Bassett Easter Extravaganza

Today was the annual Bassett Easter Extravaganza! With pizza, an egg hunt, a pinata, coloring books, the classic fishing pond, the egg toss, the duck pond, and making washcloth bunnies, the party was a blast! Jane had so much fun playing with all her cousins and Grant was happy just chillin' with his Grandpa and Aunt Amy for most of it.

Hungry For More

I recently read the books "Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire". What a great series! Suzanne Collins is an incredible author who has created an intriguing world with unforgettable characters. After speeding through the first book, "Hunger Games", I was dying to get my hands on the second book, "Catching Fire". The wait at the library was a long one but for some miraculous reason, it took only 4 days for the book to be ready for me. I devoured it. Every word. And now I'm hungry for more. Too bad the third book doesn't come out until August.

Home Improvement

With Spring in the air, we have gotten the "fix-it-up" fever and are going to town on our house. There is still so much to be done, but in the past month we've taken on some projects that we're really proud of.
Trent went to town building shelves in our garage. They are awesome! We now have a place to put tools and garden things and still have extra storage space.We were sick of having our coats draped over our kitchen chairs (mainly because the kids always managed to get food on them) so we build this coat rack from a strip of wood, paint, and hooks. This was mostly my project (painting, sanding, and marking out where to go) but I needed Trent to help get everything screwed in. We love having a place for all the coats now!Our big project this year will be the yard. We've decided to just completely start over--it's that bad. Last summer, Trent made a nice design in front with some red rock the previous owners had left behind but we wanted something more permanent. So I built a retaining wall for our little front corner garden. My brother Jon helped us with the design of the front yard and this is only phase one, but we think it's a great start.We also needed to fix the deck. It's a wonderful deck- big and spacious- but it didn't have railing (apparently that's against code) and the stairs needed some love. Trent took off the stairs and found this lovely cement pad.
So he started to chip it out and found not one, not two, but three cement pads poured on top of each other. Each more heinous than the last. All in all it was around 2,000 lbs of concrete he chipped out and hauled to the dump. Then we started over. Together on a stormy day Trent and I poured a new concrete pad and it's not perfect but it's way better than what we started with. Trent then went to work with his dad getting the stairs done. (on another stormy day--we sure know how to pick them!) and the other day the vinyl people came and put in our railing. Our deck is finally finished!!!!! Now it's on to killing off the weeds/crab grass, tilling, putting in sprinklers, getting curbing, hydroseeding, and planting our gardens. Should be a fun Spring!

Boo!

No one can make Grant laugh like his sister can! He adores her. And she, him. There's one thing that Jane does that sends Grant into fits of laughter: she leans over to him and says, "Boo!" What's interesting about this is it only works when Jane does it (I've tried with no such luck) and it only works at lunch time. It's the weirdest thing! But so great to hear his laugh :)

Death of a Goldfish

This morning we woke up to a floating goldfish. Jane had gotten Pete and Goldie about a month ago. Trent and I both thought they'd eat it far sooner than they did, but they were survivors--until today. Please don't think that I think goldfish death is funny--it's not--but Jane's response to it was. She climbed up on a stool to look in the bowl and said, "Oh no. Goldie is dead. Pete will fix him." I tried to explain that Pete the goldfish could not, in fact, bring another fish back from the dead. She thought about this for a minute. Trent walked by and she told him what happened. "Goldie died a little bit. We fix him."
Tonight at dinner she once again brought up Goldie's demise and said, in a thoughtful little voice, "Goldie was a good fish. Pete will miss him." Then added: "Let's go to the store and get a new fish."
It's interesting to me to see her deal with this--see what she catches on to and what she still doesn't quite understand. Goldie: you were a good, hardy fish. Sorry you died a little bit.

What a Weekend!

We were honored this weekend to be able to be in attendance at the baptism of our niece Josie and the blessing of our dear friends' baby, Calvin. It was a fast weekend with a lot of driving but totally worth it! Saturday morning we drove to Eagle Mountain for Josie's baptism. She was beautiful and they had a nice program. She sang and her mom played the piano and her dad sat on the front row just beaming! It was great to see the whole family (Jane loves being around her cousins!).After the baptism, we jumped in the car and headed to Twin Falls, Idaho. Trent had worked the night shift the night before so he went to sleep. Jane and Grant finally tuckered out and so I had most of the drive to myself. There wasn't a lot to see but it was nice to just be on the open raod with my music and thoughts.
When we got there, we checked into our hotel and Trent gave the kids a ride on the luggage trolley. They loved it! We got a room with two queen beds so we let Jane have one. She thought she had died and gone to heaven! Her and Trent jumped on the beds and had a good old time!We got to go visit with Jake and Jenni Saturday evening. Jenni's family was in from Wyoming and it was a blast getting to know them. Little Calvin has grown since we saw him last but he's still a little guy.We got back to the hotel just in time for a quick swim before bedtime so Trent and Jane ran down to the pool while I got Bubba ready for bed. They came back 10 mins later. Surprised to see them so soon I asked what happened. Jane announced: "I pooped in the pool." Apparently she also told a woman in the elevator on their way up to the room. my guess is that lady avoided the pool for the rest of her stay! (for the record: Jane did have a diaper cover on just no swim diaper so the poop didn't actually get in the pool but it was a close call. . . TMI?)
The next morning we went to church for the blessing. Little Cal looked sharp in his white tux with tails and, from what we could hear, Jake gave him a nice blessing (the microphone wasn't working so well). We got to spend a bit more time with the Kinghorns (and their extended family) before we had to leave to come home. It was a quick trip but we feel blessed to have been there for the blessing and that we got to see our dear friends.