relaxing on a sunday afternoon

these pictures were too cute to not post. naomi decided to read the paper a couple sundays ago, and christopher joined her.

moving!

we've moved!

after having our house listed for about a month, we received an offer on the 22nd of april. happy birthday to me! i did a happy dance when we got the call for a second showing - it was the first time we'd had a second showing in both times we had listed our house. getting the offer a couple days after that was so sweet! yay! so, we got packing, and finished up a few projects.

we had been having drainage issues for a while. we put in drywells last year, but they weren't cutting it any more. so we (i should say dave - thanks honey! you're the best) got boxes and pipes, and dug them in just under the grass. that way the water flowing from our neighbors yard - ya, nice, eh? - would have somewhere to go, instead of pooling by the fence.

we also celebrated mother's day in the midst of all our packing. the kids made me super sweet cards, and helped with breakfast.

dave picked some flowers for me and made me lasagna - my favorite! isn't he sweet? :)

then we got packing! naomi tried to pack herself up, but i convinced her to make the move in the car instead. i think it was a good choice on her part. :)

we had about a month to pack, which was good. it took me the whole time, working really hard, to have everything ready in time. a bunch of great friends came over one night to help me pack the kitchen, which was so fabulous! thanks, you guys! you're great! it would have taken me forever to do by myself.

christopher and naomi both did great with all the packing, and everything that goes along with moving. it was nice that they were both old enough to deal with the schedule upsets fairly well. i was glad to not be moving with a baby in tow. :)

christopher would "help" by "labeling" all the boxes for me. he spent hours drawing on all the packing boxes with the sharpies. it made my packing much more pleasant to pull out a box that had been decorated. made me smile. he would copy the words that were printed on the box, so i had boxes with "this side up", or "the home depot" all over them. so cute!

naomi was my little tag-along helper. we did a lot together while christopher was at preschool. we moved all the furniture stuff, with help from the elder's quorum, on saturday (may 16th), and then still had a few days before we had to hand over the keys. that worked out really nicely, because i had a few days to clean the house. i went over while chris was at preschool, and naomi "helped" clean too. it was also nice for us to have a chance to say our goodbyes to the house. i love a new adventure, and am LOVING having less to take care of and clean, but it was still sad to say goodbye.

we spent the rest of may unpacking everything we had just put in boxes. crazy. moving sure is a lot of work! we are all unpacked, now, though, which is soooo nice. a place for everything. pretty much, anyway. :) i love organizing, so this has been the fun part for me. the only thing left is the garage. it has all the furniture from the house, that doesn't belong now. i have also left the decorative stuff for last. so, once the walls aren't bare, i'll post pictures of our new place.

new recipe on the sidebar :)

easter 2009

on goes the catch up...

we had a wonderful easter this year.  the kids woke up to baskets from the easter bunny.  he left construction paper, markers, stickers and such.  we got ready for church, and enjoyed a wonderful time there, remembering the resurrection of the Savior.

after church, i started the preparations for easter dinner - one of my favorite holiday dinners.  okay, i guess i love pretty much all holiday food.  mmm.  thinking about food is making me hungry. :)  anyway, the family came over for dinner, and we had a great time together.  i served the traditional (in my family, anyway) ham and potatoes, with other side dishes.  it was a wonderful day.  

i think that maybe next year we will have the egg hunt/baskets on the saturday before easter.  that way we have the fun stuff the day before, and can really focus on the Savior on easter.  i'd like to start a new tradition to make Easter Sunday really special and important - help the kids understand the significance.  let me know if you have a great Easter Sunday tradition you do with your family.  i'd love to hear!

arizona trip - part 3

we had such a great time with my grandparents, dad, and uncle and aunt and their family.  some of my very favorite memories are from family reunions.  i am so blessed to have such a wonderful, loving, supportive family, who i absolutely love spending time with.  and now the kids have pictures with their great grandparents.  how cool is that?

we traveled back up to my other aunt and uncles before heading home.  the kids all had so much fun together.  i didn't get a picture of ethan and emma with the kids, but did get a few with adam.

naomi and adam had a lot of fun together.  here they are going in for a kiss. :)

and a hug

the drive back home was quite eventful.  it was quite cold - around 32* when we started out, and we definitely weren't prepared for the cold.  the kids had on shorts, t-shirts, and sandals.  let's just say that we weren't expecting winter conditions - in march - in the south.  on the way there we had stopped often, and let the kids get out and stretch their legs a bit.  that wasn't happening this time around!  the poor kids (and parents stuck in the car with them!) didn't really get out the whole day.  other than that, though, everything was going fine until we got to santa rosa, new mexico.  there was a road block on i-40 because of the weather.  it was cold, but clear skies, so we decided to take the detour south.  we had already booked our hotel for the night, and didn't want to loose the money from that.  so, we decided to drive the extra few hours to make it to albuquerque that night.  that wasn't the best choice we've ever made. :)  as soon as we hit the texas state line, it started blizzarding like crazy.  the plains in alberta is the only thing i can think to compare it to.  there were also patches of ice that we slid on 3 or 4 times.  visibility was almost nonexistent, but since we were in the middle of nowhere, we just had to keep going.  poor dave!  i was glad it wasn't me driving!  so, as you can imagine, a two hour detour ended up being quite a bit longer than that.  christopher fell asleep pretty easily in his carseat, but naomi wasn't having any of it.  she would cry and cry, then fall asleep for half an hour, then wake up and cry some more.  i got in the back, between the carseats, so i could rub her arm and comfort her a bit.  it worked a bit, but she was NOT a happy camper!  we finally made it to the hotel at 2 a.m.!  what a HORRIBLE drive!  but that's what memories are made of, right? :)  and once we got there, we still had to get the kids, and all of our stuff, to our room.  we were all wearing sandals and summer clothes.  at 2 in the morning. in a blizzard.  dave took this picture as he was unloading the luggage.  i was all for just crashing, but he wanted to document the event. :)

the next day was still snowy, and a little icy and slippery, but the road had all dried up by about noon that day.  what a crazy, random night!  we made it home safe and sound, though, and that's what's important.  i'm so glad we went, even with the crazy drive home. :)

arizona trip - part 2

the next day was sunday, so we went to church with dave and laurel, and had a nice, relaxing day.  on monday, we packed up for the day, and drove down to my grandparent's house.  we had a great time!

dave showing my dad some youtube clips of his hawaii trip

my dad helping naomi "swim" :)  

i didn't get a picture, but we all actually got our suits on and went out there.  keep in mind that this was the middle of march.  granted it is arizona, but still not really swimming weather yet.  i didn't have anything to prove, so i got in mid-calf or so. :)  let's just say there some among us who were not quite as logical about the whole thing. hehehe :)

the kids loved the gorgeous weather, and basically spent both days outside.  they played on the grass (which is hard to find there!), drew great grandpa and grandma beautiful chalk pictures, had a blast with grandpa, and played at the awesome park across the street.

that night we had a birthday celebration for my dad.  happy 50th, dad!

it was great to have fun and spend time with everyone! 

stay tuned for part 3 

*this might get a bit long, so feel free to skip the next ones*

arizona trip - part 1

okay, so this post is a loonnng time coming, but better late than never - right??  oh well, i must admit that i am not very good at journaling, but i do much better blogging and online journaling than i have ever done the traditional way.  

so, in march we took a trip to arizona, and had a great time.  my dad flew down to spend some time with my grandparents, and we thought that made a good excuse to go and see them too.  we didn't make it out at christmas, when everyone else did, so we thought we'd make it a spring break trip instead.  it worked out to be the week after spring break, but i think seeing your great grandparents is a whole lot more important than preschool!

it is a 16 hour drive from where we are, so we took two days doing it.  i don't know what we would have done if we didn't have the portable dvd player.  that thing saved our bacon.  the kids actually did really well, for the most part.  naomi did not enjoy being made to nap in her carseat, but other than that, life was pretty pleasant.

the kids enjoyed watching saturday morning cartoons at the hotel we stayed at.  they looked pretty zoned out, don't they?

on the second day of our drive, we decided to stop and do some site-seeing while we stretched our legs.  we stopped at meteor crater, which is the biggest meteor crater in the world.  it was pretty interesting, and a fun stop.

before we actually got to the crater, we came to a big open space with a bunch of sand, dirt, and rocks.  it wouldn't have been very appealing, normally, but to a couple of cooped-up kids, it was heaven!

they explored...

and ran around like crazy...

here is the actual crater.  pretty massive.

after the meteor, we got back in the car, and made it to my aunt and uncle's house.  they were wonderful enough to let us stay with them on our trip, and even had pizza for us when we got there.

stay tuned for part 2