Early birthday party for Megan

The kids get to have a"friend party" every other year for their birthdays. This year is Megan's turn for a party and since we are moving we decided to celebrate a little early.

She had 7 little girls come over for a "pajama party" late-over.
We ate pizza and ice cream, made a craft, did each others make up (hilarius, I wish I had pictures), and watched a movie while eating endless popcorn.

It was a great group of girls and Megan felt pretty special.

Normally at this point I would write a bunch of stuff about Megan and cry about how she is growing up but since her actual birthday isn't until July I will wait and cry then. ;)

Party on

What a wonderful weekend we had.

Full of

talking, smiling, talking, giggling, eating, talking, crying, laughing,

laughing until we were crying...

and of course there was all that talking.

Marla and Dave came to visit us in Louisville.

It was so good to see their family.

How we have missed them.

(didn't take too many pictures... too busy talking. lol)

I have to say that my testimony of my Heavenly Father's love for me has increased 10 fold since we moved to Kentucky. The fact that He led us here and then (amoung other miracles) put these 2 amazing women in my path, well... I'm just so very grateful.

Pictures of our life

This sweet little giant makes me smile every day. He recently learned how to say, "hold you" and loves to rest his head on your shoulder. He is such a lover.

We closed on our house in KY and so now I am busy packing. I'm trying to get excited about the move (what can I say, I'm happy here) so I've been sketching some plans for the new house. It is fun to dream.

Campbell insisted on a mayo and honey sandwich the other day. I would have never made it for him (because of course he wouldn't eat it, YUCK) but Trevor is nicer than me and made the sandwich for him and surprisingly Campbell scarfed it down. That boy always keeps me guessing. ;)

Hallie is loving Harry Potter these days.

Campbell insisted on sitting like this and reading one of "Hallie's books". He is always watching his big sister.

Trying on mommy's boots. I don't think Trev will appreciate this picture... it's okay honey, he is a normal 3 year old boy... I think.

We had a few chilly days last week and I kept seeing the girls going out the back door with blankets so I thought I'd investigate and this is what I found.

I love moments like these. :)

Davis gets a haircut

We have bald babies... what can I say.

Davis is almost 18 months old and last week Trevor gave him his first ever haircut.

He did pretty good.... at first.

But, Trevor got it done without too many tears (a few from Davis and the majority from me).
My baby is growing up.

Doesn't he look dashing?!

p.s. I forgot to save a lock of his baby hair... what kind of mother am I???

Stomp

Earlier this school year Megan got to participate in STOMP and in the spring the older grades got a chance so Hallie signed up and started the 4 months of practices.
I teased Hallie that we were going to yell her name and bring posters and really embarrass her at her performance. She asked us to "please don't" (she is getting all grown up on us) and so we didn't but it was pretty funny when Campbell saw Hallie at first on the stage and yelled, "Hi Hallie!" over and over again while waving his hands to get her attention. He got some laughs and Hallie went a little red.

It was such a fun performance! They surprised us at the end when they turned off all the lights and turned on black lights. Davis and Avery didn't love that part but the rest of us did. Campbell kept trying to join in as he stomped (loudly) on the bleachers to his own beat.

Hallie and all the kids did such a great job!

Day of Service

April 24th was "A Day of Service" and our ward had a great project.

We gathered at a local nature preserve and did a whole lot of planting, mulching, painting, weeding, and so on. The forecast was severe thunderstorms and the day started out rainy, yucky, and cold but then the sun came out. At one point one of the ladies that worked at the nature preserve came out and announced that "The radar says we have thunderstorms over us right now." We all looked up at the blue skies and I told them we had been praying for good weather so we could do this for them and our prayers were answered.

I was asked to be "the official picture taker" and we had a few articles in the local papers about our service which was fun.

Hallie and Megan worked hard planting flowers and spreading mulch... and chasing toads and newts.

It was so fun for me to walk around to each project and take pictures of the those giving service and see the transformations take place. It really was such a neat day and such a great reminder of what a blessing serving others is to our own lives.

House Hunting in Washington

Trev and I were SO excited to go house hunting in Washington.

We were especially excited to go on the trip without any kiddos. We had grand visions of sitting in the hot tub at the hotel for hours and sleeping in late every morning.

Reality was a little different.

I was up every morning at 5Am (there is a 3 hour time difference from KY to WA) pacing the floor and flipping through all the houses we looked at the day before trying to decide how long I should let Trevor sleep before I woke him with all my thoughts and questions and then drove around and looked at some more neighborhoods before we met with our agent at 9AM.

We had a great realtor who walked us through 40 homes total. She was patient with us as we kept shaking our heads after each home and tried to explain it was a "feeling" we were looking for more than anything else.



After she dropped us off at the office after a long day of looking at homes we climbed into our car and drove back out to look more at neighborhoods/ houses or search for FSBO signs. We went to bed every night mentally and physically EXHAUSTED.



Well, to make a long story a little shorter I FOUND OUR HOUSE... but Trevor thought they were asking too much so we didn't get it. Then Trevor FOUND OUR HOUSE... but I didn't feel good about the neighborhood so we didn't get it.

It was time to head home and we were at a loss at what to do (and feeling kinda sad and maybe a little irritated that neither of us got to buy our "dream homes") so we decided to look at a few of the houses one more time before we flew out.
We walked through the very first house we looked at and ... well anyway... WE FOUND OUR HOUSE. (if only we would have known in the end it would be the 1st house we saw... we could have spent a lot more time in the hot tub!)


It was the ONLY house that Trevor AND I "felt" peace about. I never would have guessed that this would be the house for us. It just doesn't look like us but I am so excited about it and I'm dreaming up all kinds of ideas to make it fit our style a little more.

More than anything I am excited because I feel peace about it and I know that that peace means this house will be a good place for our family and I can't ask for anything more than that!

The city itself is great. Everyone we talked to was friendly, it is very safe (no more gang fights in the ER for Trev), and it really feels like a good place to raise a family.

Oh, and when we went to the grocery store we saw 3 other families with 4+ kids!!! And no one (except me) was staring at them!!! I couldn't believe it... we will blend right in. ;)




Here are the only pictures I could find of the house since we forgot our still camera (duh Kathryn) and they already removed the listing so I can't link to that.


Here is the front of the house. It is on a quiet street on a hill with some other new homes. They will landscape the front yard for us and install the sprinkling system (btw did you know we don't have sprinkling systems in KY? No need with all the humidity and rain). It has kind of a modern look to the outside which is why I say it doesn't "look" like us but I'm thinking of some things we can do to make it ours.

Here is the back. We LOVE the daylight basement with the huge windows and the great view of the city. It has a great big flat backyard which we get to landscape ourselves. Campbell and Davis are going to LOVE all that dirt to play in and I think I will be begging for sod ASAP.
Currently there is no one living behind us which makes the view even better and there is a walking/ bike trail at the bottom of the hill that we can get to from the backyard.

This is a picture of the family room and kitchenette in the basement.

This is the family room upstairs. They have done a lot more to it since this picture was taken like molding, carpet, fireplace mantel etc. but it gives you an idea anyway.

So there you go... our house in Washington. I'll take lots of pictures when we get there and post them so you can see what it looks like finished. I can't wait to get my hands on it!!!

Oh, and we have plenty of room for visitors so PLEASE come and visit us... pretty, pretty, please.

PS we close on our house in KY tomorrow... such mixed emotions

Melissa's visit and our trip to Washington

April was quite the busy month.

We flew Melissa out to Kentucky to watch our kiddos while Trevor and I went house hunting in Washington. We planned on taking Davis with us but Melis was so generous (or just plain crazy) enough to insist we leave Davis too (bless you Melissa).

She kept all 5 (that includes her little Avery) alive and happy while Trev and I searched through 40 HOMES in Richland and Kennewick.

We thought a week without kids would be a great vacation but we were so busy we didn't even make it to the hot tub in the hotel.

I'll share more of our experience in WA in another post.

We missed our kiddos and were happy to come home.

Melissa stayed another week and we got to do some crafting but mostly we chased these two around the house (and neighborhood) and counted the minutes until their nap times so we could pull the crafts out again or take a much needed nap ourselves.

Look at these cuties (oh, and look at my tulips... I love tulips).
Avery was so cute with Davis. She was his little mommy. She would call him "Baby" and pat his head or give him loves... Davis would push her away and look at her like she was crazy.

As always it was so nice to have Melissa and Avery here.

Melissa is due with baby #2 (another little girl) in August. I'm so excited for her and Jeff but 2 babies means a very busy momma so I fear our visits from Melissa every 6 months may be a thing of the past :( but we sure enjoyed it while it lasted.

Thanks for all your help...we love you Melis!

Cumberland Falls

We've wanted to visit Cumberland Falls ever since we moved to Kentucky.

They call it "The Niagara of the South".

We finally made it there last month.

I told Campbell we were going to see a waterfall and he said, "But, I need a submarine!".

Then when we got there and he saw the river he said, "But, now I need a boat!"

We found this fun hollow tree (Megan was worried about spiders inside it).

As soon as we saw this sign warning us of black bears Hallie and Megan were done with our little adventure (bears are so scary!!) and Campbell on the other hand was determined to find a bear.

"But, where's the bears?" he asked over and over and over again.

The Potty Book

I am WAAAYYY behind on blogging. A lot has been going on around here but I had to share this moment I had with Megan tonight...

Megan handed me "The Potty Book for Girls" and said with disgust, "Mom, we should get rid of this book, it is inappropriate!"

How do I know it is Spring??

This is what Spring looks like at our house.

Easter 2010

It has been a nice week as we have talked about the last week of Christ's life.

Today we ate lots of candy and watched General Conference...

it doesn't get much better than that!

(Seriously, General Conference was like the best ever!)

The girls were anxious to try on their new Easter dresses even though they had no where to wear them today so we did a little photo shoot.

Davis discovered peeps this morning... he is a fan.

I don't have many pictures of Campbell this morning because every picture of him (except this one) was blurry. That boy is ALWAYS on the move.
HAPPY EASTER!