Our new additions

So we have been wanting a dog for a while, and we rented a house with a yard partly for that reason. I happened to be searching craigslist for vans (another story: I wanted to avoid getting a minivan, seems like one more step toward taking away my identity...it's just not me, but it might happen anyways). Anyhow, I looked quickly at free dogs and found blue heeler/basset hound mix puppies close by. On the way there we had second thoughts because we didn't have a complete fence yet. But of course they were so cute we took home Otis (named after the singer not the drunk from Andy Griffith show). He is a good little puppy. Jonathan made a ghetto doghouse and put up a temporary wire fence. Well, 2 weeks later we went and adopted his sister, Princess (our little princess's input on the name, short for Sleeping Beauty who is Lydia's favorite princess and comes out more like "booty" so we convinced her to name the puppy Princess). So now I have 4 kids, but the good thing is that I can put the puppies outside. So here are some pics.

Otis: Lydia is getting more comfortable with them. They just let her carry them around.


All my kids, guess they makes 5 counting Jonathan! HaHa!

So cute, huh?

Lydia had to check out Otis to make sure he was healthy. Is she destined to be in the medical field?

The first day Otis didn't know what was going.

Princess, definitely a girl...likes to cuddle

Cinderelly, Cinderelly!

Lydia is really into the Disney princesses these days. She wanted to be Snow White but I convinced her to be Cinderella (aka "Blue baby") because the Snow White outfit is more complicated and plus the cute curly blonde hair just fit the costume better. And of course I like to keep a theme going in the family so Sadi made a cute Gus Gus and I, with the help of mom, threw together a fairy godmother outfit.




Here they are getting ready to go trick-or-treating. I said to take a picture beside the pumpkins so Sadi tries to take a seat on her pumpkin. As you can see I didn't get to muster up my creative skills and carve a pumpkin this year....so sad. I love doing that! The girls just painted some at the Walton family hayride. There just wasn't a time unless we did it without Dad. Guess he'll just have to miss out next time. He didn't dress up either since I didn't make him a costume. He usually complains anyhow. He was really busy doing OB rotation in October. Lydia wanted him to be the Prince and I guess he still is to her even in his scrubs. It would have been cute, though. As moms we dream up these big ideas that don't always happen.


Okay so after the church party Lydia and Papaw Carter came up with this outfit as Lydia was getting ready for bath. My mom and dad were cowboy and cowgirl, and Lydia decided to try on Nana's cool boots. Check out the see-through pantyhose. I never saw "Brokeback Mountain" but that came to mind when I saw this, except for the cute little girl part.

my little punk'ins

Thanks to my long-time friend in our new town, we found a great pumpkin patch called Green Acres. The girls loved running around and playing with the pumpkins. We were glad to see sunshine after sooooo much rain this season.



Here is Sadi's reaction when I said, "Say cheese." She smiles with her whole face...quite funny.

And I guess Sadi got thirsty from all that running, because here she is drinking from the water puddle on top of a big pumpkin. Don't tell Jonathan because he'll freak out about giardia or something.

House Sold

Our little helpers?

I feel like I have tried to write this post twice already. I think I am losing my mind. All I have been doing lately is packing up the house and yelling at the girls to quit hurting each other and quit unpacking stuff. Yep you heard right; we sold the house which really feels like giving it away in this terrible housing market. We pretty much lost all our money in the house, but we really needed to be back together as a family. So I have been packing by myself. Jonathan is working in Jackson. I am basically going nuts. So here's some pics of doing house repairs and such.

One of the ridiculous things we had to do was fix this tiny crack in the sidewalk as ordered by Code. They made us replace the whole 5 ft section. What a pain! Here's Jonathan attempting to do it. He just didn't have time. This was his only time off and it was after 30 hour oncall. Finally I just had to pay a concrete guy to do it.

Moving to the Big M?

Anyone moving to the big M and want to be in the best school zone area? Oh well, figures. We've been in wait mode since March trying to sell our house. People look and people like but make no offers. We need to move! Jonathan is still driving some and staying with friends some. I try to drive up when he's too tired. It really stinks if you must know how it's going. I feel like we can't even live in our house. I am constantly cleaning and picking up toys so to have the house ready to show at any moment. Anyhow other than that mess, life still is going on. I did a surprise B-day for Jonathan's 30th. We had brats, caramel pie, and played softball....things on Jon's favorites list I suppose or I hoped.



It was steaming hot so the kids played in sprinklers.


Of course, that was a month ago. Guess there's not much else to tell besides the house stuff. We try to stay out of the house so as to keep it clean. Wish the economy would get with our schedule!
Oh and tonight Uncle Reed comes home from a mission for our church. We're all excited and Lydia seems to remember him. She dances around saying "Happy Reed, Happy Reed." She's planned his party and says he needs a "black" cake which is chocolate. We'll see how she feels about him when she sees him in person. She gets to help hold the poster we made. Funny what thrills a toddler.

Lydia'sThree

We had an "Ahhh" party for Lydia. To translate that means Ariel (you know, she sings "Ahhhh"). Lydia requested an Ariel party because she loves the Little Mermaid I guess because of the singing and ocean scenes. Plus she thinks Flounder is Nemo. It was steamin' hot so we had a little pool, sprinklers, and slip-n-slide for the kids to play with to keep cool. Of course, Lydia loved the attention, presents, and cake. "That's mines," she kept saying.


As far as other life stuff, we are still trying to sell the house and Jonathan is commuting a couple days a week. He's already "over it" because of the long shifts and very stressful circumstances (medical residency). Just thinking about it makes me get butterflies. Guess it's a good thing I pursued nursing...because I was on the med school path the first 2 years of college. Well, pray something happens with the house soon because we're both going crazy, him at work and me at home with the wild ones!

So busy

We've been so busy with trying to sell the house, Jon's graduation, Katelyn's graduation, and Sadi's party. Sadi turned one and is feisty as ever. I'm afraid she is going to be too aggressive because she is learning to hold her own against her big sissy. Well now all that is over except for the house. We are just not having any luck. We've done all we can: new furnace, pressure washed everything outside including the roof, redecorated, painted, dejunked, planted flower and veggie garden, etc. Now we just wait and Jonathan will be commuting for a while. Well I finally pierced Sadi's ears... I was afraid it would be bad but I gave the treat before this time which worked like a charm.


Before


During (child abuse...according to daddy)


After (see no big deal, daddy, Nana makes it all better)

Oh and this is what happens when I look away for 2 minutes to water the flowers. They had nasty black mud left in the driveway from the roof cleaning so I had to strip them and spray them off before getting anywhere close to the house ( we have to keep it spic-n-span for house showing....ugh!)


Here's a couple of pics from the party...Sadi totally enjoying her cookie monster cupcake (this is the extent of my photography abilities...blue accent)


Here's the cookie cake and little monsters....to exemplify my little Sadi monster.

Aloha!

Yep Jonathan and I went to Hawaii. We never really got a "honeymoon" so decided to take this last chance for a while to take a vacation. Jonathan graduates medschool in May and starts residency in June, which means no more vacation time for a long, long time. The sales are great online these days so we did it! It was relaxing and fun. This first picture was taken at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Oahu. I preface this post with this picture because last night the doctor guy from TV show "Lost" (which is filmed in Hawaii) basically said he's not into the tropics and would rather be back in Wyoming on his family's ranch. And to that I say he must be really "coco" or "nuts." Sorry if that wasn't funny to you!HaHa!


I helped volunteer Jonathan to play the drums with the Tongan guy! It was funny because they made him do a little dance first.


Here I am enjoying a mango smoothie at the Luau.


The next day we flew to Kauai. Jonathan surfed before we checked in to the hotel. We stayed one night at a fancy hotel/resort. Kauai was much more relaxing because of less tourism. We did a lot of adventurous activities, such as kayaking to a waterfall, hiking up a mountain and finding wild passion-like fruit (yummmmm), and finding a monk seal taking a nap right on the beach outside the hotel.








The last few days we spent back on Oahu. There is just so much to see and do that we felt like we were running out of time...plus Hawaii was having a cold front so rain was ruining our plans. We did manage to drive to north Oahu and found a beautiful beach with cliffs to jump off. Jonathan did it but I was too cold and worried about my arm. However, I did surf that day at Waikiki beach.

Happy Easter!

This was Lydia's special egg she colored. She even found it on the egg hunt the next day.

Yeah we got a family picture that looks decent! This is before church Easter morning before they had time to get messed up.

The girls had a blast opening their Easter baskets. Lydia woke before Sadi and was just itching to open Sadi's stuff so here she is "helping" her. Sadi didn't care; she just wanted to eat the treats, while still wrapped of course.


Lydia liked the suprises in the eggs. Look at that wild hair and sleepy eyes!

Big Day...Now what?

So on Monday Jonathan found out that he matched to a residency he applied for...so we just had to wait until Thursday to find out which one. Annnnnnnnnd! Yeah! We matched to our number one choice, Jackson, TN Family Medicine. It was a nerve wracking day and exciting, too. So now we have to sell our house and find a place in Jackson before the end of June. It was a big week of celebrations. I was totally worn out.

We drove around downtown to take pictures of all the hospitals he has been working at over the last four years and then we rode the trolley to match day ceremonies.

All smiles after the good news! It was exciting to see everyone open their letters at one time.

Then at the party that night Jonathan played the drums with his band buddy from school. As you can tell he was worried about messing up. After a while I was really ready to go home as the party continued well into the morning. I'm not so much fun anymore...just a boring mom!

We topped off the festivities with the Caduceus Ball at the Peabody. We had a fancy dinner, and I tried to enjoy it be dancing the night away! HAHA! Can't picture it? Oh and Jonathan got awarded the "Best Mormon" superlative (they always got to razz him about that).

Waiting

Here's what we've been doing while waiting to hear about Residency.

Playing with "long time" friends visiting from out of town...

Going to the zoo with our buddies...

Searching the web for Hawaii trip deals (for mommy and daddy only!)

Playing indoors on the rainy days...

Partying it up at the pre-matchday crawfish boil

And still trying to sell the house, which means a lot of cleaning on my part and trying to keep kid stuff put away. Ugh! We're not having much luck right now, but residency matchday is when we really have to get the ball rollin'.