Our new fancy smancy basement

We started work on our basement in November and finished up all the details in mid-January. Not bad, eh? We hired people to do the framing, electric, drywall, and basic plumbing, but we tried to do a lot of the work ourselves. We (meaning mostly Cody) did the doors, baseboards, painting, all the other finish work and, of course, the blinds. Here are some awesome before, during and after pics. Enjoy! We sure are :)

Main room, framed and insulated

Drywall

Painted and finish work

Awesome carpet

All finished!

Bathroom shower

Cody did everything on the shower,
except for the glass. Nice!

Finished

We used vinyl squares in the bathroom

Bedroom/ Guest room

And hère are just a few more of the finished product :)

I painted that dresser myself, thank you very much

Found this lovely couch on KSL, only two years old and half the
 price of the new one at RC Willey. We're pretty proud :)

Now we're all ready for visitors! Come on over everyone!

Christmas

We had such a fun Christmas season this year! We kicked it off by getting the Barker's together to make Candy Houses. It's one of my favorite traditions, and I was so glad everyone had fun :) I wish I'd gotten more pics of the results (Lloyd made an awesome church, haha), but here's some pics:

We attempted to make our house, but sadly the roof collapsed.
 Oh well, still get the general idea :)

Christmas Eve we headed up to Ogden to have dinner with Cody's parents and a movie. Then Carly and Josh came over and we all got to open Jammies (Thanks Shelley!) and then we had a "sleepover" in the basement. We woke up Christmas morning at around 7 and had fun opening stocking stuff. Then we opened gifts to each other (I got a sewing machine among other awesome gifts, Cody got a gun). At eleven we went to church and then had to wait a couple hours for the rest of the fam, which only extended the gift opening :) 

The day after Christmas, Cody got to try out his new gun when he went shooting with his dad, Tyson, and Eric. 

New Year's we spent with Jeffrey and Carlie, and Carlie's friend Jill and her husband. We played some Killer Bunnies (which I'm finally starting to understand), and watched a movie, which we briefly paused to watch the ball drop. Yes, we're awesome. Carlie made some fantastic fondue (seriously, so good!) and we loved spending time with them. 

We're looking forward to March when we all head down to St. George to meet up with Jason and Amy for a weekend of fun. Can't wait!

Thanksgiving and Family Visit

I'm a little late posting about Thanksgiving, but that's ok :) We went out to Gilroy for Turkey Day this year and we had ourselves a blast! Jessica and I went thrifting on Wednesday and I got 3 dresses, two cardigans, and a ruffly slip for $18. Not bad, eh? Thanksgiving we spent most of the morning cooking and hanging out, and had our fantastic gazillion course meal at around 2 or 3. After, we mostly laid around groaning from over-consumption while watching the 49ers game. We rounded the day off with a football movie (Invincible, I think?) which made it a good day for Cody: yummy food, Niners game, and a sports movie.

Cody somehow managed to get into all the nice pics
I was trying to take...

Sadie is cracking me up in this pic!

Friday we set out for some Black Friday shopping. We don't go with the crazies at 5 in the morning, or midnight, or whenever they're starting the sales now. We rolled out of bed at 8ish and made our way through Kohl's, Target, and Old Navy. Then in the afternoon, we rounded everyone up and took them (forced them, really) to go bowling, which we all ended up enjoying :) 

That night Justin and Anna put on a Christmas Mystery Dinner, which was super fun. We all had to figure out who killed Jingle (or was it Jangle?) the elf, and we all were assigned a part to play. I was Vixen, who is Rudolph's girlfriend, and Cody played Dusty, a reindeer who was trying to get on Santa's sleigh team and who also happened to be in love with me, Vixen. It made for some fun times :)

Here we have Vixen the reindeer (me), Ivy the elf (Janae),
and Bouncy the elf (Jessica)

Here's the rest of the gang. We look pretty legit, eh?

Saturday we made the Lance annual trip to the Christmas Tree farm! When we go, there is usually a ruthless game of tag involved, which was tuned down this year. We getting lazy or what! Can't even play tag for a few minutes, haha.

Charlotte was being Miss Grumpy-Pants all weekend. Good
 thing she's adorable! 

There's Cody again....

Sunday we left at around 6 and made the looooong drive home, but goodbyes weren't too hard because Mom, Dad, Jordan, Josh, and Julia all came out the next weekend (soooo last weekend) for Evelyn's blessing. They drove out Friday and we spent that night playing games and hanging out. Saturday, we took the fam on tours of our respective Universities (UVU for Jarom and Cody, BYU for me), bowling at BYU, and then went Laser Tagging, which was awesome! When it got dark, we headed up to Temple Square to look at lights, where we promptly made friends with the owner of a street vendor as all 9 of us bought hot dogs and hot chocolate. I pretty sure we made his night, haha.

Dad whupped us all by getting a 191

I think we were the yellow team, so third place baby!
(yeah, it was out of 4)

The next day was Evelyn's blessing, which we apparently didn't get any pictures of. After the blessing, we met everyone out at Courtney and John's home out in Eagle Mountain for some pulled pork sandwiches, yum! That night we headed back to our house for some more games, including Who's On the Couch (haha, I don't really know the name, but it involves names and couches) and an excellent few rounds of Silent Football. We had a fun visit with the fam! Next time ya'll come out, there will be a newly finished basement for you to crash in :)

In more recent news, I am sooooo close to being done with school! As in done, done, for forever. Five more days and I will be homework free indefinitely. Woot! And wish me luck!

And Cody says hi :)