This Thanksgiving We're Thankful for...

Baby number 3!! May 12, 2012

Sold the house

Yes, it's true. We finally got our house sold and are so happy about it! We are still living with my parents and are in the process of finding a new home somewhere in this valley. It was a little sad to see our finally completed, cleaned home go to someone else, but it was definitely a relief to be done with it and not have to worry about going out there to work on it anymore. Thank you to all who have helped us with it: projects, babysitting, cleaning, praying for us, etc. It was a great blessing. And as depressing as it was to get a lot less out of it than hoped for, we are constantly reminded that we did a lot better than many who lost their homes; so we are grateful. It was just an unfortunate time to buy and sell in this market. We are excited to move to a new home that is closer to Chad's work and to family and friends! What a great Thanksgiving gift for us.

Happy Halloween

 We carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening the week before Halloween. We're not big into carving pumpkins. I have to drag Chad to do it each year because he hates the smell and feel of the pumpkin guts...

 ...but Jayci loved them! She played with them for a long time. And Cody mostly just watched. Chad's always the designated pumpkin carver.

 We ended up with two very simple pumpkin faces, but the kids were satisfied.

 Here's princess Cinderella. She loves dressing up like princesses on a daily basis. Probably no different than most 4 year olds.

 I thought her hair was pretty in a bun. We tried to make her look as much like Cinderella as we could with what we had.

Halloween morning she had a Halloween party for preschool. She had lots of fun.

 And here's my cute little skeleton. I'm not a big fan of skeletons, but this one was adorable! It was so funny to watch him run around in the dark with just his bones showing his cute little toddler run.

 He wasn't always happy to be wearing it :)

 Not really a matching pair, but cute, nonetheless. We just wear what people will lend us. Cheap, I know, but we're all happy.

 We went to Leslie's work at Jet Blue and her co-workers were so nice to give my kids candy and rave about how cute they were. Here's a clown on stilts that Jayci was so scared of. She wouldn't look up at him. Cody was very intrigued.

It was such a fun Halloween. We did just a little trick-or-treating around my parents' neighborhood and my in-laws neighborhood. It was so fun to watch Cody. He loved everything about it. The lights, the pumpkins, the costumes, and of course... the CANDY! He put each piece in his mouth right when he got it. If you don't know my Cody, you should, he's hilarious.

Just everyday life...

 Cody loves bugs... and so does his dad. So Chad often finds bugs and brings them in for Cody. One day it was a cat spider. Fortunately, he didn't take it inside because those are some huge spiders! Chad carried it to the porch and was playing with it with Cody. I looked it up online because my parents, brother, and I were all creeped out, but Chad was right, they are harmless.

 If only we had a super quality camera like most of my siblings...nonetheless, Chad's photography is quite impressive. He likes taking pictures of the kids...

 ...and these are priceless.

 Here's Jayci jumping on the trampoline!

 One day we used some apples from my mom's tree and painted stars. They didn't work real great, but the kids still had fun.

 And the chocolate lover licking the spoon after making something chocolatey

House For Sale

What we've been up to all summer? Trying to get our house sold. We moved everything, but basic furniture, out at the end of June and moved into my parents so that we could finish up repairs and such. We got it looking really nice and got it on the market about a month ago, but only today did someone walk through it. Let's hope they buy it. I'm wondering if we should move back in, only we really don't want to be out in Tooele anymore, so I think we'll just stay here. Yes, we're paying our mortgage still, which seems like a waste, but I was just so lonely out there and am really enjoying the company of my family. Not to mention the awesome yard we get to play in. So I guess we'll stay here and hope it will sell quickly. If you know of anyone who wants to live in Tooele, I know a sweet place for sale. Send them here for a look! It's sad for me to go out there and have some awesome things recently added that we didn't get to enjoy, like: a new kitchen sink, a really nice, new AC unit, new paint in the basement, and most of all, grass in the backyard. They were just things we meant to get to, but kind of ran out of time, money, and motivation. So we finished them, and it's real nice. We're sad to be losing a bit compared to what we put into it, but I guess that's just what you get when you buy at the top of the market. At least we'll be buying low, right? That's what we're trying to make ourselves feel better about. We're hoping to move closer to Chad's work, which is in Murray. Anywhere from West Jordan, to Lehi, to Eagle Mountain or somewhere in between. Tooele just wasn't for us. We were always spending time around our families anyway. So that's the long story, and to sum it up WE JUST WANT OUR HOUSE TO SELL! Unfortunately we'll probably just have to keep lowering the price to have that happen. Pray for us!

Jayci's cute room that I will miss! Another new thing: the closet doors. We never had those and it makes the room look so much nicer!

Our practically empty bedroom. (again, new closet doors)

We finally got around to putting restore-a-finish on our kitchen cabinets and it made a world of a difference and was quite easy. I think with our next house I'll know how to do simple fix-ups that make a big difference. The question is, will I really do them?

Our sweet, big yard that we finally got looking nice and got all the cement removed out of. This part of the yard is just groomed weeds, with a little field grass, but right behind the house we got sod.

Our huge, beautiful garden that I'm still traveling to Tooele to weed.

I'll miss you, house and yard. We wish we could pick up our house and yard and move it somewhere else, we really loved it.

Oh What do you do in the Summertime?

This summer has been fun, despite the inconvenience of moving out of our house and into my parents' house. I've really enjoyed staying at my parents'. Lots more company and things to do around here and a sweet yard for the kids and me to play in.

Our newest purchase was this four-wheeler. Chad's wanted one for years and I finally gave in. He found it used on KSL and saved up enough to pay for it in cash, so I figured, what the heck. The kids love it, and I'll admit, so do I. It's been fun to ride around on in my parents' gully.

Here's Cody after being "painted" with mud by his big sister.

Cody's ready for a ride

The kids heading down for some fun in the gully

Having fun by the stream in the gully

Sometimes they really love each other!

so sweet

Cody loves to "cheese"!

playing dead

Jon and family came for a visit last month so we had fun with all 11 grandkids! It's always fun trying to get them all sitting for a picture :) Jon did a good job entertaining them with his crazy "cowboy dance".

We had fun at our Wakefield family reunion this summer. My aunt has this awesome 50 acres of property in Wyoming we spent a few days at. It was beautiful. Here's the lake one beautiful night. Chad tried his hand fly fishing in it, but no bites.

Jayci on a fun swing by the lake

They gave horse rides to the kids. Jayci was a little scared to get on, but enjoyed it once she did.

Cody's favorite part was climbing on the four wheelers and these machines (whatever you call them). We also got taken on rides on these which the kids loved.

This is the nice pavilion they built for such get-togethers. We had 100+ come this year. I love these reunions, they are so fun.

Cody loves bugs. Here he is playing with a daddy-long-leg in Tooele. He likes to carry spiders and bugs around and also loves to stomp on them till they're dead.

Here's Cody passed out in a walker. He likes to climb in this and walk around, and this is how I found him one day.

I guess moving it around in the carpet really wore him out.

Our cute kids hanging out together in our bed a few months ago.

Easter!

We had a very fun Easter this year; although, I have to admit that holidays are hard for me now that my kids spend the whole day eating candy. I'm trying to relax about it, but it stresses me out. Cody, especially, is OBSESSED with candy and has to have it if he sees it. So all day Saturday he spent the day eating more and more candy. But besides the whole candy thing, the holiday was great. I tried all month to talk, here and there, about the real meaning of Easter to Jayci, and we had a family home evening on it. It's fun to see her learning more about the gospel.

This was our Smith hunt Saturday night. It was fun to have it in the gulley with more spots to hide eggs.

Here's Cody eating some candy in the weeds. I didn't encourage him finding any eggs this time, it would just mean more candy.

Ren and Jayci ready for the hunt

This is Jayci's new favorite dress she wears every day that I let her. It was perfect for Easter. Just matched all the eggs.

I think this was the first year we dyed eggs with Jayci. She loved it. She and Cody were the only grandkids at Grandma's that night so she got to dye the whole batch by herself.

Cody started taking the eggs out of his bucket half-way through the hunt. He just wanted to find candy, not eggs.

Here's my little chocolate lover, scarfing down more candy! Everyone, but me, loved giving him more candy to eat because the look on his face was pure joy. (Does the candy thing bother anyone else, or is it just me?)

The Baxter egg hunt