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Friday, June 29, 2012

Family

All of this because 1 and 2 fell in love.

It's pretty amazing.  I could stare at this photo for hours.  My sweet grandpa numbered us all years  ago and makes sure to let each new addition to the family know their numbers, so it's fitting that we each got a shirt with our numbers.  I love that I'm 10 in all this madness, I came along even before most of my aunt's and uncle's spouses.  We were only missing a few of us.  Even two week old number 77 was there.  And my cute cousin was holding the number 78 onesie over her 8 month belly.  I love all these people and am so grateful to be a part of them.  Thanks Mom, Dee and everyone else for such a wonderful vacation!!!


Friday, June 1, 2012

News News News News!

And ALL of it good!!!!  I've been waiting months to post all this good news and today I finally can - everything's official!!
(And let me just say, we are not pregnant - definitely good news.) :-)

Chris' contract at BYU was renewed a few months ago, he's still not tenure track as his dissertation is still in the works, but we have a job for next year, Hip, Hip Hooray!  It was touch and go there for several months - the drama and circumstances of his renewal were ridiculous and so we feel extremely blessed to have a job!!!  

I got my old job back!  I've been working for WGU, grading student submissions from home for the past 4 1/2 years, which has been great, but it just so happened that the French teacher at my old Junior High decided to move back East for some additional schooling and my old position was available for the coming fall.  I got re-hired for part time French, which is PERFECT!  I'll teach from 7am-10:25am every day.  By the time the little ones realize I'm gone, I'll be back!  I couldn't be more thrilled.  Going back to the school has felt like going home, I have such good friends still teaching there and such wonderful memories.  I'm soo soo excited to be going back to the classroom and still getting to be home with the kids.  Blessings!! 

Clare got accepted to the BYU preschool.  There were 257 applicants and 34 spots so we feel extremely blessed in this as well.  The preschool is located directly below Chris' office two floors, so he'll drop Shea off at school (he gets to keep going to French Immersion program and we're sooo happy about that!) and then take Clare to school on his way up to his office.  She'll finish at 11, just in time for me to pick her up on my way home from school.  And Fionn got a spot at the best babysitter ever - who lives right next door to my Jr. High!  Whew!  Puzzle in place!!

And the best news... We bought a house.  We plan on being here for 5 or 6 more years (fingers crossed that that works out!!) and didn't want to rent the whole time.  We figured the sooner the better so we started looking in Feb.  We found the perfect house when it was just a foundation and some studs and got to watch it being built and got to pick out all the options.  It's been a blast, but also a ton of work and recently more stress than I can take.  Pretty much anything and everything that could go wrong the last month, has, so it's been back and forth if we'd even buy in the end - but glory, glory, hallelujah, we found out today that finally, finally, we're closing on Tuesday!! 

Oh, and I got an iPad today!  :-) 

Life is good and we feel incredibly blessed.

Here's some pics:
I guess I didn't take any of the house before this stage :-( but here it is wrapped and ready for siding.  (Like the porta potty in my front yard?)


 The siding going up.  We got to pick everything for the house except for the exterior color, which was already ordered when we signed on, so we were stuck with puke brown.  Some day we'll get a house that's a lovely grey or blue, but I've made my peace with this color and love it now.


All sided! 

Plumbing going in.  The kids thought toilets and sinks in the family room was hilarious.


They were also thrilled, thrilled! the day they dumped huge mounds of dirt for the landscaping.  I think they saw years of mud and climbing in their future.  Sorry guys!


Carpet delivery, just waiting for install

Front yard dirt mountain.

Floor installation.  I love this floor.  :-)


Fence?  Check! 

Dirt mountains, gone.  Sprinkler installation day. 

I'll keep you waiting for the all done photos.  :-)  We're so happy to have our own home.  In our 10 years of marriage, we've never lived anywhere that didn't share walls.  So we're thrilled with this cute little beauty and anybody coming to Utah needs to come stay with us!!!!  :-)

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Ninjago Party

I loved the invites we made.   I REALLY wish I'd looked up how to spell Spinjitzu before I'd printed them.  :-( 



We made these awesome Ninja pops.  I still have tons (any takers??)


Cute little takeout boxes and printed stickers made awesome favors.


Our Ninja cake


Printed water bottles


We played ninja, ninja, serpentine.


Pin the ninja star on Pythor.


There was a dragon pinata.


We made our own nunchucks and did lots and lots of fighting, running and ka yahing.  A great time was had by all!


Happy Birthday baby!

SEVEN!

Really?  My baby is seven already?  Time has passed so quickly.  I sure love this kid - he's funny and imaginative and sweet and smart and I'm so grateful he's mine!  Happy Birthday Shea! 

2005


2006
2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Monday, May 28, 2012

The Tulip Festival

My wonderfully sweet Aunt Julie called in early April and invited us to go to the Tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point.  We had such as wonderful day with her, Callie and Grandma Itha!  The kids LOVED running around, being wild, exploring and picking out all their favorite flowers!


I wish I'd had my camera not just my phone.  The tulips were soooo gorgeous. 





I must have liked the yellow ones the best.  :-)


I love this one of the kids talking to my sweet little Grandma.  So precious.



Easter 2012

Our first snowy Easter!  The kids thought it was cool, but I just kept thinking about all our glorious, warm LA Easter egg hunts with our wonderful friends and I was a bit sad we were alone in our snowy backyard.  But that aside, we had a lot of fun together!

The day before Easter:  


On Easter, it had warmed up, but we still hid some eggs in the snow.


Fionn's first Easter was a smashing success.  He LOVED it!  He was thrilled to be allowed to pick up colorful balls all over the yard, and he was over the moon when one split open and he discovered candy inside.  That ended the hunt and started the gorging!  :-) 




Dying Easter eggs.  




Loved these Pinterest Easter cupcakes!  Piece of cake!


The kids became obsessed this year with the Easter Bunny's size - so they left him a note.  In case you're curious - the bunny is not the size of a regular bunny, he's BIG!  :-)  (So he can carry all those baskets and treats.) And he ate all his carrots.  :-)


Happy Easter my sweet gorgeous muffins! 



Sunday, May 13, 2012

Holi festival

I can't believe we took the kids to this.  My stroller, 2 months later is still disgusting and color stained.  The laundry afterward was hideous and all the bathtubs had to be seriously scrubbed.  So, with that out of the way - it was a riot!!  Clare was completely not thrilled to have color thrown on her and spent most of the time hiding under the stroller and frowning.  She got over it before we left and ended up having a lot of fun.   Shea, Chris and Fionn were in heaven the entire time.  I think we'll definitely go again.