Monday, March 24, 2008

Easter Birthday Party!

Cade absolutely loved finding his easter egg basket Sunday morning! It was so fun to watch him. We play hide and seek with him a lot. This time he didn't know what he was looking for until he spotted it! We hid it in a corner of the room. The pictures kind of go in sequence...

Our cute little family of easter baskets...Jon had fun finding his, too!

For probably the first and last time ever, Easter was my actual birthday, too. I got spoiled with everything I wanted. 2 hours of church (shortened for stake conference), tiling, my new running shoes (with the chip that goes in them that tells you how far, fast and cals burned), the best Sunday nap I've had in a LONG time, and the whole day with my husband! We saw my parents, then relaxed at the log house with Jon's. Here is me with a few extra presents my in-laws spoiled me with. It was a great day to reflect on our Savior... and have fun! What more could I ask for?!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

New Teefs!


At over 14 months old, Cade finally cut his last of the four first teeth! I thought this was a cute picture to show his adorable gap. :) Still lots more to come, but this is the classic 1 year old smile!

March Birthday Bash!

Each month the Gatten family has a combined birthday party for all the birthdays in the month (18+). So, Brynne, Mikin, and Lizzy are always together for our little birthday bash. My birthday isn't until the 23rd, though, so there is still more celebrating to come!!

the big 23

my mom's famous ginormous super scrumptious chocolate cake. Good thing we only get it once a month!!

Finally done TILING!

First of all, here is the best "before" picture I could find. It was carpet in the dining area and light linoleum in the kitchen. Now with our table and chairs being black instead of green, having nobs in our kitchen and the tile, our desk now in the guest room, our kitchen looks totally different! So, here's before...

In the process... it turned out to be a bigger job than we imagined! Especially for first time tilers!

Our house was a HOLE! For 51/2 days it was pizza and microwaved quesadillas. haha. Jonny still managed to find a place to rest and watch the games. ;)

And AFTER!! Don't mind that we haven't put the trim on yet!

It is natural slate rock, so it's a little rugged, but we love it!

We still might put a glossier sealer on it than we did, but we'll see.

So, there it is! Let us know what you think!

Video...fun!

So, I finally figured out how to post video on here from our camera! I am so excited, we will be able to post some fun ones...but here is a start. This is Jon ziplining through the rainforrest in Costa Rica on our cruise. This hardly gives it justice!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

"You should see the other guy"



So, the other night Jon had a sterotypical church basketball night. Came home with a black eye! This was right after the game. I should have taken another picture, because it is about 3 x's as bad now!! He keeps telling people "You should see the other guy", but really what happened is a guy just came down with an elbow to Jon's eye on a rebound.

Final Touches!!

So, I (Brynne) have been very, very busy (as Jonny likes to call me...a "busy little bee") finishing the little things in our home we have been putting off for the last three years. Just wanted to show you.

So this is our guest room and it was full of junk The weight bench, bikes, stuff and more stuff. So, we cleaned out and organized this room so it is clean and beautiful. We call it "the animal room". It has most of our mounts and skins. Jon was sad to see his weight bench moved to the garage, but hey, at least I got him to move it!


This our kitchen table we got at Pier 1 right after we got married...75 % off with gift cards! The bottoms of the chairs and table were stained with green...not my favorite. I finally painted them black! It took forever!

This is our bedroom. It is still not quite as good as I'd like it, but hey, at least it's decorated and symmetrical now. I put hooks on the back of this sign, hung it, and hung the sconces.

This is my side of the bed. I painted and put new handles on both of our dressers (there is one on each side of the room). They were both brown and ugly with gold handles. We also added this vase.

This is the other side of our bedroom...this mirror has been propped against the wall for probable 8 months (from Ikea in Utah) and I finally hung it up!!

Here is our darling kitchen. (well, one side of it). It was a little boring and cookie cutter, so I just added these nobs this week. They are just that brushed bronze...look black, though. I did this in anticipation for TILING!!! Finally this weekend, for my birthday, we are ripping up the linoleum in the kitchen and carpet in the dining area and putting in dark slate tile. We have been wanting to do this since we moved in to up the resale value. But, it is going to be especially nice since Cade is starting to throw food everywhere and it's carpet! 

Here is a new shelf I recently did to add more picture to our home. I painted and hung up the shelf and bought all these frames. It hangs on the kitchen wall right by the table.

We had a mirror on this living room wall here and I took it down and made this shelf with our family picture and this board my sister Cassie made for me.

Here are the walls opposite our red wall where I took down boring boxes and hung up these stars.

Don't mind the old T.V. That comes next after the tiling!! We need a new one bad. We turn the T.V. on, and have to wait 10 minutes until it "warms up" (aka we finally get a picture). On big game days, Jon will call ahead before he gets home to have me turn it on to warm it up! haha.

Thanks for letting me share all of my hard work. :)

Monday, March 3, 2008

::Cloud 9::

So, I just had to write what I have been feeling lately. I read a post on my friend Heather's blog a while ago and I feel just as good as she did on hers. I need to get it out!!!

I just feel likeI am on cloud 9 lately with every aspect of my life. I feel so blessed. I feel like I have the most amazing husband who treats me so good. I fall more and more in love with him everyday. I love watching him love our little boy who looks just like him. I see him do things he doesn't always necessarily want to do just out of love for me and our baby. The best part is that I am sealed to him forever!! I have the most beautiful son in the world who has brightened my life to the point where I don't know what I would do without him. Every cute or new thing he does or discovers is a little bit of light added to each day. You can feel his good spirit. We have a beautiful home that is perfect for our needs and that is full of everything we might need. We have wonderful, big families who love us and spoil us and make whichever one of us is an in-law feel so at home and part of the family. We live in a gorgeous part of America where we can enjoy God's creations off of our back porch, practically. I am healthy and able to do the things I love to do, happy, and really could not ask for anything more. Sometimes I wonder what I ever did...little 'ol me....to deserve the blessings I have been given. I know we all have our share of trials and hardships (and believe me, I've definitly had mine), but for now, life is too good to complain!! I just feel like nothing could go wrong right now. It's amazing. So, I just wanted to let you all know that I love you and I am loving being on this cloud 9!! It is amazing the joy you find when you count your blessings.

Brynne

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Seattle Baby!

So, we took another spur-of-the-moment trip to Seattle. I don't know if all of you know, but we take a lot of sparatic roadies! We love it! We spent one night with Dusty and Angie with a seafood dinner at Ivar's, a night full of games and lots of "guitar hero" on their xbox (addicting) and a morning of double's tennis! They ended up winning the set...barely!! We didn't get any pics with them...dang. But below are some pics of the next couple day's that we spent with Jon's sister, Kelly and family for our niece Camila's 5th birthday.


Cade and his closest cousin on the Erickson side....Corbin

Camila about to open presents
Jonny and Corbin
Cade and Corbin doing some serious bonding (babies have to feel eachother)


Doing the same thumb chewing...haha

Cade and Corbin loved mauling eachother and trying to tackle eachother. Boys will be boys, I guess! At the end we had a special treat of stopping to see my lifelong friend Lynnette and her fiancee, Chris, who live there. They moved into a new apartment right outside the city. All in all a great trip with great roadie buddies! Where should we go next? Utah? Portland? We're all over the place.