Merry Christmas!

I am blogging from my in-laws house near Gainsville, Texas where we are having lots of fun! I haven't seen most of Ben's family for over a year so it has been nice to see them again. I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We have so much to be grateful this holiday season since we have our two little miracles now and we are very grateful to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings we have received this year. Thank you to all of our friends and family and we love you all!!

On Our Way...

We are on our way to Texas...almost. We are leaving at 6:00 tomarrow morning for the airport so it's not long now. I am still a little nervous about flying with the kids but I've done all I can to prepare so I'm crossing my fingers. My wonderful cousin Josh is going to drive us there so that we don't have to leave our car for so long plus we have so much *@&% that trying to park long term parking and then haul everything to the terminal...no thank you! We are excited to see Ben's family since the only ones that have seen the babies are his parents, I just hope the babes are on their best behavior;D! I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and thank you for being our friends!

Christmas Cards

I am trying to get Christmas cards out this year so if you read this blog and would like a Christmas card but don't think I'll send you one, give me your address and I'll send one out...it may be after Christmas but you will get one! (BTW, they are really cute!!!)
P.S. You can either email me your address or leave it in the comment section and I will delete it after I copy it down!

Snow

It has finally snowed enough to stick for more than a couple of hours so I finally count it as the babies first snow. I put some in my hand and was making them touch it but they weren't too impressed. I keep debating if we should buy a little sled and take them on a hill across from our house but I don't think I want them out in the cold. I'm also going to post a cute little pic I took of them tonight before bed, they look a little out of it!

Our New House (almost)

Things are going well in our quest to buy a house. Our offer was accepted and after a couple of counters, etc we are to the stage that we are getting an appraisal and inspection. They did the inspection today so Ben and I went over and just kind of hung out for a bit. It felt kind of weird but they don't care so I guess we don't either. They had put up a sold sign and pulled the listing from the internet so I suppose we're almost there. I am going to post some pictures so you can get an idea of what it looks like.

What you see when you walk in the front door, on the left there is a "Home Teacher" room. Past the stairs on the right is a half bath and straight ahead is the family/dining/kitchen.

The kitchen-kinda small but since I don't like to cook I guess it will work! There is a dining area adjoining the kitchen and than a small area that I think we will use as an office/play area.

Walking up the stairs:

Loft area at the top of the stairs which we will use for tv room/playroom.Small hall upstairs, on the right is the kids' bathroom, straight ahead will be their room and to the left the utility room (which is huge!).

Master bathroom. Straight ahead is the huge closet and to the left is the tub and then toilet.The toilet, kinda situated weird but gives a little privacy I guess.

Our backyard which will be fenced and sodded (is that a word?) as soon as the weather clears up. In the background you can see the "clubhouse" and pool.

Ben just reminded me I was a dork and didn't take any pics of the exterior of the house, oops!

Wal-mart

Well, I have finally severed the last tie I had with Wal-Mart. I cashed out my 401K/Profit Sharing so we could have a down payment for a house. I know, you're thinking what a horrible time to sell and yes, it wasn't ideal but I have lost quite a bit in just the last couple of months so maybe it's good to pull it out now, before I lose anymore. It sucks because I will incur all those taxes and penalties but hey, I guess you can think of it like free money anyways. They didn't have to give me a retirement account but I sure did put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into that money. It did make me kind of sad to sell it seeing how I put in almost 13 years with the company and I do kind of miss Wal-Mart (I know, I'm crazy) but I think I got out at a good time, things just weren't quite the same when I left as when I started. So to all you diligent Wal-Mart Associates out there...keep pluggin away and thanks for what you do to make our lives easier!!

Househunting

Ben and I have been sort of looking for a house since our lease is up the first part of March. Well, guess what...we found it, the house for us. We put in an offer and it was accepted and so now we are just going back and forth on a close date but it looks to be mid-January. I know, I can't believe it either. We found a good deal and are getting a lot of house for the money. It's not quite as close to civilization but not as far out as Kuna (no offense to the Kunaites, is that right?). I don't really have any pics of it because I forgot to take the camera when we went and looked. We are pretty excited but also sort of dreading it because do you know how many times I have had to move? I am not excited to pack again but at least it will only be like a 10-15 move versus a 14 hour move. It is a 2200+ sq. ft. house so it should work for us for awhile, it's brand new, never been lived in and is in a neighborhood with a pool (we can see it out our back window). I think the only bad thing is that it is a new neighborhood so we will have to put up with construction but luckily we will have a privacy fence so hopefully that will help. Well, wish us luck and anyone that wants to come out and help us move is more than welcome ;D!!
P.S. I have a pic of the house on my phone but I couldn't get it onto the computer so maybe we'll do a driveby and take a pic

Christmas Pics

Tonight Ben and I got the kids dressed up and tried to take pictures so we can send out Christmas cards. I have a new appreciation for Kiddie Kandid because Holy Cow it was a trial. They did not want to cooperate and kept crawling over to be held instead of posing. I had a little scene set up with "snow" and they pulled that apart immediately. I told Ben maybe we will put them in their outfits for church on Sunday and try again when we get home. Here's a warning for you...your Christmas cards may be late! If you have any hints on getting them to cooperate, would love to hear them! Oh and I forgot to tell you, the cat kept trying to get in the picture, silly girl.

So much happens!

We had so much happen on our little vacay that I didn't put it all in my last post! Anthony and Emily are growing by leaps and bounds, I wish they would slow down just a little so I could really enjoy each stage! I am soo grateful though that they are both so healthy and that we don't have any problems! Anthony finally has two more teeth getting ready to break free and thankfully this time we are not having quite the moodiness we did before. Emily has yet another one and is still leading the pack with 6 and at least one more ready to come through. Just before we left for Rexburg, Anthony had decided to stand on his own and now he does it all the time. Emily started standing on her own while we there, which kind of suprised me because she is usually a couple of weeks behind her brother. I had bought this cute hippo push toy last year on clearance with the intention of giving it to them for their birthday but they have been pushing anything and everything around so I opened it early and Anthony loves to push it all over the place, he is even getting so he can turn it around. I don't think it will be long before he is walking. Emily doesn't like it as much, she is just as happy on her knees pushing a box around. They both conquered stairs while we were staying with Great-Grandma but they can only go up and not down. Definitely something we will have to work on since most of the houses we have been looking at to buy have stairs, thank heavens for baby gates! Something funny just happened so I have to share! Ben was cold so he went and put on a hooded sweatshirt, when he came out he still had the hood on and Emily started screaming and would not go to him, even when he took it off. She does the same thing to me when I wear a hat...she doesn't like hats apparently and has a fit until they're gone! Well, I guess that 's enough of the munchkins for now! Have a great Sabbath day.

Sorry the videos a little shaky, I was holding Emily while doing it!

Finally, back in the blogging world!

I haven't posted forever ! We went to Rexburg the weekend before Thanksgiving and had a great time at my cousin Jerik's wedding. Well, I did anyways, the kids had a pretty rough day and didn't make it to the reception so I felt bad because lots of people wanted to see them. They had a ball though in the morning playing with Auntie Linda, thanks a ton! We had a pretty laid back week, didn't really make too many plans like we usually do. We did get to go play with Aunt Wheez and the triplets which was fun (and of course I got no pictures). I went to Michael McLean's Forgotten Carols which was so great, I haven't been in like 5 years but it is so nice to be uplifted. Ben came over on Wednesday and I felt bad because when he first got there, the kids didn't want anything to do with him, it took them a bit to warm up. We had Thanksgiving at Great-Grandma's house and spent the day with a lot of the family so it was a great day. We did miss Grandpa Nef though, it seemed kind of empty to not have him there. We stayed until Sunday when we drove home. I am sooo glad to live near family again, I made some wonderful friends who feel like family while we were away but it is nice to be "home" again. I guess this is all for now, hopefully I'll think of some great words of wisdom to impart one of these days!