The death of the pines...

So Judd decided he was done with sap, pine needles, and pine cones and murdered our pine trees. My brother Andrew (he came in handy) and Judd cut them down. Actually, Judd did the second tree by himself.

Just like a man to cut the tree down FIRST then take the bird house out of the tree.



Tree numero uno



Judd in tree number two.

The unimog REALLY came in handy. It only took 2 trips to the green dumps as opposed to the first tree that took 5 trips.

And then there were none. We are going to grind out the tree stumps this Saturday and put sod over the top.

Kennedy in her pj's in front of a teeny tiny bit of the wood. We have SO much! Now we need to get out and do a lot of camping.

How much wood could a wood chuck chuck?

We aren't total anti-earth people. We ordered a Tulip poplar and an Autumn Blaze Maple. I thought they would be a tad bit bigger, but they are supposed to grow pretty quickly.



More wood.



Last, but not least.

We have finally finished every room in our house. We ripped it apart from top to bottom and spent the last two plus years putting it back together. This is what our living room looked like when we moved in.

We painted it and left it at that since the other rooms needed more urgent attention.


I found a great deal on the furniture and the carpet. Here is the finished product. I have to say it is much more welcoming than the parkay floor.

Long Over Due

Yes, this blog is long over due... But in all fairness, I have been busy.

First off, our computer decided that it was done with this life and hopped on over to the other side to computer heaven. We didn't get a new one until today.

Levi is now almost 5 months old, and the size of Kennedy when she was a year old... After all his favorite thing to do is eat, and he does it A LOT. I'll post some pictures of him so you can see all the wonderful chub :)
















Here is a picture of the kids doing what they do most often... Levi drooling and Kennedy Jumping. I swear that girl has pogo sticks for legs, remember those? She is always jumping.


Kennedy turned 2 :(. We had a Curious George party for her. I made my very first "non-rectangular" cake, and I have to say it looked and tasted amazing, I thought that I got a picture of it when it was all done, but I didn't. This was before I put George and the other monkeys on. She made out in the gift department, basically she got spoiled rotten. We got her one of those play kitchens, complete with pots and pans that make boiling/frying noises. Now she cooks dinner with her plastic food while I am cooking, unfortunately sometimes both dinners come out tasting the same.


















I painted the house. Literally. I just couldn't stand how sad and dreary looking it was. It looked like a slightly under decorated haunted house. I have to say that our house is much more inviting now.




BEFORE











AFTER






Our bathroom is FINISHED! This was the very last room in the house which needed to be conquered. And conquer we did. We did hang a mirror after I took these pictures, but eh, I'm too lazy to take more pictures.
I will let the BEFORE and AFTER pictures speak for themselves.


BEFORE























AFTER























I started school again. It takes so much longer to do school when things like cooking dinner, changing diapers, laundry, changing more diapers, and doing more laundry get in the way. I should have been done with my BS (Love that it's called this :O) degree 2 years ago, but I took a much needed detour into motherhood. Only 6 more classes and I will be done, so look for a graduation announcement about 3 years from now.

Judd and I are now the proud owners of a fishing license. My dad left his little farm in Montana for a couple days to come down and take me fishing. I packed both kids with me, and even though you could hear the kids for miles away, and Kennedy spent most of the day wading through the water, we still managed to catch our limit. Judd caught his VERY FIRST FISH. Yea, the man is almost 30 years old and had never caught a fish. The look on his face was priceless, I felt as if I were looking at a 6 year old boy reeling in his first catch. We spend most of our free time fishing now, Judd has become addicted.
Our first fishing trip. Judd: one. Leslie: seven. :)

















Judd's first fish!!!

My dad finished the illustrations for the children's book I wrote. Planning on getting it published, hopefully by Christmas, but who knows how long it will really take. Here is one of the finished pictures.














I have been training for a few half marathons. Last weekend my brother and I ran 10 miles through Provo canyon. Here is a picture of us after... He died along the way, it was nice to finally beat him at something (not that I am competitive or anything) I ran my first half marathon since having Levi, and I can't say that I was super happy with the time of 1:58.... Almost 20 minutes slower than my normal time. Oh well, wish me luck on the next one and hopefully I don't putter out and die... at least not until I cross the finish.















All in all things are going well here at the Zimmerman house.

Our Bathroom is.... FINISHED.

Ok, so these first pictures are of the main bathroom because we forgot to take before pictures of the master bath. So imagine something 10 times worse when you look at these pictures and that is what the master bath looked like.

BEFORE

AFTER

It's so nice to finally have a nice bathroom. Judd did everything! My favorite part is the tile shower which is actually larger than what the picture makes it seem.

Useless Information

I borrowed my moms treadmill for the winter so I don't have to drag myself out into the cold to run.

I HATE the cold. Let's move someplace eternally warm.

Kennedy pretends to talk on the phone if she sees one or if one rings. She puts the back of her hand to her ear and babbles. It's so cute.

Kennedy is pretty darn good at hide and seek. She'll find a book, sit down in a corner and silently flip through pages while I frantically shuffle around the house looking for her.

It's usually not a good thing if I don't hear her making noise... This usually means that she is doing something she is not supposed to.

Judd is almost done with our master bathroom!!!! I'll post pictures when it's all finished.

It took me 2 days to rake the front and back yard. Not because I am slow. Can I cut the trees down?

I want a dog, no a cat. no dog. cat. dog. I can never make up my mind. When I do I think about scooping poop and I quickly change to not wanting any animal. Too bad there aren't poop-less animals, after all they have hairless ones.

I miss my power steering. It's been out for 2 months. It's a killer trying to park at the university.

We should own stock in Home Depot. We have spent WAY too much there.

AT&T is a rip off. Magic Jack is great, 20 dollars a year and you can call free long distance and international to anyone who has a Magic Jack.

I am going to run a full marathon this next summer... If I don't die trying.

Life changes too quickly. I wish there was a rewind. It's so easy to take things for granted until they are gone.

My neighbor has chickens and gives us fresh eggs every week, how cool is that?

If I could have any talent, I would like to be an amazing chef.

That's all for this installment of useless information.

Removing a chimney

I know you are all getting a good laugh out of my falling on my butt, but we did get the chimney down. Although Shane did get hit in and foot and had a good bruise for a couple of weeks, but he is all better now.

Attempting To Remove A Chimney

Judd and Shane got together a few weekends ago to remove the leaning tower of chimney that has been haunting the back side of our house. I was recording it (per Judd's request)... And I am so glad I did! This is hilarious! Enjoy.

THE KITCHEN!!!!

So here is the semi-finished kitchen.... All that is left to do is the backsplash, the lips of the countertops, and install the microwave above the oven! After having only a microwave and a toaster oven to cook with and no sink I will never take having a kitchen for granted again! Judd is nothing short of amazing, with the exception of installing the cabinets he did everything.. put in the new sink, did the walls, the beam, put in the wood flooring, and tiled the countertops. I am the luckiest gal around to have such a hard working loving husband!

Jump In This

Since it has been a bit sunnier lately, I thought that I would get some yard work done.... I started with raking the pine needles.... and finished with raking the pine needles. During the process I could have sworn that I was raking the floor of a forest. I don't think that the people who lived here had ever raked their yard. So after spending the afternoon raking and picking up needles, my neighbor offered to dump them for me. When he offered I don't think that he realized that I would fill his entire truck bed. Don't think that he'll be doing that again. I thought that I would document this by taking a picture, so here it is ladies and gents.... The world's largest pile of pine needles!---

Boys and Dead Stuff.....

So here is a little surprise that Judd found in our new house. He sent me a text with this picture... HAH! Boys, and dead things.... they CAN'T NOT TOUCH THEM! So I thought that I would share this wonderful picture with ya'll so that you can enjoy it just as much as I did.... (Insert sarcastic voice here) :)

THE..... KITCHEN???

So here are some fresh off the camera pictures of our kitchen. As you can see the family who lived here before us were not the cleanliest of people.... And they REALLY liked the color blue. So what we have done so far: We dropped a bomb in the house and ripped everything out that we could. Judd pulled up the kitchen floor along with the rest of the kitchen and put in new electrical and outlets. We are now waiting for our cabinets to be made and installed. Today we get a new window :) All in all it is alot of work, but it will all be well worth it when it's done.