Busy Busy

Things have been so busy lately. The house is coming along well, we got all the carpeted areas painted (although the extra bedroom could use a second coat) and the new carpet in. And it looks great! We wondered why the previous owner didn't have the place painted and carpeted, he could have sold this place for much more that way, but all the better for us I suppose!

We are loving the backyard. Our neighbors a few houses down gave us a swing set that they have been storing under their deck for a few years. But it's really nice, and the girls love it. And so do the neighbor kids! Tessa has some cute little friends that live next door and another friend that lives up the hill behind us. She will hear them outside and go running to the back door saying "My friends are here! Let's go outside!" They all have fun, even though Tessa does get a little shy, she loves having them over to play in the backyard.

Speaking of the backyard, Tessa almost picked up a garden snake the other day. I think it may have taken a year off my life! We were walking into the neighbors backyard to go pet their cat, and all of a sudden we both notice a small movement next to her in the grass. She immediately starts to reach down to pick it up, I grabbed her and jerked her back and probably let out some sort of scream/yell/gasp, it all happened so fast I can't be sure what really came out of my mouth. Then she says, "oh, a snake, let's go touch it" Noooooooo! The previous day we had been to the pet store, and looked at snakes through the glass, so she thinks all snakes are ok. I know it's just a garden snake, but I had to tell her that we don't touch snakes that live outside. They can be mean so we just look from a distance. Again she asked to touch it, and I have a feeling she may be learning a lesson about touching snakes someday... I am glad at this moment that I have a girl and not a boy, because a boy would be picking it up and bringing it home!! After we walked away, the neighbors cat took off after the snake into the tall grass out in the field behind us. I am glad that they have a cat to patrol our house for snakes and mice so that we don't have to get one.

Anyways, we love the house. We love the neighborhood. We love our neighbors. We love the new Walmart down the street. We love having a garage. We are really happy, really busy, but really happy :)

Happy Aprils Fools!

Totally not true!!! The previous post about twins, Happy Aprils Fools! It was mostly for my mom, who I think we took a year away from her life. I tried emailing her, but couldn't get the picture to work out, so I decided to do a blog entry and tell her to check out the new pictures. And for the record, this was all Kirk's idea! So sorry to decieve you, but the phone call from my mother was priceless. First thing out of her mouth was, "Tell me this is an Aprils Fools joke!" Oh, I was dying. One of Kirk's friends did this also, they have a kids the same age of ours, I can't wait to hear how their joke went.

ps. I know pregnancy is special, and I know it's not always funny to joke about it because some people have a hard time or can't, we don't mean to upset anyone, this was all for my mom :)

New Pictures

Well, I guess it is a good thing we are getting a bigger house, because, well, surpise to us, we are increasing our family, this time by two! Not a planned thing at all, but what do you do. So, the house-buying-timing worked out well. Kinda sucks cause Ashley is only 7 months old, but at least we will be done after this. Here is my ultrasound pic from my appointment, I love my new doctor, it's cool that he does ultrasounds when you first find out, guess since we weren't planning it, an ultrasound is the only way to really get an accurate due date. So, the tentitive date is Nov 25, Thanksgiving babies!

Finally

We have a new house! We are so excited! We signed all our papers on Monday, and tomorrow morning we get our keys and can get things going. We have a lot of work to do before we can move in, but thats ok. We have some small holes and chips in the walls/ceilings to fix, then we need to primer/paint. Next, we are having carpet put in, that will make a huge difference. We also have some work to do downstairs in the bathroom, the washer stand pipe is short, so that we have to add some piping to so that the washer won't overflow (we had this problem in our other house, who knows how many time that thing overflowed before we caught it). Anyways, we are super excited, Tessa loves it, every time we go she begins the "derby race" through the kitchen to the dining room to the living room and back through the kitchen again. Ashley and Tessa will have a lot of fun running around that for many years I hope. So, we have until April 25 to get things done and moved in, because that is when our 30 days notice is up. Oh, we are super excited!

Sleep Baby Sleep

Ashley is so smart. She got with the "Sleep-thru-the-night" program super quick. It took only 2 nights of fussing, and then, walla, she sleeps thru most of the night. I lay her down around 8 ish at night, and then I won't have to go to her until around 4-5 for a quick 20 minute feeding, or sometimes she won't wake at all. There have been a few nights where she wakes and fusses for like 15 mins around 2 am or so, but she falls right back asleep. I love this girl.

I borrowed and read a book from my friend on sleeping, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Marc Weissbluth, and it said "sleep begets sleep. This is not logical, but it is biological" and "The more rested a child is, the moe she accepts sleep and expects sleep". At first, I thought sounds odd, but then I got to test the theory, and it's TRUE.

Here is how my test went. These past six months or so, I have been getting up at least twice a night. At first I was tired at night when I woke up, but after 6 weeks or so, you just adjust and it seems normal. I was tired, but I wasn't zombie-tired all the time. So 6 months passes, and I am still tired, but totally functional once I fully wake up in the mornings. ( I am more awake when I wake up at 1 am than I am at 8 am.) So, this past week, when Ashley started sleeping thru the night, I got to sleep for like 7 hours straight a few nights, from around 11 until about 6-6:30 am. And strangely enough, I am more tired now than I was when I was waking up at all hours of the night! Also, Ashley never napped for over an hour. Now that she is resting well at night, her naps have are becoming longer. In fact, she just woke up from an hour and a half nap!

So, I testify it is true! Sleep begets sleep!

This was taken on New Year's Eve. Thought I might finally post it for fun!

A New House

I am SUPER EXCITED!  We are signing on a new house today!  We went and looked at a nice home in Ceder Hills and decided to put in an offer, and they sent us a counter offer, and we are taking it!  Yea!  It is going to be so great to have a bigger place.  It is a 4 bedroom, with three bedrooms upstairs, which is something I really really wanted, but thought that in our price range, we may not be able to afford, so I am stoked.  It has 2 1/2 baths, so we will have a master bathroom, and in the kitchen there is a bar, which are other things I didn't think we could afford.  I am just beside myself with excitement.  Anyways, we feel very lucky that this came our way and hope everything works out like it should.  Sometimes inspections bring bad news, so we will be crossing our fingers and hoping that this is our lucky time to find a good home.  

I told Kirk on Monday morning when we went to look at it, that it was our time, because Sunday night I finished unpacking the last box in our apt.  Isn't that how it works???  So soon, I will start packing them up again!

Cry Baby

The time has come for Ashley to learn to sleep through the night.  Currently she is waking up about 2, maybe 3, times at night.  At night means from bedtime at around 8-9 pm until 7-8 am the next morning.  So, I am thinking this is a ridiculous schedule.  She is a 6+ month old baby, she weighs over 18 lbs, and she doesn't even eat that often during the day now because she has  2 entire containers of solid foods a day, one for breakfast and one for dinner.  So needless to say, she is not hungry all those times she wakes up at night.  I usually try and nurse her the first time, hoping she will then sleep longer, but alas, it doesn't seem to be working.  She will wake up again, just so that someone will pick her up and cuddle her so she can doze back off.  I love holding her and snuggling her, and I don't' mind getting up to nurse her at some point, but not three times a night.  So... it is time.  Time to learn to sleep.  And she isn't particularly happy about it, but she will be.  She will thank me someday for letting her learn to sleep unassisted (ok, maybe she won't actually thank me, but she will be happy that she can fall asleep easily).  We did this with Tessa, it took her 4-5 nights, and she got with the program and is a great sleeper (as long as she is in her bed at home).

I spoke with the downstairs neighbors, and they said they can't hear a thing, thank goodness.  So, we have the go-ahead to let her cry.  Last night she cried for about 25 mins before Kirk stepped in and rubbed her hair a couple mins.  Then she cried a couple more mins and went to sleep.  But, as our story goes, she was awake in about 2 hours, and then again in another hour... 

 So tonight, cry baby cry, cause mommy wants to be able to sleep again!

ps, she has been sleeping for her nap now for about 20 mins, and woke up and just started crying right this minute, so it begins :)

Oh My Goshness!

This is Tessa's new saying. Oh My Goshness! It's really cute. She is at the age of repeating everything. This one she just gets a little confused on :)

Apartment Life

I feel like I am 20 again, living in a cheap apartment without a dishwasher, cooking meals in an electric skillet so as to not dirty too many dishes, eating off of paper plates and using plastic cups as often as possible. But, I am not single, and I live with a couple of small children, which means we never have a clean house, unless they are asleep!

We finished moving the last box on Tuesday, and still have many to unpack. We signed our papers on Tuesday afternoon, so the house is offically not ours anymore. We hope the new couple enjoys it very much, we had a lot of fun in that house. So, like I said, we feel like we live in a college apt again. It's actually a very nice apt, it belonged to my friend Lesli a while back. I just wish I had a dishwasher. I told Kirk that if we have to stay here for like 6 months or so, we will be buying a portable and then resale it after we move out.

Our home buying is slow going, we found out that we didn't get the Springville home we put an offer on, we thought we might get out bid. Oh well. We haven't heard anything about the Pleasant Grove home. We really like it and really hope that it works out, but you never know.

So, we will just sit tight here in apartment life and see what falls into place for us!

Patience

Things have been crazy lately. We are supposed to be closing on our home Friday, but alas, dates never seem to work out in real estate. So, today they asked to extend closing to next Tuesday. So, we are crossing our fingers that all goes well and that they still buy our home!

We also have put in two different offers on two homes. One is a short sale, which means that they previous owners are loosing it because they can't afford it anymore. So, we put in an offer and that was two weeks ago, and haven't heard anything. The other house is a foreclosed home. It is bank owned, so it should be a fast sell. We put in our offer last Wednesday, and then on Friday had to put in our 'best' offer. We were supposed to find out today if we won or not, but so far haven't heard anything. So we just have to have patience.

We just hope that we find a good home in a nice neighborhood that we can raise our kids in and make many memories in!

A Months Worth of Pictures

Ashley and Daddy playing on the bed. Tessa and Ashley love to hang out and read books on Mommy and Daddy's big bed.

Tessa has claimed every toy in the house hers. Even the plastic baby keys have somehow become "my toy".

Tessa has become such a big girl. She has even pee-pee in the potty a couple of times. She talks so much and has sooo much to say. Last week at the librery, she walks up to me with a My Little Ponies dvd and says, "I want fruit snacks" holding up the dvd. I told her that it wasn't fruit snacks, that is was a movie. So she then said, "I want to watch fruit snacks". Funny little girl.

Tessa and Ashley are 26 months apart in age. But in size, they are 10 lbs apart.
Chunky little Ashley.

Tessa hanging out with "the boys". She loves the Johnson boys, they always have such a good time playing together. Here they all are sitting on our couch watching Peter Pan.

Mommy and Ashley after playing out in the snow. I love her hat!

Mommy, Tessa, Ashley and Rosco playing out in the snow. Tessa loves the snow. Ashley is indifferent. And Rosco just loves having us outside playing with him, snow or no snow.