The forgotten days of summer

I know. I have been bad (ok really bad) about keeping up to date but I plan on doing better now that this crazy year is almost over.

So back in July we had tubes put in Nick's ears. Everyone said it would not be a big deal and that the surgery would be quick and easy . Ya know what...they were right. However, everyone failed to mentioned (I think on purpose) the horrible affect of the anesthesia on kids. I had no idea that after the surgery the anesthia would turn my sweet little boy into a banshee. They brough him back to me kicking and screaming at the top of his lungs (literally). This behavior continued non-stop for a half an hour. It was difficult for Mike and I to watch as he was completely unconsolable. Then suddenly (as the nurses had predicted) at 30 min he just stopped and asked for a popcicle. Within an hour he was acting completly normal again and asking to go play at daycare! Crazy!!! This picture is him before the surgery, he hated wearing the dress.

In August we had my cousin's wedding in our/my grandparents backyard. Thanks to everyone who spent a lot of time helping us get it ready. These are the pictures of the backyard but they don't do it justice! It really turned out georgous even though the morning of the wedding we woke up to a downpour!

After the wedding we had all the flours left at the house. Andrea was having a blast holding the bride's boquet. Of course I had to take some pictures!

While taking pictures Andrea's little best friend Izzy came over to play, so we had to take some pictures of them as well.

I also tried taking some pictures of Nick. He, on the other hand, did not think this was such a good idea. This is a picture of him screaming at me to stop taking his picture...he was definately serious! Hope this phase does not last too much longer.

Andrea begged me to hand over the camera so I did. She then proceded to tell me exactly where and how to sit. Then she came over and gave me the flower and carefully positioned my head and said "perfect, now smile." This is the resulting picture! I think I have a little photographer on my hands.

The next weekend we decided to head up to Bear Lake for a much needed relaxing weekend. We found a beach on the side of the road and let the kids loose. This was when I learned another life lesson. As we walked out to the beach I thought to myself "Oh great, it is yucky sand with broken shells everywhere, this will be aweful...lets find a new beach!" At that same moment Andrea exclaimed very excitedly, "Mom look there are sea shells everywhere!" After which she grabbed her bucket and started filling it with shells. Suddenly the beach did not seem so bad after all. We got out a little rubber raft we had bought and the kids played in the water for the next 5 hours. It was awesome!!!

Last of all we finally moved into our house!!! It took forever to close on our loan but other then that the entire building process was pretty much painless and even enjoyable! We love our new house and feel very blessed to be in it. We have even alreay made lots of new friends already in our neighborhood! Here is the picture of the finished house that everyone keeps asking me for. Please let me know if you want our new address and I will send it to you. For obvious reasons I don't really want to post it here. Thanks everyone who helped us move in and a special thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson for letting us live in their house while this one was being built!

The Project

I wanted to do a little update on the house before it was finished being built. We are building with Visionary Homes/Mt. Sterling Construction and they have been great to work with. The construction has been very smooth and fast. Really I feel more like we are building a shed than a house with how fast it is going up. Our first house we built was smaller by 1700 square feet but this one is going up faster. Go figure. We visit the house almost every day because something new is done and if we blink we will miss it! Below is a bit of a photo journal for the house.

They broke ground on June 15th.

06/24/09 Foundation walls

07/14/09 Framing started. Andrea "hated" our new house until it was done enough that she could stand in her room. Then she decided it would be OK to live there.

07/16/09 Walls framed

Andrea was thrilled to spot a framed "A" in the house. Then it was really OK to live there. In fact she asked if we could move in right then.

07/21/09 Framing complete. We were very happy when they framed in the stairs as Nick and construction sites do not mix well. These are our "Scary Faces." I know, I know...you just ran for cover under your bed! Sorry, I will tell them no more scary faces.

I guess I should let you know that we will also be using our house as a zoo. Apparently it is the place animals of all kinds like to hang out. This was the Canadian Goose that was just hanging out in the garage while we were trying to clean it. Thanks to my dad for helping it escape the premesis. We have also already had a mouse in the basement, many large grass hoppers, a cat, and a butterfly (Andrea reminds me) in the house. Not to mention my brothers! ;)

This is just a picture of the inside of the house after drywall and texturing. This picture was taken on 08/12/09.

This is a picture of the house currently (08/22/09). However this will change tomorrow as the rock goes up.

We feel very fortunate and BLESSED to be in the position we are in. I would like to send a special thanks out to almost all our family members as each of them has helped us in one way or another. We love you guys! A special, special thanks to my brother David who will be paying the down payment of 20% on the house!!!................... Oh what's that. I forgot to mention that to you Dave. Whoops, my bad.

April Fools!!!!

Gotta love soggy rolls...

Remember when we had those cold rainy weeks in June. Well, if you don't then you probably don't live in Logan. Anyway we had a cold snap over father's day weekend and Andrea had the GREAT idea of making dad his favorite treat ever... Homemade Cinnamon Rolls!!! She and I decided to suprise him and make cinnamon rolls from scratch. We even made the dough in the mixer and everything. You have to understand that I only make these cinnamon rolls at the most once a year because they take so long (and because I could eat the entire pan in one sitting which should not happen more then once a year.) In the middle of making the cinnamon rolls I made some soup for dinner but I burned the bottom of the pan a little so I was letting the pan soak with water. Andrea and I finished frosting them and went downstairs to get dad leaving Nick unattended playing with his toys....When we came back upstairs this is what we found (but with all the cinnamon rolls in the pan)

It is kind of hard to see but Nick sure had lot of fun pouring the soup water over all the rolls. We tried to salvage them but to no avail. No one wanted to eat the soggy rolls. I would love to say that I was one of those moms that just laughed it off and chalked it up to memories, but I didn't. Nick did get to go to time out, but I was happy I kept my voice under control. Needless to say Dad did not get to eat a single bite. Guess he will just have to wait until next year!!


In July we went with my family to Lagoon and everyone had a blast except Nick. We are finding he so far that he does not really follow in his parents footsteps for loving theme park rides. We finally got him onto this car ride because it was with Andrea and they were cars. This is the picture of them at the beginning of the ride. He looks happy right!!??

This is the picture at the end of the ride. I guess that was just too much thrill for him. We will try again next year.

The kids have also done several fun field trips with their daycare this year. They have done things like go on a picnic to first dam, go swimming at Hyrum dam, and have a cowboy cookout in the canyon. Below is a picture from the first dam trip at which I got to be a chaperone. Below is a picture of Regina (the kids daycare provider) teaching the kids how to blow bubbles. Nick is on the far left side.


Here we have nick trying to blow bubbles. I just loved watching him because he was concentrating so hard! I just love summer.

Summer - here we come!

Ok, so it has been a little while. Better late then never right!? The summer started off great with Memorial day weekend (I know it is hard to think all the way back to May.) We decided to go up the canyon to Card Pinic area and have "tin-foil" dinners and smores. The kids love it when we go cook in the mountains and this particular site has the logan river right next to it. However, we found that two year olds and fast moving rivers don't mix well. Every time I set Nick down he made a dash for the river. This ended in me doing a lot of dashing and not much cooking and relaxing. Still he thought it was fun.

In a supprise attack I caught Nick and Andrea sitting next to each other and neither one with their eyes closed. Currenly they are both on an anti-photos kick which is torture for me. After we had the butter loading, heart stopping, and delicious tin-foil dinners we made smores during which it started to rain. Nick really liked rubbing his marshmellow on the burning wood below and then eating it.

In June we went to the Hill Air Force Base air show with Mike's family. They went earlier then we did and were nice enough to save us a spot about two rows back from the viewing line. The Jets would fly past us about 100 yards away! We saw all kinds of air plates older WWI planes to the Thunderbird jets. I have to say our favorite were the jets, especially when they were really loud! Nick just kept saying "Whoa", and "OOOOO." To translate that means AWESOME!!!

Andrea did not like the noise at all. Fortunately we found these headphones which she wore nearly the entire time.

Oh, and here is a picture of the best dad ever!!! Don't worry, after he got out of the heat his head shrank back down to a normal size!

Slimey!

Well, just like it always does it rained on my birthday again. Don't worry though, the rain was actually good. It helped Andrea make a new friend. This is a picture of where she found her new friend.

This is her new friend! She named him Slimey. We even brought him in the house, laid him on a wet towel and watched him move around. No worries though, no worms were hurt in the photographing of these images, and we released him back into the wild after Andrea watched him for a while and Nick tried to squish him.

Okay. I also have a fun new game for you. It is like "Where's Waldo" but instead you have to find Nick in the picture. Good Luck!

Did you find him??????

I told you he likes to get into things!

Easter Treats

Well, the blog thing seems to be working at least when it comes to helping me remember to take pictures of my kids. (I know that sounds wierd comming from me the photo queen, but life happens and you just forget.) So since I have some cute pics this week I thought I would show them to you. The first is yet another example of Nick and Andi getting into something. Mike and I were cleaning the dishes and we turned around and there they were!

This next picture is self explanitory. They were both laughing hysterically, kind of reminds me of a family video I have seen!

On the Saturday before Easter Becky invited us to her house for lunch and an easter egg hunt. The kids had a blast finding the eggs. Nick's favorite part was shaking the eggs until the candy came out!

Sunday afternoon winter loosened its claws on our valley finally so Andi and I spent the afternoon on the deck for nap time! I couldn't resist taking a few pics, she just looked so cute.

Later on Sunday I attempted cooking an Easter meal for Mike's Family, but I found I still have a lot of practicing to do when it comes to big meals. We had everything cooked and ready to eat so I went to check the temp of the ham just to make sure and low and behold it was still frozen in the middle! While trying to salvage the ham I bumped the beans that were boiling on the stove and spilled them all down my legs. Fortunately, I had my thick jeans on so I didn't get burned! Guess I "spilled the beans" that I can't cook!(ha, ha, ha)

After the dinner we made rice crispy treat eggs and the kids decorated them with melted chocolate and sprinkles. Nick especially loved eating them. Thanks grandma Kay for the idea!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!

Well, you can now all officially go underground into your secret bunkers and start living off your food storage. The end of the world must be here because I have finally started a blog!! I do have to warn everyone that may read this blog whether it be out of curiosity, boredom, or force, that I am also using this as kind of a family journal. In other words it may be very boring!!! Consider yourselves warned now so don't be leaving any comments about how you wanted to poke your eyes out after reading it!

OK, now that I have started my first blog on such a great note I guess I should do some updating. Currently Mike, the kids and I are house sitting my grandparents house. The house is very well behaved, we haven't even had to put it into time out! My kids even love giving it showers, I am sure that the door, stool, and sink have never been so clean. (no offence Grandma)

I am pretty sure the house and us will go through some separation anxiety when we have to leave which will apparently be in november. We have signed to build a new house north of Logan. They will start building in June and finish in November. We are really excited because hopefully we will NEVER move again.

For a couple of updates on the kids. Nick is in the "getting into everything--literally" stage. Tonight I caught him trying to put his head into the toilet and flushing it! Good thing he couldn't reach the lever and have his head in the water at the same time!! He climbs into drawers, hampers, closets, garbage cans, and several other things I have posted below. Seriously, if there is some kind of a career for getting into things (besides toilets) he should really go after it so he can at least get paid for it!!

Andi is, as my mom likes to say, "All Girl." She is ALWAYS wanting to wear a dress and her "special" shoes. We are trying to keep her life as balanced as possible, so I took her skiing a couple of weeks ago for the first time. We started on the rope tow run so we could work on some technique. However, she kept begging for me to take her on the chair lift to go down Little Beaver so I finally gave in. She was doing great on the lift until we got about half way up the mountain at which point she asked me how we were going to get down. After I told her we had to ski down the hill she started screaming and crying. Don't worry though we took it very slow but we did make it down. These are the pics of a proud (and very tired) mom and happy daughter.

Well, there is my first blog. Like I said, if you go and poke your eyes out it is not my fault...You were warned! -Jo