Childs Family

Home Tour FINALLY

2012-01-11T16:30:00.018-07:00

I have had tons of requests for pictures, so this is my attempt to post as many as possible. If you click on the picture above, it shows a floor plan for our house. We did all the extra things, expanded the family room, added the doors to the study, and put the fourth bedroom upstairs with the loft. It is easier to follow if you have an idea of what you are looking at first.

Here is the front of our house right after we bought it... haven't seen that much snow since. The front is normally more flat, but we expanded the master bedroom two feet (the window on the left), so it is a little more interesting looking than it would have been.

This is our entry way when you walk in the house. You either go up, or back into the kitchen, but for this tour we will go up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs looking down to the front door.

The view of the landing upstairs I am standing by the master bedroom/ laundry room, looking over to where the kids rooms are. That is where we will start.

Next to Maxwell's room upstairs there is a large, kind of walk in closet. This is the toy closet :). We are still a little overwhelmed from Christmas and the spoiling of grandparents, so excuse the state of the closet. Eventually I will clean it, but for now I just shut the door and ignore it.

Maxwell's room is the room we added to our floor plan, and it is at the front of the house. His room is so bright, it has three windows. We will eventually do his Toy Story room again, but for now it is just a happy place to be :). We all sleep much better now that he isn't in the same room as the girls- he is an expert tormenter and robber of sleep.

The other half of Maxwell's room. I will also note that Max has a ceiling fan in his room, and he runs it 24/7, even in winter. I have to sneak and turn it off.

This is the girls' room. They are still sharing for now. They are excited about their new bunk bed, and also about their chandelier (they had to have one because their friend's mom is way cooler than me and put one in her room). Grandma bought them their bright and fun bedspreads, and the curtains make the room glow green.

An exciting view of their closet

Their dresser

The kids bathroom, back of house next to Hannah and Julia's room. The shower curtain is my favorite. I actually have stuff to decorate the bathroom, but I enjoy the shower curtain so much when I walk by, that I don't want to take it down yet. It was just supposed to be temporary in our apartment.

Our guest room - please note the luxurious accommodations when you visit us :).

There will soon be a lamp, a 32" TV, and an Apple TV in this room. It also comes complete with a closet office (Hannah's computer for school, but you can use it too). Please come and see us!

Next to the guest room and the laundry room is the linen closet, much smaller than the toy closet. We obviously haven't unpacked it yet, but there it is.

This is our upstairs laundry room. Our washer and dryer BARELY made the move, and currently I think they are leaking stuff onto our clothes, so this room may get a remodel in the near future. LOVE having laundry upstairs.

Between the laundry room and the linen closet is the master bedroom. It needs some serious curtain and lamp love, and a painted nightstand, but it is coming along.

We have our old TV in our room. It is on its last leg and probably won't last long, and since there is no where better to put it, here it will stay. It is a nice perk when folding and ironing laundry.

This is our bathroom. It is on the right wall of our bedroom, and it is kind of a hallway with the closet at the end. This picture is looking at it from the closet. That door front and center is to our bedroom, the door hinges you see to the left are the water closet.

The WC

1/3 of our huge closet. Nate and I have fit in a small closet together our entire marriage, so now we are feeling like we have TONS of room, we don't even fill half of it together.

Now to downstairs. This is what you see from the front door:

The french doors lead to our piano room/ craft room... let's be honest, it is really my craft room, the piano just also has to live in there. And, yes, those are Christmas cards on my window. Because of the address change we are still getting about one a day, so I leave them up.

This room will change this week when I get it put together, but you can see how the piano is in there. It survived the move very well.

My craft stuff that hasn't found a home yet.

My crafting closet. I bought the thin closets from IKEA to hold all my crap... that way no one has to look at it unless they want to. It isn't very deep, less than 14", but we have 9 foot ceilings, so you can see it holds lots of stuff...

... lots and lots of stuff.

This is the hallway that leads from the front door to the main living area. I am standing in the kitchen, that door down the hallway is the front door. The door that is on the right facing you is the door to the basement (which is so awfully messy there are no photos of it). The door that is directly to the right is our small pantry.

Hello small pantry, I miss my huge corner pantry.

This is our kitchen, looking at it from the family room. Look familiar? Same shape as our old kitchen, arranged a little different.

Another kitchen pic.

Our dining nook, needs some chairs and a hutch painted, the table is new... we couldn't fit our old table into the moving truck.

A view of the whole kitchen/ dining area

Fireplace and TV, around the corner from the pantry, backs onto the garage.

Our family room. The curtains are actually shower curtains that I loved, and my sweet sister helped me make long curtains out of them, we have yet to get to blinds yet.

From the kitchen: see that little nook on the left? That is where we go next, it is called the "command" center by the builder. It is the computer/office room to us.

Love that the computer is separate, but I can still see what mischief the kids are up to. That has been especially useful while I type this eternal blog post!
The command center also has a large closet. This is actually part of our "muddish room" area.

Here I am standing by the entrance from the family room. The computer room is on the right. The door in front of you is the half bath, and the door on the left is the garage.

The most exciting half bath you have ever seen.

Next to our garage door, they gave us this little seat (it opens to store shoes), and then some hooks. We need to add more, because Max can't reach the hooks.

And this is the garage... and no, we don't plan on leaving the sofa in there, we just haven't had energy to move it downstairs.

And, that is it. I will eventually do a tour of our city, but for now a house tour will do. Congrats if you made it to the end of this super long post :).

My grandparents

2012-01-11T16:15:00.006-07:00

This summer I got to go and spend some time photographing my grandparents - they call them their "obituary" pictures. Because I don't want to imagine a world without them, I have been procrastinating editing them... and I thought I could edit them before Christmas, but it was just too emotional and about half way through the process I just had to stop... so, here are the half edited pics. They didn't turn out too bad, and the picture above for me personally is very much my grandpa.

Hannah's School Picture

2011-12-01T15:58:00.002-07:00

Hannah all grown up =).

Halloween Fort Collins Style

2011-11-06T19:40:00.011-07:00

***ATTENTION: I am out of photo space on this blog!!! I will be starting a new blog to chronicle our adventures, will let you know when I set it up!**********

This post is specifically for my mother-in-law (Hi Jeannie!). We spent Halloween morning at Hannah's school. They had a parade and then a party... all of which were done by 11:30, and then they had to take off their costumes and have normal school! Above are my kiddos in their costumes: a vet, a cowgirl, and Charlie Brown.

Hannah's school did their parade outside, and it was COLD. We all dropped our kids off for school, and then hung around on the playground until the parade started. Lucky for us, Hannah was one of the first ones out, so we didn't have to diligently watch for long!

I got to be the class photographer for the class Halloween party, perfect job for me. Here is a picture of her whole class, there are only 20 kids, gotta love that.

Hannah and her teacher, Mrs. Hewitt. LOVE HER. She is really great for Hannah.

Hannah and I at her party, below is Max and Julia and what they did during the party. Thank goodness for electronics, don't know how my mom lived without them!

Cute mummy juice boxes and healthy snacks - there is a health initiative at the school for the year where they don't do treats (although they did do cookies at this party), so kids are rewarded with healthy things or "movement" activities instead of candy or treats.

Cute Pumpkin Bats that the kids made

We also had a "mummy" contest, where Hannah's class was done up into groups and they had to wrap a mom up as a mummy with toilet paper. They loved it!
The room mom that planned this party went all out, and did a fantastic job. Check out these party favors... there are paper bags in there full of little party favors.

After the party, Julia, Max and I hunted everywhere looking for a spice cake mix so that we could make Pumpkin Cookies. They were yummy!
It is important to note that Ruby and Julia are inseparable. They love being together and always want to do the same thing- and this was no different from their Halloween costumes. They both had to be cowgirls, and because Julia had to have a tiara on her hat, so did Ruby. They are a cute little pair, so glad they live by us!

That afternoon we had the cousins over to watch "Nightmare Before Christmas" and get ready for Trick or Treating. We were lucky they even made it to celebrate with us... Noah and Chrissy were stuck in Florida and they barely made it back! We had potato corn chowder and then got ready to go trick or treating!

All six cousins ready to go!

We both live in apartments, so we did the most natural thing with our kids... took them to the rich neighborhood next door to score awesome treats. And, score they did!

They were so happy to be together. They sometimes forgot to say "Trick or Treat!" and would just ring the door bell and say "Happy Halloween!" instead.

After trick or treating about an hour, they kids came home, raided their buckets, and we carved one pumpkin for the kids to enjoy as the fell asleep. We were slackers in the pumpkin carving department this year =).

House Progress

2011-10-27T14:25:00.009-07:00

After not blogging for several weeks, I have lots of house pictures to share. This photo is from September 1st. It was fun to drive by and watch the house go up every day.

Second story started, but we couldn't go up at this point, there weren't any stairs!

Getting closer to done with framing...

Or totally framed house, finished September 10th.

Windows going in, front door put on... and then I went out of town for a week to Utah, and I came home to this...

Looking good, and more like a house!

This is my framed kitchen, that wooden wall is the base for our island, which is on an angle (just like in our old house)

Family Room looking into the Mud Room/ Command Center

A view down our stairs, we are going to have to get used to the stairs thing

Insullation stage, that is our master bathroom

This is the loft aka kids playroom. It is right between their rooms.

A roof and prepped for the brick, October 5th

My cute kids... this was the last "clean" trip we took to the house, ever since they come out covered in sheet rock dust!

Wow, sheet rock! Starting to feel like a real house. That is Hannah and Julia's room

Brick on the front. There are two brick arches and a porch that will be added, so there is a lot more brick than what you see here.

Sheet rocked family room, waiting for taping and mudding

This is out of place, but this is when the sheet rock was delivered, our kids loved using them as tables and chairs the few days they were there.

The back of our house mostly painted - that bump out is the family room, and the sliding glass door comes off the kitchen/ dinning area.

The front of our house in the process of being painted. I am still trying to decide if I love the trim color. I think it will tie in more when we get the porch done.

Yesterday when I went, they had all the doors and trim hung, and they were painting the doors and letting them dry in the garage.

Our banister. It and all the trim will be painted white. They just painted the tan color of the whole house. The two tone should be done later this week. Below is our fancy fireplace and mantle. You can see all the holes for Nate's speaker prewires.

Under that black tarp is our front porch and steps... conveniently poured the day before our big snowstorm here. I specifically begged that they didn't pour that when it was cold (we had chipping problems at our first home for that reason), but apparently the day before super cold is okay =). The interior should finish quickly, stay tuned for updates!

Primary Program

2011-10-27T14:13:00.002-07:00

A few Sundays ago, our ward had its Primary Program. It was fun to have our cousins in our ward, it gave us more cute faces to watch and smile at. After a couple years of being stressed over the Primary program, it was nice to sit and watch it and pay attention to my sweet kids. It was also nice that the Primary kids all fit on the stage so we could actually see their faces.

Hannah's part was "Prophets speak for Heavenly Father." Julia's part was "Heavenly Father has a plan for me." I was proud of them for memorizing their parts and for going with the flow... we were out of town the two Sundays that they practiced, so they just had to fill in quickly. Julia wanted her hair done up in curlers for the program, and we loved watching her curls bounce around while she sang.

(Left to Right: Isaac, Levi, Hannah, Julia, Ruby, and Max)

Labor Day Weekend in Boulder

2011-09-12T11:02:00.005-07:00

We spent Saturday in Boulder with Dave, Polly, and Kimberly. We had never really been to Boulder, and they showed us a good time. They were having a city festival there, and apparently one of the top things to do at the festival is to race zucchinis. Yes, zucchinis. So, of course that is exactly what the kids did.

They each got to pick out a zucchini from a large pile, and then they took it over to have wheels put on it. Then they got to decorate it however they wanted. When they were finished, they were able to race their zucchinis down the track, kind of like at a Pinewood Derby. The kids loved it. Julia named hers rainbow, Max named his Maxwell Pez, and Hannah named hers Bruce, she names everything Bruce lately :).

It was seriously hysterical. People would stand around and clap and watch the races. Kimberly won a round and got a little coupon. Our kids had strings put on theirs so they could roll them around the city. This was short-lived. The paint etc. all over them was messy, and the string kept getting tangled up, so eventually they had to say goodbye to their veggie pets. It was really fun. We really enjoyed it.

We then went and walked down Boulder's outdoor mall on Pearl Street. It was charming and super fun. They had people doing street performances. This guy was nice enough to pose with them for a photo.

These people played with hacky sacks and fire- Hannah really liked it.

The weather was beautiful and the atmosphere fun. I think we will make more trips to Boulder. Thanks Polly and Dave for a great time!

Slurpees!

2011-09-11T15:16:00.002-07:00

Maggie mailed us a 7-11 gift card a couple weeks ago, because Hannah told her about all the 7-11 stores there were around here. There happens to be one only a five minute walk from our apartment. So, for the last two Friday nights, we have walked to get Slurpees.

I am a Slurpee purist (only one flavor for me), but the kids like mixing the flavors I will let them have (no Coke or Mtn. Dew for these munchkins). They were pretty proud of their creations. There is a cherry orange flavor that they all get that is seriously disgusting. Who shapes these kids taste buds anyway?

Thanks Maggie! Hannah says she has now been to 7-11 four times - all since free Slurpee Day in July. I am sure there will be many more trips in our future.

Two Down...

2011-09-07T13:47:00.002-07:00

Julia is currently beating Hannah in the "number of visits from the tooth fairy" department. We were at my sister's house on Sunday night for dinner, and we had been there maybe five minutes, when Julia came running in, screaming. Chrissy took one look at her mouth and left the room =), and I was left to deal with the twisted tooth myself. I cleaned the blood out enough to pull it out, but it ended up falling in my hand, no pulling necessary. Julia is funny because she still hasn't figured out exactly how to deal with her emotions. She cried for a while after her tooth came out, but she was also really proud and excited... and those emotions had a hard time coexisting for a few minutes.

The tooth fairy came that night and left her a whole dollar bill, which she is VERY proud of.

Julia is also beating Hannah in the "number of loose teeth" race. Hannah must really like her baby teeth because they are in no hurry to come out, and Julia is apparently anxious to lose all hers!

Our Adventure Book

2011-09-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

We recently visited the "Up" house in Utah - more photos of that for another day. My kids loved revisiting the story, and it actually has helped with some of the transition here in Colorado. Moving is accompanied by many activities... some of which are not very fun or exciting to small children. We took a different approach though and have started our very own "adventure" book - and we photograph and write about the different adventures we have here. When you are new to a place, everything is an adventure! I have included some of our photos from the last couple of weeks... and have had to slow down on taking pictures of new things, or our whole book will be filled in less than a month!

#1 - Max eats noodles for dinner because he wants a treat =) You must understand that Max almost never tries new things. He is a chicken nugget purist =).

#2: We visit our first frozen yogurt joint in Fort Collins... called Coolberry. It is good, but not as good as Frogurt in Utah

#3: Julia and Hannah take a try and sleeping on the same queen bed... and in the same room as Max. Isn't as bad as they thought it would be.

#4: Visiting the local Toys R Us

#5 - on a visit to Boulder we had some adventurous weather, and in return got to view this beautiful double rainbow most of our drive there. We skipped the adventure of looking for gold so we had time to get Nate's Ipad replaced at the Apple Store (another adventure).

#6: Experience playgrounds with old fashioned, fun toys, and SAND

#7: Having to PACK a lunch to go and visit Dad at Otterbox

#8: Avoiding falling in the lakes when we walk to the park - Worth it, so pretty!

#9: Playing at the park with COUSINS, our first teeter totter!

#10: finding chipmunks/ squirrels everywhere we go. This one was in front of Nate's work, but we have a few that frequent the trees by our apartment

#11: Visiting the storage unit, never had to have one before. Lots of space to ride scooters and bikes on while mom and dad work!

The Building Process

2011-08-31T16:33:00.005-07:00

It is a fun process to watch the home you picked out be built in front of you. I had a preconstruction meeting a few weeks ago and the superintendent told me that some people come and check on their building process twice a day. I laughed, that is a little much I thought. We only checked on our last house once a week... but now I must eat my words. I drive Hannah a long way to school every morning, so I stop after dropping her off, and again in the afternoon after picking her up, and I love watching daily progress and taking photos of it. I wasn't around for the hole-digging-footing-placing-foundation-pouring part... so these first few are off Nate's Iphone. Hole above.

Footings

I flew out to Colorado to pick our interior options in July. This is the gist of what we picked... I didn't plan on going brown, but we did. I love the cabinets. Not exactly what I had envisioned from looking at model homes in Utah, but I am trying to embrace Colorado and what it has to offer, and it is a little different =).

Foundation poured and window wells in. The super also joked with me about wanting cold storage underneath our large porch... not offered in Colorado. Only in Utah he said =). Gotta love those prepared Utah people!

Foundation ready for plumbing

Rough plumbing and sump pump in

Documentation that I let me kids out of the car sometimes when we check on the house =). More often than not, they wait in the car while I look and snap some pictures.

Forms to pour the driveway and garage floor

Cement poured (they still have to pour our porch)

Basement floor poured. See those extra little walls to the right? We have swelling soils in Colorado, and that helps keep our foundation where it belongs =).

Beginning framing

The first floor close to done. See that window in the front? THAT is my craft room. Only a little excited about that. It is nice and cozy, but it is mine, and it isn't in my kitchen. So. very. excited.

Will probably wait several weeks before doing another one of these kind of posts. They are pretty boring I know =).

My Little Shirley Temple

2011-08-24T16:09:00.002-07:00

Julia insisted on curlers last night... wasn't sure how it would turn out on her short hair, but it is super cute. Love this girl!

First Grade!

2011-08-23T10:58:00.005-07:00

Hannah's first day of school here stressed me out way more than it did her =). Early mornings are not a good time for Hannah, and we have to leave our apartment just after 8 to make it to school on time. I worried she would be tired, or that we would be late. Sometimes she does great with change, and others not so much-- and I never know when those "not so good with change" times are coming. I was just bracing myself for the worst-case scenario, and it ended up being for no reason.

Above is a picture of the gift we made together for her teacher. It is just Clorox wipes wrapped in colored pencils. Apparently the pencils fell off in her backpack (NO CLUE how she managed that, they were solidly attached), so she just gave her the wipes and brought the cute part home. I am sure Mrs. Hewitt was wondering why she was getting a thing of wipes on the first day =).

Our awesome Harvest neighbors introduced us to Curlformers a few weeks ago, and Hannah loves them. They work well, are easy to sleep on and put in, and the curls stay in all day. She insisted on having curls for her first day- and they turned out super cute.

It is also important to note that Hannah is wearing the most expensive outfit I have ever bought her (full body shot at the bottom of this post, and if you wanted to know, the dress was $30, plus leggings). I let her pick out a "first day of school" outfit at the outlets here, and of course she picked the one thing that wasn't on sale. It was purple though and she seriously loved it, so I just caved and let her have it. Thanks to my grandma, I had a little extra cash to make it work.

I didn't get many pictures at the school since I had Max and Julia crying and clinging to my legs (their adjusting is going much slower than Hannah's), but here is Hannah all lined up ready to go into the school with her class. She only has 19 kids in her class, and only 7 are girls. Her new elementary school was built completely green, and it also has a fantastic staff pulled from all over the district, only three years old and not too crowded, love it.

Here is Hannah's sweet teacher. I am so grateful for her- she is just what Hannah needs, and she is an EXCELLENT teacher, she reminds me a lot of a neighbor of mine that is a teacher actually. We are excited to work with her this year.

I picked Hannah up from school and she had a great day, thankfully. She did manage to get herself lost after lunch somehow- but found her way back and didn't seem too upset about it. She said she already has a best friend in her class, and the only problem with that is that she doesn't remember her friends name =). We'll have to work on that.

Mrs. Hewitt gave all the kids bubbles for doing well on their first day, so we spent our afternoon in the sunshine blowing and popping them. These pictures make Hannah look so grown up.

Moving and Storage

2011-08-22T03:13:00.000-07:00

So, we moved :). And, we have a lot of stuff. We were in our first home for 5+ years. Last time we moved, we had a eight month old baby and were fresh out of college - which meant a significantly smaller amount of furniture and stuff. We had some amazing family and friends that came to help us out, and those boys did a great job of packing our truck tight. It still didn't fit even with careful packing, so we had to get a trailer for some of the rest of the stuff - and that is what leads us to this awesome budget/uhaul combination we have here (THANKS COLBY!).

We loaded the truck Saturday morning/day, took family pictures at dinner time (I didn't have time to shower, so I am looking particularly awesome in those pictures), and then Nate and Greg drove the truck that night. They couldn't go over 55 mph, and on the hills it was more like 30 mph, so it was a LONG drive for them. They stopped and slept around 2 a.m. then drove the rest Sunday morning.

About an hour after they started driving from Sandy, UT, I noticed that I had Nate's car keys and he didn't... which meant no key to the storage unit, no key to the Honda, and no key to the apartment for them. Ended up driving the keys to meet them - and lucky for us the truck was so slow that the boys had only made it to Park City when I called them. Glad we caught that before it required me to drive all the way to Colorado to rescue them.

Greg got to experience the Otterbox slide while he was there- lucky guy. We owe the Hirschis big time for donating Greg and his muscles for the whole weekend.

This is our storage unit empty...

This is our very "organized" storage unit after the boys unloaded less than 24 hours from loading it up =). Huge thanks to Nate's work friends and Uncle Ray for saving us on the Sabbath Day, I don't think they would have made it without you. Nate and Greg were both completely exhausted by the end of the weekend. We took the kids to grab a couple things out of the storage unit yesterday, and needless to say, we are going to try not to open it again until we move. That thing is unstable- that is what happens when you have very little time to unload. It is fun watching Nate climb around in there though, like a monkey :).

Yup, closed is a better way for the storage unit to stay - hopefully we don't have to open it again until our next moving day in November!

Our Humble, Thankfully-Not Permanent Abode

2011-08-21T14:17:00.011-07:00

This will be a boring post, with more exciting things to come. Now that I live far away from family, you will see lots more pictures on here. Gotta stay connected somehow! This is our current residence... it isn't terrible for 90 days, but I am anxious to get out already :). We live on the bottom there, the windows you see are all ours.

Our generic front door.

This is where we park our cars, it is actually very peaceful and green - and we never have trouble finding a parking spot. Right off to the left there, across the street is our storage unit, which you will view in another post. It deserves its own mentioning :).

Our complex is actually quite large, and it includes a fitness room and a swimming pool - we have loved the pool, but all our fitness lately comes from moving boxes around and chasing obnoxious children!

This is a view to our family room from outside, can you tell it is our house? Look at all Nathan's cords. We didn't hook up much of our electronics here, but enough to keep us sane.

This is our front hall closet. Not very exciting. You can see Hannah's backpack all ready for first grade that starts tomorrow!

This is our desk/office space. Those shelves on the right don't look like they hold much, but that is all the storage we have, so I am grateful we have them.

Right next to the "desk" we have my craft studio- ha ha! I was lucky to fit a table worth of stuff in this place. It should be enough to keep me entertained until I have an entire room to enjoy for projects.

This is our family room. We have a fireplace, but we have it covered up to prevent the kiddos for playing with it. Max makes his Colorado blog debut in this photo. Our TV fits nicely over the fireplace, and the kids project stuff fits on the window seat. We would have preferred just one couch, but that isn't how it worked out, so we squished two in here, it works.

Behind the second couch, we squeezed the kids plastic table. It is the most used piece of furniture in our apartment... meals, snacks, and coloring.

Meals, snacks, and coloring also happen here at the kitchen bar, seen here. This picture is significant because it is the first time Max happily ate pasta that isn't Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. You will notice no dinning table. Well, we left our table in Utah because it didn't quite fit, and I want a different shaped one for our new home anyway. So, for now, Nate and I stand to eat, or eat on the couch :). We feel like newly weds again.

A view of my tiny kitchen. Again, not deluxe, but it works. And yes, that is my calendar from June. I haven't wiped it off yet, but it is nice to look like we are busy even though we are not!

There are two things I don't like about this apartment: 1) The SMELL. Apparently the people that lived here before us cooked lots of curry, so they did something to eradicate the smell... and the smell of the stuff used to eradicate the other smell is equally smelly, sadly. I will be visiting them tomorrow about fixing it. I have left my windows open every possible minute for a week, and there has been no change in the smell. I also have several Wallflowers going, and that hasn't helped either. I am open to suggestions :) 2) The KNOBS on the kitchen sink. Who wants knobs in the kitchen. It makes it a pain to adjust water temperature, and really just is more time consuming than a standard faucet. Do. Not. Love. It.

This is a decent sized pantry. Glad to have some storage.

Yet another kitchen photo - not sure how this made it on here!

The repair man needs to come fix this, an easily clogged toilet, and some weather stripping. Still waiting for them to come for their appointment last Wednesday.

This is our hall laundry room. Our washer is super old, I am amazed it still works.
It is probably older than me! However, apparently our washer and dryer took a beating during the move, so maybe I am better off with these for a few months.

This is the non-master, master bedroom. We ended up giving the kids the master suite since they all had to share one room. Leaves them lots of space to play, a walk in closet for their toys, and enough extra room that they don't kill each other. Our master bedroom just fits our bed, an armoire, and us. The bed isn't made because Nate was sleeping in it when I took these photos :). My scrapbook paper tower serves as the nightstand- love dual purposing things.

This is the hall bathroom, also unexciting.

This is the kids room, and Max is making his second Colorado blog appearance. The kid needs some friends besides me so they stop following me up and down the hall every time I move :). We are working on that. We really fit all their stuff, so they are happy campers.

Their closet, a favorite place to play, or run away and cry when your parents make you mad (that is the closet's most frequent use for sure).

Their bathroom, with the "I clog without anything in me" toilet that needs to be fixed. See that sink full of pull ups? Potty training will be revisited full force in a week after Hannah is settled into her school routine.

One more view of the kids room. All this, my friends, is the reason that we are glad this is not permanent - I can do anything for 90 days, and we are just grateful we don't have to live in a hotel for an extended period of time. By the time we move, I will feel like our new house is HUGE, I am excited for that!

Changes...

2011-06-15T19:04:00.005-07:00

Yes. We are moving.

My purpose here is to answer many of your questions. This has been a crazy couple of weeks, and if you call to ask, I may not be able to answer until the dust settles. If you really want to know, here is the skinny on everything.

1. Where are you moving? Fort Collins, CO area

2. Why are you moving? Nate received a job offer from Otterbox

3. Is there a problem with your job here in Utah? NO!!!! Nate's current job, boss, and company are all awesome. It is a great company, we can't even express how good they have been to us. Nate has worked there almost ten years now. This is just the right opportunity for our family right now.

4. Is your husband out of a job? refer to question #3

5. How did this happen? You told me less than a month ago that you were never going to move? This move was not planned, we had no intention of going anywhere a month ago.

6. How did Nate find a job in this economy? Nate was just looking online at iPad cases and noticed the job posting. He applied, they called him, they interviewed him, and they offered him a job. After lots of debating, we accepted. He was not actively looking for work at the time.

7. Do you have a place to live in Fort Collins? No, we do not have anywhere to live yet. We are looking at possibly building a home in Timnath, CO right now. It would take 4-5 months to build, so we are in need of temporary housing in that area. If you know of a place, please let us know :). If you know of a better place for us to live, let us know that too.

8. Have you ever been to Fort Collins? Yes, we spent the weekend there this last weekend, and Nate was there the week before for a job interview. My aunt and uncle live in Loveland, which is right next to Fort Collins, so I have visited there a few times during my teenage years, although I don't remember much.

9. What are you doing with your house here? We don't know. We would like to sell it, but are also looking at the possibility of renting it. If you are interested in either, let me know.

10. When are you leaving Utah? Nate will be in Colorado for training at the end of the month. We aren't sure when the rest of the family will follow. That all depends on when we figure out question #7. Most likely the kids and I will stay here until school starts for Hannah mid-August.

11. How can you give up grandpa day? You have it really good here, why would you leave?
Yes, most of our family is here within a half hour of us, and we have been sooooo blessed to live so close to them. They were our biggest concern when making the decision to go. We love them, and love being involved with them in our daily lives. It will be difficult, but we really feel God has a plan for our family, and that even though things will be different (yes, I am already sad about not having a weekly grandpa day), we will all be taken care of.

12. Will you ever move back to Utah? Our family is mostly here, so you can count on plenty of visits to the Beehive State. I don't think anyone really knows what the future holds exactly, but we are not opposed to coming home when the time is right.

13. Do you know anyone in Colorado? Yes, my aunt and uncle live in Loveland, right next to Fort Collins. My sister and her family live in Lakewood, which is just over an hour from Fort Collins.

14. Is the church strong in Colorado? There is a stake in Fort Collins and a stake in Loveland, and they just announced last Conference that they are building a temple there. I think we will be in good company.

15. Was it hard to decide to leave? YES. We love it here. We love our home, our neighbors, our friends, the schools, our jobs, our proximity to family, and everything about where we live. Our family is comfortable here, we have thus far raised our children here, brought two of our babies home to this house. We just finished putting in a fence at our home, and had plans for a shed and finishing the basement this year. We have loved our church callings, our other opportunities to serve, and the sense of community here. This is 100% home to us - and it was one of the most difficult decisions we have had to make in our married life.

That being said, we are excited for the opportunities in front of us, and although we will miss it here, we are confident that something wonderful awaits us in Colorado.

PS. I cannot stand the texture of the walls in the homes in Colorado. I just don't like it. So, if you want to, feel free to come and help me sand down my walls to look "normal" anytime... we love visitors =).

Back to the Blogosphere...

2011-03-07T18:39:00.004-07:00

Some of my friends that I don't see often enough have emailed to see if I am still breathing... the answer is yes =). I haven't been sleeping on the job or anything, just a lot going on and I am working on another photo project that I will probably share sometime. For now, here are some random photos until I get around to a bigger post.

That first picture represents that fact that Max has been sick on and off for the last month. I have wiped my fair share of green boogers, and I can't wait for spring to come. Max has also decided that he no longer needs naps, and unfortunately for him, I don't agree with his decision. Those days he doesn't nap end up long for both of us, and usually end with him sleeping on the couch long before normal bedtime.

Julia got this princess Wii game for her birthday and we slowly played through it. We happened to beat the game one morning while Hannah was at school, and I underestimated the importance of Hannah seeing what happens at the end. Therefore, we spend two full afternoons playing through the entire game again. Here's to being a couch potato =).

Free Zoo Day. Not as crowded as I had expected. Should have gone with some neighbors because we saw tons of them there. Fun for kids, mom, and Leslie.

Our kids were invited to a birthday party the other day at Classic Skating for our friend Creighton. It was a Star Wars party, and for part of the festivities the kids were "Jedi Knights." They were given light sabers, and then they were released into the laser tag room to find and destroy Darth Vader and rescue Princess Leia. Hannah found this extremely amusing... and I don't think that the person playing Darth Vader did because the older kids beat him to death =). Hannah was so pleased to meet Darth Vader after the battle, and she to this day reminds us that Darth Vader's real name is Matt and that he is a very nice person.

Our close friends adopted a baby at the end of January, and this sweet little girl has a heart defect. Mom and Baby Daphne spent a month in Alabama until they could move her here, and then they ended up at Primary Childrens after being home a few days. She is seriously the tiniest, sweetest little thing. My kids have had colds so they haven't met her yet, but they draw her lots of pictures!

The girls like to play "purple monster" lately, where Julia puts Hannah's coat on backwards (or vice versa) and then they beat each other with a light saber. And yes, I realize it isn't the smartest game to play at the top of the stairs.

Julia celebrated Dr. Suess and his birthday at school the other week and came home dressed like this the other day. Too cute.

We carpool to pick Hannah up from school every other week, and Max and Julia love it... because while we wait we practice our letters and sounds. They both are pros now.

This week for FHE the kids put on a play of Rapunzel... Hannah's idea of course. Hannah originally wanted to be Rapunzel, but Julia wouldn't let her have the Rapunzel dress, so she had to be Mother Gothel. It was highly entertaining. Maybe if you are lucky, one day it will be posted here.

Christmas Pictures in January =)

2011-01-09T17:22:00.004-07:00

I just barely took our Christmas pictures in front of the tree today - yes, that is January 9th... and yes, we do still have our tree up. My kids were sick last week, and they weren't up for pictures the day after Christmas, so today it was. We had a lot of fun snapping them before church. Well, maybe it wasn't that much fun, but the bribe of candy at least made it look like it could be fun =).

Marble Jar Rewards

2011-01-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

We started this marble jar way back in the summer time when I was working hard to get the girls to help more around the house. For each job they did, they got a marble to put in our jar. We decorated it together and everything. Half way through the jar they got to visit the dollar store and pick out a treat, and the deal was when it was full we would take them somewhere fun of their choosing. Finally, six months later, they are finished!

So, Saturday we geared up for a day at Incredible Pizza. We had never been there, but it is located next to the Osh Kosh store in the draper outlets, so Hannah had seen it several times and begged to go there. We had dinner and games- the dinner was not great, but the games were great for the kids. We were there for several hours and they had a great time.

Our kids chose to eat hot dogs and not pizza at the pizza place, go figure!

Hannah mini bowling. They did mini bowling and mini golf and enjoyed them both.

They also have a jungle gym and arcade games. For one of the games they made these pictures that they were super proud of.

A little male bonding time over some bowling =).
On the way home the girls decided that it was so much fun that they would start the marble jar over again for another fun day out with the family. I guess we will write more about that adventure in about six months when they are done!

Love Friend Fridays

2011-01-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

This picture is actually from last month (thanks to Tina), but these same fun neighbors, plus a few more, got together for lunch on Friday. We always have yummy food, good conversation, and lots and lots of laughs. I completely and totally adore them - most of them are from my old primary presidency and I miss my weekly contact with them. So grateful we still hang out and that they didn't just like me because they were called to do so =).

Also, I adore my baby sister Leslie, who isn't even close to a baby anymore, she is my bestest babysitter! My kids just love her and love when she comes to visit us. I think they actually like it better when she babysits than visits because they get more time with her for creative play time. This is a picture of us playing my new Ticket to Ride game I got for Christmas. Thanks Leslie for fitting us into your busy schedule. We love you!

What we do when we are home all day...

2011-01-05T20:33:00.003-07:00

Days at home around here are few and far between... technically I guess we did leave to take Hannah to kindergarten this morning, and I did run to get milk at the grocery store tonight... but for the most part we were at home =). Julia has a hard time playing without Hannah sometimes when Hannah is at school, but today she did just fine =). We ended up babysitting for a little bit to curb some of the boredom, and there is nothing like a freaky Barbie head to brighten a winter morning for a four year old.

I have been trying to find more "chores" for the kids to do around the house, and surprisingly they have taken well to folding laundry. I am kind of a control freak... I don't want them folding their clothes, I want it done right, by outfit =). So, instead of folding clothes, the girls get to fold their pajamas and they LOVE it.

And their folding is getting so good, I might let them try clothes next week =).
I know, I am a weirdo. Why would anyone turn down help with laundry, especially when you loathe that chore as much as I do?

We had the M&Ms come play today and it was delightful. Hannah really misses her little buddy, and is always ecstatic when we are able to visit or have them come over for a play date.

Surprisingly Maxwell even found a friend this time around. These two don't normally play together, but today they seemed to have a good time.

And, that pretty much sums up our day at home today.
I LOVE being at home. I resolve this year to do it more often.

The Scavenger Hunt

2011-01-04T17:24:00.003-07:00

Last night I told the girls they could use some of their Christmas money to buy more dies for the Cuttlebug they got for Christmas (they are discontinuing them at our local store). I asked if they wanted to pick them out, or if they wanted me to go pick some up while they were at school. Hannah quickly responded that she wanted me to pick them up and then bring them home and surprise her with a scavenger hunt to find them. Good thing I am up for fun activities =).

We had ten clues and went all around the house looking for them. I had originally thought I would put them outside and around the neighborhood, but it was way too cold and I chickened out.

Looking for Thomas the Train in Maxwell's room

Love the excitement on Julia's face in this one - and yes, we haven't taken down our Christmas tree yet. I am just not in a hurry this year.

Looking by the computer.

Looking in the snowman's hat.

The girls with their "prize." At first I thought Hannah was being ridiculous asking for the dies to be hidden like that, but it turned out to be a fun afternoon activity for all of us.

A couple of notes: please see the post below if you haven't already, it is hilarious.

I have gone back and started updating our blog for October-December because I was so bad at updating. You can go back and look if you want.

Disturbing

2011-01-04T12:56:00.001-07:00

This is a paper Hannah brought home from school today.
In case you don't speak Kindergarten, Hannah wrote "kill people" as her answer.
It is a good thing there is a very slim chance that Hannah will ever become a bear.

Cleaning Day

2011-01-03T20:34:00.002-07:00

School started up again today for Hannah, and I spent the 2.6 hours she was gone assembling storage cubes for our kitchen and the rest of the day cleaning house and doing laundry. My kids do like it when I am on a cleaning rampage because they get away with more computer/video game/ tv time than I would normally allow. I went to stop them after about 45 minutes, and then I didn't. How could I stop them when they look like this though =)? So sweet. Hannah has figured out that all she does on her Leapster is "learn stuff" and I thought it may keep her from wanting to play it 24/7, but thus far her discovery has had no effect on her play time needs. She is nice to share with her sister.

Does anyone want to guess what this is a picture of?

It is FHE at our house and we are singing "Once There Was A Snowman." Go figure.

Bedtime Routine

2011-01-02T23:42:00.003-07:00

I wanted to document our current bedtime routine with our kids. Even though I am usually exhausted by this point of the day, I usually get a good laugh putting them to sleep. After putting on pajamas, we brush teeth. Max is very particular about his teeth brushing right now. We currently have several kids of toothpaste in our kids bathroom, and Max has to pick the toothpaste he wants and he must be standing on the stool, and his sisters may not touch the stool. His toothbrush is one he got from the dentist and it is a "parent" toothbrush, so it has a really long handle for ease of parents brushing their child's teeth. Well, let's just say the handle is too long for him to normally brush, but he insists on using it anyway and it is funny to watch. Another thing to note- Hannah refuses to brush her own teeth. She wants us to do it for her. She is the only one old enough to actually brush herself, and she is the only one that doesn't want to do it! She also is very particular about what toothpastes taste good to her, and throws a fit if you use one that she doesn't like.

Following the bathroom routine we have nighttime scriptures. To try and keep Maxwell engaged, we use the gospel art book and tell the stories that go with the picture. We have done this for so long now, that Hannah and Julia have almost all the stories memorized. Even Max knows quite a few of them. Last night he told us that King Benjamin fell off his tower =), and any picture of someone he doesn't know is automatically Joseph Smith.

Lately when we say prayers Max insists it is his turn. Usually, it actually is. He is a very good prayer giver for a two year old. He gets all the parts right and we usually have a good chuckle over what he chooses to include in the middle portion of his prayer. Tonight it was Zelda, and a few nights ago his entire prayer consisted of being thankful for "grandpa" and "Ikea." We ran into grandpa at Ikea that morning, and apparently that was an awesome experience for him. Another favorite is that on Sundays he will some times pray for "have nursery" and "eat snacks." Guess we know what he likes to do at church...

After prayers, I sit on the kids floor and hold Max and sing him a bedtime song while Nate tucks the girls in their beds. Lately Max asks for "Frosty the Snowman" as his bedtime song, and before that he asked for over a month for "Nephi's Courage, and before that it was "Pioneer Children." After his song, Nate takes him to his room to tuck him in, and I sing the girls their bedtime songs. Max usually blows us a kiss on his way out, and sometimes he actually goes over to each of his sisters and gives them a kiss on the cheek. Max also lately climbs into his crib by himself. If I get adventurous, I may try and post a video of that on here. If you want to see it now, you can look on Nate's facebook page. Following songs, I then turn on the girls nightlight, turn on their music, and turn off the light. Congrats if you read this far =). Good night!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T23:07:00.004-07:00

Nothing like giving a neglected blog some love on the first day of the year =). Our New Years Eve was spent at home again this year. We did have friends over for a yummy dinner, games, and gumballs (I still can't decide on the best flavor, I am just positive it isn't yellow!) - I didn't manage to take any photos of the bulk of our evening, but it was enjoyable. After our guests went home around 9 p.m. and with bedtime coming for our kids, we staged a mock celebration at our house so that our kids could just go to bed and leave the real partying to the adults.

This included setting a timer for ten minutes, and then when the timer went off it was magically the new year! I realize that this is probably the last year our kids won't be able to tell time, so we had to take full advantage of it! The kids all got their pots and spoons out to make lots of noise when the timer went off...Julia had a preschool lesson on Johnny Appleseed a few months ago, and apparently it stuck because the pots went straight to their heads.

After the ringing in my ears stopped from all the noise, we then finished off with some sparkling cider (thanks Fairbourns for supplying it). Surprisingly our kids all loved the cider, asked for more, and went to bed on a sugar high and with upset stomachs. Guess I should limit their portion sizes next year.

And, that is new years at the Childs household in a nutshell!
Happy New Year to all and to all a goodnight!

Christmas Activities

2010-12-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

I don't even have enough time to write all the Christmas activities we have done this year. They have kept us super busy. Here are a few though... this year I made each of the kids a count down chain to rip off every night at bed time. It has been fun to watch them count and get excited about the holidays this year.

Sometime during the summer this year, Hannah decided she was going to make an ornament box. This was sparked by a trip to the dentist where she got a monkey keychain out of a quarter machine. She was insistent that it was a Christmas ornament, and we decorated a shoe box to hold it until Christmas. Well, having the awesome Grandma that Hannah does, Grandma remembered this little ornament box, and surprised Hannah and Julia with their own little tree to decorate for Christmas this year. Hannah was more than thrilled to put her monkey on there. Grandma Inna found out about the tree and sent the girls home with some hot pink ornaments to add to it, which happened to match perfectly. They have loved having this tree on in their room this month as their night light!

I LOVE this photo. It isn't perfect, it is grainy and looks kind of like a vintage Poleroid after I played with it is Photoshop - but it is totally us and I love it. We took this right after decorating our Christmas tree this year.

For FHE the other Monday we made a gingerbread house... I should admit that I purchased a kit at Joanns, and that this was not an original creation by any stretch of the imagination! Nate was in charge of assembly.

Max has the cutest little face when he is sad. He wanted to just eat the candy, and then he was mad because his sisters didn't want him touching "their" side of the house.

The girls decorating away - so serious!

Max is saying "I Helping" and boy did he. He slobbered as much as possible on every piece of candy he stuck on the house. No one will eat his side =).

The finished product. This photo is for Grandma who told Hannah she really wanted to see it. Hannah took this literally, and wanted Grandma to come over and see it as soon as it was done!

Immediately after they were done with it, they started demolition =). Julia has frosting evidence!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Family Pics 2010

2010-12-13T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yeah, a sampling of our family photos we had taken the week of Thanksgiving. They don't really require any narration, so enjoy =).

Dress Up Fun

2010-12-10T21:03:00.001-07:00

Hannah is kind of out of the dress up stage now, but Julia still really enjoys it. Shelby is a good dress up friend for her, they enjoy getting decked out from head to toe. These are just cute pictures of them.

Maxwell also gets excited about dressing up. We only have two male costumes (Captain Hook and Buzz Lightyear), so Max gets kind of adventurous in his dress up choices.

This will be yet another good blackmail photo for Maxwell. He loves this Minnie mouse hat.

Visiting Santa

2010-12-07T17:06:00.001-07:00

This year we went to Thanksgiving Point to see Santa with the Gainers. We tried to get there twenty minutes early, but it just didn't work out that way. We got there just before it started and there was a huge line.

The kiddos were pretty good while we waited almost an hour to see Santa.

This was patiently waiting right before we went through the door where Santa was... then we had to wait fifteen more minutes inside the door!

Hannah was excited to talk to Santa, and Julia was more timid. It took her a couple of minutes to warm up. Max wanted nothing to do with Santa until he got a candy cane from Santa's helper. Then he went to show Santa his candy cane and walked out the door =).

Julia asked Santa for a Hello Kitty mask, and Hannah asked for a Leapster.

I didn't take pictures, but after visiting Santa, we went to see his reindeer that were outside. Then we all piled into the Gainers Expedition and went to see the Christmas Light Display. It was super cold, and super fun!

Festival of Trees 2010

2010-12-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

We attended Festival of Trees again this year - we do it because Jeannie's friend gives us tickets, because it is a favorite Christmas tradition from my childhood, because Leslie has done trees to donate, and the last two years because Inna has decorated tress to donate. This year Inna did a pink tree and did a BEAUTIFUL job.

Here is her pink shelf, including lots of handmade pink jewelry.

We didn't anticipate seeing Inna at the show, but while I was taking some photos she showed up next to me with her friend. I am so grateful so many people are willing to share their talents to help Primary Children's Hospital. There are several people we know that regularly visit the hospital, and it truly is a special place.

My kids weren't into seeing the trees this year. They know about the kiddie craft area now, and that is all that they want to do. They did manage about half the rows and the gingerbread houses before giving up though.

Max was mostly just interested in seeing Colby play on his Iphone- and when we were leaving he just kept saying "skulls and trucks" over and over.

This bubble machine is the thing my girls look forward to all year. Grandma is nice and buys them plenty of tickets for the crafting corner and they have a great time.

Julia was awesome at the bubble maker this year. She blew just strong enough to blow little bubbles off the big bubble without popping it. It was pretty funny.

Here the girls are making reindeer antlers.

Coloring stained glass windows

The best picture I could get of Grandma and the girls, they were too excited.

The Dial and Elf is also a favorite of my kids. Usually Hannah is timid about it, but this year she wanted to go in all by herself. She did, and I still have no idea what she told him.

I had to go help Julia dial the phone, but she also wanted to do it herself. Apparently the elf was pretty funny. Afterwards we had our yearly meal at Crown Burger. Festival of Trees is always the start of the Christmas season for me, I just love going!

Aunt Shirley and Uncle Harold

2010-12-02T16:20:00.001-07:00

We were so excited to hear that Aunt Shirley and Uncle Harold would be in town this month. Shirley is Grandpa Childs sister. They live in Texas, so they don't visit too often. While they were in Utah, they were sweet enough to come out to our house and pay us a visit.

Shirley and the kids. It was so nice to catch up with you both!

First Real Snow Day!

2010-11-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

Bring on winter!
(Max is not picture here because the only snow pants we had that fit him were purple, and I figured he wouldn't want our posterity to know I dressed him like a girl. Probably shouldn't mention the pink mittens either... poor Max with older sisters.)

Julia's 4th Birthday

2010-11-29T16:47:00.004-07:00

(five minutes old)

There are a lot of experiences in my life that I consider life changing, but nothing holds a candle to the births of our three children. Those minutes before and after birth are where I feel that the veil is thin, that heaven and earth meet to say goodbye and hello to a sweet spirit. I always feel the presence of those that have come before us, as well as the posterity we have yet to meet. Such a blessing to have those moments in our lives. Life can be so challenging and difficult, and when my kids each have their birthdays, I can't help but reflect on those moment that heaven was close enough to touch, so real, close and tangible- what a blessing those rare moments are. So, in addition to the joy Julia has brought the last four years by joining our family, I am truly grateful for the gift she gave me four years ago of experiencing a special glimpse of heaven.

(four days old)

(one year old)

(two years old)

(three years old)

(four years young!)

Happy Birthday Julia Grace! We sure love you!
(oh, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop growing up!)

More birthday pictures to come...

Julia's Friend Party

2010-11-29T15:58:00.001-07:00

Because I am the nicest mom ever, and because Julia's birthday fell on a Sunday (and always falls on Thanksgiving weekend), we did her birthday party with her friends on Monday afternoon. This meant that Dad couldn't be there, but Julia said this was okay because there were no boys allowed. Even poor Max had to go play with Grandpa during the party =). It was of course Hello Kitty themed, and again a pajama party. We had Hello Kitty pancakes and bacon for breakfast. I was worried about this, but the pancakes didn't turn out as bad as I was imagining. The kids thought they were fun.

All the girls eating breakfast.

We once again played "pin the bow on Hello Kitty," and this time Julia took lessons from Hannah and did a little peeking to make sure she got it right on.

We played hot potato with Julia's new Hello Kitty stuffed animal.

And then we had a request for the "freeze dance" game we played at Julia's party last year. All I had to do was sit on the couch and push buttons, so that was fine with me!

After that we opened presents. Thanks to everyone for the awesome Hello Kitty stuff!

Julia has some great friends and they have great moms.

A shot of all the girls together.

And all the girls being silly!

Then we had our cupcakes, and Julia was more than thrilled to blow out her candles again.

Happy Birthday Weekend Julia!

Julia's Family Birthday Party

2010-11-28T15:35:00.001-07:00

Sunday evening we celebrated Julia's birthday with a little family party. It is tradition at our house (my own fault) that I make some kind of sign for the birthday kid that matches their birthday theme. The girls talk DAILY about what their next birthday party will be themed, and it took months for Julia to settle on Hello Kitty. It was not only a Hello Kitty party, but a Hello Kitty PAJAMA party. Our family all are supportive and showed up in their jammies!

My sister made her Ruby a beautiful Hello Kitty cake. I am not talented in the baking/ decorating department, so our cake consisted of cupcakes with paper Hello Kitty pics in them. Julia was obviously excited about them, and that is what counts.

Most of our guests were a little late due to bad weather, so our friends the Gainers were the only ones there for the party games. We played "pin the bow on Hello Kitty" and the kids really liked that.

Hannah was a cheater and peeked so she could get it just right, such a perfectionist!

My kids also want a pinata at every party, and I am just too cheap to buy them one. They are expensive for decorated cardboard. This time I just decorated a plain old cardboard box myself, taped it lightly shut, and let them go to town on it. They didn't notice a difference.

By this time the rest of our guests had arrived, so we opened presents.

Grandpa and Grandma Inna gave Julia this popcorn tin, and she LOVES it. They also gave her a Hello Kitty scarf, hat, and gloves, Hello Kitty stickers, and Hello Kitty hairbows. They were all a big hit.

This is what Nate and I got her. The box is as big as she is!

The Hello Kitty hairbows

Apparently this card was pretty exciting.

Julia with her stash of gifts. She is SOOOO spoiled- thanks everyone for making her feel special. Some of her other favorite gifts were a Cat in the Hat matching game, a Hello Kitty pillowcase, and Hello Kitty stuffed animal.

Then we did cake and ice cream. Four candles is a lot, but Julia handled it fine. After dessert, we just played with her new toys and hung out in the warm house.

Ya Ya and Aunt Leslie (sporting her Hello Kitty pajamas)

Grandpa and Grandma with a big four year old!

Trying to act excited about having to pose with Mom and Dad

Max was Colby's little buddy while he played on his Iphone.

One of the most humorous things of the night was watching Maggie and Grandma try and figure out how to flip a Barbie dress around. It is supposed to transform like magic, and they had a really hard time getting it to work. =)

Julia's Pre-Birthday Party

2010-11-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

Marie and Kyle weren't going to be down our way on Julia's actual birthday, so they came over a day early to celebrate with her. She was pretty excited about her gifts. They gave her some Little Mermaid pajamas (which she wore every night for a month), and then the game Ants in the Pants.

The kids had a great time playing with them.
Oh, and yes, we need to get Max a new hat. His head is HUGE!

A Funny Black Friday Story

2010-11-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

On Black Friday this year, my siblings and I spent the morning shopping, and then Leslie came over to our house to take some photos of her projects for school. We were in the front room doing the photos, and next thing we know, Maxwell comes storming down the stairs in this awesome outfit. We had a good laugh.

Next thing we know, Max is on our black sheet modeling for us and asking us to take his picture. We obliged him and laughed some more. He was quite the poser. I just love this kid. He makes me laugh all the time =).

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

I was not a diligent picture taker this Thanksgiving. We were home in the morning, and then we went to Dad and Inna's house for a pre-Thanksgiving visit. We had fun seeing my aunt and grandparents and siblings for a couple of hours. Then we headed to Nate's parents house for our dinner. Nate's dad does the best turkey, we look forward to it!

The feast was smaller this year - just our little family, Maggie and Colby, Randy and Jeannie, Grandpa and Grandma Childs, and my mom. We all fit in the kitchen... Dad and I sat at the kids table this year, maybe next year I will graduate to the adult table =).

A glimpse of the feast and Dad and Julia

It is important to note that Maxwell does not like ANY of the foods associated with Thanksgiving. He sat up for the prayer, took one look at what there was to eat, and decided he wasn't having anything to do with it. He just went and played with his toys. Grandpa did sneak him some chicken nuggets later =).

Great Grandma and Hannah

We ended the day looking at Black Friday ads, talking, and playing some Beatles Rockband.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-21T15:57:00.004-07:00

We had TONS of Halloween activities this year, and they were all so fun that I didn't get the best of photos. The week before Halloween we had a party at my mom's clubhouse, and it was a good test run for our costumes - Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Wendy, Tinkerbell, and Tiger Lily.

Here is the whole family - our Peter Pan family, a witch, a little girl, little red riding hood, and the big bad wolf!

Nate and Max - we have been trying Max's costume on him for months trying to get him comfortable with it, but every time we put it on he would scream. This particular night, Nate bribed him with some PEZ, and he finally put it on. After he figured out he received candy for wearing it, he didn't have a problem with it anymore!

Peter Pan and Wendy - Nate was a good sport to dress up in this particular outfit. It should be noted that I, yes me, SEWED Nate's costume and mine! That is a big deal for me, I am terrible at sewing, but managed to crank these out in less than two hours (thanks to Make It and Love It).

Dad and Julia

Peter Pan and Tiger Lily

Max and Aunt Leslie - currently she is his favorite =)

At this Halloween party, the kids got to make treat bags...

..have their faces painted...

... play pumpkin bowling...

... read stories and have prizes! They had a blast at this party, as well as many others we attended. Now some pics in the kids costumes...

This is Julia all dressed up before her preschool party.

This is actually Max the week after Halloween and a lot of days since =). He asks to dress up in this all the time, and I think it is adorable.

Hannah right before her school parade.
THANK YOU Heather Hirschi for sewing this dress for us, it was perfect and she loved it!

I loved going to Hannah's school parade - brought back some great memories of my childhood. Nate actually stayed home that morning to come as well. They had the sixth graders take the kindergarteners around, and Hannah really enjoyed being with the older kids. Miraculously, Julia and Max sat through all the waiting at the parade.

On Halloween we had a party at our house. We had family over for dinner and trick or treating activities. Above are the kids all ready to collect their sugar for the rest of the year. Even Maxwell was excited about it.

Grandpa and the kids walking down the street. Our trick or treating was cut short by the rain this year, which I didn't mind. The only down side was that we had quite a bit of left over candy.

Hannah showing off her awesome candy.

Nate in his skirt and tights =) (just teasing!), Colby as Operation, and Maggie as a nurse.
This may be the only year we can trick our kids into themed costumes, so I was glad we did it. Next year I am sure Max will insist on being a super hero!

Makeup Time with Julia and Janette's Accident

2010-11-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Grandma sent the girls home after a babysitting once with a makeup kit. Julia was so excited about this and asked the whole day after if she could make me "pretty." I finally gave in and had no idea what I was in for. As you can see, there is no lipstick, mascara, eyeliner, or anything on my face. Instead, she "painted" me with millions of different kinds of lip gloss. I do have a nice shine in this photo =).

For posterity, I wanted to document a little accident I had. I went on a Saturday afternoon to a World Wide Leadership training at the church. I was fine when I sat down for the meeting, and after about a half hour into it I started feeling hot. I tried to last longer, but it got to the point that I felt nauseous, so I thought I better just step out. I went out into the stake center lobby, went through the first glass door to head outside, and I never made it through the second glass door. I totally passed out. From what I can tell, I hit my head on the wall, then on the handlebar for the door, and then skinned my face on the rug.

When I came around (which I think was one or two minutes total), there was a man kneeling over me. He was taking my pulse and talking to me- asking me if I had diabetes, if I had eaten lunch, etc. I laid there for a few minutes, and then they had me sit on the couch for a little bit. A bunch of men started pulling Halloween candy out of their pockets for me to eat to get my blood sugar up, and someone went to get me ice and a bottle of water. I sat there for a minute and felt fine (my coloring never went away), but they wanted me to have someone drive me home. I tried calling Nate a few times, but he didn't answer, so I sent them in to find Rebecca Campbell to take me home. After she came out, President Dellis came out to check on me and let me know that the meeting wasn't that important and that it was okay that I missed the meeting =).

Rebecca drove me home, and when I looked in the mirror I about died. I had really skinned up my face, given myself a black eye, and then bruised my face in a few spots as well. I had a big bump on my head. I cried and cried, and then I climbed into bed and laid there for a long time. At this point I still wasn't feeling great, and about an hour later I started throwing up. I thought maybe I had a concussion, but now I think I was just sick. Anyway, it took about ten days for my face to completely clear up and it was just really embarrassing =). It was the first time that I have ever passed out, and hopefully the last!

Pizza Hut Book It Program

2010-11-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to document something that I thought was pretty funny. Hannah came home after her first month of school with a Book It coupon for a free Pizza Hut pizza. I got those when I was in school for doing my reading too. We finally got around to picking up her pizza and she was so thrilled about it. It is fun to see her grow up.

Playdough Fun

2010-11-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

We have a huge bucket full of play dough that we don't play with very often, but every once in a while it makes a fun afternoon activity. Hannah and Max had fun playing this afternoon. Maxwell mostly just made noodles with the pasta maker, and Hannah was very creative this time around with her play dough colors.

I didn't post all of them on here, but here is Hannah's snake...

... Hannah's spider...

... and my personal favorite is the Little Mermaid =).

Connecticut Trip - Day #4 & #5

2010-11-08T16:10:00.014-07:00

On Saturday night we stayed with someone Nate spent a lot of time with on his mission, Brother Clifford. He was very gracious and wanted us to stay with him while we were in Hartford. We got there late Saturday, did some talking, and then went to bed. He lives on the main floor in the house he owns, and then there are two apartments above him. The top floor isn't occupied, so he slept up there and let us have his apartment, and he took his cats with him upstairs so that I didn't sneeze too much =).

Clifford has quite a personality, and his home really showcases that. On Sunday morning we got a nice glimpse into his cane collection. The photo doesn't do it justice, but here are some of his canes. Lots of them have swords inside them, or vials, or other containers to store hidden liquor. They were quite elaborate.

Also loved this King Tut in the corner - it is actually a bookcase!

Another way you can tell Brother Clifford has a sense of humor is his yard. He kept us laughing the entire day for sure.

We attended the Hartford branch for church that morning, and people were excited to see us until they found out we were just visiting =). The branch was recently combined with another one, and there weren't too many people Nate knew there. A member of the Boston Temple presidency was there with his wife talking about the new temple in Hartford, and trying to drum up business for temple workers. It was nice to be in Relief Society for once too.

After church we drove by the mission home... and then Clifford needed some rest, so we went site seeing for the afternoon on our own.

Nate really wanted to tour this building, the Old State House, but it was closed Sundays...

A shot of the city... we mostly drove around and looked at the ghettos and places Nate had spent time... but it wasn't overly appropriate to take pictures in most of those places.

This was a beautiful building - their new city hall.

A statue in the Bushnell park

Then we went and toured the Mark Twain house before it closed... I know you were all curious what Mark Twain would look like in Lego form, so I snapped a photo for you =).

They wouldn't let us take pictures inside because of the historical preservation, but it was SUPER cool. They had pretty much recreated the inside of the house to how Mark Twain had lived there, using as many original pieces as possible, and then filling in with period-appropriate pieces where needed. The architecture and design was seriously fascinating.

A view of the outside of the home, Harriet Beecher Stowe's house is next door.

That window up on the left is the window to the billiard room, and that is where Mark Twain actually sat and penned his most popular novels.

I wish we were cool enough to have an atrium like this in our home!

After that, we went to pick up Clifford, and he took us out for dinner at a Hibachi House, one of his favorite restaurants. Apparently he takes the missionaries there fairly often on Friday nights. He took good care of Nate when he was on his mission, and he still does tons of service for the missionaries in that area.

Dinner was fun, and then we went back to Clifford's house and talked for a bit until it was late and we needed to get to our next hotel.

We slept overnight a little bit south of Hartford, and then got up early and headed to New Haven and Yale campus. I was so excited to see this beautiful campus! We went to the visitors center and got a map and we went to town touring on our own.

The architecture was just beautiful- mixtures of traditional and gothic styles - and we were lucky enough to run into a touring group of prospective students, so we just tagged along on the end of that tour. It was really fun.

This is one of their libraries, Sterling Memorial, and it was gorgeous!

It is a good thing I never came out touring colleges in the east, because I definitely would have wanted to stay! The library is supposed to resemble a Gothic Cathedral, even to the point that the circulation desk was made to resemble an altar.

This library contains over 4 million volumes, and has an underground tunnel that connects to another library!

Beautiful doors, wouldn't you love to enter these every day to study?

Check out the catalog system for the library... it is also online now of course, but I LOVE this old system. It is so beautiful.

Library ceiling in the nave

Below is Harkness Tower

This is the student common area and housing in the old campus.

This statue of former Yale President Theodore Dwight Woolsey is in their freshman housing area and common ground. Apparently rubbing the shoe will bring you good luck =).

More housing... this is like where Rory Gilmore would have lived =). If you don't know who Rory Gilmore is, then you can just skip to the next photo.

We went to the Yale bookstore for a bit, and then we headed out to Orange, CT to visit the Pez factory. We had heard rumors that a visitors center was in the works, but if it is true, it isn't finished yet. They did have these nice Pez bushes at the entrance though.

The factory has changed since Nate was here last. They had an addition for office space. The part with "Pez" on it is the addition, and the space to the right was there before.

We went inside the office space to check it out and there wasn't much there. Just a couple of posters like this...

... a directory of employees and a sign that said they did not give tours, and they were not hiring...

... and then a Pez display with two dispensers that we don't own! Yes, we do own them now. And for your information, that chocolate Pez does not taste very good, not worth trying =).

A picture of the entire case. We own over 550 regular sized dispensers now-- with all our boxed sets etc. we would easily fill this case ourselves =).

Then we went and drove through some areas that Nate served in in that area. Fall in Connecticut was beautiful everywhere we went.

This is another one of those "if I can live here I will move here" kind of houses... in Woodbridge, CT.

This is the church Nate attended in Woodbridge, CT.

Behind the church was a country club that was just beautiful. We trespassed for a minute and took some pictures and enjoyed the scenery!

Then we went to Ansonia, CT, another place where Nate served and drove around.

This is where a member lived Nate spent a lot of time with, Sister Litke.
She sadly has already passed away.

This is one of Nate's apartments in Derby, CT.

Then we went and drove a pretty street Nate used to like to drive down in the Derby/ Milford area. There is a lake/ reservoir there that we stopped to see.

So beautiful. We then drove through Milford, and at this point we were getting hungry, so we drove to Bridgeport, CT. We went and saw Nate's apartment there, and then we ate at a pizza place called Sam Ramos that was right down the street. They used to eat there a lot. We were the ONLY people there, but it was fun and nostalgic.

We then spent an hour driving around Bridgeport. It is not the cleanest or nicest city in the world. Nate took me by several different projects and places he would go when he served there. We tried to find someone he taught there, but she wasn't home. Then we headed to the coastal portion of the city before it got too dark.

It took us awhile to figure out how to get there, but we knew we could walk out to a lighthouse.

So we ended up driving around for a while until we found the beach at Seaside Park that took us out to the lighthouse peninsula.

There was a rock pathway out to the land that housed the light house. It was kind of fun walking on the rocks. People had their names and dates painted all over the rocks.

We got out there just in time for the sun to set. It was so pretty setting behind the ocean. The lighthouse was cool too, not working obviously.

Because Bridgeport is not the safest city, we took our pictures and then headed back to our car and were on our way before it got dark. We drove back up to Windsor Locks, CT where the airport was. We ate dinner and ice cream at Friendly's, and then we crashed early at our hotel because we were exhausted.

Our plane took off at 6:30 a.m. that morning, and then it was home again for us. Our kids barely even missed us - their grandparents took such good care of them! They had a great time on their "grandpa and grandma" vacation. We are so grateful to them for all their help with our kids -- our sanity would not be the same without them. And, that is the end of our vacation saga!

Connecticut Trip - Day #3

2010-11-04T14:30:00.010-07:00

We woke up the next morning to a hearty and beautiful breakfast, and beautiful surroundings. Our hostess found out Nate had served his mission in CT, and he got an earful about how Ruth used to take care of the missionaries herself. They tracted into her once and for a long time she would regularly have them over for dinner. We ended up talking to her for a long time before leaving.

Surrounding the bed and breakfast (above)
Front door (below)

We then left Lisbon and went to see some other areas where Nate had served. He took me to see where he had lived in Jewett City.

Above was his front door

And this is where he used to get letters from me =).

We then took a drive around Canterbury where we stopped at some places Nate remembered visiting as a missionary. We parked off the side of the road in one spot, and then we went down a hill below a bridge, and this is what we saw:

Awesome and colorful graffiti... don't look too close though =).

Even though the walls of the bridge were painted, the surrounding scenery was beautiful. This particular area was also very peaceful.

The other side of the bridge (less colorful graffiti)

Nate enjoying the peaceful surroundings. He picked up an old rusty nail off the tracks to bring home, but we realized after leaving our rental car to come home that someone else was going to find that rusty old nail and wonder what to do with it =).

My awesome use of the camera timer to get a photo with both of us in it.

Bright, beautiful color!

We then drove a little bit further to see this bridge. It was teal in color, and very pretty. We parked our car and went and walked around it, and found out that it actually had been recently redone. New paint etc. They prettied it up for us =).

Cool architecture - we just don't have as much of that out west.

Nate climbed down onto a little ledge off the side of the bridge to take this photo. There were also some people fishing on the river.

Then we took a little drive to another area Nate served in, the city of Waterford. We drove through New London, where I wanted to see a lighthouse, but we ended up not having time to stop there. This is the area where Nate's brother Garrison lived for a while, so it was fun to see what his life would have been like there.

Nate took me to see the beach and the ocean there, and it was pretty peaceful. There was an older man sitting on the bench, and we asked him for directions to another site. He was very nice, and we found out that he actually has a brother that is a bishop, and that he is part of the clergy at his church in that city. Small world.

This is what we needed directions for, some really really old buildings =). The historical society is housed here now. This house was built in 1838.

This is a school house. This isn't the one, but there is also a schoolhouse on the property that was built in 1740. That is old...

Then we took a little drive to a different part of Waterford to see the house where Garrison lived for part of his time in Connecticut. We were actually meeting the people that live here for lunch about a half hour after this photo was taken =), but this was going to be our only chance to stop by there on our trip. We had seen photos of Gar hanging Christmas lights and that was it.

Then we headed to beautiful and touristy Mystic, CT. We had a couple of minutes, so we drove down to see parts of the city, and then we met Kathy and Jamie for lunch at the Steak Loft. Kathy's friend Glenn also joined us. It was SO good to see them and catch up with them. They have had a rough few years in their lives with losses of those close to them, and it was so nice to see them happy and doing well.

After we ate, Glenn took us to his yacht club, and we parked there while we walked around Mystic city. It was awesome.

SOOOO beautiful.

Across from the yacht club - they are restoring a whaling boat. You can see the boat on the right side and it is turned upside down.

Our sweet friends, Jamie and Kathy. They are some of the most Christlike, wonderful people we know. So grateful Gar gave us a reason to get to know them. Jamie actually got engaged to an awesome guy not long after we took this photo!

Walking through Mystic was so fun. We spent several minutes waiting for this bridge to go up. There was a sign that said it would go up at a certain time each hour, and we waited and waited... and nothing happened. I did get a lot of pictures of it not up while playing with my camera waiting for the magic to happen.

More photos of beautiful Mystic. I could totally live there =).

One of the weights to help the bridge come up.

Mystic city and shops.

The famous Mystic Pizza - and no, we didn't go in or eat there =).

More harbor photos

We then realized that if we wanted to see the submarine in Groton, that we had to go right then. We saw this fire alarm on the way back to our car.

We then drove to Groton to see the historic Nautilus submarine. Nate had done this on his mission and really enjoyed it. We got there not too long before it closed.

The tour was on these little handheld paddles. You pushed a button for the area you were in, and it told you what you were looking at. We don't have tons of pictures of this because about 1/3 of the way through our tour, my camera started smoking =). It has been fine since, but it had me freaked out for a little bit.

Nate and I on the Nautilus

One of the first one-man submarines, and Janette

A two man submarine - and Nate

Propellers of the Nautilus

We then left Groton and went back to the Old Mystic Village to walk around. It was kind of like Gardner Village, lots of cute little shops. I took a picture of this sign for Jeannie, my mother in law. She knows why =).

Nate wanted his picture with this bear =). Behind him is a toy store, where we found these crazy action figures of Nazi Germany. It was like an entire Nazi army complete with Hitler, and it was crazy expensive... not sure who would want to own one, but we had a good laugh =).

A flag shot from the village. We also visited a kite store while we were there, but they didn't have anything as cool as what we already own!

Village shots

Super cute. We found a shop that had Beatles memoribillia, and we bought a Beatles clock for Nate' s dad to add to his Beatles room.

It was about 6 p.m. by this time, so we headed back to Mystic Seaport while the sun went down. Sadly, all the shops and things to do closed around this time as well, so we took a short walk around, and then we left Mystic. I want to go spend more time there, it was awesome.

We had a little bit of time to kill that we weren't anticipating, so we went back to Waterford to Family Bowl. I have been hearing about duck pin bowling for years now, and it was nice to finally see what it was all about =).

Pretty much, there is still ten pins, they are set up differently though. You get three tries to knock them all over... oh, and your ball is really really really small.

We paid to play for an hour, and we should have added more time. I think we had both barely gotten the hang of it by the time we were done!

After that we drove to Hartford, where we would be staying for the night. We stopped off for fast food on our way there, just what everyone loves to eat on vacation =). More to come...

Connecticut Trip - Day #2

2010-10-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

After a good night's sleep in an awesome hotel, we headed to Lynn, MA to visit Debi and her kids. Nate taught Debi the discussions and helped her through her baptism while he was in Hartford on his mission. Debi actually came and lived near us in Utah for a while after we got married, and she is now married living in Massachusetts with twin toddler girls. She is a busy woman =), and it was really good to see her.

Nate and Debi - thanks again for letting us come spend time with you!

That concluded the Boston portion of our trip. We headed to Connecticut after that. The above photo is just to remind me that I should be grateful we don't have toll roads here in Utah, what a pain in the neck =)! It was a rainy and windy day, but we were hopeful that it would clear up that afternoon.

By the time we got to Connecticut, things had calmed down weather wise. The drive itself was simply beautiful. We ran into this house not long after we got off the freeway, and I immediately said that if I could have the house, I would move there in a heartbeat. Just beautiful.

Nate spent some time teaching a guy that went to UConn, so we went to visit the campus there. It was a nice campus - and is in the middle of nowhere! Nate got himself a baseball cap at their bookstore, and the nice employees there helped us find our dinner location =).

The UConn campus in Storrs, CT. It really was in the middle of nowhere.

This was the view to one side of campus. LOVE it.

More of the view - if it looks like this I may be able to stand living in the middle of nowhere!

Also right off of UConn campus.

We then drove to Willington, CT to eat a specific kind of pizza - red potato pizza. Nate has talked about this several times, and it lived up to its hype. It was basically like having a baked potato on a pizza crust, and they even put broccoli on it! You wouldn't think that would be all that tasty, but it was awesome. We ate as much as we could there, and ate the rest cold later that night, still super good!

We spent what was left of daylight driving around places Nate had served in the area. In trying to find a specific street, we ran into the church!

This wall was at the church.

Nate wanted to drive down a road called Pumpkin Hill Road that he remembered from his mission. It took us a while to find it, but it was way worth it. Everything was just beautiful.

We also drove by a member's house that Nate used to eat at. They had their own lake and this cute little house. I could stand to live there too =).

More beauty... this is really what it looked like everywhere we drove in that area.

Then we visited a city Nate served in called Willimantic. They have these crazy frogs adorning their bridge there. The story is that the frogs saved the city at one time with the noise that they made, and the spools of thread are because the town was created due to the milling industry.

There are four of these frogs, and they are funny, but pretty ugly.

This is the house were Nate lived - apparently this isn't a great city to live in and they call it Willa-rico because there are so many Puerto Ricans that live there. Apparently there are lots of drugs in this particular city.

Nate also had to take me to see this well in the city. It was located at a city park, and it is where Nate had to go to get all of his drinking water when he lived here.

The pipes in the house were old, and apparently the water was not safe to drink, so they would come here and fill up containers for drinking and cooking.

He said they used to have to wait in line. =)

Then we went to the Lonesome Dove Bed and Breakfast in Lisbon, CT. We didn't get there until after dark, so photos of the outside are on the next post. This was our cute little room though. They had three rooms in all, and the other two were occupied by a nice family from Massachusetts.

We watched the X Files and ate our left over pizza that night. It was such a cute and cozy place, and Ruth and Leo were just charming.

Connecticut Trip - Day #1

2010-10-26T15:56:00.008-07:00

The only way I am every going to get this blogged is to do it in pieces, so here we go. We flew into Hartford around midnight on a Wednesday, and then we picked up our rental car (which ended up being a Ford Explorer), and drove to Worcester, MA (which I know know is pronounced Wuh-ster) to a hotel for the night. We didn't get to sleep until around 3 a.m. EST, and then we were up and going around 8:45 a.m. the next morning. We drove to Framingham, MA to visit my dearest friend Martha in her new digs. It was fun to see her and her kids for a little bit.

This was a reservoir we drove by on the way to Marthas, it was just beautiful. For those of you that were worried about the leaves not being changed yet, they were beautiful everywhere!

We then headed to Boston for a day of sight seeing - and we started on a duck tour (thanks to Jamie for recommending it). It ended up being a great way to see lots of the city fast, which was exactly what we needed. The photo below is an old jail turned into a hotel...

...and I adored the architecture around town.

No sports at the Garden this weekend, the circus was in town!

Two very different, and very cool bridges.

For the first half of our duck tour we were just on land cruising the city, and for the end of the tour we were in the river. This is another duck in the water.

Cool architecture on the St. Charles

A view of the city

Our captain gave the opportunity to drive the duck on the river. Nate was more than happy to take his turn. We were on the tour with a bunch of high school hockey players, and none of them were all that eager to drive in front of their peers.

Nate and Captain Mack

Nate and our duck. Some of the ducks they own are old from WW2 times, but our duck we rode in was built around 1990. It was super cool.

Then we went and walked a part of the Freedom Trail before it got dark.

We visited the Old State House, Faneuil Hall, and Quincy Market...

... then we walked up through Little Italy,

... past the Paul Revere house (we didn't have time to go in), and then to the Old North Church.

This is the church that is related to Paul Revere's midnight ride.

On our way back to our car, (by the way, no one told us not to park in downtown Boston, or drive there for that matter. We survived the one way streets with our GPS, and gasped when we paid for our parking =)!) we stopped at ate at a little restaurant called Giacomo's (thanks Stacy for recommending it). The food was FANTASTIC, and we had to wait in line to get inside. I had butternut squash ravioli, and Nate had chicken parmagana. It was just lovely.

I stopped off for some hazelnut Gelato (SOOOOO good), and then we headed out of the city to Belmont to the Boston Massachusetts Temple. We had intended to do a session there that evening, but by the time we got there through traffic, we could barely stay awake after not much sleep the night before. We drove around and the outside of the temple was just beautiful. Nate was a missionary during the open house, so he was excited to see it completed.

Such a peaceful and beautiful (and cold) place.

After that, we drove to our hotel in North Saugus, MA and were completely beat.

Missing Vacation

2010-10-20T22:36:00.003-07:00

Although I am thrilled to be with my kiddos again and to be back in real life, a part of me really misses being on vacation... I miss the beautiful leaves, the tree-lined streets, the ocean, the architecture, the history, being alone with my husband for a change, and beautiful things like this you just don't find around these parts...

More photos coming when I finally finish the vacation laundry =).

Back in the Blogosphere...

2010-10-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

I have been emailed plenty of times the last month asking if everything was okay at home... I had no idea that my regular blog posting was a meter as to how my life was going =), but I am grateful for good friends and family that actually read my ramblings! It has been crazy around here, and I have a few back posts to do from August still! The biggest life change we have is that we now are the proud owners of a gigantic cage for Maxwell, it is called a vinyl fence! We are so grateful to my father in law and his friend for doing most of the work for us. Nate has also worked really hard on it. I helped install this side of the fence (the posts anyway), you should see my muscles =). We actually started it in August, and we just barely got our gates put up last week. I just LOVE it. Now if I could just get Max to stop playing with the irrigation water hose, we would be set!

Maxwell "helping" in the yard -- he happens to be scared of drills, lawn mowers, edgers, blowers, etc. ANYTHING that makes noise, so he is selective in what he will help with.

Sadly, we have grubs in our lawn this year, and Nate ripped out tons of grass this last couple weeks and put seeds down. Hopefully they don't come back, they are a pain.

Other than that, we are just busy with normal life. Things like friend get togethers, a Cricut Swarm, my primary presidency switching, feeding the missionaries, etc. Hopefully there will not be any more seriously blogging breaks for a while. We actually are currently on vacation, I am just tricky and though I would entertain you and impress you that I was posting from out of state =), but actually I am not!

Current Morning Ritual

2010-10-15T16:26:00.000-07:00

The last several weeks we have developed a morning ritual. We drop Hannah off at school, and then, as a reward for being dressed and ready for the day already, Julia and Maxwell get to take a little trip to the park. There are not many people that frequent the local parks before the 10:00 a.m. hour, so we are lucky to have it mostly to ourselves. When other people do show up, Julia calls them "her new best friends." Glad she is getting a little social action here and there!

We switch off which park we go to so that it doesn't get boring. There are so many in our neighborhood that it is nice to be able to have a change.

We go rain or shine for now, but the mornings are getting much colder. Max usually ends up with his feet and pants wet. This particular day, his crocs were so wet he just took them off. Max also currently insists on bringing cars to the park. Apparently that just enhances the experience =).

Maxwell's Playgroup

2010-10-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks we have hosted Maxwell's playgroup at our house. Surprisingly he has been kind of a stinker about it since it started. This is how he usually is, away from the other kids, who all play nicely together. Oh well, that is what playgroup is for, right? To increase and improve his social skills. At our house, he just doesn't like sharing his toys!

Some of the girls in our playgroup. There are only five kids, which makes is super easy.

It is mostly just free playtime, but we also have a story, song, snack, and some kind of activity during the hour and half we have them. It is actually fun for me. I am not doing joy school with Julia this year, and I have surprisingly kind of missed it.

We have one more week in our rotation at our house, and then hopefully Maxwell will cooperate more when it is somewhere else =).

Fellas Bowling Night

2010-10-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we met our da Fellas friends at Jack and Jill's for a bowling night. As a side note, the location in Lehi was awesome, we all really liked it. Bowling was a little bit crazy. We adults were outnumbered 7-6 by crazy munchkins, and it made it hard to bowl seriously, period. We stayed only an hour, and that was a good amount of time. It was also the one year anniversary of Izzy's adoption placement, and we were happy to celebrate that with them. It is fun to watch our kids all interact, and that we live close enough to each other to get together.

Nate bowling... he had the most success bowling in between his legs.

Julia was surprisingly an all star bowler. She got lots of spares and got a pretty decent score.

For some reason I failed to photograph Hannah bowling... she did though and enjoyed it. This was the first time we had taken any of our kids bowling. Earlier in the day the girls asked me if it was just like Wii bowling, but for real =).

Maxwell was the most enthusiastic bowler. We didn't really plan on him bowling at all, but he pretty much bowled every turn of mine.

Julia giving Izzy a high five after a spare.

Maxwell also had fun rolling the balls around on the storage tower. Smashed his fingers pretty good a few times as well. (I did take pictures of the Denney's and Hirschi's bowling, but I figured that it wasn't my place to put pictures of their backsides on my blog-- they can thank me later).

Max got to the point that he would pick up his own ball, put it on the stand, and bowl. Very self sufficient considering the bowling ball is at least half his weight! Afterwards we had dessert at the Hirschis and it was just lovely.

Wheeler Farm Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went with some fun friends to Wheeler Farm to enjoy the fall weather. We went on a wagon ride...

... we saw farm animals...

... and the smell of the cows brought me right back to visiting the same place as a child, yuck!

We played on farm equipment...

... Maxwell was in heaven riding on a tractor...

... we saw some friends that recently moved; Hannah misses her BFF McKinley tons...

We saw some spooky stuff...

... Hannah and Kinley again (they aren't so spooky)...

... a spooky vampire...

We went through a corn maze (needs to be more challenging, the kids finished super quick)...

... and the kids were thrilled to get a piece of candy on their way in.

Then we picked pumpkins and my kids all had meltdowns the entire way to the car =).

Hannah insisted on picking a big pumpkin and then cried because she couldn't carry it, it was too big. She cried for an hour after that. Pumpkins are apparently traumatic =).

Julia started with this one and then opted for a smaller one since she had to carry it.

Some of the other kids with their pumpkins, as you can see, Hannah was still trying to decide on what she wanted to do.

Max and Shelby enjoying the harvest! Happy Fall, it is finally here!

Hannah's Haircut

2010-10-11T15:42:00.002-07:00

Hannah and Julia got haircuts right after Hannah started school. Julia just wanted her same old, but Hannah wanted her hair short. I couldn't figure out what prompted the change, but she was pretty set on it, so I let her go ahead and do what she wanted. When she got home, she bounded in the door an announced that now that she had short hair like Julia, it wouldn't hurt anymore when we combed it out... not bad logic, but not entirely true. We still have our battles over her hair every morning, and the short hair does help in the screaming department. The short hair is cute, don't you think?

Maxwell

2010-09-15T14:51:00.002-07:00

These are some pictures I took last week when Maxwell started his playgroup. One morning a week I have Hannah at kindergarten, Julia at preschool, and Max at playgroup (except when it is my turn to host playgroup that is). Not sure what I will do with that new found freedom! Never had a scheduled morning without kids before.

Max did fine at playgroup without me. It helped it was at a home is was very familiar with. When we were walking out the door, Max ran back up in his room and grabbed this orange tie out of his drawer. He pointed at his shirt and said "match." Well, match they do =), so I let him wear it and he insisted on keeping it on all day long.

This kid is growing up so fast. He has a very mischievous side to him. He likes to play jokes and he loves to laugh. He just discovered Thomas the Train, and his favorite TV show is Calliou (which is my LEAST favorite kids show). I have to seriously limit him in the amount he watches it. He also loves Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story, building train tracks, racing cars, and following around his sisters. Potty training is no where in sight =). Love this kid anyway!

Julia's First Day of Preschool

2010-09-10T14:59:00.001-07:00

Finding Julia a preschool this year ended up being a hard experience for me. I spent tons of time calling around, found someone I liked on the phone, didn't like them at all in person, finally found the perfect one, had her signed up for a few months only to hear in July that the lady was moving to Eagle Mountain and I refuse to drive there. Hard in my neighborhood to find a preschool that late in the game. At this point, I was just going to teach her myself, when my many prayers were answered... you see, Julia is not my easiest child =). She is a sweetheart when she wants to be, but is very intensely emotional and independent. She is super duper smart, but she lacks some social skills and some emotional ones... so I really wanted to find a good place for her, away from me, so she could develop those skills better.

A few weeks after I was left preschool-less and after many prayers on my part, I was on facebook and a friend from my old ward asked if anyone would be interested in having their 3 year old do preschool at her house with her daughter. I knew instantly that this was EXACTLY what I needed, even more so than the first good option I found. The spots filled up in minutes, so I was SO grateful that I was on the computer that morning. Thus far she has loved it. She has a Tinkerbell backpack almost the same size as her that she loves, and her teacher couldn't be better. This is going to be a great year for her. Oh, and of all the clothes this girl owns, she picked a blue snail shirt and an orange skirt that don't match for her first big day. Gotta love that independent streak in her!

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend for me always coincides with a early morning trip to Midway, UT for Swiss Days with Nate's extended family. I have to get up at 4:50 a.m. to get there on time, and let me tell you that is about the only thing I would get up that early for! It was fun this year, and then straight from Midway I drove with Jeannie and Maggie to St. George for the weekend. Nathan, bless his heart, got Hannah to Kindergarten on time, and got the kids all packed up and ready for St. George without me. They rode down with Nate's dad and we "met" them on the freeway right outside of the city. I didn't take many photos on this trip, but I did get some of swimming...

...the condo we have stayed at the last few times we have gone down has a private pool that no one really uses. We have always had it all to ourselves and our kids love it.

Hannah looks like such a nerd with these glasses on, I love it!

Max looks sweet with his Little Mermaid life jacket, doesn't he =)? He wasn't a big fan of the water this trip. He spent most of his time running around the pool, squirting people with squirt guns, and throwing balls at whoever he could hit!

Squirt gun fight with Grandpa!

Hannah catching Grandpa.

Maggie and Colby doing hand stands.

Max being chucked in the air-- about the only time he was happy in the water.

Nathan beating on our kids when I can't stop him =). I stayed out of the water this trip... last time we were down there I had a nasty reaction to the chlorine and didn't want that again!

On Sunday we went to the Brigham Young House. We almost always drive back on Sunday afternoons after church, so we have never been around all day Sunday before. It was a nice change of pace, and it was nice to finally go to the BY House. Nathan hadn't been since his youth, and the kids and I had never been. The missionary couple was so sweet and the house was awesome!

I just love old things...

So beautiful...

This fireplace is actually wood, it is just painted to look like marble. All the wood in the house is pine, but they painted it all to look like Brigham Young's favorite finishes. Very impressive. The house (I forgot to add a picture to the post) has tons of green paint in it. This is because when they opened the paint for the temple, it was the wrong color. GREEN. Well, that was used to paint the house so it wasn't wasted, and very green it is!

I would love a desk like this.

It is interesting how strong the spirit is in places where the Lord's servants have been. Loved the spirit we felt there.

My kids in a broken tree that had to be repaired. They loved that. There is cement all on the inside holding it together.

That evening was the main event of our trip-- Grandpa Erskine's 90th birthday party. 90 is quite an accomplishment! We took some pictures before it started, and I was the photographer (these photos are not edited, by the way, but if you are family and want to download them, click on the picture and it will make them full resolution for you to take them-- CDs are coming soon).

It was cool that so much of their posterity was able to make it. Almost everyone actually. This picture doesn't even have everyone that came in it.

They had the party in a courtyard area, which our kids all loved. Here are a few of them enjoying a game of "Duck Duck Goose." My kids were happy to have others to help entertain them. The actually spent most of the evening coloring with cousins much older than them =). The LOVED that!

Maxwell after eating A TON of M & M's off the tables. Don't know who showed him those, but he ate most of them. He was on a serious sugar high that night!

The Decorations

Happy Balloons!

The birthday cake. Those candles lit off like sparklers.

The birthday boy enjoying his company. Aren't they so cute?

Monday we headed home and were so exhausted we didn't even unpack (that is a big deal for us, we always unpack everything and clean up the minute we get home). It was a fun and crazy weekend for all of us!

Animal Farm

2010-09-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

As a last hurrah before school started for Hannah, we went with some friends to the Animal Farm and then to JCWs for lunch. We didn't realize it was $2 Tuesday, so it was very crowded but still fun. I hadn't taken any photos there for a while, so here are a few.

My kids are so blessed to be surrounded with so many different kids their ages. There is always someone to play with, and most of us have passes to the same places so we can go on outings together. It is more fun for kids and moms that way.

Julia, Shelby, and Hannah in "jail"

Feeding the animals, Hannah was too scared to feed anything but the goats.

Max was fearless until a rooster took a chunk out of his finger trying to get a piece of corn. Even at that, he still kept at it. Those were some well fed animals when he was done with them.

Sweet Julia who won't smile or look at me for anything for pictures managed to look at least this time around =). It is important to note that this time the line to ride the ponies was WAY too long, so we took the wagon ride instead and the kids really enjoyed it. Sometimes it is good to try something new!

Public Education Bound

2010-09-01T12:48:00.005-07:00

A long time ago, I entered the wonderful world of public education. My education has done a lot for me in my life, more than I could have ever fathomed at five years old when entering Kindergarten. I totally remember starting school, and even though I am sad about Hannah leaving my full time nest here at home, I am excited for the things that await her.

Hannah was so excited this morning. She has had her outfit for the first day of school picked out for months. It included wool tights and a long sleeved shirt, so we had to improvise to make it warm-weather friendly. She also insisted on wearing these clogs I bought that match her outfit. Her feet are almost an entire size too small for them and she can barely walk in them, but she insisted on wearing them anyway. Go figure.

Julia insisted on wearing new clothes and her backpack all morning as well... I had to get out some clothes that are for next summer for her to wear so she felt like they were "new." She wouldn't cooperate for back to school pictures though. She starts preschool next week.

A couple more pictures of my Hannah. She looks so grown up!

I know everyone gets the traditional "picture on the porch" before school, but our family is going to have to take the pictures somewhere else. The porch is a HORRIBLE spot to take a picture in the morning. The lighting is awful! They barely could open their eyes for me.

So, we moved inside, much better.

These two are such good buddies; it is going to be an adjustment having Hannah gone all morning. It will be an adjustment for me too, Julia needs more attention when Hannah isn't here bossing her around. She may get lots of friend play time for my sanity!

I hauled the kids to the school in our wagon, and I thought Hannah would run the whole way, but she chose to ride in the wagon about 2/3 of the way. I suspect this had something to do with those clogs she was wearing that don't fit her, but she insists it doesn't =). We met a few of her preschool friends on the way up to the school and she got out of the wagon to run with them.

I had anticipated she would at least give me a hug goodbye or hang around for a few minutes before it actually started, but instead she ran right inside with her friends and didn't give me a second thought =). Julia, Max, and I had to go knock on the window so she would wave goodbye to us. To her credit, instead of sitting with her friends, she went and sat by a girl that was sitting alone. One of the many things I love about her.

We went back to pick her up a few hours later, and Julia and Max could hardly wait.

She had a successful first day. The entire way home Hannah was lecturing me about being a liar. Yes, public education has made a liar out of me. I told Hannah numerous times over the summer that once you hit elementary school, snack time is over. Well, lucky for her they had animal cracker snacks today, so apparently I was wrong =).

Hannah rode in the wagon the whole way home and recounted her entire day for me. It sounds like this is going to be a good change for her, and that Mrs. Riggs is just the kind of teacher she needs. She loved everything they did and can't wait for tomorrow.

Kindergarten here we come!

2010-08-30T08:43:00.002-07:00

Hannah has been getting ready for Kindergarten this last week. On Tuesday last week it was Back to School night, and we went to meet her teacher, Mrs. Riggs, and also to see her classroom. Mrs. Riggs had a scavenger hunt set up to learn where things are in the classroom and Hannah loved it. We took a walk around the whole school to see what it was like, and Hannah couldn't have been more excited and confident.

This morning, Nate took Hannah over to the school for her Kindergarten Assessment. Hannah had a grand time, and can't stop talking about all the things she got to do there. I think she is ready for school. Class starts officially on Wednesday.

As for me, I have mixed feelings about the entire thing. I have been a stay at home mom with all my kids home for a long time now, and I am not overly excited about having one leave the nest for a few hours a day. I love having Hannah home with me. I just adore her. Having her be very excited for school helps me be excited... and it doesn't hurt that Hannah tells other people that she is excited for Kindergarten but she is going to miss her mom a lot =). At least it is only three hours a day this year, and I feel good about her teacher.