What's been going on the last month....

Okay, so it has been a LONG time since I did a real post. I have a bunch of pictures that will show our summer so far. Here it goes!

We got the opportunity to go on a hot air balloon ride.

At first I was quite nervous. Not an easy thing for a person who is scared of heights.

And really, can you blame me?

Especially when we were THIS close to the freeway?

But then we got views like this. At one point we were about 1000 feet high. It was an incredible experience and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets the chance. So relaxing and peaceful (but maybe that was because we were without our kids).

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 :-)