Fun Fall Activities

Fall is here and it is one of my favorite seasons.  I love the cool weather and the falling leaves.  I wasn't too big on the snow that came the other day but tis the season.

One of our favorite activities in the fall is to go on the Pumpkin Walk.  The kids enjoy all the neat displays and of course they love to take pictures.  We have a bunch of pictures but these are a few of my favorites.

 They are all so cute in this Clifford picture.

 I thought Jacob looked so cute as Harry Potter.

 Matthew insisted on getting in the princess ones.  I am going to haunt him when he is a teenager with all these photos!

 This is the Matthew I love to see.

 Of course Kimmy makes a beautiful princess.

 Jacob as Mickey... priceless

 All happy faces.

 One of our other favorite activities is our annual pumpkin carving night.  In ourder are Dads, Jacobs, Matthews, Moms, annd Kimberlys.  Granted Daddy does most of the carving but the kids (even Jacob) tell him what they would like.

Our cute new house decorated for Halloween.  I just cant wait for the next couple of holidays in our new house.

Our new toy

Look at our fun new toy.  Thanks Grammie and Grampie for this fun swingset and helping put it together!

Aggie Homecoming Parade

 The Aggie Marching Band -- My friend Tanner is in here.

 This is Tanner.  Love this kid!

 Kimmy in the LaShars float in the parade.

 Kimberly and Ashlie doing their cheers.

Isn't she cute!

Bye old house, Hello new house

It finally happened... we moved.  And now I finally have a few minutes to talk about it.

I was planning on being so prepared... boxes organized and packed, house completely cleaned, etc.   Well I wasn't quite there when we finally got around to moving.  We were delayed about a week for circumstances beyond our control so I had an extra week to get ready.  But the day came and I still had a few more things to pack in the kitchen and bathroom.  It took me a few extra days to clean up the house.  Whew it was exhausting.  Plus we were homeless for like 5 days so that was a bit stressful.  We stayed with Brian's parents for a couple of the days and then we camped at a hotel for the rest of the days.  It did give us a chance to sit in a hot tub and relax the muscles which was nice.

 Here are the kids saying bye to the old house.  This was one of our last days there cleaning.

 So cute and happy.

So the day finally came to move into the house.  Completely crazy day trying to move everything into the garage, backyard, or house in just a few hours of daylight, plus girl scouts, and dance.  Man it was rough.  Thankfully Brian had beds up and made for the night so we had something to sleep on.

It has been a couple weeks now and we are finally starting to feel like we live here instead of living out of boxes.  We have a few projects to work on but we are excited to work on them.

 This is a view from my front porch.  I love this view.

 Close up of those beautiful Wellsville Mountains.

 Here are the kids at our new house.

Happy kids.

So glad to be in Millville at a place we can call home.

Fall 2012

We love to go and look at leaves changing in the fall.  We decided to venture up the mountains on Monday to see what has already changed.  It was extremely smoky in the valley so we hoped to get out of it a bit but it was just as bad in the mountains (see picture below).  We have made it an annual tradition to take pictures of the children in the changing leaves.  I love to see the colors up against them.  We had fun getting dirty and taking a break from our packing.

 As you can see, some leaves have changed but the smoke was still bad here.

 Matthew with his goofy grin.

 Jacob (focusing too much on me and made his eyes silly)

 Pretty Kimberly.  I love her long hair.

 Jacob in the trees (we always put the baby up in the trees and snap a picture)

 Our cuties!

 Matthew and his rocks.  This kid is all boy and loves to throw rocks.

 Kimmy's version of posing with rocks (literally).  She does love to throw the rocks too.

 Jacob had to join in posing with rocks.  And yes he loves to throw them too.

My handsome hubby.  I had to...  :-)

MOVING!

So it finally happened... we sold our home and have found a home in Millville.  It is crazy how all this has come about.  It all started a couple years ago we decided to put our house up for sale by owner.  We were hoping someone would love our house and this would happen fast.  Well nope... that didn't happen.  Then we had Jacob and I wasn't really in the mood to try and sell a house during that time.  We still had our sign up but we weren't too serious.  So this winter we decided to get serious and try to sell but this time with a realtor.  I have a good friend I grew up with that was in the business so at least I knew I could trust him and he could deal with the real me... not the person that makes everyone happy.

So I cleaned this house like crazy (I am a clean freak but seriously I had let some things go) and our sign went up April 1.  I couldn't believe how many people came thru our house in only a few short months.  We had at least 1 showing a week... I think there was 1 week in all this time that we didn't show the house.  A couple days we had 4 showings.  This had its bonuses and drawbacks.  I liked that I didn't have to tell people about the house... someone else did that.  I liked that my house was always clean.  I hated that I had to clean it every day.  haha.  I know silly that that was good and bad.  My children got really good at cleaning up a house and that impressed me.  We had to be kicked out of our house at the most unopportuned times. (not sure if that is a word or spelled right)  Poor Brian was woke up a few times from his daily sleeptime to be kicked out for an hour or so and then try to go back to sleep.  Probably the most annoying part was the people asking us if we sold our house yet for months.... not that I don't love them all but it got really tiring telling them no.

So just after a few months, I was getting pretty prepared that this wasn't going to happen this year.  Our kids were getting ready to start school and I really didn't want to have to take them out of their current school if I didn't have to.  So one normal week came and we had a couple showings.  Next thing we know our realtor calls and says we have an offer coming in... REALLY?!  I was surprised and happy.  Granted... didn't want to get the hopes up just in case but still I was surprised.  Luck have it, Brian was up 4 wheeling the day this offer came in and we had to wait for him to come off the mountain before we could dig into this.  Within 1 week, we sold our house. 

Now for the craziness of having to find us a place to live in 1 month.  Brian and I were so excited April 1 to start looking for houses.  By July we had all but given up at looking so when this came up, we were so not prepared.  Instantly we started looking for anything that fit our family.  We looked at so many houses in 1 week and I learned that I was going to have to not be picky.  BUT I still wanted something we could love and live in for 20 years.  It was fun to be on this side of house hunting but I have to say this... I kept my house spotless compared to some of the houses we saw.  Jeez!  We were finding some homes that we loved but they were way out of our budget.  We started thinking that maybe we could swing a more expensive home but finally came to our senses (with lots of praying) and realized what we could afford and to stick with our budget.

So now we were worried there wasn't going to be a house for us until we thought to look at a house that we kept by-passing. (the kitchen counter tops were blue- seriously people).  We got to the house and could not believe that this house was in our budget.  The lot was huge!  We walked in the house and yes there were things that I thought ugh (blue counter tops) but really I fell in love with this house.  I actually could see me doing things to this house to make it our home that got me really excited.  The size of the lot was amazing to us and we could see our kids and dog loving this yard.  Brian and I joked that we will be mowing every day just to keep up the yard work but that is ok.  The more houses we looked at, we just couldn't get over the fact of the size and how the house was perfect for us.  It is out in Millville so close to the city but still feeling like it is the country.  Brian loves Millville canyon and now he will be able to ride his 4 wheeler right up there from the house and play.

Now I am a big believer that Heavenly Father knows how our lives will be and directs us if we listen.  Well with this house, things were just falling into place.  We know this is our house and we couldn't be more excited. 

I laugh cause I am going on and on but I don't have a picture of it yet.  haha.  I will soon.  So we are currently packing and arranging and going crazy... all in excitement for what lies ahead.  I keep Pinteresting and finding great winter projects for Brian (he is sick of them... except when I found a wall painted like a baseball... he was pretty happy about that one).
So on to our next adventure... if we survive this next month!

Matthew's First Day of Kindergarten

 Gotta love his Angry Bird backpack!

Matthew is an official Kindergartener.  That seems so crazy to me.  I will never forget the day he was born.  Ok I will stop crying and get back to Matthew.  I have to tell you a little bit about my Matthew.  He is such a great kid and always tries to help me out.  He is a sports nut and could play baseball 24/7 if you let him.  Now with that in mind, he is also a very nervous kid when it comes to something new.  Before any sport he has played, he has been extremely excited but extremely nervous.  Usually it results in a breakout of tears for a few minutes and then he is good to go.  So first day of Kindergarten comes and Matthew wakes up and starts to get dressed.  He is being pretty quiet so I am just hanging out waiting to see what happens.  Sure enough... he comes out with buckets of tears telling me he was going to throw up.  I could see he was just really nervous so I had to be very positive.  It is a good thing Matthew doesn't understand that I cry at everything because I had tears too but I was so happy for him.  So Kimberly and I sat there and did all we could to get him super excited and not nervous for Kindergarten.  I even threatened Matthew I would dance really silly just to make him laugh.  It worked.  By the time we got to school, he wasn't nervous and was happy.  Of course when I picked him up, he was so excited to tell me everything about school.  He loves it.  He is typically a shy kid so I didn't expect him to make friends right away.  We have been in school for about a week and he tells me he is starting to talk to the kids.  I am glad.

I love this kid... no matter how many buttons he tries to push.

Kimberly's First Day of 3rd Grade

Here is my beautiful 3rd grader!  It is crazy to me to think she is now in 3rd grade.  It also scares me to death what is coming up.  I mean 3rd grade was very innocent for me (I do recall this was the chicken pox outbreak for me) but 4th grade I started noticing boys.  So I better enjoy this year!

Kimberly had a couple new things this year.  First off she didn't want a backpack.  She wanted an over the head bag.  Ok so I was fine with that.  I think next year she might want to go back to a backpack but we shall see.  The second is she is obsessed with zebra stripes (hence the outfit).  She is talking about so much zebra stripes that I dreamed it one whole night.

Love this girl... no matter how crazy she drives me!

Lagoon Day

We took the kids to Lagoon on a Saturday just for fun.  We had a blast.  The kids enjoyed riding rides, Brian and I even rode a couple big roller coasters, and we ate lots of fun stuff.  It was a first for Lagoon for our kids and it had been many years for Brian and me.  Even Jacob had fun riding the ferris wheel and train.

Great day!

Fun in the sun

The title says it all.

Pioneer Day

For Pioneer Day (July 24th), our town goes all out for celebrating the Pioneers coming out west.  Our Stake (church) holds a morning breakfast and then the Primary children have a parade around the church.  Then the town has a big parade and then lots of fun activities for the rest of the night.

 Here are our pioneer children.  While most children ride their bikes or dress up and walk like pioneers, our children wanted to ride their 4wheeler and tractor.

 Jacob was still a bit young to be in the parade so instead he just wanted me to take pictures of him while we were waiting.

 Aren't they cute!

 During the big town parade, we joined the Girl Scout float.  Boy it was a hot parade time.  The morning was threatening rain but by parade time it was beautiful and hot.

Yes this is me as a Thin Mint.  I swear I shedded about 10 pounds (I wish) during this parade.  I was a big sweaty mess when all was said and done.  But it was a lot of fun.

Happy Pioneer Day!