Our house, part 2 (more pictures!)

I finally took pictures of our completed (for now) living room. My mom recovered the chairs and loveseat in our living room. Eventually we will replace the carpet (that's why it's finished for now). I love how it turned out! I didn't realize there was so much red though. ;o) The piano is from when I was growing up.

Another view of our living room. Seriously love this room!

Here is my craft area. This picture was taken before the blinds and curtains were replaced. Love this space!
That's it for now, I will post more later!

New Family Pictures!

Notice anything different? Our blog banner changed! That's right! Our family picture! Ashley, of Monarch Photography took our photos a couple of weeks ago. We haven't gotten them all back, although we will soon. But Ashley was so sweet to send me some that we could use for our profile. I absolutely love them! Ashley, you rock! They are all fantastic! I love the blog banner one! These are just some of my other favorites:

Did I forget to mention, I cut my hair. I donated almost 12 inches to Locks of Love. I kind of miss my long hair. It's a good thing it grows quickly. It is a great cause though so yay!

I love this family photo on the stairs!

This one is my favorite of Tammy:

This one is Tammy's Favorite of her:

The Harlem Globetrotters!

A couple of weeks ago I was watching one of my favorite shows, Good Things Utah (I DVR it and watch it, so I was watching it in the evening). One of the guests that they had that day was a player from the Harlem Globetrotters. Turns out, the Globetrotters were coming to the Energy Solutions Arena (formerly known as the Delta Center) in Salt Lake City. So I called Tammy who was at a friends house, and asked her what she thought about going to see the Globetrotters. She was all for it. I called Jacob, who was at work, he thought it was a great idea too. He also told me to call this guy that works for the ticket office, who was in charge of corporate rates for tickets. He could get us a discount through Jacob's work. So I called him, and got our tickets.

We were on row 7, section 3. So that meant we were in the corner, but only 7 rows up. Loved it! Tammy and I had never been to a Globetrotters game before, but Jacob had been when he was younger. Such a fun evening! We went to Leatherby's for an early dinner, drove to the trax station and took the train to the Arena. The game was great! I had heard it was really fun to go to their show, but of course never been. It was seriously, so fun. They played with and interacted with the crowd. They even had people come out onto the court to help with part of the show. We even did the YMCA right in the middle of the 4th quarter! It was fun to see the entire Arena on their feet. Big Buddha from channel 13 was there. He did a little portion of the show. I got pictures of that, but they are way too blurry.

Sorry for the bad pictures. We didn't think we could bring a camera in, since there were signs everywhere that said no camera's (to include on our tickets). So we left it at home. There were people everywhere with camera's, and the security people didn't care. Should have brought the camera! Thanks goodness for Camera Phones or I wouldn't have gotten these!

(Jacob and Tammy, enjoying the pregame show)

(Pre-game show. It was a lot of fun! lots of dancing and tricks from the mascot - Globie and his side kicks.)

(It was time for the Globetrotters to come out! They showed off their fantastic skills in a round robin circle. Flight Time and Big Easy were there!! They were our favorite team on the Amazing Race last season!)

(Tammy and I enjoying the game)

(We weren't too far from the floor. It was great!)

(Jacob and Tammy chatting on the Train after the game)

(Jacob got an official Globetrotters ball as a souvenir. Tammy and I got T-shirts.)

I guess the pictures aren't too bad, ecspecially not for a camera phone. We decided this is something we'd like to make a tradition. Going to the game every year when they come. Next time we may get floor seats.

My Daddy

(My daddy)

Yesterday I went up to Logan to see my dad and family. Jacob had drill (for the Reserves) this weekend so it was just Tammy and I. We left at a little after 1 and got there around 3. It was so nice to be able to just sit and visit. Sally showed me some scrapbook pages she has been working on. She has such an eye for that. We talked and talked. We had dinner and talked some more. We talked so long in fact that we didn't end up leaving until 8:30 or so. The plan had been to leave sooner because I needed to come home and plan my Primary Lesson for church this morning. (I teach the 4 & 5 yr olds at church.)

We spent a lot of time looking at pictures and things. It was a lot of fun. Right as we were getting ready to leave Sally stopped me and said she had something for me. When she came out with this gorgeous pitcher and bowl set, I started crying. I immediately hugged her and then went to hug my dad.

My dad made this when I was little, and I mean little. Isn't it gorgeous! I grew up with this in our house. I loved it. I mentioned to Sally one time how much it I loved it. I guess she talked to my dad about it a few days ago and asked him if she could give it to me. He was perfectly fine with that. So now it sits in my house. Front and center in my living room. I love it! Thank you Dad and Sally!

Sharon's Story

When I was born my dad was in the Army, so I was born in Fort Bliss Texas. I am the youngest of my parents children. My sister Ginny is married with 3 kids, ages 16, 12, and 9) and she lives in Maryland. Roy is married, living in West Jordan Utah with his wonderful wife. They have 4 children (ages 11, 9, 6 & almost 2). Ben and Matt are twins. Ben has a son who is 6 and lives in Midvale Utah. Matt lives in Orem UT. Shortly after I was born we moved to Germany. I was only 3 when we moved back to the states so I don't remember it. Most of my childhood was spent in Maryland before we moves to Utah when I was 13.

A year after our move my parents divorced and they are both remarried. Both of their spouses are awesome. My mom married Dale in 1994, and he has 3 kids Christy who is married, and lives in South Jordan UT and has 5 kids, ages 17, 13, 4, 1 & 1 (twins!), Mindy who lives in West Valley UT, and Joe who also lives in West Valley UT. My Dad and his wife Sally (also married in 94') have two great kids that they adopted, Kristina and David. Total in all there are 10 children and including my daughter Tammy, 14 grand children.

Tammy, my daughter is 14 (she will be 15 in June of this year-2010). She is the light of my life. Tammy was 6 when Jacob and I got married. We share joint custody of Tammy with her dad. We have a great relationship with him and it makes co-parenting way easier. Tammy lives with us, but gets to see her dad all the time. He only lives a few minutes away so it makes it nice.
(Me in 1998)

I have a lot of hobbies. 8 years ago I started stamping and making cards. I also just recently learned how to digi-scrap. I also love to work with ceramics, quilt, and paint. Two of my favorite hobbies are cake decorating and photography. I was at a craft store a couple of years ago and I saw an ad for cake decorating classes. I ended up loving it so much that I took all 3 courses and have made a lot of cakes for family and friends. But by far, my favorite hobby though is photography. Of the pictures that I post, if I'm not in it, more then likely I took it. *grin*

(me at the White Sands Missile Park in New Mexico where we used to live)

Our house, part 1

We got our family pictures done last week. I will have the disk in a couple of weeks. I can't wait! The proofs I have seen so far are great!! So I will share those when we get them.

For now I wanted to share a little about our house. If you have been reading our blog for awhile then you know we bought our house sight unseen in August. We found it on the internet but we were living in New Mexico at the time because Jacob was still Active Duty Army. We needed a house to move into when we moved to Utah which meant buying one before we moved back. Luckily my mom was willing and able to go look at homes for us. We looked at over 60 homes on the internet, and had my mom and our realtor actually physically go to close to 20 houses. She took major notes and lots of pictures so we could feel as comfortable about our purchase as possible. (Thanks again mom!) This is definately the right home for us and we love it! It has been a labor of love so far, and we have a lot more work to do, but it's home.

Our home is located in West Valley City Utah, which if you aren't familiar with the area is a suburb of Salt Lake City. Our neighborhood is great. Very friendly and safe. Lots of neighbors with kids of all ages. We live within a 1/2 mile of 2 Elementary schools and live around the corner from the Jr. High. The High School is close as well and we have parks within walking distance. It's a great house on a corner lot. That means our backyard is smaller, but the side yards are large.

Our house is 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms. We have 2,024 sq feet which is the perfect size in my opinion. Not too small, but not too big. Here are some pictures of the inside of the house. I will post more later as we complete more projects.

This is our kitchen.

Eventually we will redo it, to give us an oven that is big enough (this one is teeny tiny, you can't even fit a Turkey in it), and also more counter space and more cabinet space. For now, we love it though. It's an eat-in kitchen. Behind me is our dining space with our table and chairs. We have been able to fit as many as 6 people around the table comfortably. Once we redo the kitchen though, we'll have space for more.

This is the nursery. I know you're probably wondering why we have a nursery all set up when we haven't been chosen. We had a bunch of baby items that we had been collecting, and we needed somewhere to put it all. We figured that we might as well put the room together. Right now the crib set, and curtains are done in a jungle theme. I want to get a couple of other sets too. The paint color is a very soft green so it will go with anything really, for either a boy or a girl. I am actually looking for some fabrics in purple and green flowers to do a crib set for is our future precious little one is a girl. My brother and his wife recently gave us a really cute crib set with ladybugs on it that will work well for if our future baby is a girl as well.

This is a reading, play, corner we have in the nursery. The bookshelf has lots of books on it. Everything from There's a Monster at the end of this book (I love that book!), to Winnie the Pooh. We will be adding more as time goes on. I want to get some adoption books. Ones that help a child understand about adoption. I have seen some that are from a birth mom's point of view and talk about how much she loves her little one, and always will. Another idea I saw was to take photos and letters from our child's birth mom and make those into a story book. We could read it to him or her every night, and they will always know that their birth mommy loves them.

This is our room. It is kiddie corner from the nursery.

This is Tammy's room. Tammy and my mom put this together as a project for the both of them to do. Tammy decided on her favorite colors. It turned out great!

This is a close-up of Tammy's bed. My mom is really talented and is fantastic at making projects. She made Tammy's bedding. Gorgeous isn't it?

I still have to take a picture of the living room. We have been redoing that and are almost done. My mom is recovering a love seat for us (I told you she was talented!) and making some pillows. As soon as we get those I will take pictures and post. I will also get some pictures of our family room. Not to mention my craft area. So more pictures to come!