100th Post

This is the 100th post on our blog! And What a special post it is...

Introducing Jarret Reed Larsen! Born at 3:32 am on Monday September 19th. Weighing 7lbs 9oz and 19 inches long.

This next picture is of Darci after she was born, when I took the pic above of Jarret it reminded me of this picture of Darci, so I thought I would include it.

Darci loves her little brother. I thought it was super cute when she just laid down next to him and just stared at him. It didn't last long, but it was so sweet!

So far he is a great baby. He nurses fantastically, he took to it right away like a pro! He loves to just be close to Mommy and he loves to nurse. in the last 18 hours he is either sleeping or eating. He is very healthy and as you can see, he is VERY cute! ;)

The differences between his birth stats and Darci's are: Darci was born on the 9th of June at 3:38 am, and Jarret, the 19th of Sept (the 9th month) at 3:32am. Darci was 7lbs 15oz and 19 inches and Jarret was 7lbs 9oz and 19 inches. (lots of 9's) And they both had lots of Dark hair :)
Oh, and Darci was due on the 22nd of June and Jarret was due the 22nd of September!

Jarret shares his birthday with my cousin Shelby and a friend Addison, who is the 3 year daughter of our good friends Aaron and Brookie Bedwell. Happy Birthday!

Mommy is doing well! Healing very well, no problems. So much better than last time. Soo glad the labor and delivery is over! I will post the birth story soon!

My sisiter-in-law, Capri took some really great pictures yesterday. If you have facebook, get on and check them out. She tagged me in them, so you can see them from my profile.

Capri just posted some of the pictures on her blog http://randyandcapribird.blogspot.com/

Our House

Well, we've owned our house for almost 2 months and we've been living in it for about a week and half. There's been lots to get done, and we are slowly getting there. Just getting the important stuff done and organized before the baby comes (he is due in 30 days!) , and before I am too worn out from being pregnant to do any of it (which it is getting there fast).
As I've posted before, we (Merrill and my parents) re-finished the wood floors. It was a HUGE project that pretty much took the whole month of July. But they look GREAT! I am very happy that it was done, but I'm sure we will never re-finish wood floors again, for many reasons.
I re-finished the shelves in the kitchen cupboards, they were looking pretty worn out and stained and had goopy stuff on them, so I sanded them and put on a finish, so now they look tons better and I feel comfortable in putting my dishes and food on them. I would like to put down new counter-tops, but that is a project that will have to wait till we have some money. Along with a list of things, but they are things that can wait.


Here is our house. This was the picture from the real estate agent. Our grass is now very dead and full of weeds, and has been for months now, and the bushes are bigger. Not sure when this picture was taken, must have been a while ago. But this looks pretty good, so instead of taking a new picture I'm just using this one ;)

Here is our living room before we re-finished the floors:

Here is our living room after we moved in:


And another angle (my camera seems to only take dark pictures):

Here is a before picture of one of the cabinet shelves I re-finished (see how icky):

And after:


Our kitchen before we bought the house:
And after (we got a fridge, replaced the stove top (with my grandma's old one, so much better than what was there), and replaced the dishwasher (the other one was broken), and then all the cleaning we did, not that you can tell from the pic):


The main bathroom (this was before we moved in, it doesn't look much different now, just that there is a shower curtain and towels hanging)( oh, and different floor, in the bathroom and kitchen, which was done before we bought the house):

Darci's room (missing her dresser, there is a pic of that in a previous post):

Here is the dinning room. Nothing fancy, we have our computer desk in there too, which still has stuff piled on it:

Another view, showing the built in cabinet (and Darci's basketball hoop):

Here is a virtual tour of the backyard. With the shadow its hard to see the area still in the sun, but it goes back till the wall and the little hill. There is no fence, the neighbors yard starts at the top of the little hill.



Sorry, no pics of our room or baby's room. they are not picture worthy yet. ;)

Videos of Darci

Here are some videos of darci from my phone. These were taken within the last couple months.

Latest Project

Merrill and I got this dresser from a lady in our ward. They were moving and had a few dressers and other things they were giving away. So, we snagged this from the pile


And my mom and I turned it into this:


This is now in Darci's room. Isn't it so cute! I am so pleased with the way it turned out. It was pretty simple, except we had some issues with the top. There was this blue ink or something on top in a few spots. It was deep in the wood and wouldn't sand out. And it came through 4 layers of paint. And we messed up painting and there were lots of lines from the roller and paint brush. So, we started over on the top, took the paint off, sanded, and put 2 coats of primer to hopefully seal it up. But, the blue came through both layers. I gave up and just continued to paint. And luckily the primer held it from coming through the paint! YAY! So, now it looks perfect. No blue marks and no brush marks!
Oh, and we got the knobs at lowes for $0.85 each and they match perfectly with her bed. :)

The 4th in Utah

For the 4th of July we went to Utah for the Larsen Family Reunion. Merrill had to work the during the week, which was when the reunion was, so we left on the 1st to spend some time with his family and he came home on the 4th so that he could work the next day. Darci and I stayed until the 11th. The reunion went from the 5th to the 8th and then our niece was blessed on the 10th. There was a lot going on while we were there. I only took a few pictures, I got the rest from My sister-in-law (Thanks Sharon)!
The trip started off with Darci and I both getting sick when we got there. I had a ridiculous cold, and Darci seemed to be better the 2nd day, but then ended up taking her to urgent care on Sunday, her only symptom at that point was that she cried every time she tried to eat. (She never had a fever, just 99 the first day with a running nose) She had a double ear infection. We started anti-biotics and switched back and forth with tylenol and ibprofen, which helped a ton, by the end of the day she was acting totally normal (I wish it was that easy for me).
Here are some pics of the week:

Aunt Kelly reading stories to Darci.

Our super cute little niece, Eve. So, happy we finally got to meet. They've lived in Texas and just moved to Michigan. Way too far away.

Darci and Eve had fun together. Darci liked to boss her around, she would get mad and say "NO" when Eve was fussy.

Darci and Grandma Larsen

Not really sure what that look is all about. She sure did have fun at the reunion playing with all her 2nd cousins. There were a lot her age.

Darci and Grandpa at Cascade springs. We had a fun little walk through the park until I got stung by a black wasp (we think thats what it was, we didn't really see it, just the back end as it disappeared over the back of the bench). It got me on the inside of my little finger, very sensitive spot, it hurt BAD! But Darci still had fun with Grandpa

(This is before the sting).
This is where we took our engagement pictures, this spot was the picture that we sent out in our announcements. Too bad Merrill wasn't there to join me in the picture. This is basically exactly 4 years later.

Darci and Gracie playing on the stairs. Gracie is Merrill's sister's husbands sisters daughter. Or to say it easier, My sister-in-laws niece ;)

The Larsen granddaughters (minus Chiara, wish you were there).

Messy hair

At the reunion, we were getting ready for the big pot luck dutch oven dinner and a storm came, we hurried and put everything under the huge covered area, closed up the tents, some put theirs away or took everything out. The wind was intense, the rain was POURING hard and lots of thunder and lightening. So we got all bundled and waited it out under the covered area. I put Darci's coat and hood on, and she had to make sure Mommy's hood was on too.

Darci wouldn't go down for a nap one day and just when we were about to eat dinner she couldn't wait for me to dish it up, she started a huge fit and while I ate, she fell asleep fussing in my arms, so I just laid her down on the ground for a bit.

We had lots of fun, it was so good to see everyone, it's not very often that we get to see Merrill's family. We are so grateful that we were able to come. Hope to see everyone again soon!

Our house- A Preview

We Closed on our house June 30th. And the next week after Merrill got back from Utah he and my parents started re-finishing the wood floor. It was really worn out and yellow looking, and just did not look that great. Merrill knew that it would be a big job, but it was even bigger than we expected. He sanded down the finish, and then sanded even more going up on the grit of the sandpaper, plus going around the edges with a hand disc sander. The sanding took many days of work, and Merrill did pretty much all of it, with the help of my parents. They also put down some wood putty to cover holes and such and sanded that down. then we had to clean ceiling to floor really well before we started the stain and finish. We spent most of a Friday just cleaning up all the saw dust from the sanding. Then Merrill started the stain, let that dry over night, then did the first 2 coats of finish. Then a couple days later he sanded lightly over the finish, cleaned up from that, and did 2 more coats of finish. Living room, hall, and 3 bedrooms, many days/hours of work, back pain and frustration and its finally done, and I love it. Thank You Merrill, you did a great job!

Before.
It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but its lighter, more yellow and worn out in places, the most worn out spot was about where I was standing to take the picture, it looked like the finish was completely gone in that spot.

And the finished floor. Doesn't it look awesome!

More views

Now we are deep cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms and giving the floor more time before we move any furniture on it. We are getting our stuff out of storage and putting it in the garage for now. In the next couple weeks we'll have things moved into the house and then I'll get some more pictures up.

Darci's Birthday!

Darci turned 2 on the 9th. We had a Birthday party for her at my mom and dad's house. We roasted hotdogs at the fire pit, ate cake and ice cream, and had some fun toys for the kids to play with. It turned out really good. Everyone seemed to have fun. Darci seemed to enjoy it. She got a little nervous when we started singing Happy Birthday, and I think she was about to cry. But she was fine. Here are some pictures of the party.

Her new slide from Grandma and Grandpa.

Her Winney the Pooh cake. She was soo excited about her cake. And it was yummy!

Thank you to everyone that came. It was a fun night and Darci loved it all!