Little Padawan

If Leah is the Jedi Master, then Colette is a Padawan. She is learning well the art of making messes with water (and other messy things)

Not 4

Greg told me the other day he's not sure 4 kids is going to be it for us.


HahahahahHAhaHAHAHAhahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAha!!!!!

I couldn't stop laughing. For me and for him. This is the man who said after Colette that 3 was good. :)

I reminded him that we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

And then I laughed some more. A lot.

More of Gregs Handy Work

I promised Greg that his closet work would get a post of its own. And sadly, it never did. It almost ddin't get any pictures!!!! But Greg made sure his iphone picked some up before they were done.

This is the girls closet. You can't tell, but there is this angle from the stairs beneath that makes the space at the bottom of the closet unusable. So, a little MDF and some paint and we have two shelves so that we could use all that space... you know... for about 6 months.

 Yes, they are beautifully staged photos, don't you think? Anyway, this was our solution for our long hanging clothes, of which we do not have a lot. There was eventually a bar underneath the shelf obviously, and yes, the caulk gun was still there.

 This is the long wall at the back, equal hanging space on either side of the shelving unit in the center. everything was built from scratch, no pre-made closet stuff. all the shelving was routered together. We were lucky enough to borrow Greg's uncles nail gun. Needless to say that is now on Gregs wish list.

 And the corner of "what do we do with this? Space. We added full height shelves and enough room to hang everything clear to the wall in the corner and still get to it.

I realize that these types of posts aren't very exciting, I'm not good at describing things in an exciting way. But there it is. My Christmas present from last year. Very, very sadly, I was only able to enjoy it for 6 months, but I loved every minute of it.

This was the hardest thing about the house to leave behind.... and the RO filter. :) we do love clean water.

Ingenuity

In our family we encourage ingenuity, making it work, or making due with what you've got. Leah's first pair of glasses was a perfect representation of this. Snapped right in half. Nothing a little craft wire can't fix!!! (don't fret, this was only until we could order her a new pair). Had to document Gregs handy work.

Date with Dad

This year we started dates with our kids, we rotate who gets to go, but its something the child chooses, so far, their dates have all been free (camping with dad, community science fair, and Hill AF base museum), but we also have a little in our budget so that we can do other things too (i'm thinking MONSTER JAM). These were pictures from Jeremiah's date with Greg to Hill Air Force Base. He loved it. I think his favorite part was a little model of a military vehicle that he got to pick out at the gift shop, he kept talking about going back on his next date... and..... then we moved. Sorry Champ!

It's kind of a big deal

This is what our refrigerator looks like... well, back when I took this picture a couple weeks ago. We're working on homeschool this summer and we are TOTALLY bribing our kids with prizes they can buy from the family store with their points. As you can see, Jeremiah is more easily bribed than Leah is. We are working on name recognition with her. She stole her L though.... she has claimed ownership of that letter. No matter where or what it is, That L is HERS.

And yes... those are recent family photos.

The kids are very excited. January will be a big month for us.

More random updates:

We bought a van. It was time. We love it. No one can touch anyone else. :)

We are buying a house next month. YAY! You can bet we will be sending the kids out in the yard every day to get out their pent up energy from being stuck in this small apartment.

Because of the afore mentioned updates I feel poor, so poor. And huge, but that has nothing to do with either of those things.... more to do with the first update. Blah!

Us lately

We have been exploring as many parks as possible lately, due to our lack of outdoor space in our current "home". Jeremiah has some pretty rad moves.

 My best attempt at a picture of the kids together.

 Jeremiahs best attempt at a picture of me:

Colettes new headwear

Please diregard the mess in the house, this was back when we were packing and it was... chaos.

Jeremiahs 6th Birthday

Jeremiah got a new bike for his birthday. He was SOOOOOO excited. And a few weeks earlier he was suddenly able to ride a two wheeler one day, so he helped me take off the training wheels immediately so he could ride it around the bike. Keep in mind it is about 8am in this video.

The girls came down with the flu the day of his birthday, and we weren't sure if we could have his party, but everything worked out, I delayed the girls naps so that they were both sleeping for the entire party.

Easiest party E-V-E-R! We invited a handful of friends (it was very hard for him to choose... seriously, it took weeks to decide). They played Legos for an hour, we had brownies and icecream, and they went home! It was fabulous! And Jeremiah didn't notice that there wasn't a theme, or perfectly coordinated decorations, or goodie bags for all his friends. No one cared. They just had fun. And after all isn't that what a birthday party is all about?

I was having a hard time singing because I was cracking up at these boys!

Hello from CO

No pictures yet, sorry. I'm still trying to pull our lives together enough for that to be the first thing I think of.

SO, we moved to Fort Collins, Colorado a week and a half ago. We miss Utah, well, no we don't, but we miss our friends in utah, so that's is almost the same thing. The adjustment hasn't been too bad, I suppose. We've kept busy. I started homeschooling Jeremiah and Leah because CO schools are better than UT schools, so I don't want J to be as far behind, and the cutoff here is Sept 15 instead of Sept 1, so Miss Leah (born Sept 12) will go to Kindergarten next year, and we need to do two years of preschool in one.

Homeschooling has been great, it's low-key and flexible, plus we don't actually do that much. about an hour and a half everyday, and it gives us something to do.

Other activities lately:

Daily swimming at the pool. yes, one mom, three kids, it works.
Finding new parks
Yay for a Library card again!!!
Picnics
Errands, so many errands.

It's J's birthday tomorrow, so it's the fossil park, movies, macaroni for dinner, and our only friends over for cake and ice cream. J's excited, but he's been telling people he's 6 for a month now.

Oh, and we sold our house. It's done, so we're happy that now we only have one looming mortgage payment ahead. :)

That's the update from here. I'll try to get pictures soon. They may be of a messy apt, because keeping it clean with so much crammed in it seems like a monumentous feat right now. :) Such is life.