Rough Week

Well I feel like a baby, but it really has been a tough week for me. We had to make a really hard decision, but we know it's the right one. We listed our new house today in hopes that we can sell it in a reasonable amount of time. It is so tough for me because this is the house we built for us. We put everything we wanted into this house and besides the fact that it is WAY too big for us, it is everything we could ever need. However, we just couldn't sell our last house, and paying two mortgages is just not going to work for the rest of our lives. We figure we can't sell our last house, hopefully we can sell this one. We know we are going to take a loss on it, but hopefully not too much. Good thing is, we are young and will easily bounce back from this in a few years. Although, I have to admit, it will be really personal to me when some one has something bad to say about this house, as I truly love everything about this place. In the end, it's just a house and we are extremely grateful that we are so blessed to have everything we have and that we have a great house to move back to. Here's hoping that our house sells! I will miss living so close to a couple of really good friends but hope that we will find the time for each other even if we don't live as close anymore.

Just when I was thinking the worst part about my week was losing my house, I had a wake up call. My grandma fell and seriously hurt herself. My grandparents are extremely healthy for their age, but every now and then, something happens that reminds me they are getting older and I need to treasure all the time I have left with them. It has made me realize that I don't dedicate enough time to them, and I don't spend enough time helping my kids get to know them. My new goal is to spend more time with them and help them out more than I do. I take for granted that I have them in my life and I want my kids to remember their great grandma and grandpa long after they are gone. They are great people and very entertaining to be around.

Now I can't just post negative things, especially since I haven't posted in so long. So here are some things from this week that I am grateful for.

I am grateful for my kids. I love them so very much and I had so much fun planning Donovan's Cars birthday party this week. I can't believe my baby is 3!

I am so happy for a loving husband who does so much for me and our family. He truly is the best husband I could ask for. I am so grateful he has such and amazing job that pays him so well and provides him with great opportunities.

I am grateful for family. I love that Jeff has such a large family and I know that we can count on them for anything. I have spent the last few days watching 2 of our nephews and they have taught me so much. It has been a lot of fun getting to know them a little better. Although, I must admit, I am grateful that they have been as good as they have been. They sure have made it easy for us.

I am grateful that one of my very best friends has bought a house in the city again. I have missed her so much and I am so excited to have her back! I feel so selfish saying that, but I honestly am extremely happy about it! Edmonton's loss, my gain! I am also grateful that we might be living in neighboring communities, it sure makes it a lot easier to move.

Turns out I have a lot more things to be grateful for then to complain about! So I will just quit complaining now!

Hello From Disney World

We are having such a fun time in Disney World. Not only is the weather way nicer here than back home, but it is SO much fun!!
It's only our 3rd day here, but we have a lot of pictures already. I can't wait to share them all!!
http://disneyphotoshare.com/myglobe/8D67623B2486624E31

Here is a sneak peak for now!!
Please know that it is not really snow, just Florida's way of pretending they have snow at Christmas! They honestly have fake snow during this light show we were at! We definitely didn't need that.

Clara Turns 4

Clara turned 4! I can't believe that she is that old already! I truly love how much fun she is and all the things she teaches me, but I sure miss my tiny little baby. So now that she is 4, she is a very important princess. Everything should go her way, because she is 4 of course. She wants to buy everything she sees in the store, and will often have a fit when she can't, that is also because she is 4 now. Those are her words, not mine! Every time she has gotten into trouble this past week, she responds by telling me, "well you know I am a really big girl now, I am 4". Nice. Seriously though, she is the best 4 year old girl I could ask for. She is so full of love and happiness that she is constantly reminding me what the important things in life are. She is always telling me how much she loves me and the four words, "I love you mommy", still melt me heart every time she says them. She is a smart girl and it always amazes me how much she learns every day. I love her so much and I loved watching her on her birthday, she was so happy and had so much fun, and that is what being a kid is all about!!


So we celebrated by having a pirate and princess party. It probably would have been just a princess party, but I realized that there were more boys she wanted to invite than girls, so we made a slight change. It worked out perfectly.

These are the invitations for her party. I spent a lot of time planning them out, but I am so happy they turned out so well. They were a big hit.

Here is a picture of her on her birthday, early in the morning. I arranged for princess Aurora to call her and wish her happy birthday. It was absolutely priceless to see her face once she realized who was talking to her.
Here is a picture of most of the kids at her party. It was almost impossible to get them all to sit in one place, so this was the best I could do. I never did a head count, but I know there were a lot of kids.

Here are all the princesses from the party. It was so fun to see them all dressed up. It worked out well too, because we didn't have an duplicate princesses!

We took the kids on a treasure hunt and this is what we found! It was almost impossible to break, like most pinatas are. Jeff finally went at it and beat it pretty hard. Then the kids got to go scrambling for the treasure inside.

I did not attempt to make a cake, and I probably never will again. I have accepted I am just not one of those moms. I love the look of homemade cakes, but mine are just a disaster. I hope my kids don't hold it against me when they are older. My mom always made me my cake when I was little, but I just don't have it in me. It was SO easy to just order this cake, and pick it up, and it was really yummy too!

Here is my very own princess Aurora. I was getting ready to take a picture of her and all of a sudden she starts posing like she is a super model. I don't know where she got it from, but it was something to see. I showed Jeff the pictures, and he asked me why she wasn't smiling in any of them. It was true, no smiles, just serious princess faces. What a funny girl!

Halloween Dance

We went to my sister in law's elementary school dance this weekend and we had a blast! It was fun to dress up in our costumes. I bought them last year and I have been waiting to wear them. I am so happy we got to go out in them! Donovan was a little afraid of all the people, but Clara danced up a storm! She even made her way up to the front where all the big kids were and partied it up with them. It was hilarious! She is quite the spunky dancer.

These are pictures from when I first pulled the costumes out. I was worried Clara would be mad she wasn't going to be a princess, but she loved the fact that we all had matching costumes! I couldn't get them to take the costumes off for the rest of the day. It was really cute! Then we HAD to pull out the Incredibles movie and watch it in our costumes. That was a lot of fun. Donovan even fell asleep in his costume.

Update

We are alive and our lives are returning to some sort of normal level. I figured it was time to update our blog, it has been way too long.

We took the kids to ride Thomas and Donovan still doesn't stop talking about it. He LOVED it! He loves trains. It's so cute to see him so happy over something so simple.






We kicked off the summer by taking a trip to Vegas with my office. I am so fortunate to work for the orthodontist I do. I worked with him before I had Clara, and I always wished that I had found the office sooner. I feel so lucky that they were in need of a part time employee, so I work Mondays only. It's a nice break for me, and I love my job. I love the girls I work with, and I love working for my boss. We got to stay at the Bellagio and we had a sweet room with views of the fountains and strip! It was a much needed trip as both Jeff and I were at our breaking point before this trip. Jeff has been working crazy hard and lots of hours and has spent some time out of the country.

View from our room

So we couldn't sell our house, but we sure had no problems renting it! We had tons of interest in renting. It was crazy how many people we heard from and are still hearing from. We rented the house for a year as of July 3 and we didn't take possession of our house until July 17th. So we had 2 houses and nowhere to live. Thank goodness for parents. We moved in with Jeff's parents and we felt very fortunate to have that option. We are extremely grateful to them for letting us invade their space. Also thanks to them for allowing me to potty train Donovan while living there. One day he decided he had to pee in the potty and there was no turning back. He's doing pretty good. He still has accidents, but I'm really happy with his progress.

As you can imagine, the kids were great help with packing and moving. Here they are here, showing us how much help they really can be. Or how much they can get in the way...however you choose to look at that.

We have made many trips to Calaway Park. Too bad we moved so far from there. The kids love Calaway. Hopefully they will love the lake here, and then it won't matter that our trips to Calaway are few and far between.


What would July be like without Stampede breakfasts?! I took the kids to a couple, and they LOVED it. I think their favorite food is pancakes. Seriously. We took a day to go to the Stampede with my mom. Mainly to visit Dora and Diego. I tell you, that was pure chaos. We got there and the line was CRAZY long and they told us they couldn't guarantee that we would get to meet them. I figured, I came all the way to the Stampede to meet Dora and Diego, we were going to meet them! So, we stood in line for 2 hours!!!! We did get to meet them though. Poor Donovan wasn't sure at first. Finally he went and gave Diego a high five. As we walked away he screamed, he wanted to see Diego. He whined about it for about 2 hours after the fact because he didn't get to hug Diego.

Donovan riding his pony. He got on the horse, lifted his hat up in the air and said 'Yee haw' It was really cute.

So...now we are living in our new house. It's WAY too big for our little family, but it's super nice and we are happy to be here. I imagine if the market ever picks up again we will be selling the house and move into something a little smaller and more affordable, but at this point, we are here and we are loving it. We are almost unpacked, but we don't have blinds yet. I procrastinated on that, and now I am regretting it. It gets SO hot in here. So today we put sheets up that Jeff's mom lent to us. It may not be pretty, but it sure feels better now. Once we are completely settled, I will post pictures of the house, but right now it's too messy, it would be embarassing!

Hopefully my next post will be sooner than 5 months from now, but I make no promises!!

The Wiggles

So when I heard that The Wiggles were coming to town, I just had to get tickets for the kids. I decided we should all go as a family, so I bought 4 tickets. Well that was 3 months ago. I had forgotten all about the concert until the day before when something sparked my memory and caused me to look up the date of the concert. Good thing I did, or we would have missed it and that would have been sad.
Turns out, Jeff couldn't make it. He's currently in Singapore and will be for another week I think. We have really missed him the past week, but I think I missed him the most the night of the concert. I love doing things like this as a family. Fortunately for us, my mom lives close and had the night free, so she joined us. Fun for the kids and fun for her.

The kids getting ready to go.

This is the outfit I had made for Clara for the concert. It was SUPER cute and I got a great deal on it. She got lots of compliments on it, but I don't think anyone loved it as much as I did!

So when we first got there, all the guys started coming up into the crowds. We were a little late, so we didn't even have time to settle before Jeff started walking up the stairs beside us! I wish I had my camera ready, but he came so fast, so this is the best I could do. Clara just sat there in awe, I don't think she knew what to make of it. Jeff is her favorite too (I think it might have something to do with his purple shirt and the fact that he shares the same name as her dad)

Donovan didn't even move from his chair. He just sat there soaking it in, clapping occasionally. Joining in on the songs he knew, but totally mellow. It was the calmest I have ever seen him I think!

Clara was being goofy. She spent the night dancing away.

New Happenings

Well, I guess it's time for an update. It's been a while, so this will be really long and picture heavy.

First off I need to let everyone know that my baby turned 2 a couple of weeks ago. It's so bittersweet for me that he is getting older. I love watching him learn and grow, but I have realized that I no longer have any babies, just a toddler and a preschooler. Knowing that we are 90% sure we are done having children, it's a little sad. Donovan sure keeps me going though. He is FULL of energy, and he knows how to push all my buttons. He hardly ever listens to me and often runs the opposite direction from me when we need to be going somewhere, and he will often hit or bite me for no apparent reason at all. I love him SO much, but I just wish he would get past this phase and just be the loving, fun little boy I know he is! He's my miracle baby and I love him like words can't describe, and I am so grateful for him. I love his smile, it's still the same cheesy smile he gave me when he was 5 weeks old and in the hospital, only now it is full of teeth. He's a big ball of energy and I look forward to what he brings me over the next year!! Happy belated birthday little man!!

There was no stopping for a smile while he ate his cake. Believe it or not he is actually saying CHEESE while he eats. He's gotten really good at that. He will say cheese, but he won't look up or stop what he is doing no matter how hard I try.

Well next is Easter, which also happened to be Donovan's birthday. We had a great Easter weekend. Jeff worked a lot the week leading up to Easter, so I made him take a break and we went to Cardston for a night. I knew there was no internet there, so we would get his undivided attention and he would get the break he needed. I am so glad we did because it was so much fun for everyone. The kids love playing with their cousins and a few of them were also in Cardston that weekend, so we did a mass egg hunt on Saturday afternoon. We had something like 150 eggs for 9 kids, or something crazy like that. It was nice that all the kids got to hunt for eggs and we didn't worry about some kids not getting any. We came back home for Easter Sunday and had Easter dinner at my parents house, along with another egg hunt from the Easter bunny.

Do you think he has enough eggs in that basket? He can barely carry it, and he hauled that basket around everywhere for at least 30 minutes after the egg hunt!

We finally got our house on the market. I spent a lot of time getting this house ready to sell. We had 2 years to finish it all and go figure, all the little things still have to be done 2 years later. I painted all of our door casings white to match our new baseboards, which were finished only a couple of months ago themselves. I didn't think the painting the casings would be a big job until I started it. I got one done in 2 hours. I then counted how many I had left and 16 became a REALLY large number. After finishing all the other small touchups that were never completed and with a whole lot of organizing, the house was finally in selling condition. It was SO stressful to me. I think for 2 weeks straight the kids didn't have a mom. I became the mom I swore that I would never be and I had my kids watching tv for hours at a time. I still feel guilty about it, but I am so grateful that the kids love me unconditionally.
I think the most exciting thing to have done is our under cabinet lighting. We had all the wiring done by our brother in law before we did any of the kitchen, but never got him back to finish it for us. I finally asked him to come back and he did, so willingly too. I am very grateful to him for that because it was definitely something I could not have done and it would have cost us a small fortune to hire some one to do it for us.

I do want to say, I learned a lot from this house. I learned that I NEVER want to do home renovations again, which is the reason why we are having our home builder develop our basement. It is just not worth the stress and it will be SO nice to move into the new house and not worry about that.. I learned that no matter how pretty you make a house, if you ever saw it before it was pretty, you don't forget those images. They replay in my mind all the time and even though our house couldn't be more designed to my taste, I just can't forget where it started and that haunts me. I also learned that hardwood and children don't mix! I HATE hardwood. It is so high maintenance because it is so hard to clean and keep clean, especially the dark stuff we have. Never mind the scratches hardwood gets, the cleaning is enough for me to never want it again. I also dislike stainless steel appliances, sure they look nice, but they are so not practical. I hate seeing fingerprints everywhere.

Here are a few before and after pictures, just to show you what we did. Most of my before pictures are on my old computer, so this is the best I have right now.


This picture shows our beautiful Royal blue counter top that we were happy to remove.
My finished kitchen with granite and stainless steel appliances (love the granite, hate the stainless steel appliances)
This room was pee stained carpet when we bought the house, we replaced it with hardwood.The hardwood we added compared to the ugly hardwood we had in the beginning.
Our gorgeous, HIGH maintenance hardwood and new baseboards that my dad and I did together for the whole house.Used to be carpeted as well, also pee stained.
Now beautiful hardwood like the rest of the main level.


Lastly, our new house is moving along like crazy. I keep asking them to slow down a bit, but there is only so much they can stall construction I guess. I am so glad that our site supervisor is patient with me and puts up with all my stupid concerns. It's the third time we have built and it's the first time I have actually felt like some one cares how I feel about what is happening in our house. We are starting to feel a little bit of a crunch considering we just listed our house and we are being told to expect a late June possession date.(we were originally told the end of October) We are thinking we could pull off a mid July possession, but we will probably have to sell our house for a lot less then we would like and that's a little hard to take, but I guess it will be worth it for our new house, we really love it so far. Our house is drywalled and the cabinets just went in, and even our basement is drywalled. It has definitely moved a lot faster then I could imagine, but it's exciting that the fun stuff will be starting soon. Hopefully it will look nice once it's all put together. If you have ever built before, you know what I mean. Those dreaded nightmares where you wake up remembering the wall color you picked is purple, or the cabinets you picked were too red, or the carpet you picked is pink. It's hard to remember what it all looks like, but I just keep telling myself that I liked it when it was all laid out, so it has got to look nice once it's all put together...right? Well here are a couple of pictures if you can handle anymore.

For some reason this is the best picture I have of the outside....

Obviously the cabinets aren't complete yet, but I am really excited for the kitchen, I think it will be really nice once it is complete.
So this is our nook. If you have talked to me about my house you have probably heard me complain about my beam between my kitchen/nook area. If you haven't heard about it, consider yourself lucky! Anyways, this is ultimately what we did about the beam. We put a coffered ceiling in and I am really happy about it. I think it actually looks better then it would have even if the beam wasn't there. The coffered ceiling just adds a little character I guess. It is actually already drywalled and primed, but for some reason I don't have a picture of that either. Guess I need to take some more pictures of my house!!



That's it for now. Thanks for making it this far if you did. Hopefully now that my life has some order to it I will be able to keep up with my blog a little better!!