Isn't She Lovely

Here are a couple of pictures that we had taken of Rylee the weekend that we went to Utah. I always go to Kiddie Kandids because they do a really good job. I thought these turned out really cute but then I always think Rylee's pictures are cute!

Temple Square

So we headed to Temple Square this past weekend. It was a very short trip but it was fun. We went with my mom and dad and met my sister in Salt Lake to go see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. While Temple Square is always a beautiful sight no matter what time of year I think that the Christmas lights and Navity scenes make it extra special. Rylee had never seen them before and I just thought she would like them. It was really kind of chilly Friday night so I didn't really want to spend a whole lot of time meandering outside so we kind of rushed thru it all but we got to see what we went there for and we got to see the large statue of Jesus that I love. I loved the Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus on the water. They had lighted bubbles all around them-it was really neat. Later that night we went and saw the lights at Thanksgiving Point. The best part about that was you got to stay in your car and stay warm!

Saturday we went and got Rylee's pictures done @ Kiddie Kandids and then had lunch. It then started snowing pretty good so we hightailed it out of there before the roads became too bad. We were lucky enough that the snow actually stopped and our roads were dry. It was a quick trip but nice to spend time with family.

RIP

So I have some bad news. Rylee's new fish Goldie passed away sometime today. She lasted about 2 days. Rylee was very upset and started crying. I couldn't believe she was already so attached. Rylee adn her dad said a little prayer and then sent her to her final resting place....the toilet! Rest in peace Goldie-we will always remember you!

Happy Birthday Rylee!

So my baby just turned 5 on Monday the 30th. What a happy and sad day for me-my baby is just growing too big. She was so excited that it was her birthday. We had a little family get together Sunday night for cake and ice cream and she got to open her presents on Sunday too so we didn't really do too much for her on Monday. After the little fam get together she says "can I have a real party now with people my age?" What a character! She did get to take cupcakes to school. She picked a Princess and the Frog Cake and also Princess and the Frog cupcakes. They were super cute. And because I felft bad that she had already opened her presents from us I wanted to make her day special so we took her to Walmart after school and let her get a fish. It is far from the puppy that she really wants but she mentioned getting a fish and Justin actually said yes. She named her fish Goldie.

I keep telling her that she needs to quit growing and that she is getting too big for me and she says "Mama I can't quit growing!" I am sad that my little girl is getting older but I am also excited about the future and with her growing up we will become closer and best of friends!

Festival of the Trees

Last week Rylee got an invitation to perform with the big kids at school who were going to perform at the Festival of the Trees. I was so excited for her so we definitley decided to let her sing. It was fun to have her come home and practice the songs for us. The song they sang is a really good one for the Christmas season called Happy Birthday Jesus. In this clip they are singing "all the carols and bells make the holidays swell but it's all about you" and then they end it with Jesus I love you. It really brings tears to my eyes to hear these 3 little spirts singing such a special song about Jesus. I hope to hear it again later when they have their Christmas program. By the way, Rylee is the one with the big pom pom on her hat made only bigger with her hair being in a bun! :)

All Moved In!

Well it seems like a long time coming but we are finally moved in. What a crazy week it has been. We still have quite a bit of unpacking to do but it is coming along. I think the hardest part for me is deciding on where everything belongs. I almost don't even want to unpack because I just get this feeling of being overwhelmed (I know I asked for it) but once I finally delve into a box and get going it gets a little easier. We finised unpacking the kitchen decorations tonight and what a good feeling it is. My living room is almost done. I am saving bedrooms and bathrooms for last as nobody sees them but me. We are still waiting for our blinds but I think they are supposed to be in this week. Here's to hoping as I am sure my neighbors love the teddy bear blanket that is hanging from Rylee's window! :) Hopefully I can get some pictures to show later.

Halloween Fun!

We had a good weekend. It was kind of a bummer because we ended up not closing on our house Friday so my mom and I had canceled our trip to Utah for nothing and had my sister come here to help us move for nothing. Well, at least the kids had fun trick or treating together. Friday night we went to the Ucon School Carnival. It was cute and the kids had fun there and got lots of candy there. I haven't been to a school carnival since I was in elementary school so it kind of took me back a little bit.

Saturday we went and visited the grandmas and grandpas that we could and of course the kids got more candy there. Then that night we went to Trunk or Treat and then went around my mom's neighborhood trick or treating. At one point we just took the kids from house to house in the car and when there were a couple of houses in a row with the lights on we just had the kids run instead of getting in the car and it was so cute to see their little legs running as fast as they could go. I think they had a lot of fun! Andrew was a UPS man and Rylee was Cleopatra. They both looked really cute and luckily it wasn't too cold. I did miss decorating my house all scary though but that is something I have to look forward to next year!

My New Obsession is.......

Food blogs! I came upon them when I was trying to find the new Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses and I found a blog that rated these candies and that blog just took me from there. Oh my gosh I just can't get enough of them. I love to cook and am always wanting new recipes to try and when I stumbled upon these last week I just haven't been able to get enough. Each food blog has a list of more food blogs and I am just crazy trying to look at them all and see who has yummy recipes for me to try. If I sound a little food crazy it is because I am. I have a huge binder called the Big Ass Cookbook or B.A.C for short, full of recipes I have been collecting for years that I have gotten from websites like Kraft Foods.com and Food Network but I was kind of getting bored of these websites so I am all excited about these new blogs. I have a feeling I will be needing a new B.A.C. soon!

By the way-if anyone sees these Pumpkin Spice Hershey kisses you have to let me know. I love everything pumpkin and I hear they are really tasty. They are only sold at Target (that I know of and I have checked every other store in town and they have none) and Target has been sold out of them every since. By the looks of the package they are only here to stay for Halloween but I am hopeful that they will be back in November!

CLOSING DAY!

Well, we were told a couple weeks ago that we would be closing on Friday October 3oth. I didn't post anything then because I couldn't believe that they would be finished by that date. I still don't believe it as there is still so much that needs to be done. But people keep telling me that once they get going things can go rather quickly. So the plan is to close this Friday and I am really really excited but at the same I am scared to death that it won't get done and we won't be able to close and then we can't start moving in. So I am crossing my fingers that everything will go smoothly and it will all get done on time!

Pics of house

Here are a couple more pics of the house.











Right now they have finished the mudd and tape and they just did the texturing. The doors have been hung and the trim has been started. They have also just finished the hard coat for the stucco which needs to dry for 6-7 days. They should be pooring the concrete for the driveway tomorrow and then I think they will start to paint the inside of the house soon but I am not sure when.

Look What I Can Do!

So a few weeks ago we took the training wheels off Rylee's bicycle. We figured this would be the best time as she has just about grown out of this bike and it would be easier on this bike because she can touch the ground then try to teach her on a bigger bike. We have only been able to practice a couple of times and she was getting a little better-she could go down the driveway with no help. But last night as my mom and I were coming home from our evening walk we saw something in the road coming toward us. As I looked closer it was my DH walking besides Rylee on her bike with no help. She is just riding along (just a little skiwoppidly-don't even know how to spell a made up word) but she is riding all by herself. I was so excited. And as we got closer it was so cute to see she had this big huge grin on her face that she was doing it on her own. What a warm fuzzy to see how excited she was and how excited I was for her! I love everything about being a mom but I love moments like that the best!

She had a Bike a thon at school later that week and she did really well. They rode twice-once in the morning and once in the afternoon. My mom went in the morning and said Rylee fell once but in the afternoon she didn't fall at all and she rode the whole 1/2 hour. It was so cute to see all these little kindergartners w/ their melon heads (because of the helmets of course!) riding on the little bikes. How fun!!

Yellowstone

So I finally talked Justin into taking Rylee and I to Yellowstone. I haven't been for about 7 years and I always liked it and I thought maybe Rylee would like it too. We went Saturday the 29th and the weather happened to be just right. Wasn't too hot it was just comfortable so that was nice.

I kept telling Rylee to look out her window for animals. We didn't see too many but we did see some elk and a few buffalo. The 1st buffalo we saw was rolling around on the ground making quite the dust storm. I tried to get video of him but being the camera pro that I am I didn't push the video button until it was too late and he was just laying there.

The 2nd buffalo we saw was really cool because it was at one of the hot pools and we just happened to be leaving and here is this buffalo in the parking lot walking down to the water. It was so funny too because here is this older couple totally oblivious to this huge buffalo coming there way and I think the park says to stay at least 15 ft away (not totally sure on that) and when they finally saw it they are within just a few feet from it and they couldn't figure out which way to go and I am just thinking that buffalo is going to charge them (how very exciting but scary at the same time!) but he just left them alone and continued to the water for a drink.

3rd buffalo we saw was walking on the side of the road -same side that we were driving on. He was close enough to touch and being that he was on passenger side and I was passenger it was up to me to get an awesome close up of this buffalo. Here is that awesome picture.

Told ya I was a camera pro! All my pictures are boring because I am too slow or too camera dumb to catch any excitement.

Anyway, we didn't go thru the whole park just a little bit but we got to see Old Faithful and didn't even have to wait very long. Rylee had fun too! She loved all the hot pools that had such pretty colors but she didn't like the smell. It was a good day!

1st Day of School

Here's Rylee before going to her 1st day of kindergarten at Calvary

And here is Rylee after her 1st day of kindergarten at Calvary

She had a great day!

House Update

Here are some pictures of the house. Don't know if you can tell what's going on here because I have a hard enough time but here is the picture of the plant shelf that is by the kitchen table (for all my crap Justin says). It has a nice little arch above it so hope I like it when it is done. I have a really hard time telling how things are going to look when it is just framing.

Here is a picture of the fireplace or actually where the fireplace will be in the living room upstairs.

Here is a picture of the front with the windows.

I think all the plumbing is done and the heating guy is doing his stuff and then Justin has a walk thru with the electrical guy Wednesday morning about stuff I don't really care about. I'm glad he deals with all the boring stuff! More later.

Field Trip

So last Tuesday I got the oppurtunity to go on a field trip with TLC daycare (Rylee's school) to Tauphus Park Zoo. I know it doesn't sound like anything special but I don't get to spend everyday all day with Rylee and as a plus I got to see her with her friends and teachers. There were 2 other mothers there and then a couple of the teachers and each of us had a group of 4 kids to be in charge of. I have to say that these kids really behaved themselves. They could have gone absolutley crazy or I could have since I am not used to so many kids but they really were good. We had a good time and at the end we had a sack lunch out at the park and the kids got to run around a little bit. Here is a picture of the kids listen (very attentivley) to Miss Meg talking about the lemurs-they always listen to Miss Meg!

Here are a couple of girls in the petting zoo area (notice the my little poser in the picture) having fun playing!

Here are some cute little monkeys I saw

Lagoon '09

So we took our annual "vacation" to Lagoon the 18th-21st. We had actually met Nicole in Malad on Wednesday night and she took Rylee for a couple of days just for fun. It was kind of nice not having to do her hair in the morning but I sure do miss her when she is gone-even though it was just for a couple of days. Justin and I left Saturday morning. Our big plan for the day was the Clark Planitarium. I wasn't really sure if the kids would really like it but I had seen online that they had a 3-D film of bugs so we did go see that.

It was kind of creepy but the kids seemed to enjoy it. Then we wanted to take them to one of their star shows. I remember back when I was little seeing the Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd (all the same to me) laser show and I really liked it so we wanted to do that and the only one showing was Saturn-oh my gosh it was soooooo boring. There were some parts were the kids liked it but most of the time it was "when is this over?". Andrew did say that he really liked the Planetarium but it wasn't Rylee's favorite thing. At least I can say that it was somewhat educational.

Sunday we took the kids to Lagoon hoping that because it was Sunday it wouldn't be as busy and we were in luck because it really wasn't too bad. It was pretty humid though but what do you expect. The kids had a blast as usual and I did too. I always feel bad because my sister always lets Justin and I ride a couple of rides by ourselves while she has to wait with the kids but I sure do appreciate it. I know we go mostly for the kids and we go on some of the kid rides but it is always fun to ride the big rides. Our favorite one is Wicked. I make myself just about sick waiting in line and then after the ride I want to do it all over again but that line is always long! Every year we save Rattlesnake Rapids for last because we know we will get soaked and we don't really want to walk around wet all day. I always have fun on that one and we all just laugh and laugh and we have so much fun we do it again but it is never the same the 2nd time-we just happen to get wetter. Unfortunatley (not really)we have no pictures of us after that. We were there from when it opened at 11 until about 8:30. The kids really are troopers but by that time they were pooped! So were we.

But we asked for it all over again Monday as it was bounce back and we only had to pay $9 each to get back in. I thought it would be fun to try Lagoona Beach since I hadn't ever been there and Rylee kept asking to go to the water park. My sister wasn't able to go there so Justin and I took Andrew and Rylee. They had fun especially floating on the tubes. It wasn't as fun as I thought it would be though with the kids because they really were too little for anything fun. Even with adult supervision we couldn't take them on the big slides. So we called Nicole to come back for the rides. We made her take the kids for a little bit while Justin and I did some of the big slides. After another day of rides and even more heat add to that playing in the water which always wears you out I was dead. We called it a day at 6-even the kids were ready to go plus the park was way busier and the lines were worse. We couldn't even end the day with Rattlesnake Rapids because the line was miles long. Still a little bummed about that.

Tuesday we headed for home. I know I have said it before but I am always a little sad when it is over. You wait and wait for the fun and then it is over just like that and you have to go back to being a regular person going to work and school.

House Update

When Justin and I were building our 1st house we found we were there all the time taking pictures of the progess and just checking to see what had been done. Even though this is our 2nd time building we are doing the exact same thing. I bet the people next door and across the street think we are crazy 'cause we're there probably 4 times out of the week. Anyway here are some pretty boring pictures of what has been done.
This is day 8-foundation was complete













This is day 24-rough plumbing and sewer in

basement















Another day 24-sewer and main water line















Nothing too exciting yet but they tell us the framing will probably start this week so I am excited about that.

All Moved In....

Kind Of! Well, we are all out of our house and now living in my parents house. Thursday was a sad day for me because it was officially the last day in my house. I cried a couple of tears over my backyard that we have put so much work into and the beautiful flowering tree that I got to enjoy for all of 2 months. At least I got to see how pretty the flowers were so I will keep that tree in mind for the future. I cried a little over Rylee's room and just remembered all the preparation and excitement that we had for her arrival and I was a little teary over my red basement room downstairs because I really liked that room. Last but not least I am very sad to be leaving my neighborhood. I have some of the best neighbors around-always willing to lend a helping hand. I will miss them! But I have to remember that soon (not soon enough for me) our new house will be done and we get to start ALL OVER AGAIN!

But as of right now we are kind of living out of boxes. Most of our stuff is in storage and what we took over to my parent's house is almost unpacked. My goal was to get it done by the end of the weekend but ya know-you have to take a break every once in a while (especially since DH and I have both had our breakdowns). We spent all Saturday morning getting things unpacked and somewhat organized while Rylee got ignored. So that afternoon we took her to the zoo and funland. Alas, no pictures as I don't know where my camera is right now.

Sunday I went to church with my mom which was so weird because they have sacrament last and I am so not used to that. So when we went to Relief Society first I got sad all over again because I missed my ward that I was just getting to know. I am sure that things will start to seem normal to me. Just when I will be getting comfortable it will be time to move again! As soon as they start digging I am sure I will have pictures (if I can find my camera). Can't wait!

Daddy's Girl

So it has been a really long time since I have posted anything. I feel like the only thing I have been doing besides work is packing. It is never ending or at least it seems that way. We have about a week left in the house. We are hoping to be totally out of it Wednesday so that we can clean it really good on Thursday and the new home owners can move in Friday. I feel like we have been white trash for the last couple weeks as there is nothing on the walls and there is boxes and crap everywhere you look. Justin has been taking things to our storage unit but it still looks like my house threw up all over itself! I finally vacuumed last night which was long over due (what a difference just vacuuming makes) and cleaned my bathrooms which should have been done last weekend. How much better I feel just with that little bit of cleaning.

So last night Justin took Rylee to the Shriner's circus at Sandy Downs. I would have liked to have gone also but as posted above my house was in dire need of a little clean up. Lately Rylee has been a little Daddy's girl. She's always going up to give him a hug or telling him she's been missing him or asking him to count with her in her book or play ball. It is really cute so it was nice that they had some time together last night. She had a good time. She told me all about the clowns and how funny they were and how I should have seen it! Her dad also spoiled her with popcorn and snow cones. She loves snow cones and came home covered in it! I feel bad because I feel like she has been a little neglected this last couple of weeks as everynight we are packing so I am glad she had a night of fun. Hopefully when things settle down and the weather sticks to being nice we can have some more fun!

SOLD!

Well we sold our house. I am a little taken aback by how quickly it happened. We put our house on the market Wednesday May 13th and it sold Thursday 21st. This is all good news-the bad news is that the house we wanted sold the day before ours. So now we have to keep on looking and I don't want to settle for a house just because we need one. It almost is looking like we will be building again. Not sure how I feel about that. I don't mind the building part but the finishing part is what kills me. I want the lawn and yard already done and the basement finished. Am I asking for too much? But we will see what happens-not rushing into anything yet!