Mikayla laughing

Mikayla is a ridiculously happy baby. We love how happy she is all the time. If we ever want to hear her laugh we just let her jump on our bed with her sister (yes, we allow our kids to jump on the bed). Hopefully you can hear her laughing. It's so cute. Enjoy.

Again! Again! The first day of "Fake Summer"

Yesterday was what I considered to be the First day of Fake Summer. Fake Summer is when it looks really bright and sunny outside and a great day to go to the park, but when you step outside the wind is blowing freezing cold air in your face. I did not realize this until after I had packed everyone up and got everything together to go to the park. So we head out despite the fact that it's a little too cold for Mikayla. Sure enough we're only at the park for about 5 minutes and Mikayla starts crying because it's too cold. I felt so bad because Victoria was having so much fun going down the slide and saying "Again! Again!" I tried to keep Mikayla warm, but I ended up having to leave and Victoria was not happy with that. So what I have to say is..."Curse you Fake Summer!"

I have some good news. Our memory card saved some of Mikayla's photos that I thought were lost. So really, except for most of the ones from her birth we have all the pictures we've taken of her. Yay!

Sad news

About a month ago John's laptop all of a sudden stopped working. We had no idea why. It was sudden. This saddened us because we had a lot of stuff on there. We mostly wanted the pictures back because we had no prints or a backup copy of them. So we took it to PC laptops to get fixed. After a week they finally got back to us and informed us that we needed a new hard drive. The tech tried to get the old information off, but he couldn't. John's laptop had all of Mikayla's pictures on there and some of Victoria too. I'm so sad that we lost all Mikayla's birth pictures. We now only have about 5 or 6 photos of Mikayla since her birth. This is one...she's sad because we lost her pictures.

Vintage Photos of Victoria

I guess it really can't be "vintage" since Victoria is only two, but I found some old photos of Victoria that I thought were cute so I'm going to post them. I have photos of Mikayla as well, but they are on John's laptop which is being repaired right now. I haven't forgot about Mikayla don't worry. As soon as we get the other laptop back I'll post some of Mikayla.The story behind these two photos is that I went upstairs I believe to take some garbage out. Victoria who is probably 6 months or so starts crying and climbs into her car seat. When I get back downstairs she is crying and looks at me like "Don't leave me. Take me with you." I thought it was so cute and smart of her to think to get into her car seat because she thought we were going so I took the camera out to take some photos. She immediately stops crying and does what I call "the model pose."

This one is of Victoria just hanging out on the couch. I thought it was cute.

We hate plumbing!

The worst part about having homes is taking care of the plumbing. So far this year we've had a busted pipe at the Provo duplex, all the plumbing to do so that their are no leaks there as well, a leaky faucet at the Riley house, a clogged drain and broken pipe at the Salt Lake house, and a clogged drain in our laundry room. John usually tries to take care of these so we can save money, but we gave up on a few of them and just called plumbers. Apparently, the problem in our laundry room here took care of itself so that saved some money. Yippie! We're taking care of the Riley house faucet tonight and the last thing will be to fix the pipe at the SL house and then hopefully NO MORE because we quit! We hate plumbing!

Some tips for buying products

Ok to be honest I'm a little bored...and tired...but I don't really want to take a nap so instead I thought I'd leave some hopefully helpful tips for things that I recommend buying and some I do not. We'll start with the things not to buy since it's fresh in my mind.

5 hour energy
Never ever buy this. It does not work! I like energy drinks ok and have drank them in the past (mostly because they taste good and give me a good boost) and yes they do kind of poop you out by the end of the day so it would be great if a product didn't make you "crash" after drinking it. So John decides he will try it. It costs us I think 3 or 4 dollars for a shot sized drink. John drinks it one morning and I think that perhaps we'll get a lot done. Do you know what he did for 5 hours? He sat in front of a laptop and browsed the internet. I'm not even kidding you. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, "It's a piece of crap. It doesn't work."

Swiffer Mop
I had the opportunity to try this a few months ago because an old tenant left their's behind. I place the wet napkin thing where it's supposed to go and it doesn't hold very good, but I try mopping the floor anyway. I get a little done and what do you know it's covered in filth and I already have to change out the napkin for a new one. I finally finish cleaning the floor after replacing the napkin about ten times, which aren't cheap. Not only that but it doesn't pick up very well. I end up pushing things around the floor rather than picking it up. Not to mention it's hard to manuever.

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
This is the most flemsy sponge ever. Sure it eventually gets some stuff off, but it's only because I'm scrubbing so hard I feel as if my fingers are actually the thing cleaning it. Plus, it breaks itself apart so easily you'd have to buy a new sponge each time you clean something.

Now for some things I do recommend buying:

Samsung Appliances/TVs
Did you know Samsung makes appliances? I thought they only did TV's. Well they do both and I must say they do a great job. Our nice TV is Samsung and we love it. I think I like my Samsung microwave even more though. My favorite is the 1 minute button. All you have to do is put your food in the microwave, press the 1 minute button, and leave the room. It's awesome. There's also the popcorn button which NEVER burns my popcorn...EVER! I used to hate guessing how long to place my popcorn in for, but Samsung has solved my problem. Also, the potato button cooks potatoes perfectly. So buy Samsung stuff.

Easy Off Oven Cleaner
Do you remember looking at commercials of cleaners and saying "yeah right! Nothing cleans that well." And you're right, most products advertised do not do that well, but Easy Off really does clean well. In fact, when I used it on an oven that an old tenant left sooooo dirty I thought it would never look good, it cleaned it so well it looked like new. So I took it home and used it on another dirty oven and it looked virtually new as well. Trust me, just follow the directions and use it.

Oxi Clean
As much as I hate Billy Mays always yelling at me through the television set to buy his product I've been informed by John that Oxi Clean works really well on carpet stains. I haven't seen it for myself, but John says we're to use it where Victoria spilled hot sauce on our carpet. So, we'll see.

Well that's all I can think of for now. If there's more I discover I'll pass it on.

Three cheers for us!

We have officially finished the duplex remodel...except for a few minor things, but it was enough to sell a contract. Here are some after pictures. The new kitchen has new tile floors, updated cabinets, brand new dishwasher, brand new plumbing, new paint, and a one-year old fridge.

The new living room has brand new carpet, new heating element, and new paint. It used to have this hideous green carpet and was all white (pretty boring). The bedroom also had new carpet, but we didn't have time to paint it.The bathroom received brand new tile floor, new vanity, and a brand new window (the old tenants broke it and decided not to tell us). All in all, it was a long and tiring process and took way longer than expected, but we're happy to be done with it. Our kids were with us while we were remodeling and poor Victoria was bored out of her mind. We tried to keep her entertained while we worked, but it was hard to do. I can't believe she puts up with us...although I guess she doesn't have much of a choice.