Birthday for Hope and Ethan!

On December 15th Hope turned 4 and Ethan turned 1! What a year it has been and both the kids have grown so much! In the morning Grandma Forman took Hope to the movies to see Tangled and they even got popcorn. Hope is like her Daddy in that she is ALWAYS up for a show or movie. Ethan stayed at the house with Mommy and napped. Which I am sure he preferred. Grandma Christensen was so kind to offer her home for the birthday party since we were not in our new home yet.  It was great. We had both sides of the family there (at least those who were healthy and able to make it). We had homemade Chicken Alfredo, green salad, fruit salad, Jell-O salad and French bread. It was a feast. No one complained. Then the kids enjoyed sweet presents from our dear family. Even Bryce was able to enjoy a present as Grandma Cox felt pity on him and brought him a gift so he wouldn’t be left out. Sometimes I overdo things and end up regretting my decisions. That is how I felt about the cake. I wanted the kids to each have a cake since it was Ethan’s first birthday and for some odd reason I decided to make both of them. Hope wanted “Thunder Cake” which is a book about a cake that this girl makes with her Grandma to help her overcome her fear of Thunder. And at the end of the book is the recipe for the cake. Then for Ethan I did apple cake. Hope’s cake was overdone and Ethans was underdone. It was so much work. Next time I will buy a cake. It bothered me so much to serve less then perfect dessert, but neither the birthday kids nor anyone else complained. It was a great day and thanks to those who came it was very special and fun. 

Party for Heidi

What a week we had! We packed up our house, moved in with Grandma and Grandpa Forman on Thursday the 8th. On Friday Jared and I went back down to our little house and moved everything into a pod and then got the house spotless clean while the kids stayed up at the Formans. Saturday was a party for Heidi at their new house in Rohnert Park that I really wanted to be at. Jared was very fatigued but very sweet to agree to the four hour round trip drive with the kids. However, just as we have everything packed Jared realizes that my car won’t start. One of the kids had left the light on in the back and the car had sat for a few days so the battery died. It always happens when you need to be somewhere at a certain time. So, we got someone to come out and replace the battery and then headed to the party. As those close to us know, Daddy is an excellent driver, and makes great time on the road so we were not even late. We enjoyed a fun afternoon of food, cake and a walk to the park. It was all going so well. The kids were monkeys at the park and all smiles. Then we headed home. It was an awful ride home. The kids all fell asleep at six; which was too late for a nap and too early for bed. At seven we attempted to get them some fast food to wake them up a little bit with absolutely no success. And personally, we don’t even like fast food so we just threw it all away. There is nothing so inherently irritating like throwing money away. Once we hit Sacramento I realized that I needed formula so we had to stop again. It was a refresher course to why we don’t travel. When we made it back to Dean and Linda's house the kids were starving, of course, and they wanted to play. But we eventually got them in bed and felt satisfied that we had endured the difficulties to be with family.

Saturday Dec 4th

Today Hannah and Adam were sealed together forever in the Sacramento Temple. Only my family was able to be there and one of Hannah’s dear friends from school. It was a precious day. I remember when ten years ago they were just freshman in High School and they started calling each other on the phone. Through their years of dating, school, her starting to read scriptures with Adam and then last year being baptized it has been a treat to watch them. They are happy because they are together, spiritually, I mean. They believe the same things and have the same goals. She glowed in the temple. I felt the joy that I felt as a missionary when you see someone you love come into the fold. The sealing was beautiful and special. Hannah shed tears, a rare moment for her. Adam beamed. We felt the spirit unrestrained and the sealer was just perfect in the words he shared. We enjoyed taking some pictures together afterwards and lunch with the family. The kids had a great day, too. They were at Grandma and Grandpa Forman’s house doing gingerbread houses with the Forman Grandkids. Hope and Savannah sat and enjoyed placing each piece of candy on. Bryce apparently lasted 2 minutes and just dumped an entire bowl of candy on and said, “I done”.  They had lunch, visited, played and didn’t miss Mommy and Daddy one bit.

Swim Lessons

Just for fun, Hope and Bryce took indoor swim lessons in November. Since Bryce is under 3 years old a parent had to get in the pool with him. Bryce doesn’t really like water over his head and surprisingly the first or second class we all dunked heads. After that he just cried at the thought of going back. I was ok with that since I was the one that had to get in the water with him. We continued lessons with Hope and it was the HIGHLIGHT of her life for the short 4 weeks of class. She had a cute teacher and only 3 little girls in her class. To a little girl who has had 2 years of being the only girl in her church classes this was heaven to her. At the end she got a report card complete with stickers, hearts and stars so it was a really fun experience.

The Scoop

In mid September we became aware that the financing to build a house was not going to work. Surprisingly to us both, we were not devastated. We did still need a place with more space and desperately wanted a back yard. We felt impressed to look for a home in a particular area of Lincoln, the city where we already live. Jared called a realtor and explained what we wanted and the price range. He said that he had a house that he had not even listed yet that he felt fit our criteria exactly. We were going out of town for the weekend so we dropped the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa's house and then came back down the hill to Lincoln to take our first day of house hunting. We saw several houses, including the one the realtor thought met our criteria. In fact, it overwhelmingly met our criteria. The house had not been put on the market at that time but we committed to a full price offer that day. When we got back from our weekend getaway to Tahoe the house was listed and several offers came in. Jared expressed to the Realtor that we really wanted the house (I wanted the yard!) and we were willing to sweeten our offer enough to make it most appealing to the homeowners. Negotiations followed and soon enough we had the most appealing offer and it was sent to the bank. We then waited. We were told to keep looking for houses, but weren’t going to unless this house completely fell through. We just waited. October and November came. At the end of November we began to see progress and that it should work out. The family owning the home needed to relocate and had a move-out scheduled for the end of the year. Out of the blue we became aware of a family that we attend church with who desperately needed a little house to rent. It was perfect, except, they needed a house by December 15th and we wouldn’t be able to move into the new house by then. We took a leap of faith, asked Dean and Linda if they would mind the circus show moving in for a few weeks and rented our little house to this family in need.  We spent three weeks living with the Formans and enjoyed the holidays and attending church together. The kids were in heaven to see Grandma, Grandpa and Joe every day. I am sure the realtor worked very hard on this deal because the last week of December we signed papers at Title and the previous owners signed the day before they left. In fact, we were given keys to the house the day that the family moved out the last of their things. We had thought that we’d close by January 15th, but we were handed keys on December 30th. It was awesome. The following week we cleaned and moved in. It has been wonderful. We enjoy the space of the house. We love the yard! The kids are sleeping well and love their rooms. We feel so blessed. As if we were guided to be in this particular place for an unknown reason. It is such blessing from our Heavenly Father. 

things…..good things……..

This week, Tuesday November 16th, Ethan took his first steps! He was just 11 months and one day old.  What a big boy! He can take 4-5 steps on his own, balancing himself and loves it. We have a feeling that as soon as he figures out walking, he’ll be running and then we’ll be in trouble. He has a very cute obsession with Daddy right now. Last week I asked Jared to do an early morning feeding with Ethan so I could snooze in bed. That totally backfired on me because when Ethan saw Daddy he was ready to party and not interested in eating or sleeping anymore. I  rarely ask for helping during the sleeping hours, but I certainly won’t ask for help again!

Bryce on the other hand is being a big “Mama’s boy” right now. He is into everything, on top of everything, and some how ends up with some sort of head injury at least every 2 days. His face looks like a Crayola crayon picture sometimes. It’s nice that he is a happy, funny little guy. He loves to dance and tease. And cheer for his siblings. It is like he wants to be a big boy and not listen to me, be independent; however, at the same time he still wants to be held, snuggled, and always in sight of me.

And for an update on our sweet Hope. She calls herself the “little Mommy” and that I am the “big Mommy”. And she lets me know when I am needed, and when the “little Mommy” can take care of something.  She is the only one of the children that actually understands what a rule is and follows them (ok, most of the time) but loves to enforce them on others (mostly Bryce). Thank heaven’s for girls, because I often feel like “The little Red Hen”, and Hope is really stepping up to put in her share of helping.  She has always been socially reserved with people other then family and now is starting to open up and introduce herself and play with others her age. Our preschool group has been a good experience for her.

Goodbye October, Hello November.

It is great to end each year with fun holidays. We had a safe, and fun Halloween. We enjoyed a night of Trunk or Treat with the Formans at the Colfax ward. Hope was one of the kids voted for “cutest costume” although every kid there was adorable. Sunday morning I decided that we should finally carve a few pumpkins. Daddy was at a meeting and Ethan was asleep so Hope, Bryce and I attempted it. I cut my hand within 30 seconds trying to cut the top off. After I came back from getting it bandaged Hope said, “Mommy, I think that we should wait for Daddy. He is better at cutting pumpkins.” Turns out Daddy is awesome at carving pumpkins. We had the pumpkins hollowed out by the time Daddy came home and he did a great job carving out Jack-o-lantern faces on them. That was the first time in our marriage that we had ever carved pumpkins together so I didn’t know he was so good at it. So now we have bags of candy that we don’t know what to do with. I am the mean Mom who doesn’t want the kids to eat it all, doesn’t want to waste it by throwing it away, and is just not sure what to do. Perhaps they’ll forget about it being in the cupboard.