Christmas clothes

Love Noah's smile in this one!

And I love Easten's smile in this one!
I hate trying to do pictures right before church, because we are always in such a mad rush to get ready. But we were able to get a few shots in. Unfortuately Bella was having a nap, and I have rules about waking her up before she is ready-she gets pretty cranky. They looked really cute though and I just love them.

Christmas day 2010

Christmas was a little different this year. This was the first year that we celebrated Christmas in our own home. Even when we were living in Las Cruces, we would always come here for Christmas and stay with Wesley's parents. So this year we were able to stay at our own home to open presents. Really enjoyed it. The kids all had a good Christmas, except for Easten who had strep on Christmas and couldn't really go to many of the family functions. So grateful for my family and my Savior.

Abbie's Christmas concert

Abbie had her Christmas concert today. It lasted for about 10 mins and half the songs they sang weren't Christmas songs, which I thought was weird. They did a great job though and looked like they were having fun.

Turkey Bowl

Abbie got to play in the Turkey Bowl this year-it's flag football between the 2nd and 3rd grade. She had fun but it was freezing outside and she had left her coat inside. Brrrrrr. Then both teams got to have a pizza party after. Not sure if I'll let her play next year or not- it's really more for boys.

This is Abbie's cousin Colton-he was on the opposite team.

Easten's Birthday and more catch up

My little Easten turned 5 in October. We had a small party with just family for him with a 'Cars' theme and he just loved it. We let him open his presents from us in the morning and had the party at night. (The pictures are all out of order) Easten is a sweet mama's boy. He loves to gives hugs and he will let me hug on him. He had a bad case of the terrible 3's and 4's but he has really sweetened up the past 6 months and is not quite as stubborn as he used to be. He loves going to pre-school and he loves Ms. Ida, his teacher. He is my Easten Wovey (Lovey). I started calling him that when he was born and he pronounces it Wovey. He and Noah are like twins expect Noah is about a head shorter than Easten. They love each other and are best friends, it will be so nice having them a grade apart in school. It won't be so good when they go on their missions though, they won't see each other for 3 1/2-4 years. Happy Birthday Easten, we love you.

In other news, I have started working. I have struggled with deciding to go work for a long time. I had a couple job offers from the hospital, but they wanted me to work full time and I cannot be away from my kids that much. I know it's only 3 days a week but it's 3 long days. I leave before my kids get up and get home at bedtime. Plus the hospital was not willing to work around Wes' schedule, so we could possibly be working at the same times. Who is going to watch my kids? I don't do babysitters, unless it's just to watch the kids while we go out or something. I don't have to work, so if I had to get a babysitter so that I could work I wouldn't do it. Anyway, in summary, the hospital was not going to work out.

So I applied to one of the home health places in town and I told them I wanted extreme part time and what the situation was with Wes and the kids and they were willing to work with me. So I work 2-8 hour days a week and that's all and they pay me good money to do it. It has worked out really well and I'm so grateful that they are willing to work with me.

We finally got around to setting the internet up the other day and I decided I should probably update my blog. So keep scrolling down, there is more. Hope everyone is doing well.

A whole lot of catching up

I know I haven't updated my blog for a while, time is going by so fast and I feel like there is just never enough of it. We've had quite a few changes in the last few months. For starters we finally closed on our house at the end of August, YAY!!!!!!!! The whole process was such a nightmare and it drug on and on for months.

First off we were going to build a house in Harper Valley so we were trying to find a good sized lot to actually put a house on that would fit our family. If you look in Harper Valley right now at the empty lots, they are really small and awkward shaped and expensive. I have never designed a floor plan before-it's not really easy and the one we wanted would make it to where we would not have had much of a backyard at all. Things were not coming together very well and the house we wanted to build was just going to cost a lot for something that we weren't overly thrilled about.

So frustrated, and still living with Wes' parents we started looking for a house again. In May Wes went and talked to Mark Duncan to see if he knew of any houses for sale in the area. That was a good day, he knew of a house in Harper Valley that was a 'For Sale by Owner' and had just became available. It was built in 1984 and had not been well taken care of by previous renters. So we contacted the owner and we took a tour. I think my mouth fell open when we walked in the door. The inside was trashed, the flooring was all taken out, the walls looked like they had not been painted for years and there were the ugliest, dirtiest pink curtains in the living room. The owner had renters for a while that did not take care of things. He knew it was trashed and he insisted on selling it "as is." So we went out to the backyard and it was huge, one of the biggest lots I've seen down here and he gave us a price. I think my mouth fell open again, his price was so low, and we were able to talk him down even lower. He was just wanting to get rid of it and not deal with renters anymore.

So we prayed about it and decided that we could really fix this place up because we were anticipating a house that was going to cost a whole lot more and the lot size was exactly what we wanted. We decided to talk to our mortgage company to get things rolling and have it appraised. This is when the headache really began. The appraisal took about 3 weeks to complete and come back to us, it's a very frustrating process. Then on top of that the bank would not give us a loan for the house in "as is" condition. There had to be flooring and the walls had to be painted. Well that was fine but the house was not officially ours yet and the owner said he did not have the money to fix it up.

After thinking about it we decided to take the plunge and hope that they would give us the loan after we put a lot of money into fixing it up. It took about 1 1/2 months to finish everything and then the bank said we had to have it reappraised again and yes it took another 3 weeks to get back to us. About to lose my mind and I'm sure my inlaws were about to lose theirs we finally got word back that we were approved for the loan and because of all the trouble the owner came down on the price another$5000 which was absolutely amazing. So we closed at the end of August and we moved in.

So after 7 years of living in the NMSU campus housing and 1 year living with the in-laws, we finally have our own home and I absolutely love it. I love having my own space again and the house looks 100% better on the inside. I wish I would've taken pictures of the inside before we started renovating, you wouldn't even know it's the same house. So we'll start fixing up the outside next year and eventually add on. But we are so excited about it and know that Heavenly Father knew our needs and blessed us with and incredible house that we got for a sweet deal. Thanks to all of those who helped us in any way, we appreciate all of you.

Halloween

Random cuteness!!!

First day of second grade 8-16-10

Little Abbie is in second grade. She is getting so big. This girl LOVES school and so does her mom, if it were up to her she would never have a day off. She is very smart and tries really hard. She made strait A's last year with very little help from her parents (cuz she didn't need it). I'm glad that she loves to excel and I hope she always wants to do her best. She really likes Ms. Begay, her new teacher, she really gets along with everybody. She is a sweet girl.

24th of July celebration

She was quite upset that she didn't get to ride on the float.

Random update

I see that I haven't updated my blog for a while, not that we haven't been doing a whole lot but I'm just not much of a blogger these days. We just got back from Silverton, CO yesterday after camping and watching the fireworks-it was fun, WAIT-it was camping. Camping is hard with four kids under the age of 7. But we took the pop-up and made the best of it. The kids had a blast of course cuz they love to 4-wheel and fish and all that. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures cuz I forgot my camera. We had a good time with the Warner fam though.

Went and saw Eclipse last week-loved it of course especially the part where he officially proposes to her, so cute. My sis-in-law Kym and I went and we ate at Blue Moon Diner first which I absolutely love. It was a fun kid-free night and Kym won't have many more of those nights. :)

Speaking of child rearing, there are a lot of people prego right now. Bella is at about the age my babies are when I think about having another one. I cringe at the thought. I think having the 4th kid has almost pushed me over the edge. So sadly, I am pretty sure we are done having kids. I love all of them but I think it's time to throw in the towel. Everyone else can go right ahead and I will love your babies and play with them and then I will hand them back to you with a smile.

In other news, my sweetie turned the big 3-0 on the 2nd. Happy Bday babe. I just love him. We have so many things in common it's scary. I might have to make a list of everything.

I would be fine with Wes turning 30 but it reminds me that in less than a month I will also be leaving my 20's. I am having a really hard time with this. 30 is old to me. I have lines under my eyes that weren't there before, I weigh a whole lot more than I used to......shall I go on??????? No, it's not a pretty picture. That reminds me, I have been doing the body combat and body pump classes at Defined Fitness-LOVE THEM!!! They are hard but so much fun.

Moving on, literally, we are trying really hard to close on our house soon-we've had a few barriers but things are looking up and hopefully we will be the proud owners of one of the houses in Harper Valley. It's an older house that needs lots of work but it has a huge backyard and we are so excited about it. So hopefully everything will go through.

Anyway that's what we are doing right now. Lots of randomness and no pictures, sorry.

8 years

May 28th was our 8 year anniversary, yes I am a blogger slacker. Time has really flown by. Wes is an amazing person and I just think he is so cute. Can't believe the time has gone by so fast and that we have a 7 year old already. I am truly blessed with the family that I have.

So for our anniversary we went to Red Lobster. I LOVE crab legs, but I'd never tried them until after Wes and I got married because I could never get used to the idea of breaking their legs. But I'm ok with that now-cuz they are good. Then we went and watched the new Robin Hood movie which was also pretty good. We had a very nice, kid free, date. Love u sweetie!!!!!!!

Fun in the orchard