Valentines, sunsets, and life.

Sometimes, I find myself on "pause" from all the busy-ness of life, and I remember to be thankful for my blessings. I've been reading another blog lately, which brings a lot into perspective for me. It's a good reminder.

Our winter has sure been mild this year. That's a mixed blessing, I think. Milder temperatures, minimal snow and cold, ... sounds wonderful, right? But when we're in the hearth products business.... well, it's not so easy to sell stoves and fireplaces when people aren't really feeling the cold, you know? Still, we have been able to support our family and our business, which is really all I pray for.

Mild temps bring the bulbs out of the ground in a hurry:

Those are daffodils that are 16" out of the ground in the middle of February. In Idaho. It's unreal!

My "vintage" yardstick -- has '57 Chevy on the other side of it. Kinda fun!

As an early celebration of Valentine's Day, we and some of the extended family went out to dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants...

Todd was a real sweetheart and got this huge arrangement of roses and lilies. He sure knows my favorite things.

I had a singing Valentine come to work that morning... still trying to figure out how to get that video off my phone and onto the computer.

Todd also went out on a date with another girl:

She was over-the-moon excited when she found out that we'd gotten tickets for her and Todd to go to the community's  Daddy Daughter Dance together.  Since it was the day before Valentine's Day, I did a fancy hairstyle for her:

Todd took her out to dinner to one of her favorite restaurants before the dance, too.... 

And they posed for the photographer at the dance, as well:

Emma was just so excited about the whole thing! It sure made me smile to see the two of them heading out together. Todd said he got a lot of positive comments from total strangers at the restaurant, as well. 

As for us, we kept our Valentine's Day celebrations kind of quiet this year. We decided to eat in, instead of trying to fight the crowds at the restaurants in town. We know that Todd can cook steak better than them, anyway! 

So we ate home-grilled smothered steaks that night:

Realllly good!!

And I experimented with a copycat recipe of one of Todd's favorite restaurant desserts:

If I'd been completely happy with the results, I would have posted the recipe here. Since there are definitely changes I would make in both the blondie and the warm sauce, I will wait to post the recipe until I've got it the way I want it.

February has also been giving us some pretty sunsets along with the warmer weather. And it's warm enough (and dry enough) to even be out jumping on the trampoline in the late afternoon/evenings. 

(With a jacket, of course!)

One of these days, I will take the time to learn the settings on my camera, better than I know them now. After all the pictures I take, I'd think the quality would have improved a bit more. It's not perfectionism. It's just desire for self-improvement.

This morning, I told my Seminary students that I want them to go out and be different, so they can be better. If we keep doing the same things, we're going to get the same results. If I want to be better, I've got to do things differently.

And that, my friends, is my little gem of wisdom for the day!

school spirit, the lookalike, and claustrophobia

If I could go back and change one thing about my childhood, I would want to be a cooler kid than I was..... cool like my kids are.

They're not the ones that are super-popular. But they don't make enemies, and people just like them. I think Darcie has served in student government (every year since 8th grade), because people just like her. I was never that cool kid.

I only caught a couple of her outfits for our recent Spirit Week. First, Toga Day:

(which looks suspiciously like part of her 3 Kings outfit from Christmas Eve!)

And Character Day:

(Little Red Riding Hood.)

She knocked her finals out of the park, in part -- thanks to heavy-duty note-taking like this:

I don't like to blare the news all over Facebook, but she's worked really hard to keep straight A's, and we're pretty proud of her for that.

In other news, the Haven has seemed rather quiet lately. Brandon, Cecilia, & Giselle are away at school again. Cameron is gone off to school, as well. And Alyssa's off in Boise now -- going to school. We have three college kids at once!

(We sure miss this little cutie! They're so far away, we have to be content with Skype and a few photos. Don't you just want to squeeze those cheeks???)

Darcie is often gone after school for student government, working concessions, meeting with a teacher, softball workouts (Yep! That's starting up again!!),.....  and occasional social life activities. I'm having to re-think meals around the house again. A lot of our favorite meals make really large quantities, and we end up with leftovers for days! Note to self: stop cooking for an army!!

But we're adjusting. Miss Emma is growing quickly! Oh-my-goodness, this child is going to be grown out of her school clothes pretty dang quick! She's lost two teeth, and is working on another loose one. But the two real ways we know she's growing is 1- measuring chart in the kitchen, and 2- growing pains.

She is very much like Alyssa, (and Darcie, too) in that she gets growing pains at night. She'll creep into our bedroom, whimpering, and head over to Todd's side of the bed. (I sleep more deeply than he does, so he responds much faster.) And she'll be having leg aches that have woken her up. He rubs her legs, and will apply pain cream, too. Poor thing!!

She looks so grown-up in that picture! (We were headed off to church.) She reminds me a lot of what I looked like when I was her age.

(That's me at age 6, same as Emma. Any resemblance?)

She's usually pretty healthy, but if she gets sick -- we know it: because it wipes her out:

(I'm still a sucker for sleeping photos of my kids!)

Last month was the Sadie Hawkins' Dance at school. Instead of asking a boy, Darcie went with her friend who was DJing the music. They still dressed alike, and were pretty cute!

(It's the awkward date photo!)

And finally, some photos from the latest remodeling project: the Laundry Room.

Actually, the laundry room remodel is kind of in preparation for the Master Bathroom remodel. We're just taking this one step at a time.

But it does mean taking it down to the studs and the subfloor.

The wall on the right backs up to the dining room fireplace. (And the two fireplaces that are downstairs.)

Hmm... that's a good amount of dead space behind the wall.  We'll use some of that. What we didn't know about was the massive amount of cold air that was coming down out of the attic and heading for the basement, through this dead space behind the wall. Doing this in January helped inform us. If we'd been doing this in July, we would have had no clue about it.

So, Todd fixed it:

(That wasn't all. He also put expanding foam in the cracks, too. No more cold air!!)

On the other side of the fireplace, the gap behind the wall goes nearly to the basement floor. Before tearing into this wall, there have been times in the winter, that we've walked barefooted by that angled wall, and wondered why the heck the floor felt so cold. Todd decided he needed to go down and check under that part of the floor. 

("A rather tight pinch, but if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch!")

Todd is actually claustrophobic. 

Fortunately, it didn't bother him to check down there.

The other thing we decided to do, is to move the door to the laundry room. It's going about a foot to the side. (This means fixing the flooring in the hall too -- Domino Theory of home improvement once again!)

We also thought it would be a good idea to beef up the floor joists underneath the laundry room. When our washer gets going on full spin, no kidding -- it shakes the whole room!! It can rattle the window. It's pretty intense. For that reason, and others, we've considered replacing the set ...

Since we're planning on putting tile on the floor in the laundry room and the master bathroom behind it, strengthening and stabilizing the floor is a good idea. Already we can tell that the floor has much less "bounce" than it did before.

And re-routing the dryer vent  is also happening.

I'm pretty excited to see how the finished room will look, but we've got quite a bit to go on it. Todd has found that his body can't quite take the beating that he's given it in the past, so we need to re-think how hard he's working. I don't want him to be broken!

I am SO thankful for his talents!!

Ding, Dong, the Bells are Gonna Chime! ---- Two.

You've seen them together in the pictures. You've wondered if it's serious. You may have even asked me about it. Or, maybe you saw it on Facebook. Here's the blog post to answer all your questions!

They met about a year-and-a-half ago. (Can it be that long?)

They starting dating a few months after they met.

He began taking lessons with the missionaries.

She headed off to school, ...

... a difficult separation for them.

In February, he was baptized, and became a member of our church.

(We were pretty excited about that!!)

She returned in late spring...

Dating continued. Yep, they were serious!

In November, he proposed.

And she said yes!!

They've set a date in May, and the wedding plans are moving forward! We are so happy to be adding Andrew to our family!

While on our December trip to Boise, Alyssa found The Dress! It's gorgeous, and just her style. (No photos of that -- he hasn't seen it yet!)  Although going to the temple is in their future plans, out of deference to Andrew's family, they have decided on a civil marriage, so that his family can be there with them, to share in their joy.

Currently, Alyssa is at Boise State, pursuing her degree in Radiology. Andrew has already finished his degree, and made the big jump of leaving his managerial job locally, and moving to Boise, accepting a much more promising position with a large corporation there. After The Big Day, they will be settling in the Boise area.

We're pretty excited about these two!!

I took the photos above, because we're wanting to use a bunch of pictures as part of the reception decor. But I'm no professional. So, these next photos are some of the ones taken by our awesome wedding photographer. She's done a great job, and I can't wait to see how their wedding day photos turn out! You can see more of her work here, on her website.

Can you tell why I'm excited to see the wedding photos now?

And we're getting busy with wedding plans.

It's going to be awesome!!