My New Plants!!

As part of trying to make my new house my new home, and with the help of my bishop who is an owner of a nursery, I got new plants in my front yard!! I worked so hard almost all by myself. Thanks to Troy and Andy for their hard work!!

Here are the plants that are outside right by my front door. We left a big open space in the middle for a fountain that will be coming soon so stay tuned!


Here are the plants that are outside my 2 window wells...

Here are close ups of the plants. If you want to see them bigger, just click on them!

Ryan's 1st T-Ball Game!

I wanted to post some videos of Ryan playing in his first game! Ryan did pretty well but towards the end of the game, he had enough. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the videos. Also, it was really windy so you get to hear that too.

Here is Ryan before his first game!


Here is Ryan going after the ball after someone hit it...



Here is Ryan up to bat...



Ryan was getting the ball and running after it...



This one made me laugh. He didn't want to share ball and someone else got it.



This was only his first game and hopefully he will get better!!

My Kindergarten Graduate!!

(Nice face Ryan)

I can't believe that Ryan has finished his first year of school!! He has grown so much and has improved beyond measure!! Here is a cute video of his graduation ceremony. His teacher, Mrs. Smith, wrote some memorable things about Ryan. (I messed up the beginning of her speech about Ryan. She first said, "Get his autograph now, because you're looking at the next Bill Gates.")




EDIT:: I can't believe that I totally forgot to add this wonderful picture of Ryan and his outstanding teacher, Mrs. Smith...

(Again Ryan? What's with the faces??)

I can't believe that it's time for summer. I'm kind of worried about how I'm going to deal with him being home all day. I just got adjusted with Ryan being gone all day from 9 to 4! Since we've moved into our new home though, Ryan and Ben have found some fun, new friends next door and across the street. Yesterday, those kids played ALL DAY long!! I couldn't believe it. They had a blast in our great weather and they got some farmer's tans to prove it.

I did sign Ryan up this summer for his first sport, T-Ball, next week! His first game is coming up so more pictures and videos soon!! HAPPY SUMMER!!

Ben's End of Year Program!

After we moved, I placed Benjamin in another preschool! I looooove it!! I love his teacher and the kids look so cute. At the end of the year program, Ben was assigned to be the spider for Little Miss Muffit. Here is a short clip we took of him. Thanks Sara for making Ben's shirt!! He loves it!!



In the next 2 videos, Ben is just singing the other songs he'd learned. One of them I got scared because I thought he was pulling his pants down!! That would have been interesting!!

Yay for Daddy!!

Growing up, my dad would tell us kids a story. This was his original story that he made up. It's called Johnny Airplane.

My mom made dad sit down and put it write it all out. Dad got a wonderful illustrator and with her help, they published it! We kids had no idea that he did this until last month. He surprised us as a late Christmas present. Here is what it looks like.

I think this book would be a great addition to anyone's family with small children. I am biased though... because a great man wrote it.

Easter 2011

I think this year, Easter came at a bad time. I had to plan an Easter egg hunt plus 2 birthdays all in 1 week. It was pretty tough.

On Easter morning, Troy took pictures of the boys. I love them.

New Posts Coming!

Yes... Yes. I know! I haven't blogged in a very long time and there is so much to share!! From moving in to birthdays to Mother's Day, I have a lot of blogging to do!

I'm working on it! The reason why I'm posting about me posting is because I was on Blogger helping my dad start a new blog! Welcome Dad to the blogging world!!

Details to follow!

Finally moved in!!

It's official! We are home owners again!! Wahoo!!!

Troy and I signed our lives away on March 25, 2011! The closing only took 45 minutes and after we were done, we moved all our of stuff out of storage into the house! We are so happy and excited!

As soon as I get things around here settled, I was going to have a housewarming party for anyone who would like to come see my new digs! More information to follow....

Also, here is a picture of my new bedroom set!!!

House almost Complete

Here is a video of a quick walk through of our home!

House Update!

I've been chastised to post updated pictures of my house! I don't know why I haven't been posting updated pictures! I apologize! We have been visiting our new house everyday to see the new changes. Yesterday, our appliances came and were installed by the plumber. Here are the various rooms...

Here is our kitchen. Still some work to do. That cabinet between those 2 walls is where the fridge will go. That cabinet will go above the fridge.


Here is the kitchen sink...


Here is what my bathroom looks like...


And, here's my potty!!

So nice of Ryan to model it for us.

Here is a picture of the unfinished shower. We are going full euro with the shower which means there will be glass surrounding the shower with only hinges holding it together.



Here is the boys bathroom...


And, here is the half bath just off the kitchen...


We are super close to closing on the house. Just a few more weeks. There is a problem though that probably will prevent us from closing. We are waiting for the temperature to warm up and everything to dry out to pour the cement in our garage, our driveway, our steps up to the front door, and the walkway to the driveway. I guess those are the perks for building in the winter right? I now need to pray that March will deliver it's spring weather! Come on Spring!!

I'm so proud of Ryan! He can write his name all by himself!

Our House So Far!

I went over to our house today and took some pictures. Here's what the house looks like as of today... January 12, 2011!

Here is a view of my bathroom. I'm going to have a corner tub with a shower to the left...


Here's the corner tub!! I'm sooo exicted!!


This next shot is of our front porch. They have a covering over it because they poured the front porch a couple of days ago. To the right is the front door. The window to the left is the living room...


And last, here is a picture of the back of the house...


It's coming along! We're getting excited!

I'm stuck!

Troy and I went by our house this last week because they are framing it. Ben liked to go between the walls and say, "I'm stuck!"


Christmas Eve story:

I forgot to mention in my last post about something funny Benjamin said...

We were putting Ryan and Ben to bed on Christmas Eve. I wanted to have a little family moment before we said our prayers. I wanted to sing some Christmas songs with the boys because they both like to sing... like their mother.

First, we sang, "Santa Claus is coming to town". That was fun. Then, I said, "Ok boys, let's sing a song about Jesus because Christmas day is Jesus' birthday." Ben then thought about it for a minute, then started singing "Happy Birthday to you...." to Jesus. Troy and I both laughed out loud. It was a pretty funny moment.

I just needed to write that down before I forgot about it. I'll remind Ben that he sang that when he's like 16 years old.

Happy 2011!

Here are some pictures of the boys during Christmas time...

I think the Troy and the boys had a good Christmas. I sure didn't. I was sick as a dog for the holidays. I think I either had pneumonia or bronchitis. It was absolutely horrible! I stayed in bed most of the day and Troy stayed home from work taking care of the boys. It was really hard on me and Troy.

One night, we got a foot of snow and my FIL wanted to build some snowmen.


We had fun with those snowmen. They were huge! I like the look on Ben's face here. That was a lot of snow for him to walk in. He kept getting stuck. Poor short kid. I wonder where he gets his shortness.

Christmas presents for the boys were easy. Ben LOOOOOVES trains. We bought him a train and he loves playing with it. It's LEGOs so we are losing pieces already. That's frustrating.


Here is a picture of Ben with the train we had going around Grandma and Grandpa's tree.

I think you can say that Ben is OBSESSED with trains.

Ryan got a mirror ball for Christmas! He likes to turn it on at bedtime.

Ryan also really wanted pillow that has speakers in it so he can listen to his music in bed. He uses it every night and doesn't go to bed.

We also had fun watching Grandpa going out to be Santa for many families that have him come over. Here's a picture of "Andy Claus"!


Now that the holidays are over, we are moving forward and are excited to moving into our new house. It's being built right now. The house is being framed and we love going over there almost everyday to see the progress. All the walls are up and I love walking through it and seeing where everything is going to go. I would post pictures but all you see are wood walls and they would mean nothing because you can't tell what is what. It is projected that the house will be done sometime in March.

Since we don't live in our house right now, we are living with the in-laws in the apartment. It's a 1 bedroom apartment so we transformed it to a 2 bedroom apartment with no living room. It's a pretty tight squeeze but we are truly grateful for a place to stay.

Since we are going to be in our home in a couple of months, Ryan has transferred to a new school. He is going to an all-day kindergarten and he's loving it already. He's been going for a week now and he has already learned some new songs and loves to eat lunch at school. He loves his new teacher, Mrs. Smith and seems to be fitting right in. I'm so happy that he's getting more time at school and more services. The only drawback, I have to drive him everyday... drop off and pick up. It takes about 40 minutes round trip each drive. So, an hour 20 minutes everyday. Fun for me. But, it's worth it for Ryan and his needs. I've noticed that I really miss him during the day. I'm sure I'll get use to it but for the first week, it was kind of hard. I missed my boy.