Summer's here

And we still don't have anything fun to do, according to Caleb. There are still no boys his age in this neighborhood. One of the reasons we moved was to get in to an area with more children. Well, we accomplished that, but they are either much older or younger or all girls. Poor kid, he never gets a break from the girls, until dad gets home from work.

We are done with the basement. It is so wonderful. Essentially, our house size is now doubled. We can now park in the garage because we were able to move all our junk downstairs. We sifted through it all, and all we have to take to the DI is a small pile. I was hoping I could relinquish a lot more of my C-R-A-P but I just can't throw most of it away. I guess I can do what most people do--hand on to it until I die and let my kids throw it away.

Eva's walking, Lauren's potty training, and Caleb is getting ready for second grade. I am so proud of my smart kids. They are wonderful. Even when they fight and cry and complain.

Update

We've been here about one month now. It's starting to feel like home. We accepted a bid for our basement to be finished. They are working on it today. The insulation is going in. I am so excited to have twice the house we have right now. It's going to have a wall of shelves and bookcases and a wet bar. Under the stairs will be a small play space. It has a small door and window, the light switch is down low for small people. But it is a small space. I first thought it would be the place to keep all the toys, but now I think it will be the place they will take their toys to play.

I can't decide where to hang all my pictures. It is a daunting task. I am kind of persnicketty about where and how pictures are hung, so they may not be going up in the super-near future.

Eva is growing like a weed. She crawls and pulls herself up to standing and moves around the furniture. She has just two teeth and loves candy. Of course I don't give her much of it, but she like to suck on licorice and bits of jelly beans. She is the smiliest baby! She is really happy, but only when I am holding her. Any other time, she wails and complains like she's been abandoned. Even with Daddy, sometimes.

We're IN!!

So, this is the story:

We had been malcontented with our house for a long time. Around Christmas in 2008 we investigated the possibility of moving and found that it would not be possible to make a step up on our present finances, so instead, we refinanced in March of 09. That was okay. By Thanksgiving 09, Clifton had the moving bug again and started looking on the realty website and found a home 5 minutes from his office. We called Kristen Price, our realtor, to set up a showing appointment and we loved it and made an offer. Long story short--it was a short sale and there was corruption all through the bank and the seller's realtor. After 3 months of not hearing anything we gave up and found the one we got after seeing dozens of awful houses. Meanwhile, right around Thanksgiving last year when we looked at the short sale, we thought we'd test the market and put our house up. It sold in two weeks. We were expecting to be in a new house while trying to sell our old one, paying 2 mortgages. Not so. We had to pack everything up and put it in storage and move to my parent's basement. We were there for almost two months.

Our house now is in West Jordan, 5124 West Pebblestone Circle (8700 S). It's not 5 minutes from work, more like 10-15, depending on traffic. But it's not 35 minutes like we used to be. It's 5 minutes from Jordan Landing, which means it's close to the municipal airport and the Nat'l Guard Armory. I hear helicoptors all the time, even as I write. It has an unfinished basement, so we are planning to get that done ASAP with some of our equity. We had enough to make 20% down and some left over which we are using to finish downstairs. It's around 2800 square ft. and it has a garage!!! We can't park in there yet, not until we can move the basement stuff out. It's a rambler, 3 bedrms up and 2 more down. Master bath and a common bath and one more down, walk in closet in my room (love it!!). The kitchen is not as storage friendly as I would like, but that just means I have too much junk.

We moved Caleb out of Orchard Elem. and into Majestic Elem. It's about 5 minutes from the first house we offered on. Whoops! That was jumping the gun a bit. We decided it was worth the sacrifice to drive him there for the rest of the school year just so he could have a little stability. When he starts 2nd grade we'll move him to Jordan Hills Elem. It's just through the neighborhood.

I think Lauren is handling the move the hardest. She is starting to have tantrums and act out a bit violently. I hope I can get things calm for her to start feeling equilibrium. Eva (nine mos. old today) has been sick a lot in the past month. Just colds, but it must be her way of dealing with it all. Clifton and I are overwhelmed. Moving sucks. This week is the Home and Garden Show at the South Towne Expo Center. That's where Clifton is now sitting at a booth for work. He is going out of his mind thinking of all the things he could be doing here to unpack. Oh well, the stuff's not going anywhere. Our 6 1/2 year old phone number didn't transfer as we'd hoped. So we have a new one: 801-280-8585.

Come out and visit!! We're not too far out of the way.

Live Here, Not There

So, we have given up on the house on Country Mill Ct. We think the bank that is working on the short sale wants to make the property go into foreclosure so they can collect mortgage insurance. Why they wouldn't approve someone to buy the house and get it off their books is a complete mystery to us. So, we went out looking again and found a rambler way out in West Jordan. The day before we found it the price had been reduced. It is a bank owned property, but is in really nice condition. The only (big) downside is the basement is unfinished. On the upside, we know how to do basements! I am so anxious to get in to a home of our own again.

This is a view of the kitchen from a lookout at the top of the stairs in the house we are trying to buy in West Jordan.

Colorful, isn't it?

These are the occasionally happy children dressed in their new Christmas clothes from Grandma.

This is one excited fairy princess on Christmas morning. This might have been the only time she wore those wings. We will unpack them later and see if she likes them better.

This is the daddy and baby experimenting with the new Christmas loot. Ain't they cute?

Terrible Twos and First Grade

Lauren is proving to be quite a crazy character. I think it really did start around the time Eva came home. She has a new self-defense mechanism. It goes like this: Scream "Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" as loud as you can if anyone gets near you or makes you do something you don't want to do. Scream it even louder if you are in a public place like church or a restaurant. I can see this is the start of some really interesting adventures for the "terrible twos." My dad has said a few times that he thinks she's going to be a tom-boy. She does like to get dirty and has this funny mischeivious laugh when she's doing something sneaky. This morning she got into the diaper bag, which used to be hers and is now shared with Eva, and got out a bulb syringe. I was nursing Eva at the time and couldn't retrieve it from her. I pleaded with her to put it back in the bag as she stuffed it up her nose. "Big booger, Mom (ah-choo)," she told me. This happened over and over, each time resulting in a huge and real sneeze. I know you shouldn't laugh at kids when you are trying to extinguish an unwanted behavior, or they will keep doing it for the attention, but I couldn't help myself. I haven't laughed so hard for a long time--maybe since we listened to Jim Gaffigan. So she just kept doing it with the same results which made me laugh more. Poor Eva was looking up at me probably wondering why I was making her meal so shaky.
Eva is doing really well these days. She sleeps four to six hour stretches at night, and depending on when her night starts, I only get up once, maybe twice in the night to feed her. That's good, because she's up for about an hour each time, which is a huge chunk of night that I could be asleep. Clifton hasn't been called on to help for a long time now. I hope he benefits from the full night's sleep he's getting. Eva is already about half a pound above her birth weight and growing visibly. Her cheeks are getting rounder and she's doing really well at trying to hold her head up when she's on my shoulder.
Caleb had his last day of kindergarten on Thursday. I can't believe it's over. I have a first grader now. He's reading and likes to think he's doing "big math." He's trying, anyhow, and he likes it. I'm not sure what he thinks about being in first grade in a month, though. He hasn't yet gotten too excited about eating lunch at school and being there all day. But he hasn't much choice in the matter if he doesn't like it. He's been such a big help to me since Eva was born, I don't know what I will do without him to help me during the day.
They grow up so quickly.
I will post a good picture soon.

On This Father's Day

I opted to stay home today. Clifton, Caleb, and Lauren went to Corinne to celebrate with Clifton's family. I didn't feel like taking my one and a half week old on a three hour drive. So, now with all the quiet in the house I have a moment to write a few lines in my much neglected blog.

So, do I share the gory details of Eva's arrival? OK...

I had my last doctor visit on Wednesday, June 10. Dr. Cannon and I decided to set an appointment for the next day to induce me. She felt like conditions were good for that, considering I was showing a few beginning signs of toxemia. I got home and by late afternoon I was starting to have more and more contractions that weren't relieved by walking or changing positions. Clifton was keeping track of the frequency by dinnertime. By the time the kids were in bed and we were relaxing I was at 3 minutes apart. I stayed that way the rest of the night. At 11:30 I called my parents to come and stay with the kids. We walked into the hospital at 12:30 am. I think it was within a couple of hours I got my epidural, then it was just waiting and waiting. They didn't want to break my water in the middle of the night. I think they didn't want to wake my doctor in the wee hours, so after a long night of mini naps and several ice chips they got the go-ahead to break the waters. This was around 6 am. That was also around the time my epidural bagan to wear off. I started feeling a lot of pain on my right side with every contraction. I would push the button for extra medication as often as it would let me, but no relief came. The anesthekasjdhot(Spelling) even gave me additional meds, but they didn't work. Oh well...I was pushing by 7:45 or so, and Eva was born at 7:57am. I felt like that was the closest I have ever come to experiencing natural childbirth. I don't recommend it. It hurts a little. But epidural or not, the results are still the same. You still have a beautiful child to snuggle and you still ache after the meds wear off.

She weighed 7lbs. 15 oz. And was 19 inches. It was funny to listen to the nurses guess how much they thought she weighed, "She can't be more than 7 pounds." "She must be around 7 and a half." They were surprised when she was nearly 8 pounds. I was too. She is the biggest baby I've had so far. The other two were in the 6 pound range.

So, she is gorgeous!! Caleb and Lauren adore her. Clifton is such a cute daddy with a tiny baby.

She's a good sleeper, a decent eater and doesn't cry too much. Recovery for me hasn't been horrible. The pain has been managed, I'm starting to get a little more sleep, and everyone has been very helpful. My mom spent daytimes here last week and helped around the house and kept the older kids alive. Clifton spelled me off during the night when Eva just wanted to be awake. The Relief Society in my ward kept us fed for a few days. And I feel like life may some day settle into it's new normalcy. I'm optimistic now...all I need is one bad night to make me feel like the world is caving in.

Well, I hear Eva grunting, signalling that she will wake up soon. I better post this with a picture or I will never get back to it.