Sunday, April 20, 2014

another week...

I got to take this little sweet hearts one year photos as a favor for a friend. She is the sweetest. I picked her up and she immediately put her head on my shoulder and started patting my back. 


The kids must have been super tired one day and they BOTH fell asleep on the way home from the store. Oak rarely falls asleep in the car. So when I got home I just stayed in the car with them and took a nap myself.


I was asked to be in charge of a craft for a stake womens conference. I had a $50 budget and needed a craft for about 50 people. I was pretty stumped on what to do, but after thinking about some of the crafts I have seen my mom do I decided covering composition notebooks would be great. I ended up having to be out of town so I after I prepared everything I had someone else be in charge. She said it was a hit!


Oak really doesn't like when anyone in our family leaves. She is getting much better. But the morning I took this photo she was not happy daddy was leaving for work. So she sat on the front porch and cried watching him leave. 


Just really loved the light coming through the window.


She got ready to go to the park and play. This girl and clothes!


They were both sitting there writing in their little notebooks. These kids draw and write all day long!


We got some bubbles at the dollar store and it was so nice outside we had to put some use to them. 


Hubs came home from the last day of tax season and handed me this. He said one of the other partners handed it to him and told him to tell me to go buy some shoes. Ha ha love it!


Signing rent papers for our new place. 


Loved Mac's towel folding art. 


Oak rarely lets me put knobs in her hair. I love them, so stinking cute!


A few people in the stake have a co-op like preschool thing going on and put on an Easter party. But they invited everyone who wanted to come. Oak loved it!


I know he is only six and it is a really hard concept but this boy can not handle consequences for his choices sometimes. He can throw quite the tantrum when he loses a privilege for a poor choice after being warned more than once. 


She lays like this a lot and I love it. She is watching Frozen here. 


Daddy took Mac bowling and Oak and I stayed home and watched Frozen. We both had to wear capes. 


Mac lost his sixth tooth! It was the second of his upper. And boy is his toothless smile adorable. His posing smile doesn't show his teeth so this was the only smile we could get from him where we could see it. 


We have been teaching Mac to save his money for bigger things. He tends to want to spend any money he gets immediately. So we made him save to $5 so that he could get the cheapest Lego set. We were all pretty proud. His next goal is $10.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Our week...


Our cub scouts had a fund raiser at Applebee's. It was so great and we had so much fun. 


We watched General Conference and Mac and I worked on building this Temple out of his legos. 


Just a cutie!


Sunday morning we decided we wanted to get dressed and watch Conference at the Stake Center. I think we will do this every year because I was able to listen the best that way. At home my kids can be very distracting. 


After getting home from our trip I had a hard time wanting to get the dishes done. 


On Sunday afternoon we watched more conference and played a game with candy and words to help the kids listen. Mac loved it. Next time however I think I will do snack food instead of candy. 


Sunday afternoon the kids wanted to craft with daddy. It was just a super cute moment. 


Oak is getting really good at putting ponytails in. My hair looks like this most of the day. 


The "caterpillar, braid crown". I also do this without the braid. It's Oak's favorite and I like it because her hair stays out of her face. 

We were reading a book we got from the library about a whole bunch of animals getting in a bathtub together and where all the water went. So we did our own little "experiment" about what happens to the water. 


I finally got the kids into the dentist. I think I already talked about this in a previous post. 



Queen Elsa rocked her dentist appointment. 


They finally put the swing up at one of the parks we like to go to. The kids were so excited that is all they did the whole time we were at the park. 


One day Oak had a low grade fever for just the day. So we just snuggled and watched movies. And of course Frozen was watched. 


Oak came in early and got in bed with me after Daddy left for work. And to my surprise she fell back to sleep. 

She asked me to take a picture of her because she was comfy. She has gone three weeks now without her thumb. 


I caught this awesome picture of Oak when it was windy. Love that her hair looks like flames. 


The kids playing in the "yard". Thankfully we will at least have a small yard soon. 


A Saturday night treat as a family. Don't worry, I still don't like ice cream. I got sherbet, which I actually do like. 


School wise Mac has been doing some starfall games and he is actually learning alot in the math department. He actually really loves math. We need to work on the love reading part. He can totally read he just doesn't love it yet.

Sunday Gratitude...


I am grateful...

...for my Savior. To be able to reflect on his sacred last days on this earth before he gave the ultimate gift of eternal life. I grateful I am for that. 

...that we are moving soon and will have a little more space and that the kids will be able to be "kids" more. 

...for our Ward here. I went to our Relief Society birthday brunch yesterday and I just enjoyed so much spending the afternoon with some amazing women. 

...that we are so easily able to reread/listen to the General Conference talks from last week. I have so enjoyed that this week. 

...for the great day I had yesterday. For some reason I have been waking up in the morning an emotional basket case and very grumpy and yesterday just helped my heart so much. The kids were so well behaved, I was able to get a little me time, and we were able to enjoy time as a family. 

...that we still live close enough to our family that visiting them for holidays or just the weekend is feasible. 

...that K Falls is starting to turn green and for the cherry blossom trees blooming this week. So beautiful!

...that tax season is over in two days. yahoo!

...for the 13 years I have been able to spend with my love. Tomorrow is our anniversary!

Friday, April 11, 2014

Happenings...




---Tax season is about to end! YAY! Actually it hasn't been all that bad. With the firm being smaller than his previous employer, and Hubs being one of the "bosses" he isn't working more than his off busy season hours at his past jobs.

---Our 13th wedding anniversary is on Monday. I know that 13 is nothing compared to 50 but to us 13 sounds like a lot. We have been through a lot together and I am happy we have come through happy to still be together. Love my man!

---We will finally have the opportunity to get away together the week after Easter. I am so excited, it is so long over due. I seriously can't remember the last time we had a little get-a-way.

---Hubs is really enjoying his job and he admitted to me that he is even enjoying doing taxes which he has always hated. He comes home happy instead of frustrated and I am so glad that he has found that in his job.

---Hubs has also started to learn how to knit as to help keep himself from playing on being on his phone all the time. I think it is great. I might start doing it with him. I have been thinking about making some short term goals for myself to learn some new things.

---Homeschooling has been fine. We haven't been doing a lot of structured learning, most of it is on the fly but my kids are learning new things so I count that as a success. I believe Mac is at a first grade level for math (he seems to really love math) and he is more hesitant about reading, although he can read great. So we need to work on that a bit. I mostly work with him on little things here and there that I know he could work on.

---I finally got both the kids into a dentist for their cleanings and check up this week. They were supposed to go in December but with the chaos that never happened. A great thing is that we finally have dental insurance to cover preventive care for the kids (only). That has been super great. It was costing us about $1000 a year just for both of their check ups. Mac's check up was great. For some reason his teeth turn grayish over time no matter how much we brush. It has started to collect on his teeth as early as a week after having his teeth cleaned. It looks terrible but thankfully it doesn't do anything to his teeth and the hygienist is able to clean it all off. Dentist says his teeth look really healthy and we have made an appointment to get a sealant on a permanent molar. He also has a two year molar that has not emerged all the way and we may have to shovel out some money to get it looked at and possibly removed by a specialist. Oak rocked her appointment and she let them do everything they needed to. However she does have the start of a cavity between two molars. She doesn't need a filling but we do need to be more vigilant about flossing that spot.

---Oak has gone three weeks without sucking her thumb. So proud of her! I plan on doing a post about that.

---We unfortunately found out we are not able to get a loan to purchase a house for about another year or more. There is a some regulation or what ever it is called that says that if you are new business owner you have to have two years experience before you can buy a house. And technically Bryce is a new business owner. A little frustrating but we aren't devastated.

--With that being said we found a new place to rent. It is a town house with three bedrooms and attached two car garage and a small fenced in backyard. It has a lot more room and we will be able to unpack a majority of our things where living in this small apartment we have done without a lot of our things because we just don't have the space. Some bonuses is that there are a lot of children in the neighborhood and it is on a dead end street and the popular walking trail close by. We are excited! We will sign the lease and do a walk through next week but we are going out of town so we won't be moving until we get back.

---The weather has been so wonderful the last week. And the blossoming trees are out and the flowers are blooming and it is greening up just a bit around here. Love the sunshine.

---Last night Oak spent from 8pm to midnight crying off and on, with the majority of the time crying. It was rough. Hubs and I tag teamed it but I eventually had to let Hubs go to bed so he could get some good enough rest for work the next day. It started it out as a sore/canker sore in her mouth hurting and then it was like she thought she was dying or something. She had to have a throw up bowl because she assumed she was going to throw up and then she wanted a cold pack because she assumed her head would start hurting. And really she was just overly tired and had a hard time resting her body. She fell asleep a few times but kept waking up crying.  She really was fine health wise so I avoided giving her any medicine but by midnight I couldn't take it and thought maybe she was actually sicker than I thought and gave her some motrin. And with in minutes she actually communicated with me without crying for the first time in four hours. And so I made her a bed on the floor next to my side of the bed and she was asleep within 30 seconds and slept the whole night. She has been totally fine today however I have woke up in a grumpy, emotional mood.

---Mac lost another tooth! This would be his 5th. He lost one of his top, front ones. And I am so excited because the other one is loose so soon his grin will be so cute with those two missing front teeth.

---Oak has been very into doing my hair and wants to do it numerous times a day. She actually can even put my hair in a ponytail and can put her own hair in a ponytail. She also almost always is wearing her cape, crown and a glove (Queen Elsa) when we leaving the house to go anywhere. It is quite cute!

---I went to the YMCA yesterday and picked up papers to join and to sign the kids up for swim lessons. I am really excited because for our whole family to be members it will cost us less than $50 a month. And that includes free access to gym and there group classes and child watch while we are doing those. And we get a huge discount on the swim lessons.

Monday, April 7, 2014

The coast...

So when going home to my parents house, one of the things I wanted to do was go to the coast. I looked up the weather and it said that the best day weather wise was going to be wednesday. So thats what we did and the weather was so great. It was sunny, clear blue skies, about 55 degrees and just a light wind. I loved it, the kids loved and and it was so fun to go with my parents. I took some pics on my nice camera but I am too lazy to upload them. 









Mac ended up digging a super deep hole that was filling with water from the bottom. He was so proud of himself. 



Looking for shells. 



Writing his name in the sand. 

Mac drew this unicorn for Oak because she is a bit obsessed with them lately. 

Grandma and Grandpa

Oak just chillin. 

We attempted to go the this place but it was closed. 


It is too expensive to go to the aquarium (like $20 per person) so we ended up just going to the bay front. 


We were watching a couple ladies gutting fish and the kids were fascinated. 

As a happy medium we went to the undersea gardens. We stayed long enough so we could watch the scuba diver in the tank. 

And then of course ice cream afterwards before we headed home. 

It was so refreshing!