Wake Me Up When September Ends...

Funny… I actually wrote the post for September a few weeks ago.  When I opened the file just now to add the final touches, I realized I hated it.  Sometimes it’s hard to write when the time to do so is shoved in between short nap times and errands that need to be run on my days off.  Unfortunately, my writing definitely shows this.  Sorry y’all!  I hope it’s not too terrible.  Anyway I’m starting anew with this one so hopefully it goes better this time around.

September was a big month for us!  It’s the first month that we actually spent living in our new home!  I feel like I’m constantly writing about house stuff what with the selling, buying, fixing up, etc…  Hopefully I can tone that down after this month’s post.  But honestly, I can’t not talk about our first month here! 

We love our new home!  Sometimes when I walk through the door, I still get that girly, excited feeling where something inside me jumps and says, “this beautiful home is yours… like… for real!”  Haha!  Don’t let me give you the wrong idea; it’s not huge or fancy by any means.  Our house may not be Parade of Homes material but to me, it is perfect.  It’s not big, but its space is used wisely and the tall ceilings make it feel bigger and more open.  I’ll stop there before I start gushing over all the details that no one wants to read about.  Basically, it suits us.  It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted and what I pictured for my family and I am so thankful to have it.  Plus, it’s the first time I’ve had my own central air and I am thrilled about that!  Wonderful!

Our new ward here is great!  We were surprised to walk into the chapel and find that it was the tiniest ward either of us had ever seen.  It didn’t take long for us to fall in love when we learned that it was made up of a tight-knit group of young families like us and that members had prayed and fasted us there.  Our Sunday school class was a marriage class that catered to young couples.  It was a blast to gather together and learn from a hilarious, slightly more seasoned couple in the ward.  One of the couples even hosted a big neighborhood party with giant blow up toys and a rock wall and stuff! 

After only 2 weeks however, the announcement was made that they were changing our ward boundaries.  That tight-knit group of young families has now been disbursed into other wards.  While this makes us very sad, we’re looking toward the future and are excited to get to know even more people now.  This Sunday will only be our second week in the new ward so we haven’t gotten cozy just yet.

Aleah has developed all sorts of new skills this month.  While I’m sure I can’t name them all, they include large amounts of language and communication.  She understands so much of what we’re saying now!  It’s so cool!  I frequently voiced instructions to her throughout the month just to see how much she understood and I was totally blown away with the results!  She may not be able to say all the words back to us yet, but she knows and understands many of them already.

She has also started eating more solid foods now.  From what I can tell so far, her favorite foods are chocolate frosting and Pasta Roni.  She won’t be breaking any healthy records with that though, so we’ll keep working on her.

I can’t remember if I wrote about this last month or not but guess what?  Aleah is turning into quite the little soccer girl!  She loves kicking the ball back and forth with daddy and what’s more?  She is amazing at it!  I can’t believe how much fun it is to watch her run around and kick the ball (even the tiny tennis ball size)! Tyler is of course ecstatic about this new development.  So far she is left-footed, which apparently is a very sought-after soccer trait or something like that.

Also new this month, this mommy is a newly converted yard sale addict.  What have I been missing all these years?  The Grange girls took me out in September and I had a blast!  Not only was it tons of fun, but we got some killer deals too!  I’m hoping to get as many Christmas and birthday presents for Aleah as I can at yard sales now!  So far we’ve been able to get her several books, toys, and clothes for next to nothing.  Additionally, we got a cute table for our living room, a few decorations, and even clothes for me ($1 for darling shirts?  Don’t mind I do). I am officially addicted.

Tyler is performing most awesomely in all of his classes and enjoys playing soccer regularly on base for his paid exercise time.  Also, he has totally mastered the art of cookie-making.  Allow me to explain: when I found out I wasn’t supposed to eat cookie dough while I was pregnant with Aleah, I vowed never to make cookies until that changed.  I always, always eat the dough and refraining from doing so is simply unrealistic.  So ever since then Tyler has been the cookie baker at our house.  Tyler’s cookies blew my mind this month.  Whatever the secret to baking killer chocolate chip cookies is, he has found it and the convect bake on our new oven cooks them perfectly.  I confess, I’m a little jealous that he can outbake me now.  But there’s no turning back at this point, I’m officially passing the trophy on to him.  So next time you see me and notice that my butt no longer fits in my pants, you can thank Tyler because I cannot stop eating those delicious things and he can’t stop baking them. 

And with that, here are the pictures we’ve saved from September:

Cabinet Before

Here is Ty's work in progress on our cabinet detail

Unfortunately this is the most recent picture we have of the after on his cabinet.  You can still tell it's cool though, right?

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After (fridge hadn't been delivered yet... sorry)

Aleah's Room Before

Aleah's Room After

Play Room Before

Play Room After

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

Tyler added this super cool trim to all of our pillars.  Now you can tell they're separate pieces from the wall

Aleah's first haircut with Mommy!

Here is a view of the new lights and fan we added



               

Here's a pic of my latest project.  I wanted a bright red chandelier so I bought one, sanded it down,  painted it, glossed  it, bejeweled it, and used and abused Tyler's skills all along the way.  It was a lot of fun and I love having a splash of color hanging from the ceiling!

Another cool new light fixture we added.  I found this one bargain-hunting on one of our yard sale adventures.  Sweet deal!

Oh the messes she can make!  Aleah dumped out our entire box of Q-Tips (her very favorite), one-by-one.  She was so thrilled with herself, that we didn't have the heart to stop her.  Here is a pic of her getting started.

We recently learned that Aleah eats solids much better when she is eating at the table with us.  She totally devoured this corn on the cob and relished every single second of it :) 

Here is an action shot of our monkey baby!  She kept climbing up the ladder while I was decorating our shelf so finally we quit trying to stop her, and let Tyler help her do it the safe way.

This is Aleah's favorite hiding spot... behind the ottoman.  Sorry for the mess, I was pulling out our Halloween decor.  Every day when it's time to get her dressed, she runs and hides.  This baby just loves being in her birthday suit!

July/August  Farewell Summer

Summer  has come and passed and the Grange family is still ticking.  Whew!  Here’s my best effort at summing up the past couple of months.

MOVING
First and foremost, moving has been a huge part of our family’s life.  First we had buyers, then we didn’t, then we did, but they wanted us to do all kinds of silly things to the house for them, then they had to extend the contract a couple of times because they couldn’t close by the deadline, etc.., etc…  What a crazy learning experience this has all been!  One of my favorite “fixes” that ate up our time during the selling process was this fireplace.  We had to cap off the fireplace after one of the inspections because the log insert is like a bazillion years old and not very efficient.  It works fine, but doesn’t operate as well as modern gas fireplaces.  Essentially, it’s the difference between driving a corolla hybrid and a hummer.  Our buyers knew this and agreed to replace the insert later on down the road so it could be turned on again.  However, they felt that the fireplace was unsafe and wanted us to install a protective screen around it.  Those are hard to come by since ours is such a unique fireplace.  Tyler had a brilliant idea of using garden fencing and here’s the final product of a garden fence to protect people from a non-operating fireplace:

Between showings, walk-throughs, appraisals, assessments, inspections, and various other shenanigans, the whole thing became exhausting and we are so glad to finally be in only one house again.  We moved in at the end of August and recorded on the WT house 2 weeks later.  I’ll save the updates on the new house/area for next month’s post, since we weren’t really settled until September.  Thank you to all the wonderful people who helped us move!  You are all angels.  We’ll never forget how wonderful people have been to us through this whole process.

OUR BABY
Oh how we love our sweet baby!  July and August were fun months because Aleah learned how to get around… and I mean really get around.  She is always moving, always getting into something, always learning, and always making us laugh.  Throughout the entire month of July, she amazed us with her crawling skills.  Then, once August hit, she floored us even more by walking.  WALKING!  Our baby is walking, running, jumping (well, trying to jump), face-planting, dancing, you name it.  She has been a little trooper too.  I have fallen even more in love with her little personality as she has progressed through all this.  She is not afraid to try anything!  I love the fact that when she falls, she doesn’t even think about getting discouraged; she gets right back up and tries again.  She is such a happy, determined little thing.

We finally got to take Aleah camping and I am telling you, that girl thought she was in heaven.  She had such a blast getting dirty, chasing uncle Jake’s ducks, hiking, riding on the bikes/ATV, and sleeping in the tent.  I knew she would enjoy herself but I had no idea that it would be that big of a hit.  Hooray!  I have an outdoorsy girl!  I cannot even tell you how pleased as punch I was about that!  I only wish we could have taken her more.  This summer has been filled to the brim with house stuff so we’ve had very few opportunities to take her out.  After our camping trip to Wyoming, I’m more determined than ever to camp often as a family.

                                                

OUR ANNIVERSARY
Tyler and I celebrated our 5^th anniversary this August.  We had several kind people offer to babysit Aleah and give us a night out but we didn’t want to give up an evening with her.  We honestly love being together as a family as much as we can so instead we ordered Chinese, bought a red box DVD, and spent the night enjoying one another’s company.  It really was the perfect way to celebrate an imperfect marriage between imperfect people, that has worked out perfectly for five whole years.  J I know that’s a lot of perfects for one sentence, but I thought it conveyed the idea well.  If I had to sum up what this past year of marriage has taught me with one word, it would be this: humility.  I’ve learned that no one is perfect; we all have quirks, flaws, weaknesses, etc…  But we also have gifts and strengths.  One of the greatest discoveries I’ve made of late is that I know nothing.  I’m a total rookie in regards to so many different aspects of life.  But I’m learning that when I team up with my rookie husband and we honestly work at working together, amazing things can happen.

Just like every other month this year, June came and went faster than we could say shaz-am!  Here are some of the notable happenings we were able to experience this past month:

Happy Birthday Tyler!
Tyler turned 27 this month and did not appreciate any of my reminders that he is now officially in his late twenties (in contrast to last year when are points of view were completely opposite- go figure).  I guess denial is the first sign that it has become a reality. 

This year’s birthday seemed a little down-played since his present was actually purchased several months ago.  Tyler got season tickets to the RSL games this year for his birthday and while he has enjoyed them, it’s a little weird not presenting some sort of a wrapped gift on the big day.  Making things seem further unbirthdayish, we spent the day at his friend Ty’s wedding and did not get home until late in the evening, just in time for Tyler’s soccer game.  Ugh.  We decided to compromise by making Tyler a birthday cake to eat after the game.  It was a very tasty cake, and thankfully, once combined with the birthday dinners on both sides of our family, and a delicious Chilli’s dinner for the two of us, it ended up making for a very yummy 27^th bday celebration. 

Daddy’s Day
We were able to celebrate Tyler’s first Father’s Day!  Aleah gave daddy some awesome Ed Hardy jeans, new socks, and this hilarious tie that comes equipped with a squeaky toy and a rattle sewn inside.  Haha!  Love it!

Aleah and I are so thankful for Tyler and all that he does for us!  Tyler loves being a Daddy and Aleah has him wrapped around her little finger!  He is so sweet with her.  In fact, a darling lady in our ward told me that she loves watching Tyler hold Aleah because,  “you can just tell,” she says, “he just loves her.”  Aw.  Best of all, not only does he love being a daddy, he is good at it.  Ty is so patient and gentle with Aleah and is always such a big help.  We love him so much!

Additionally, Tyler and I are so thankful for the dads in our lives.  Both of our fathers help and support us every single day.  We can’t even put into words how grateful we are for all that they do for us.  We are so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives!

The Grange Homefront

I’m afraid to say that I used the wrong terminology in last month’s post.  Instead of saying “we sold our house” I should have noted that our house was “under contract” which is in fact a huge difference.  I work in the housing industry and am well aware of the different definitions so I can offer no explanation (aka excuse) for my slip of the tongue other than the fact that I am in a huge hurry when I write these and am extremely sleep-deprived J

That being said, we did not sell our house.  Furthermore, it is no longer under contract.  I’ll spare you all the wonderful details, and leave it with this: the buyers are silly and ended up cancelling the contract.  Boo!  This means that we’re officially homeowners to the second power and have just recently put our house back on the market.  We are so happy that we saved precious funds for this scenario and that everything will be okay.  However, it’s still disheartening to make double mortgage payments so feel free to pray that we will find some awesome buyers to move into this great home.  I want so badly for a cute, young family or newlywed couple to move in and to be a part of this incredible ward.  We just need to find them!  Aaaah!  So stressful!  Remind me to never move again, okay?  Okay.

Miss Aleah

Aleah took her first ride on a motorcycle and a bicycle this month.  It was so much fun and she completely loved it!  Tyler and I are looking forward to the day that we can take her hiking and camping once all this house madness dies down.  I’m absolutely convinced that she would love it just as much as Tyler and I would.

This little girl’s development has been through the roof this month!  It seems like she learned to crawl and then the floodgates opened.  She literally learns something new every day!  After she learned how to crawl, she also learned how to work her toys (which buttons to push, etc…), started dancing, babbling, climbing, clapping, waving, and understanding words.  She now says da-da and mama along with all sorts of similar sounds (la la, na na, and so forth).  She knows what “no” and “hi” and “come here” means.  This has been the BEST part of the month for Tyler and I by far.  It is so much fun to watch her take everything in and learn every day.

I’ve been doing some learning of my own this month; particularly in the genre of house-cleaning.  It seems like keeping the house clean gets harder as Aleah gets older.  Taking things apart and emptying drawers, boxes, and cupboards are some of her favorite pastimes.  What usually ends up happening is while I’m cleaning a mess, she is making a new one.   Oftentimes, it’s so fun to watch her delight in making messes, that I just soak in the moment and watch her.  Then I have two messes to clean instead of one.  But it is just so worth it.  She is amused by everything and is such a happy baby!

Aleah loves to stay active and always wants to be a part of what everyone is doing.  What a sweetheart!

And with that, I’ll sign off until next month.  Talk to y’all again soon!

Locked Out

AAAAAH!  Is anyone else having problems posting?  My computer has locked me out of blogger.  Now that I'm trying someone else's computer, it's finally working?  What the?!.... more posts will be coming soon now that I've learned it's just my computer.  LAME!

We Are Tardy-Heads

Oh, May.  What to say about May now that it’s June 14^th and I’m just now getting around to writing this?

May is such a blur and I have a sneaky suspicion that June is going to be similarly whisked away.  Nonetheless, here’s a breakdown of the parts that I remember :

·         I got to spend my first Mother’s Day as a mommy!  Yay!  Tyler and Aleah got me a nifty suede shopping cart cover (for Aleah to sit in) that doubles as a booster seat cover (to use at restaurants).  I’ve been coveting these for a long time and was so excited to get it! 
We celebrated with both of our mothers and had a lovely time doing so.
This is going to be quick and way too short to describe the depth of my feelings, but I want to take a brief moment and talk about my kind, wonderful, angelic mother.   I love her; I am crazy about her; I will always look up to her.  This year of all years, I’m so thankful to have her as a mom because of the incredible example of motherhood she has set for me.  My mom is one of my very dearest friends/kindred spirits.  Even now that I am grown and out on my own, she still amazes me every day with her selflessness and determination.  Being a mom is intimidating some days when I think about how I am literally shaping my child’s life at this point.  Thank goodness I have my Mom to look up to.  Simply put, I love her.  

On that same note, I would feel like a total ingrate if I didn’t mention my sweet mother-in-law.  We are going to live by her soon and as such, have spent a lot of time at their house as we’ve been back and forth from Roy to Washington Terrace constantly.  This has given me the awesome opportunity of getting to know Jeannie more and I love it!  She is so fun and kind-hearted and a superb Grandma.  Plus, she raised my husband and I owe his kind ways to her and the tender manner in which she raised him.

For the record, I think that being a mom is the best thing in the entire world!  Every day that I get to wake up and be a mommy to Aleah, is the greatest day ever.  Tyler and I both agree that we didn’t really know what joy was until we became parents.  It was wonderful to reflect on how blessed I am to be a mom this past month!

·         We sold our house!  Yay!  It was a very interesting, stressful experience that I hope not to relive for a very, VERY long time.  Since this is our family history, I just have to share a cool experience associated with the sale of our home.  I’ll try to overcome my wordy ways and make it brief.  Basically we received our first offer, got super excited, and submitted a counter offer so we wouldn’t have to come in with so much money after paying all the realtor fees.  At that point we found out that the offering party wanted much more from us.  We went back and forth with them for a while before realizing that we would be coming in with way more money than we wanted to  in order to sell our home (yuck.  Who wants to do that?) if we accepted their offer.  We felt we had no choice but to reject the offer, but we wanted so badly to find buyers that month.   Tyler and I both prayed about it throughout the day but got no answer.  Finally, feeling like we had no other choice, Tyler called the realtor just before the deadline to tell him we couldn’t go through with it.  Before he called, my prayer went something like this, “we don’t know what to do but we’re not getting any answers from you.  We are going to go forward with our decision so if it is wrong, please feel free to stop us.”
Just as Tyler opened his mouth to tell the realtor that we were going to say no, something entirely different popped out.  Instead, he described a perfect solution to the problem that split both of our wants right down the middle.  When he was done, we all paused for a minute and then were surprised when we realized that it was a perfect solution that none of us had thought of up until that point.  It wasn’t particularly
 difficult and didn’t end with us making loads of money, or anything like that, but it satisfied both parties and was exactly what we were looking for.  Aren’t answered prayers so cool?

·         Our new house is finally undergoing pre-moving construction.  So far we have put in new appliances, new crown molding on the cabinets, all new paint, and next week (cross your fingers), we should have the new carpet in.  Things are coming along nicely and we’re hoping to move in during the last weekend of June.  Wish us luck!  We are so excited to live in our new home.  Anyone willing to contribute their time and physical labor to the cause may contact us and prepare to receive of yummy treats that will be provided.

·         Aleah:  This month has been quite the developmental time for Aleah.   Once May hit, Aleah started crawling all over the place and it was very weird to get used to.  One day in particular, I remember putting her down by our coffee table in the living room, running to the laundry room to get clothes to fold, and coming out to find her totally gone.  She had crawled into the kitchen, and was going through the pantry in just that short amount of time.  At that point, I realized just how very much things had changed.  She makes noises all the time now, sings with Mama, and has a new favorite toy- Eucerin cream.  Funny, right?  She loves that stuff!  No matter where I hide it, she finds it.  She likes to grab big handfuls of it and watch it squish between her fingers.
We’re only now discovering how much harder it is to move/fix up a house with a baby.  For example, Tyler and I were both caulking/hammering stuff and had to put Aleah down.  She was crawling all over the floor covered in hammers, crow bars, nails, bits of wood, etc…  Now that the carpet is torn up, putting her on the ground isn’t even an option.  Taking these things into consideration, it’s really best that just one of us works at a time J  However, she has been an angel through this process and has loved having various family members over to help.  Here is a picture of her enjoying the house that Grandpa Wall made her after helping us install a new dishwasher.

·         Tyler here – I just wanted to add that I finally hit my three year mark at Hill AFB and really enjoying what I do.  In addition to liking my career choice I now get more sick and annual leave which is going to totally rock.  I love being able to take off work basically whenever I need.

·         I think that about covers it.  May has been a fun, transitional month and I’m already anxious for things to slow down once we establish some routine in our lives again.  Here is my collection of pictures we’ve taken along the way:

Aleah sleeping in Daddy's "man sling"

Playing with Grandpa

6 Month Pics

Here is a sneak peek of Miss Aleah's 6 month pictures:

A Very Crazy April

Has it really been another month already?  Time has really flown by this month, but we have totally enjoyed it.

I’ll start with the biggest news first: we’re moving! As mentioned in last month’s post, it happened fast.  We found a hud home in West Roy that we fell in love with, put an offer in just to see what happened, and then were totally shocked when we got an email the next week telling us that we were the winning bid.  It appears that we like living on one level because just like our current home, this new house has no basement and no upstairs and we love it.  Tyler calls it our house on steroids because it has so many similarities to our current home, with a few key differences, namely, no wood paneling, a garage, nice fence, central air, natural gas/electric hookups (we get to choose) on the inside and under the covered patio, a master bedroom, more space, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, cement driveway, and improved laundry space.  Woo hoo!  Here are the pictures of our soon-to-be home:

Front View

Front Porch

Living Room

Another view of the living room

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

As you can imagine, life has been pretty nuts since we received that fateful email.  We went into a total frenzy as we rushed around to pack up extra items and clean our house from top, to bottom.  The final product was bittersweet.  We love our house!  It has been so good to us over the last few years.  Furthermore, it is full of memories!   We have had some great moments in our first home and put our hearts and souls into making it nice.  Some of the improvements we have made include: wiring/venting the home for a dryer (this included the use of a cross bow), painting, bead board, trim, new windows, new roof, built a new overhang, built flower boxes on the patio, put electricity in the carport and shed, installed a garbage disposal (how did they ever live without one?), new wood floors, new carpet, installed rain gutters in the back, put flowers and trim going up the driveway, and probably even more than I’m forgetting to mention.  What a great learning adventure it has been!  We never want to forget this beautiful home or the absolutely incredible people in the neighborhood.  Tyler and I both agree that this is hands-down the best ward that either of us have lived in, which makes it even harder to leave.  We are hoping and praying that we will get some buyers as soon as possible, but even more that they will be good people who will be good additions to the ward family that we have come to love so much.  If you know anyone awesome out there looking for a cute starter home, send them our way!  Here are some pictures of the house that will always be close to our hearts:

Tyler only has 2 classes left in his first MBA course and we are happy to say that he has done so well!  Here’s looking forward to many more!

Aleah had her 6 month checkup this month!  She weighed 18 lbs, 13 oz., putting her in the 90^th percentile for her weight.  She was in the 75^th percentile for her height (26.5 inches), and is totally amazing her mother!  I can’t believe I’m only 3 feet taller than my 6 month old child but I’m so excited that she is not going to be stuck being a total shrimp like her mommy all her life.

As I’m writing this, she is nearly 7 months old and I am astounded at how quickly time goes by with my sweet daughter.  7 months?!  She is now closer to being a year old than she is to being a newborn.  What the?

Aleah is so much more mobile now!  She moves all over the place, loves to stay busy, and is so curious about her surroundings.  She wants to touch everything and know what it all is.  She LOVES being outside, which makes her mommy extremely happy!  Now that the weather is nice, we go on walks together all the time and she totally eats it up!

Speaking of eating, she is eating solids now!  I have been nervous for this stage of life because I totally love breastfeeding her and I was afraid that once we started her on solids, she would lose interest in nursing.  Thankfully, this was not the case.  Aleah loves solid foods (so far she has tried carrots, apples, pineapple, yams, peas, pears, bananas, and of course, rice cereal), but Mommy’s milk is still her favorite.  Yessss!  Someday I’ll have to do a post on breastfeeding because I am a total fan of it.  I know there are several people who aren’t able to breastfeed for some very real reasons and I totally respect that, which is why I’m even more grateful in the most humble of ways, that I have been able to experience this with Aleah.  She is such an angel.

One more thing we’ve discovered about her this month- this girl loves music!  We took her to Aunt Kinli’s ballroom dance concert and she was in heaven!  She sat on Daddy’s lap and bounced up and down with her arms out the whole time.  At one point, she got squirmy so I walked with her up and down the side of the auditorium; she sang with the music the entire time.  Can you say adorable?!  I will definitely be putting this girl in dance when she gets older.

Grandpa and Aleah's latest trick



Blurry phone pic of Mommy and Aleah at the temple waiting for Ben and Lauren to come out!



This past month Tyler and I ventured out on our own for the first time without our Aleah.  I felt really uncomfortable without her there but we still had fun together.  Our first outing was a ReAL game.  It went great!  Next we went to the Supercross.  At last year’s supercross, I was pregnant with Aleah and had to pee like 5 times, so this year was a little easier in that respect.  I of course forgot to take pictures at both events, so you’ll just have to know that we had a fun time.
I think that's a pretty good nutshell version of our month. And now.. bring on the May!