In our effort to live in every city in Utah County, we will be relocating to Pleasant Grove sometime in January. *GASP* Did I just say that?

This decision was a really hard one for Jeffy and me. Really hard. We’ve been thinking about moving for over a year now, but not very seriously. When Jeff went back to the office in January and wasn’t working from home anymore, I think that’s when our desire to be closer got stronger. We would look at houses every now and then, but we never really liked any of them. There was always something wrong, or something that we didn’t like about each house, so we took that as to mean it wasn’t the right time to move for us. So, we laid off of the house looking for awhile.

Then a couple of weeks ago, the desire to move came back. We went out one Friday and looked at about 8 houses and among those 8 was a house we fell in love with. The next day after looking at the house, I was picturing our family there and the kids rooms and what they would look like, and where we would put all of our stuff, and by the end of the day (and after much praying) we just knew we needed to put an offer in. We got everything ready with the real estate guy Sunday night so that we could turn our offer in first thing Monday morning. The lady counter-offered our offer and we accepted that and bang! The house was ours!

I know that everyone says this and it sounds so cliche, but this really was a hard decision for us to come to. We have loved living in Eagle Mountain. It’s been a place of growth for both of us, as individuals and as a couple. Our little family has grown since we moved here. Lindsay was just a baby when we moved here, with a cute little round face, diapers and a mullet hair-do. This is the only place she knows as home. Logan came home from the hospital to this house and it saddens me to think that he won’t remember it when he’s older. We have made amazing lifelong friends out here and please know that you will always be important to us.

Neither of us look forward to having to start over, but we know this is right for our family. Even though we know it’s right, it hasn’t stopped me from being scared to death. I’ve never liked moving because it forces me to go out of my comfort zone and I don’t like that. I know that everything will be fine because we have the church and no matter where you go, you always have the church. I’m excited to be there, I just wish I could take all of you with me…

On Sunday, Lindsay was starting to get sick, so she and Bethy went home from church after the primary program. When I picked Logan up from nursery at the end of church, we stopped to put his coat on, and we had this conversation:

LOGAN: “Daddy, I love my big sister Lindsay. She’s my best friend.”
ME: “Yeah, she is pretty sweet, huh.”
LOGAN: “Yeah, but, I really like her.”

A little while later, once we were home, Lindsay and Logan got into the cutest argument ever:

LOGAN: “Lindsay, you’re my best friend!”
LINDSAY: “No, you’re MY best friend!”
LOGAN: “I love you so much!”
LINDSAY: “No, I love YOU so much!”

Then they gave each other a big hug. It made their parents pretty happy.

Logan loves tractors. He LOVES them. He has a book about tractors that we have had to fix at least 4 times because he reads it and reads it and reads it. It’s super adorable. Tonight, like every other night in the past 2 weeks, he picked his tractor book to read. I was curious how much he knew about this book so as I was reading, I left out words and he just jumped right in there with the missing word and in some cases, an entire sentence or paragraph.

He has memorized this book, word for word, cover to cover. It was so fun to listen to him and we all ended up with the giggles.

I will be surprised if this kid ends up being anything other than a backhoe driver.

Lindsay participated in her very first Primary Program today. She would have been in the one last year, but we were out of town. She had a line to say and everything! Her line was, “I am a spirit child of Heavenly Father” and she was the very FIRST one! I had no idea. She did great and sang all of the songs and it was fun to see her up there.

During the sacrament beforehand, I was helping Logan with something and looked over and saw her with her arms folded and eyes closed. I thought she was saying a prayer to help her not feel nervous because she was, but when she opened her eyes, she looked at me and said, “I was just thinking about Jesus.”

I gave her a thumbs up and proceeded to tear up.

Aren’t you??

On a side note, she looked beautiful today. See?

I found a new way to do her hair from a website I found. It’s like a headband, but with pony tails. Isn’t it cute?

It snowed here Friday night so we got to wake up to a beautiful white covered world! After a Saturday pancake breakfast, I bundled the kids up in their snowsuits and out they went. It was a relief to see that Logan likes the snow this year! He would not go out and play in it last year, mostly because he wouldn’t even want to get his gloves or hat on or anything. But this year he’s all for it! Yay!!

They felt it was important to clean off the swing set.


Lindsay had left one of her Barbie’s outside, so they went on a mission to find her. She clearly was not dressed for snow and isn’t her hair awesome?!

Then we built a little snowman, of course.

Since it hadn’t snowed that much, I used the snow shovel to shovel the snow from the patio to use for our snowman. Logan was helping me.



Logan loved the snow so much he just laid right down in it to play with his tractor.

Who knew sidewalk chalk worked in the winter? It never crossed my mind to use it, but it was fun!

Snowball fight!


Snow is so fun!

I just felt the need to write down a few things to remember about my kids.

Logan:

“chicken fafreedo” – chicken alfredo
“dwankie” and “dwanket” – blankie and blanket
“othewise, actually, and probably” – How does he even know where to put that in a sentence??
“softball” – starfall.com
“wipdwass” – lip gloss (Yes, my son loves lip gloss and yes, he carries it around with him everywhere. As cute as it is, we hope this phase ends soon.)
The second anyone leaves he tells you he misses them.
He tells us he loves us.

Lindsay:

“diarrhea” – diary
“doos” – does
“makded” – made
“what the heck?!” – it’s so cute when she says it because she gets this really shocked look on her face.
When I drop her off for preschool, she blows me roughly 18 billion kisses and tells me she loves me and signs I love you and wants me to make sure I tell Logan she loves him, too, all this after she’s already given us both hugs and kisses before she gets out of the car. It’s so sweet.

When Lindsay got home from dance today, Logan excitedly screamed her name and they gave each other the biggest hug and were genuinely happy to see each other.

I’m insanely lucky to be their mommy.

The days leading up to Lindsay’s party were very busy. I had a lot of cleaning to do because I didn’t want anyone to not come because we had the swine flu and nervous that they’d get sick. So I cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned. I cleaned windows, doors, door frames, doorknobs, banisters, walls, cabinets, tables, chairs, sheets, toys, stuffed animals, computers, phones and anything that we may have touched while we were sick. We even got the carpets and couches professionally cleaned.

You’re welcome.

I had a lot of fun planning this party for Lindsay. I totally stole every single idea off of the internet and am proud of it! That’s one reason why we have the internet, right? I love birthdays and think they are so so fun! I know the kids had fun as did I.

The party was a Superhero Training Camp. Jeff and I wore our masquerade ball masks and some pillow cases as capes and the kids all came dressed up as a superhero, including a few who made up their own superhero. The kids played 5 games, one for each superhero, testing their superhero powers. I printed up a list to hang on the wall and then Lindsay checked them off after each game.

The game we played for speed was green light/red light, which was for Superman. The weather wasn’t too cold so we played this game outside so there would be more room.
Here’s me being the light and jumping around.


Green light!

Red light!

The next skill we tested was their X-ray vision and we played pin the Batman symbol on Batman.

The next skill was testing their super powers. We played Pass the Kryptonite with a green glow stick. They had to pass it fast or else the kryptonite would take their powers away. The kids liked this game the best, I think. We played it three times.

The next game tested their problem solving skills and for this one they had to find and put together a Spiderman puzzle.
We hid the pieces upstairs in the playroom.



Then they needed to work together to put the puzzle together. It was a lot harder for them than I thought it would be, but with a little help they got it done.

The last skill we tested was their strength (Hulk) and for this we had a pinata. And once again, Jeffy had to hold it.



Picking up the candy and putting it in their bags.

As a prize for successfully completing all the tests, they each got a Superman/girl t-shirt.

And then of course it was present and cake time!







Waiting for cake

It was a total success and it was fun pretending to be superhero’s for a day. Isn’t she the cutest little 5 year old Supergirl ever?

Happy Birthday, Lindsay!

Lindsay had her very first piano recital on Saturday and she did awesome! Her teacher, Heidi, wanted her to memorize and play four songs. I have to admit, I didn’t think that was going to be possible. I mean, she’s only 5! But once again she amazed me and she had two of them memorized in about a week. The other two were more difficult and I wasn’t sure if she could memorize them but after lots of practice she did it!

She was super nervous, to the point of feeling nauseous, the morning of the recital. We went to the church early to practice because since she was sick with swine flu should wasn’t able to go to her piano lesson that week to rehearse. She was still really nervous just practicing with us, but after much encouragement she did great.

I am so proud of her! She has learned so much in a short amount of time and she really seems to enjoy it.

The four songs she played,in case you can’t understand her, were:

The Professor’s Rest
Far Away
Dancing Shoes
Camptown Races

Here are two pictures from Lindsay’s super fun Superhero birthday party. Kelly was so fabulous and took the pictures for us but I haven’t gotten them yet. So until I do…


Aren’t they cute??

I think this is the first year that Lindsay didn’t have a party on her actual birthday. It’s been weird. I know that millions of people every year have parties either before or after their birthday and are fine, but I was/am having a hard time with it. The days leading up to her birthday, I had so many unanswered questions. Do we make a cake even though we’re having cake in a few days? Because you have to have cake on your birthday. It’s some unwritten law. Do we have her open presents or wait until her party? After much thinking (some things are hard for me) we decided to, of course, do all of those things on her actual birthday. You just have to.

Since we were all sick, we were all sleeping in different rooms in the house. I was in our room, Logan in their room, Jeff in the guest room and Lindsay in the playroom. It actually worked out really well and everyone seemed to sleep better. Since she was feeling better she wanted to sleep in her normal room the night before her birthday. Yipee! No more tip toeing around! The next morning, I could feel someone by the bed, but they weren’t waking me up. I sleep with earplugs and a mask so it’s not like I could just hear them or open my eyes to see who it was. It takes effort to wake up and I just wasn’t ready to yet, so I just laid there. And the little person just left me alone. After a few minutes, I took my mask off and took my earplugs out and found cute little Logan leaning against the bed, just waiting. I asked him if Lindsay was up yet and he said she wasn’t. Weird. It’s 7am on the dot. She’s usually very punctual. So, while we waited for her to wake up, we read his tractor book, which we have taped and stapled back together at least twice. That’s how much he loves that book.

Once she woke up, we went down stairs and opened her big pile of presents. I was glad we decided to let her open ours because there were a lot from us and a lot from grandparents. If we had waited until her party, present time would have lasted forever. Here are some pictures of her opening the gifts. We had two gifts that were for her and Logan so he got to help open those. They are a hit!



When Lindsay opened the Corvette she said, “They got me what I wanted!” It was so cute! She likes it, but so far, Logan gets the most time with this one.

Mom, did I have this book as a kid? It looked so familiar flipping through the pages. She’s excited to fill out all of them.

Her great grand parents always give her money in her presents and this time they put it inside a little purse they gave her. She loves it because then she gets to put it in her piggy bank.

Hannah Montana! She got a CD and the movie. Today she told me, “I can’t believe I have the Hannah Montana movie!” She’s so excited.



She LOVES this card and giggled and giggled when she opened it.


The kids playing with the new play food and pots and pans. It’s been fun watching them play with it.

Birthday pancakes with the special Happy Birthday plate.

In the afternoon, one of her gymnastic teachers called to wish her a happy birthday. She was so shocked! She couldn’t believe they called her house to talk to her. It was very sweet of them to remember her on her birthday. Thanks Little Gym and Miss Miriam.

As the day went on, we all just started getting antsy and Jeff and I decided that we needed to go somewhere. It had been like 6 days since the kids had been out of the house and over a week for Jeff and I. It was time. After much thought, we decided to take them down to BYU to feed the ducks. It was a beautiful, warm fall day and we knew that with jackets they’d be just fine. It worked out perfectly. There was just one other family there at the pond and they weren’t close to us at all. The kids had a blast feeding the ducks! At first there were just two in the pond and you know how ducks are, they fight over the food. So that’s what these two were doing and the kids thought it was hilarious.
I got some good shots of Lindsay coughing, just to prove that we really are/were sick.


After awhile we walked around to find some more and we ended up finding a big group of ducks, including a big pretty white one. We told the kids that if they held really still and put the bread on their hand that the ducks would come and eat it right out of their hand. They did and the ducks did! It was so fun! Lindsay really enjoyed it but Logan was a little nervous about the whole idea and only did it once or twice and then went back to throwing it.


After the bread was all gone, they kids just kind of played around until we left. It’s a really pretty area there at BYU and this little pond goes into a little stream and things, but there was hardly any water so they kids were climbing through it and over it to the other side.



On the other side of the stream, there were a ton of leaves on the ground and the kids started jumping in them. It made me wish we had bigger trees in our yard so that we could jump in the big piles. Some day. It was so fun to watch them having fun and getting to do something other than play inside and watch movies. They needed it so much!



Logan got a leaf stuck on his tush. It was picture worthy.

After about an hour, Lindsay’s cough started to act up so we knew it was time to leave. We got some take out dinner and went home and had some cake/cupcakes and ice cream. Which for our kids means frosting and ice cream. I don’t know why they won’t eat the cake part. Logan likes it more than Lindsay does.



It ended up being a really fun and memorable birthday. Better than I had hoped for since we were all sick. I hope it’s one she remembers for a long time. Jeff and I love BYU. We love Provo. I miss that area so much so when the opportunity arises that allows us to go there, we jump on it. It was a beautiful day and I will always remember feeding the ducks and playing in the leaves. There are still so many fun things to do out there that don’t cost a thing and make beautiful memories. I love my kids and I love watching them be kids. It doesn’t last forever and nowadays I feel like childhood is getting shorter and shorter and so it brings a smile to my face watching them do fun kid things. Thanks for the memories!

Until Part 2…