Friday, December 23, 2011

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

WOW!! I really haven't been very good at blogging. New Years resolution will be to be better. :) On to my point in blogging today.

The best gift I could get this year is my new house and it looks like I will get my wish. It should come the weekend after. So, it looks like we will be into our new house in time for the New Year. We are very excited and are looking forward to this change. We should get exact times early next week. YAHOO!!! It's really going to happen.

A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you that have walked this long path with us. We have felt the prayers that have been offered and I KNOW that those prayers are being answered. I am often reminded that things don't always work out how we expect or plan, but they do always work out. We may never know why things have gone this way with our house, but I know that for some reason we needed to experience something or something had to happen and now it will be the best.

So, for now we are planning on signing on Thursday and then moving thereafter. Possibly Thursday night, but for sure Friday will be a big move day.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Haircut Time!

For mom that is. It had gotten to the point that I needed to get a haircut. Everyone out that that has seen my hair in the past bit would agree with me as well, I'm sure. Anyway, I had my kids take a picture of me before and one after I had my haircut. Here are the pictures of the event:

Here is the pic of before.


Here is one of after.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Other Pictures

Here are some other pictures that I found on our camera. I have been terrible these last couple of years and I haven't gotten pictures of us or the kids in our costumes. I know that just screams TERRIBLE MOM, but oh well. It's done now.

I did take pictures of some cupcakes I made and I really had a good time making them.

I decided to try a black and orange swirl...Strange thing...most didn't want to eat the cupcakes with black frosting.






These are some that I made for a cake walk. They are chocolate cake and orange frosting with chocolate sprinkles. I had dreamed about them and decided that they would be great. The payoff came when my husband walks in from work while I'm frosting them and tells me how great they looked. Later he told me that they tasted good too, so it worked out.


There is a pumpkin patch that has a maze and some fun things to do for kids and here are some pictures of when we went to get pumpkins.











My little 4 year old.

I know have a 4 yr old little girl. As I was writing the other day I realized that I haven't posted anything about her big day. It's hard to believe that my 3rd child is 4. Time moves WAAAY too fast.

She has always been a happy little girl and I am so glad that she came to my family. I am so lucky, actually the whole family is lucky to have her in our lives. Here are some pictures of the big day.

She wanted sandwiches for dinner, so we made some on ciabatta bread that we had gotten at bountiful baskets the week previously. This is her at the table.


This is part of her cake. She said that she wanted a cake with flowers and a butterfly, I didn't get a good picture of the butterfly, but these are some of the flowers.


Here we are singing before she blows out her candles. The blowing out didn't go the greatest, but she figured it out by the 4th one. :)


This is a picture of a scarf that she got from her grandma. After opening a bunch of her presents she said, "It's just what I wanted!" Some things I really didn't know that she wanted, but it worked out anyway.


Here is a picture that we took of all the kids at the end of the day. They sure all have their very own personalities.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

The difference a day makes...

So for those that follow this blog know that we have been trying to sell our house for quite awhile. We finally got an offer in Aug. and as we have worked with our buyers, for one reason or another we haven't heard from them in the last few days. We don't know why, and I'm trying to be nice about it all, but it's very frustrating to know that they have pretty much stopped contact. Now, that all could change in a moments notice when/if their funding situation works out. We just haven't heard anything, so we have decided to re-list our house on the MLS.

Today has been a great day for us by way of calming emotions and re-focusing on what's important. With it being the first Sunday of the month and Fast Sunday, we took the time to really focus on the house situation and see where we were at the end of the day. We both felt like the testimonies born and lessons were for us. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father. I don't know what the future is for us right now. We will hopefully hear tomorrow what the status is on the house that we have built. As far as the other stuff, we will ride it out and see where we end up. The next biggest thing that we need to figure out is where to attend church. About a month ago, thinking we would be moving in the next couple of weeks, we transfered our records over to the new ward so we could start participating there. For whatever reason, our records are still there and we are here, so we are thinking that maybe we need to move them back. We're not sure and we will be spending the week figuring that part out. If I had to choose right now, I think I might choose to move them back, but we'll see how I feel as the week moves on...

Thank you so much to those that have been supporting us through this VERY LONG trial of ours. I hope and pray that at the end of it all we will all have our faith strengthened and we can all grow and learn something from this. :)

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Mission

Did you serve a mission? Tell about your companions. From previous posts, if you haven't already figured it out I served an LDS Mission, which is why that question yesterday was a little big for one day.

I served in the Argentina Neuquen Mission. The best Mission! During my mission, I ended up having 8 companions. I won't go into too much detail about each of them for various reasons (the big one being privacy issues). I had a few 6 wk companions that I "killed". "Killed" being the term that we used when you were their last comp. I guess like everything else in life that was both good and bad. I didn't get to know them as well as I might have liked, but I did get to know more sisters that way.

I very much enjoyed having my native companions. (I had 4 that were native to Argentina, 1 that was native to Honduras, and 3 that were from America.) That was something totally new/different for me. Growing up I didn't spend a lot of time with other cultures, so it was fun to have companions that were from other cultures.

Probably the best thing that I came away from with my companions is know that relationships take work. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes, not so. I know that you can work through anything you want/desire in a relationship if you both care about it. I also learned about my own faults (and some of you might be reminded of them more regularly than you want to be).

I'm feeling totally under qualified to do/be what I am today. I am very much not perfect (and these companions could all tell you that), and have many of my own faults. It helps me feel more and more grateful for those that can look past them and love and accept me anyway. I guess that's sort of how I feel about my companions. As we spent pretty much every waking hour in each others sight you find that not everyone is perfect, but we are all trying. I won't lie and say that things were all peaches and roses, but I am grateful for those hard times as well as the good times.

A little shout out to any of my companions that read this blog. Thank you for caring about me even though I have my faults and imperfections. And for those that could be wondering, I love and care about you too!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Bloggers Block

I have been thinking about how I need to be better about updating the blog, but it seems like there really isn't that much going on to talk/write about. Just normal life that doesn't seem very note-worthy.

I have been thinking about my lack of mothering skills. I need to be better in a lot of ways, but it's hard for me to be motivated to REALLY do something about it. I would call myself addicted to being lazy! :) I do a very good job of it. So, in an effort to be less lazy and more productive as well as help with my lack of writing abilities. (My writing abilities weren't that good to begin with.) I found this jar that has a whole bunch of little questions inside. I want to say that it's a type of journal jar. I'm actually not very sure what's all in here, but I'm thinking I will find out with all of you. So, during the week-days I am hoping to be able to answer one of the questions that are found in here.

So, as I pull the strip of paper out of the jar today, it says: "Tell some of your favorite scriptures and why they are important to you. Did you serve a mission? Tell about your companions."

That is one loaded question. I think I will break this one down into two days. So, to start I will share my favorite scripture. My all-time favorite would be found in the Book of Mormon (if you want to know more about what it is look here: www.lds.org)

Alma 37:37 Which reads..."Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

As I think back, I really don't remember how/when it became my favorite, but it sure did and it still is. I love how it says counsel, we can discuss and learn, it's a two way street. I also think it's interesting to note that we pray that we will be watched over in our sleep. Recently I read a book The Cleansing of America. It talks about the Second Coming and what it will be like as we get there and how things will look at the end. I think about the terrible things that will happen and with that in mind I can understand even more the importance of being protected while we sleep.

The other thing is that I'm a mom and I get nervous that I'll have a child not wake up in the morning. I do pray that my family and I will be watched over each night. I am also grateful that I wake up each morning and that my family does as well.

I am so grateful for the scriptures and what they teach. They help me to continue on and hope for things. I know that they were written for our day and they can help us as we go about our lives.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Hurry up, and wait!

This is how I have been feeling. We got the offer on the house and as we have been packing and getting ready for our move the date has been changed multiple times. Hopefully we have had our last change and it will officially happen at the end of the month.

I'm really having a problem with mortgage company underwriting. They take WAY to long to do what they have to do. I understand that they are worried about having a problem, but they can't see the future to know for sure and so they take it out on anyone and everyone. Yes, we have a housing problem right now. Yes, it was brought on by the fact that they had allowed anyone and everyone to get a mortgage, whether they should have or not. I understand that, but do they know if we will loose a job? Did they know that any of those others would loose their jobs? NO!! It sure seems like they have gone backward rather than forward in reguards to how to handle this mess. Taking weeks and weeks to do something that should have only taken weeks is a joke. Do they really know any more now than they did then? I really don't think things have changed that much to warrent something like this.

Our buyers are having to re-verify their income. What difference does it really make? Now, if they had lost a job or something of a sort that would make so much more sense, but really, come on people. Move things along or stay in this housing slump FOREVER!!

Obviously, I don't have much of an opinion. :) We are excited to hopefully have a true ending date, we'll know for sure as we get closer.

Monday, August 29, 2011

ALL DONE!

This has needed to be posted about for a bit. A few things in the last little bit are now all done.

We got an offer on our house and we accepted it!!! YEAH!! It couldn't have happened a moment too soon. We got the offer and then a few days later we had our final walk-through on the new house. It was great to go through the house with the arcitect and have him talk to us about warrenties, home care and other things to help us understand what is going on with our house. One tip he gave that I think everyone should hear is about touch-up painting. He talked about when the paint gets dinged up on the corners. He suggested you use a q-tip to touch up the paint. What a great idea and no brush stroking issues.

So, the house is ready for us and we just have to close on both of the houses and then we can move in. Right now the closing date is the end of Sept. but we are trying to work with those that are buying our house to see about moving the date up to the middle of the month. We'll see what happens with that.

My baby is now 1 yr old. It's crazy to think that's he's been around for a year. We were able to celebrate with family and dinner and cake with ice cream. I also made some cupcakes and filled them with ice cream. It was different, but no one complained about them. :)

My oldest is now in 2nd grade and his teacher is in our ward, so that's fun. He's liking school and seems to be doing ok....it is only the 2nd week, so there's still a lot of time for anything to happen.

My second started kingergarten this week. He has the same teacher that #1 did and that's fun. It's a little crazier for me to go back and forth 3 times a day. The afternoons are fairly calm with 2 at school, 2 napping and 1 awake. Maybe I can get more things done?

I think that's all for now that's going on. I think that's probably enough for now anyway. I will post pictures of the events in the next post.

Friday, August 12, 2011

BUSY TIME!

Since my last post we have had some big/fun changes with the house, my brother came home from his mission in Germany and we enjoyed a great time with family at the beach in Oceanside. I wish I could go back. I had a dream last night that we were going to drive down for the day and I thought that it would be great. It really was a great trip.

I've got pictures of everything but my brother coming home. I had left my camera at home. :(

To go chronologically my brother came home first on Thursday. His flight didn't arrive until about 9:00PM so that made things a little tricky. I have a Johnson bro-in-law that lives in Wyoming and his family was down here and would be heading up soon so all the brothers got together while the girls and the kids hung out for awhile. Afterward we headed out to see the Returned Missionary and visit with my family. It turned into a late night with the drive home and all, but it was great to see him.

Friday we spent getting ready to leave with a couple house showings in-between. It was busy, but we got it done so we were ready to get up at 3:30 to get out by 4:30. All went well and we made it to CA by about 4:00PM. We spent a lot of time at the beach and the pool. We also went to the Mormon Batallion Museum in San Diego. We also celebrated our 9yr anniversary while we were there and we went into San Diego and had dinner at Panevino (a nice Italian place). For a little back story, my wedding ring broke a few months ago and I haven't been wearing it because of that. Well, I got my wedding ring back all fixed. It was so fun to get it back. I had been missing it. I realized how much I LOVE my ring. My dear husband did a great job getting it fixed and I didn't really even know that he had. (I had freaked out earlier that week because I couldn't find it and was going to go see about getting it fixed.) While there we also went to the Maritime Museum. We had a tour and our tour guide was WONDERFUL! He was an actor in Masters and Commanders and had lots of tid bits about that. We then came home late Sat. night.

Mormon Batallion Pics:








Beach Time Pics:











When we got home we had to go see how things had changed at the house. As of this morning the light and fixtures are pretty much all in, we have all the cabinetry done. The appliances are almost all in. The counter tops have been installed. So, now we pretty much just have to get the cooktop and sinks in and it'll be good.









Life is good/interesting. This isn't a very complete update, but it's fairly simple. Maybe it's more complete than I think too? Anyway, it's been a great couple of weeks and it's just going to get better at this point. :) There are a bunch of things coming up, so stay posted.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Update of the House

We have had some big changes at the house in the past few weeks. Most of the exterior is done. The finish work has also been added to the interior.

Here are some pictures of the house:
This is how the house looked before I left for girls camp.


Flooring in the house:






Finish work in the house:






Exterior almost done:


Half Marathon

My dear hubby ran his first half marathon (and maybe his last as well). He did a fantastic job. He ran it under 2 hrs which is amazing to me.

The kids and I were able to see him run in and finish. Things just worked out right in order for that to happen.






Friday, July 15, 2011

Fun With Food

We have had some fun with some new recipes. I tried my hand at making some different cupcakes as well as cake bites. I know I posted earlier about that with links, but I found some pictures of the cake bites and thought I better share them.







We also tried some new pizzas one night. We did bbq chicken and an chicken, spinach, artichoke pizza. Here are some pictures of that as well.





Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Appliance Time....

Apparently it's time to go appliance shopping. The sooner we get the shopping done, the sooner they can start working on the kitchen. :) It's amazing how fast this process is. I'm anxious/excited for this time. So, this weekend we will be out buying a gas cook top, double wall ovens, microwave, and a dishwasher. If you have any thoughts about appliances, please share. I'll be gathering all the info I can between now and Friday/Saturday!

Things seem to be changing everyday. We now have shingles on our roof and insulation up in the basement (which is how it'll be for awhile). It also looks like all the electrical work has been put in. I got to run out there this morning for my run and it's fun to see the changes that happen and also to see it before anyone is there. I have seen some arriving during my runs, but that's about all.

Life sure is interesting, isn't it? I am so blessed!

Monday, June 27, 2011

House Update!

Here are the latest house pictures!

Front of house...


Back of house...


View from front room into the garage...


I have a ton more, but I don't think you can really tell what everything is, so that's why they aren't on the blog. If you want more, let me know and I will add some.

Last we heard, the finish date is for July 28th. We know the date may change, but for now that's what the plan is. For those wondering, we still have yet to sell this house. We started this path feeling really good about it and felt like we were directed in this route. I know that things will work out. I wish I knew the details, but I don't. We keep going along and things will be good. It's amazing the clarity we felt when we first thought about building. We had gone to the Temple and felt so good and then we talked to 4 different builders and only one got back to us. It sure made it easy for us to know where we needed to go next.

We are very excited about the progress on the new house and anticipate the sale of this one and the move that will follow. Trials make us stronger and through this one for me/us, I have gotten stronger (the lesson isn't over yet, so I have yet to get stronger) and learned much. I am grateful for the things that I have learned and the struggle that it has been. I just have to keep enduring to the end. :)

Thank you all for letting us bore you with the details. Also thank you for your help and advice and suggestions it has been great. Any other ideas and suggestions are welcome as well. :)
Ain't no need to watch where I'm going, just need to know where I've been.