Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Our New HOME!!!

We were so lucky to have Mema and Papa arrive just a day after we arrived to help us unpack, paint and remove wall paper from 1 wall. The kids loved having them here. We would work hard in the morning and evening and the afternoon was spent in the pool, which was perfect! We got lots done but would love for them to come back for another week and do more...wink, wink.
 The breakfast bar that we love!
 It was chilly but Lincoln wanted to stay in, so Mema toughed it out.
Mema painting V's nails of course!
We are looking forward to going up to their place and having a mini family reunion, minus Danger (sad)
 
The first time to ever step in the pool, it was Memorial Day and only Daddy, Vienna, Lincoln, Papa and Bryson ventured into the chilly waters.


The warm up tub afterward was crucial.

The kids have adjusted quite well to our new home and neighborhood.
Vienna is really missing her pre-school friends, dance friends and primary friends, which is difficult on me, but we tell her she will start pre-school when summer is over and she has met one girl who is 5 in her sunbeam class named Ashley. She is still very much a girly girl. Always wanting to wear a dress or a skirt, play with her mini princesses or her barbies and play dress-up, do fashion shows and have tea party's. Her loft bed is proving to be tricky as she has had more accidents in this bed than she ever had in the 2 years she was potty trained in Cleveland, she just doesn;t want to climb down the ladder in the dark. So we are going to change her bed and move her loft bed into the spare bedroom over the queen bed, so we can sleep more people in there. That does mean we need visitors...hint, hint.
 One night she came down quite late because she had put on every single skirt she owns and it was so tight that she couldn't get them off to go to sleep. It was too cute! Ps - her locks are getting so long and so curly every day.

Lincoln, he has adjusted really well also. His own room with a big boy bed was great, but after 2 weeks we still couldn't get him to wake up at his normal time, he was biologically stuck on Cleveland time so we tried tinfoiling his room - no change. we couldnt think of anything else so I thought of putting him back in the crib to try. This unfortunately kicked Everett to the playpen, but its just till we can get on track. He has done SO much better in there. Its something familiar. I think he feels secure (because he fell out of his big boy bed a few times) and if he wakese up he is contained and either plays quietly or falls back to sleep, so we are in the process of figuring out what to do with this. I will say though, that when he is well slept he is the absolute sweetest little boy on the planet....however he still is a 2 year old boy.
Messy, messy, messy (for every meal)
 The joys of unpacking is when I bring a new toy out every few days...I do this deliberately. The latest one were his trains and boy have they been a big hit. He is combining all his trains to make the longest one possible and gets very frustrated when some don't fit together. Besides the fact that he likes to play with them on the tile, they keep him very entertained.
Here he is stuffing pot stickers in his mouth at this Thai restaurant in Uptown. Glad he likes Asian food because we love it!

Everett...well he is a tank! But I love it. He is a good eater, which is easy on me and is super happy, unless really tired or hungry. He is pretty much sleeping at a 12hour night., which is great! 
 His cute church outfit he will only wear once as its already tight, even though its a 6mon and he is barely 5 months in this picture.
 He has started playing and really enjoying his exer-saucer
 This was his first night sleeping in his crib. poor guy has been in the bassinet the entire time.
Everett's first time eating was a big deal for his big brother and sister. They were so excited for him, although, they wouldn't eat any rice cereal. Lol. He did pretty good. He has also gone in his jolly jumper for the first time as well this Month. Busy month for him. 

I am so grateful that Vienna and Lincoln have each other because they are such good friends and playmates. I know they are anxious for Everett to join in their fun as well. 

 Having a snack and pushing each other back and forth
 Dinner on the patio
 Yummy!
 swimming with the kids and taking a picture...
 Vienna with her spud nuts, eat time, popsicle time and  tummy time
 Having a juice popsicle with Grandma. Mmm yum!
 Lunch time
 small pool time so Mommy can do other things
Lunch time! 
What would they do without each other. It's so fun to watch them make believe, pretend and create. Also fun to problem solve, share and tolerate. Siblings are the best!
 D is for Daddy! Yummy fruit salad and cinnamon toast!
Dinner time!
 I always get to feed Everett...
I made a roast beef dinner, complete with Yorkshire puddings and decided, meh! We like other things more.
 These questionnaires are so cute. I loved asking the kids these. they did a good job!
They were so excited to give Daddy his gifts that they wrapped in tissue paper and  put in the bags all by themselves. He got a new big skinny wallet and some clothes. We sure love and adore our Daddy around here. He is our breath of fresh air after a long day, our calm-cool and collected. He makes us laugh, plays games and teases us. We love our Daddy!

One last thing... I had a friend in the ward invite me over to make jam and I was so excited! We had a great time while our kids played. I love freezer jam! Thank you Carol!

MMMMMMM!
Well this has been our first month in our new home! It will be excited to get pictures up of our home, as it all comes together. As of right now there is truthfully not 1 room in its 100% completeness, but we are getting so close with the front room! Yay to decorating our own home!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Our Exodus to Washington...

Our family of 5's biggest (hopefully) ever exodus. We knew we would be moving but we didn't know to where and we didn't know how, but gradually things all came together. We have seen so many blessings in this entire process and we know it is a loving Father in Heaven has a hand in each aspect of this exodus. 

Luckily Peg and Alan (Mom and Dad) were coming out for graduation and they were willing to help travel back across the country...they are saints! They were also so great to come early so that we could have someone there to entertain the kiddos while we finished packing and so that I could take Mike on a surprise overnight trip to Amish country for graduation. We had a really nice time and the kids did great with their Grandparents...we'll have to do that more often (wink, wink)

 playing at Playground world for the last time

Even though we tried to prepare Vienna and Lincoln for our long journey ahead and focused on them more than anything for the planning, it is still tough on kiddos. Here are some of the joys of the pre-moving...
 Like Everett sleeping in the front door closet...
 showering in the scape-pod shower because we re-caulked the tub upstairs
And other things like sleeping in our rooms with just mattresses, sitting on the floor for our last few meals, living out of suitcases etc.

Here is our darling home in the CALM BEFORE THE STORM...

Loading up the truck was fun stuff too. I'm so grateful to karen for taking the kids and letting them play with her girls so the kids were out of the way and having a blast. We're so grateful for our good friends in Cleveland who we miss loads.
Luckily, not just our elders, but another companionship showed up, along with Jace, Jaron and John
 (Thank you a bunch!)

I was right in the thick of things the whole time and luckily Everett slept the whole 2 hours.

Moving Day was the same day as Graduation so we left in the evening...
 We talked about our moving truck and Lincoln thought it was pretty neat.
Here they are getting comfy for the first few hours of our trip.
 Here is Roony with our family...Good by Norma Drive
Here is the moving truck and broken Lola trailor, that would be Alan and Peg's haven (lol) for the journey. It was a beast but something very familiar for Mike and Alan as they did this 4 years earlier to get out here. 

Our journey took us to just outside Chicago, then in the morning we went to IKEA to get a bed for Lincoln and a loft bed for Vienna, that was kind of rushed so it wasn't as fun as I was hoping but we got Lincoln's bed. Vienna's was on back order so we had Mema and Papa bring hers with them.
Then we went on to Tomah, WI and got there in time for dinner and swimming (which the kids loved).
They next day was on to Mitchell South Dakota. Here was a fun waterslide and a corn palace.

 So there is this corn palace (it is made out of all different kinds of corn ears) Mike and Vienna went with Peg and Alan, while I stayed at the hotel room with sleeping Lincoln and Everett.
 This hotel also had a huge waterslide, which the kids loved!!! We had a great time and even G-ma and G-pa joined us. YAY!!!
 Daddy and Lincoln!
 Daddy and Lincoln
 Tubbo and Daddy
 Me and my sweet Lincoln man. I did go on the slide several times with Linc and Vienna but no pics :(
 The breakfast room at the hotel. I just love this picture!
 My sweet little ones doing a great job on our long journey!
 These 2 are so cute to watch play together
 What a sweet baby boy!
 Vienna adores her little baby brother!
Here is a glam shot of the slide and play area. So fun!

From here we headed to Ra[id City South Dakota, which is where Mount Rushmore is. We got there ate lunch, had naps and then went up to the Mount, It was so tough to convince the kids to get back in the car to go and truthfully they didn't care about the "faces in the mountain' but I am glad I got to see it. Once we got back and went swimming, the kids were much happier.

 We made it up to the mountain in 1 piece...barely.
This was a fun swim, Vienna found a great little friend to play with and there was a nice hot tub.  It was a unique hotel, it felt like a 1970's Las Vegas hotel. 

From here we went to Bozeman, Mt and got to swim with a smaller water slide that Vienna did all by herself. Then the next day, it was HOME!!! YAY!!!!!!!