House Update

Believe it or not another two weeks have passed since we’d been up to the new house. Today we had a meeting with the landscaper to discuss our landscaping preferences. In his email before we met he told us we didn't need to know anything or come prepared with any information. Well, he found out we don't quite work that way. We’ve worked with a landscaping company on our current home so we came armed with a list of plants we hate, plants we love, and plants that we think are ok. The included budget to work with is small so we'll probably start out with just a small selection of plants that we like, but that's better than ending up with a bunch cheap plants that we rip out down the road. Hopefully he will come up with a great overall design that we can implement little by little over the years. We also had a short meeting with the superintendent to decide what we wanted our patio to look like.

This is the current state of our front and backyard.

Inside the house things are really moving along. All the drywall is up and they were working on taping up all the seams. Having walls makes the house feel completely different.

Here’s Jason in the entry looking into the living room, behind that is the dining room, and the last room is the family room.

Standing in the kitchen looking at the family room

Standing in the family room looking at the kitchen and nook

The bonus room

Eventually we will be sandwiched between neighbors, but we will always have this view from our front yard. I can’t get over how beautiful it is.

Things are changing so quickly I’m going to have to start making weekly visits.

To Remember

Here we are 15 days into the New Year and I've already posted 15 times (including this here post). Dear readers (are you still out there?) I promise I will not keep this up, but I did warn you.

But since I'm here, I do have a little something I want to remember from yesterday and if it's not written down it likely won't be remembered.

Since Abigail celebrated an odd birthday, instead of a friend party she got to choose a fun activity to do as a family. So last night we all went swimming. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed in the pool area so picture the following:

The girls having a blast going down the waterside and playing on floaties in the lap pool.

Jason with blue lips and trembling little legs, but not an utter of complaint in the three hours we were there.

Katie and I hanging out in the lazy river for an hour. My upper body relaxing in a tiny tube and Katie laying across my chest completely content and still. Definitely a heartwarming moment I want to remember (seriously, why does she have to grow up?!?)

After watching Abigail belly flop off the diving board I witnessed Justin dive for the first time ever (and he's not half bad).

So not to post completely pictureless, here's a snapshot off my phone of Abigail enjoying her free birthday sundae at Red Robin this afternoon.

Nine Months Old

This week my oldest turned nine years old and my youngest turned nine months old. It's crazy how that happens.

Katie had a few break throughs this past month; first, in Utah she was subjected to many family members eager to spend time with her and she did very well. Sure she wasn't always willing, but on most occasions she was cool with it.

Another more literal break through was her first tooth.

Being away from home for so long threw any sort if schedule out the window. To our delight, she tolerated the lack of regular sleep surprisingly well. Even better is that since we've gotten back she is sleeping through the night (that's 11-12 hours solid) and taking 2 naps a day.

New sounds include da-da (Justin doesn’t buy into the idea that it is her way of beckoning him for his love and attention) and making the s sound like a snake, sssssssss.

Still not much mobility action going on although she has started to scoot backwards when lying on her tummy.

Gives high fives, at least that's what we do when she raises her hand up in the air.

A baby can't be around my Mom and siblings and not be subjected to eating table food. (My Mom gave ice cream to Jason when he was only days old). While in Utah Katie tried French fries, bread, chocolate, smoothie, crackers, chocolate and regular goldfish, pancakes and cheese.

More House?

At the request of my husband here are a few more pictures of the house that we took last week:

This is the family room – probably 2 times larger than our current family room. The fireplace will be floor to ceiling stone with an insert for our TV.

This is from the upstairs landing. Rooms from left to right are: bonus room (barely visible, better picture here), kids room (likely the girls), kids bathroom (yep, that’s the tub), and the laundry room has the small window.

Justin and Jason walking around the bonus room. The long wall is our storage room (officially labeled as our master closet). Beyond that is our master bath (corner bathtub) and then the workerman is standing in the master bedroom – also pictured below.

Abigail turns NINE!

Abigail had her ninth birthday yesterday. Nine! I'm kind of freaking out. That's half way out the door. She's changing so fast and I no longer look at her and see my little girl. How can I when she's nearly five feet tall and wants to borrow my shoes? MY shoes!

Last night we had the Fletcher family over for dinner, gift opening, and Oreo Madness. Abigail got some fun crafts, new piano music (which she is SUPER excited about), a birthday pillowcase made my Grandma Fletcher, and a few clothes.

Grandma Kesler’s gift was very challenging to open without any scissors.

Abigail managed to pry it open and loved the sports clothes. In fact it took quite a bit to convince her that it was not an appropriate outfit to wear to school today. Doesn’t she look so grown up?

At nine Abigail loves to play the piano, soccer, and basketball. She has SO many friends (thank goodness this year wasn't a year for a friend party - making that list would have been tough). Abigail enjoys learning to cook and help in the kitchen. She still loves to read and just completed the Harry Potter series and was finally allowed to watch the first Harry Potter movie while we were in Utah. She is currently ranked third in her school for most AR points (that includes kindergarten thru fifth grade). Abigail doesn't like mashed potatoes, taking showers, or changing diapers. Abigail’s greatest fear is fire. Several, several years ago we saw a house on fire as we were driving down the freeway in Utah. She remembers that and has even had nightmares about fires. It even took some coaxing to get her to sit down at the table while Justin lit her candles.

There really couldn't have been a better child to send to me as my first child. In spite of all my mistakes she's practically perfect.

Girl you make me look good!

Happy Birthday Abigail!

House Update

We went up to the house on Thursday afternoon to check out the progress. It had been nearly 3 weeks since I'd seen the house (click here, here, and here for prior pictures).

Here is a picture from mid-December:

And this is from Thursday:

The house will not be blue – that’s just the color of the hardy plank pre-painted.

The inside is still just studs, but it looked like they had all the electrical and plumbing mostly finished.

View from the front of the house (there will never be any building beyond this little park, so we will always have this beautiful view):

Based on a recent progress report from the builder we are looking at a mid-late March closing date.

New Years Eve and 2011

We experienced first hand last year that my sister hosts an awesome News Year’s Eve party. When making our flight reservations I knew we had to be here for both Christmas Eve and New Years Eve.

The kids watched a movie and played the Wii downstairs while the adults played games and visited upstairs. Around 10:30pm we had an unexpected practice run when the balloons and confetti came down prematurely. We kept the kids downstairs while we reloaded what seemed like hundreds of balloons and piles of confetti.

We welcomed in 2011 with quite the celebration.

We spent our last few days up north at my sister Brenda’s house. When we came to Utah last year we only had a week and every day was busy with something. Justin wanted our visit this year to be less scheduled and more relaxing. New Years Day fit that description perfectly. My sister gave me a hard time about staying in my pjs until 6pm when she graciously offered to watch all the kids so Justin and I could go out. Much appreciated. New Years resolution #1 is to get back to going out regularly.

You’d think that after 2 weeks we’d be more than ready to head home, but it actually went by very fast. On our way home we were asking the kids what their favorite part about the trip was. Carly said she had two NOT so favorite parts - #1 getting sick one morning and #2 leaving. We had the perfect combination of fun outings and much needed relaxation. A HUGE thank you to everyone who made our visit so wonderful.

I should know by now

I took Carly to get a haircut while we were in Utah. It had been over a year since she's even had a trim and although she has recently enjoyed being able to put it back in a ponytail, she's been wanting it cut short for awhile. I can handle a basic haircut myself but Carly's hair requires more than just a 5-minute improvisation. I took her to the closest chain hair cutting joint with a coupon in hand. I should know by now to avoid these places, I rarely come out happy with the result. I like the length but the style and quality of cut is lacking.

Let the record show that from this time forward I will take her to my trusted hair stylist and fork out the $10 for a decent haircut.

It was two years ago that we first cut her hair short – this was the look we were going for – BIG difference!

As we were driving back to my mom's Carly was telling us that it hurt. When we got home we saw red sores on her neck where it looks like a dull razor was used. So frustrating. Lesson learned.

Temple Square

As I mentioned, Jason has been very interested in temples lately. One evening as we were driving by Salt Lake he was having a hard time spotting the temple from the freeway and ended up thinking the State Capital was the temple instead. It ended up being easier to let him think that than to try and explain to him otherwise. Each time he saw a temple (and there are several in Utah) he'd ask if it was the temple we got married in. We knew we had to make a trip into Salt Lake to show him the temple Justin and I were married in almost 12 years ago.

We first took a tour of the conference center. The neatest thing to me was seeing the gallery of original paintings illustrating Book of Mormon stories. These are images that I've grown up seeing so our was neat to see the actual paintings.

I was surprised how crowded Temple Square was with it being a Tuesday AND after Christmas, but it was so packed that I didn't really feel like we could enjoy everything there was to see. Justin had to lift the girls up to even get a glimpse of the model showing the interior of the temple.

And getting a picture if the kids in front of the Christus was impossible. Still glad we went though and the kids enjoyed it.

Stomping Grounds

We knew we wanted to make a trip to Provo to show the kids around the Brigham Young University campus and visit with their Great-Grandma. My Grandma is 95 years young and recent moved out of her home in St. George into a very nice retirement home in Provo. I was surprised to see her memories still intact and find her in great health. The girls remember seeing her at my mom's wedding last year, but this is the time they have really ever been able to visit with her. After we chatted for a bit she suggested we go outside and feed the ducks at a little pond. Jason had been very reserved up til that point but this perked him right up. It took him a little while to get comfortable with the ducks following him around and trying to steal his bread, but he ended up loving it.

He was so focused on his bread that he didn’t notice this duck sneaking up on him.

I’m pretty sure that once he noticed he threw the whole piece of bread at the duck and took off.

It was a great visit and I'm so glad we made time to see her while we were in town.

We took the kids on a little tour around town showing them the different places Justin and I lived. We walked around the BYU campus a little and even did a little shopping at the BYU bookstore where Jason got a cool new hat.

Even though BYU wasn't a school I dreamed of attending, I would love my kids to have the opportunity to attend school there. Especially since they will not grow up with many members of the Church. To find yourself in that environment would be pretty incredible. It really is a special environment.

Who knows maybe these two crazy girls will be roomies at BYU someday

During our entire trip in Utah Jason was on the lookout for temples so we had to stop by the Provo Temple so Jason could get out and take a look.

Christmas Day

It was no surprise that the girls were the first ones up on Christmas morning. Thankfully though they didn't get up til around 7am. My mom reminded me how cruel she thought it was last year when we made the girls wait until Jason woke up at 9:30am before starting the festivities. This year I let them wake Jason up at 7:45 so they didn't have to wait too long.

I thought their note to Santa was pretty funny

“… There are somethings that we can not think of that we would want so give us stuff u know we would like.”

The girls were right, Santa brought them something they’ve really wanted - razor scooters. Santa brought Jason a set of cars from the Disney movie Cars.

There were lots more goodies in each of the kids stockings.

Jason was super excited when he opened up his new tie – he loves to wear a tie “just like Daddy”.

When he was getting dressed later that morning we decided to try it on – what a handsome dude!

By the time Katie woke up everything had been opened but her gift from Jason. (We thought it would be fun to let our kids exchange gifts this year by having them each draw a name. Abigail called it being Secret Santas.) Yes, Katie only had that one gift to open – isn’t that sad? She didn’t seem to mind and besides what does a 8 month old want anyhow besides LOVE and attention. :)

Jason picked out some bath toys for Katie, but of course she was much more interested in the gift wrap.

Katie also got a few things in her stocking including a cute hat and a toothbrush.

She had no problem letting Carly get in there and help her brush her tooth (yep, her first tooth broke through while we were in Utah)

Christmas day was very relaxing. We played games, ate lots of yummy food, and watched a movie in Grandma and Val’s awesome theatre room.

My brother Lee was also visiting from out of town. After spending a few day with my kids I’m pretty sure he went home exhausted. They were always wanting him to run around and play with them.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is the day to look forward to when spending Christmas with my family. My Mom now lives about an hour away from my four siblings that live in Utah. Everyone came to her house that afternoon for the festivities. The only family member missing was my sister-in-law who had to work. That makes 30 people for dinner.

My mom always makes clam chowder on Christmas Eve and there is always a special batch of clam-free chowder for me (and my brother who in recent years developed an allergy to shellfish and a brother-in-law who just passed one year being vegetarian). Funny side note: at the end of the evening the same vegetarian brother-in-law mentioned asked me what was in the delicious enchilada dip he had been gobbling up all evening. Let's just say he was a little disappointed when I informed him it had chicken in it. So much for one year meat-free.

After dinner the grandkids performed the story of Christ's birth. Abigail was one of the 2 narrators, Carly and Jason were sheep, and Katie was baby Jesus.

The kids did great and it was nice to spend some time reflecting on the reason for the celebration and sing a few Christ centered Christmas songs.

After the nativity it was time for each of the grandkids to open a gift from Grandma. Abigail got Uno Flash, Carly got a huge container of fun fusion beads, Jason was thrilled to get a cars towel, and Katie received some "indestructible" books which she has since been putting their name to the test.

My Mom gave each of her six kids a CD of photos from her childhood as well as a copy of one of her journals - I love these special gifts that can't be bought and will forever be cherished.

The kiddos also participated in a white elephant gift exchange. It was interesting to find that most kids would rather experience the thrill of opening a new gift than to steal a gift containing $10 or even $20 from one of their cousins.

Christmas Eve was the first time my family has seen Katie. She did awesome in Utah and surprised me by letting other people hold her - love that! This was also our first time meeting a new brother-in-law and his daughter as well as meeting the youngest member of the family, my niece, Brooklyn that was born 16 days after Katie.

How perfect that Katie and Brooklyn had the same Christmas jammies.