Getting my hands dirty

Look at me posting 3 days in a row! I don't actually plan on posting every day per se but I do want to post more regularly. To make up for the guilt of living thousands of miles away from family, I really want this to be away for everyone to have a window into our happy, crazy, busy, silly, lives.

This morning I woke up with the urge to plant beautiful flowers in my yard. Thanks to home depot and a very patient husband who hung out with the kids all day, I did just that! I should also mention that Ryan was multitasking and helped me dig out old stumps when the going got rough. I may or may not have planted these beautiful flowers in my neighbors yard, but with the weird plot of dirt right between our two yards its hard to know. Either way the dirt looks so much prettier with flowers there and I don't think the neighbors will mind. It was a bit rainy which made digging very easy, it also gave me a chance to try to embrace my curly hair. I love my curls, but not so much with this hair cut. I love to garden, I can't wait to get our vegetable garden going next!

I also had the chance to have the young women come over tonight to watch the General Young Women's broadcast. Between the slightly unbalanced chairs and the snoring, we had such a good time!

Pooped

Friday is probably the most anticipated day at our house. The kids and I usually go on a fun adventure, Ryan usually comes home a little early we have pizza for dinner (vegan style) we have family movie night, we stay up late. What's not to love right?!

The highlight of today was that we converted Sam's crib to a toddler bed. I was trying to avoid doing this but Sam was climbing out onto the changing table and then to the window seal. The first morning we discovered this we heard Sam chatting it up in his room so Ran when to go get him out of be, but there wasn't a chatty little boy in the crib. No he was hiding behind his curtain sitting on the window seal or is it called a ledge? either way it's still scary! So because I want to be a good Mom and I want to make sure that Sam makes it to his 2nd Birthday and many more after that, I had to make the change. Sam was so excited about the change he sat on his "new" bed all morning long.

I think the day took a wrong turn when I decided to stay home and do yard work instead of go on a Friday adventure. This lead to me inviting a friend to come over and visit while we do yard work. Which lead to chatting and playing and taking very very late naps.

Seems harmless right? I excused myself for a minute and put my very tired baby into his bed, and of course changed his diaper before I laid him down. Sam laid right down but then I could here a lot of noise in his room and then a little crying and then a lot of crying. It was a good 10 min before I decided to go back in and check on him. Instantly I got punched in the face by a big poppy smell. It was an awful unleashed kind of smell. As I picked up Sam I could see that his hands had been in his diaper. Poor guy was so sad because he was dirty. I cleaned him up and calmed him back down for a nap. Thankfully he fell asleep this time, but when I went to check on him he wasn't in his bed. Allow the picture to explain where I found him.

The day wasn't all that bad but I just feel drained from it because as my kids start to become more independent they have somehow become a million times messier. Basically their "freedom" is trapping me because their messes aren't ones that can wait until the end of the day. They are messes that require immediate attention. For your entertainment read the following messes I have been cleaning up the last 2 days

- a trail of water from the kitchen sink to the backyard. the boys found a watering can and a sand bucket
- a trail of dirt from the backyard to the kitchen sink. the kids discovered the wonder of making pies in the backyard
-MUD!
-MUD! Again!!!
-MUD!!! AGAIN!!!
-Sam's dinner all over the floor
-Juice spill
-Milk spill
- Large plate of oily pesto pasta flipped on the the ground. Micah insisted he could get his own lunch

Are you pooped reading this?

Micah Turn's 4

I can't believe Micah is 4. He has been in my life for 4 years now! I feel like life has all of a sudden started moving in fast motion since he has been around. I really wish everything could just slow down a little bit more because I am not ready to have a 4 year old! Enough about me let me dote on my little Micah for a bit.
Micah had his very first Birthday party this year. We invited a few of his friends over to play games and eat lots of food. We had a winter wonderland theme. Ryan and I spent a lot of time cutting out snow flakes for his party, they turned out so cool. We served grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. and we had a snowman building kit station so that the kids could make snowmen with their sandwiches. There were carrots for the nose, raisins for the eyes, olives for buttons (or whatever) and licorice for a scarf. We played pin the nose on the snowman, pass the snowball (a lot like hot potato). I had a 3D snowflake craft that I forgot all about, and we just let the kids play and do their own thing. I made some major kid Birthday party mistakes that I will never make again. First I forgot prizes for the games -oops! Next it was a terrible idea to play a game that there can only be 1 winner (pass the snowball). Plan for a lot of games, these poor kids wanted more games and I had nothing! Last of all, it is too hard to have a party at my house, there is no space here to have 7 busy kids running wild here, I basically live in a walk in closet. When the party was over we sent this kids home with a box full of powdered sugar doughnut holes with the following poem by Shel Silverstein,

Snowball

I made a little snowball

As perfect as could be.

Thought I'd keep it as a pet

And let it sleep with me.

I made it some pajamas

And a pillow for it's head

Then last night night it ran away,

But first- it wet the bed.

Over all the party was a lot of fun for Micah. But the party took place the day before his birthday. So for his actual birthday we did everything he wanted to do. We started the day by having Micah open the gifts from Ryan, Sam and me. Later that morning we (Micah, Sam and I) went to the Air and Space Museum. For lunch Micah wanted Pita, hummus and carrots, I thought that was so cute and random I had to share :). When we got home we did naps and quiet time and spent the afternoon playing and opening presents that came in the mail. The presents seemed to trickle in the whole week long. I really liked it this way because it gave Micah a chance to enjoy each gift individually and take time to play with them and really appreciate each one. And once Ryan got home for the day we sang happy birthday and had cake. It seemed to be a very enjoyable day for Micah.

Micah continues to blow my mind every day. I can't believe how much he is learning! He's starting to read and write and give me facts about dinosaurs. Micah is still very fond of playing trains, he is constantly in his room building a new track and of course he loves when I join in on the fun. I definitely take advantage of how much he wants me by his side, I am a little burned out by trains but the fact is it is wonderful that he wants me to play with him. So when I start to feel a little bothered by the fact that we are playing trains again or that Micah really wants me to be doing something by his side all the time, I have to remind myself that I am going to miss this time when it's gone. And whenever I jump in and help we always have the best nonsensical conversations. And more often than not I have found some good teachable opportunities when we are working together. Sometimes it includes putting the trains in time out because Micah tends to lose his temper when he has bridges falling over but I like to think we are learning about self control during those times. :)

Micah also enjoys putting together his dinosaur and united states floor puzzles. And he is very good at them too! He is very into pretending to be different animal. Usually He is a puppy or a calf and he really likes me to be mommy cow or dog and when he is "hungry" the baby calf likes to pretend to drink milk from the mama cows utters. :)

He is a BIG book worm. Some days all we do is read books. And when we are in the car all he wants to do is listen to books. I find his little nose poked into books all the time. I love this about Micah. He is such a good example to me. I really wish I chose to read more in my free time like he does.

Some of Micahs favorite books,
Little Critter dictionary
The whole Little Critter collection
The dinosaur in my backyard
Judy and the Volcano
Dr. Seuss/ Theo LeSig collection
P.D. Eastaman collection
What was That
Mercy Watson collection -Audio
Three Tails of My Father's Dragon -Audio
Pippy Longstocking -Audio
The Invention of Hugo Cabret -Audio
Ramona Quimby, Age 8- Audio

A little redundant, but Micah loves:
Looking out for and playing with his "baby brother"
Reading
Trains
Dinosaurs
Going to the park
Playing with friends
Helping to cook
digging with his backhoe
puzzles
Computer games (games on pbskids.org)
Hide and seek and tag
Listening to music (Scripture Scouts)
Micah has recently claimed the "We are young" by Fun. is his favorite song
Family movie night

2011 round-up

Anniversary

Though it is not a national Holiday, Ryan and I celebrated our 6th Anniversary on 11/11/11. We only had a babysitter for a couple ours so we had just enough time to go to dinner at tortilla cafe (one of our favorite places in DC) and pick up dessert from Hello Cupcake. We also did a little shopping. It was simple but nice. Our date nights have recently consisted of a movie night at home, It was nice to be able to go out together and know that the kids are in good hands. I found a babysitter on MOTH (a listserv for Capitol Hill families) who had a lot of experience and good references and credentials. I just can't believe how much sitters charge out in DC, it was definitely more expensive than our dinner and dessert combined!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend we were planning on spending in DC but we received a exciting offer to head to Pennsylvania and spend the Holiday there with our family (you know who you are :). We headed to PA on thanksgiving morning with plans to reach our destination by early afternoon. Ryan and I had had a little spat and weren't quite on speaking terms during the ride (I don't even remember what we were upset over). After 45 minutes we reached Baltimore and Ryan broke the silence by offering an apology. Once we were on speaking terms again, we started talking but unfortunately became a little distracted and made a bad turn. We tried to get back on track, I was navigating with a map on Ryan's phone. I pointed out our next turn just as we we're missing it. Ryan made a last ditch effort to make the turn and we crashed into the curb separating the exit and the main road.

Thankfully no one was hurt, but unfortunately this accident was bad enough to disable our car. Once the coast was clear I jumped out of the car to asses the damage. The car didn't look bad at all but I could tell that is was bleeding out very badly. Poor Ryan sat in the car beating himself up, soon enough he came out to see the damage too. We sat stranded and trying to brainstorm a plan of action. There was a very nice man who stopped to help us, he seemed to be "car smart." After examining the car our new friend said that the transmission or a pan or something that held the transmission fluid looked broken. He ran (by ran I mean drove) to the gas station and bought us some transmission fluid. He said once the car was running the fluid wouldn't leak out, he also insisted that we would be able to make it to our destination. We knew it would be a bad idea to keep driving toward PA but we thought we'd take our chances and try to make it back home to DC. We drove about a mile or less then our car gave out on us. Now we were stranded on the freeway. We decided that the only thing to do now was find a tow truck and a way home. The tow truck/mechanic was surprisingly easy to find. The mechanic that I spoke to was not working because of the Holiday but was kind enough to come and tow our car away because he could here my kids in the background.

After I spoke with the mechanic I saw that I had a text message from my cousin Kortney. She was simply wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving. I asked her if she was in Baltimore. I knew that the chances of her being in Baltimore were pretty good because she is a flight attendant and her crash pad is there. She was there and she helped us out so much. Kortney made arrangements for us to get a car rental with a great discount. Meanwhile we we're trying to find a taxi to drive us once the mechanic arrived. The Mechanic came and the Taxi had not, we waited for about 20 minutes until the taxi driver finally arrived. I felt so bad for the mechanic waiting to drive our car away on his day off. Finally the driver came and he took us to the airport to pick up the car rental. After a long 2 hours of being stranded in Baltimore we headed back home and made it to the Thanksgiving dinner at church. We didn't really eat much of it because of our decision to eat a more vegetarian /vegan diet. But the company was nice. Later that night we went over to our friends Calmin and Daisy and had a nice pesto dinner and watched football or um slept through it.

The next morning we set out early to buy ourselves a Christmas tree before we had to return our car rental. Since we have been married, Ryan and I have put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. But we still hadn't had a traditional thanksgiving dinner so we decided to do a thanksgiving redo before we put out any Christmas decorations.

I made a 100% vegan dinner and dessert, it was so good!!! Instead of turkey we ate a mock turkey roast that I made from scratch! Dinner also included cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, rolls and green beans. For dessert I made a coconut cream pie and and a pumpkin pie.

The pies have their own story worth telling. For the coconut cream pie I used the Lion House recipe. The actual recipe has eggs and milk and since the Amish folks ran out of eggs at the farmers market so I used flax seed meal with a bit of warm almond milk. For the Heavy whipping cream I used coconut milk. Oh my gosh it was the most delicious coconut cream pie I have ever had! It seems that one pie would be enough for our family of four but I really wanted to make a pumpkin pie and my little Micah really wanted me to make a coconut cream pie. He has never had coconut cream pie but he talks about them all the time, when he's pretending to cook, when he's asking for dessert or when he's pretending to throw one at you. As far as the pumpkin pie goes, I was set on making one from scratch, I bought a pie pumpkin earlier in the week to be sure that I had one before they were all gone. The pumpkin sat beautifully on my counter all week long. As I went to make it, I grabbed the pumpkin and found that it had gone moldy. I was so sad. Ryan was so sweet and ran to the store to see if he could find me another one. No surprise the the pie pumpkins were gone as well as the canned pumpkin. I had read somewhere that canned pumpkin is often a combination of different squashes so I asked Ryan to pick me up a butternut squash if he couldn't get pumpkin. So that is what we ended up using. For the pumpkin pie I used the squash, tofu, flax seed meal mixture and sugar. This was also so delicious. just thinking about it makes me want to go bake right this very moment.

Ryan Micah and Sam went to play at the park and play football in true Taylor fashion. I had a certain vision for our small thanksgiving dinner, so I decided to stay behind and make everything "perfect." I made all of the food the day before thanksgiving so it was a pretty easy set up. We ate our scrumptious meal along with a bottle of Martinelli's sparkling grape juice. We shared a little with Micah and Sam and they hated it. It was pretty funny watching them scrunch their faces as they sipped.

Once dinner was over we cleaned up as fast as we could and we put out our Christmas decorations and started trimming our tree. We watched Elf and ate pie and had a wonderful time.

On Saturday we met up with friends Laura and Michael and their adorable kids. I use to be their nanny when Ryan and I were in DC for an internship back in 2007. We went to the United States Botanical Gardens to see the Train exhibit that only comes out during the Holiday season. Micah has been constantly asking to go and see the trains since last Christmas. When He was video chatting with Grandma and Grandpa a few months ago, they had asked if Micah was planning on coming to visit them for Christmas. He informed them that he could not because he was "going to go and see the trains for Christmas." Between Thanksgiving weekend and the time that we left for UT (Dec 19) we hit the train exhibit about 3 or 4 times.

Finals and other happenings

Right after the Thanksgiving break Ryan was busy getting ready for finals, which means I was busy with 2 little boys. I decided that it would be easiest to do my Christmas shopping online and get all the great deals and free shipping on Thanksgiving weekend. I didn't really buy much but I made the mistake of having Micah's present sent to UT with the other gifts I purchased (for people out in UT). This was bad because we we're planning on exchanging gifts before we left for UT. And we didn't want to have to bring back a lot of things on our way back from UT, and Micah gift was big backhoe. And now I wouldn't have anything for Micah to open for our first Christmas. Thankfully Liz (MIL) was nice enough to send it to us.

By the next Thursday our car was ready so I found a friend who was so wonderful and kind to take us to take me and the kids to pick up the car in Baltimore. After only a few days of having the car my darn fence swung and closed as I was pulling out of my driveway and knocked my side view mirror off. Ah... I was so angry! Our poor car has been through so much in the last year, our tires seem to be getting bald too. I think I am going to bus around until winter is over because I really don't want to risk another accident, which is very likely with our track record.

Ryan finals consisted of 2 final exams, a mock trial- which he won! and a 30 page paper. On top of that he was doing work on the side for an Attorney. He worked really hard and I'm sure that he did well. It will be a couple months before we find out his grades. Finals were hard on the whole family, but the boys and I stayed busy with play dates and trips to the library. One night we went up to the Washington DC temple to see the lights and the nativity with the same friends we went to the botanical gardens with. It was very fun and so cool to see all the lights.

First Christmas

Once Ryan was done we started celebrating our first Christmas. We watched Christmas movies, actually we did that all month long. And made ginger bread cookies and, went to see the national Christmas Tree and the Capitol Christmas tree, we went to family Christmas parties via video chat and of course opened presents!!!

We obviously don't have a lot of money right now so we tried not to spend too much money, but that didn't happen. There's something about vacationing over Christmas and drawing names for gift exchanges that makes it hard not to. I really wanted to make homemade gifts this year but when the idea comes to mind on November 1st it's really hard to execute that idea. At the moment I have 4 pair of unfinished pajama pants sitting on my sewing table. Next Christmas is going to be more about homemade thoughtful gifts.

One thing that we did do pretty well is emphasize to our kids that Christmas is about our Savior, although our home video would indicate otherwise. We mainly focused on the different symbols of Christmas.

Later on as Ryan and I went back and watched the video that he took of our first Christmas. In the video Micah was playing with his new backhoe and Sam and I were playing with his new nativity. As I am going through all the figures of the nativity with Sam you can hear Micah quietly saying to himself, "I don't remember what Christmas is all about..." Then Micah looks up to the heavens and shouts, "... Is there anyone out there who can tell me what Christmas is all about." The video goes on and I continue to play with Sam not noticing Micah. I felt so bad when I saw the video and realized I didn't notice Micah. I have to say though, this is probably my favorite home video, I can watch it again and again, I can't believe how cute and funny Micah is.

Second Christmas

The flight back to UT was rough, the boys both had a cold and poor Sam's little ears could not handle the pressure in the cabin. He cried for the first 2 hours of the flight and thankfully slept for the rest.

When we arrived in Salt Lake we went to baggage claim to pick up our things. Micah was so hyper that he was running all over the place. Naturally I was worried that I could lose Micah or that he could get hurt, so as I was making my way toward him, all of a sudden I couldn't see him anymore but he was screaming bloody murder. I found him on the floor with blood poring out of his mouth. Someone who had seen what happened said they Micah slipped and hit his mouth on the edge of the baggage carousel. He split his lip really bad, both he and I were completely covered in blood. The whole ordeal was AWFUL however, something good did come come of it. Because Micah's mouth was so sensitive, he couldn't suck his thumb which led to his breaking his thumb sucking habit.

The next two weeks are a blur but some of the highlights of Christmas in UT are,

- Making gingerbread cookies. Ryan challenged me to decorate my cookie by turning it and decorating from a different angle. I made a snow man taking a jog.

- The neighborhood lights at the Night before Christmas neighborhood.

- Live nativity in West Jordan.

- Playing games with family, vacation is not complete with out this!

- Going to a Jazz game.

- Christmas Eve party with my family. It was extra fun this year because my brother girlfriend Katherine and her kids joined us. Also my aunt Marla brought her new boyfriend. It is so great to be able to welcome people to the family.

- New years eve fondue party with the Taylor's

- Stopping in on the new years eve party with my parents and their friends.

The trip home was much more pleasant. We did have a lay over in Minnesota which we thought might be rough but the airport we were at was amazing, it was more like a mall and there was a big touch screen that had a matching game that Micah and Sam played for a little while. We got home and settled right in. We loved being back with family but it was nice to be home. DC is where our life is right now and we simply love it here too.

Halloween 2011

I can't stop saying how much I love living on Capitol Hill. It is beautiful here. Fall has been amazing, the streets are so narrow and filled with colorful trees, it's like walking into a painting, I also just love life right now. I am in such a better place than I was this time last year. I should clarify that what I mean by last year is the last school year. Ryan's first year in law school. I felt so unhappy being so far away from family in a new city with my husband gone to school most the day and me being home adjusting to having 2 kids, and recovering from my 2nd c-section. It was NO walk in the park.
Honestly this year isn't much different than last year, we are in a new neighborhood, new ward, we are making friends all over again, Ryan is still really busy with school, although it is more flexible than it was last year. Things are just better, I can't explain it. perhaps postpartum is the reason last year was hard and this year isn't. It doesn't matter, all I know is I am very happy right now and I am not looking back!We had our first Halloween on Capitol Hill and it was so much fun, I love this Holiday anyway. I love dressing up and I love making costumes. Usually I just piece costumes together like my Mary Poppins costumes this year. I just found random things at goodwill and a lot of things that I already had at home, and I don't mean to boast but I thought I looked awesome. In fact I was unofficially awarded the best costume of the year by a random mom trick or treating with her kids. I had so many people stopping me and chatting to me about how much they love Mary Poppins. I also had tons of moms make their kids stop to talk to me, "look guys it's Mary Poppins!", I had a lot of fun conversations with my fans. One man even stopped to tell me that his neighbor was refinishing his Chimney. Oh and I can't forget all of the people who were serenading me with all of their favorite Mary Poppins songs. 2 people thought I was Eliza Doolittle (from My fair Lady), which I thought was a great compliment too. I had so much fun on Halloween. I really believe Halloween was made for me!Okay so notoriously I suppose that halloween is for the kids, and my kids loved Halloween too. This year I sewed costumes for Micah and Sam. Sam was a Tortoise and Micah was a Hare. they looked adorable. I had a really good time making their costumes, but I doubt I'll be doing that every year. When I asked Micah what his favorite part of Halloween was I he quickly replied "the peacock!" I thought for sure he would answer trick or treating, but no, he loved a little girl who was dressed as a peacock. He has been pretty obsessed with peacocks since then. As I mentioned already I was Marry Poppins and Ryan was Bert, the chimney sweep version. Although he would have preferred to be the musical version with his instruments attached all over his body. I felt really bad for Ryan because when he wasn't standing next to me nobody knew who he was. My favorite part of the night (besides all the positive feedback I got from my costume) was when Ryan said that next year he wants to be someone who isn't dependent on my costume. Ryan has always been a good sport about dressing up for Halloween but I think he's really starting to get into it! And Micah has already decided what he is going to be next year, a knight!






This is Halloween 2011, which I completely failed to post about

You can find other Halloween posts here, here, and here.

A Child's Prayer

Tonight at dinner Micah offered the blessing on the food. He actually forgot to mention the food in the first prayer but we didn't bring that up, especially considering how long it was. We just thanked Micah for saying a reverent prayer. He quickly realized that he forgot to say "thank you for the food" so he asked Ryan and me to fold our arms again.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thankful for this day
thankful for these burgers,- veggie of course
thankful for the three girls that came over with the books,
thankful for I and Sam could go to bed,
thankful for I could play with the site digger at the park today,
thankful for Cody and Haley could come to my house to visit, -not sure why he thinks that
thankful for the guy to come over to our house to get rid of the mice,
thankful for us to go to Utah,
thankful for thing finders

This was when Ryan and I broke down laughing, so that was the end of the prayer. By the way if you don't know, thing finders are people that spend their time finding all kinds of treasures. We have been reading Pippi Longstockings, which is where he learned about thing finders.

Well there's only one thing left to say here,

Amen.

Writer's block

Do you ever feel like writing but you don't know what to say? Or maybe it's that you have so much to say but you don't know where to begin. I feel like the latter a lot.

First it's my Best friends birthday! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful, sexy, happy, supportive, funny, best friend. Ryan is the perfect partner for any lady out there, but sorry girls, he's taken! :) Ryan is such a great person, he is so cautious of everyone around him, he is always trying to think of ways he can help. He is a great Dad and an AWESOME husband! I think it goes with out saying but I'll say it anyway and I'll keep on saying it, I love Ryan so much!

Number two I had one goal this summer and that was to make a blanket for each of my boys. I started one for Micah back in January, but I only worked on it once or twice and never finished it. It was close, but I made my goal. What do you think? I got the tutorial here, these blankets were so easy to make, I'm really happy with the way they turned out!



There is more to say but I don't want to write it all in one super long post. I will do it all in moderation.

We're alive!!!

We are all settled into our new place and we LOVE it. Things have been crazy since we've been here though. A few days after the earthquake we had a hurricane in the area. We weren't too effected by it, it was actually more of a tropical storm. We had tons of rain and wind. There were tree branches everywhere after the storm. Later in the week the boys and I went to a beautiful nature center with a playgroup, as we were walking around identifying different trees, we found a HUGE tree that was uprooted from the storm. The biggest disaster that transpired during the storm (as far as affecting me and the fam) was when our drinking water supply that was stored in the fridge came crashing down out of the fridge when the shelf couldn't take the weight of the water anymore. It was a really scary, horrible, sound and mess. We lost all of our pitchers that day :(. On the upside, Ryan and I we're suppose to speak in sacrament meeting at church, but our talks we're postponed for a later date. I was really relieved about this because I was not very prepared to speak. Not only that it was my power birthday, 28 on the 28th!

My birthday was really nice, Ryan surprised me a couple nights before my b-day by arranging for some babysitters to come over. He then took me out to the portrait Gallery (AMAZING), dinner at a great Thai place and a movie, we went and saw "The Help"- great movie. It was so much fun. On the morning of my b-day Ryan and the boys made me breakfast and made me a cute little card. It was a perfect birthday, even with the hurricane!

Flash back to our summer

We had such a great summer spending time with friends and family. Here are some fun photos to sum up our amazing summer that I never wrote about:

Southern UT trip with the Taylors

Play dates with my cousins and friends

Saunders Temple Sealing

Moab with the Pappas'

feeding ducks and seeing animals at Wheeler Farm with cousins

Splash park at Liberty Park with cousins and Grandma

Fun new haircut for me!!!

Boating with the Taylors

Ancient life museum at Thanksgiving Pointe

Saying goodbye to my family before we head back to D.C.

Children's museum, Micah started checking out with his groceries, that little girl was so patient and sweet to play along with him.

Sam and Cody at the Children's museum

Earthquake!

We're okay but our vase isn't.

After a couple weeks of being back, we decided it was time to finally head out to the National mall and visit some museums. just as we were getting our things together the whole house started rumbling followed by a lot of swaying. SCARY! I was so shocked mine and Ryan's first instinct was to grab the boys and huddle together, we stood at the bottom of our stair way. Maybe not the safest place to be but we were so taken off guard we couldn't think straight. Thankfully the Micah and Sam weren't too startled by the quake.

It's crazy to me that the biggest earthquake I have ever been in was in Washington, DC (5.8). I have been in small tremors in UT but they were so insignificant. I have always been afraid of earthquakes. I'd be surprised if there was a Utah'n that wasn't. We grow up being told that we live on a fault line and we should be prepared for a big earthquake at any given moment. And if that's not enough to scare your pants off, the schools have random earthquake drills and tell you the safest place to be is under your desk. I never felt very safe under there but I figured someone must know what they are talking about. I remember as a little girl being so afraid that once I scoured the whole house for any necessities in the event of an earthquake and I put them all under the kitchen table. When everything was securely under the table, I crawled under there and sat and waited. It was a long night of waiting. :)

We moved!

Well I can't believe how fast the summer flew by. I think I only posted once the whole time I was back in UT with my family. Now that I am back in DC I need to get serious about posting on my blog so that Grandmas and Grandpas don't get mad because they don't know what's going on with their Grand kids.

Moving back to Washington was not an easy feat. We arrived back in this great city late on a Thursday Aug 12, the following morning we met up with our Realtor and got the keys to our new place, and then a few hours later we signed our lease. The last few weeks we we're so focused on finding a place to live and signing our lease but we completely looked over the other [just as important] details. The rest of the day was spent working out the logistics for our big move for the following day. It took several attempts and several hours to secure a truck, a babysitter and people to help us move but we did it. Just in time too, my cell phone was moments from dying and I left my charger in UT. We also made a stop to our storage unit to grab some essentials that would help us get through the night (air mattresses, pack and play, and blankets). I had a very detailed list of our inventory so finding our stuff was a breeze, Seriously!

The following morning we got up bright and early and went to go pick up a friend who was going to help us unload our storage unit. After we picked him up we needed to go pick up the moving truck, after about an hour of getting lost trying to find the moving truck place we called to get directions. Then we find out that the truck that we supposedly reserved was never available to be rented out in the first place. So here we are with one of our helpers, no truck and 2 boys that were suppose to be with the babysitter. Oh shoot the babysitter! Yeah, I couldn't call her because my phone was dead and though Ryan's phone was very usable he didn't have any numbers that I needed. So now our plans were falling through but we decided to head to the storage unit anyway. I made several more calls for moving trucks and the whole city and surrounding areas were all rented out.

Wen we finally made it to the storage unit, I ran into my friends who were going to help us babysit/move. Thankfully their plans that morning had shifted around last minute and they arrived to meet us just after we got there. I had been worried the whole time that they were sitting their waiting and I had no way to reach them. We still didn't have a truck but I felt so relieved to have our helpers with us. The storage facility had a moving truck that they loaned to the renters moving things into the storage unit so Ryan tied to persuade them to let us use it since it was clearly not being used. They would not make any exceptions, however, they referred us to a local company couple doors down called Cadyco who rented our an assortment of things including moving trucks. Success! they had a truck and then we were back on track.

Our new place is so little so we had to get rid of and loan a lot of furniture. The piece that was the hardest to get rid of was our kitchen hutch that we use as an entertainment center. But you gotta do what you gotta do, and we had to get rid of stuff so we could fit into our new place. So once the truck was filled, we made stops delivering all of our furniture to goodwill or to different friend's homes. Then Ryan took the truck to our new house to meet a new group of guys who would be helping unload the truck. Meanwhile I took our friend home who was most likely exhausted from our morning adventures. For the next hour I tried to figure out how to get home. Unfortunately our GPS broke so we have been getting lost a lot lately, needless to say, I don't foresee many outings in the near future unless I get it fixed or get a new one. Like I said, it took me an hour to get home, I had to keep zig zagging through the streets until I found a street I recognized.

Unloading the truck went very well, the only problem we ran into was getting mine and Ryan's bed up the stairs. The stair case is much to small to accommodate my bed. Thankfully there is a door in the boys room that has been bolted shut so we pulled out the tools and pried the door open. The guys carried the bed up a ladder and got it through the door and into my bedroom. The Plexiglas was unfortunately broken in the process but that's an easy fix.

Once we got all the boxes moved into the house, we made our way to Cadyco to return the truck. we grabbed a quick dinner and stopped to buy a phone charger for me and a wall mount for the TV. After a long day we were finally home, the only thing left to do was turn the key and walk into our new house. Sounds so easy when you put it that way. Not so! Ryan accidentally left the house key hooked to the truck key. Remember that door we broke earlier that day? That was the best thing to happen that day, we were able to get back into the house!

When we made it home we set up the kids room first, with beds and blankets and once they were asleep we got started on the kitchen. The unpacking process has been going very well. Because this house is so tiny, we have had to get creative with storing things but it's all working out very well. So far the boys bedroom is my favorite room, it is so colorful and fun. Once we get the whole house put in order I'll share pictures, but for now I can share a glimpse into the kids fun room.

I chose to share the shelf picture first because we are really proud of it. We got the idea on all things thrifty, don't you love them!?