My Silly Kids in January

January was a busy month getting back into a routine after the holidays. It marked 5 months since the big move and we have still been working on getting settled into our new surroundings. January is always kind of a depressing month because the holidays are over and the weather is bad, but we tried to have some fun together. Here is our month in kind of a long post...

Hoyt really did enjoy the jumper but this day he was just too tired and fell asleep. But that didn't keep him from jumping in his sleep as you can see in the video.

Lexie got her parent's crazy-sleep-position genes and I thought this picture was so cute of her sleeping with Pooh and Kitty on the couch.

Lexie is always wanting to "hold" Hoyt, but he's getting a little too big now. He is really patient with her trying to mother him.

Here are some pictures of Hoyt getting to have a bath in the ducky tub. He loves to splash and I love his cute face and big blue eyes!

Lexie likes to dress up in her Halloween witch dress. I thought it was funny she put that on with her Christmas socks...in January. The other pictures are of the kids getting ready to head out of the house.

One of Lexie's favorite things to do is to go to Arctic Cirle to eat a hamburger and play on the slides. The Arctic Circle in Draper is the best fast food restaurant I have ever been to...not for the food necessarily (although they do have great ice cream), but for the amazing service and atmosphere; and it is always packed. They give complimentary small cones, bring your food and treat you like you are in a sit-down restauarant. Lexie loves the play place so we go there at least once a month.

Hoyt turned 8 months old this month. Time has really flown since he was born and we can't imagine our family without him. He is so easy going and is enjoying crawling everywhere allowing him to get into everything and harder for me to keep track of for sure! I decided to get some pictures of him in the rocking chair Grandpa and Grandma Lyman gave to us. Such a handsome little guy!

Hoyt finally grew out of his infant carseat and one day at Costco they were having a great deal on a convertable carseat just like Lexie's so we made the transition. The kids used the big box as their playhouse for a few weeks until it was completely destroyed. Sometimes I think toys are overrated when a box is the only toy kids need.

Here is my pretty Lexie girl all ready for church. These pictures kind of weirded me out because they look a lot like pictures of me when I was this age. When we got back from spending time with my family over the holidays, she decided after seeing Jen wear underwear and go potty she would too. So ever since then she has worn underwear. She's not completely trained yet, but getting there. She is a burst of energy and keeps us on our toes every single day. She stopped taking naps soon after we moved so she is up with me all day and is my little sidekick. We are still working on teaching her to share with her brother, but she loves him so much and can't wait for him to wake up and play with her every day.

Being a mom is definitely the best thing I have ever done with my life and I love these little munchkins more than anything in the world! It isn't always easy, especially when we all get sick (which has happened a lot recently), but always worth it!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!!! We are looking forward to 2011 and excited to see what it will bring for our family. We drove back home from being with family on New Year's Day. We all pretty much got sick over the holidays so it was a rough week between Christmas and New Year, but that's what happens with family togetherness. It was crazy getting everything packed into our car and turned out to be an interesting drive home. Lexie has gotten car sick several times in her short life, and for some reason she decided that particular drive would be a good time to get sick. Because of the trip, I had no clean laundry so the only thing I had to dress her in was one last pair of pajamas. We stopped and got her all cleaned up then kept driving. By the time we hit Provo we were starving so we decided to try and celebrate New Year's a little bit and we stopped at Los Hermanos for some yummy Mexican goodness. I only got a picture of Bryan and Lexie. I was behind the camera, and Hoyt was sleeping.

Lexie was really cracking us up because she LOVES the chips and salsa there. It is a little spicy, but she loves it anyway. This video of her eating it was hilarious because it was hot, but she just couldn't stop. I love what she does with her tongue. Silly girl! :)

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Reflections on a Crazy 2010

2011...already flying by at wharp speed! I am hoping this year is a lot less eventful than last year. I wanted to reflect a little on 2010 since blogging is the only "journaling" I have been able to do recently (I am trying to catch up).

Last year in January we found out we were having a baby boy. I was shocked because I just knew it was another girl. This probably sounds silly, but one reason I was stressed about having a boy is having to buy clothes for him since all I had was baby girl clothes. Then another stress came when we found out we needed to switch insurance plans and it was going to cost us thousands more to pay for the baby. Worth it? Yes! In our budget? No! But we set up a plan to use tax refund money and everything we could put in our HSA. So we spent the next few months preparing the best we could to welcome our little guy into our family. Lexie started nursery and I got taken out of nursery and made a VT Supervisor which was the perfect calling for my situation at the time. And for the first time since we joined that ward I finally started to feel accepted and like I was making friends. They say when you start to feel comfortable is when change comes. As if a new baby isn't change enough...right?!

So in May our little guy joined our family and we were so excited! He's perfect and so cute! The thing that frustrated me was that they knew he was at high risk for jaundice and instead of sending lights home with us, it got so bad that he was hospitalized. I wish Dr.'s would try to look out for patients, especially when it comes to cost...but that is a topic for another time. Adjusting to a new baby isn't always easy, especially learning to deal with physical, emotional, spiritual and temporal demands each new child brings. We were handling things pretty well, but we knew that we just weren't earning the income that would really allow us to get where we needed to be. (Or always pay all the monthly bills and groceries etc.) I strongly believe in staying home and not letting other people raise my kids so I knew we would have to look for other options for Bryan. He had been made financial promises at work that weren't kept because of the economy, but we didn't feel his job was in any danger. When the baby was just over a month old I started looking at possible job postings and there actually was a decent job at the university that I thought Bryan should apply for, but he didn't really want to do that because he felt unsettled already at his job and didn't want them to think he was trying to jump ship. The next Sunday we paid a significant amount of tithing and a larger-than-normal amount to fast offerings and prayed really hard for something to work out so we could provide for our family. That Thursday our baby turned 6 weeks old and Bryan went to work like any other day. At lunchtime he came in with a box of his things from work and told me he lost his job. There was no explination given just "You're job is no longer available" and "Pack up your stuff and leave." The situation was not handled well at all and was a huge blow to my sweet, sensitive husband. It's easy to think at first "How is this an answer to our prayers? We need a better income, but this gives us NO income". Then after a few hours of crying and being in shock we picked ourselves up and figured there must be something really great out there for us. Of course I expected there to be something in southern Utah so we could stay in our house, but Someone had other ideas.

The first 3 weeks we applied for many jobs. We also were trying to figure out options for our house because we started to feel like we would have to move to get a decent job. That created more frustration about the abrupt end to his job because we found out they could have done something to help us...if we still had income. So we just kept searching and finally the end of the 3rd week we started getting some calls. Bryan did some phone interviews for jobs in northern Utah, and they set up some in-person interviews for the next week so we headed north. Bryan ended up interviewing for about 5 different jobs and did about 8 interviews in 3 days. We headed up on Tuesday and by Friday he had an amazing job offer at ACS making more than double our previous income...but they wanted him to start the next Monday. So we headed home Saturday and Sunday night Bryan headed up to work for the week. That first week he stayed in a hotel and found us a condo to live in just over a mile from his office. The first 3 weeks Bryan worked Monday-Thursday then came home on weekends. I started trying to find someone to rent our house in Cedar. I went to visit some of my friends at SUU and one of them suggested someone she knew to rent from us so the next day he came to check it out. Within a week of getting a new job and finding a place to rent in Sandy, we had someone to rent our house. Everything worked out and we couldn't deny that it was meant to be!

Just 3 weeks after starting a new job, we packed up our entire house in one day (with help from only my parents and a couple of neighbors). We finally pulled out of town around 1 a.m. and had planned to drive the entire way that night because we had the EQ from our new ward all set up to help us move in the next day at noon. By the time we hit Fillmore we were falling asleep so we checked into a cheap hotel and slept for about 4 hours then hit the road and arrived in Sandy just as the EQ showed up. They got all of our belongings from the moving truck to our condo in only an hour...it was amazing! We are still trying to get everything organized and after downsized are trying to get rid of things we don't need. At least we know it is temporary and eventually we are hoping to get into a nice house. We love our new ward which has really helped with the transition. I am on the "Extra Relief Society Meetings Committee" and Bryan is an assistant Priest Quorum Advisor. Lexie really loves nursery and I think she has some of the best nursery leaders anywhere with a great weekly plan and the kids really respond. Hoyt enjoys going to RS with me and flirting with all the little girls around his age. Another thing I really like where we live up here is how close everything is to us. We have many options for shopping and recreation. We also get to see Bryan's family much more often which is nice for us and especially for our kids to be around their cousins. I do miss Cedar City where I lived for over 11 years, and I miss being close to my family. But we know this move was the right thing to do and are excited to see what the future holds for our little family.