Fall....

I LOVE fall but HATE the season that follows. I have never liked the cold, even as a kid. So as I sit here gazing out at our awesome valley view from my office window I imagine my backyard soon covered in that bitter, cold, white stuff. I look back on the summer and all the fun that we had, yet how busy it was too. The first was my Lima turned 6. SIX!!!! Poor kid always has her birthday after school starts so it is harder to throw a party for her. But we pulled it off this year. She invited a handful of classmates to a swimming party, and it was a hit. Other then making a ginormous rainbow cake (my kids always want the oddest cakes) the party was no stress. SO worth the fee to use the pool and the room, which included pizza btw! She has grown up SO much since she started kindergarten and even more now that she is over a month into first grade. Her spanish is coming along SO well (she attends a dual immersion school) and tries to teach us at home. She had started piano lessons but is "bored" becuase she can't sit down and play like a pro. STINK!! She is doing dance again for the 5th year and still enjoys it. Here are some pics from her party!
THE CAKE!!!


It is a fun time to go shopping with "Grandpa the GREAT" and my kids call my grandpa for birthday. There is always a lunch date afterwords which is priceless time with him.

For dinner she wanted to go the the Mayan. This kid has the BIGGEST imagination I have ever come across. At dinner she was toothless off the movie How to Train Your Dragon. She kept "flying" all over the place and making noises at all the people. I am sure they just LOVED that. Crazy kid!


Shortly after Lima's birthday is mine. My dear sweet husband made the VERY large mistake of handing off our house keys to friends so they could pick up a cake for my surprise party (WAIT, I still don't have pictures from that!!). You know it was all down hill, no pun intended, from there!!

Where has my time gone...

My hubby pointed out to me last night that it has been FOREVER since I posted. I smiled at him and told him to post something whitty and update then. As you can see that did NOT happen-still love ya mister! So where has time gone since April?

With a whirlwind of buying a house, remodeling a house, tearing out a front yard, packing, moving, unpacking, and family vacations..I guess I can say we have been a little busy! SO I will take it a little at a time before I get bored and distracted with kids or other things that really need to be done.

When we moved into our other house to rent I swore we would not stay living in the neighborhood. We call it the hood and White Harlem (not just me most that live here). BUT after living here for 3 years and finding some of my best friends we could not leave. There were always homes for sale in the boundaries so we knew when we were ready to buy there would be one, right? WRONG! There were NONE. I was disappointed. When we wanted to look at the house we are in now, I was told that it was sold and the closing was that day. Ugh oh well, maybe it was meant to be. So we kinda gave up looking for a while and with work and life we were just to busy to dedicate our time to really searching. Several weeks later after trying to figure out why the house still sat empty with the sign out front I was told the sell fell through!! I thought there must be something wrong if it fell through again and had sat empty for that long. So we called out realtor and we went and looked at it. It was meant to be ours, we both knew it. The price was amazing and what we could afford. With a little fix-up and some serious hours work it is getting there. Our house is OURS and we love it. I love that after all these years, I can paint my walls. I can plant flowers if I want to, and I can do whatever I please. YEAH!!!

We are also very blessed to know the prior owners and what great people they were. They were able to finally sell their home and we were able to finally won a home!! LOVE you Rachael. I am not posting finished pics yet because we are still working on things, like putting in the wood floors in the kitchen and the door frames and base boards. But when we are all done I will post the before and afters. Everyday I look around and know that it is all mine!! Such a wonderful feeling. And to all those in my ward-YOU make us want to stay here forever!!i

Here are the pics from the before and after of the front yard. THIS was a mess! But looks so much better now.

This stump looks like no big deal right?




It took over 5 hours to grind this stump and it STILL was all over the yard. This thing covered much of the yard.
Here is one pile of some of the roots

There was another huge stump that sat in the corner of the yard that had been buried by dirt and cinderblocks. We got that all dug out



The final PRODUCT!!


We did not sod the entire front yard because next spring we are going to dig out the window well and finish the back yard. Then we can use the side of the house without tearing up new lawn. Until next time, I am going to go stare at my luscious, thick, green grass!

What a totally gross day!!!

As all know yes I am nurse and yes I do deal with some nasty things at work, BUT the one thing I don't deal with at home, work, or anywhere else is....TEETH!!! It makes my stomach turn and I become nauseous just thinking about it. THAT is why I am not a dental person- kudo's to all of you who are. Well over the weekend Lima came to me and showed me her front tooth was bleeding and she said it hurt. I asked if she hit it and she said she just bit down hard. Thinking nothing of it, it told her she could be fine. Well them comes today. After school she tells me her tooth is still hurting and asks if I will look at it but to be careful. So I had her open her mouth and very cautiously touched the culprit tooth and IT MOVED. I about puked on the kitchen floor I was so grossed out.
Not her, she thought that was the coolest thing and had to call Mr. Bean immediately at work to share the news of her first lose tooth. She had it all planned out who to tell, including her friend who just got her first loose tooth today too. She has it all figured out how she is going to place the tooth in a pillow and put it under hers. Then came the- How much money do I get question (of course). Here is yet another changing moment in life.
All along I am trying not to visualize the nastiness that is to come, and the sadness. She is growing up. She is getting bigger. This is the last of her babyness that she has left, and it is rapidly going to leave.
SO if there are any takers of the nasty pulling the tooth out, please feel free to take over that task for me.

Where to begin...

SO once again I have been a SUPER DUPER blogger slacker!! But when the Holidays came and then the new year life just became, or stayed crazy. I am now the first counselor in Young 's and I LOVE IT!!! It helps that the president is my identical personality that has been missing all my life. I am so so so excited to what the summer brings in this calling with girls camp and youth conference. Mister Bean is busily working his brains out about 60 hours per week, but hey it is all worth it when I get a suprise diamond anniversary band! I on the other hand am still working graves and I do have to admit it is getting MUCH MUCH better!!! I will never get used to the no sleep thing but I am finally getting the hang of getting things done.

The critters are still growling like weeds. I ask Pinto everyday when she is going to shrink and become my baby again, she smiles and says...tomorrow. I could eat her up she is such a ham. She has also turned into my little shadow. All the time she tells me she is going to "be my vawentine fowever". A mom could only wish for that to be true.

Lima is doing amazing in school. She is starting to read books really well and is learning to wrote sentences better! It is amazing what they are learning in kindergarten. By the time 3rd grade rolls around I am going to be clueless to what she is doing.

Lima got an award at school for being a smart chicken!!!

Other then the insanity of work and life we did have a wonderful chance to get away for a weekend to Bear Lake in February thanks to my awesome grandpa. We had a good time just hanging out and attempting to snowmobile in the blizzard snow.



What do you do in a condo when it is cold outside? Jump up on a table and sing and dance to Mamma Mia at the top of your lungs!!


We decided to stay an extra day in Logan. We went bowling and it was a first for the little beans.


Maybe by the next time I get to blogging we would have done something more exciting to share. But when life is scheduled to the minute we just flow with it and are grateful that we both have jobs and somewhere to call home!!

My baby goes to Kindergarten!!!

( I know people this is SEVERAL months late...but for my sake I am posting it anyway :))

I will be the first to admit that I was quite ready for this monkey to go to school. She is such a busy body that is so curious about everything and wants to know about it all. SO yes, I am one of those parents that had the secret countdown in my head to the day school was starting. It was a GREAT morning. We had a big breakfast with our little theme of the year "Have fun and Learn Lots". We have to keep it simple, after all, she is only going to kindergarten!


There was not time that morning thought to relish in the last moments of being home because Thursdays are busy with two chickies in morning dance class almost back to back. The school this year did a new thing called kleenex and cookies for the parents after dropping there kids off. We snuck and both grabbed a cookie sat down and had our last chat of innocence before she entered the eye opening world of school. I only felt teary for about 2 minutes after she was walking away not even looking back. Then I got home and realized all that can be accomplished in 2 hours and 40 minutes.





She is missed but I also enjoy the one on one time I get with Pinto...that is something we have never had. Now that the year is have over-almost- and we have had a few attention hurdles kindergarten is a blast for both of us. I am the room mom, supposed to be another helper but she disappeared after the first party, and I get to volunteer one day a week in the class.

I am loosing my mind or are kids having to learn more stuff at a younger age. Forget colors and letters....it is about words and reading here. MAN, I would have failed for sure!! I am very proud of how well she has done and how far she has come. GREAT JOB Scooby!!

A kid free getaway!!!

We had the wonderful invitation to get away with some GREAT friends to Park City for a weekend in September. Talk about some SERIOUS fun. Days full of shopping, pedicures, games, zip lines, and so much more. We look forward to going next year and enjoying the great company and memories.





What a HOT looking trophy couple me make!!!

A much needed post!!!

How busy life has been. It seems like there are weeks that go by and I can't remember what went on.

SO...to rewind and do some catch up, my baby turned a BIG 3 years old in September. She was a monster of a baby but has turned into one big giant ham of a QT. Not a day hardly goes by when she does not end up in some sort of dress-up clothes. She LOVES her GG (a giraffe blankie that she carries EVERYWHERE) and she loves cereal. She also loves playing with her princess dolls or anything that you can pretend to make talk. She has decided that she hated bread (but eats it when you just give it to her without saying anything), she loves to snuggle, and I enjoy our nap times together on the days that I have to work that night. She is just starting to really roll play with her big sister and when they are not fighting :) they have quite a fun time together.

On the morning of birthdays, the birthday fairy brings donuts and leaves them on the porch for breakfast.


For her cake this year she was very insistent that she wanted a purple snake cake with pink insides and purple polka dots. She was also adamant that she wanted to eat it one top of the house...but I had to say no to that one.

She had only a few simple requests for her birthday. A car -man do they start young with that one!, make-up, Tinkerbell, and Ariel. Happily for her between family and us she was able to get all her birthday wishes granted.
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I LOVE my little Pinto bean. Through the tantrums (3 is SO much worse then 2!!) and the "hold you"'s she is a keeper. She brings silly giggles and lots of love to our home!!