Future Home: Episode 3

Alright, Alright, I know that I have been an awful blogger lately. But I have a really good excuse. We have been really busy with planning when it comes to our house. Just this morning we have finalized our floor plans. Here in about 2 weeks or so we will have our official plans that I can take down to the city and get permits and then we will be ready to start breaking ground. Our most recent development in the house story is getting an address (not as easy as it sounds, especially when you have to deal with the wonderful bureaucracy that is the City of Aztec) and now we are working on putting in the water line to the property. We are going to start digging on that this weekend so stay tuned for pictures and I'm sure a story or two from that. Even though we haven't broken ground there has been a lot of red tape and planning that has had to take place first. So, we really have been working on the house we just don't have a whole lot to show for it yet. But I am really excited for the next few months. Things should start moving really quickly soon and then we will definitely have a lot to show for it now. I can't figure out how to post something from Adobe so that you can see our floor plan but as soon as I do I will definatly post it so that you can check it out.

Future Home: Episode 2

OUR HOUSE SOLD!!!!

We were getting frustrated and at times I thought it wouldn't happen but it finally did. Our house sold, finally. We got an offer and we were able to get from it what we said we wanted so we accepted. Now we pack! Luckily we have until August 31st to close. I have now about 4 weeks left to pack. I am excited and a little scared because we are setting off into the unknown but it will be so good for our family once it is all said and done. Bigger house, more land, and less debt...its a no brainer.

Swimming Lessons

The last 2 weeks have been filled with trips to Bloomfield and participating in swimming lessons. Joey did really well for his age. I am so proud of him. He should of been in "mom and tot" swimming lessons, but I really though he would be bored out of his mind. He is so accustomed to the water at his age, the basics of blowing bubbles and splashing would of been beneath him. I talked to a lady I know from church that teaches swimming lessons at her home. She usually doesn't take kids until they are 4 but Joey is very advanced for his age thanks to our hot tub. He did great, that kid is a natural swimmer. By the end of the 2 weeks he was swimming underwater, practicing his "swimming arms," kicking accross the width of the pool with a kick board and swimming with a noodle. I am so proud of him!

4th of July Weekend

First of all I want to apologize that I am posting this 3 weeks or so after the fact but I guess better late than never.

Our 4th of July weekend started on Wednesday the 2nd. The very first thing that we did as a family is buy some sparklers and pops for Joey. He had a lot of fun throwing the pops down and stepping on them. He couldn't quite throw them hard enough to make them pop so he ended up just stepping on them. That evening we had a few friends over and had a campfire in the backyard. We roasted marshmallow and let Joey use his sparklers.

Joey and his pops

Sparklers!!

Farmington does its annual fireworks show on the 3rd. We watched them at the church on College Blvd. We had a wonderful view of the fireworks from here. Joey had a lot of fun before and during the fireworks. We got there early so that we could get a good seat. While we were waiting, he played soccer with his dad and some other friends that were waiting as well. Aaron Rich's younger brother was there and he played with Joey and helped me a lot by puching Lillie around in the stroller when I needed a break. Lillie can't just sit still, come on that would be way too boring, she has to be kept entertained!

Lillie and Daddy

This picure is funny, looks like she's thinking "what the heck!!!"

She is such a happy baby girl

Joey and his Uncle Aaron

Joey is such a flirt, he decided he would not get off her lap. He started winking at her by the end of the night.

The next day we got up and headed to Durango. We had lunch with my parents, grandma and with my Aunt Lori and Uncle Rory and their kids. We then headed up to Cascade Village, where my parents rented out a townhouse for the evening for all of us to stay. It was really nice getting away with the family. It was kinda crazy and loud at time, 5 kids and 7 adults, but it was great being with family. That evening we went to Silverton Colorado where we got to watch fireworks again. Let me tell you, their firework show puts all other shows to shame. We seriously set directly underneath the fireworks and we had soot and ashes falling on us. About 20 feet away at one point we had a hot coal land. Silverton is in a valley formed by HUGE mountains and the echo from the fireworks was so loud and it just went on and on for minutes after a firework was shot off. At times, the people shooting them off would stop and the echo would continue. The amazing thing about this was that Lillie slept through the entire show! I have no clue how she did it but it was nice so we could just sit and watch. I had to find pictures off the internet of the fireworks because I was to occupied watching them to take the time and snap pictures of my own. The only downfall of watching these fireworks was that Silverton has one road leading in and 1 road leading out. There is 1 paved street in the whole town, and the school house holds k-8. There isn't even a high school, so as you can, tell Silverton is small. There were an estimated 15,000 people there. It took like what seemed forever to get out of there. The fireworkds were over at 10 PM and we jumped right into our car but we didn't get out of town until 11:15 and didn't make it back to Cascade until 12. CRAZY!!! We definatly wan't to go back and do it again next year. The drive (well actually we sat in a line of cars the majority of the time) stunk but it was way worth it because the fireworks are amazing.

This is the townhouses where we stayed

The view from our front door

Joey at the pool

Cali at the pool

What a handsome boy!

Sorry I had to post this, Jaci's diaper was so swollen because they forgot to bring her swimming diapers. FUNNY!

Rich and Joey's "Staycation" and other news

Remember those days as kids when I'm sure we all at one point or another camped out in our backyards? Well Joey had his first experience of backyard camping this last weekend. Rich had to go and make an apperance at Scout Camp. Joey wanted to go but Rich thought he might have to help with some of the activities so Joey had to stay at home with the girls, poor boy. Rich told him in an effort to make him happy and smooth things over that the upcoming weekend they could camp out in the backyard.

Any of you that know Joey well knows that he is brilliant. That kid is smart. Well, he didn't forget. He brought it up everyday so there was no getting out of it for Rich. Friday night rolled around so they set the tent up. Joey was so excited. He got to play with flashlights in the tent and enjoyed having good quality time with his daddy.

As for the rest of us, nothings new with me. I am excited because we got a new laptop so I am able to work on the blogs easier. I have really been working a lot on the mommy blog so hopefully we can get traffic increased to the blog so I can help contribute to the family more.

Lillie is just as sweet as ever. We have recently found out that she is lactose intollerant like Joey was as a toddler. It stinks because we had to switch her over to soy formula. Hopefully she will out grow it like Joey did. She is so close to crawling. I am just waiting for the day for her to take off crawling all over the place. I have started buying clothes for her in the next size up. I just bought her size 18month clothes and she is only 8 months old. I think that within a month we will be totally in that size. Its crazy that she is so big. Joey had his 3 year check up and he is between the 3rd and 4th percentile on weight and height and at last check Lillie is in the 60th for height and 90th for weight. We call her chuggers (combo of chubby and sugar).

The BIG Party

Last night we had Joey's 3rd birthday party. We had a great time. We invited my family and Rich's family plus a handful of friends. The theme of the party needs to be explained. Joey said he wanted a "fishing" party. The park with a pond we were going to reserve is booked through June. We decided we would try and do it here but I could find absolutly no fishing decorations. All I cood find was ocean stuff. I bought the ocean stuff and decided to call it "deep sea fishing." Joey approved. I am bummed because I didn't get any good pics of the decorations but looking at the other pictures you can see some of the decorations.

We had a great dinner. My mom cooked home made chilie and we cooked hot dogs on the grill and put out Fritos. People had chilie dogs or frito pie. I also made homemade rootbeer (if you want the recipe let me know). We also let the kids beat up a pinata!

"Hit it Joey hit it!"

I made the cake. Bottom tier was cherry coloda and top tier was key lime pie. YUMMO! Of course, like always I made way too much.

Being shy while being sang to

I called it, the artsy fartsy mosaic fish cake

As we were cutting and serving cake Joey and all the kids decided they wanted to open presents. I ran over to try and stop it from happening just yet but to no avail. I gave in and tried to snap some good pics but it was impossible. There were too many little kids crowded around and the sun was starting to set so there are some serious shadows. All that matters is that Joey had a great time!

Thanks to all that came! We love you and appreciate you!

Kamryn

Jayci

Ethan

Kyi

Quincy

The family

Future Home: Episode 1

As some of you might know, we are planning on selling our new home and builing a new one. First step in that process is complete and I am so excited and happy. The property has been officially deeded over to Rich and I and recorded at the clerks office. Our home is on the market and just this week alone has shown three times! Here are some pictures of the land where we are building. Its going to be up behind my parents house, so that will be awesome. We are super excited to be closer to them as I am sure Joey will love it. I will keep you all posted of any further developments.

The view from what will be our front door

Looking down to my parents house, the little play house was mine as a kid!

Pretty cactus in our future backyard

Sears Pictures

I just wanted to let you know that I took the kids to get some professional pictures taken at Sears. I didn't want to post all the pictures on here, its just too time consuming. Check out the link on the right to my web album. There you can see those pictuers plus others. Here just a sampling of a few of the pictures.

Happy Birthday Joey!!!

Joey is finally 3 years old! I can't believe how fast time flew by. I went birthday shopping for him on Saturday and I truly found myself holding back tears thinking that he technically isn't my little toddler anymore. He is taking being three years old very seriously. First thing he said when he woke up was "MOM, I'M THREE TODAY!!!" I thought it was cute.

After church we went up to my parents and had a small little "party." I don't know if I would even call it that but Joey did so, there ya go. We had cake and presents (from us and my parents) and Joey also insisted on having a few balloons. We found a few in the garage and blew them up. We just wanted to make his actual birthday fun and special for him. It ended up being really nice, low key and now chaos.

He was so excited to open his presents

One happy little 3 year old

"Oh a new trike!!"

My mom, made homemade fried chicken because his favorite meal is chicken and french fries. After dinner we let him open his presents from us and my parents. He was so excited. Its wonderful to see the happiness on a little kids face, expecially youre own and know that you put those smiles there. Gosh, I love that boy!! Anyway, this si the extent of his party until the 19th. We are having his official birthday blowout at our house on Friday. We invited the rest of the family and some of his friends from nursery at church. Check back later for those pictures, it will be fun. I'm doing a under the sea theme for that party.

Joey, blowing out his candles

Helping grandad put his new trike together

Waterguns are his new favorite toy!!

Anyways, hope you enjoy some pictures from his "real" birthday.















Happy Birthday Joey, Mommy and Daddy loves you very much!!

Haviland Lake

On Friday we went up to Haviland Lake, north of Durango, to go camping for the evening. Our good friends, Mark and Maria invited us to come and stay in their camper with them. I was very grateful they had a camper, because I am a big wimp and really didn't want to camp in a tent with Lillie. We had lots of fun! Joey was so excited to be able to go. He loves Mark and Maria and, loves camping. He is spoiled also the camping he knows is camping in a camper since my parents have had a camper his whole life.

We had dinner by the fire and roasted marshmallows. Rich and Joey went and played near the lake. We stayed nice and cozy in the camper that evening. Maria made us breakfast burritos the next morning.

Unfortunatly, the trip was over almost as soon as it started. Mark and Maria had to get back into town fairly early on Saturday so they could pick up their dog at the kennel.

All in all it was a great trip, short and sweet, but to be honest just the right length for me and Lillie.

Heres some pictures of us while we were there!

Lillie's first camping trip!

Eating dinner. I loved this shot of him in his hat.

He was so excited to build a fire

Joey and Mark

Lillie and Mark

"Finally, they let me roast marshmallows!

We told him he could load the marshmallows himself and he thought it would be a good idea to put on on each end, silly boy!

The fire was never big enough, he always wanted to "help" and add more

Me and my boy

All of us

I swear he was happy, he just has an ability to look grumpy in pictures, too funny!

Joey, helping again. He wanted to help use tools so bad, finally mark let him help take town the camper.