This is for Chelsea...

Halloween 2009

Halloween was a big hit and tons of fun! We officially moved in to our new house October 23, thanks to Chris's hard work and big muscles. He took the day off of work and picked up our new couch, entertainment center, dining room table & chairs & fridge and set up all the furniture & unpacked alot of stuff before I even got off of work. We are still unpacking odds & ends and taking care of things around the house, like caulking places that were missed and putting up the mailbox and figuring out where we want everything to go, but it feels like home and it just feels natural to be there. We've met some of our neighbors, who are really nice, and we hope to get started on the yard work before it gets too cold so we can have grass in the spring. We love the quietness and our view of Utah Lake is amazing, especially in the morning when you can see the reflection of the mountains in the water and at night, when all the lights reflect off of it.

We were able to decorate the house for Halloween, only to take the decorations down a few days later, but it was a lot of fun and we can't wait to start decorating for our first Christmas in the new house! On Halloween, Amber & Matich came over to see the house and to put the final touches on Bostyn's cupcake costume. Margie came too, and while Amber was finishing the costume, Margie & I took the kids to 2 trunk-or-treats that were going on just down the street from our house. I just put on Bostyn's tutu from last year and everyone thought she was so cute! Noah played a tough-guy Power Ranger and pulled it off well. After the trunk-or-treats, Amber put Bostyn's costume on and did her hair and we headed to Daybreak for trick-or-treating. It was a nice night, but after about an hour the kids started getting really cold and wanted to be carried everywhere, so we called it a night and headed home to decorate our Halloween cupcakes. We didn't do them super cute like last year, but we used the Halloween candy the kids just got to decorate for Noah's and sprinkles for Bostyn's.

Amber worked super hard on Bostyn's costume and deserves lots of credit! Here's a good picture of Bostyn in her costume, one with the cherry on top and one without, because the cherry didn't last very long!

And here is one of Noah!


I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Monthly update...

This is kind of turning into a monthly update kind-of-blog, so I guess I'm due for September. A few months ago we finally got really serious about buying a house before the end of this year. We moved out of our cramped condo and in with my mom. It was really nice of her to offer her house to us so we could save rent money. Not even an hour into living with her, we were both ready to rip our hair out. We've been down this road before and didn't talk to my mom for about 2 years afterwards, but things were much more extreme the first time we lived with her. She still drives us crazy, but living with her has made me appreciate her more and I love how much of her time she focuses on the kids. She'll drop whatever she is doing to play with them, which is more than I can say I do. It's also been nice to go out on a couple of late-night dates or run errands and leave the kids at home to play with "Holly". Despite all of this, we really cannot wait to move into our own home and have our privacy and not have my mom just walk into our room whenever she wants. And the kids will have their own rooms finally and we won't have to share a room either. With the kids, I mean.

We were planning on living with my mom until mid-late November, but things are moving much faster on buying a home than we thought. Thanks to the Utah home run grant being brought back ($4000 on a new home purchase) and the first time home-buyer federal grant about to expire, it seems like everyone is going into overdrive and swiping all the good homes off the market! We found one we really really liked it but someone else took it away from us. NOT again! So we stepped it up and spent a few days just looking at houses. We found 2 that we really liked and put offers on both and ended up sticking with one of them. After the bank accepted our offer, we found out that the home is bank owned and sold as is. Meaning a lot of money out of pocket, including a possible AC unit, because for some reason, the finished house does not have one! We're still going to see if the bank will stop being super stingy and absorb the cost of one, but at least the home qualifies for the Utah home run grant, which will pay for whatever the bank does not. The growing cost of buying a new home is getting extremely frustrating but we are happy that we will finally own our own home! Our closing date as of now is Oct 20, which is a Monday, so we will probably just move in the following weekend while the kids are in St. George with Oma and Opa. Here are a few pics that I took off of utahrealestate.com: (the weeds and brush are all gone and the ground is ready for sod, and there's been a railing added to each side of the stairs. It is the only house on that side of the street, there are 2 directly across the street and the last time we went out to look at the house, it looked like they were finally getting ready to build more)

The beautiful kitchen:

the family room, kitchen and dining room, with the master bedroom directly behind the person taking the picture:

the master bedroom with walk-in closet and bathroom. TV will go right on the wall between the 2 doors. Nice view out of the window for now, until another house gets built:

Noah's room with a view of our neighbors. Bostyn's room pretty much looks the exact same:

master bath (other full bath not shown):

view off of the back patio:

We will keep you updated on the housing status as things move along!

Other news: Noah started preschool again this year, at the same school as last year. Work has picked up for me, as of Oct 8 I will be back to full time, woo hoo! School is put off for now as we focus on buying the house and moving yet again and we will see how it goes once we move into the house before I decide to go back to school or not. 

OH and many of you know about Noah's ER visit, but a few weeks ago, we took Noah to the emergency room after he got the sharp end of a hammer in the eyebrow after he tried to bounce a basketball with the hammer. The doctor ended up super-gluing the cut after he cleaned it out, but he apparantly did not clean it out enough or disinfect it or whatever, because just a couple of days later, it was infected underneath the super glue and Noah's doctor had to use a needle to poke through the hard super glue as I held him down (kicking and screaming and still managing to twist underneath all of my body weight) so that the infection could drain. He's a trooper and even peeled off the super glue himself a few days after the infection fiasco, but now he has a lovely little scar on his forehead. I am determined to do what I can to get rid of it! According to his doctor, stitches would have been the best option to avoid the infection and scarring. Thanks Intermountain Medical Center emergency room doctor for trying to rush patients out of your hospital.

Bostyn's 2nd birthday pictures

Make a Smilebox slideshow

August update

Okay Steph, this one's for you! ;)

My last post was for my birthday, and a lot has happened since then, but I don't remember it all! The major stuff:

Bostyn turned 2 on July 25. We had a small family get together and made it a "Bostyn-themed" dinner. We had hot dogs, spaghetti, chicken nuggets, chips and fruit salad. And of course, cake! Oh and Capri Suns. She did a great job opening her presents and tried so hard to blow out her candle, but I had to help her. It was a good day.

Last weekend, we moved out of our condo and into my mom's house. It's a sacrifice we decided to make so we can save all of our money and buy a house in Eagle Mountain or Saratoga Springs before the end of November. It means a farther drive but a nicer house and we are getting really excited about it. We've driven out to the area a few times this last week and looked at almost a dozen houses. We weren't able to look at a few of our faves, but of the ones we have looked at, we've picked our top 3.

Noah will be starting school again next week. More than likely he will be going to the same preschool as last year, but with so much going on and us knowing we are going to move, we haven't fully decided. Margie is trying to put together a Joy School with other moms in her neighborhood.

I think we will also put Noah in soccer this fall. I'm not sure when the first game is but I'll let you know when everything is finalized. Chris has been playing soccer on Friday nights and he's going to keep doing that, on top of riding his bike every day.

Uh I think that's about it! I'll try to keep it up on the blogging, especially as we get further into the house process!

My birthday day

I had a GREAT birthday today! When I woke up this morning, I had this email from Chris, I mean Ryan Reynolds, wishing me happy birthday: 

Then I found out that I got an A- on my Geography midterm, which I thought I completely flunked since I didn't even know we were having the test on that day & didn't study (big sigh of relief there).

Then I picked up my $10 refund from a stupid SLCC parking ticket. I appealed it & it got approved!

I got a lot of birthday wishes via text, picture message, voicemail, email & facebook. Chris held a bunch of donuts from his work for me & the kids & even my boss!

When I got to work, Davi made homemade cupcakes with homemade icing (the best!) and everyone sang to me. After work, I picked up Chris and headed to Margie's to pick up the kids and there was a happy birthday message and an Urban Outfitters gift card waiting for me from Amber & Matich. I went to Urban on Saturday and was able to get a sweater that I have literally been wanting for months! and it made me so happy. Chris & the kids, Margie, Wade, Ma, my mom, Rob, Casey and their baby Keagan all joined me for my bday dinner at Tepanyaki. Then we went to Albertson's and picked out a pint of ice cream for myself and 2 pints of sorbet for Chris and the kids to share. It was a late night for the kids, but it was a lot of fun to do that.

The next day was our 5-year wedding anniversary, that will be a seperate post later! But after celebrating our anniversary over the weekend, Margie made me a birthday dinner on Sunday night that consisted of steak, shrimp, baked potatoes and veggies, and then a HUGE cake from Costco that not only fed all of us, but all of my work too, and there were still leftovers!

Thanks to everyone for such a fun birthday!

4th of July weekend

Happy 4th!! We had a busy weekend but it was a lot of fun. Chris had Friday off but I had to work, so he stayed home with the kids. Before that, though, I didn't have school so we went to IHOP for breakfast with the kids. That night I took the kids to the movie in the park but had a hard time finding a place to park, so we only caught about the last half hour of the movie! We had fun though, and there was a really cool lightning storm in the distance behind the movie screen.

Saturday was the busiest day. I didn't have school again, so we walked down the street to watch the parade. We got a ton of candy and Bostyn got a bead necklace. It was way too hot and the parade was way too long, so we left early and when we got home, Chris made 4th of July pancakes. He tried to dye the batter red but it came out pink (red is hard!) and some had blueberries, some had bananas, some had both. We wanted to go swimming but the pools weren't open, so we packed up our stuff and went to The Gateway to run in the fountains. Bostyn didn't go in much but Noah ran right in and we had to pry him away when it came time to leave.

We came home after that to eat lunch and take naps while Chris went on his bike ride. When we woke up, we headed to Rob's for a bbq and fireworks. There were a ton of kids there, including Bostyn's new favorite friend and Noah actually had a good time watching the fireworks. He usually gets a little freaked out by them but he told me they were the coolest fireworks ever! It was getting dark and we had a TON of fireworks to light at Margie's, so we headed over there. We started lighting them before it was fully dark and we didn't leave until almost midnight. The kids were so worn out but I was determined to use up all of the fireworks! I wasn't going to have a bag of leftovers sitting in my car for a year, like what happened from last year! So of course, the next day I found a small bag of fireworks that we had forgotten about, sitting in the back of the car. Grrr We will pop them!

Yesterday, we all slept in and then stayed in for the morning to be lazy and spent the rest of day running errands and going grocery shopping. Noah wanted more smoke bombs so we bought some of those. Just adding to the pile! We will get rid of them on the 24th.

Speaking of, Bostyn's birthday is coming up and we are planning on just doing a small get-together in a park somewhere. Once we finalize everything, I will let you know!

Summer 09 update

Now that the weather has cleared up, we can finally do some fun summer activities!!! Here's our last couple of weeks in review:

I had last Friday off of work (the 19th, see how long it takes me to update this blog?!) thanks to my boss's anniversary, so after school I took the kids to Liberty Park with Aunt Arn to run in the fountain & playground. Later that evening Chris had a work soccer game that went into major overtime but it was a lot of fun to watch. Then afterwards we took off to see Kung Fu Panda for movie in the park night. There are a few different parks that participate in this & if the nights are nice, I hope to go to quite a few of these.

Saturday was our FREE Dominos pizza party thanks to houseparty.com. That day was rainy but we stayed in.

For Fathers Day Sunday we had a fun dinner at Margie's. It was nice so a few of us ate outside & played in the backyard.

Monday started free kids lunches at the park for us. Its been going on since the beginning of June but I misunderstood where these free lunches were being passed out at, so once I got the correct info, we started going to the right park for lunch for the kids. Its a government program where they just pass out free lunches to any children under the age of 18. Pretty cool. Only catch is that the meals must be eaten on site, which is a good excuse to get outside & go play anyway! This is an ongoing thing until the beginning weeks of August.

Last Tuesday Aunt Arn took both of the kids to Oma & Opa's where they got to play with cousin Connor & go swimming! Wednesday I had the day off as well so I took the kids swimming at Kearns pool. Aunt Arn met us over there and we had a lot of fun! I got a sweet little sunburn on my back, which didn't feel very good while Chris & I were in the theater later that day for our free special screening of Away We Go. Noah stayed the night at Oma's with cousin Teagan, who was visiting from St. George. Away We Go was a great movie, I highly recommend everyone go see it!

Thursday after work, we went to Dr. Boyack's house for a work bbq because he will only be working at our office on Fridays from now on :( we ate charred hamburgers (if only he read this blog, he would be laughing!) and played volleyball. My wrist is still recovering to this day.

Friday we missed Taylorsville Dayz fireworks thanks to the rain, grr!

Saturday was the busiest day yet! I had my first test of the semester in my Psychology class. I was up until almost 3 studying and I feel really good about it (I haven't gotten the results back yet). As soon as Chris got home from work, we went to Luca's 2nd year bday party. They had a small pool, a slip and slide & waterguns! Both kids had a fun time & didn't want to leave, but we had a movie to catch! We dropped Bostyn off with Oma and took Noah for his special surprise: TRANSFORMERS!!! We stopped at the store on the way and let Noah pick out special treats to take with us. Noah loved the movie, but by the end of it, he was worn out from his busy day. After the movie, we dropped Noah off at Oma's and we took off to Rob's for Casey's surprise birthday party. We had a lot of fun, got to spend time with our friend David and ate hamburgers again for the third time in one week! We left that birthday party to go to our friend Ben's bday party at Classic Fun Center (yes, the 3rd party that day). We jumped on the huge blow-up toys you see at parties & carnivals & played laser tag. The kids were OUT by the time we got home & we CRASHED too!

Sunday was a nice hot day & the day before, Noah told us he wanted to go to the park. We went to the park but it was so hot that we couldn't stay for long. We did get to throw rocks in the almost-flooded Jordan River and the kids thought that was cool. Bostyn has a good arm! We stayed home & relaxed the rest of the day and were able to finally get our air conditioners put in! Woo hoo! Its amazing how hot & humid it can get in our basement condo.

Its looking like a pretty slow/average week, although Noah already got to go swimming today with Aunt Arn & Unci Matti. We promised Noah that we would go buy fireworks tomorrow & then get "chinese panda" (panda express) for dinner, and I'm sure that this weekend will be pretty busy too with the Fourth of July weekend. We do have a bbq to go to on Saturday at Rob & Casey's. I plan on going to see fireworks at least on Saturday, but I haven't decided if we will try to find fireworks again for Friday or do movie in the park.

I will try to post pictures later, I really don't have many but even a few can't hurt!