Zach's Projects

In between work, school, and family life Zach has managed to accomplish a lot of projects:

Zach's parents gave us a few bookcases that they were no longer using (and if you know Zach, you know how many books we have...). Zach refinished them to a great dark cherry color.

This bookcase will go upstairs

This bookcase is in Carolyn's room. Her books are kept on the shelves and all her baby clothes, bottles, shoes, bibs etc are in the drawers!

An endtable that our neighbor gave us. She had already stripped it and Zach refinished it a dark cherry color that matches our TV cabinet really well. It fits perfectly in the skinny place between our couch and chair.


The new microwave and stove Zach put in! The old one was harvest gold - I love the new one! We need a trim kit to go around the edge of the stove, Zach ordered it and it should be here by the weekend.

A look at the cooking side of the kitchen

Exercise Time

I've started a much needed exercise routine and Carolyn loves to join in! I have a few exercise DVD's that I rotate doing each morning and Carolyn either watches, participates (which is a hoot), or plays around me (which is a bit precarious).

Now, one of her favorite activities is to play "exercise class" and she is the teacher. The hilarious thing is that Carolyn uses all these phrases she hears on my videos (now reach your arm across the body, ok everyone down to your mat....).


Stretching

Another stretch

Although it looks like another stretch, this was part of a jumping jack.

Winter Weather!

Christmas in PA!

The day after Christmas we traveled to PA to visit and celebrate with family. We had a great time and this was the first trip that Carolyn was a fantastic traveler! We didn't get too many pictures - but here's some of Carolyn opening gifts!

Carolyn opens a stuffed Horton the Elephant!

What could be in this big one?!?

A wooden train!

Zach built this track for Carolyn and she promptly knocked it all over! She prefers just an oval for now!

Christmas Morning!

We stayed home for Christmas morning for the first time this year and really enjoyed celebrating at home before we traveled! Carolyn was really excited about all the festivities and Baby Jesus' Birthday.

Carolyn was most excited for mommy to open this present from her - a candy cane that she picked and wrapped herself. :)

Carolyn's turn!

A new pair of gloves for Dad!

We made cupcakes together to celebrate Baby Jesus' birth!

Carolyn said her favorite present of all was these My Little Pony's! She loves to line them up and comb all their hair and feed them bottles.

Video of Carolyn's New Toys!

An Early Christmas

We decided to start alternating which side of our family we travel to for Christmas and inviting the other side up here to celebrate an early or late Christmas at our house. Diane's mom came up the week before Christmas, (which was a blessing for Diane as Zach was out of town most of the week). Friday night we enjoyed a nice dinner together, made cookies and opened presents. Although I'm sad about not visiting Pittsburgh at Christmas, it was fun to have my mom here as part of the holidays at our house!

Enjoy some pictures of our time together!

Carolyn and Grandma making butter cookies together. I was glad to have some bakers because with the power outage 2 weekends ago and 20 inches of snow last weekend, I've been quite behind!

Putting on the sprinkles - Carolyn definitely needed help controlling the speed of the sprinkles!!

Carolyn's crafts!

Carolyn picked out this snowman soap dispenser as part of Grandma's present. She was really pleased to find it and held it while we finished our shopping. I had warned her about the need to hold it carefully because it could break. When it came time to pay, I asked her to put it up on the register. She looked very intently at the cashier and said "please be very careful with this. It is special and can break" before handing it over!

Zach opens a weight tree to better organize the weights that are all over our garage floor!

Mommy opens her sweaters from Grandma!

Carolyn opens her Little People Zoo from Grandma!

Carolyn is VERY excited about the Little People Zoo. I couldn't capture her expression very well, but as she opened it she said "oh, wow" under her breath and kept tearing the paper.

Building the Zoo!

Carolyn also got a marble building set. She isn't quite ready to build it on her own, but really enjoys racing the marbles down! Dad is definitely the best builder in our family!!

We're looking forward to a special Christmas morning here and then traveling to visit family the day after Christmas!!

Merry Christmas - we hope that your family is enjoying many blessings in this special time of year as we celebrate the birth of our Savior!