Fun times, fun pics

Here's a brief update into our little life.

I love my little house!  It was so fun to decorate and put together and it makes me happy to see it everyday.  I love the space, the view, the animals and plants all around us that we get to enjoy.  One downside of having a small house is that its hard to host overnight guests because of our limited number of rooms and space. But we have had a lot of visitors already, which is fun.

I dream of getting chickens this year.  It may not come to pass, but it's so fun to plan for!  The kids would adore them.  I want an outside cat or two as well.  No inside pets, thank you very much.

We went to the temple today to enjoy the beautiful flowers and smells of blossoms.  Daddy's office is very nearby so he came to play too, which was so fun!  We had Oregon sunshine today, which means overcast, so the colors aren't spectacular.  Just imagine them with a bit more sunshine.  BTW, Thursday is supposed to be sunny and 75.  So fun!!!  We will be outside all day long, hooray!

We are taking a quick trip back to our hometown this weekend.  HH's brother and family will be in town and we haven't seen them for a couple of years.  And it's been five years since HH's parents have had all their children and grandchildren together, so this will be a special weekend for them.  Sadly, I will miss my sister from Montana; she will be in my stomping grounds while we are away, but I don't feel too badly about it since we went out to Montana to see them twice last year.  Still, it's a bummer to miss them.

Enjoy the pics!

 There was a hummingbird in this tree, but I didn't capture it with my camera.

Aren't they all so cute?

 Little Man was very proud of his sucker in the air pose.  Middle Sis looks cool and mysterious.

 

 Little Man has taken naps the past two days, which is so strange.  He hasn't napped in a loong time, unless he's been sick.  Maybe he's growing a lot.

The new house

Hello again and greetings from a mostly unpacked and put-together Hazelnut House.  Having been here for a month now, we are settling in to our new surroundings.  The inside of the house has come together nicely - amazing what fun paint colors can do - but the outside is a bit overwhelming.  We don't have a lawn, but rather a field that's quite uneven, but still fun to play on.  Just be careful of your footing.  Little Sis has a hard time walking around on her little legs, but she'll only get bigger and stronger as time goes on.  There are vole/mole holes all around, as well as blackberry starts, those buggers.  I wanted to get some goats to control the blackberries AND get our own milk, but alas, I don't think that dream will come to pass for another year.  Because we have coyotes around, we would need a secure stable and fenced area for said goats, and seeing as we are trying to save money for a house, we don't want to put any unnecessary money into this one.  I still hope to have chickens eventually; we'll see if it happens.  Again, because of predatory animals, we need a good, secure place for the chickens.  I know we would love them if we had them.  I'm wondering if we need an outside cat or two to control for mice.  So far, no problem.  Thankfully our nearest neighbors have a very friendly dog who likes to come over and play with the kids, so we get our animal fix there.  I'm all about having outside pets, but no inside ones, thank you very much.  Having a gravel road and driveway along with a lack of a proper lawn makes it hard to control the dirt in the house, but been raised the way I was, I've come up with a good system and the kids are great about following it.  Thankfully we have a big-ish entry way, which is often has a dirty floor, but oh well.  If it stays there, I can deal with it.

We love the big, open feel of our house, with large windows facing east and west.  We've had almost daily beautiful sunrises, and the view of Mt. Hood is so pretty, if you're looking out the right window.  The kids found a great climbing tree before we even moved in, the trampoline is up, and the play structure will be soon.  I've started playing catch with the kids, which is really fun and cute. Their little hands can't quite get the mitts to close around the baseball, but they do their darndest.  And HH is hard at work in the yard everyday, trying to make some head way on a yard that was maintained by a 80-90 year old single man for ten years.  Yikes.  There was garbage strewn about the entire yard when we first moved in.  There is SO much work to be done, but it will be fun to do it bit by bit.  It's hard for me to find extra energy for anything like that, I'm so tired all the time.  But I can do an hour at most everyday and every little bit helps.

I am so, so thankful that rain has returned to us once again.  It has been such a dry, warm winter, the earth feels happy to be wet again.  Holy cow, we had some serious wind today!  The girls were so cute, running out to play in it.  Big Sis is much like me, or how I used to be, wanting to go outside and feel things.  Once upon a time before marriage and kids I got to go to Prince Edward Island for an ultimate girl adventure.  One morning while out on a walk on my own I stepped out onto the red rocks over-looking the ocean and the wind just blasted me.  I had to lean into it full tilt to not be swept away.  I hope I always remember that.  I felt alive and full and powerful yet very weak, if that makes any sense.  The wind today was quite exhilarating too, but not as romantic as being on red rock on Prince Edward Island over looking the ocean.  :)

By the way, living on an acre is so fun!  The kids played outside for hours on Friday.  Daily baths might need to become a thing here because they get so dirty.  When I go down into the neighborhoods and see the houses so close together, I don't know that I'll ever be able to go back.  When the time comes to buy a house, I hope we can find an acre or two of our own, and enough money to pay for it. :)

Have a great week! 

Hazelnut House

Have I mentioned that the name of our new home is Hazelnut House?  We are having an unseasonably dry and warm winter, which worries me a bit, but more on that later.  Because we have early church (yay!) and the afternoon was fine, we went up to see the house in daylight as I try to pick out paint colors.  The property is on a full acre and the kids are in heaven.  The ground is very lumpy and will require a LOT of work.  We'll see what we can make of it without putting much money into it.  We are still renters after all.  But they found a large gravel pile and a fun tree to climb which entertained them for quite some time.  I look forward to being mostly unpacked, the play structure up, and getting our hands dirty in improving the property.  Lots of work to do over the next month, but we are so grateful to have this opportunity to live on property AND save money. Hooray!  I'll bring the camera to the house this week so you can see our new pad.

Back to the lack of rain.  I worry when the weather does unusual things, especially when there isn't as much moisture as there should be.  Usually winter is dreary and rainy, but this winter has been so dry and warm.  Bad news for the snow pack, which in many areas in only 20% of what it should be.  So if you're a praying person, please pray for more precipitation and specifically more snowpack in the mountains.  Thanks!

Middle Sis party

It is eight days before her birthday, but a good day to party with the cuzzies, thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  She requested a Frozen party, which was odd to me because we don't even own the movie and she's not very into Frozen, but it was fun all the same. I found a link to some no-sew Elsa capes that was supposed to allow the girls to be creative and cut their own snowflakes, but our little scissors weren't up to the task, so the oldest cousin and moms ended up making snowflakes instead. Oh well.   Other activities included knocking over the tower of cups with "snowballs,"  and pinning the carrot on Olaf's face.  My wonderfully talented niece - who also painted our family tree - made the poster of Olaf with carrot noses included, and she made the prettiest snowflakes for the girls' capes.  Hooray for artistically talented people!  I am not one of them.  Enjoy the pics.

How cute is this guy?

All the girls minus one posing with their crowns and capes.

The coveted present-opening time.

Here Middle  Sis is wearing her sister's fake glasses.

Now she has her own!  I love their obsession with glasses.

Donning her new glasses.

All right, that cousin in front is MUCH cuter than this picture shows, but I got a good laugh when I first saw it, Amy. 

The artistic and talented niece, Bean.

Seth and the boys.

My fabulously helpful sisters eating their well-deserved ice cream.

A finished cape.  Cute, no? 

If you want to see quality pictures of well-done capes, go here.   Even if you don't want to make Elsa capes, I wish I had this tutorial for when I made capes for my kids this past Christmas.  It is so easy to make a good pattern for their little bodies following her cape instructions. 

Apparently no one cares that we're having another girl. 

We are getting excited to move!  I've packing up the house slowly yet surely, and thank you to many friends for having my kids over to play.  Next week we will go pick paint colors so we can paint before moving in.  This method will be so much easier, rather than painting when we're already living in the house. The house owners are so nice and accommodating.  We feel very, very lucky to move into this place.  And sorry if I mentioned it before, but I found a free play structure on craigslist, hooray!  Since we won't have the park with the playground right behind our house anymore, I am very excited to have one of these of our own. 

The results are in!

Okay, we've known baby's gender since Wednesday when we had our ultrasound.  Let me hold you in suspense for a moment while I set the stage. 

I have felt since pregnant with Little Sis that another boy would be coming to our family. HH was not excited to have another baby, and since Little Sis was only a little over a year, I was fine not talking about it for at least another year myself.  No rush, no pressure.

While in the kitchen one day I felt the Holy Ghost telling me there was heavenly instruction waiting for my listening ears, so I got down on my knees right there and opened the line of communication.  The instruction was that we were to have another baby, it would be a boy, and I was even told what to name the baby.  Wow.  "Okay," I said, "my husband won't be terribly excited, but he's an obedient man so we'll do it."  As a couple, we have the amazing ability to get pregnant whenever we want to, so whatever number of weeks later I find I am expecting baby #5.  Little Sis in only 14 months old at this point in the story, making children #4 and 5 a destined 23 months apart.  All righty, I'm done having kids at 32 I guess.  Sounds good to me!

Weeks go by, I get bigger, tummy starts showing, I finally have my ultrasound at 21 weeks, when the good insurance coverage kicks in.  HH came with me, of course, but stepped out of the waiting room to grab a bite to eat before we were called back to get the ultrasound.  Poor man hadn't eaten all morning, and he was up and at them early.  The ultrasound tech calls me back while HH is still getting food, so we go back to the room and get started.  Good ol' American efficiency for you.  She asks if we want to know the gender and I say yes please.  The warm goop is barely on my tummy with her magic wand looking through my innards to the little life inside of me and she declares, "It's a girl!"  Excuse me?  This lady has been doing this for years, so I don't doubt her capability and know-how in the least.  I was mentally and emotionally knocked off my feet, and HH is still getting his food.  The tech declares, "We won't tell him yet," and goes through the routine.  He comes in a few minutes later, banana in hand, and we all settle down to watch the grainy black and white screen show me all sorts of angles and organs and other amazing things about my baby.  I can see the four chambers of it's her heart for Pete's sake, but I am detached and still reeling from my most current "revelation" on the gender of our baby. 

As one bro-in-law of mine would say, "What the junk?"  The day was hard for me.  Am I really that bad at receiving personal revelation?  Is heaven deceiving me or playing a trick on me?  I certainly would not provide my own revelation with such detail when I wasn't looking to get pregnant again so soon.  I feel awful telling you this, but as HH and I were heading down in the elevator I actually said, "I don't want another girl."  Oh, the look he gave me.  It was just that for the last four months I was so excited for Little Man to have a brother who was not too much younger than he.  I adore my Little Man (as I do my girls), and wanted a bit more male energy in the house.  They were going to share a room in the small house we are moving into.  I was going to pass all the clothes on to him.  It was all perfect! 

As the day wore on, I prayed many times for peace and understanding.  Some peace came, not much understanding, but I am happy now to have another girl.  It just took me about five hours to acclimate to the idea of it.  I am a fourth daughter, a somewhat unwanted one as well, so I will know a bit of what this little daughter of ours will experience.  (Amy and Marisa, I say "unwanted" tongue in cheek because in Marisa's baby book Mom wrote that after Marisa arrived, one of our parents said to the other, "Well, maybe next time," indicating they were hoping to have a boy.  Instead they got me.) 

There is a 5% sliver of hope that the ultrasound was incorrect and that she is really a he, but it was very clear that no manhood was lurking in the necessary vicinity.  Those views were wide open. 

And so we consider names for our little girl whom we love.  Sariah and Diana are two that I'm considering.  We won't pick a name until after she is born.  I usually like to see my babies before naming them.  Ha!  We didn't choose Middle Sis's name until they brought us the paperwork and we had to choose.  Good times, good times. 

Move 'em on out

We are moving again, can you believe it?  I hardly can.  We weren't looking to move out of our current residence, and there are a  lot of great things about this place: an over-sized two-car garage, a fenced yard, a nice little neighborhood, a really great park right behind our house, which also means no houses behind us, just to the side, and a great school to go to.  But an opportunity arose to move to a one-acre lot.  How could we refuse?!?  It will also be lower rent and cheaper utilities, thus enabling us to finally save up to buy a house!  Hopefully it will be for only two year, as it's still a three-bedroom home with smaller bedrooms, but we are excited to live on property and have a beautiful view of our mountain.  We move early next month, and I look forward to planting a big garden with lots of berry plants too.  There's a lot of improvement to be made in the yard.  For example, there are no perennials that I'm aware of, and there are big, ugly juniper bushes all along the front of the house.  Sadly, there isn't a garage, but happily there is a HUGE carport and a shipping container of all things with plenty of storage space, so we don't need to buy a storage shed, hooray!!!  I'm excited to put the trampoline underneath the carport so the kids can jump year-round without being in the rain. 

The biggest downside is the lack of walk-in closet, which has been wonderful to have while living here because the crib fits in the closet and a closet makes the best little bedroom for a baby, nice and dark and quite.  We don't quite know what we'll do with coming baby yet.  Maybe roll the crib into the bathroom (which has double doors) during the night so it's not in the same room.  Hopefully that will work, and thank goodness for double doors and a crib with wheels if it does. 

Another downside is the lack of concrete or asphalt for the driveway; it's all gravel.  The kids can still ride their bikes, but we will have to take our scooters elsewhere if we want to ride those.  The lack of concrete also makes it dirty!  The entire house is laminate though, so I can get it really clean.  I see much mopping in my future.

I will really miss our current master bathroom and bedroom.  The bedroom is the perfect size, large but not overly large.  The bathroom here has a double vanity with the toilet and shower in it's own separate room, and then the walk-in closet.  The master bathroom in the new house is lame, in my opinion.  I think it was designed for someone who might use a walker.  It has a soaker tub with jets, which I care nothing about.  HH is really excited about it, so I'm happy for him.  I think they're a big waste of space.  The bathroom is one big room, with a double vanity, a small closet area, and the toilet, shower and tub.  Eww.  Not even a separate room for the toilet.  Oh well.  I live in luxury and convenience so I will try not to complain.  I just would rather have a walk-in closet than a soaking tub. 

The kids are excited to move, except for Big Sis, who is rarely excited about change.  Big Sis already gave the home a name: Hazelnut House, because there is a hazelnut grove right next to us.  Thankfully we don't change schools or wards, so that will make the transition easier for the big girls.  We have lots of ideas for improving the place like clearing out blackberries (if that's possible) and seeding the big side yard, building a fire pit, etc.  I just missed a free play structure on craigslist, so if you or someone you know is getting rid of a play structure for cheap, let me know! 

Hopefully I will take and post pictures soon, but no promises.  You know me too well for that.