Christmas 2010

 I am just feeling so incredibly thankful this Christmas time! I have such a wonderful family! It's a very big family indeed and I love everybody in it!! I have had the opportunity to do a special service project this season too; For my dear friend Amber. She and her husband (and family) have had a rough year and I wanted to remind them how many people love them and want to support them through this trial they are bearing. So I have had help from her mom in collecting fabric from many of their friends and family and we put all the fabric together and her sisters came over and helped quilt it together. Now we have a beautiful Quilt of Love to help remind them we all want to be there for them in their time of need. So when they are feeling lonely they can cuddle up in their blanket and its like getting a big hug from all of us. I was also able to visit her daughter in the cemetery. It was a very emotional experience for both Jesse and I; as we talked about Ambers' Molly and also the loss of our niece Marie (a few years ago, before I was even a Fox actually). We are so so grateful for out baby Maia and I thank the Lord each day for the opportunity I have to be a mother. Sometimes I just think this is what I was born to do, be this little girls mom. Maybe that's why I keep hurting my wrists and can't massage 'cuz of the pain! Because I just need to be her mom right now :) Anyway the blanket is a surprise which makes it even  more fun for me to work on! Secrets are sort of a difficult thing for me but I must say I have done pretty well keeping it :) But I know it will mean a lot to them. I wrote a little poem to go with it too:

This quilt is big enough for two

Because it was made just for you

From some you love and some you know

That all have a lot of love to show

When you're all wrapped up its a big warm hug

As long as Moose (their puppy) doesn't use it for a rug

We know sometimes your far away

That's why we made this to send your way

To let you know how much we care

And we'll always be there for you,

We Swear!

I have so many amazing friends that I am grateful for! I have my little community of people I love and care about and I love all the technologies available to me so I can keep in touch with them all!

So Christmas! We had a wonderful time with my family But lets start from the begging! Everyone got sick! We all had our chance with the throw up yuck! It didn't last very long so at least we had that! And everyone was finished with it by Christmas eve! So after I got the quilt done it was time for some family time! We went all over looking for this supposed awesome new iceless ice skating rink sounds interesting at least right? Well here is said "rink"

It's tiny!! And we watched people try to skate on it and they were just walking in ice skates on it.. So pretty much not worth it!

then this photo made me laugh because they had signs rather than like guard rails to enclose the "rink"

So then we went to Southglenn Mall or whatever the outdoor shopping is called now and they have a tiny rink that is real ice so that's where we skated! My mom met us there and brought this SUPER adorable Santa suit for Maia, and since it was Chilly we put it on her!

Santa Baby!

Then later that evening Jesse, Mandy, My Dad and I went to an Avalanche Hockey game! It was really fun! The Av's lost but we still had a good time! We got a great deal too! It was family night so we got 4 tickets and 4 MEALS for $99!! It was crazy!

We enjoyed it, it was my Dad and Mandy's first NHL game, now they know a little more about Hockey than they did before!

The next day was Christmas Eve and our tradition is to have scones and a program over at my Grandma Browns home. And that's exactly what we did! We helped make and devour some scrumptious home made scones and meatballs. Then we sang some Christmas songs and exchanged a few gifts, then we played Catch phrase for a while. Then went home to put the baby to bed! We opened up some cute Christmas jammies before bed though! Maia got some cute owls, Jesse a ' Everything's bigger in Texas' t-shirt and Cougar Blue jammie pants (can I say that Jesse has Jammies? or do they need to be called Pajamas for a man?) And I had a purple shirt to match Maia's owls and teal pants to kinda match Jesse. Then my Mom game me some BYU pink jammies too!
Christmas Morning!

Santa was good to us this year!

This is an Owl I made for Maia, it matched her Jammies and a pair of shoes she got, in this photo she was dancing with it!

In this photo you can also see the projector and digital photo frame my parents got us!!! We had a great time opening gifts and giving them as well! I made microwavable bean/rice heat bags for all the girls! Jesse did help with them as well! Hopefully everyone got them! Then we had a nice lazy Christmas day! For dinner we had probably the best Turkey of my life! It was so buttery and moist, simply delicious! Either because it was the best turkey or because food was finally tasting good again! 

The next day we had a Brown party after Church at my parents house! It was great to get to see everyone! I haven't seen them all for a long time! We had some homemade burgers, fries and onion rings and played The Game of Things. It was splendid! Later this week we are having another Brown party hopefully Steven and his girlfriend Ali will be able to make it too! For Maia's birthday we are having Lofgrens over! So excited! Of course their will be snow cuz I planned it and people will have to travel so Grandma, Grandpa and Sonja wont be able to come but all other Colorado Lofgrens will hopefully still make it! I will post about after Christmas after her birthday!

Maia and I used sponge curlers and had super cute hair for church!

Dec 26th 2010

My lovely Family minus Mitchell who is serving our Country in Afghanistan

Confessions of a Landlord

As some of  you know Jesse and I own a condo in Springville Utah and we currently have renters there. Over the 2 years they have lived there things have gone pretty smoothly; except for a few strange complaints. Things that are in the contract for them to maintain but still things come up and they make me laugh so I thought I would share them:

First call we ever had from them they'd been there 3 months we were just moving out to Iowa, it went something like this:
them : "Yes the lights in are front room have burned out"
us: "...and?"
them: "We need someone to come and change them."
us: "...That is not something we maintain, you have to provide your own light bulbs."
them: " But they are so high up we can't reach them"
us: "Go borrow a ladder"

Not word for word what was said but you get it. Everywhere I've ever lived, Jesse as well, you have to provide your own light bulbs, maybe they haven't?
Then things were pretty good. They paid their rent in advanced a few months and on time so there were no issues that came up until the next summer.

them: " So summer is starting and our Air Conditioner isn't cold enough"
us: "...Ok..well did you change the filter, like the contract says you need to do annually?"
them: "..yeah but its not working, you need to have somebody come out here and look at it"
us: "ok sure"

Legitimate complaint, a little entitled that its not cold enough for them, but I get it. So we talked to our friend who happens to work on AC and Heating units that happens to live in the next building what might cause something like that to happen. He tells us usually its the filter but every once in a while there is a fuse problem that can be fixed pretty easily. So we hire him to go and take a look at it. An $80 consult later guess what the problem was? The Filter. He said it was filthy and hadn't been changed in at least a year (when we changed it when they moved in!).

Then we talked to them about whether they wanted to renew their lease for another year. Because really we have a renter we live in another state why try to hunt for a new one when we can't be there in person? So lease renewed all the same rules apply and this is the call we get next:
(basically)
them: "Our fridge is too cold, the food in the back of the fridge keeps freezing"
us: "...turn the cold down"
them: "we did it is on the lowest setting, Its just too cold all of a sudden in the back"
us: "have you needed to defrost the freezer? Has there been anything leaking?"
them: "No the freezer works fine, the fridge is just too cold"
us: "...ok....well we'll research what may be wrong and see if we need a technician to check it out."

We did have someone check it out and guess what NOTHING was wrong with the fridge. Surprise. So at this point we are like ok we will just take these unnecessary calls out of the deposit no worries.
Then we begin to feel the pain of our renters not paying the full mortgage. We have been paying the difference for a while now and it is just getting to be too much to pay our rent here and half of theirs there. So we look into selling it, and we have lost value in the property due to economy like many others, so we decided on a short sale. (A short sale is basically we can't afford to make our payments anymore, we are using student loans to pay a mortgage at a place we don't live, and we will either foreclose or if we can find someone to buy for less than we owe we bring the offer to the bank. The bank looks to see if we have need to make this sale, and we do, then decides whether they would prefer to lose their full investment in us or take the deal of the other buyer.) Being nice landlords we let our tenants know that this is the direction we are going; and offer to let them make an offer if they want to buy the condo. As per our contract we do not need to do this we can give them 30 days notice to leave when we need them out, but we're nice. We made an agreement to lower their rent a few hundred dollars a month, cuz we're nice. Their response went a little like this:

them: "We aren't interested in purchasing the property, but since we are helping you sell your condo we would like our full deposit back. We take good care of the place and keep it very clean. We would like the deposit back in full and to have it go towards next the 2 months rent"
us: (WTF? aren't you the same tenants that can't change the ac filter? and have to cold a fridge and want me to change your light bulbs?) "No"
them: "We keep it very clean, and we are doing you a favor helping you sell your condo so we should get our deposit back."
us: "Your deposit is not like rent. If something is to get damaged while you are there or anything needs to be replaced the SECURITY deposit will be used to cover that loss. It is our Security to know that you will take care of our place. We can wave the 20% that we guaranteed we'd keep and if the place looks good when we're ready to sell you can have it all back then"
them: "but we keep things very nice and nothing needs to be replaced or fixed"

Eventually we decided we would give the deposit to a third party, our Realtor doing the short sale, and he can decide whether they deserve their money back after the move out.

Now they say the dishwasher doesn't clean the dishes well enough. We told them to buy some jet dry. What are we gonna do replace is because of the hard water spots left on your dishes? Thought nothing needed to be replaced or fixed? hahaha not the sharpest crayons in the box.
Craziness craziness. We wont be investing in real estate in the future :)

Shopping Poop

Today I took Maia out to shop for her Birthday presents (it’s nice that she is still little enough to forget what I buy her until the big day!) at Toys ‘R’ Us. We picked up a new soothie cord, anyone that has seen hers lately may know that it smells awful, and she started the straining. I thought to myself ‘oh great we just get here so you poop? Oh well I’ll give you a few minutes and then go change you.’ Right? WELL little did I know this kid had a monumental BM headed my way! I took her out of the cart to see if she would walk with this popper walking toy and I noticed some moisture had leaked through to her pants. SO ‘ok it can’t be that bad we’ll go change you and continue our shopping and give the kid a bath later all good.’


We get into the Mothers room there and I take her pants off and completely cover her leg in the poop!! Her onsie is beyond saving so I manage to get that off without getting pooh in her hair (thankfully!) and all I have in my diaper bag for change of clothes is a bib and an extra pair of socks!! Thank goodness she wore layers today! She happened to be wearing a skirt over her jeans, that DID get dirtied but it wasn’t awful, so I cleaned her up best I could and put on the skirt and her sweater and fresh clean socks. I bundled up the dirtiest clothes and set them in their respective corner of the cart and headed towards the clearance section. I noticed some people pointing at my baby and me and commenting how “it’s 20 degrees outside why is that poor little girl in a skirt?” I didn’t respond out loud but inside I was just laughing at my predicament. So I found some pretty cute clearance clothes, doesn’t happen much at that store, and went back to put them on. 


On my way back to the change room I made sure I told an employee what I was doing so they didn’t think I was stealing clothes. It’s just cold, I gotta clothe my baby! SO I took the tags off and kept them out of reach of Maia so that I could pay for them afterwards. Also asked for a separate small bag to put the dirty clothes in so I didn’t get pooh on everything else! The rest of the shopping trip was pretty much a breeze after that!


Here is a photo of the pants she was wearing, they are inside-out here.
yes I took a picture of poopy pants


When I got them home to rinse off etc there was still MORE pooh in them! I hadn’t gotten it as cleaned out as I thought!! HAHAHA!!! Oh what a day :) 


I laughed about it so much I just had to share; it may be kind of a ‘dirty’ story but I know you all probably got a kick out of it too!