Catching up

I'm so behind on blog posts! I'm afraid I'll forget current stuff, so I'll just jump in here, and try to catch up later.

We thought about building a house for a couple of months. We found a lot that was right in the area we wanted, plus it was owned by my uncle, so we didn't have to purchase it right away. We met with the architect many times, and he delivered our official plans to us. We then went to the builder, and realized that what we wanted was going to cost more than we could afford. Plus, we would still have to put in sprinklers, grass, yard, etc. We decided it wasn't for us, at this time. Then, while talking to the contractor, Jimmy, (who happens to be my cousin--and has been talking about moving for a couple of years now), I told him we would buy his house. He gave me this weird look and asked "What makes you say that?".  I thought I had offended him, but it turns out he had just mentioned to his wife the night before that they should sell their house to us! Crazy.
So right now, our house is up for sale, and we are planning on buying Jimmy's house, provided we can sell this one. The first week we had showings every day, 2 on a couple of days.  It was so hard. We felt like we weren't home at all, and the girls were being really moody. Our schedule was all messed up, and we didn't eat dinner at home for 5 or 6 days.
This second week has been slower. Only 2 on Wednesday. We got an offer last Saturday, but it was pretty low, and they wouldn't come up to the range we are wanting. I know everything will work out how it is supposed to. I've always felt that way about changing houses. I know that we were blessed to have my uncle offer his property, because if it had been anyone else, we would have had to purchase it, and then we would be stuck. Also, everything in Jimmy's life is pointing toward him leaving, but we had to spend the time making house plans so we could be in the same time range as Jimmy's family.

Annalisa is so talkative! It's funny, because when I brought her in for her 18 month checkup, the doctor thought she wasn't using enough words, so he referred us to "Early Intervention".  Some ladies came to our house and asked questions, and observed Anna. Then they took a hearing test, just to rule that out for sure. Her hearing was perfect. They both said they thought she was right on track, and that I didn't have anything to worry about. And sure enough, just 3 months later, she is talking up a storm! She can say so many things. Her favorites are: Kaygee (Katie) Eena (Elayna) Daddy, Mommy, me!, Anna! meow? (cat), ruff ruff, (dog), ball, baba (bottle), and nigh nigh (night night-bedtime).  She can usually correctly label yellow and white, plus she normally will wait for us to say a color, and if it is wrong, she will pause for a minute, then say "no!"
When we pass by Wendy's she says "Eat?". Obviously we eat there way too often. She is just so observant. She is also OCD. She really likes things in their places and throws a fit if you don't let her fix it. For a while there, my poor Mother couldn't leave her glasses or phone lying around anywhere, because Annlisa would bring them to her saying, "uh? uh?".  It can be cute, and bothersome.

Elayna is just finishing Preschool. She will go to Kindergarten in the fall.  She knows all her letters, their sounds, colors, shapes. She is trying to sound out words and understand concepts better. She still loves being read to, playing with Barbies, playing with friends. She has become more responsible for Annalisa, which helps me out. She loves her sisters very much. She loves playing with her "friends" (they are all her cousins) Gracie, Sadie, and Celeste.
Elayna can say the funniest things. Just last night, while I was putting her in bed, she said, "Mom? One day, when no one has work or school, and the house is all clean, you know what I want to do?"    "What?"
"I want to do something so fun. Like make candy and play games all day!"  She just has such a wonderful way of phrasing things so they are hilarious.

Katie is finishing up 1st grade. She has grown up so much this year, it is amazing! Her reading abilities are fantastic. But she still likes me to read her stories. She is reading "Harry Potter" with Ryan, "The Secret Garden" with Bowman's, and "Secret of the Attic" series books with me. She loves chapter books, as they are called.
Katie wants to be climbing trees, riding her bike, and playing with friends. She is a wonderfully responsible girl. If I get up to get them breakfast, she usually tells me to go back to bed so she can feed them. That could be because we tend to let them watch some shows Saturday mornings while we sleep in. :)
She loves to play with her sisters. She is very tender hearted. If she doesn't get a good night kiss from someone, she gets all sad. Of course, she gets sad about quite a few things, which can be taxing. But she is a girl, and drama has to be a part of her life, I suppose.

Our Church ward was just split up, because the wards were too big. When the ward is too big, people start feeling as though they aren't needed, because there aren't that many callings or responsibilities for everyone. This way, with a smaller ward, everyone should be able to have a job and feel that they are contributing to the ward family. We were put in the 5th ward, but when we buy Jimmy's house, we will be in the 19th ward, with my parents.

Ryan is still working at Westring Technologies, under the umbrella company of Rocky Mountain ATV/MC. He helps with a couple of different websites. He still enjoys collecting toys. He gets to hang out with his cousin, Derek, once a week, and they talk about toys, movies, etc. He is enjoying not being the choir pianist for the first time in 20 years. He is so talented, he gets put into piano jobs in every ward we are in.

I have been pretty busy trying to get the house ready to sell. We filled our garage halfway with stuff that we moved out of the house, to make it feel roomier. Then my Mom came over and helped me decorate it so it looks large and spacious. We are currently borrowing quite a few things from her house. I'm trying to get spring yard cleaning done. It's funny, once the house was really to list on the market, it was clean, and we didn't mess it up much. House cleaning is pretty quick. I feel like I have a little bit of extra time on my hands. I still have a reminder on my phone that goes off every day so I remember to actually fix dinner though.

We are all healthy and happy. Life is good. We are very blessed!

Other pictures from September 2012

 Labor Day was Sept 3. Jerry and Irma invited us to go up Santaquin Canyon with them. Ryan had work off, so we thought it would be fun. But then Ryan remembered he was on call, and since there isn't any reception up the Canyon, he couldn't come. That made it not as fun, but the girls really enjoyed themselves.

There were caterpillars ALL over the place. Katie and Elayna had fun picking them up and having them crawl around on them. 

Anna was mostly interested in the food. :)

Katie wanted to cross the river all by herself, and she did! She was so proud, and I was too! 

Sitting on the bank, enjoying the sun and water. 

Anna didn't really like the dirt or water much, but she was still happy to be outside. 

Elayna got her feet wet, but not much more. The water was still pretty cold. 

Katie decided to walk through the water to get back across the river. Brrrr! 

School picture day was Sept 11.  I wanted to take some pictures at home, since I wasn't going to purchase any pictures from the school.

Katie, with the class bear, Corduroy.  We curled her hair with a curling iron, but it had all fell out by the time we got outside. She is so lovely.

I got Elayna ready for pictures also, just because she had Preschool that day anyways. Except that when we got to the teacher's house, we walked in, and Mrs. Lacee was sitting in the front room in her pajamas. Uh oh. I guess she was sick, but didn't have a phone number for me yet, so she couldn't contact me. Oh well. At least we got cute pictures out of it.

Ryan took work off on September 12, and we drove up to Brigham City for the Temple Open House.  It took us about 3 hours to get there. Before a Temple is dedicated, there is an Open House, so anyone can walk through the Temple and see how beautiful it is. After it is dedicated, only Members that have a special recommend are able to go inside. 
I'm so glad we went! Katie especially keeps asking me when she will be able to go to the Temple. This was a good opportunity to show her what it was like, and how beautiful and special our Temples are to us. We have a Temple being built in Payson (7 miles away). It should be finished in 2015. We are so excited to have a Temple so close!!


Irma went to Mexico to do some Humanitarian work. She found these beautiful dresses for my girls. Isn't this picture just adorable? I love it.

It turns out that Clarissa had her own white shirt and had bought Irma a purple Mexican shirt, so we all got to be in a picture together. 

Katie's class came up with this "recipe" for Friendship Pie. I guess these children were the ones that came up with most of the ideas. That was Katie's explanation for why these 4 children were pictured in front of it.
Stephanie Fern, Christian, Katie, and Jeny. Katie and Stephanie play together often, and Katie often laments the fact that Jeny  had to move back to Mexico.

Elayna's current bike. I wanted to get pictures of all the girls on their bikes so I could see if they had outgrown them.

Katie's bike:

Anna's bike (well, it is actually just a broken toy that the neighbors gave  us, but she seems to love it.)

She also likes to ride this bike at Jerry and Irma's house: 

Such a cutie! 

 
Elayna keeps telling me there are 2 boys in our family. Daddy and Jesus, her brother. Sept 30.
I love this picture! It is so typical of Elayna! Church shoes, legs crossed, umbrella in her hand, flowers in her hair, so cute. 

I decided I wanted to take a Watercolor class. There is a Community class that meets once a week, in Payson. My sister, Amanda, and I took it together. The first class was Sept 18. It is something that I enjoy, but it is hard to make time to do it. I guess if I was really interested in, I would find the time. Still, it is fun to go and not be able to think of anything but what I'm working on. More than once I would be stressed out, or moody, or whatever. Then I would go to class, and by the time we were done (it was one hour a week) I was feeling great. It was nice to have that break-just to take my mind off it's normal course, talk to some adults, and stretch my mind with new ideas.

August 2012

 I love clouds. Sometimes. This is one of those times. It is so beautiful! This is right above our roof.

I took one afternoon to make these. I pulled apart a lot of flowers, glued some jewels on top, clips on the bottom, and Voila! Lots of cute hair flowers. 

This is Elayna, Gracie, Abby, Katie and Ethan. All the girls are dressed in princess stuff, and Ethan is being such a good sport and playing along with them. You should be able to click on the picture and see it closer.

Katie likes to come get in my bed while Ryan and I are downstairs watching movies. I guess she fell asleep before she made it all the way onto the bed. 

A cute picture of Jerry with his 3 grand daughters. 

Annalisa loved the idea of putting olives on your fingers to eat them. 

Elayna and Katie had a sleep over at Bowman's house. The girls were worried they would miss us, so Ryan got a picture of us for them to take with them.  Elayna and Annalisa carried this picture around for days. They still have it in their room somewhere.

A close up of the picture. Wow, we look so young! Neither one of us remembers what this was from. It looks like a BYU staircase, but I have no idea what year it is or anything.  I think it might have been after his mission, because I think I got that dress up at Logan, but I really don't know.

Elayna, being onery. 

Katie was loving these daisies. She was putting them everywhere. 

Irma had this bandage thing on her arm, and Katie got 3 daisies to fit in.  

Elayna loved them too. Anna and Ryan are in the background. 

We decided to have a "beauty day". I don't remember why, or where that came from. The only things I could think of to do were our nails, and oatmeal masks. They didn't like how the oatmeal felt on their faces, but we were having fun. 

 Anna loves this big bunny. It is very soft.

It is also as big as she is. 

Annalisa loves, loves being on a trampoline.  She will play on it for as long as we let her. She loves to jump, crawl, bounce, roll, run away from us, etc. She has figured out that if she stays away from the edges, we can't grab her and take her off.

Anna wants to be just like the big girls and draw. 

Katie did her hair all by herself this day. She was very proud of it. I thought she did a really good job. I love her expression! 

Annalisa and Elayna love this little bench that is just the right size for them. 

Cute little cocoons.  They had fun waddling around in these towels.

Irma and Jerry reading a story to my girls. So sweet. 

Annalisa, while we were kneeling to pray, intonated "Heavenly Father".
Aug 26,2012

I was talking to Annalisa and teaching her about Jesus. She was trying to say Jesus. She was trying to sound it out and she repeated it a couple of times just to see if she could do it. 8-29-12

Young Women Camp July 2012

I am the Second Counselor in the Young Women's group in my ward.  One of the leaders had this great idea to have cute pictures of each girl. For my own records, I wanted to put their names with their pictures.

Aubrie Marsh

Megan Strong

Jesseca Owens

McKenna Stewart

Emily Urban

Jessica Dickie

Kat (Kathryn) Coughanour

Me

Chris Judd (camp leader)

Crysania Pickering

Emilee Thompson

Ali Taylor

Stori Hopper

Miranda Urban (she came up to help her mom do crafts)

Juliet Preston (Laurel Advisor)

Marianne Parsons

Summer Hopper

Heidi DeGraffenried (YW president)

Rachael West (YW secretary)

Julie West (my Beehive advisor)

The outside of our cabin. Yes, we are spoiled. Our idea of  "camping" was mattresses on bunk beds, in dorms. That is about as "roughing it" as I want. Our theme was "Arise and Shine Forth that thy light may be a standard for the nations" for the year. They based camp around the Olympic idea of reaching for the gold.
Our country was Tahiti.

Marianne and Kat designed and drew our flag. (I can't get it to rotate)

( Karlee Romero wasn't here for the close-ups. She is next to Marianne)

What a silly bunch! 

 I had such a great time at Camp! I didn't spend much time at camp last year because Anna was so young. This year I was blessed to have Irma, my Mom, and Ryan take care of my children while I was gone from Tues-Friday.  I felt so close to each of the Young Women and also to the leaders after those few days!  I'm grateful I was able to go.