One Year Older and Wiser Too

Friday I turned 27! I remember thinking when I was younger that people who were 27 were so old. But now that I'm here I don't feel like it's old at all. I just had a little party, just Scott's parents, my family, a niece and nephew, and an old friend of mine whom I've been friends with since 7th grade. We had dinner, cherry chocolate cake, chatted, and the adults played banana grams after the kids went to bed. It was a fun evening. One of the highlights was that I got to eat my dinner first without worrying about getting the kids food at all. So nice!

Cool candles huh? 26+1  

My parents and Scott's parents catching up.

My sister Clarissa with Parker

Bananagrams! I had Scott take these pictures so that's why he's not in them.

The next day, Saturday we had our 4th sunny day since being here and we finally got to go out on my family's boat! None of us went swimming, wake boarding, or surfing because the water was a little cold, but it wasn't too cold to go tubing!! David and Sydney went tubing for the first time! My Mom just put the boat in taxi and we rode the waves since it was so windy. But the wind was not cold and it was like rafting down a river with class 2 rapids. It really was a lot of fun. Sydney went first with Grandpa and Clarissa, and was very eager. She even sat all by herself gladly. David needed a bit of persuasion from Grandmama and Rosalee, but once he was out there with Grandpa and myself he didn't want to stop. They were both so cute! And Parker was in such a good mood. He was loving just sitting in the boat on Daddy's lap, even with the life jacket on.

Sydney's so brave!

Go David!

 It was such a fun afternoon and great to pretend it was summer one more time!

Our Recent Life

These last couple weeks have been so great. We're settled into Scott's parents place now and are enjoying being so close to the grandparents. We really haven't done much of anything but relax and play around the house and visit my family a few times. Scott has still been getting his internship going so he's been home with us, basically making these last couple weeks feel like a vacation. The kids are loving all the extra space they have now, and getting to know their Grandparents better since we've never been around them for very long before. I'm not really looking forward to Scott being gone all day again(I personally love having him home!), but at least that will get me doing something again. I've just been so lazy!

Parker and Sydney with Grandpa Sorenson

Parker taking a nap with Grandpa Farmer. Still need pictures with their Grandma's!

Daddy love...

Parker also turned 8 months on the 8th(this is late, I know). He celebrated by teething in earnest. Last week he had a fever for a couple days just before his top, front, left tooth started cutting through, and now his bottom, front, left tooth is poking through as well. None of us have been enjoying this stage. My happy smiley Baby has turned into a clingy, angry baby. Most of the time anyway. If I'm holding him he is usually back to his old self...

Now that we have enough room we've FINALLY been able to start teaching Parker to sleep through the night. It has been going ok too. He's not quite as stubborn as his siblings were with this. I'm hoping he'll have it down within a month. We shall see!

Just a cute picture of Sydney during nap time...

Blackberry Picking Adventure

The last week we've been unpacking and enjoying a little down time before Scott starts his internship. The other day I thought it would be fun to take the older kids blackberry picking. Blackberries grow everywhere here and it was something I always did for fun growing up. I took them out behind Grandma's and Granpa's house for our little fun outing. Well it turned out to be really steep so that the kids were slipping into the thorny bushes getting all scratched up, and had to just sit while I picked them...

and I'd forgotten about this lovely part of blackberry picking...

Gross! That one was a good inch long! Luckily I didn't stick my hand into a web while reaching for the berries, something we did all the time growing up. Then I stepped into some dog poo that had been hiding in the grass. Needless to say our fun little outing turned into a short little adventure.

Thankgoodness those blackberries taste so good!

Leaving Rexburg

While preparing for the move I knew I was going to miss the Pingry's. But when our last goodbyes became tearful with my sister in law and we climbed into the car I realized just how much.

I have to interject here that without her there's no way we could have packed and moved in a week. She was there every day helping and helped keep things organized and sane while the guys were packing up the truck. Thank you Heidi!! You're awesome!

They had us out for one last barbeque and we had a great time. My brother and sister were able to make it as well so that made it even better. Then when the sun went down and it became unusually cold we went inside.

Us with the Pingry's!

I left Rexburg right when they arrived there. Saaaaaaaaadd  :(

J helpin out while we clean the apartment.

All the awesome guys who volunteered to come help us move everything into the moving truck.

I also need to thank all the people who helped us clean after everything was out. We worked until 11pm and if we had been doing it alone we wouldn't have been able to check out until the morning! A special thanks to Tracy Mahn(a friend through the Pingry's who Scott did tile work for), Brian Murri(Scott's Boss) and his whole family, and Heidi and family for spending so much time(and energy) helping us. To Orchid Christensen, Madaline Smith, Kirsten Loyd, and my siblings J and Julia for helping as long as their schedules allowed. :) To the Farnsworths for baby sitting our kids several times right at the end, to the guys who packed the truck, and to my parents who lent us their walkie talkies so Scott and I had a way to communicate while driving. That was a life saver!

And this is random but while driving somewhere in Idaho(can't remember where) it was just so gorgeous I had Scott take a picture. He had the camera with him in the truck.

Ambitious Parker

In the last couple weeks Parker has been trying to do several things all at once. I'm wishing he'd slow it down a little! He started scooting forward purely by pulling with his arms(he was scooting in circles before), then he started trying to crawl from a sitting position(thankfully he hasn't quite got there yet!), and then the day before we packed up the truck he got a hold of a storage bin and started doing pull ups on it! Crazy boy! :) He just hung there holding as tight as he could til he couldn't hold on any more. He has some really strong arms!

You can't tell real well here but he's holding himself up with his arms not his legs.

Scott the Tile Master

I know, I should be packing right now. But I know if I don't post this now, after we move there will be too many other things going on and other things to blog about, so I have to do this now. A couple years ago Scott spent the summer working for an old family friend doing tile. He got really good at it too. Then he was hired to do jobs on his own a few times, and he even tiled his parents whole kitchen a couple Christmases ago(with his brothers learning and helping). Well in the last few weeks all of a sudden he has had three tile jobs come up out of no where. It's been crazy. Him working long hours into the night and still doing janitorial at 3am, and me trying to get ready for the big move with out a husband. But we both feel someone up there has been watching out for us, because we really needed the money. So anyways, the main point of this post is to say that Scott does amazing tile work and here are some photos to prove it.

He did the counter and backsplash, and the lady didn't know how she wanted it to look. She just gave him the white(which was stuck together in huge squares on some backing) and ornate tile and asked him to come up with something. Looks pretty good!

These little white tile pieces had to be put up one at a time because they wouldn't stay on the backing.

Two showers for some friends of the Pingry's. We were glad to be able to help them out as they had had a string of bad luck with all their remodeling. Scott saved the day!

this room was pretty small so it was impossible to get the whole shower/tub in the picture.

And the kitchen he did-counter and backsplash.

The last one he's working on before we move he won't finish until tomorrow morning, so no pictures.