Little Miss Lexi Jensen

Today Covey and I went to the hospital to go and meet our newest little niece, Lexi.  She is so stinkin' cute!  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Little baby burrito

So sweet

Me and Shannon

Spring Is Just Around the Corner...

hehe

I'm An Aunt Again!

My sister-in-law Shannon just had her baby today!  Yay for being an aunt again!  I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to go see her since I am supposed to work at the temple today but I hope it is soon.  

It was funny because when I saw Shannon on Sunday I told her "I hope the next time I see you is in the hospital!" and she said she hoped it was too.  And it will be!  It's just a matter of when.  I will post pictures of my newest niece as soon as I get some!

A Little Bummed...

Up to this point, I have been pretty positive about the progress on our home. They have been working consistently and every time we go to see the house, it looks different or something new has been done.  

Today, I got an email from the agent that works with the new homes being built and she said that the estimated completion date for our home has been moved from April 18th to May 9. :( :( :(  I am pretty bummed that it has been moved so much past the original completion date.  Everyone who has built a home has told us to expect that it will take longer for the home to be completed than what we were told when they started but I was so sure that our house would be an exception.  

Sadly, that is not the case and it looks like we are not going to be in our home as soon as we had hoped.  This also means that we are going to be semi-homeless starting May 1 until we can close and move into our house.  Boo on living out of boxes.  But I should look on the bright side: we will be able to save a little money because we will have one less month of rent. :)

New Home Update #7 and #8

It's amazing what a few days can do on the home building progress scale!  We took these pictures on Tuesday:

We were looking at the ceiling and really hoping we were getting vaulted ceilings.

THEN...when we looked at the house on Friday, it looked like this:

We have windows and a front porch!

And a tub!

And a furnace!

And vaulted ceilings!  Woo-hoo!

Go construction workers, go!

New Home Update #6

They started framing our house!!!!  It's finally starting to look like a house!  I truly cannot believe that they have gotten this far so quickly.  Here are some pictures.

 Street view

Standing in the future front room looking into the kitchen

Our garage!

Standing in the kitchen looking towards the front room (I love the big window!)

A peak at the basement (this is about as finished as it's going to get until we finish it ourselves)

In front of our new house!

My New Haircut

As I mentioned in this post, I was trying to decide how to cut my hair.  (Thanks so much to everyone who gave me their input!  It really helped me decide.)  After settling on a haircut I was kind of anxious to go and get it cut.  Not because I thought it would turn out bad, but more because I haven't really had any drastic haircuts for quite some time.  I have had some haircuts and hairstyles that are real doosies though so I felt justified in my anxiousness.  Here are some examples of some previous haircuts/styles:

3rd Grade (love all the backcombing and lopsidedness of my hair--not to mention the massive bow)

5th Grade (I had my mom cut my hair the day before pictures--worst decision ever)

7th Grade (again with the puffy, mile-high, backcombed bangs--thank goodness I got rid of those soon after this picture was taken)

Sometimes I wonder what my mother was thinking when she let me out of the house looking like I did for my school pictures.  Oh well.  (My hair did get better after 7th grade, I'm happy to say.)

Now--on to the issue at hand: my new haircut.  This is what my hair looked like just before I got it cut:

Front and back views

And this is my wonderful friend and former roommate, Amy, who has done my hair for the last 6 years or so.

After about an hour, she finally let me see myself in the mirror and this is what I saw:

Ta-da!  (She cut about 5 inches off in the back.)

Thanks Amy!

I'm still trying to get used to how much shorter it is.  I spent about an hour or so today just playing around with it to see if it was still long enough to pull it up and twist it around and other fun things.  But it is fun and I really like it.  It was time for a change and I'm glad that I did it. :)

Weather in Utah

I have lived in Utah my whole life (with the exception of when we lived in NY for the summer) and I have come to this conclusion: 

Utah weather is ridiculous!

What is with the warm, then cold, then rainy, then sunny, then cloudy?  And that's all in the same day!  I think that spring is the worst though because that is when we are really hoping for good weather and that is when the weather teases us the most.

(Monday) Hey, I think I'll give the Utahns some nice 60 degree weather with lots of sunshine.

(Tuesday) Lest they get too comfortable, I'm going to throw in some rain in the morning and wind the rest of the day!

(Wednesday) And now we're back to the sunshine.

(Thursday) 40 degrees and snow!

(Friday) 60 degrees in the morning and then snow at night.

(Saturday) Jacket weather, but better bring your umbrella!

(Sunday) Sunshine!

To make matters worse, this week Covey is flying here for a business trip:

Can we say JEALOUS?!  Trust me, I already asked if I could go.  And if we weren't building a house and the tickets weren't a gazillion dollar, then maybe I could have gone.  

And what, you ask, is the weather going to be like in Miami?  80 degrees and up.  I told him I hoped it rained all week there but look what that got me: rain in Utah the whole time he's gone instead.  Lame.

New Home Update #5

I'm sure you are all getting tired of all the home pictures but I just want everyone to share in our excitement about our new home!  We stopped by yesterday and took some more pictures.

Covey standing in our garage area

Covey staking his claim on our home

Our future furnace room, bathroom, storage room and a couple bedrooms

Our entire basement

New Home Update #4

Our home has officially been under construction for one week as of yesterday.  I decided to pop on over and see how things were looking and was excited to see that they have now laid most of the foundation (basically the footings and the walls).  I think they still have to do the plumbing before they can pour the rest of the floors in the basement but it seems they are moving right along.  We are just crossing our fingers that the weather doesn't go too crazy and cause any delays so we can get in our house before the end of next month.  (Cross your fingers for us!)  Here are the latest pictures.

We have a Volvo on our lot! ;)

View from the road

Straight on view

The big area at the front is where our garage will be.

 Our future front porch with the living room and kitchen behind it.

Thoughts?

Covey informed me this weekend that he thought I should try something different with my hair and cut it to my shoulders (or just below).  I was pretty surprised because he tells me all the time that he likes my long hair.  I have been trying to grow out my hair since high school, which is the last time that the bottom of my hair was anywhere near my shoulders and I have done pretty well.  But now Covey thinks I should just go and chop off a good 4 inches.  Eeek!  

But I think I am going to go for it.  My old roommate who does my hair is always asking me when she can cut off my hair.  Granted, if she had her way, I would have my hair cut in an A-line.  I am not that adventurous and Covey would probably die if I cut that much off anyway, so she doesn't get that part of her wish, but she does get to cut more off in one appointment than she ever has before so I think she'll be satisfied. :)

Anyways, I looked online and found a few hairstyles that are kind of cute and would look good on me (I think).  But I need some opinions, thoughts, suggestions, etc to help my decide.  Below are some options.  (Or, if you have some other suggestions you want to send me a link to, that would be be good too.)  My haircut is a week from Friday so I've got some time to decided and get comfortable with the idea of cutting my hair.

Option #1

Option #2

Option #3 (not quite this short)

Option #4

New Home Update #3

Covey and I had a nice surprise when we drove past our lot on Tuesday only to find that they were digging the hole a day early!  We were pretty excited and drove back and forth in front of our lot 3 or 4 times to watch.  Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me because I wasn't expecting to need it so we didn't get any pictures then, but I stopped by on my way home from work today to see what had been done so far.

Mounds of dirt surrounding the hole

 A sneak peek at the hole

THE HOLE!

You probably can't see it really well in this picture, but they already have some stuff laid down on the ground and some lines.  (Not sure what it's all for, but it's still exciting!)

Our Dirt

They are going to start digging the hole for our house tomorrow and we are super excited!  I wanted to make sure and get a picture of our lot before anything has been done to it.  So...here's some pictures of our dirt. It is probably the best dirt I've ever owned! :)

 "Across the street" view

 "Closer up" view

 "Me trying to point at the dirt like I'm touching it" view (my arm looks like it's coming out of no where)

"My excited face and trying to point like I'm touching the dirt" view (my arm looks even more freakishly long and weird than it did in the other picture)

I'm going to try and take a picture or two every week until it's done so you can see the progress.  It's really more for me that I'll be doing that anyway, but that's alright. :)