Is it spring yet?

It is officially a frozen tundra here in Philly! I was excited for the snow around Christmas and it actually feeling festive, which was hard to feel in Florida, but now I'm so done! Not so much with the snow but the freezing, cant feel your fingers and can't breath kind of cold.  I'm excited to see what spring looks like in these parts because it's probably really pretty! The snow has given us a chance to do some fun sledding though which our kids, oddly enough, had never experienced even though we lived in Utah and Denver!

It was literally like 8 degrees outside...so these happy faces only lasted about 10 minutes!

I got a new DSLR camera for Christmas and I'm loving the pictures that it takes, although I have a ton more to learn! 

Our indoor days have also been filled with lots of mischief and tea parties and anything else we can think of to keep us entertained! 

I started teaching Griffin piano and he is doing really well! He enjoys it and has picked it up really quick! He is also playing basketball and is loving that!

Decision time is rapidly approaching for us on whether to make Philadelphia our home for the next few years or to head somewhere else like Denver or Florida.  There are so many different pros and cons to each one that we are seriously torn! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thats all for now!

Oh and GO BRONCOS!!

You have your hands full!

I have been having a hard time lately as I am trying to adjust to life in a new place.  I don't know what is making Philadelphia so much harder to adjust to than Florida, but for whatever reason, it is.  It seems like everything is just taking more effort on my part (budgeting, grocery shopping, keeping my kids engaged and entertained, meeting friends, driving places).  I always feel better if I write down my feelings and hopefully some of you can relate and know you are not alone.

Being a mother of three is so rewarding and makes me happier than I can describe, but it does have its difficult moments...like this morning.  It was Griffins new student orientation and so I packed up the crew and took them into the school.  Things were already a bit stressful before we walked in because parking anywhere here is a joke...even more so when you have to parallel park in a spot that leaves about 5 inches between the car in front and in back of you.  Proud to say I did it though despite the screams of my kids that I was going to hit a car!

Well we made it in to the library and sat down and the first thing I noticed was that I was definitely the youngest parent (probably at least by 5 years) and I had the most kids!  This is actually not unusual for me, but nonetheless stresses me out sometimes!  It must be because we go to church every Sunday and during Sacrament meeting when the kids need to be quiet I bring lots of snacks to keep them occupied! Because today, on cue with the silence, Maelie and Reece start an inconsolable whining that you could hear around the room that they are hungry for a snack (they just had a big breakfast an hour ago) so I tell them that you can't eat in the library and try to distract them with technology (my best friend).  That only lasted so long with Reece...she started throwing the Kindle on the floor and then insisting on having it back, which I couldn't reach, forcing the man next to us to grab it.  So I took her out of the stroller and gave her a pen and paper to color with and a cracker that I tried to hide behind the stroller.  That lasted about 2 minutes and while screaming, she decided to throw the pen across the table hitting another man in the chest.  Luckily everyone laughed and was very nice.  She threw her binkie as well at the same man a little later and at that point I was so embarrassed and overwhelmed I just took the girls out to the hall... Sorry Griffin, you may not make it to the bus for school because I missed that part!

Walking out of the school one of the parents said to me, "You certainly have your hands full!" I think I have heard that from people about 1000 times.

Moments like these deserve Chipotle so I told the girls how sad I was that they didn't act nice during the orientation and drove straight there!  At least when they are naughty I get treats!

Hello Everyone!! It's been too long since I have sent out a mass update of how and what we are doing in our lives! I promise I will try to do better so that all of our friends and family know that we are alive and well!

We have been in Philadelphia, PA (more specifically Bryn Mawr) now for a couple months now!  It took us a long while to get settled mainly because I had purchased a table on Craigslist before moving and it needed a total overhaul!  We had to wait for Grammy to come out for that so I could concentrate and have help to get it done!  Now that its finished we are all set up and feel like we have a home again!

We really like where we live.  We have a park right across the street with tennis courts that Rock and I have already been to a couple times and soccer fields and a trail to rides bikes.  It's a constant battle keeping the kids from sneaking outside to go to the park.  But we also have a big backyard too which has been a lifesaver for the kids.  I haven't been able to find a pool here that doesn't cost several hundred dollars a month so we frequent the sprinklers in the backyard instead.  My Florida water babies are quite sad about that!

In the short time we have been here we have been pretty busy...First, we left our house full boxes the day that the moving truck dropped them off and drove 16 hours to Nauvoo, IL to see my mom on her mission.  The kids did incredible and we were all so happy to see her!  We had a blast! And now I can't believe she only has 2 weeks left!! I already made her book a trip to come out here ASAP.  We can't wait for some Grandma time :)

We also have visited the Philadelphia Zoo, the Please Touch Museum a couple of times which the kids LOVE, and we took a trip to DC to go to the temple and to sight see as well.  It really is cool to be so close to everything and to be able to see all of the history and stuff.  We also took a quick weekend trip to Boston because we have Rock's brother Matt staying with us for the month doing a medical school rotation and he served his mission there....so what better opportunity to get a VIP tour of the city.  And Rock got what he wanted by going to the Red Sox/Yankee's game.  I totally fell in love with Boston...I told Rock he needs to start seriously studying for the GMAT or LSAT so we can go to school there.  I would be willing to become a poor student family again if we lived there!  Here are some pics of our recent trips....

Taking a break at one of the parks by Little Italy

Taking the Ferry back after finishing The Freedom Trail

Eating at Mr. Bartleys in Harvard Square - sooo good!

Boston Temple

Soldier at Shot Heard Around the World Monument

This weekend we are traveling to Virginia for the BYU football game...we are meeting some of our good friends from Florida there so it should be really fun! We are living it up while we are here in the east...we are almost as tired as we were in Florida going to theme parks and the beach all the time!

Once we finally figured out the right ward that we needed to go to we were able to meet a lot of really cool people!  We go to church right in West Philly-its an interesting drive but it really makes you appreciate what you have and humbles you to think of what some people don't have.  The ward is probably half Americans and half Africans, mostly from Liberia.  I just got put in as a counselor in Young Women's and all of our youth are Africans as well.  There are only a few active girls, but their testimonies and their desire to know more about the gospel is really cool! I have heard from other member of the YW that it is a tough calling because the girls have so much potential but sometimes lack the drive and encouragement from home to actually accomplish things so hopefully I can make a difference somehow.   It really will be an awesome experience for all of us.  I am seriously the most uncultured person so I find myself asking really dumb questions so hopefully I can get out of my shell and really learn and embrace what is here in Philadelphia.

Rock works right downtown in Center City so he rides the train everyday into work.  He is in the Treasury department and has already been put to work and is pretty busy!  He will be in this position for 6 months and then will transfer departments to get a feel for another part of Comcast.  Griffin has already made some friends from church and starts Kindergarten on Wednesday.  We went to Orientation today and he got to ride the school bus and meet his teacher.  He told me the other day when I drove him past his school, "Mom that school is really big.  I think I'm gonna miss you!"  But today he seemed more than comfortable and excited to go back!  They strongly recommend that kids ride the bus here but I'm not too sure how I feel about my little boy riding a bus by himself! It seems like so much responsibility for just a little guy!  He gets dropped off right in front of our house though so hopefully it works out! We are looking to keep him doing soccer and basketball here and then starting Maelie in dance as well!

We still really miss Florida and of course Colorado! We didn't quite escape the only bad parts of Florida (bugs and heat) because it is essentially the same here-haha!  Moving is hard and it takes a while for everyone to adjust but I think we will have a lot of fun here!  I'm especially excited for the seasons to change so I can wear winter clothes and boots again!  Sorry for writing a novel!!!.....<3 p="">

A new perspective on blogging...

     So the past week I have been reading the book Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielson (Nie Nie) and I was obviously inspired by her story (if you want to know more about it click here.)  Blogging had been a hobby of hers before her accident that she actually had gained a lot of followers from and really all she was trying to do was to share her thoughts as a mother and wife since she was going to be far away from her family in Utah when they moved to New Jersey.  Annnnyways, I just thought maybe I should make blogging more of a journal of my life rather than a chore of posting pictures and using up so much time to make, as it has been in the past, yearly updates.  I used to write in my journal every day when I was in high school but since I have been worse than awful.  So if you want to hear the random happenings of a mother of three by all means keep reading, if not I wont be offended because I won't even know.  
 
I have been having a hard time lately with being negative....maybe its the screaming 4 and 2 year olds that make me feel gloomy but I wanted to post everyday what I am grateful for so that my perspective might change and I will be a nicer mama....(you know you need to work on something when after getting after Griffin for something he was doing, Maelie looked at me and growled as if I sounded like an angry bear! How embarrassing!)

First off, I am grateful for my hot husband who saved me way back then (yeah this picture is a little old, hence the skinny me) and still saves me everyday! He knows just when its time for me to get out of the house and head to the gym so that my sanity can be saved.

I am grateful for my Kindle Fire...stupid, I know, but I love it! Maybe just the fact that I can read in the dark made it worth the purchase. 

And last for tonight...I'm grateful that Maelie ate four bowls of what I made for dinner tonight.  That always makes life just that much easier!

A long overdue update

Well since its been a year since my last blog post I won't actually post an update of our whole year; although we had a pretty good one! :)  Some of the most notable happenings were:

1. Rock graduated from BYU in December (he walked in August) and we are very proud of him!

 I finished my last semester at school but still have to finish a couple online classes to graduate (story of my life but I promise it will get done.) Hopefully I'll have of these pictures to show for myself!

2. Griffin turned 4 and started preschool.  He enjoys it and has learned a ton! Here is a picture of him beside his dry erase board where he wrote his name all by himself for one of the first times!

3. We had a wonderful Christmas alone as a family since I was expecting our baby soon after...

Maelie playing Mary in our Nativity

 

We got a fun visit from the Oblads!

Griff and Maelie in their new slippers

  4. Griffin learned to ride his bike without training wheels! We were very impressed!

 5. Most importantly we had our baby Reece on January 5th....I was induced and things went pretty slow at first because Pitocin doesn't work on me.  After about 6 hours of Pitocin my water finally broke and Reece came about 10 minutes after that so it was a good easy labor and we are soo happy to have her in our family.  She is the BEST baby in the world and I love her to pieces.  She seriously never cries and is so patient with her brother and sister. 

Reece on her blessing day

 

6. My mom went into the MTC and has now made it to Nauvoo for her mission.  It was sad to say goodbye to her but we know she will have such a good experience and bless so many peoples lives including ours because of her service.  Whenever we pass the MTC Maelie still yells "Hi Grandma!"  We are very proud of her and can't wait to hear of her experiences in Nauvoo!

 7. And finally, Maelie turned 2 and had a fun little party with some of her friends this weekend....

We are waiting to hear where we will be moving to in a month or so...Comcast said that they should know by mid-April and as we requested to stay out west as much as possible that would put us in Los Angeles or Denver so we are very excited for the next chapter in our lives.  Although it makes me sad to think about leaving our friends in Utah! 

The transition to 3 kids has not been as painful as I was expecting.  There are definitely times when I just want to crawl in a hole or even more my bed but overall it has been great!  Reece is an angel and will usually just sit and talk or be happy anywhere you put her.  And Griff and Maelie have been so good as well - they really haven't had a hard time transitioning to have Reece at all.  Maelie has hit her terrible two's of course and can be heard saying "STOP IT" all day long but she is just so cute its hard to get mad at her!  I signed up for the Disney Princess half marathon which isn't until September but I've been trying to run every morning to get ready for it.  I'm a little nervous since the most I have ever run is probably 2 miles in high school, but I'm making some good progress, I think.  I just hope I can finish the race before the Pinocchio bus has to pick me up and take me across the finish line!

Anyway, that's the update of our lives! Hopefully it wont be another year before the next!

Oh the life of a mother...CAUTION...not for the weak of stomach

You know back in elementary and middle school days when you used to play MASH or MASHO with your friends...everyone would always add at least one of the worst jobs they could think of to the occupation category in hopes of a good laugh when you got stuck with it (what job comes to mind is pooper scooper)...however, I don't think MOM was ever put on that list...not to say it is a bad job but sometimes it can be a dirty one and stinky! So since this morning I had noticed a foul smell coming from our bathroom....this wouldn't be the first time as we have had plenty of mishaps in there including a dead bird stuck in our dryer vent.  Well finally tonight when I was brushing my teeth I decided to investigate.  Since Griffin has been potty trained we have had a few surprises but none of these could compare to what I was about to discover....Maybe I should have guessed considering a couple mornings ago, Rock woke up to Griffin using the bathroom for #2 and the first thing he said to Rock was, "Dad I've been pooping all morning!"  Well, first I checked all around the toilet...nothing of consequence.  Next the trash can, toilet paper holder, and plunger...all good.  Next was the toilet brush and holder which I was saving for last on purpose.  Bingo....the culprit....I lifted the brush out of the holder and found a puddle inside of the most disgusting mixture you could imagine with little turds stuck to the bristles of the brush!! AHHH! I gagged and coughed and had to leave the room for a few seconds to get myself together...mind you this had been marinating for a couple days now!  Well, Rock laughed and tried to lend support while I dumped the contents and threw the toilet brush in a dumpster far far away.  Funny that Griffin kept saying today how bad it smelled in the bathroom as well....and we thought diapers were bad....potty training takes the cake!!!  I think Griffin saw us trying to unclog the toilet one time and just thought he would try the same thing....lets pray I never have to do that again!  Sorry if this was too much for anyone...I did caution you! :)

Exciting events of 2011!

Well I had all intentions of updating right after Christmas and then school started and of course it didn't happen.  Sunday mornings seem to be a great time to catch up though so here are a few exciting things and developments that have happened these past couple of months!  Our first exciting news is that Griffin is finally potty trained!  He never had an accident which was wonderful, but it took a week for him to go poop in the potty.  He would just scream bloody murder every time we would make him sit on the toilet but after a while of screaming it just came out to his surprise! He just started yelling, "Mommy I did it, I went poop!"  Since then he has been doing awesome; he is very proud of himself, as are we!

The next exciting news is that Maelie finally decided to crawl!  I think she actually would have started a few weeks ago but she was sick for so long with a cold and then a double ear infection that it just sucked all motivation to move out of her; poor little baby!  About 2 days after she had been on antibiotics she started crawling...and now I wonder why I ever wanted her to in the first place.  Now I have to baby proof my house! :)  She is at such a fun age right now and is such a happy baby! She adores Griffin and will copy everything he does including dancing, growling, yelling, and laughing.

Our last bit of news that has us still so surprised and grateful is that Rock got the internship with JP Morgan that we were really hoping and praying for!  Not only is it a great opportunity but it will put us in Denver for the whole summer and hopefully will give us a career path for after he graduates!  He is pretty nervous about it but really excited too! And I am so proud of him I could explode :)  When he told me I was about 2 minutes away from walking into the testing center....let me tell you how much I concentrated on that test!  We will be in Denver from June to mid August and the kids and I are looking to spending lots of time with all of our family and friends there!  Thats all for now!

Halloween

Hope everyone's Halloween was great!  Ours was very fun!  We went to Tooele to Trick or Treat with my sister, Gina's family.  Griffin was very excited when we got to the church for the truck or treat and as we got both of the kids costumes on he yelled, "Happy Costumes!!"  haha  Because of the rain the trunk or treat was moved indoors and Griffin got to run through the halls of the church collecting candy. 

By trick or treating time the rain had stopped and Griffin was very excited to go to all the houses to get more suckers!  The only thing that scared him were the dogs that came to the door which he would proceed to hit with his bucket of candy.  All in all, Halloween was a success and we now have way too much candy that will find itself in the trash :)  I'm trying to lose weight here everyone! Here are pictures of the kids costumes and Rock's masterpiece pumpkin for the year: 

 

 

Maelie's first pumpkin :)

Rock did an amazing job at Lightning McQueen! 

Yum!  Caramel Apples are a family favorite!

Getting ready to Trick or Treat with cousins, Connor and Jill!

Griffin's 3rd Birthday

Griffin is now officially 3, even though he has looked it for about 6 months now!  We had a big party in Colorado since we were there for Dylans baptism.  It was so fun to be able to be with all of our family and with everyone that loves Griffy! 

Festivities started out with a pinata of Lightning  Mcqueen, but I think he liked putting it on people's heads as a hat better than actually hitting it. 
 



His mountain of presents had a theme...Toy Story or Cars...his two obsessions.

 

Oh wait, candy is an obsession too.  Here is he excited about some suckers he got from Russell and Nat



Giving hugs to say Thank you!

What a good birthday!


Now I hardly see Griffin because he shuts himself in his room and acts out all the scenes from Toy Story with Woody.  Yesterday I could hear him saying "Its all because of my stupid hat!" and "Howdy, Howdy, Howdy" in his room.  For some reason 3 seems so much older than 2; he is such a big boy and I am sad but also happy to see him grow up. 
Maelie had a check up yesterday with the Dr.  She is now 17lbs and 25 inches long.  Yay, for growing taller!  She is in the 60th percentile for weight and only the 22nd for height.  Oh well, short people are happy too right?  Because I dont think she will be growing nearly as tall as her brother.  Here are some cute pictures that one of my friends took recently of her.  Most of you have probably already seen them actually, but they deserve a second look :) 

This is Maelie to the T!  She always has this expression on her face!



Fall Already!

I really suck at this blog thing, considering I have only made one post since we started one.  Summer and time just got away from me but we did lots of fun things that I will update you on!

Cabins
Our first fun trip of the summer was to the cabins in Southern Colorado with my family.  We stayed most of the week and had fun fishing, shopping and just hanging out with the fam. 

Griffin loved fishing for about 10 minutes and then just wanted to throw rocks in the river, which entertained him forever!

Florida
Our next trip was to Orlando and Disney World.  It was so fun and very chaotic with all the little kids.  Days consisted of an amusement park in the morning, naps in the afternoon and returning to the park in the evening to finish up rides and see fire works.  The kids did great but by midnight they were done and ready to sleep!  After that vacation we were all ready for an exclusively adult vacation! :)

Overall the trip was a success and Griffin loved every minute of it (we did too)!  We will have to take Maelie back someday to make up for all she put up with, poor baby!

 The rest of our summer was just spent at home hanging out with our good friends that moved to Texas in August. Griffin and Oliver were best buddies and Griffin still asks all the time if he can go to Texas to see him.

We rented a jet ski and spent the day at deer creek reservoir.  It was so fun and once again the boys were completely entertained by throwing rocks in the lake all day long. 

Now that school had started for both of us, life is not as leisurely but it is fun to start activities with Griffin and watch Maelie grow up.  Griffin started a little joy school that we do with one of his friends, Charlie.  Here he is painting which he asks to do now everyday!

Maelie's new trick is sitting up all my herself.  She is growing so fast and just turned 6 months old!!  She is not a big fan of baby food yet but we are working on it. 

So that is our life right now! We are so blessed! :)