New house

View of the kitchen from the garage door. View of the kitchen from the "keeping room"

An ordinary cupboard

door? Nope, it opens up to a large pantry. This is the coolest part of the house. (Braxton is standing inside the pantry)

Looking at the family room from the

breakfast area in the kitchen.

Another view of the keeping room. This is the entry way, looking straight ahead at

family room, the dinning room is off to your

right, the office off to the left and the guest

bedroom and bathroom is in the back left

corner.

The Basement

Ok, here are some pictures of the work that Mike did the week I was in Utah. Yes, he was a busy boy. Our friend from Utah flew out to help him and they got quite a bit done....

Here is the "wetbar" which opens up to the "gym".

Here is the bathroom. It has a deep, jetted tub. If you want to see pictures of the theater room and the extra bedroom, there are some in the archives.....

Hanging out with Grandma

Braxton has found his new "gameing" partner. He and his Grandma Hanson spent 5 hours one day while we were out in Utah, playing board games. Grandma definately has more patience than I do.

It took Hailey pretty much the entire trip to warm up to Grandma and Grandpa. She's not as "forthcoming" with her trust as Braxton has been. But by the end of the trip she even layed on Grandma to watch a movie.

Snow, snow, more snow.....enough snow already!

Well, we got our fix of snow for the year. When we first arrived in Salt Lake it was sunny, warm (60ish) and there was absolutely NO SNOW on the ground. Which is a little unusal for Utah this time year. I can still hear my dad say to me, when we first arrived out there, "Spring has officially arrived." Boy, did he eat his words. The second day we were there Salt Lake got dumped on! Braxton loved it though. He was able to do some sledding with his cousins. Hailey, not to sure about this cold white stuff.

The drive from....you know where!

Well, I finally did it. I made the BIG trek out to Utah, without Mike. Why is that such a big deal? I DROVE! And we didn't get lost. A friend of mine, along with her 4 kids, my two kids and I decided to go out to Utah and visit family. What was supposed to be a "two day" drive out there, turned out to be a three day drive, when windy weather forced Highway patrol to shut down I-80 in Wyoming. So, we were stuck in Sydney, Nebraska for a day. Well, needless to say, there's not much to do in Syndey. But, lucky us, it turns out that Sydney is the birthplace of Cabela's. So we spent a few hours playing in the local Cabela's.

Our trip home, wasn't very eventful, after we made the decision to delay a day, and go the longest route to avoid bad weather. This experience, however, has reconfirmed, to me, the power of prayer!

Braxton's 1st Birthday Party, and mine too!

Growing up, I never experienced having a birthday party of my own. So, I've always felt it a hassle to plan and host one for our kids. Last year Braxton kept talking about a party he wanted to have at the local bowling alley, and we even agreed to it. But after a year of waiting for it to happen I think he gave up. But this year, Mike finally broke me down and we had Braxton's birthday party lastnight at Chuck-E-Cheese. He had 15 kids show up, plus some siblings and parents and had a great time. Although, when we got home lastnight Mike wasn't feeling so hot and ended up in the bathroom most of the night. Apparently the yummy pizza didn't sit to well with him. Glad I didn't eat very much.

Left, Haileys future babysitter, Rachel and on the right is Hailey's best buddy, Gabby

Everyone kind of starring at Chuck doing his little dance thinking, "what an idiot."

Brrrrrr, it's cold out there!

Well, we are finally having our "winter storm". Schools have been closed and business's shut down, and it's only raining outside. We did have an ice storm this morning and there is slush on the grass, but it is currently raining. We wasted an "inclement weather day" for this? The worst part is we just had our house painted yesterday. I'm praying it will survive.

Finally TWO!

We had Mikes family here for Christmas week, so things were pretty hectic. I forgot about Haileys birthday several times. But Cheryl, and Kerri were here to remind me. We had a little birthday party for her. We sang happy birthday to her, which she enjoyed and then Braxton blew out the candles for her. For some reason it's become a tradition in the Ellsworth family for the grandkids to take a bit out of their birthday cake, not sure where that came from. But as you can see, Hailey was all for it. She opened her presents, which she knew just what to do from Christmas. She got a Dora trike, a table and chair set, some clothes and some bath toys. What a fun day.

Christmas

Well, Santa was good to us this year. Braxton recieved his "green machine" which he's been talking about for months. His other big present was a drumset. (I think that's going to be a present we are going to regret.) Hailey got her kitchen, along with a vaccum that really works (figured if she's going to play with a vaccum, she might as well be helpful) Braxton slept in till 8am and then we woke everyone up to open gifts. Mikes entire family was here, so we had a houseful, but the kids had a great time.
Until next year.............

Primary Partay!

This past friday night we had our ward Christmas party, well one of them anyway. For some reason, instead of doing a family Christmas party this year, they split it up between the adults and the primary kids. The adults had a dance at the Humphry home (a very wealthy family here, who's house has a bowling alley in it, golf course, 50's diner, 5 stories just to give you an idea of the size of this place. The primary kids had a party at the church, not on the same night. But Santa was there. This is actually the first time we've seen a Santa at any church party since we've moved to Georgia. But Braxton loved it. He was able to tell Santa all about the "green machine" he wanted. Hailey wouldn't even sit on his lap. She just ran up and took a candy cane out of his bag and ran off. Smart girl!

Dressing Hailey

Having a boy for my first child and my only child for almost 5 years, I missed out on one of the perks of having a girl, dressing her. There are so many cute choices out there! Being a girl myself, I was never really into wearing dresses other than to church. Hailey, on the other hand, loves to wear dresses. She also loves to wear dressy shoes. She will bring me or Mike a pair to put on her to wear around the house. I did however love to have my hair done as a child and still like to do different things to it. With Hailey, it's a big struggle to even brush it (unless I have her sit in front of a mirror, so she can watch herself). I'll do her hair and two minutes later, it's either a huge mess or she's pulled everything out that I've put in it.

Graham Cracker Crazy!

We have officially constructed our graham village for the Christmas season. I have tried to carry on the tradition, from my family, of making "Christmas" graham cracker houses. It's not quite the same as getting together with my parents, sisters and brother, with all of their kids to work on our houses, but close enough. We invited our good friends the Maddox's over to join in the fun. Braxton made a wonderful house all by himself and Mike helped Hailey with hers. (which was pretty much Mike doing it and Hailey watching while she ate candy) I spent most of the night making the frosting, but in between batches I was able to put a couple of small houses together, to add to our little village.

Decorating Fun

Well, it's that time of year again. It comes so quickly, doesn't it? Today is actually a dreaded day for me. I used to enjoy putting up the Christmas decorations, but over 10 years, we've collected a lot of decorations. So, it takes a couple of days to put everything in it's place. But we try to have fun. Braxton loves to help and Hailey enjoys the music. She walks around the house singing, "Happy Day!"

Making Cookies

Well it's Election day and I don't know about everywhere else, but here the kids are out of school so the parents can vote. I think that just makes things complicated, but hey, that's just me. We went to the Dr. this morning to get flu shots and found out that Braxton has strep. So what do you do, when it's rainy and you can't go anywhere? You make "strep cookies"!

Halloween

Trick or Treat, everyone! Well, this Halloween was a crazy one for us. I had to go out of town suddenly and didn't get back home till Halloween afternoon. We were invited over to our bishops house for dinner and trick or treating, so we went straight over there, forgetting our camera. Long story short, no pictures of the kids hopped up on candy. So I just put them in their costumes today and took their pictures. (They'll never know) Braxton was a ninja and Hailey was a witch.

Visit From Spokane

My sister and her husband decided to take a little break from their very hectic lives and come out and visit. It was a lot of fun to have them here. We went to "Stone Mountain", where we took the tram to the top of the "mountain" and then hiked down. Which, in the 8 years that we've lived here, we have never done that. We were able to show them a little bit of Atlanta, and I got to take Kerry to do a little bit of shopping! Braxton had his last football game while they were here, so they got to see what Georgia football was all about.

The Basement

As most of you know, Mike has been working hard on our basement. He has a little over half of it done. People are amazed when they see it the detail that he's put into it. Mike has found a hidden talent. If there was something that he didn't know how to do then he'd read about it in a book to learn. As you can see we are still waiting for furniture, but as long as Mike has his big screen up and running, that's all he cares about.













These are pictures of the "home theater".

10 Years of Bliss

Mike and I just celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Knowing this is a momentous year we wanted to plan something BIG for our celebration. Mike wanted an exotic trip and I wanted to put hardwood floors in our dining room and get some nice china. (Ever the romantic, I know) Since we couldn't agree we decided to save our money and just buy a new house! Mike surprised me anyway with an overnight get away to the Barnsley Gardens. It's a spa/golf resort up in north Georgia. So we unloaded our kids to some friends for the night and headed out. It was a lot of fun and most of all it was very relaxing!
Mike and I walking around the gardens. The cottage we stayed in.

End of Summer

Well, it's that time of year again. The leaves are slowly changing, the temperature is dropping and football is in the air. Braxton has had three games so far this season and their team is 0 for 3. We pretty much get SPANKED every game. But, Braxton has a great time, and that's what it's all about, right? His position is offensive lineman, and is very good at it. He's not afraid to tackle and will get anyone that gets in his way.

Hailey on the other hand, is all girl! Since Braxton was our first we've only had "boy" toys for her to play with. A couple of weeks ago we went out and got her some "girly" toys. And she loves every single one of them. She's either pushing her "baby" around in the stroller, having a tea party with Mom or brushing her Strawberry Shortcake doll's hair. She also loves to dress up in her new fairy costume.

Hailey

Hailey is now 19 months old, and she is VERY active. She loves to dance, whenever she hears music and will ocassionally try to sing with the song if she's in the mood. Her favorite song to dance to is "Black horse and the Cherry tree". But it doesn't take much to get her moving.

Hailey recently fell down the stairs and broke her arm. She was cranky for the first day, but has adjusted to her cast pretty well. You'd never know she had one, if it weren't so darn bright. She has learned to use the cast to her advantage and play the sympathy card, when she needs to. The other day she was emptying the dirt out of the potted plant, when I was scolding her she grabbed her arm and said "owie"! The hardest part about the cast has been keeping it dry. She loves the water! Bathtime has been extremely challenging.

Hailey has been our messiest child, so far. Braxton never liked to get dirty and would freak out if he even got sand on his feet, but Hailey doesn't care. There has never been a day when she hasn't gotten her clothes covered in something, whether it be food, dirt, marker, juice or anything that can be messy.

Summertime

Summer is our favorite time of year out here. We look forward to the vacations, boating, pool and just plain old relaxing. Living 10 minutes away from a large lake, we try to take advantage and do as much boating as we possibly can. After a lot of coaxing and bribing Braxton got up on the wakeboard for the first time! He was nervous at first, but now LOVES it!

We've also taken a couple of vacations this summer. We went out to Utah for two weeks! We had a lot of fun spending time with our family and with friends. Braxton really enjoyed being able to play with his cousins and going to the pool, out in Kearns, with the big bucket!

We also took a quick trip up to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We met up with Grandma Cheryl, Grandpa Dave and Uncle Ryan. We stayed in a cabin that had it's own hot tub, and Braxton loved sitting in it with Grandma. We did a little hiking in the Smokey mountains, which was very pretty.