House Update

We made an offer on a house on Monday. We didn't think that it would be accepted because we offered pretty low, but Tuesday morning our realtor sent us this text:

I just got an email from the other agent that said "I can't believe it

but they are going to accept your offer!"

Woohoo!  Happy Dance!

So, we have also been doing a lot of paperwork this week, and we did an inspection of the house on Thursday. At the inspection we discovered that the house has been smoked in. It wasn't a lot, but enough that we'll need to clean the air ducts, replace the carpets, and paint. We were bummed about that, but after doing some research we feel like we can get the smell out and be able to make the house really nice.

It's a 3,200 square foot home, 6 bed, 3 1/2 bath. It has a large backyard (hooray!) and all of the rooms are really nice sized. We want to eventually do some remodeling in the kitchen and bathrooms and update the light fixtures because they are all pretty dated. However, we'll probably do it over the next 10 years, lol! We are really excited that we'll be able to plant a garden this year. It's something we've been looking forward to for a long time.

We are very excited!

My Little Dancer

This week started with a trip to the doctor to make sure A's ear infection was gone. She got a clean bill of health and was scared of men for the rest of the week. Poor girl really hates the doctor.

We went to story time at the library. Unfortunately there was no story time this week because it was spring break. There were a few other women who came though so Little A enjoyed playing with their children. She and a little girl her age tried to play for a little while, but between A stealing the toys and the other little girl taking them back they decided they had better ignore each other, ha! So, A went and played with the older kids. We're going to try story time again next week.

We also went to a playgroup at the church on Thursday. We were they only one's besides the Relief Society President who came. Everyone else's kids got sick. :( They do it every other week, so we'll try again in a couple of weeks. A was on a weird schedule that week too, so she was tired and cranky. Hopefully next time will go better. We had another appointment to go to afterward and didn't get home for another hour. She was an absolute mess by the time we got home. Poor girl. She took a nice long nap though :)

We took little A to her FIRST DANCE CLASS!!!

 

She LOVED it! She loved the music and being with all of the other kids. She was very insistent that she do everything all the older kids were doing. My cousin has a dance studio in a nearby town. The youngest she teaches is ages 3-5, but she said we could come and try it out. If she gets enough babies she'll start a mommy and me class. A's cousin P also comes to this class, and they had fun dancing together.

A was glaring at me in this picture because she wanted to do a back bend like all of the other girls, lol!  We didn't do one, but we did do a somersault! She absolutely hates to be upside down so I wasn't going to have her do it, but she watched all the other girls and then walked right up to the mat and put her head down! I helped her do the somersault, and she even did three more! She was very proud of herself. She also did tendu's, posse's, and battement's (I helped her walk across the floor while I did all the movement). We'll be going to dance class as much as we can because she loved it so much. 

We had some good family play time this weekend. It is such a blessing that Allan has three day weekends!

Little A has been coming to primary with us the last couple of weeks, and she loves it. She especially loves singing time. She'll sit on Allan's lap and rock back and forth to the music and wave her arm around. Her favorite song so far has been "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man." It has a good strong beat to it. She really has been a little angel and sits politely and listens to the lesson. Today she was very upset when she didn't get a snack with the rest of the class, but otherwise she did great. The children haven't been distracted by her, which has been good. One of the leaders came up to us today and asked if we were babysitting for a family member, lol! We told her that she was ours, and we had her in there with us last week. She was so surprised! Our sweet girl is so quiet and good that the leader hadn't noticed her, lol!

Little A had her first pizza. She loved it! She liked to stuff as much in her cheeks as she could before chewing it all up. She has the cutest little chipmunk cheeks! She is such a good eater. She will eat everything we give her. Her favorites right now are beans (of any kind), and meat (of any kind). She also really likes cheese. For a long time she wouldn't eat bread. It's still not her favorite, but she did eat the sacrament bread today (she gagged on it, but still got it down) and ate a few little pieces at dinner tonight.

We went and visited her birth family this weekend. It was SO fun! Little A LOVES her birth mom. She seemed to really want to be with her and play with her. And she is exactly like her, it's hilarious! They have the same facial expressions and a lot of the same mannerisms, and they both LOVE to talk :) They gave little A this adorable Minnie Mouse. It crawls and plays music. A played with it all day today and loves it. The music on it is really cute. They also gave her some really cute clothes! A also loved her birth grandpa. It was so funny to see them play together and hear A giggle and squeal. They had a ball building towers and knocking them down. She really seemed to be right at home and very comfortable with them. She just loved having all of the attention and was exhausted when we left. She slept the whole way home, which was very nice.

Little A Goes to Jail

Since we moved from Arizona to Idaho we had to have a new adoption home study done. As part of this we have to complete a criminal background check, which includes being finger printed. In the small town we live in all finger printing is done at the jail. So, we loaded up our sweet girl in the car and headed for jail. ;)

She had a blast walking around and waving at the people who worked there. I wish I had thought to take a picture. :(

The last time we were fingerprinted (about 2 1/2 years ago) we dipped our fingers in ink, but this time they had the cool new digital fingerprinting. It was pretty snazzy! Much quicker, and much cleaner. I'm a fan.

She Crawls!

The most exciting thing that has happened this week is that Little A started to crawl!!!!  She's been slowly figuring it out for months, and the other day she just suddenly did it. As with all other things, she is very cautious about it; she goes very slow and steady. But, that just makes it cuter! Her left leg is a little uncoordinated and always wants to stand up. She's been working really hard on figuring that one out and has succeeded. She also tends to crawl out of her footie pajamas (her legs get stuck up in where her body should be,lol).

In this picture she was trying to get to the shoes that were in front of the door. She LOVES shoes (to eat them, that is). Allan grabbed her by her pants, and she tried with all of her might to crawl a way! Too funny! This new found skill has made her a lot more independent. She is very determined to go where she wants to go, do what she wants to do, and eat what she wants to eat.

So, I said she loves shoes. Allan was walking her around the apartment the other day, and she directed him over to my shoes. Then she tried them on! So cute!!! Made me smile!

She is really enjoying making more messes. She discovered the bookshelf with the few books we unpacked, and the cookie cutters. The cookie cutters have made for some great entertainment!

We went to the doctor on Tuesday, for me this time. I thought I might have the flu and was worried about giving it to Little A. She was VERY upset about it. She didn't want the doctor to touch me. He gave her a sucker, but she just threw it on the floor, ha! After he was done looking at me she picked it up and had a grand old time sucking on it. I didn't have the flu, thankfully, just a bad  viral respiratory infection. He said there is one going around in our area that is very similar to the flu and lasts 10-12 days. I have two more days and am feeling MUCH better! I am mostly just a little congested still.

Little A has always loved to read, but she has recently decided she likes to look at books on her own. Every morning I help her walk into the living room, and she stops at the basket of books and sits down. She pulls each one out, tastes it (ha!), and looks at them.

Allan was a champ and took care of dinner and met Little A's needs for me. He is now completely exhausted. But, he hasn't gotten sick! I used hand sanitizer like a mad woman, washed my hands constantly, sanitized all of the door handles, light switches, and cabinets and made sure not to kiss Allan or little A. So far they aren't showing any signs of sickness! Hooray!!!

When my sisters and I were little we would put our tights on our head and sing the "Do your ears hang low" song. Little A loves to play with her socks and tights so while we were playing with them I stuck a pair on her head. They never stayed long enough to sing the song though.

As part of her new found independence, A has decided it is better to drink her bottle while standing up! She also decided that she has to sit in her high chair with one leg over the snack tray!

When I need to get things done I set up a bunch of toys around the rug and then set Little A in the middle. She has fun crawling around getting into all of the toys. She really loves to knock down the blocks when I build a tower. This time she saw the blocks and started army crawling to get to the blocks.

Success!!

We also went and looked at a couple of houses this weekend, and we are making an offer on one tomorrow! We are really excited! Hopefully we'll get it!

House Hunting

We did a little bit of house hunting when we came up for Allan's interview in November. After looking at a few homes we decide we should just get an apartment and take our time looking at houses and also look into building.

We had my Mom create a house plan for us (which turned out awesome!) and asked our realtor to submit it to several contractors in the area. Our realtor warned us that building prices are pretty high right now, but we still hoped we could build. Unfortunately the bids came back way too high for us to consider and making any changes to our house plan still wouldn't make it possible for us to build. We can get a much larger home for less cost than it would be to build a smaller home with an unfinished basement and yard!

So we are going to buy a home.

O Canada!

After Allan was hired his company told him that he needed to be trained on a specific computer program ASAP. The closest trainings were being offered in Canada. So, a couple of weeks after we moved he headed to Canada for 3 days.

All went well at first. He met his flights on time, his luggage didn't get lost, and he got through customs just fine. Then he tried to call me. He had checked on the internet to see if his phone would work in Canada, and it appeared that it would. However, when he tried to call it wouldn't work. So he searched for a phone card because he thought he could use it at a pay phone to call me. He couldn't find one, so he decided to just go ahead and get the car rental taken care of. The guy at the car rental told him where he could find a phone card, he paid for his car with our credit card, and left. He went and got the phone card, which he paid for with our credit card, and went to call me. The pay phone wouldn't take a phone card it just wanted a credit card, so he paid for that with our credit card as well. When he called we were having family prayer with his family, so I didn't answer. I assumed he was calling from the hotel or something, and he'd call back in a few minutes. But he didn't.

Later he told me that he tried to call his families home phone after that but the call wouldn't go through. It was late at night so he decided that he would just go to the hotel and call me then.

He got a little lost on the way to the hotel, it was pouring down rain. Then he couldn't find the hotel parking, so he parked in the road hoping that he wouldn't get a ticket. The woman at the hotel assured him he could park in front of the hotel for a short time with no problem and told him that the hotel parking was a couple blocks away. So, he then tried to pay for the hotel, but the card kept saying it was declined. After trying a few times the woman asked if he had notified our bank that he would be traveling. He said no, he didn't think he needed to.

Because he was out of the country the bank assumed that the card was stolen and froze it. (Great protection, we just didn't know that they did that. Rough way to find out.) So, he was in a foreign country with no money and no phone! Poor guy. Allan says that just shows how little he knows about traveling. At least he still had a valid passport.

The woman let him use the hotel phone, and he called the bank. He told them all the information they needed except he couldn't remember my social. He called me and explained the situation (by this time it was after 11:00pm), I told him my social and he called the bank back. This time he had all the information, but then they discovered that I am the primary person on the account. Since he wasn't the primary person they couldn't do anything to help him. He called me back. I called the bank and after literally 30 seconds of talking to them our card was no longer frozen. I couldn't call him so I had to wait for him to call me back. When he finally did we were both SO relieved! He got the room paid for, drove the two blocks to the parking garage, walked back in the pouring rain at midnight, and was finally able to settle down for the night.

The three days of his training went by fairly uneventfully. He did wander into a bad part of town and get offered drugs twice, but other than that all was well.

Then he tried to go home, lol! He got to the parking garage, and his car was dead because he left the interior lights on. While he was getting things taken care of to have the rental company send a tow truck he locked his keys in the car. Thankfully the rental company will jump the car and get the keys out at no charge. Since his phone didn't work and the clock in the car was off he had no idea what time it was. He rushed to the airport, checked his car in and ran. The signs said to go one way for international flights, and he walked for awhile before being told that he needed to go all the way back to where he started and go right instead of left (even though the signs to the right said domestic flights). He got through customs and finally arrived at the right spot only to find that he still had an hour wait! Poor guy. All that stress for nothing, and he couldn't call me to tell me about it. :(

He got home just fine, and has no desire to go out of the country anytime soon!

Adjusting to Our New Home

The closet in the master bedroom of our apartment is as long as the entire room. The movers put all of our clothes on one side of our closet. The day after we moved in, as we were trying to get unpacked and organized, the closet shelf and clothes rod fell off of the wall. Nice. So, for the next two days all of our clothes were sitting on our couch, and all of the things we had on the shelf were scattered around the house anywhere we could find a spot for them.

It has snowed almost every day since we've been here.  The first three days were really nice, not much different than AZ. After that the snow came, and it has just kept coming. It's a good thing I like snow. Allan doesn't particularly like snow, but he realized that he'd missed it. Little A did NOT like the snow.  She really didn't like all the things you have to put on to go outside in the snow.

We put gloves on her the first time we went out. She was kind of amazed by them and couldn't figure them out. K6 gave me all of the snow stuff that cousin P grew out of. Little A hates this snow suit, she screams every time we put it on her, but it keeps her nice and warm.  And it's cute. The only thing we haven't been able to get for her are snow boots. Up until about a month or two ago she still wore newborn sized shoes! She is finally in a size 1, but I can't find any snow boots in a size one. The smallest I've found are a size 5, and obviously those are too big. The other problem with wearing an infant size 1 is that all of the shoe bottoms are made of cloth. Just walking on the wet sidewalk soaks her feet, and she gets cold fast. We did finally find a couple pairs of shoes that at least have a hard sole on them. 

I like this snow suit because it's thin enough that she can wear it in her car seat. As you can see, she isn't a fan.

The first time I took her out in the snow she cried. She HATED it! Now she loves it though. I took her out in it again a few days later, and we played for a long time. She loved to swish her hands back and forth spreading the snow out and laughed every time I threw snow up in the air. She laughed so hard that she fell over, lol! When she laughs really hard she bounces up and down - it is so funny! This time she was sitting in the snow, I threw some snow up in the air, and she laughed so hard she bounced up and down until it made her off balance and she fell over into the snow! She didn't think it was very funny, but I thought it was hilarious! Poor girl. Since she was already laying in the snow I tried to teach her to do a snow angel. It wasn't a very popular idea.

 We played in the mirror a lot over the first week. She LOVED looking at herself and would play peek-a-boo with herself. 

The next weekend we drove to the closest city to do some shopping. We got some bulk groceries, some winter things, and a few things that we needed for little A. It was a fun trip. We found some cute dress shoes for A.  They are a size 2. When I found them they were the only pair left. I tried them on her, and they fit so I thought that her feet must have grown. That Sunday we put them on her for church. We were sitting in the chapel before Sacrament Meeting, and one of them fell off. I reached down to get it and saw that there was stuffing in the toes! I pulled the stuffing out and put the shoe back on and sure enough the shoes are too big, lol! That's okay though, now she can grow into them. If her feet continue to grow at the same rate, she'll be able to wear them for two years, lol! We ate at Chili's for lunch that day. We got little A some mac and cheese, and she ate half of it and all of her mandarin oranges too! We were amazed. It was a lot of food.

A really enjoys standing up by our game chest and playing with her nativity. It was her favorite thing to do that first week.

One day though she reached down to pick up some of the toys that fell on the floor and lost her balance. She fell and smacked her head on the window. It gave her a pretty good goose egg. Poor baby. She didn't really like to play there after that unless Allan or I were right there with her.

We got her a hat that has ear covers on it. She absolutely HATES it! She didn't like hats anyway, but this one covers her ears too so it's worse. She tears it off as soon as she can. She does like to play with the little puffs on it and destroyed the one on the top. Now it's just two little strings.

K6 and P also gave little A P's old coats and two boxes of winter clothes. It was much needed!

We took little A in for her 1 year check up and shots. She still hates the doctors office. As soon as she saw the exam table she started crying. We liked her new doctor and the nurses though. They were really good with her. The shots were, of course, horrible. She screamed and cried and fought to get away. As soon as we were done she told me that she wanted to walk. I put her on the floor, she grabbed my fingers and literally ran to the door! She didn't stop running until we were out of the office.

Allan had to go to Canada for some training for work, so we all headed to his parents house the next day. Allan's mom was kind enough to look after little A while we went on a date before his plane left. We really enjoyed the time to be alone together. Since he was going to be gone on Valentines day he gave me a gift early. We don't usually do much for Valentine's day, in fact, we usually forget about it until the last moment. This year though Allan really out did himself. He got us tickets to see Wicked! I love that musical. I saw it in Chicago about 10 years ago, but Allan has still never seen it. I'm really excited to go! It's our Valentines, Mothers day, Fathers day, Anniversary gift, lol!

A and I had a really good time with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle SB. We made cookies, read stories, played with Grandma and Grandpa's toys, and visited with Aunts and Uncles and cousins. Grandma helped me get started on some family history work. We learned that little A is terrified of the stairs. (I feel like that's a healthy fear to have right now, ha!) Grandma and Grandpa and two of little A's Aunts helped us pick out a new car seat for little A. She was too big for her old one.

We skyped with Allan every night, and A LOVED it. She was always so happy to see her dad and loved to chat and squeal at him. It helped her a lot to see him every day still. She warmed up to him really fast when he got home. He had quite the eventful trip that I'll post about later. It needs it's own post....

We visited with my family for Presidents Day. Aunt K5 got A a couple of cute outfits for a late birthday gift, and Nana gave her a cute outfit for Valentines day. We had a fun visit and learned all about K5's boyfriend. :)

Little A got sick Monday night. When she wasn't any better on Wednesday, I took her in to see the doctor. Our doctor is only in on Monday and Tuesday, so we saw a different one. He was great. Little A hated him. She has an ear infection, and we got her on an antibiotic. She's doing a lot better now but was really miserable for a few days. We read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies.

We also prepared for our home study. We just barely had one but since we moved we had to do another one. It went really well. We have almost everything done to have our profile online again. We just have to get some new background checks done, and we'll be good to go!

I got sick on Friday. Bleh. I hate being sick. I am so grateful though that Allan has three day weekends. He's been such a great help. The worst thing is how confused little A has been that I am not playing with her or hugging and kissing her like I normally do. She just looks at me and cries. It's a good thing that I only get sick like this once every couple of years.

We got called to be Sunbeam teachers. There are 13 children in the class, 11 of them are boys, and 9 of the boys and one of the girls come regularly! Since I was sick Allan wrangled them all by himself. They did bring in another guy to help him, thank goodness. It would have been pretty rough otherwise. And, only half of the class was there, phew! Allan had a great time with them though and I am looking forward to next week so I can meet the children. We're not quite sure what we're going to do with little A. It will be an interesting, and fun challenge. I sure love primary!