Easter 2009

Having boys is not quite the same when it comes to some Holidays, Easter being one of them. What do you buy boys for Easter Sunday? When I was little, I was that girl that had on the hat, new dress and some years, gloves. Then I realized that for $11.99 each I can buy matching sweater vests- pair them with existing white shirts and khaki pants- and I've got some Easter outfits. Boys are great!
I am officially in love with the sun. The snow is mostly gone and days are loooong. Spring is the literal light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. We have so much planned for the summer, and hope to enjoy every minute of it!
Also, we have decided to owner-build this summer! I know, we are crazy and this changes almost every day but we dropped a cool amount of cash for the house plans and there's no going back now. I guess I have a new part-time job?!

Wannabe

So I guess I'm supposed to be running a 12k in a month!? Time has flown by and the training just hasn't been happening like I wanted it to. Except for now. I joined the Valley Womans Running Team (sounds professional but is open to anyone! All levels! Including level 0, which is where I'm at) Our first day was a trail run up Wolverine Canyon. In the snow. We were instructed to just stay on the snow machine track and to watch out for bears. "If you sense a bear, just make some noise", says the leader of the group. Thanks, I'll be sure and scream while I'm being eaten.
We ran 35 minutes up the hill in somewhat soft snow that gives way much like running in sand. Don't worry, I was only in the very back of the group that consisted of several 50+ year old women. Luckily, coming down was just gorgeous and renewed my resolve. The entire run was only an hour but I felt it for days!
Last night was our track run but we ran to a local hill again ("Mormon hill" as they call it.. right next to the Palmer chapel) to run more hills. I guess I'll be getting into shape whether I like it or not!

At least we don't have hurricanes..

So Mt. Redoubt has been blowing for days now. My poor friend Tara and her family have been trying to leave for Mexico since Thursday evening and their flight keeps getting cancelled due to the ash. So much for the timeshare week! We had a light dusting of ash on the truck this morning as we left for church but unfortunately no ash fall advisory for today in our town so church wasn't cancelled!;)
Anchorage seems to have it worse than where we are and Kenai area (hundreds of miles south) is really getting hit hard. The snow (yes, we still have it) went from white to completely gray within hours.
We spent the weekend helping out Holly at her new house. It's adorable! Jeremy took out a window in her dining room and put in sliding glass doors so she can actually access her big back yard. We bought some slate tile to tile up the back of her raised bar area in the cute little island we put in her kitchen. That has been such a fun project!
Jack and Tate are doing good. Jack is as mischievous as ever. I joke that I've given up on him and I'm just going to focus on Tate. ;) He still WON'T potty train but I'm confident that by the time he goes to college we should be good.
Tate is the smiliest baby around and loves ALL food. Surprisingly, he's not near as chubby as Jack was but I swear he eats more. (Must have his dad's genes!) We have the hardest time finding pants for that kid since he's so tall, if they fit his waist they are so SHORT and if they fit his legs the waist is huge. Yeah, I've never had that problem.

STILL winter?!

I have been in a bit of a funk. The days are longer and the sun seems a bit warmer but the SNOW is relentless!
2 weekends ago (wow, am I behind at blogging?!) we spent Saturday up at my parents cabin- snowmaching, snowshoeing, and... well, eating. I broke out my new snow shoes for the first time since Santa (AKA Jeremy) brought them. The day was absolutely gorgeous, snowed HUGE flakes all day outside while the cabin stayed cozy inside (albeit not really warm save the loft which was toasty) considering the insulation is now half done.

We found an old abandoned cabin that was almost buried in the snow!

Around the cabin..

and through the snow!

We have decided NOT to break ground on May 1st as we had originally planned. Things are just too up in the air now where Jeremy works and the last thing we want is to build our little dream house and then not be able to get a loan to close on the house because we have no income if Jeremy were to get laid off. (Apparently, they frown on that?!) (Although from the current state of the housing market it's clear they haven't always frowned on that..)
SOO.. it's looking like fall at the soonest that we'd start. I think we will just get an apartment and rent while the house is being built. I thought I'd be so heart broken about waiting longer still.. but I really don't care. I would rather be safe than sorry.
Tate has 2 teeth now (Wow, I still dont have pics of that. Poor 2nd child Tate..) He's saying "Mama" and "dada" now although conveniently enough always says my name when he's crying and needs to be fed, changed or just held.

Tate

I can't believe he is 8 months old! I am getting so sad when I look at him and see how BIG he is getting! We are done for a while, so I am trying to enjoy Tate everyday as much as possible because I just LOVE this age! He is SO smiley and has the brightest blue eyes ever!

Here's Tate at cousin Vyrl's 1 year birthday party. What a cutie!

Jeremy and I with Tate on Christmas Eve.

Jack sharing his safety glasses for "working" with Tate.
It's FINALLY staying light past 5 (yeah!) and is starting to feel like maybe spring will actually come someday. We have another meeting with the builder on Friday. We are unsure of what to do since things are slowing down at Jeremy's work. It's so hard to know when to build, what the interest rates will do, what Jeremy's company will do (lay more people off?) Ugh, I know it will all work out but I hate worrying about it!

5 Years!

On Saturday, Jeremy and I will celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. While this may be a small number to many, for someone who still feels like she's in high school most of the time and is only masquerading around as a "grown up"-- this is hard to believe. Before Jeremy, I never had any "long-term" relationships. I really didn't even have any boyfriends (beyond a few months, hardly counts), mostly boy friends. He is the best decision I ever made.
I'm not sure what we'll do.. but sometime on the date I'm sure we'll take a vote and see if we want to stick it out another year;)
Jeremy is off every other Friday so tomorrow he is going to the cabin to work on the electrical (yeah! One step closer to insulation) I love that about Jeremy, he can do almost anything... electrical, plumbing, anything mechanical, woodworking, etc. For a "white collar" guy, he's quite impressive! I seriously think the man can fix, install or solve just about anything. I LOVE that about him!
Jeremy is also the best father, sometimes he seems to have more energy than the kids when he gets down on the floor and plays. I think he was meant to have boys.
Here's to many more anniversaries!

Is it too soon to start Botox?

So the other day my sister Holly and I were in the grocery store when the gentleman working there so politely referred to me as Holly's mom. Umm.. Holly is 24..we're 4 years apart. 4 years!!! Do I look that old? (Please say no) What a dramatic change since 2 years ago when the flight attendant on the way to China almost kicked me out of first class because she thought I looked 12. (And who TELLS someone that anyways-- "I thought you were 12!") I can only hope that I look the same as I do now when Jack turns 24 (21 years from now, thank goodness)
We went to the cabin on Friday (my sister has pictures posted here), but since there was no insulation in the roof or floor, we FROZE. Jeremy seemed to think the cabin would still get warm sans insulation-- turns out it is somewhat essential when it's 15 degrees outside. Hmm, who'd have thought? So we didnt spend the night, we came home at mignight. I told Jeremy I wasn't going to attempt a sleepover there again until it was insulated or it was May, whichever comes first!

Apparently I can't let Christmas die..

since I still have my Christmas themed header up and I'm too lazy to change it. Maybe by Valentines!:)

It's only appropriate though since I'm just NOW getting around to writing about Christmas. Except now I've waited so long that I don't have much to say other than Christmas was great as always. We are so blessed with a large, healthy family and enjoyed the spirit of the season.

I made my parents a quilt for the cabin that is "outdoorsy" themed. The quilting pattern is salmon, since the cabin is right on a fishing river. It almost was a Bass, which Jeremy informed me was NOT acceptable since apparently there's no Bass in Alaska? (Who knew?)

Since the 62 degree temperature swing since last week, I am finally coming out of hibernation! Still bad at blogging though...

An Inconvenient Truth? Really?

So it has been just a little bit on the chilly side lately:

It has sucked all the energy out of me and I havent left the house for days. (Would you??) Not only that, but the last time I DID leave the house I got stuck. On flat ground. 1/8 mile from the house. The wind was blowing so hard that it made a huge snow drift in the middle of the street that when I tried to drive through, turned out to be 18" deep or so. The Pathfinder would have made it, but since the Pathfinder is in the shop, we are driving the "loaner" which is a cross-over.. (that cannot cross over much, apparently.) There are more stories behind that but I'll spare you.

I guess staying inside isn't so safe either since yesterday as I was standing about 7 feet away from the kitchen window it completely BLEW OUT all over the kitchen for no reason!? It was scary and wierd... although thankfully it was just the inside pane and not the outside so we are still toasty warm. SO- who wants to come visit?:)

Christmas was good- I will do a christmas post once I get all my thoughts and pics together. 2008 was another good year to us and I am just amazed every day at what I have. I find joy in everyday life and love it! May 2009 bring much joy, happiness and prosperity to your lives as well...

Busiest time of the Year

I have been loving Christmas (as always) but have felt so busy this year. Part of that is having two kids, part of that is doing a few homemade gifts, wrapping up loose ends on the closet business (which I dont know if I ever mentioned that we quit doing... it was too stressful) and now I'm also taking on some work for the Interior Design company that I used to work for.



We met with a builder on Friday, I feel really good about him and am excited to get things finalized. After hours of tweaking this is what the exterior of the house looks like that we plan to build (barring unforeseen circumstances like the economy completely falls under and houses go for next to nothing... then, we'd buy instead of build obviously)

To be able to "get in" to this house, we are only finishing the main floor which has 2 bedrooms (technically a guest bedroom and a den but it works), a bathroom, the great room, kitchen, and dining. I hope all goes well and we can build because now I've got my hopes up! :)

I hope everyone has a great week, and has better time management skills than I!

Here's the page from Jack's party..

because I'm too lazy to post all the pics. So here you go!

The highlight of his party was the balloon pit. We used a large dog pen (don't know what else to call it? Its about 6' diameter or so and made of metal) and filled it with balloons. Most of the balloons had small prizes in them so when a kid found a prize they could pop the balloon and keep the prize. Luckily we had enough prizes for each kid to have 2-3, especially since they didn't want to get OUT of the pit.

I've spent the last few days cleaning and finalizing my pages for my viovio.com order. Their photo books are amazing! However, you need a minimum of 24 pages.. so I also had to pull together about 6 pages in the last 2 days. (That's what I love about digital scrapbooking though, you can throw a whole page together in 30 minutes if need be and still have it look okay) BTW- this page is one that was thrown together so not my best work, but it gets the job done.

Tomorrow, I am meeting for book club (which I still haven't read the book- haha- I'll start it today and should be good. It's a shorter read) The book is "Finding Noel" by Richard Paul Evans.

Then tomorrow night Jeremy and I, my parents and my sister Heidi and BIL Scott are going into Anchorage to go to dinner and to the temple.

I love weekends!

It runs in the family..

My sister Holly wrote a post recently about my father that describes this man to the T. (Or is it "to the tee"?)
What is it about saving a few bucks that makes us feel so great?
I was thinking last night about what the "perfect day" would entail. I thought "Well, everyday is a perfect day that I have my family safe and healthy". And then I realized.. that somewhere in that day I would also go shopping and get some great deals on clothes, shoes and home accessories that were just the right size, color and fit for my needs. :)
I realize that christmas is over commercialized. But my argument is that there is room for all aspects of christmas. Just because I decorate my house with garland (shiny silver and gold, please) (kidding!!) does not make me any less aware of what this holiday truly means... does it?;)

Time Flies!

I canNOT believe that November is over, I swear it was JUST Halloween!? We have had so much going on. Jack turned 3 last Monday so we went to Bouncin Bears, had hot dogs for dinner (his favorite), ate cupcakes, and opened a few presents. Tuesday I spent all day helping my mom get ready for Young Women in Excellence- we made 35 hand stamped programs and slideshow CDs with cute labels etc. Seems easy, took a while! Wednesday was a little grocery shopping, had lunch with my sister Lindi who came up from Utah State to spend Thanksgiving with the fam, and then that night we went to Twilight. (Thumbs down)
Thanksgiving was amazing as always-- all of my immediate family was there and much of Jeremy's as well. How lucky am I that my parents and my in-laws are friends so my parents invited them over. No picking houses for us which is SO NICE!
Friday I had some shopping to do for Jack's "friend" birthday party. I was the only person out there NOT shopping for christmas-- so dumb on my part!
Saturday was a great day-- at Jack's party we played games, ate pizza, pinata, cake, presents etc. Then my sisters, mom and I went to a Holiday Bazaar where I got an amazing twig/green apple wreath for $30!
So here I am 4 days from the deadline to submit my scrapbook pages to have my books by Christmas, 3-4 UNsewn christmas presents to finish, and still some shopping left to do.
Still- I LOVE the Holidays! Bring on December!

Little Sickies

Both my boys have been sick these past 2 weeks. Jack had what we thought was strep, but turned out to be a "viral sore throat". It's accompanied by both eyes being completely crusted over every morning and throughout the day. Great. Jack is better but now Tate has it. There's nothing sadder than a poor, defenseless baby who's eyes are unable to open because of all the "stuff" on them. Luckily, he likes showers. Poor little guy. Jack then got a little 24 flu bug and was throwing up. (so gross..we just threw his pillow away!)
I had some dissapointment recently as well. My "Hippie Chick Half" that I ALREADY BOUGHT TICKETS TO filled up in 8 hours! The tickets went on sale at 12:01 am on a Saturday and by 8 a.m. (7 a.m. Alaska time) the race was full. Arrrghghghgh.. Who'd have thought?! If I had known the race filled up that quickly I would have stayed up or set my alarm. So frustrating. So, I found another run- "The lake Run" on Lake Oswego. It's a 12k and will be the perfect pre-cursor to the half marathon I will now be doing in June up here in Alaska.
The builder FINALLY started my parent's cabin yesterday. We were hoping it'd be done by now but he's of course running behind. I can't wait to just "get out"- I think I'm going to do some cross-country skiing this year and maybe even try snow-shoeing?
What do YOU do to pass the winter time??

Halloween '08

The night turned out to be a success despite the frigid temperatures (7 degrees). We took the boys trunk-or-treatin' and split the duties. Jeremy had Tate and gave out candy while I walked around with Jack and spent half the time having to coax him to approach the cars that had jack-o-lanterns, spiderwebs and scary music playing. In the end, the promise of candy always won out. We definitely gave away more than Jack acquired but it was fun to see the kids all dressed up. Then, after that was done, we went over to my mom's house and dropped the boys off while we went out to dinner. It was a last minute idea but was SO NICE! Plus, Jeremy and I got engaged on Halloween (5 years ago! Time flies!) so it was fun to celebrate that as well.

A 2 holiday weekend!

Jack has not been a big fan of Halloween so far. He hates going into stores because of all the displays and scary witches, skeletons, etc. that are on display. It does not matter how silly or smiley the expression- somehow he knows these items are meant to be scary and I have no idea how since he's never seen any movies depicting them as so.
However, I'm sure tonight will prove to be different the second the first piece of candy drops into his bucket. He's just now at the age that he understands how monumentious the occasion is when people are anxious to just give you candy- since at home he has to work so hard for it..like say, going on the potty chair. ("snake poop" as he calls it- haha)
And my favorite holiday- FALL BACK! This meant more to me when I worked but I am still excited. Bring on more sleep!

Hippie Chick Half!

My sister Holly and I have been plotting for years now to run a half marathon (OK eventually.. a full marathon..but baby steps, people) We found this half marathon in Portland that has great reviews and winds along the Willamette river. There are live bands, Jamba Juice, Old Spaghetti Factory, The Body Shop with their foot spray, and plenty of tie-die on site to make the day great! It's held Mother's Day weekend so of course our Mom is coming as well along with my older sister Heidi. They will be walking the quarter marathon and Holly and I will be running the half! Wish us luck, I'm starting my training now. We already bought our plane tickets, have our accommodations etc.! I'll let you all now how the training goes.. I warn you it will be s-l-o-w..I can only run a mile right now! How sad!

SNOW!!

Yes, it is in the 20s here and winter is in full force. Last Friday, I woke up at 3 in the morning to feed Tate and practically beat my touch lamp to death before realizing the power was out. Jeremy and his dad didn't go to work because it was still out at 6 and because we are on well/septic there was also no water, heat etc. (My brother in law said to Jeremy: So, you didn't go to work because you couldn't take a shower? Haha..yep) We bundled up (although the house stayed in the 60s) and the power didn't come on until almost 1 in the afternoon!! It was kind of a fun day though- makes you appreciate what you have. I wanted to make good use of my "down" time- sewing? Nope. Digital Scrapbooking? Not so much... So, we SAT and talked.

I was asked to be in charge of the Book Club for the ward. I picked "Recovering Charles" to start with by Jason F. Wright. Has anyone read it? I just got it yesterday-it looks like a way easy read--maybe too easy-- but what can you do...

We also had someting else exciting happen- yes, Wasilla, AK now has a Target! My sister and I went last Wednesday night and salivated all over.. we felt like we had gone on a mini-vacation when we came out of there. Target is one of my favorite places to go when I go to the "Lower 48".

Tate is now 4 months old- I can't believe it. We tried rice cereal on Friday- which went over like a ton of bricks. If he actually did swallow any of it-- it was purely luck. He is just as smiley and wiggly as can be:

Pele

I finally have pics of our little soccer star. He loves going but is a little shy once we get there. His coach does an amazing job with the boys.

Jack is at such a fun age and makes me laugh everyday. A perfect example of his personality happened the night Tate was born. At the hospital, he and my family were waiting in the recovery room for Jeremy, Tate and I to move in from the delivery room. Jack was being loud and boisterous so they told him he needed to be quiet or else he would wake up the brand new babies in the hospital. He thought about that for a second, smiles and yelled "WAKE UP BABIES!!"

Problem solved.

Last fishing trip of the season

At least for me..

We went down to the Kenai on Saturday and fished (catch and release) for trout. The trout are not huge but it was fun to just be out on the water. We saw 2 brown bears and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. I caught this little guy but would not touch it! Haha..

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