Getaway

The kids had a long weekend off from school on Feb 14-18th and Marci suggested us going over to my parents house to get our hair done by Sara and celebrate my Mom's birthday early before they leave for New Zealand. Kyle and I had to talk in Church on Sunday the 17th, but then after Church we came home, packed up and left after eating lunch. Kyle had to stay home for work so it was just me and the kids. We met Marci at North Bend and stopped in Ellensburg to see our Grandparents before getting to my parents. The weather was nice and the roads were bare and dry. Jeni and her kids came out on Monday. Sara and Zane came out Monday also to do hair for a lot of us, which was so nice of her. It's gotta be tiring. We had fun though being in the "hair salon" all day and talking and sharing stories. I'm grateful for my sisters and that we can have fun together.

Preston set these bowls out for cereal and they are ginormous bowls. haha. When my Mom got her new kitchen she moved the location of the normal bowls and Preston was just getting the bowls out from where they usually were. It was pretty funny. He would probably eat that much cereal though.

Sara, my Mom and I were trying to get a picture of Chelsea and Zane together. They were not cooperating together at all. It was annoying though because during the day Chelsea would hug Zane then take him down. Or she would take toys away from him or bug him. She was mean. Sara said usually Zane is the mean one so she was surprised he wasn't the mean one. He did get into the dirt in my Mom's potted plants. These little toddlers are busy. 

We celebrated my Mom's birthday early. She made chicken parmiagiana, french bread, Cesar salad and a chocolate chocholate chip bundt cake for dessert. It was all very good. All of us kids went in together and got her a binding machine (to bind papers and make them into books) and gave her some different sizes of binding combs. She loved it. Kevin and my Grandpa Bill were able to come out for dinner too. 

On Tuesday morning, my Mom made roll out sugar cookies with the kids. They had fun cutting the dough and helping my Mom. We were watching the pass conditions because it wasn't looking good. There was lots of snow and they had already closed the pass for avalanche control twice that morning. Marci had an appointment to get back for and we had ballet and Kate's basketball team pizza party to get back for. When we found out the pass was opened again we left right away. After eating BLT's on homemade bread of course. haha. 

These pictures show our driving conditions on our way home. It was snowing pretty hard and the roads weren't cleared very good. Lots of people were driving really really slow. Like slower than they needed to. This one car was going like 20 mph. It was funny. Marci drove and she was amazing. She's more confident in the snow and I gladly let her. We got over the pass fine and both got home in time for our things. They closed the pass soon after we made it over. It's a good thing we got through because it didn't reopen until later that night like after 10pm. We were blessed. 

Kate was awarded the "Best Team Player". The Coach said he could have given her any of the other awards because she was willing to do anything and was happy. She was excited to see her teammates again and we visited and ate pizza. 

I dropped my parent's off at the airport at the end of February. They flew to New Zealand and then they were going to Hawaii before coming back home in 2 1/2 weeks. My Dad served his mission in New Zealand 41 years ago and he has wanted to go back and visit. We were all encouraging them to go and so we are happy they get to go and do this. 

Games and Treats

 

While watching the ice skating from the Olympics in Sochi, Preston said, "Wow! She is a super skater. She is skating very good." It was adorable. They were in awe. 

Kate finished her basketball season and had so much fun (even with the rough games). She would sometimes bring the ball down the court and she always took the ball out. She learned a lot this year and is excited to keep playing next year. Her teacher, Miss Johnson, and her friend, Alyssa, came for her last game. She was so happy to have them there. It was so cute that her teacher came. How nice of her to come on a Saturday afternoon. 

After Kate's basketball game, (Kyle had to go to a Church priesthood meeting so he left the game early) I took the kids to Menchie's for a yummy treat. Kate forgot her coat at the gym so we had to run back up to downtown Everett to get her coat. Thank goodness it was still there. 

During the 2nd inspection we had on our house, (they are 3 hours long) we went and spent our time out of the house at a park. (Right before leaving the house it was crazy chaos getting the kids to hurry and get in the car b/c we needed to be gone before they came. And I had to hurry and change a poopy diaper on Chelsea and then I sprayed Lysol so it didn't stink like poop.) Then we went to the mall to play inside because it was getting cold. Thank goodness for groupons because we had coupons for Jamba Juice and pretzels. Yummy. The kids were loving it. We picked up Kate from school and it was pouring rain. We ended up going to Target and when we got done there they were done with the inspection. Good timing. 

The kids playing with hats. We have a pioneer, a Fancy Nancy, a cowgirl and a cowboy. I like when they play nice together. :)

Champions!

Kate painted this picture when they were learning about painting objects and I thought she did a good job. She loves all the extra fun classes they get in 3rd grade like art, PE, technology and music.

Kate got the Principal's Award. Which means she gets a certificate. haha. But we are proud of her for being a good student. We only hear good things about her from all her teachers and we couldn't be happier about that. She was excited to eat pizza with the principal for getting 75 AR points (reading tests). 

The Seahawks won the Superbowl!!!! They are Superbowl Champions!!!! We were so excited! It was a fun game to watch because they dominated the Denver Broncos. They had a huge parade in Seattle the Wednesday after they won, but we didn't go. We had some friends go though and they had a good time. We watched it from the warmth of our house...it was really cold that day. 

Russell Wilson, the quarterback

Final Score: Seahawks 43 to Broncos 8

The girls playing outside. Kate and the neighbor kids are big into playing 2 square. I even play with them sometimes. They say I'm good and hard to beat. haha. 

Playing with some friends- Wilson, Reagan and Anna Giles. They are our neighbors and in the same ward. They are great neighbors and we will really miss them. 

The stack of books that Chelsea ripped in a week. She likes to do things to get my attention. Grrr. 

I bought a new purse from Target with cmas money. It's bright orange and a fun color for spring.

Chelsea posing for me while I catch her naughtiness. She gets the baskets and dumps our the toys (doesn't play with them, just dumps them out) and then takes the liner out of the basket. It's so fun. Her smile and pose makes me laugh though. 

Lindsey posing for me so I can get a picture and Chelsea copying her. 

In the Name...

I promise I'll post more pictures soon, but until then I have some more stories. :)

Lindsey has started to say a lot more in her prayers and they are getting long or she repeats things (most of it is pretty cute though and she always prays for Jared in Brazil). Well, sometimes I'll try to get her to end her prayer by saying "In the name" so she gets the hint. During primary at Church on Sunday a kid was saying the opening prayer and Preston says out loud, "In the name". Haha!!! I guess the kid's prayer was too long for him.

Chelsea is proficient at climbing out of her crib. She's 20 mo's old and I'm not too sure she's ready for a big bed yet. We don't have room for it now anyway. It's quite the fight at night to keep her in it. No way to keep her contained anymore. Bummer. She thinks she's pretty funny though when she gets out and can run around in the room.

Today, I went to the gym after dropping Kate and Preston off at school. I don't take my cell phone in with me b/c it's one less thing to carry around. When I got back out to the car there were 2 messages from realtors wanting to come see the house. Our house went back to active yesterday after the buyers backed out. One of them wanted to come at 11am. It was almost 10am when I got the message. Yikes! I hurried home and had to make beds, clean up toys, do breakfast dishes, wipe down all the bathrooms and dust. Good thing I swept and mopped and vacuumed last night. I didn't think they'd come this early to see a house! While I was cleaning up toys in the girls' room I spun around and hit my forehead on the corner of their dresser. It hurt! I split it open, just a small cut, but it was bleeding and I was sweating from the gym and cleaning so I was a hot mess. haha. I quickly put some super glue on it before heading out the door. Good thing my bangs will cover it up. Oh and as I'm trying to clean up Chelsea is dumping toys and pulling toilet paper off the roll. Then she poops and the front room stinks so I spray lysol to get rid of the poop smell and I had turned on a scensty candle so the smell of lysol and candle was gross. Aaahhhh! I didn't have time to shower so I was still sweaty and stinky. I rushed the kids out to the car along with several bags I usually hang on door knobs, but to eliminate stuff I store them in the car. Another realtor was coming at noon so I needed to be gone for a while. I went and got the car washed, picked up Preston from school, went to the bread outlet, went to Costco and got them lunch and then went to Winco to get a few things. When we got home Chelsea and Lindsey went down for a nap and I folded laundry. We have a couple more showings tomorrow around the same time too. Thank goodness a friend invited me over for lunch. It'll be nice to have somewhere to crash.

Nevermind

Well, I spoke too soon. The 2nd buyers backed out tonight. They were getting a loan through the VA and our condos didn't meet the requirements for a VA loan so they didn't have financing. Ugh. Seriously? I can't believe two buyers have had to back out. This is a roller coaster. I guess I shouldn't say anything until we sign on closing day!

On the Go

I was having a rough day last week and texted Kyle saying how sick I was of the kids because they undo everything I try to do! It's frustrating. I was trying to clean up and they were getting into everything and messing it all up. I felt like I was wasting my time and I have been more stressed lately and that never helps. Chelsea goes from scooting chairs around so she can reach the gum to dumping toys out of baskets so she can turn the baskets upside down and stand on them to reach other things to playing with the phone/iPad to climbing on the table to playing with the computer to getting into the dishwasher to bugging someone else. It's crazy. She hardly sits and plays with toys. She is on the go. Well, this same day Preston and Lindsey were upstairs and supposed to be having quiet time but instead starting slamming doors. I was irritated because Chelsea was sleeping up there so I quickly made them stop. I wasn't happy. A couple hours later I got a text from a neighbor saying that Kate's school is on lockdown and there are Sherriff's everywhere, but no one knows anything. Yikes! I started to get nervous and thought I had cursed myself for saying I was sick of my kids and now something really bad might have happened. You know how it goes when your mind wanders. Well, come to find out they did the lockdown because there was a home burglary in the area and they kept the school on lockdown until the police caught the suspect which they did. So it turned out to be fine, but it was a quick reality check! I need to take deep breaths and remember my kids will only be little for a little time instead of thinking this is never going to end. This 18mo-2 yr stage is hard though b/c they are so busy. I remember with Lindsey thinking she was crazy and into everything. Remember fingernail polish painted and spilled everywhere?! Yeah, not good. {Sigh}

House update: we had the buyers back out 3 weeks into the ordeal. They had financial reasons. The buyer's mom was in the hospital with no insurance and they needed to cover the costs. They wanted to roll in the closing costs to the purchase price but was concerned about the appraisal coming in high enough. We offered to pay for the appraisal if it didn't come in high enough, but they still turned us down. They were uncomfortable with the payments too. So whatever. It was discouraging, but at that point we still hadn't really seen any homes we liked to make an offer on. Well two days later we get another offer from a couple that previously had looked at it at the open house. We were going to do another open house a couple Saturdays ago, but ended up cancelling it at 11am (open house was going to be from 12-3 so it was last minute cancellation) when the buyers accepted our counter offer on Saturday morning. So now we are back under contract with new buyers and closing April 4th. We've looked at a few houses, but none that we love. Recently, we looked at one that I liked more than Kyle did. The yard was small so that's a bummer and there were a couple other things we didn't like. Kyle thinks something better will come on the market. I sure hope so because the time is ticking away slowly but surely! We might be homeless..ahhh!