The Kandells: January 2008

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Oh, that's just great...

I was being completely sarcastic in the title of my email. It's a little ironic that today when the last peice of furniture I have been waiting on to make the house "complete" arrives, that something goes wrong. This huge hole you see is now in the ceiling of our theatre. This morning a large bubble of water was discovered in our ceiling, apparently there is an unsealed corner of our garage that the theatre is below that has been collecting snow melt from our cars and slowing leaking into the ceiling of Eric's favorite room in the house. So flood and emergency water damage techs were dispatched to our house to start the fixing. Unfortunately, it is Superbowl Sunday this weekend and the theatre will be out of commission until sometime next week. Bummer, plus this means we will still being having random contractors in and out of the house for a few more days. Yuck.

One-a One-a Snowman, Snowman Snowman

When Ady sings "Once There Was A Snowman" it is actually "One-a One-a Snowman", and today she got to make her own snowman with her daddy. Eric and Ady were out in the backyard all morning making their version on Frosty, complete with a Biter Biscuit nose which was MAx's contribution and shortbread cookie eyes and buttons. She was so happy to be hangin with dad and to have made just a perfect snowman.
RIght now it is really warm out so I am pretty sure our next post about Frosty might be titled " In the sun he melted...small..small..small.

Back to the Routine...

I am so happy my kids are getting back to their regular routine after shaking it up a bit while we were in the process of moving. I was feeling like a pretty bad mom that their naps were off whack, we quit reading bedtime stories and Max's night time bath was happening whenever we could squeeze it in. In my own opinion, kids thrive on a routine. They are more happy and well adjusted when they have a regualar schedule they follow. Plus its easier for me to know what goes on and when on a day to day basis. Last night Max was letting me know how much he appreciates being back on his nightime schedule. Look how happy he is! Bath, bottle and bedtime!

Cousins and Sunday Dinner

This past Sunday Ady and Max had their only and favorite cousins over Easton and Zach for dinner, Uncle Steve came too. The kids had a ton of fun playing together like always. Eric made a super good dinner, prime rib roast with Zinfindel gravy and winter roasted veggies. I also made a french onion soup, that in my opinion (and Eric's) was really good and the recipe was really easy too, I will post it below. The key is to over do the cheese on top, I seriously put a half cup of gruyere cheese on each little bowl. It was sooo yummy. The kids ate well and played together, I am so glad my kids have cousins their age who live close.

(It dosent look as good in this picture as it was or as it tasted... seriously.)
French Onion Soup courtesy of Williams Sonoma Cookbook

6 large red onions, peeled and thinly sliced.
Olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups of beef stock
1/2 cup of dry white wine
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon of dry thyme
Salt and pepper
8 slices of toasted French bread
1 1/2 cups of grated Swiss Gruyere with a little grated Parmesan cheese

1 In a large saucepan, sauté the onions in the olive oil on medium high heat until well browned, but not burned, about 30 minutes. Add the sugar about 10 minutes into the process to help with the carmelization.

2 Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the stock, wine, bay leaf, and thyme. Cover partially and simmer until the flavors are well blended, about 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Discard the bay leaf.

3 To serve you can either use individual oven-proof soup bowls or one large casserole dish. Ladle the soup into the bowls or casserole dish. Cover with the toast and sprink with cheese. Put into the broiler for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F, or until the cheese bubbles and is slightly browned. Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6.

Best Buddies

Some people think having kids 20 months apart does not sound fun, but it has been. But in the back of my mind I have really been waiting for when they can really play together and have fun being with each other, and now... It's happened! Adyson and Maxwell really are very good friends these days. Ady asks for Max as soon as she gets up in the morning, And Max lights up at the first sight (or sound) of Ady. They play chase, where Max will crawl after Ady super fast and try to get her. They laugh together and now Ady even wants to bathe in the sink with Max. They both usually take a bath together at night or in the morning but Max also takes one in the sink after breakfast and now Ady want to be in the sink too. Good thing they are little and my sink is big. It is just a really fun age and I am sure it will continue to get more fun once Max can walk.
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Things I didn't know that I would miss...

So we are all moved into our new place at the corner of American Fork, Lehi and Highland. We are even starting to get pretty settled. Enough that I have clothes hanging in my closet and our pantry is settled enough that tonight I will be making dinner here. Things are starting to look really good and everything. However, we are feeling a little bit of homesickness for our old place. The first night we slept here, I could sleep very well. I kept thinking about the little things at our old house that I didn't even know that I would miss. Things like, Adyson sitting up at the same barstool every morning to eat her breakfast, I love that she has always done that. I love how on Saturday mornings Eric would bring Max inot our bed when he woke up and we would all watch the Food Network together. Little stuff, and more of our little memories. By 3 am I was still not asleep and by that point I was thinking how I missed my old bedroom, and I wanted to go home and I started to cry. Like 3 minutes later Eric woke up and asked me why I was crying. I thought it was a little odd he woke up since I was crying VERY quietly and he has never ever woken up when the babies get up in the night. (slightly suspicious in my opinion) So I told him I was feeling homesick and sad about leaving all of our good memories at our old place. He, of course, made me feel better by reminding me how many wonderful memories we would make together in this new house. By the next morning I was feeling much better but I did ask Adyson to pick a bar stool at the new house that she would sit at every morning. Some things I just dont want to change.

Good Bye Provo House

So tonight (Friday the 11th of January) is our last night at 199 W 3700 N in Provo. So I wanted to do a tribute post to the many wonderful memories and things we love about this house. The list goes on and on.

Me and Eric's first Thanksgiving married we hosted the whole Kandell family at our place.

This is our huge willow tree in the backyard, that is so beautiful and unique, it makes a huge mess in the fall and during windstorms with the all the leaves but it is one of our favorite features on the property.

This is me, my dad and my sisters when it was just Erics house. This was the day we got engaged in the kitchen of the house. My whole family was done for a BBQ Eric hosted so our families could meet each other and he proposed on one knee right in front of everyone in the kitchen,

We have had parties, BBQ's and Easter Egg hunts in the backyard

This is all Ady's friends swimming in the hot tub for Ady's 1st birthday party.

One of Eric's work Badmitten tournaments hosted on the backyard.

Us bringing home Adyson from the hospital, and Eric and Ady on the day we blessed her then had a big lunch at our house for family and friends.

Adyson's 2nd Birthday, a Mexican Fiesta complete with pinata hanging in our yard.

Max coming home from the hospital

The bricks Erics mom made for our front flower bed. (we are taking those to our new place though)

Eric and ADy making snow angels in the backyard

Me and Erics first Christmas together all alone at our house.

The nursery I decorated for Adyson, all by myself (with help from my pottery barn kids catalog) , me and Eric even painted it ourselves

Eric showing Adyson the pretty flowers we planted in our front yard.

We have had so many memories in this house that I cant even name them all, me and Eric even had our first kiss in our living room, it has been a wonderful house and will always hold a special place in our hearts. G'bye House!

A little Concerned...

Ever since Eric has mentioned on a couple of occassions that he was getting a little nervous about the decor of the house. I will show you his main concerns. I wallpapered 2 rooms. "What? wallpaper?" Some of you may say but it's back and it's beautiful just watch HGTV. And the 2 rooms I wallpapered are proabably my 2 favorite in the house. This red pattern (above) we put in my in laundry room cuz I have red cabinent in there, same color at the little dresser you see in the picture.

Then this wall paper we put in my guest bedroom, then we did like cute antique white iron bed with crystal knobs and white pleated puffy bedding, and I loved the way it turned out. So those were the only main things that worried Eric when I first starting buying for the house.

I also believe he voiced his concern over these "feminine" knobs I put in the laundry and this rug under our kitchen table. But oh well like he said he is really starting to like it now, we will be moving in, in about 2 weeks so I will start posting some "Before" and "Afters" as some of the rooms get completed.

My sexy toothless wife!

I had an awesome pictue of a toothless hill billy here but Hailey made me pull it down!

So Hailey really was toothless almost all of Christmas break! It is true, we did not go to Mexico and this is now the second trip in a row we had to cancel. I cancelled the last one due to my work being way overloaded. She cancelled this one in fear that a taco bean would get wedged in her grill, so we are now even.

Christmas was a lot of fun staying around the house all day. I actually really am jealous of stay at home parents because I had tons of time to play with Ady and Max. Our house in American Fork is coming along great. For those that have not seen it yet, I was really scared initially that Hailey was going with a vibe that I would not like at all. However, now that it is all coming along, I am pumped to get over there and start living full time in that house! Happy new year. Sorry it has been a while since i wrote.