Blog tagged

The rules are you have to take ten pictures of the following things. And you have to do it right away. No straightening, cleaning or wiping your child's nose. Then you tag five others.



1. Closet


2. Laundry Room

3. Fridge

4. Kitchen sink

5. Favorite room

6. What are your kids doing right now?

Seth is not home right now, he is playing with his best friend Logan. But here is what I am sure he would be doing if he were here.

7. Toilet

8. Favorite shoes

9. Self Portrait

10 is supposed to be your dream vacation. I think right now any place without children would be my dream. Quiet, not too hot, preferably in the mountains with a stream, lake or river close by. Lots of wildflowers and wildlife (not too wild of course). Yeah, I could go for that.

I guess I will tag Darla, Paige, Val, Chalise and Amber and anyone else who feels so inclined.

Okay, a real post this time!

The kids are in bed, the hubby is down the street playing basketball at the neighbors and I finally have some peace and quiet. What better way to spend it then to finally post some pictures. I think I will just post a bunch from the last few months.

This is the most recent picture I have of the house and it is before we moved in. I have been waiting for them to finish the yard (every week they promise that "it is happening this week"). That is the one thing that I have been frustrated with, but what can you do. I am just happy that they are putting in the basic yard. Tonight I went out to take a picture--forget the grass. And literally, the second I pushed the button, my camera battery died. So this is the best you get for now. It doesn't look much different except the door is black and the sprinklers are in and the yard is ready for sod.

When we first moved in, we didn't have a table for the first few days so we were having a lot of "picnics" until our neighbors took pity on us and let us use their folding table and chairs until we moved everything out of the storage unit. This is our dining area and family room.

Nick unlocking the door the first time we came "home" after signing the papers. I don't have any other pictures of the house, and since it takes me years to decorate, I probably won't be taking any pictures for a while. If you want to see something, I guess you better come visit me.

Today I went to visit my grandma (I adopted her as my grandma anyway) and the kids LOVED her tire swing. She has this wonderful huge tree in her front yard. I love that tree!

The following pictures show why I will never have a clean house as long as Sam eats. If this is what his face looks like, imagine the floor. This is when he decided he wanted to lick the tarter sauce off the plate and he missed his mouth.

I think this was Lucky Charms. And from the look he has, they may have been spiked....

Who knows.....maybe peanut butter? Or maybe something with cheese. As long as we are on the subject of cheese--Sam has learned that anytime a camera is pointed at him, it is proper to say "CHEEEESEEE"

Speaking of food, I am so proud of these. I know they may not seem so great to anyone else, but I have the WORST luck with making anything with yeast and I was so proud that these actually worked. We had Nick's dad and step mom over for dinner on Father's Day and I decided I would at least try to make some rolls. Yea me!

Nick and Seth putting together some shelves. I loved that Seth insisted on wearing his safety glasses the whole time.

We went to the park last week and Seth was so proud of himself for climbing up pretty high on this little contraption.

I have such great friends. My friend Allyson made this for Nick for his birthday (per his request). It is no small task and it was delicious!

Sam has no idea what is about to happen!

Look at Seth's expression. Not even a hint of remorse. That boy is going to give me a run for my money.

Sam had to get tubes put in his ears. He was nice and happy before he went in. Not so much when he came out.

Nick and Seth went on the Father and Son's camp out. They slept in the van and had a fabulous (if chilly) time. Seth still talks about it constantly.

On our last trip to Parowan, Seth got to help Grandma with planting the garden and help Grandpa shovel stuff out of the truck. I have the best parents who are always so great to let the grandchildren be involved in their project--no matter how busy they are.

I wasn't able to do my semi-annual spring trip to St. George with my friends this year, but I was lucky enough to have them come up here for the weekend. We had a great time and had a nice little slumber party in my family room. It was so theraputic to spend time with them. Too bad this is the only picture I got of the weekend.

So that is a basic overview of our last couple of months. Terribly exciting I know. We are so happy in our new house. We love the house and it has felt like home from day one (probably because we walked through it almost every day when it was being built). We love being in a cul-de-sac and that is why our children are still alive--they are in the street constantly. Seth is so happy. He has a lot of kids his age around and he is constantly playing with friends. We have wonderful neighbors and spend so much time visiting outside. Like last night we were out with 2 other couples on the lawn (neighbors lawn, not mine as I have NO GRASS--but I am not bitter about it) eating treats and playing on the guitars until 11:30. It has been a great move for us. I miss our old neighborhood, but where I was on the corner of a busy road, I didn't feel comfortable being outside with the kids much. This has been a wonderful change.

We would love to have visitors so if you are in the area, come see us (even if you just live down the street--hint hint JoAnn, Cheryl and Heather).

Yea, I finally have a weight lifted off since I have been feeling the need to blog for awhile now. I can go to bed guilt free tonight. Until next time.....

I'm back!!

Goal for today: Update the blog.

Check

Goal for tomorrow (or to be honest--sometime this week): Do a real update with pictures and everything.

Just wanted to let you all know that I am still alive and mostly well. Crazy as ever but we are loving our new house.

Gotta run!

Enjoy the last post for awhile...

So it has been awhile since I have posted anything, and it will probably be a long time until I get another one. To summarize our last month--we have sold the house. It was supposed to close on the 16th of April, but we found out today that they are ready and would like to close ASAP. Our goal is to be out of here by Saturday. Yikes! We have already taken a bunch of stuff over to our storage unit, but the next few days are going to be busy. Luckily my mom is going to be staying with me for a few days to help with the kids and stuff (Mom is flying back from Chicago tomorrow where she has been helping my sis Valerie with her darling new baby--she won't even be going home in between babysitting jobs--my mom is the BEST!)


Our new home is scheduled to be done sometime between the middle and end of May, so in the meantime, we will be living in Nick's sisters house about 30 minutes from here. I'm going to miss being around all the great people that surround me, but I will be minutes away from my awesome friend Sarah and a lot closer to my brother Denny. It will be challenging for me, as I will not have a home phone and anyone who knows me knows that I am on the phone constantly (sometimes the home and cell at the same time). I will also be without Internet so my blog stalking will be seriously curtailed. I will also be without TV which isn't much of a problem except for a few select reality shows. I guess I will just have to convince Sarah to record them for me and I can watch them as I am doing my laundry at her house--oh yeah, I won't have a washer and dryer for the time. We are trying to move as little as possible. Luckily I have great friends!!!

I thought I would include a few pictures of the progress of our house. It seems to be coming along quite nicely. Nick went over tonight and it seems like they are mostly finished with the wiring and a lot of the lights are in. The plumbing is also done and the furnace and all that stuff is finished as well I think (like I know anything about construction).

March 18th

March 19th

March 21st

March 25th

March 28th

We are pretty excited that it all seems to be coming together. It is just going to be crazy for the rest of the week.

In other news, Sam had a great birthday party that I have yet to download the pictures. I'm trying to get as many pictures copied on disks before we take the computer down and I don't want to add more. Maybe I will post them in June once I am up and running again....

Hope everyone who actually reads my blog has a wonderful couple of months. I will try to get on and post occasionally, but don't hold your breath waiting and NO BUGGING ME!!!!

Sambo is one already???

Okay, so apparently some people have nothing better to do than give me a hard time about not updating the blog very often. What is up with that? It's only been 2 weeks....

So today is Sam's b-day. I can't believe it has been a year already. Time sure has flown. I thought I would post a "few" pictures of him from the last year.

Can't tell that I had a total emotional breakdown on the way to the hospital can you? And this was even before I got my epidural....


Nick's face when we found out we had another boy. We were SURE we were having a girl.

He seemed like such a little angel. Boy, that theory was proven wrong about 2 weeks later.

1st day home from the hospital. It's crazy to see how much Seth has changed over the year as well.

Sam's 1st smile. As I have been looking through all the pictures, I realize he really is a smiley boy (when he isn't crying).

Hanging out with his cousins Sienna and Katie-Kate. Technically they are his cousins children, but that just seems wrong.


I LOVE that big smile of his!




I'm sure anyone who knows Seth knows that he is obsessed with his big blue bunny. Well, Sam is just as attached to his big yellow bunny. It is not very often now that I get him out of his crib when he doesn't have a death grip on his bunny.

We went to the park the other day and he loved the swings. He wanted to go as high as possible. I worry that he will be chip off the old block and the blockhead's family and be a real dare-devil... oh yeah, this is a good picture to see his 3 teeth.

We are pretty strict about our kids and sugar for the first year--basically they don't get any. So even though we are not doing his official b-day party until Saturday, we decided to at least go get a treat tonight. This was his 1st bite and the expression after this was priceless and of course I missed it. He got over his aversion to the cold really quickly and worked diligently on the ice cream cone until....

He got a taste of my root beer float. I think he will be a soda fanatic. I'll make sure to post pictures from his party and the cake.

In other news, we had a great Pancake Tuesday. It was a largest yet with 130 people attending. The only problem was if we tried to use more than 2 griddles the circuit would pop. It was still a great time and it was fun to have one of my friends from the very first Pancake Tuesday attend again. Hopefully next year it can be even bigger.

Sam has ANOTHER double ear infection. I'm thinking that it may be a repeat of Seth and every time he gets a tooth, he will get an ear infection to go along with it. I hope we don't have to tubes on him as well....

Great news--my tooth is all better!!! I took the medication that the dentist gave me, but I also had Nick give me a blessing and I really think that is what helped the most. I'm so glad to have him worthy to be able to give us blessings when we need them. He is a great man!

We haven't had any offers on the house yet and our offer on the new house expires on April 1st. I'm starting to panic a little. We will try to extend it a little bit but I don't know if they are going to go for it or not. They are starting to frame either Friday or Monday and they say it will be done 60 days after that. So we will see what happens.

Things I am looking forward to:

This Friday we will be celebrating Pie Day. We celebrate it every March 14th (3.14). This year we are getting together with 4 other couples and going out to a place in PG that has all different kinds of rooms that you can rent by the hour. Okay, that sounds bad, but it better not be since we are taking our bishop! Our room will have a pool table and a 9ft HD projector TV. Not to shabby eh? We will be having Pizza "Pies" and a couple of regular pies and other goodies as well. Basically any time away from the kids and getting to eat in peace is considered a little trip to heaven.

My sister and her family as well as my parents are coming up this weekend. Chalise and Ammon will be staying for Monday so Nick is taking the day off and we are going to play!!

Okay, I think this is enough for now. I'll see you in a couple more weeks :-)

All about my honey....

1. What is his name? Nicholas Abraham
2. How long have you been married? 12 years (13 in April)
3. How long did you date? 6 months
4. Who eats more sweets? No question about it...Me. Nick is not a big sugar fan. He does like ice cream, but that is about all he really likes.
5. Who said I love you first? He did and it took a week before I could say it back. The first time is so hard!
6. Who is taller? Nick
7. Who can sing better? Definitely Nick
8. Who is smarter? Nick is smarter, yet I am always right. Go figure.
9. Who does the laundry? Me. Our deal used to be that I would sort, wash and dry and he would fold and put away. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. However, if I am folding and he comes in the room, he is very good to help me.
10. Who pays the bills? I do
11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Looking at it, he does. If we are in it, then I am on the right side.
12. Who mows the lawn? Both, but if I mow, he is always the one to edge it.
13. Who cooks dinner? Kind of both. I hate cooking and I rarely have it started (or even figured out what we are having) before he gets home from work. We usually do it together.
14. Who drives? Ususally Nick, but on trips we will take turns (but he does it more).
15. Who is more stubborn? Me for sure. I'm kind of a brat.
16. Who kissed who first? It takes 2 to smooch, but I think he is the one who initiated it and wow--what a kiss!
17. Who asked who out first? He asked me and the first time I had to say no, but we went out a few days later.
18. Who proposed? Nick did after 10 days --and again--the first time I had to say no. Actually I told him that I couldn't say yes, but I couldn't say no and he told me "Never mind, I'll ask again later. On our two month anniversary of dating, he did the official proposal and this time I said "yes yes yes you big dork " or something like that.
19. Who is more sensitive? Me for sure. Sometime I wonder if that boy has emotion.
20. Who has more siblings? He does. There are 10 living children, 2 that died as babies and 1 half sister that I think he has only met once.
21. Who wears the pants? We each have a leg in. I think that we are pretty equal except I throw the bigger fits when needed.

I'll tag Paige and whoever else wants to do it.

Penance

Forgive me blog readers for I have procrastinated. It has been over a month since my last blog entry....

Apparently a bunch of you are getting sick of reading about how blessed I am. I will now try and tell you all the crappy things in my life. Just kidding, but it has been a most crazy month which is my excuse for not writing sooner. In my last entry, I mentioned a few of the things that had happened lately (we put our cat to sleep, our friends baby died, Nick's dad was having major bypass surgery). Since then we have had more fun. Nick's brother moved back in with us, Sam got RSV and a double ear infection, Seth had an ear infection as well and had breathing issues so I was doing breathing treatments for both boys. The worst part was on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago when we realized Bo was not doing well at all and we had to put him down that afternoon. It was so hard for me. He was such a great dog and I still miss him a ton. I am also realizing what a good helper he was in the kitchen. He was so good at washing the dishes!! I'm joking (he actually left a lot of spots). Okay, I promise to all of you who have already (or who had entertained the idea) of eating at my house, my pets do not clean my dishes. But I do find that I am sweeping up around the high chair constantly. At first I kept thinking to myself, why is all of this crap on the floor? Then I realize that it is because Bo is no longer here to keep things cleaned up. He was a great addition to our family and will be sorely missed!

This is shortly before we took Bo in. I don't know if you can tell, but he had lost so much weight and his hip bones were just sticking out. I still get emotional when I look at pictures from this day.
Our last family picture. Can you tell I have been crying already?

Okay, enough of that. I guess we decided that our life wasn't crazy enough, so in the midst of all of this we decided it was the perfect time to build a house. There is a new development across the field from us and we have been watching a particular lot in there for almost a year. They finally lowered the price and we decided to act on it. We made an offer and it is contingent on us selling our house by April 1st. Not a whole lot of time, and the market really sucks right now but we are giving it a shot. It is a rambler in a cul-de-sac which is all we want. Simple dreams really. We have had a few lookers, but no offers yet. Part of me wants it to happen, but I really like our house payment now and we know that we have great neighbors. So we will see.

It seemed like things were calming down until I started having some problems with my tooth. I went to the dentist today (whom I LOVE) and it turns out that my root canal that I had done a couple of years ago has a little pocket of infection at the tip of the root. So my dentist gave me some amoxicillian in hopes that it will take care of the infection and if not, then I will have to go back in next week and have the root canal re-done. Oh, and did I mention that I just cancelled my dental insurance since I haven't had any problems for years and figured it would be cheaper to just pay for my check-ups and cleanings.

In fun news, this Friday, we are celebrating the 18th annual Pancake Tuesday. It will be huge if everyone (or even half) of all that we invited show up. Just in our ward alone we invited over 50 families plus family and friends that used to attend when we lived up here before. We are doing it at the church to give us plenty of room. It will be our first time doing a big production since we have moved up here, so I'm not sure what to expect. It should be fun anyway.

In family news, Sam has finally got some teeth. His bottom two came in a little while ago, and his first top one has finally broken through. He can finally go down the stairs if you get him started. If you don't help him, he just sits there and whines. Seth learned how to do down stairs really early, so this has thrown me for a loop. I mean, he is almost a year old--just two weeks away.

Sam loves the cats and will chase them around and then tackle and lay on them.

Seth is doing great. That boy cracks me up with his comments. Not to get too personal, but the other day George (Nick's brother) was in the bathroom and Seth asked if he could go in. When George said no, Seth asked if he was going poop. When the answer came back in the affermative, Seth gave a very enthusiastic "GREAT". Can you tell he gets a lot of praise when he goes poop on the toilet?? He is doing great with the potty training. It was just a matter of him deciding that he wanted to do it. Now if I can just get him to want to go to Primary. It is a struggle every week with crying fits and last week he was hitting me as I was trying to take him in. He does fine after being in there for about 10 minutes, but at the first it is a major crisis. His new favorite word is bud and he calls everyone bud (except when we were in the grocery store last week and he said to some passing stranger--"Hello idiot").

This is what happens when Seth picks out his own clothes. He did a great job of making sure everything he picked was green. Maybe we can save this outfit for St. Patricks Day....

I haven't been to good at taking pictures lately, but I'll see if I can find some new ones....but at least there is finally a new post. By the way Sarah, why did you tag me with the one I did not too long ago that you had so much fun mocking me with??? I will do the other one instead.