Moving stage 1 of 3

This last week was the longest, most exhausting week I can remember ever having. I have moved many times but this is the first time I moved with three kids and the least amount of help we have ever had. Three nights in a row i was up until 2 am cleaning/painting. It was at times like that i wish my dear sister Thora lived here as i know she would have helped me out and given me some company to chat with while i worked! My step dad and mom did countless hours of work to help us and let us use their truck as well as let us move to their house and i am so grateful that they were here. I am eternally indebted to my friend Catherine who watched my little monkeys for days ( and I am sure she is really rethinking having more kids at this moment after having mine all over there!) I am happy to report we are done though! Well except for the last load of random things in the back of the van that I am hoping to get to tomorrow. All or our belongings are piled up in my parents garage with the exception of what we are using to live here for the next 5 weeks. My parents have graciously allowed us to overtake their playroom where we have stashed our king size bed in a Corner and the rest of the room is boxes and clothes and dressers. Preston and Theo are sleeping with us in the bed and we have a twin mattress we throw on the floor at night for porter. Its a bit like little house on the prairie days when the whole family lived in one room. I kind of feel like I am camping too because its cold in the room and there are a million windows that let in way to much sunlight at the break of dawn! I am going to cover them all tonight with foil so I can sleep in tomorrow morning! I was never a good morning person, i am all cranky pants if its before 9.

I am glad that my kids will get loads of time with their grandparents before we leave. Porter is old enough he will have these memories when he grows up. Porter thinks its fun to sleep over here, and is loving all the cool things to do here so much that he hasn't even noticed there is no TV to watch. In case it gets bad though i can always through a DVD on the computer ( i know i am such a lame mother to use it as a babysitter but sometimes i need a shower/nap/sanity )

In mid march sometime we will be off to Oklahoma for stage 2 of our move. We will only be there three months so I am not excited for the hassle of moving in and then starting to pack back up after a couple months. I seriously am contemplating selling off most of our possessions on Craig's list and just being paupers till Texas and then buying new things there. The pioneers used to only take what they could fit in the wagon. I got me a mini van about that size, wonder if i could live off of only what i could fit in my van? I am seriously contemplating this. When i cant sleep at night i think of all the things to get rid off... like maternity clothes ( what if i DON'T have any more kids?) and baby clothes, my box of size 6 clothes ( hahahaha like i am ever going to fit those again anyways!!) all the weird appliances i never use like the pop corn popper pan that is super cool but i never pull out. Oh and what about the 8 boxes of scrapboking stuff? I mean i love it sure but its been about 3 years since i even took it out of the boxes. 3 YEARS!! I keep saying when i don't have a baby i will scrapbook. problem is i keep having another baby!

anyways i don't really have a point to all this just rambling on here. This post is more like a journal entry than anything else. I would of written it in a journal but i don't know what box that is in at the moment!

cute babies

My cute lil preston is already 5 1/2 months old! Time flies when you have a babe and I am trying to soak it all up and enjoy everyday ( spit up, diapers, no sleep and all!) you talking to me mom?? i was telling him to smile but this is what i got instead. He is such a baldy its weird to us since the other two had so much hair as babies.

Hmm i will use my monkey feet to pick that up!

This is my "skinny" baby but as you can see he still is a chub by most people's standards. At five months he weighed in at 16 lbs ( porter and theo were both 20 lbs at this age)

5 months old and already trying to play video games! boys, i tell ya!

I love preston so much, he is the best baby and he is smothered with love by all that know him. Poor kid gets kissed all day long by me and his brothers! When I hold him now he plays with my hair and tries to grab my face. He can roll over both directions and this morning he rolled from tummy to back and then tummy again to reach a toy across the room. He tries to sit up but cant do it unassisted yet. He loves to eat crackers or gnaw on a chunk of apple, but is pretty uninterested in baby cereal although the spoon is pretty exciting!

We found renters!

So I posted my house on KSL Thursday night and Friday morning we started getting calls about it. The first couple that made it over to see it loved it and wanted to move in! They had the deposit and first months rent to us within an hour and all the paperwork was filled out. The father is a manager at a restruant and even treated us to dinner that night! We are so blessed that it came together so easily for us. They are the sweetest people. I actually talked to the woman today on the phone for three house... as Cory puts it I can instantly be best friends with perfect strangers. I like them so much i am a bit sad we are leaving! Of course they are living in our house so we kind of have to. They came to church with us today so they could see where it was and meet the Bishop. They are moving in on February 7th which is earlier than we wanted but they have some poor dogs that need a yard so we agreed to the date.

So big stress number one out of the way!! Now on to other fun stresses like the fact that i have 2 weeks to finish painting the house and pack everything and move it to my mom's garage. Yep that is right we are going to crash at her house for the next month till we leave. twill be interesting ( and a bit crowded) but i did want to see alot of her before we moved and i wont see my mommy hardly at all after that.

We are going to leave for Oklahoma mid march, pretty much right after Sorens wedding ( my older brother and its on Friday the 13th and yes they are cool with that date they got engaged in a cemetery after all!)

This is all seeming so much more real now!! Ack! I am really excited for the adventure ahead of us though. Never been to Oklahoma so really its like a three month long vacation!

Peter Pan Syndrom

So today I asked porter if he wanted something to eat, he asked me if it would make him grow up big. I said of course! He then said " I don't want any then because i don't want to grow up. Never ever!"
I asked him why he didn't want to grow up and his response was
" because i don't want to go to work. I want to stay home and play video games instead!"




great, my little boy already dreams of being thirty and living at home and being a bum all day! what every mother wants!

Later in the day we were talking about how everyone has to grow up. He then tells me
" well then when i grow up i want to be a mommy"
when prodded as to why he would want to be a mommy and not the daddy
" Because mommies don't have to work!"

I guess what i do all day is not considered work in his eyes! looks like i have some teaching to do so that he can grow up, move out, get a job, and appreciate all the work his wife does in the home!

A New Year

I know i am a little late on the new year post... but hey i am a little late with everything these days. I blame it on motherhood which i believe creates lateness in general!

This past year has been a good one. First year our WHOLE marriage that we did not move! Actually come to think of it this is the first year since I was living at my parents house in high school that i did not move! Wow.... maybe that is why i am antsy i am not used to staying put this long!

We celebrated our five year anniversary, had another baby boy, and went on two fabulous family vacations. Never a dull moment at our place!

This coming year will be full as well. In the next three months we will pack up and move to Oklahoma. Three months later in early July we will move to Texas where we hope to stay put for a good while. NO babies are expected or planned to come this year and I am much looking forward to a break from pregnancies!

I always make a ton of goals and don't do any of them so i am going to make the list short and sweet this year in hopes that I will be more likely to achieve them:

1. Have daily family scripture study
2. be healthy with exercise and food ( i would say to lose 30 lbs but i figure its better to not put that since i never loose weight while still nursing and i will be doing that for most of the year still)
3. work on small daily goals towards being a better homemaker ( clean up the clutter first and foremost!)

Sunday

Hooray for 11:oo am church! After a long year at 9 am we are so glad for it! I wish that the LDS church didn't assign times and let you pick which one you wanted. I know that some people like the 9 am time, some love 1 pm time. So wouldn't it work out? I could be really happy with 11 am church for the rest of my life. I am not looking forward to Texas because there are three wards and two of them meet at 9 am and only one at 11. I have been looking at apartments and then plugging the addresses into the ward finder on LDS.org to see what apartments are in what ward. The goal being to avoid early church! I can hear you all laughing at me.... but seriously we are not early morning people and to get three kids and us ready and there on time is hard! There is a Spanish ward that always meets at noon. I am even considering learning Spanish! Porter Showing off his new CTR ( choose the Right) ring from his new sunday school class at church.

The was so tired he couldnt make it through lunch.