I've been very blessed over the last 4 years. Or lucky, if you don't believe in blessings like I do. I can count on one hand the number of times that both my kids have been sick. Pumpkin has had a handful of colds and one (in the end unnecessary) trip to the emergency room when we thought he'd broken and sliced open his toe. Turns out he'd only sliced it open. Princess has been sick exactly three times in 15 months. This is the third.

A few days ago Pumpkin came down with a cold. He was running a fever and running a firehose of a stuffy nose. It got so bad that his little lips were red and chapped from him rubbing at them all the time. But that's ok. You can get an almost-4-year-old to drink lots of fluids and take his medicine. You can get him to leave the chapstick alone so it can help his lips. A 1 year old is a different story.

Princess came down with Pumpkin's cold yesterday. She's such a baby when she gets sick, I've learned. :) She wants nobody but me. Any little hurt makes her bawl in pain when she'd normally shake it off. She will guzzle her juice in one moment and refuse it the next. She's ok with taking tylenol for her fevers, but she gets really high fevers. And she doesn't sleep well.

I haven't been up with a baby at night in quite awhile. I'd say 6 months at least. She's usually such a good sleeper at night. I guess illness negates any of that. Princess was up three times last night, for about an hour each time. I'd get her out of bed, calm her down, get her juice and rock with her in the recliner. I actually enjoyed it for the first little while. I never get to just snuggle with my little girl anymore. She's just always on the go. It was so wonderful to rock with her in my lap. She'd stare up at me while she'd doze off, her poor little lungs laboring to breathe. I'd doze a little myself until she'd jump and wake herself up. Once she saw I was still there then her little eyes would begin to close again.

I was tempted to put her down in her bed. I was tired and I could tell she was, too, but every time she'd wake and look around for me I was glad to be there.

Some things I've realized while packing up my house:

-We can accumulate a lot of junk in 2 years. Like A LOT.
-If you have more space to spread out into, you will spread out into it whether you need the new things you accumulate or not.
-If you leave legos alone for long enough they will multiply like rabbits.
-No matter how many times you clean out under and in the couches they will still grow more toys, pens, money, and trash like it's a vegetable garden.
-Daddy will always pack up his stuff the evening before/morning of the actual move.
-If you pack a box with a toddler and preschooler around they will inevitably come through after you and unpack it back onto the floor. Unless you tape it up immediately, that is.
-If you spend most of your time packing and playing with your kids, your housework will suffer big time.
-People are reasonable, even owners of houses. If you have a request, just ask them and see what they say. Worst case scenario, they say no and you're left where you were at the beginning.
-You may think you have enough boxes, but it's going to take much more than you think.
-To paint a room, pick the color you want and then go two shades lighter. Trust me, you won't be disappointed.
-Who needs Christmas presents when you have a brand new house?? It's like having a giant dollhouse to play with and make my very own.
-An hour at the park will wear out little kids so well that they'll take two hour naps. But beware, it'll wear you out as well so that all that precious naptime is wasted dosing on a bed.
-If you take away half of the kids toys they won't even notice. They'll just play with the other half and be happy. This may be a good thing to remember for the future.
-Things are heavier than they look when you put them together in a box. Shoes, for instance, get super heavy when there's 20-30 pairs.
-A little Curious George and Baby Einstein works wonders for distracting the kids from the fact that you're packing and not playing with them.
-If you give yourself three weeks to pack and 10 days to move and clean afterward it takes most of the stress off moving.
-Get lots of packing tape. You won't have enough. Especially if your 3 year old likes to play with the tape gun. By wrapping his sister up in the tape. So you have to pull it off of her while she cries. No more playing with the tape gun.

After months of searching hundreds of houses online, driving by dozens of properties, and seeing probably 15 houses in person, we finally found the one for us. And now it's ours. Or it will be on Monday when the owner moves out and hands over the keys.

The whole process has been much less painless than it could have been. I've been assured of this by more than one person.

I want to give a quick shout-out to everyone involved in this process:
-Me for a lot of hard work,
-the kids for being patient as mommy is constantly on the computer and phone for 3 months
-Daddy for being supportive as I dragged him to house after house and for being a voice of reason in the sea of my emotional responses
-T-bone for coming to the houses and watching the kids so I could look around
-Mom for her super support, awesome ideas, and unyielding confidence that the Lord would lead us to the right house for us
-Brian the Relator, who never complained when I walked into a house and sighed sadly...and then called him to set up another house visiting appointment the next morning. I appreciate all the time you spent away from your family for this, Brian, and for not rolling your eyes when I got really excited about a house only to find a major issue with it.
-James the Mortgage guy for his tireless efforts and innovative ideas that got us a mortgage at a great rate and with minimal effort on our part. I don't know anyone else who could have brokered a mortgage like ours in 3 weeks from start to finish. You're amazing! And you kept a positive attitude the whole time! You made this painless and fun and I owe you.
-Janna my neighbor for watching the kids during closing and always being interested in what house I was looking at that day. And for not hating me for moving away when our kids are such great friends.
-Heavenly Father for giving me strength and love, and for helping the right house to come to our attention at just the right time. And for softening Daddy's heart so he'd agree that it was time to buy the house. And for softening my heart and giving me patience to support Daddy and follow his timetable. Basically for orchestrating this whole thing. Couldn't have done it without you, Big Guy! :)

We came very close to buying another house that would have worked, but not as well as this one and would have given us a whole new set of challenges. I mean we were this close (picture me holding up my forefinger and thumb about 1/2 an inch apart) to signing an offer letter when I asked Brian to look up a few more houses for us and to show us just one more...

I'd seen this house in some of my searches over the months, but the photographs were blurry and quite poorly taken. The picture of the kitchen only showed the window over the sink and not the awesome cabinets or the plentiful counterspace or the hardwood floors. Worst photographer ever. I dismissed it out of hand and never looked back. Until I did. And I'm so glad I did.

I wish at this point that I could blink my eyes or wiggle my nose and have all our stuff magically appear in the new house, but I am neither Jeanie nor Samantha. Too bad. I was so sure this was our house that I started packing all of the nonessentials about two weeks ago. We've been tripping over boxes for two weeks and I think everyone is tired of it. I'll be glad to be settled and be able to get our Christmas Tree and decorations up.

I'm officially a homeowner!!! Woo hoo!!!

Princess is such a little ham. She's walking really well now, and even starting to turn in circles just for fun. Remember those days? When spinning around was the funnest thing you could think of to do? She's also getting the concept of teasing really quickly. When she and Pumpkin were in the bath the other day she came to the side and held up her arms and said "All done." (aah duh! in Princess language) When I reached down to get her out of the bath she giggled, sat down, and scooted to the other side of the tub. She did this several times, always finding it hilarious when I thought she was serious. She'll also pretend to hand me something and then when I reach for it she'll pull it away and laugh and laugh.



I took Pumpkin out tonight to shop for Christmas presents for Princess, Daddy, T-bone, and Gran. We had a lot of fun together. He's such a fun kid. We picked out presents for everyone, one for Pumpkin (candy, of course), and then we went to Toys R Us and I let Pumpkin run around and play with all of the display toys. I think he was in heaven. I didn't try to hurry him up or make him stop playing with something so we could move on. It was really late when we finally left, past his bedtime, and I told him that when we got home it would be "bedtimes for Bonzos". This is something my mom used to say to us when we were kids. Pumpkin didn't want to hear that, so he said "No, when we get home it'll be Bedtimes for Miracles". That's what he said, miracles. I asked him what a miracle was and he said "You're a miracle, Mommy!" It was possibly the nicest thing I've had said to me in quite awhile. :)

I'm crazy in love with this kid. Well, both kids, really.

Here are some pictures of our new house. We're planning to move in the first week of December, after the current owners move out. A garage door with an opener! A big tree in the front yard, a good sized backyard with room for a garden, plenty of parking. It's everything we were looking for and we can't wait to get into it! And it looks like the scouts put out a flag for the holidays, just like the house we're in right now. Hooray!

I promised pictures of the house we're in the middle of buying to some friends and family who were interested. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of the outside, so you'll have to wait for that. And the guy's stuff is still in there, so it looks a little cluttered.

This is the pretty living room. That's the front door and the front window. The house is in a cul-de-sac so, for the first time, I'm looking at neighbors' houses when I look out the window. I'm excited to have a room to receive guests in and a way to get away from the TV that always seems to be on.

Down some stairs by the front door is the Family Room. Those big rocks house a real fireplace. There's a gas insert in it right now, which I think is smart while the kids are young. When they get old enough we'll probably take it out, cap the gas line, and have a real wood fireplace.

The Family Room looking the other way. See the rocks?

The kitchen is nice and large with lots of counter space. The cabinets are fairly new and in really good shape. I'm standing in the dining area to take this picture. You can see the corner of the dining room table in the bottom right.


Here's a shot from the living room of the nice big dining area with a neat dimmer-enabled chandelier. That's a sliding glass door that goes into the big backyard. The backyard leaves a little to be desired right now as it's fall and the guy didn't water the yard all summer long. I'm really hoping that the grass isn't dead and that it will come back full in the spring. It was raining the day I took the picture, so I don't have any outside pictures.


We locked in our loan at 6% this afternoon, which we're really excited about. The home inspection went well, they found a few minor problems that we're working together to fix and then the place is ours. We're closing around Thanksgiving and the house should be ready for us to move into on the first of December. Yahoo!!!

I've started packing, but slowly and only the stuff we don't use regularly. Closets, bookshelves, toys. It's amazing how many toys we have that the kids don't play with. Time to purge!

A house. Of my very own.

We signed papers today, so we're officially under contract. If all goes well with the inspections and titling, we'll be in our new home Dec 5th or thereabouts. I couldn't have asked for a better icing on the cake of this day. And it isn't even over yet!

The house is 5 bedrooms, 3 baths. A nice sized living room, a huge family room, a large kitchen/dining room and its own laundry room! It has a gas fireplace that was originally a wood fireplace and is easy to convert back if I want. It has lots of closets and an attached two car garage. It has a largeish backyard that is fully fenced with a 10 foot privacy fence. There's lots of storage. It's 4 blocks from the elementary school. It's pretty much exactly what we were looking for. Going down my list of "wants"everything is checked off. And there are bonuses like hardwood floors, ceiling fans in the bedrooms, a humidifier on the furnace...and the list goes on and on. We're getting it for a great price.

I don't have pictures yet, but I'll post some when I get them. The house is about 3 minutes from Daddy and T-bone (who is coming with us!) 's workplaces. I'm so pleased with this house and I can't believe it's going to be mine.

I've bounced around living in new places almost every year since I was 10. I'm ready to settle down and have my own place that I can paint, wallpaper, and make my very own. I don't have to worry about putting more than 3 picture holder holes in the walls or cleaning checks. I know there are a lot of responsibilities that go with home ownership, but I think the perks will outweigh the negatives. At least I hope so.

Happy Birthday to me, indeed!

And thanks to all who have emailed, chatted, texted, and called to wish me a happy birthday. I love you all and appreciate your remembrance of me.

Yeah, I know, you thought Pumpkin was going to be a cowboy or a cowboy-superhero, didn't you? Well, I made the mistake of asking him if he wanted to be something else for our trip to Gran's work to trick-or-treat. I suggested a train engineer, since he had the hat, bandana, overalls, etc. He said, yes, but I want a train, too. I had just put Princess to bed and was looking for a way to entertain him for the next few hours, so I assented. Big mistake. I didn't think how long it would take to make this train. It was fun, sure, but it took more work that I originally thought. It turned out pretty cute, though. Word to the wise, never make a costume on the DAY of Halloween. I was up late the night before helping Daddy with his costume, and then up early Halloween morning helping T-bone put together his costume. Supermom, I am. Make costumes out of random household objects, I can.

My little engineer. Thanks for the hat, Mimi!


My brother went as Augustus Gloop from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory. That's the theme that his department at work decorated their area with. He looked great! See the chocolate all over his face?


Not to be outdone by Pumpkin, I decided to give Princess a new costume, too. She got to go as Jazzercise Baby. I thought it turned out rather well, and it was less hot than the cow costume as we were inside the whole time.


Daddy's costume rivaled Pumpkin's for the coolest and most time consuming. He went as Tony Stark, the ater-ego of Iron Man. He made the "arc reactor" by himself from scratch, even molding the plastic to make the outer ring. The camera's flash ruins the effect of the LEDs, so the pictures are blurry because I turned the flash off.

Here's the picture with the flash. Pretty cool looking, huh? The chest hair is just a bonus. Daddy wanted to walk around at work all day with a tumbler of apple juice and ice cubes to mimic the Scotch that Stark loves, but I don't think people her would have gotten it.

What did I go as, you ask? I think this is the only picture of me and it isn't too flattering. I decided that since I was going to be wearing the video camera and the still camera anyway I might as well make a costume out of them. I went as a tourist. I wore a bathing suit (of Daddy's), had lots of cameras, a map, a Hawaiian shirt, a water bottle, and a backpack. Oh, and I wore black socks with sandals and gave myself a make-up sunburn.

This was one of the hallways at Mom and T-bone's work. They really decorate it up there.

Each department picks a theme (one was Dr. Horrible's Evil Lab!) and decorates their area and dresses up appropriately. There was Super Mario World, Willy Wonka, Thriller, Dr. Horrible, Teletubbies, and lots of others. 26 in all, I think. They each had candy to give out to the kids.

You can see that I have a train in one hand and a baby in the other in this picture above. We set the train down and went through the buildings without it. All that work and he didn't want to wear it after 5 minutes. Live and learn, I guess. He ended up getting a ton of candy at this work, so we didn't see the need to go out later. Pumpkin, instead, was in charge of the candy at our house and really enjoyed handing out treats to the few kids who came to our doors. One fun, successful Halloween done, just 17 more to go. :)

Fall has officially come to our house. See the trees across the street? They're yellow. In fact, last night our street looked like the Yellow Brick Road from all the downed leaves and the rain reflecting in the streetlights.

True to Halloween conventions, we carved up our pumpkins. My pumpkin was happy while Pumpkin's was a "mad pumpkin". He helped me scoop and dump, but I did the carving while he gave me instructions. We had a great time and the pumpkins turned out exactly like we imagined with no patterns!


Shay's pumpkin is on the left, mine is on the right.



Halloween Eve night, after carving our pumpkins, Pumpkin and I decided that we wanted to go on a walk. It was dark but warm, so Pumpkin got his Pooh Bear flashlight and off we went. Halfway around the block, Pumpkin told me that we were on a "Flashlight Adventure!" and that I had to call him Pumpkin and he would call me Dear. It was adorable! We saw a cat, a few dogs, lots of scary Halloween decorations and one Uncle who jumped out of behind our bushes and scared the snot out of us! It was really fun. I look forward to more Flashlight Adventures with my little Pumpkin.

Pumpkin has started drawing people and faces. This is a sign I found on his door the other day. I asked what it meant. Apparently it's a picture of Princess and Mommy and the writing says that we're "not invited into Pumpkin's room and you're sad that you're not allowed." I guess we made him mad at some point and he didn't want us to come play in his room.



Pumpkin and I made my first ever pie this weekend. It was an apple pie and, although it didn't look too pretty, it was delicious. I don't have any "after" pictures since it was so ugly, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

While we made the pie, Princess contented herself with destroying a cup of yogurt. I say destroying instead of eating because she attacked that thing like a lion on a wildebeest. I guess she was hungrier than I thought. Here are some snapshots of the aftermath. It was a massacre.


The first picture of many, I'm sure. It's Saturday morning and the kids are watching cartoons while I get dinner ready. Can you see how glazed over they are? It's better than having them under my feet while I make muffins, but not much. I tell myself that they're still waking up and not just checking out of the whole situation.


When we play on the porch my little Princess likes to climb up into the stroller and pretend she's going for a walk. I think that what she's doing, at least. The other day at the park she followed Pumpkin up the stairs and went down the short slide all by herself. She thought it was hilarious, hopped down, and proceeded to ascend the stairs again. She's fearless, I swear.

Some of our Halloween Trunk or Treat pictures from our Ward party last Saturday. Pumpkin was a cowboy and Princess was a cow. I tried to convince Princess to let Pumpkin "rope her" but she wasn't into that. We decorated our trunk, got some candy and headed to our bishop's house to eat pizza. It was really fun, and the kids had a great time! I had to wake Pumpkin up from a nap to get ready, so he was a little hesitant at first (center picture) but by the time we got there and started eating pizza and playing with friends he got into the swing of things (lower right). Hooray for community events! I love meeting up with friends and enjoying our time together.

A week ago we had a great visit with our friend Lt. Mac and his new McWife (names changed to protect the innocent). They came out to Hill AFB for Temporary Duty and managed to sneak down to Provo to spend a few days with us. Mostly our time together consisted of eating out and playing games. We got in three games of Settlers, some Guillotine, some Fluxx, some Munchkin, some Loser and probably something else that I can't remember. In two days we managed to hit Kneaders for all-you-can-eat French toast, Sconecutters for some surprisingly tasty scones (not everything is better on a scone, guys), Japanese steakhouse where we were the only ones in the joint, and Tucanos for some tasty meat (giggity!). Everything was delicious and I think we gained a collective 20 pounds.

Here's some pictures of the trip. I didn't take nearly as many as I intended to, so you'll just have to be happy with a few snapshots. I didn't get any of the McWife, which I can't believe!
Getting ready to play a game of Loser.


Playing some Ratchet and Clank with Pumpkin, who isn't too bad at the game.


At Tucanos eating our weight in meat products. The kids ate free and took over the salad bar.


Lieutenant Princess reporting for duty!