I Caved on the Kitty

We go to this pet shop where they always have kittens. People drop off the litters that they have instead of taking them to the shelter. We have to go there every couple of days to get food for Parker's bearded dragon. And every time we go Maggie asks for a kitten. And every time she had been told no. And she cried. She cried repeatedly at home every time she asked as well. Until last week. This kitty was in the pen looking so cute that I couldn't resist. Will and I took him home and Maggie came home from school and got a very big surprise.  She named him Rocky. So far he is great. Very friendly. Maggie reminds me of Olivia in those children's books. She carries him around over her shoulder and is constantly bugging him. He doesn't seem to mind. 

We are now at our threshold for pets. Dog...check, Cat...check, Lizard...check.

Will turns 3

We had a family birthday party for William a couple of days before the actual day of his birth. 

 He wanted cookie dough for his birthday dessert, so that's what he got.  A big scoop of cookie dough.

 And it was a good thing we did because he spent his real birthday in my bed, sick with a fever.

Parker Turns 10

We had Parker's birthday a week early and celebrated him and Matt's together...

Attendees: 

Garnica's

Pickup's

Andersen's

Reed's

Teeples

13...say it isn't so.

On June 9 Kate turned 13.

We had a friends and family party at our house on the big day.  

She is a great kid. Not overly moody yet, I'm just waiting for that to set in. She is helpful around the house, plays with her siblings still and can laugh at herself. She is beautiful on the inside and out. For her birthday she got a sewing machine and a week at sewing camp. She starts camp in just a couple of days and is super excited about it. We love her and are so glad she is ours.

14 Years

Fourteen years ago Matt and I were married. 

those 14 years have included...

4 children

6 moves

8 cars

some tears

lots of laughs

I like and love him more today than I did fourteen years ago. I'm glad he's mine for eternity.

Time Flies

How can it be almost four months since my last post. Time has flown by since we moved to our new (wonderful) house. I really love it here. Lots of projects are in progress, i.e. backyard landscaping and patio cover, little kids built in beds, paint touch up (the painters finally came back to fix a few things after a four month wait and they will have to come another day to finish up the touch up) So the paint might be done by Christmas :). We had three trucks of concrete poured in the backyard to make up the patio, a riding path for the kids and a partial basketball court on the side of our house. It was a lot of concrete. The house is slowly getting decorated. I don't want to just put things on the walls to have things on the walls, so I'm taking it slow. Making sure I love or at least like what I have up. I haven't posted any pictures of the kitchen completely done because of the painters. They are supposed to paint the crown all around the top of the cabinets so that it matches exactly. So again, maybe by Christmas.

LOVE

It has been years since Matt and I have been home for Valentine's Day. That's not a sad thing, we've spent them all in Aspen while someone else watched our kids. But this year we didn't go to Aspen (soooo sad), so I decided to make the best of it and have a LOVE dinner with the kids. I set the table and cooked while Kate and Parker were still at school and Maggie and Will had naps. Parker rolled his eyes at me about all the heart shaped food, placemats etc. He told me I was a little extreme. The girls loved it and I think Parker secretly did too. Will was just glad that there was chocolate on the table. We had Lasagna, Death Bread, Red Grapes and Salad. And heart shaped brownies for dessert.

As we sat and ate we each took a turn saying something that we love about each person at the table. A few things that were mentioned...Mom is loved because she takes care of everyone and cooks. Dad is loved because he plays business (wrestling with the kids). Kate is loved because she is so nice. Parker is loved because he is always teaching us things we didn't know. Maggie is loved because she draws us all such great pictures. Will is loved because he makes us laugh. It was interesting to hear what each child had to say about each other. Kate and Parker were very thoughtful about what they said. It was really great to remind each other that there are specific things we like about one another. As a parent I rarely, if ever hear my kids tell one another something nice about the other, so this was a good change. I felt really grateful to spend the night with them.

If the Aspen trip is forever over, this will be a new family tradition.

Christmas Outfits

I really like it when Christmas falls on a Sunday.

Who Was I Kidding...Oh Myself

Yes, I was kidding myself. You see I look at lots and lots of home decor blogs, pinterest, before and afters, DIY craft blogs, etc. and I theoretically think it would be fun to do that, but really I don't have time. So I'm scratching the "house made pretty" blog idea from my to do list, so I can actually accomplish some of my more pressing to do items. I guess that's one way to accomplish something, right?

In the last four weeks we have been SUPER busy. We were very busy before that too (well at least Matt was). Obviously we celebrated Christmas. It was great. The kids loved it. We stayed in Vegas and celebrated with Matt's family. I have a picture or a hundred somewhere that I will hopefully post a little bit later.

The day after Christmas we started the big move...oh my was that an undertaking. With Christmas shopping, the kids being out of school and having a really helpful two year old I wasn't as packed or prepared as I should have been. Plus I think I might be a somewhat organized hoarder. We started the move on Monday and we got the last things out of our house on Wednesday. Matt did lots of little fix up projects on the old house on Thursday and it was painted on Friday. The really great people who are renting from us moved in on Saturday. It was a whirlwind to say the least.

The new house is great. There were still quite a few things to finish up in it in the first few weeks that we lived here (the first week we had one working sink in the whole house and it was in the master bathroom). As of today all of the sinks in the house are now working. We have blinds up, (almost everywhere). The house functions. Not everything is unpacked (1/2 of the three car garage is still in boxes) and we need to purchase quite a bit of new furniture. But we are getting comfortable here.

My favorite part is the kitchen. Everything has a place, it's so great and I am so happy with how it is turning out. There are some paint touch ups that need to happen and new barstools to be bought, I haven't decided on the backsplash, but overall it is more than I hoped it would be. Here are a few before and afters....