Moved/Memorial Day

We spent the rest of the week since the kids finished school packing up and moving into our Lehi house.  Saturday was the big move day.  It was supposed to be chilly and stormy.  We did get rained on a little bit, but most of the rain happened when we were in between loading and unloading or after we were all unloaded.  Whew.

It didn't go quite as smoothly as we had hoped since Ian and I came down with a nasty cold on Friday morning.  By Saturday we were pretty miserable, but we powered through and got everything in. Now we are trying to get settled and get better.

We are very glad to be in our new house and are so grateful to all the people who helped us pack (Mel and Brad!), load (so many awesome people from our Kearns ward!), and unload (a few troopers from our new ward).

We have had a busy, productive Memorial Day.  Weston was anxious to go out and make friends today, so this morning we went outside to play and met our next door neighbor's kids.  They have the exact same set up of kids all a little older than ours.  Two boys, then a girl, with another boy on the way.  Kind of funny right?  The mom is super nice too and we chatted this morning.  I'm looking forward to hanging out with them this summer.  I shopped with Talia at Target this morning for some random organizational things we needed, then grabbed a few BBQ supplies at Macey's.  

Talia is finally starting to get used to being here and isn't quite so clingy, which is nice.  I am also finally making real progress at unpacking.  I got the whole kitchen and pantry put together yesterday.  Today I worked on my closet.  It's pretty much done.  Next hurdle is unpacking all the bathroom stuff and figuring out what will go in which bathroom.  Oh, and rearranging furniture, and decorating, and getting all the empty boxes and bins out, etc. 

I LOVE our new house.  The more I unpack the more I am loving the space and the amenities.  We BBQ'd for dinner tonight.  Ian set up the patio furniture and the canopy so we could eat outside.  The kids spent most of the afternoon out there playing with the new water table too.  Talia was soaked.  It's going to be a fun summer with such a usable backyard.  Sorry this is kind of a boring post, but there's our moving weekend in a nutshell.  I will post pictures of the house as we get things organized and unpacked. 

Preschool & Kindergarten Graduation

I cannot believe how quickly this school year seems to have gone by.  I kind of am in shock that the kids are done with school.  Today was their last day.  This morning when I told the boys to go put on their shoes they came back and asked if I would take their picture for their last day of school.  I had to oblige.

 

They both put on little programs with their classes and got certificates from their teachers.  Davin's program was this morning.  He told me he was going to sing me songs.  Davin is a loud singer.  I never would have guessed it of my little soft spoken guy, but he is the one you can hear over everyone else in the video.  He was cracking me up.  They sang 8 songs, put on a little play of the 3 Little Pigs (Davin was a wolf and knew all his lines), then their teacher gave them a folder with all of their stuff in it and a little diploma along with a treat bag.  They served donuts and tang at the end.  It was quite fun.  We had a wonderful year in preschool with Miss Tami and Miss Tina.

Yeah, he's special.  And he has a cold.  

 

 

 

After preschool I took Davin out to lunch at McDonald's.  He had a blast but didn't eat much (no surprise there).  Ian met up with us to eat then headed home to get a little work done there before going to Weston's Kindergarten program with us.

Weston's program also consisted of singing.  They sang lots of songs.  And the Kindergartners were much better, more focused singers than the preschoolers.  I loved watching Weston do all the movements.  He's such a ham.  They sang a couple sweet songs too that made me tear up.  I was feeling kind of emotional about my baby being done with Kindergarten and heading into the big kid world of 1st grade.

After the music, Weston's awesome teacher gave each student a Miss Butler's Favorite Student Award.  She put specific things on each kids certificate that said why they were her favorite.  Weston's said "Weston Bowles is Miss Butler's Favorite Student because he writes number stories with negative numbers and because he and I have so many fun talks about Harry Potter."  :)

They ended with a slide show with a picture and quote about what each kid wants to be when they grow up.  Then there were pictures of all the fun activities from the year.  It was very well prepared and fun.

I have been so very grateful for Weston's amazing Kindergarten teacher this year.  He learned a lot and really enjoyed going to school all year.  Fingers crossed we get so lucky next year at his new school!  Happy Summer!

Shower Surprise!

This last weekend I flew down to California with Talia and my sister, Mel, for our other sister's bridal shower.  It was a surprise.  Jules had no idea we were coming.  She picked us up from the airport on Thursday afternoon thinking she was looking for our grandma's friend Melva.  It was a really fun surprise.  She cried.  I had to take a video for my mom who impressively managed to keep it a secret from Jules for the last month.

After Jules and Rick picked us up from the airport we drove around and visited our grandmas who live in Long Beach.  We ended the evening relaxing at home.  Friday morning was pretty busy.  We had shopping to do!  We started at Target, then went to the mall for a few errands that included Nordstrom's, Williams-Sonoma, See's, and Ann Taylor.  By the time we were done shopping we were all tired and hungry.  We picked up Subway and took it to Jules' office to eat lunch with her.  It was great fun.

Me and Grandma Olson

Talia and Grandma Olson

This Mike Tompkins music video could always keep Talia happy and quiet.

Mom and Tal at Jules' office for lunch.

That afternoon we went home and rested!  Joy and her girls arrived and we got to surprise them with our presence as well.  We hid behind the couch and jumped out when she came in.  We are dorks.  I was glad that Joy was surprised though because I thought I had given it away a couple of weeks before when I mentioned being out of town on the phone and couldn't think of a good lie.  Anyway, Friday night we went to Mom's SCCC performance at a retirement center.  Her kids sounded awesome!  That night we ate Golden Spoon and hung out.  Joy and I stayed up super late talking in bed.

Cousin Rachel showing off her Spidergirl jammies.

Saturday was the big bridal shower day.  We didn't have any plans in the morning, so we just noshed on donuts (thanks Dad!) all morning and managed to sneak away from all the kids for a secret nail painting rendezvous in Jules' room.  Then we got ready for the shower.  It was a tea party theme and it turned out beautiful.  Seriously, I have never been to such a gorgeous shower.  It was out in our friend, Judy's backyard.  The tables were so pretty and the food was not only gorgeous, but absolutely delicious!  I love me some finger sandwiches and mini fruit tarts.  I spent most of the shower hanging out with Talia in the house because it was a little warm outside, but it was still nice to visit a little with friends and family that were there.  Jules got lots of nice gifts and seemed to have a wonderful time.

Joy with Rachel and Mimi at the tea party

Mom and Grandma Snowball

 

 

We were pretty hot and sweaty after the shower, so when we got home we took a dip in the spa and then hung out in the backyard in our wet bathing suits to cool off.  It was really fun.  Talia liked the water and insisted on wearing Rachel's floaties after we got out.  This is the look I got when I tried to take off the floaties.  Little Miss Attitude.

 

Sunday was my parents' stake conference and we were slackers and didn't go.  We stayed home and took the kids for a little walk and then put Talia down for a nap.  In the afternoon my friend Blake came over to visit with his cute baby boy.  Dad made us a fantastic salmon dinner and then Joy and the girls had to load up and head home.  The house was hot and Talia was fussy, so after they left Jules, Mel, and I took Talia in the spa again.  We lounged that night and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding together.  It was fun.  I couldn't believe it was already Sunday.  The weekend went by so quickly!

Monday morning Mel and I got ready and packed up.  We tidied up the house and then headed for the airport.  We had a fairly uneventful flight.  Talia was pretty good and took a mini nap.  There was some pretty rough turbulence in the last 15 minutes of the flight, so Mel and I were both feeling pretty shaky when we landed, but we recovered by the time we got home. I was impressed with how good of a traveler Talia was.  She did well on the flights, she slept well all weekend and took good naps.

It is nice to be home.  I spent last night and today catching up on laundry, paying bills, grocery shopping, etc.  But now I'm done and we are gearing up for the boys' last day of school tomorrow.  They both have little programs and we are going to maybe go to their school carnival tomorrow night to celebrate.

Mother's Day

I enjoyed a wonderful Mother's Day thanks to my wonderful husband.  I got to sleep in, then woke up to an omelet, hash browns, and fruit for breakfast.  I opened a few gifts.  Ian got me a case for my straightener and a movie.  The boys made me cute cards.  Talia gave me the gift of taking a nap before church.  And my in laws gave me a nice card with gift cards to Target and itunes.  I took a long shower and we got ready for church.  Davin sang with the primary for the first time and did a great job.  He was so cute standing up on his tip toes to see and he kept looking at me the whole time.  Weston was an old pro and knew all the words to the songs.

Talia on Mother's day before we left for church

After church we came home and rested for a bit before Ian made dinner.  Weston wanted to help with dinner, but he got distracted with writing out the recipe for spaghetti with mizithra and wasn't much help after all.  We had spaghetti with mizithra, Caesar salad, and fruit for dinner.  And chocolate cake for dessert.  It was all delicious and I didn't have to clean it all up, so it tasted even better!  If you really want to make spaghetti with mizithra some time, here is Weston's recipe.  And have a delicious day!   ;)

 

By the end of the day the kids were getting a little restless so we went out side for a little while.  Talia loves her swing and the boys took turns with a squirt gun and hung out with Papa on the hammock.  After the kids were in bed we watched Oceans 13 before going to sleep.  It was a very relaxing day.  Thanks Ian!

Monday the boys went to school and Ian went to work, so it was just Talia and I and Papa.  We spent the morning eating breakfast at Mimi's and then doing a little shopping at Target.  Just my kind of morning.  After we picked up Davin from preschool it was time to say goodbye to Papa and take him to the airport.  We had such a fun weekend visiting with him and so appreciate his help with moving our stuff!

Unrelated, but funny.  Talia gets uber upset when we take things away that she wants or aren't fast enough on getting her food, etc.  This is her tantrum sad face.  It happens more often than I care to think about.

This picture is from this morning.  Davin really wanted this picture of him on the blog.

 I went to Shopko this morning to pickup a water play table for Talia for the summer that was on sale and ended up scoring some great deals on the clearance stuff I found!  I also had a coupon, which means I only paid $42 for the water table, a skort for Talia, a Superman onesie for the new baby boy, 4 boxes of candy, 2 boxes of Triaminic thin strips, 1 box of Cloraseptic throat drops, a tub of Enfamil formula, and a bottle of Similac liquid formula.  Not bad at all.

The House

This weekend we had a special guest at our house!  Ian's dad flew in on Friday morning to spend the weekend with us and help us get stuff moved to the new house.  Friday while Ian was at work we went out to lunch with Papa and relaxed.  That night Ian and his dad went and saw Avengers.

Saturday morning Ian and Jim loaded up the van and headed down to the new house to unload the stuff, take care of the yard, and put together some shelving in the garage.  When the house work was done they came home with In N Out!  Mmm. We had a relaxing afternoon, but did get some packing done.  Around 4:30 Ian's co-worker, Alisa, called and said she could come help us take a load of stuff down to the house on her flatbed trailer.  We ended up getting a few people to help us load it up and took our piano, the green sofa, the patio furniture, my elliptical, the entryway hutch, our bikes, a table and bench from the garage, and a few other random things to the new house.  We managed to recruit a few neighbors to help us unload when we got there.  Wish we could have done the big move this past Saturday, but alas, it was not in the cards.

Here are a million pics of the new house.  This is mostly for my mother.  Feel free to skip it if the house is not interesting to you.  Needless to say we love it and can't wait to officially move in.

Front of the house

Front door and little alcove when you come in

Looking from the front door into the living room

Looking into the kitchen/dining room from the living room

Kitchen

From the kitchen the open door on the right is a half bathroom, the closed door leads to the garage, and there is a door on the left that leads to the basement.

Half bath downstairs

Stairs down to the basement

Unfinished basement where the toys will mostly be

Stairs leading up from the living room

At the top of the stairs.  Door on the right is going to be baby's room, door at the end is the kids' bathroom, there is also a door on the left where the laundry room is.

Baby's room

Kids' bathroom

Area at the top of the stairs looking from the master bedroom where the computer desk will be.  Kids' room doors off to the left.

Talia's room closet.  Both the kids' bedrooms have these full closets.  They have a lot of space!

Master bathroom with deeper jetted tub/shower to the right, huge walk in closet to the left.

Master closet.  I'm excited about this.  :)

Backyard and back of the house (those are the kitchen/dining windows) from the corner with the swingset.

Backyard looking from the back door.  There is a concrete patio area to the right.

Garage from door that leads into the house. We are going to attempt parking both cars in the garage.  I'm nervous since I've never in my life parked regularly in a garage.

Mammals

There has been a lot of talk about mammals at our house lately. Weston's class was learning about the characteristics of mammals, which led to questions about all kinds of animals and whether or not they are mammals, and if so, where do they grow their hair (since having hair is one of the characteristics of mammals)?  Weston did a mammal report for school.  He chose to learn about black panthers.  After he filled out his little report questionnaire his class had a Mammal Zoo.  Weston really wanted me to come see him in the zoo, so I took Davin with me and we ran over to his school and checked out all the wild animals in his classroom.  It was very cute.  The other kindergarten class came and toured the zoo too.

 

This is from awhile back, but Davin made a lion mask at preschool.

As far as our big move goes . . . it is semi on hold.  We are already renting the house in Lehi, so we have been slowly moving our stuff down there.  I have set up all the utilities there in our name.  However, we have to wait for the actual short sale approval before we up and actually start living there.  And for some reason it is taking much longer than anticipated.  Our account finally is showing as "under review" so we are still hoping that we hear back sooner rather than later.  We have plans to move a whole bunch of stuff to the new house this weekend while we have Ian's dad in town to help, and access to a flatbed trailer.  The actual big moving day (whenever that might be) should be much easier with all this prep and involve only one trip in a U-haul since about half of our stuff will already be there. 

With the move imminent, Ian and I were released from our callings this last Sunday.  I taught my last Young Women lesson Sunday morning, then handed over my keys, manuals, etc.  It was actually more sad than I thought it would be.  I was expecting to feel about 95% relief and 5% sad, but the split was much more even than that.  I am grateful that the transition is going to be smooth and I am really grateful for the opportunities that our family had to serve in our ward.  It's easy to see the blessings and growth we experienced in hindsight.  :)  I will miss being a part of the young women's lives, but I am also looking forward to having a few more evenings with my whole family home.

A few of my cute YW.  We made these flower hair clips at my last mutual activity with them.

  

Finally, an update on Miss Talia.  She is going to be 17 months old on Saturday.  Wow.  She all of a sudden seems like such a big girl.  She walks everywhere and is getting fast.  She is very opinionated and shakes her head no when she doesn't want something.  It's so cute that I sometimes ask her things I know she will say no to--"Talia, do you want to go take a nap?"--just to see her shake her head.  I am having fun dressing her in her cute summery clothes now that the weather is warming up.  

This is what she looks like in the morning when I first get her ready for the day.

  

This is what she looks like most of the time.  Pulled out ponytail, food and drool all over herself, etc.