For Christmas We Bought a House...

...not a zoo.

To start off our Christmas celebrations we had our own Christmas the weekend before we moved.  The morning started with Allan bouncing on the bed telling me we needed to open presents.  He did let me sleep until 7 though, haha!

 I gave Allan a bunch of things for our house - garden tools and a car jack and stands.  I also got him a picture frame for work for when the baby comes, the movie A Muppet Christmas Carol, a Mannheim Steamroller CD and a water truck toy that is going to be an ornament for next year.  We forgot to take a picture of me with my stuff but Allan got me a black Kitchen aid handmixer to match my Kitchen aid standing mixer, some metal mixing bowls, a big summer sausage (I love that stuff), and made me a Promise Book for our children (melted my heart).  It was a great Christmas!

My dad sent us the Dave Ramsey financial collection.  We're very excited to read it.  We had just been talking about how we needed to learn more about saving for retirement and this will be a great tool!

Then we continued on our morning with Christmas Crepes.  They were delicious!  Allan made sausage and eggs to go in them and then we had a whole lot of other yummy stuff!

Allan making the sausage and eggs

We added food coloring to the crepe batter so we could have green and red crepes for Christmas.

We moved into our new house on the 18th.  The move went really smoothly.  We had just enough people show up to help us move.  I got most of our apartment cleaned that night as well.  I wanted to take some pictures before we had everything moved in but that didn't work out so I tried to at least get things organized a little bit.

Our beautiful kitchen!

More of the kitchen.

The master bedroom

The Master bathroom (the sink is open to the bedroom and the toilet and tub are in a separate room.  Not what I would have chosen but it's working out fine.

Our awesome tub!

The Nursery.  It's a super cute nursery but we are going to paint it.

Nursery

Nursery

Extra bedroom

More of the extra bedroom.

2nd bathroom

More of the 2nd bathroom.

Living room.  The floors are a vinyl that looks like wood.  They are so pretty! 

More living room.

Front of the house.

We are loving the house!  It's a 3 bed 2 bath home.  The kitchen is gorgeous and I can't wait to spend more time cooking in there.  In fact, I'm making bread tomorrow!  The appliances are all really nice and we even got to keep the nice front loading washer and dryer!  Allan is LOVING the garage - when we went grocery shopping he insisted on bringing all the groceries in himself and started whistling because he was so happy he didn't have to climb a ton of stairs every time he went out to the car!  He made sure to change the oil on our car in the garage before we left and was in paradise!

That week we unpacked and cleaned as much as we could before we went to visit family for Christmas.  Our Christmas trip was VERY busy.  We started the trip with a family party at Allan's parents home.  AG was able to come (even though she was nursing a cold) and we were so happy to have her there with us.  Our family loved meeting her.  Our nieces G and M brought their tap shoes and showed me their mad tapping skills!  Their sister E ran around telling everyone that she was going to be a ballerina and showed me her ballerina twirl.

Our niece G showing me her unicorn.

M about to show me her tap dancing moves.

The nieces and nephews opening their gifts.

E was SO, SO excited about her gifts.  When she opened her baby doll she squealed for joy and hopped up and down a little!  So cute!

We had a really fun evening with everyone.  I got to play Don't Break The Ice with some of the nieces and nephews, and we had so much yummy food!  Right before the evening wrapped up and AG was about to go home E ran over to her mom coughing.  Her mom happened to be sitting right next to AG.  Suddenly E started throwing up (something she does sometimes when she coughs) and it splattered on AG!  Talk about making a good impression!  Welcome to the family AG!  We got everyone (and the toys) all cleaned up and AG wasn't even fazed, she's so awesome!   Our brother M2 said later that night, "AG's awesome!  She took that puke like a champ!"

She sure did....

The next day we went and visited a good friend of mine from my mission.  She has two VERY cute girls and a super cute fluffy dog.  It was really good to see her and her family again!  She also gave us some cute baby clothes and some formula.

Then we were off to visit K3 and her husband C.  We stayed with them Sunday night and most of the day Monday.  We met their new addition - a cute puppy named Bandit.  Allan had a ball playing with Bandit and C.

Allan and Bandit - she likes to cuddle in blankets

C, Allan, and Bandit playing

 K3 and I made Grandma's sugar cookies.  We had a lot of fun chatting with each other and getting creative with the cookies.  K3 only had neon food coloring so we made some pretty awesome colors!

It snowed pretty much the whole time we were with them.  I was LOVING it!  It was so nice to see snow covering everything and be out in it for a little bit.  It did make for a sort of scary drive to my Mom's though.

We drove to my Mom and step-Dad's Monday night for Christmas Eve. K (my step-dad) wore his Santa hat - he wore it to visit the nephews also and while they were in Target a little boy mistook him for Santa Clause, haha!  Our nephew J called him Santa Pops.

Allan and I made Christmas Crepes for dinner that night.  They were delicious but we forgot to color the batter.  We played Mexican Train after dinner and Allan beat us all ... repeatedly.  He's a Mexican Train pro.

Ma, K5 and Allan playing Mexican Train

Ma's beautiful Christmas Tree and all the gifts.

The next day K5 made some delicious baked french toast with peaches and raspberries - so yummy!  And then we all waited around for K3 and K6 to get there so we could open presents.

My step-sister L and her husband J

Cute little P.  I told her that she was going to have a new friend to play with soon and she giggled!

Ma painted this for K6.  It turned out so pretty.  I can't wait to have her paint something for our house!

Ma and K and their loot.  They bought a 3D TV for their family room and now have several 3D movies to watch on it.

K6 and P and their loot.

K5 and her loot.  She got a ticket to visit Harry Potter World and Universal Studios via Owl mail, haha!  My uber-talented Ma made the owl.

C and K3 with their loot.

Allan and I with our loot - although most of it was for the baby haha!  She is already spoiled.

Ma and K got us a game called Hedbanz.  We all played it and it is hilarious!  We had some good laughs.  You have a card on your head that is a person, place, or thing and you have to try and guess what it says by asking yes or no questions.

Some of my favorites:

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

It took her FOREVER to get this one.  At one point she said "There's no light bulb here"!

You better believe it!  He does his own stunts too. ;)

Somebody won right after I got this card and I was so glad because I never would have guessed this one.

We also played several rounds of Hand and Foot Canansta - a family favorite, and Scrabble until our brains were fried.  It was so fun to see my family and spend time with my sisters.  We got to spend an extra day with them because we got snowed in.  Ma helped me make an interior design for some of our house and Allan and I are super excited to buy everything!  We had a very prosperous Christmas.  Everyone was so generous with the gifts they gave to us and we are having a lot of fun with them! 

Thursday we went and visited AG and her mom.  We love them so much and it was so fun to see them again.  We talked about the birth plan, and I am so excited, honored, and grateful that she wants to have me in the room with her to see the baby born.  What a wonderful blessing.

We had a baby shower Thursday night with Allan's family, and AG and her mom were able to come.  I have this great need to share everything with AG and really wanted them to come.  I was worried though that it would make them sad or be awkward or something.  The Lord always answers my prayers though and it was a wonderful evening.  No one threw up (haha), and everyone was able to get to know AG a little more.  Everyone was so generous with their gifts and we got a lot of cute stuff for the baby that is going to be very helpful.  AG and her mom bought the cutest diaper bag and some adorable outfits and blanket for the baby.  They braved the snow to come and I am so grateful that they did!  I know that it will mean so much to the baby when she is older that AG was involved and to have pictures of it all.

We went home Friday and have been busy ever since unpacking, cleaning, and shopping for new furniture.  Allan's Mom and Dad bought us a carpet cleaner for Christmas and we've already put it to good use.  It works really well too!  We have a lot of work to do in our house still, but Allan doesn't have to go back to work until Wednesday so we get to do a lot of it together!

Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

The House is Officially Ours!!!

We closed on our house on Friday and are moving in on Tuesday!  We can't wait to get settled in our new home and are looking forward to buying some furniture that is from this decade!  (Although that will have to wait for a while longer...)

The last two weeks have been busy with Christmas preparations and packing.

Allan took a break to talk to his Mom.

The mess.

Me in the mess.

We got a little too excited about packing though.  First, I forgot to leave out an extra tube of toothpaste and only discovered it when we ran out so we had to make an emergency trip to Walmart.  Then Allan was sick and we had packed all of our medicines, I opened that box twice because I didn't get both medicines we needed out the first time.  I thought we had everything we needed for our meals the next few days and so we packed up all of the other food.  Then we discovered that we had packed some of the spices we needed and didn't have any pans.  We packed all of our coats thinking that we had set aside the ones we needed only to discover the next day that Allan had put the coat he usually wears in the laundry and we hadn't set another one aside.  Good thing tape is cheap because we've opened and closed a lot of boxes multiple times! 

 Last Thursday we went to the children's Christmas play - Surfin' Santa.  We saw a few children in our ward and they did such a great job!

That Friday we babysat for some friends of ours.  They have a little girl who is about 5 months old and they are going to be our new neighbors!  We're so glad that our little girl will have a friend her same age to play with.

We had so much fun playing with her.  She is such a happy and cute baby.  

Allan entertaining her while I ate dinner.

Kissing her chubby little cheeks.

 When it was time for her to eat she wouldn't take her bottle (she usually nurses).  She cried for quite a while.  Allan took her and held her during the worst of it, sweet man.  We finally got her calmed down by holding her a certain way and then turning on a movie.  Poor little girl, she never did take her bottle.  When we were watching the movie she had to have me hold her and then be touching Allan in some way.  She would hold on to his hand or his arm, whatever she could reach.  What a cutie pie.

The next day was the ward Christmas party.  The primary kids sang and did such a great job.  I made Allan's favorite macaroni salad to take to the party and he was very upset, lol!  He told me (teasing of course) that I always make the good stuff to take to parties and he doesn't like to share the good stuff.  When I asked him what I should take that wasn't good he said "Something with carrots."  Haha!  He's been eating a lot of salads with carrots in them lately.

This Thursday I babysat three little girls.  The one's who are super shy until they get me alone, and then they talk my ears off.  I love those girls, they are so sweet and so creative.  We played Old Maid, hide and seek, and in the imaginary swimming pool (we even went snorkeling).  They used their big rocking chair as a diving board and showed me all of their best diving moves.  They also taught me the imagination game they play with their Christmas tree and the oldest recited some poems.  It was a very fun evening, I was a little bummed when their Dad came home and I had to leave.  It was their bed time though so the fun wouldn't have lasted too much longer anyway.  ;)

We went to Allan's work Christmas party Friday night.  We had a lot of fun getting to know some of his coworkers better and we got some hilarious white elephant gifts.  We forgot to bring Allan's ear plugs though and the restaurant we were in was VERY loud.  By the time we got home he wasn't feeling very good.  Then he woke up with a horrible headache and a head cold on top of it.  He was laid out most of the day Saturday.  He made it to church today and has been laid out since.  If we ever go to another work party we will be bringing his ear plugs!  Lesson learned.

It was my last day teaching music time for the primary today.  I got to teach both the younger and older kids today which made it even better.  During one of the songs we sang I had the pianist stop occasionally and whoever had the bean bag we were passing around had to tell us why they loved Jesus.  Here are a few of their answers:

"I love Jesus because He gave me my cat."
"I love Jesus because He gave us clothes."
"I don't love Jesus, I love Firemen."

You gotta love kids!  This is always one of my favorite activities because you never know what they're going to say!

Another activity we did:  we stood in a circle holding hands.  I would squeeze a child's hand and they would pass the squeeze on so that there were hand squeezes going around the circle.  I told the kids that the squeezes meant "I love you" and that if you got a squeeze on both hands at the same time you got "love shocked"!  They got the biggest kick out of it.  When I told the older kids that the squeezes meant I love you they all freaked out and let go of the hands they were holding.  I thought they would probably do that but I wanted to try anyway, mostly for the laugh.  I got their attention again by patting my head and rubbing my belly (random I know but it usually works) and then I told them that it meant that they loved Jesus - that they were telling Jesus that they loved Him.  After that they decided it was okay to hold hands and give love squeezes, anything for Jesus.  They also got a big kick out of the "love shock", lol!

By this time next week we'll be in our new house!  Hooray!

We're Expecting!

 A little girl, due in January!

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we met with an expectant mother and her family!  For privacy purposes we're going to call her AG which stands for Amazing Girl - she really is absolutely amazing and we love her so much! 

On October 19 our caseworker called and told us that she was considering us and we were on a soft hold (that means that our profile was not posted online for a week so that no one could choose us while she was trying to decide).  We were very excited but from past experiences we knew that it could end there so we were trying not to get our hopes up.  After a few emails back and forth she told us that she had chosen us to be the lucky parents of this sweet little girl!  We were absolutely thrilled (and still are)!

We only told our families at first and everyone was very excited.  We decided to wait to tell anyone else until after we met AG though.  We wanted to make sure she still liked us after she met us.

We had some really good conversations over the phone and some more emails through out November.  We have a lot in common through dance and just being the girly girls we are, lol.  She and her family also love playing games together which is something Allan and I love to do as well.  It's been a lot of fun getting to know her and her family.

We finally got to meet her the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  We met at the LDSFS offices first with her caseworker.  Her parents and sister were there as well.  When we walked into the room I was so excited I just wanted to run to her and give her a big hug! I didn't run though because I didn't want to trip and plow her over or something, but I did give her a big hug.  She is such a beautiful girl!  We gave hugs all around and then sat and talked for a while.  I was really glad that everyone that came was there.  They all played such an integral part in making everything comfortable.  The caseworker asked some great questions, AG's beautiful sister is hilarious and really broke the ice for everyone, her parents are so sweet and kind and we could see the love they have for AG, they also brought that feeling of home that good mom's and dad's always carry around with them.  AG was so calm and seemed so confident, she made us feel comfortable right away, like we were seeing a good friend.  She is a very strong girl and I am so grateful for her and the sacrifice she is willing to make for her child.

After the meeting at LDSFS we went to their home for dinner.  It was such a fun evening.  It felt like we were visiting family that we hadn't seen in a while and were just catching up.  We looked at ultrasounds, AG's baby pictures and other family pictures, AG's dance pictures, shared stories, laughed a lot, and didn't want to leave.

We wanted to end this post by expressing our feelings about AG, it's been hard to find the right words.  We love her so much.  We are so impressed at the strong and confidant woman she is.  Our hearts are filled with gratitude toward her.  We know that she is doing this for the baby, what a courageous and loving decision!  This is probably the hardest thing she has ever been through and she has shown so much grace, love, and courage through it all.  We are so grateful that she trusts us with this precious little girl.  So grateful to have the opportunity to be parents.  It's so hard sometimes to think that someone has to go through so much grief and pain for us to become parents.  Then to meet the person who is willing to do that!  It's such an amazing and surreal experience.  We are so grateful that she has such a loving and supportive family surrounding her.  She is such a blessing to us!  We hope that we can be everything she needs and that we can be the parents she hoped her little girl would have.  We already love this sweet baby girl and cherish the thought of meeting her soon.

A House...for real this time...

So, a couple of weeks ago we said we were going to build a house.  Well, now we're not.

Our realtor was on the way to the builders to get them to sign the paper work they needed to for everything to be final when she got a phone call from her boss.  He told her that he had just talked to a couple who lived in the neighborhood we were going to build in.  They needed to sell their house immediately and he thought it might be a good fit for us.  We decided to go and look at it thinking that it would at least give us a good idea of what our house would look like when it was finished.  The house is smaller than the one we were going to build and a slightly different floor plan.  It was built last year, the yard is already finished, and it has beautiful wood and tile floors throughout the house.  When we were looking at the house we started feeling better and better about it and after some thought and prayer we decided to go with this one.

The contract is all signed, sealed and delivered, and we had our home inspection.  Everything looked really good so now we just have to get our loan in order.  We are set to close by the 19 of December!  We're very excited and looking forward to being in a house before Christmas.  No pictures yet because there are still people living in the house but we'll post some as soon as we can.

One of the things I'm most excited for about the house is that I get to do a nursery!  Woohoo!  Since we are in an apartment we were only doing a few things like pictures and blankets but now we can paint too!  Allan is just as excited as I am......  ;)

I took a couple dance classes a couple of weeks ago - Musical Theatre and Lyrical.  I haven't done Musical Theatre for almost 9 years and I don't have a lot of experience in Lyrical.  I have to say though that I was impressed with myself because not only did I make it through the classes but I kept up with all the most experienced girls!  I was a little worried about looking foolish since it had been so long that I've done anything but Modern and Ballet, but it went pretty well!

For Thanksgiving we went to Washington to visit my Aunt and Uncle and a couple of my cousins.  My Dad and Gram and Poe were able to make it as well.  It had been a really long time since I'd seen that part of my family so we were really excited to go.  We had a blast with them!  They showed us around the area they live in, which is gorgeous!  We ate a lot of good food and had a lot of good family time.

The Poe

Dad and Uncle S

Gram working on dinner

Our cousin H played pick-up sticks with us!  We love that game!  She kicked our trash.

Me and my Dad

Allan and I at one of the waterfalls in the area - gorgeous!

We saw some sturgeon.  They are huge - like, 6 feet long huge!

Us with our Uncle S and Aunt T

Us with our sweet Gram

Us with our beautiful cousins!

We really enjoyed seeing them and want to go back soon!  We love the area they live in it is so green!  They told us that you can hike all the waterfalls.  One day we definitely want to do that!


We got home from our trip on Cyber Monday and immediately got on the computer to catch some of the good deals.  We got almost all of our Christmas shopping done that day!  I did stay up until midnight though... but I got some great deals on everyone's gifts!

This week we have been gathering packing materials, packing, and doing other house stuff.  It's been a busy week.  We did manage to go to the Temple though and have a fun date amongst all the boxes.  It is such an amazing blessing to have a temple only 5 minutes away from where we live.  When we move it will be 10 minutes - I don't know if we'll be able to handle that or not. ;)

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!