

Congratulations Larissa and Jon, we are so excited to meet him!

The Guest Room

When we moved into our house there were a few things we wanted to change, we wanted to paint a few rooms but the big project was in what would become our guest room. You see there were three painted wooden frames nailed into the wall, I don't know why... 'Decoration' is all I can think of. Now I'm sure that doesn't sound too bad but when the previous owners put them up, they really wanted to make sure they weren't coming down.

Each one of these little treasures were held up with some sort of adhesive directly on the wall and then for good measure 42 nails... Each, not total... This picture is of Dave prying them off the wall with a hammer (this was also one of the rooms we wanted to paint, the blue is a little too bright for my idea of a guest room)

As you can see the frames had a piece of wood in the middle that was nailed in. The project we took on was big but we had a lot of fun doing it together.

After everything had been pried off, the next step was to spackle over the wall to cover up all the nail holes and the rips that the adhesive made. I only have a picture of the 'finished' product because my hands were covered in spackle and I didn't want to ruin my camera by trying to take a picture. After we spackled, we had to sand it down to make the wall smooth again, that meant a lot of white dust! It was lucky that we had just gotten a really good deal on a shop vac (Black Friday sales!) there is no way a normal vacuum would have been able to clean all that up!

After all that work, we painted. Isn't it wonderful all painted and smooth? I was very proud of how it looked when we were all finished with this project!

I thought I would add another picture of our guest room. The room is not completely done yet, I still have some decorating to do but people have been asking for pictures and I thought I would start with this one :)

My Valentine

With Valentine's Day being on a Sunday, Dave and I decided to celebrate this past Monday. I had a friend coming into town on Friday and we figured it would be easier/less crowded to wait until Monday. I got to spend time with my friend Alisa and we didn't have fight the crazy mass of people also trying to express their love...

I woke up Monday morning to to a vase of read roses, I wasn't expecting that at all! Dave and I had already planned on our traditional Valentine's Day gift giving. In the evening we would go out (just like we have always done ever since we started dating) and go shopping together to find gifts, sometimes we pick them out together and sometimes we surprise each other but that is our little tradition. With Christmas being so recent and my birthday and our anniversary right around the corner, it is a lot less stress (and a lot more fun!) to go out together. Dave also made breakfast for me (also not expecting that!) french toast cut into the shape of hearts. It was really sweet of him, he always tries to do little things that he knows will make me happy. Later we went out to dinner at Mimi's Cafe and then shopping for our gifts. It was a wonderful day that I got to spend with my wonderful husband!

A Stealthy Trip To Temple Square

Around New Years, my family all went to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square and go to the the restaurant ''the Roof". Helena and Kurt (my older sister and her husband) were in town visiting, so it really nice to be able to have them there as well.

(Helena and Kurt)

Our first stop was The Roof, it is really neat place! It overlooks the Salt Lake Temple and it is extra awesome when the grounds are all lit up during the Christmas season. Another cool thing about the restaurant is the fact that is has an entire dessert buffet (how can you not like a restaurant like that?!)

After dinner we went and walked the grounds at Temple Square. It was snowing and cold but very beautiful!

We were almost going to skip walking the grounds this year because of how cold it was, I'm so glad we didn't! With the snow falling, it really made it extra magical!

Now I am sure you are wondering 'why does Dave looks so happy and warm in this picture if it is supposed to be freezing cold?' Good question, I'm glad you asked. The reason is because he was happy and warm... I'll tell you why but it will take a little bit of background information.
The restaurant has wonderful rolls, the kind they bring to you until you cant take it anymore. My little brother David loves bread and was super excited to eat the rolls at the Roof, unfortunately he was sick and ended up not being able to go :( but he still wanted us to bring him back some. The thing about the Roof is that it is an extremely nice restaurant that is a buffet (I know it seems like an oxymoron, a super nice buffet, but somehow this place does it!) and being such they don't let you take food home with you, especially their prized rolls! Poor David...sick and now he gets no rolls! Lucky for us we had a really nice waitress who told us she would sneak us some on one condition, we couldn't let anyone see us leave with them...
And so it began, the waitress brought 12 rolls wrapped in plastic wrap, it made a 12 by 12 inch block of rolls.... How were we going to get these puppies out!? I came back to the table to find Dave sitting alone (everyone else was getting their last bit of food) he was buttoning up his shirt... No one could figure out where the rolls went... Dave had hid them, he put them behind his back, tucked underneath his buttoned-down dress shirt. It was amazing! You couldn't even tell, we walked out and no one blinked an eye! My husband has skills :)
So when everyone else was freezing as we walked around Temple Square, Dave was nice and warm as the hot rolls kept him toasty.