Quick post, no time

As I was chasing Joshua around the halls the last half hour of church, I heard a part of a girl's talk from another ward. She was a missionary from Hawaii and was talking about when she first received her call. Before then, she had fervently prayed that 1) She would not be in a spanish speaking mission - learning spanish would be very difficult for her 2) She wouldn't get called to Mexico 3) At the very least that she, please please please, would not be called to Utah. As "luck" would have it, she was called to Utah in a spanish speaking mission and therefore went to the Mexico MTC. I found that pretty funny, but also a great reminder that Heavenly Father really does know our limits and knows just what we need to grow.

Wall mural complete!

The floor looks bad because it needs cleaning and the ceiling still needs texture and paint, but the mural is done! Now on to baseboards and cabinet trim!

I woke up early to go to walmart to get a few more stocking stuffers and some wallpaper paste. I am very glad I did since it was already pretty busy and would have been worse had I waited. We put up a little more than half of the wallpaper mural. Neither one of us had ever done anything with wallpaper and it was very frustrating in the beginning. We ran out of glue and time and will finish Friday. It really does change the look of the room and makes it look bigger. I love it! I spent some time reading with the kids and watching some shows with them. Then we made a nice steak and shrimp dinner. Then after when we were about to have a nice evening, the freaking dog peed in Will's room since someone forgot to close the gate. I can't get too upset since I forgot to close it 2 days ago and she peed in Maddy's room. So by the time I was done shampooing to carpet, all I wanted was for the kids to clean their rooms and go to bed. We did have some time together, but I am in no means in a pleasant mood right now. I try and I try to like this dog, but the eating poopy diapers and sneaking upstairs to pee and poo and chewing up everything in sight…Oh my goodness, it gets to me. She ate my flip flops this week >:( I don't know what the difference is between her and a brand new puppy. Sigh… Merry Christmas...

Well, do you know what we are never doing again? Installing a ducted hood vent :P We ran into problems left and right and I went to the hardware store about a hundred times. Anyway, it is finally in and I am excited to get all of the tools and everything out of the kitchen and work on other things. We still need to put the trim and molding around the cabinets, but Dave doesn't want to do that until everything else is done. I also finished staining the stair rail; not perfect, but much improved over peeling white paint. I will probably wait till spring to finish the banister part. I get exhausted just looking at it. All the little nooks and crannies with paint stuck everywhere are just too much right now. Will's birthday was Saturday. We went to chuck e cheese and then to his favorite restaurant, Village Inn. I had big plans of taking him to build-a-bear in the mall to build his own stuffed animal, but when we got there he rudely dismissed the idea. I mean, I don't mind if he doesn't want a stuffed animal, but we had a talk about being kinder about these things. So after I got over not wanting to get him anything, we went home and I gave him a stunt racer lego's thing that was for Christmas. He loved that and then later that night I gave him that Love You Forever book and read it to him while trying not to cry. I also gave him The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. He was very excited to get books. lol

Thanksgiving was a little crazy with Joshua and other kids being sick. The raw rundown: I got there late because I had to get medicine for Joshua, dinner felt very rushed, food was put up immediately, and I couldn't even have seconds on turkey because they wanted to make turkey soup. The pies were very good though, my sister in law always makes a ton of great pies, but then I had to leave early because Joshua was just so miserable. Next year, I'm volunteering to have it at our house and we'll provide turkey for everyone to eat until they're sick of it... I'm only a little bitter. haha Joshua is doing much better. Whatever he had has finally evolved to a normal cold. I can't say I'm excited for all these bills though. I have made good progress on the kitchen. The backsplash is done. I haven't put the final seal on it yet because I still need to fix some grout in places, but I can do that next week or next month, so I'm choosing not next week. Tomorrow I will unpack, hopefully, the rest of the kitchen and free a lot of space up.

Joshua has sounded bad all day with his wheezing and raspy noises. I had Dave take him to the regular doctor so they could do something to help him sleep tonight. They gave him a steroid shot, but he is still pretty bad and is waking up a lot. The doctor said cool dry air would be good for him, so we closed our vent. Earlier when he had a nap I was so tired from being up all night I laid down and debated taking a nap at the same time or finishing the backsplash tiles. I fell asleep before I made up my mind. lol So, I finished the tiles tonight. Tomorrow I will seal and then sometime this week I will grout and then the hood vent can go up. I'm excited to have an actual ducted vent since we do a lot of high heat grilling and frying. It will be nice to have all the smoke and steam go somewhere. I guess I better try and sleep. Who knows what tonight will bring...

finally starting backsplash

The book of Answers

Once when I was young, I either heard or read somewhere that the book or Mormon has all the answers to any question you would ever ask. I can't remember where I heard that, nor if it's true, but to a certain extent, I believed it enough to turn to it when I needed an answer to prayer. Specifically, taking it to mean when I have lost something; if the book could tell me anything, it could tell me where to find whatever went missing. This method has yet to fail me. For example, when Kevin was living with us in the Orem house, I lost my cell phone. It had been missing for days and I couldn't find it anywhere. I had searched every room, even Kevin's. Now, when I lose something, it usually goes something like this: prayer in my mind as I'm looking, to later stopping what I'm doing and saying a slightly longer prayer in my mind and keep looking, to finally (usually days later of no success) kneeling down and vocally pleading. By now, you'd think I'd be smart enough to just skip to the last step ;) So anyway, I was on the last step of sincere prayer and knowing the Book of Mormon could tell me, I opened the scriptures and just read. The first words to the verse I read was "Look down". It just so happened that down below was Kevin's room. So, trusting what I had read, I went down and looked again. Well, the phone ended up being in that room, folded up in Kevin's jacket. So this week, I have misplaced my wallet or rather thin card case that fits in my pocket. It has been missing since Saturday. After searching and cleaning everything with no success, today was the day I pleaded with the Lord to find it and then here come the scriptures in my mind. I usually just see the name of the book and verse I need to turn to in my head if I don't feel I should just open the book. So today I felt I should actually read two verses. 2 Nephi 2:2 & 24. "2 ... thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things." I can't say that I am happy about the answer that I got, but I know and am grateful for the reminder that down to every little detail in my life, there is a reason behind it that will be used for my good. I suppose even if that reason means having to get all new credit cards, license, and temple recommend. On a less spiritual note, I have been trying to get the master bedroom all put away, so I could be 100% sure my wallet was nowhere in there. So, I needed to attach the dresser mirror to the dresser so I could unpack all the dresser decor and proceed fully unpacking. Well, who knows where the screws went since whoever helped us move didn't put the screws back in the dresser. So on Saturday, my last day of having my wallet, I went to the store and bought screws. Came home, no, screws were wrong size. Put off cleaning room. Today, the whole family goes to the store and I buy the right size. Come home, place the mirror up and what do you know, the holes don't line up right. Upon closer examination, since the mirror was sideways and not upright, they just screwed a bunch of smaller regular screws that we happen to have an endless supply of. lol. But after it all, we have a mirror up. So I'm happy.

I guess I should say I am glad that Joshua is my only climber, but goodness, I am not ready for this. lol Will and I had the best talk tonight. It started off with us marking dates on the calendar. I marked his birthday and my anniversary. Will asked what that was and I told him it was like a birthday for our marriage. He asked what you do on an anniversary and I told him we might go out to eat or go on a special date. He began to get very anxious and concerned, to the point of tears, that if we went on a date without him, I wouldn't have time for him. Dave and I haven't had a date since we lived in Provo, so I sat Will down and talked about how moms and dads are supposed to go on dates and that once our house is reasonably put together, we will get babysitters for a couple of hours once or twice a month so we can go out. I had to go through why dates are important and how just like I need special time with my kids, I also need it with daddy. Then this... Will: Once you go on a date for your anniversary, we should go on more dates. Me: (quiet chuckle) Why? Will: Because I love you more than daddy loves you. Oh my, I couldn't hold the tears back. Will is so attached to me. I can't leave him without giving him a hug and a kiss or he has a major episode and even then, it's hard for him to be without me for too long. He wants to go everywhere with me. And he even cried telling me he never wanted to get married because he doesn't want to leave me. I told him he'd never have to, but he might change his mind ;) So, continuing on, I talked about how me and Dave need to have a happy marriage and that going on dates helps keep us happy. Then I don't know why I said this, but I told him about our neighbor that is divorced and said I want to try and have as strong a family as I can because I don't want daddy to ever want to leave me. Me: Wouldn't you be sad if daddy left? Will: (starting to sound emotional) Well I would just be so sad and cry and cry for ever if you left. Then there was a lot of I would never leave you talk and then he said, "Well if you ever leave, I'm coming with you." lol In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have talked about parents leaving families, but it just came out. Then he proceeds with talk about us dying. Will: Well if you and daddy both die, I will just be all alone. I won't know what to do with Maddy... or Joshy.... I won't even know what to do with myself. :'( At this point I'm like bawling and go through the whole thing about how when we don't know what to do, we just ask Heavenly Father, etc... And then list off all of my family who would help take care of them if anything ever did happen like that. He really is so scared about dying. He told me once if he died, he would float up to outer space and be so alone and scared. Anyway, It was an interesting talk and I think ended pretty well. Halloween was ok. Kids had too much sugar and were going crazy. Yesterday I went to 6 stores to get marked down decorations and props for next year. We are going to have an awesome yard next year!

I am so tired of doing kitchen stuff and tiling that I decided to take a day and do some paint stripping among other things that needed doing. The stairs are oak, which I really really dislike, so I have chosen to go with a dark mahogany stain. That should make it look about as good as it can I think. lol. It has been a pretty productive day. I have all the tile for the backsplash and will do that next week. After that, we'll just need to install the hood vent, put all the finish trim on the cabinets, put my mural up on the wall, baseboards, and the kitchen will be, dare I say, DONE! Maddy and Will play with this kid 2 houses down a lot. Maddy was crying today because Sam said she couldn't go hunting. I guess their family was going hunting and I asked Maddy if she even knew what hunting was and she said no. haha

Progress

I tiled all day and am exhausted. Hopefully we can get the kitchen table back in there beginning of next week. Woot

A different kind of progress

Today was supposed to be the day I cleared out the dining area and ripped up the rest of the linoleum.  I started moving stuff out of the room, but got side tracked and ended up putting up a light fixture with Dave, clearing all the tools off the island so we can actually use it, and putting knobs on the cabinet drawers. I'll probably clear everything else out tonight and rip up the floor on Monday.  We rented a floor scraper from home depot for the other part, but it was a hassle to bring home since it weighed like 200 pounds, so I'm hoping it won't be super hard to just use the hand scraper.  The last few days have been a pain.  When I grouted the first tiles under the appliances, I just did what the youtubes did and everything turned out good.  Well, Dave decided to read the instructions which said to leave the grout in for 15 minutes before sponging off the tiles.  By the time we tried getting all the grout out of the nooks and crannies, it was dried up.  I was trying to get grout out with a toothbrush, it was midnight, and both of us were sore and had hurting backs, so we had to call it a night.  Our bodies just couldn't go anymore.  The next day I tried using different things I read that should soften the grout, but none of it worked.  Then, I tried using a steel brush, what everyone said would scratch up the slate and you shouldn't use.  Well, it did not scratch the tiles, except for one, which was a lighter sheen and thinner, but even that was easily buffed out.  The grout just came right up, but I've been scraping tiles for days and it still didn't get everything.  I got some concrete dissolver to help it along, but it's still a long process.  I'm taking a break since my fingers hurt.  Pictures of the kids having a contest of who has the biggest smile, new knobs, and a fly strip which a nice lady in my ward gave me after I told her we had hundreds of flies due to doors being open from renovations.  The fly strip has over 120 flies on it.  I got more and they have a bunch on them too.

So tired of laboring. Feet and hands hurt. Not close enough to being done. I sealed the tile tonight in the kitchen and will grout tomorrow. I absolutely love slate, but I will never use it again. Since it is natural stone, it's not 100% square, the thickness varies up to a third of an inch, and oh the maintenance...so much sealing... I had hoped to have the tile done, but hurt my foot last week and couldn't walk, so I had to take a break. The pictures are of me sealing the tile and the cabinets that are in, but have no trim up yet. It's going to look great with the hood vent and backsplash when we finally get to it. The kids are loving school and I am just trying to keep on keeping on. I've been pretty depressed lately. I'm afraid wellbutrin isn't working like it used to.

Will had a night terror tonight. I heard him wake up and start talking like he was scared, so I went in to see what was going on. He was up on the top part of his bed and when I tried to hold him and ask what was wrong, he started walking all around acting very confused and talking incoherently. It was starting to freak me out. He looked very frightened, but when I asked if he had a bad dream he said no. He said no to feeling sick or having to go to the bathroom also. I asked him if he wanted me to say a prayer and he said yes and actually folded his arms. I gave the prayer and afterwards, Will laid right back down,I got him a sip of water, and he went right back to sleep. Not knowing about night terrors, I looked it up and it says they aren't fully awake and he likely didn't recognize who I was. I am so glad that he did comprehend what prayer was and that my prayer for the prayer I would say to Will to be able to calm down and go back to sleep was answered.

The granite people finished with the counters this morning and then I got a little bit of tiling done. I now see why it costs so much to have tile installed. Very time consuming. I'll do some more tomorrow.

I had my evening and week planned out as far as working on the kitchen. Tiling today, Saturday seal and grout and Monday seal again. The counters were not supposed to be done until Tuesday and not 20 minutes after I started tiling, the counter people called and wanted to come over today and install the granite. I kept exclaiming, "Today?" and "right now?". So I ended up stopping tiling after and they came and laid out the counters and will come back tomorrow to finish installing it. I'll finish tiling after they are done. It looks very nice, but I am a little disappointed they cut the "birth mark" out of the granite. I like the uniqueness of flaws. Oh well, it still looks very nice.

Lying to my kids

So, I'm a very honest person, except when it comes to my kids. I tell them stuff like the neato will eat their toys if they get left on the floor or if they go outside and don't tell me, the bad man will get them. Stuff like that. My latest lie that I told to Maddy was that the guy who counts people during Sacrament meeting is checking to see if people are being reverent. I just don't know, the last 2 Sundays, she has been so well behaved, I don't want to tell her the truth. ha. However, I guess one day they'll figure me out and will just think I'm a big liar :( Do you think those kinds of lies are bad?

Knowledge does away with darkness, suspense and doubt; for these cannot exist where knowledge is.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 287–288.) I really like that quote. There's a lot of scary stuff going on around the world and sometimes I get in panic mode; we need food storage, water, supplies, etc... And we need it yesterday. So, naturally, I am studying Revelations. All I know is I am so grateful that I have this time now to be a mother. I love my kids so much and pray they stay close to the Lord in such an evil time. Too tired to write more. Tomorrow is Joshua's birthday!

We finally got our cabinets yesterday and have installed them all except for the island. We had the company assemble the cabinets, which was very nice. We almost had a big problem. We have 8 foot ceilings and I ordered a pantry cabinet which was 8 feet. Since they assembled it already, we realized only as we were lifting it upright that we could not put the cabinet up because it needed more clearance at the corner before standing up straight. We did not want to cut a hole in the ceiling, or cut the cabinet, so Dave had the brilliant idea to take it over to the stairs where there is no ceiling. We had to slide the thing upstairs, turn it, then slide it downstairs again. We put a piece of cardboard under it so it would scoot and protect the bottom. Once we got it standing up strait, we had less than a half an inch from the cabinet to the ceiling. The carpet and tack strips in the front room got temporarily pulled back so the floor was lower. And it worked! I was then very glad that I had not tiled the front room. A lot of work, but I love it! The kitchen is going to look great. Also, the middle of the walls where I measured for the cabinets just happened to be where the walls bowed out, so I thought we had an inch on the sides of the fridge, which because of the bowing we had less. So after some mild panic and praying that it would magically all fit into place, everything fits and there's not a millimeter of space between anything. Miracle! On Monday, we did school blessings. Will had a great blessing which promised friends and a fun year. Maddy's talked about learning about life things and not just numbers and letters. I walk Will to the end of the street and meet him there after. They have bright orange flags for the kids to wave as they are crossing the street. Will loves, LOVES, waving the flag high and proud. lol His teacher seems very kind and happy. I wanted her to be his teacher when I looked at the faculty pictures.

We have had some problems with Tank, the dog we took from my cousin. So, after talking to Anna about it, we are giving here to no kill shelter, but will have to take one of their dogs so they have room for Tank. She will be adopted quickly I'm sure. We definitely will go with a short hair dog and are going to look at one today. I have been pretty depressed the last month, but it has gotten worse since I am struggling with my weight. The keto diet was and is great, but we are learning why my body isn't at its optimal state of burning fat and it has been a trial and error thing. Meanwhile, I've gained back 3 of the 10 pounds I lost (8 of which was lost in 4 days when I first started). I figured once I was settled in my diet, it would even out and get more steady, but I did not anticipate any kind of stall after just 2-3 weeks, so it has been hard. We are guessing, I am not fat adapted, which means I have to walk more on top of the workouts I already do with Dave 3 times a week. Eating-wise, I have been doing great. I don't eat any sugar, don't crave anything, and have been eating around 1500 calories without noticing the drop. It has just gotten to the point that not seeing results each week is lessening my motivation. I went to the doctor and am back on Wellbutrin. I'm hoping it will give me some energy and help me like it did last time I went on it. I also will try the Progesterone cream Susan recommends. Dave has been so great. I honestly can't tell you the research he has done and the time he has given to help me on my quest to get healthy, because it has just been so much.

Joshua loves the Popcorn song and every time we start singing it, he'll start doing the Popping hand movements. It's so cute. I can't believe he'll be 1 next month. Our cabinets should be in the first or second week of August - for real this time, and then we can start doing the remodel. The dishwasher broke a while back, so we just put in our new one, and now the oven keeps having power failures. It just turns off right in the middle of cooking, so I'm glad we don't have to get upset all of our appliances are dying since we are just waiting to put in new ones. School also starts sooner than I thought. I am very excited and just pray Will gets a good teacher and is able to make friends easily. Maddy and Will went to a week-long summer camp thing at Maddy's new preschool. They both had tons of fun and now Maddy is really excited to start preschool. Nothing much is really new with us. I'm just trying to get some energy and get through each day.

I started the ketogenic diet and going to the gym 3x a week with Dave; it will be 2 weeks on Monday and so far I've lost 9 pounds. This is the first diet I've been on where I'm not hungry. It is a pretty amazing thing. So that is going well. The kitchen reno, however... I called to see where the cabinets were since the website said 8 days to delivery. Well, that is only the case if they aren't assembling them, which they are, so we have to wait till the 2nd or 3rd week of august to get them :/ I'm so done with living like this. Boxes and stuff everywhere. I don't know where anything is and I am not doing tile until after the cabinets, so there's just stuff, tile, and more stuff everywhere!

New picture!

We went to a young womans fundraiser auction tonight and won a picture of the Timpanogos temple. The cool thing, other than that being where we got married, is that when you get up close to the picture, you see it is made up up thousands of tiny temples. It's really a one-of-a-kind piece and we both love it.

We live in a somewhat small neighborhood, about 50 homes. So today we went to the 11th annual neighborhood bbq. It was pretty nice. Out of those 50 houses, there are only 10 that aren't members, so it seemed like a church activity, but our non-active neighbors were there too. I think it's pretty cool to be a part of such a close neighborhood. We are trying to get ready for our trip, so not much is happening with the house. We did do a bit of painting today and I let the kids help. They were excited at first and after a while declared it was boring. haha I've been feeling down about myself lately, buying clothes in sizes I never thought I'd have to. For a long time I just wouldn't buy clothes and would stretch out my other, so now that I decided I needed to get past my pride and get clothes that fit, I am several sizes larger :( I have my endo appt Monday to go over my results, not that I think it's going to point to anything. I did manage to get an appt. with Dr. Brown while I'm in Texas, but think I might cancel it. I don't want to waste hundreds of dollars if it doesn't give me the results I hope for. I have gotten Dave to agree to do the eat to live thing when our house is not boxes and we actually have a kitchen, but I know he doesn't want to and he will cheat when he's out of the house. lol Sometimes I wish I could just leave for a couple of months and go to a fat camp or something and come back 50 pounds lighter. I really hate complaining about this, but it's really weighing on me - no pun intended...

Tea party

Tea party with my girl.

It's the little things

I had high hopes of having the front room tiled before vacation. Day after day I sort, piece by piece, all 1140 tiles. I still have almost a whole pallet left to do and I'm running out of places to stack them. Realistically, it will take 3 more days for me to finish, so I'm not so sure any tiling will get done before we leave. Because it is slate tile, I have to go through and sort each color into its own stack so when I tile can mix them up and won't have one area be mostly grey and another area mostly maroon or another color. I didn't think it would matter, but the last pallet has a lot of dark green ones and the other pallets had none, so I guess I'm glad I followed their advice. The tiles are beautiful though. I can hardly wait to have everything done. Dave cut up one of the pallets and we had our first bonfire in the backyard. It was nice because it gets a little cool in the evenings. We made the neighborhood smell wonderful ;) The kids have been playing outside daily for the first time in their lives pretty much, since we finally have a backyard and a kid-friendly neighborhood. It is so cute to have Will and Maddy ask if they can play at people's houses. Anyway, the point of me bringing this up is, I have noticed Will is better behaved all of the sudden and the only thing I can think of is he is out in the sun - not cooped up every day. One day last week I was looking out the front door and saw a hummingbird, so the next time I went to the store I got a cheap little feeder. I made the "nectar" and put it by the front door and have been seeing hummingbirds quite frequently. In fact, in the last day or 2, they have drank over a cup of what was in there. I was excited and told Dave, "It's the little things that make me happy." He rolled his eyes and said, "The little things, huh... Expensive kitchens and tile floors..." lol well, he got me there, but honestly, the kitchen is a fraction of the cost it could have been because I shop around and we are doing most of it ourselves. Here's some pictures of some tile and in case you missed on fb the master bath I spruced up.

So a couple of weeks ago we got another dog. It was my cousin's dog and they were moving and couldn't take her. I never have liked dog hair, and this dog happens to be extremely fluffy. There is hair everywhere, so I have to block her off from the tv room and the bedrooms. Once we get tile downstairs, the neato vacuum will be able to pick it up daily and it won't be an issue. The neato works great on the linoleum in the kitchen, but doesn't do anything for the long hairs on the carpet except flatten them down. For some reason, I just felt like we were the ones that should take her. She's old and probably only has a couple of years left, but she'll be a good match for Max since he has hip problems and can't play well with younger dogs. Random news: -Dave got called to be Webelos Den Leader assistant. They sure do have an awful lot of meetings... -I started decorating & painting our master bath and on a whim decided to do the flooring too. So I went to Lowes and found the perfect thing for 88 cents a sq ft. I started installing the vinyl wood planks last night. It's gonna look great! Going for the spa feel! -I have gone my whole life not learning how to play chess. Will has learned and is teaching me so he can play with someone. Only for him... :) -Speaking of Will, yesterday we were at Cafe Rio picking up dinner and someone had their bag of food on the floor. Some spilled out (still in the food boxes) and Will immediately went over and said, "Oh, let me help" and put the box back in the bag. It was so sweet to see him do that. The people, however, didn't even say thank you to him :/ -Joshua took his first step without holding on to anything the other day and promptly fell over. He took a few more single steps after as well.

Things seem to be going so good this week. I have been so busy, but I have gotten a lot done. I signed Maddy up for a preschool that is right across the street. It's just out of a lady's home in our ward. The lady that a year and a half ago had her husband divorce her and marry the lady who used to live in this house who had divorced her husband. Yes. The couples divorced within weeks of each other and just decided they liked their neighbor's spouses more. I don't know what I'd do if after 11 years of marriage my husband just left. The girl is very sweet though. I hope she finds someone better soon. I have been getting samples together for our kitchen reno. We are closing on the Orem house this Wednesday, earlier than expected, and then we will proceed with getting a new kitchen! I can't wait to unpack the kitchen boxes finally. I had a lot more to say, but got distracted with feeding the baby and now I forgot.

We have 3 fruit trees in our back yard. I assumed they would be peaches, but to my delight, I think 2 are apricot trees and one an apple tree. I am excited about that! The bad news is I think we have gophers... Unpacking is happening slowly since I am gone half the day taking Will to school and tired the rest of the day from driving. Maybe once school is out I can knock everything out quickly. The kitchen reno should be complete in 2 months, so then most of the kitchen boxes will be out of the way. For now, most things are staying boxed. Today I'm going to paint the kids bathroom and then unpack some of the boxes of kid bath stuff. I had a bunch of kohls gift cards and got a good deal on space themed stuff. The kids are very excited. The bathroom currently is very dark navy blue - Dave thought it was black it was so dark. Instead of painting behind the toilet and stuff, I'm just going to paint the top half a light blue and put a planets boarder in the middle. It should look a little less claustrophobic in there after that.

New House!

So we officially closed on our new house yesterday and I could not be more excited to move in! Dave and our realtor went and dropped off Will's new mattresses and picked up the keys last night. I met one of our neighbors on Saturday when we were doing the final walk-through since they were cleaning the floors(they also have a floor cleaning business) and they seemed very nice. Then yesterday Dave met one of our next door neighbors who is the young mens president and he showed him where the bishop and the elder's quarum president live - a few houses down. There are kids like ants in that neighborhood and I could not have asked for a more family friendly area to move into. I am so excited to have a real family oriented neighborhood and a back yard with the awesome swing set we will be getting. The kids might actually have a fun childhood now! More than anything, I prayed the kids would be able to make and grow up with good friends wherever our new home would be and it is all seeming very promising! We will be doing the big move on Saturday in between sessions, but will be going over every day until then to take over other things. On the downside, me, Maddy, and Joshua are all sick, so I just hope Dave doesn't catch it right before the big move.

Susan Boyle - How Great Thou Art (I Dreamed a Dream) 2009

I have heard about Susan Boyle, but never heard her sing. The Motab channel on Pandora played this. This particular version of How great you art brought me to tears.

So, for a while I have been eating whatever I wanted, drinking tons of soda, and too busy away from home to cook any meals for the last couple months; meaning we ordered out a lot. Still at my heaviest weight, I was putting off caring to lose weight until this moving stuff is over - I mean at least I was staying the same weight and not gaining. However, I decided to do a couple of little things before then. I have been too busy to go to the gym at night so I woke up early and went to the gym twice last week AND I stopped drinking soda, and you know what? Ten days later, I have gained 7 pounds. SEVEN POUNDS!! I have never hated looking at myself in the mirror as much as I did tonight. I don't even recognize myself. I'm going to go to bed and feel miserable now.

Me and Maddy went to Tenille's wedding last night. All of us were planning on going, but Dave had some work issues to work out and couldn't. It was nice just the two of us though. Maddy had a great time and was able to play with some of the cousin's kids. I sat at the table with Eliza (my cousin), some of Andre's kids, and Jake and Sadie. It was nice to chat with them and everybody else. Maddy came with me before the wedding to find an actual dress that fit me and so I got her a dress and new shoes as well. She was so funny showing them off to everybody. While watching people go through the line and greet the bride and groom, I saw an older couple I'm pretty sure was from Spring. I did some investigative work and flipped through the sign in book. The only names that looked familiar were Tom and Loraine Sutton, but I'm not sure. The Orem house continued to be our big project all last month. We tore down the carport, got new carpet, put up new blinds, put in some new light fixtures and closet doors, and painted the whole house pretty much. It doesn't seem like there are many people even looking at it, so my big thing when I went to the temple a couple of days ago was to ask what I could do to help it sell. I got some needed calmness and guidance while I was there. One feeling I got was that I needed to ask the Lord. So often with anything, I feel like things will happen on the Lords time and the only thing left for me to do is just have faith that it will. While I'm sure that's a true principal, I think I need to ask the Lord for some things instead of just rolling with the punches all the time. I'll also be fasting tomorrow. That never hurts. I have started packing things that we never use. I can't wait to move. So very excited! One more month!

Last night I came home pretty late after painting more at the Orem house. I normally set out breakfast, water bottles, and clean underwear on the table for the kids, but was just too tired to do it. I got up this morning when I heard Will and had to explain why I hadn't remembered to put the stuff out. So, tonight I, once again, had to go paint for a few hours and got back after 9. I looked on the table and saw his and Maddy's water bottles with pop tarts next to them and a pair of clean underwear. I guessed Will had done it and Dave confirmed and told me Will did it so "mommy doesn't have to worry about it". He is such a sweetie. Most of the painting is done except for some white trim in some areas and the one room that is purple. I should finish all that tomorrow and then we are having the carpet replaced next week. After everything is said and done, the house should look pretty nice. We also put new blinds up and closet doors in. The only thing really left to do is replace the carport, but I am having a very difficult time finding a contractor who wants to do a small job like that. I have left several messages and had zero call backs. Then one guy said,"I guess we could do that." and never called back. The only people left to do jobs like this are the people who post their skills in the classifieds and none of them have any reviews. I just don't know what to do now.

a few recent pics

So, Joshua is mobile. He rolls all over and scoots forwards. I'm hoping the crawling holds off, but we'll see. The sad pic of Will and the gingerbread house was when he was about to throw it away. It was a couple of months old and dusty and breaking-and every time Hannah would come over she'd try to eat it. lol Things are going well. The van is finally in the shop and we have a bright red mini van as a rental. ha.