DALLIN 14 MONTHS - Time just keeps flying and Dallin keeps growing up. He had his first taste of corn on the cob this month. He is a great little eater for the most part. He is still a busy boy and never sits still. He really likes sitting on the lap of whoever is driving when they pull into the driveway. He especially loves Jed's truck!
One of his new favorite things to do is to throw things off of his highchair when he is done eating. It isn't annoying at all - I love it. The other thing that isn't annoying at all is that he has started sucking on his shirt bottoms. He walks around with his shirt in his mouth and his belly hanging out.
Dallin is such a fun kid, but a holy terror at church. He may make me go inactive. He is loud and only lasts about 20 min in sacrament meeting before he has to be taken out. Then he makes about one pass around the building and gets bored so he starts opening and slamming doors, banging on walls, etc. He is sorta' crazy. These pictures were taken at our new ward. We had to go find an empty classroom and shut ourselves in. After about 5 minutes of throwing toys, climbing on chairs, and so on Dallin was bored and crying. Nursery can't come soon enough!
MOVING MONTH - On July 12th we officially closed on both houses. One house sold and one house bought. It was a crazy day! A very exciting day though. Luckily the house we bought was empty so we were able to move all of our stuff over the weekend before. I'm not sure how we would have ever gotten moved in one day had we not been able to do that. All weekend long we took stuff over to our new garage. It was entirely packed. We vowed we would never move again! Tresa & Jeff came and helped and some other men from the ward helped load and unload the big things. Thank goodness for those people! After we had finished unloading the big furniture and the men had left and we had made a few more trips back and forth we took a break. It was so exciting to think that this fun yard was going to be ours soon. Jed got out the riding lawn mower to test out. Tresa took a picture of the kids and I in our new "secret garden." It's what we have named the part of the yard with stairs that comes down off of the garage and basketball area. It is so shady and pretty that name seemed fitting. The kids had worked so hard and were pretty tired. They were all little troopers (although you can tell Kinsley used the last of her energy to give a half smile! lol)
The day of closing Tresa was so helpful and took the big kids. They had swimming lessons and so she took them there and took them for lunch and entertained them for most of the day. Before they left with Tresa that morning they each took a picture in their bedrooms for the last time.
The closing took longer than we expected because the bank had messed up on some of the paperwork so we had to wait and wait. It would have been so miserable to do that with 4 kids. When we were finally done Jed went back to work and I ran back to the Grand Teton house to make sure everything was in final order. I walked through the now empty house and couldn't help the emotions. I have never been sad to leave any other house/apt we have lived in before so I was a little surprised at myself. We have had such a happy 3 years here. It has been such a good time of our lives. It was like I needed to say thank you to our house in a way. As I walked from room to room it was like a movie was playing in my head of certain times spent in each room. I remembered our Christmas mornings in the family room, the piano lessons taught and the YW presidency meetings in the front room, the laughter that always accompanies the kitchen when family is together, our little backyard where we still had fun setting up obstacle courses for the kids pretending to be training for American Ninja Warrior (even though we always complained it was too small.) The kids rooms were the most emotional for me. As I stood in the doorway of each of their rooms it's like I could see them smiling back at me. Kasen from his floor playing with his farm animals or sitting in his desk drawing. Ava dancing around her room or on her bed with a good book. Kinsley playing dress up or with her dolls or stuffed animals. Each of them smiling and saying, "Hi mom!" So happy and content. When we moved here their ages were 8, 6, and 3. Now they are 11, 9, and 6. These last 3 yrs have been truly the best. All three of them in elementary school - imagining & inventing together in their spare time. Watching the same cartoons and movies and laughing at the same jokes. This time frame when your kids are still kids (but not little baby/toddler age) - this time of life is innocent and such a special time. In a way I don't want it to end. We are now looking straight into the eyes of a new era we are soon to be entering, where they begin into a different stage of life, which is fun and exciting but also a little sad for me. I'm so thankful for all the memories we have made in this house. It has truly become a home to me. I will miss it for everything it provided to me as a mother. It will always be a sacred little place to me. I know without a doubt we were led to this particular house for a reason and the time spent here has been a great gift from our Heavenly Father. Below are just a couple of last pictures. Dallin watching his last Baby Einstein and all of our stuff in our new garage.
Now moving forward, I also feel like we were led to our new house. We weren't planning on moving for another 2 years and on paper that would have been the most logical thing for us as well. It's almost as if this house wouldn't leave us alone though. Everything kept falling into place again and again with our Sentosa home. We would pray that if it wasn't where we were supposed to be that things wouldn't fall into place and they just continued to work out. We didn't think we would be approved for that big of a loan and we were. We didn't think the sellers would accept our low offer and all of our stipulations and they did. We didn't think we would be able to sell our house in 30 days and it went under contract in 12. We didn't think our buyers would accept our high selling price and they offered $5000 above asking price. And so on and so on. We would start to worry about something and then for some reason we would have to come to the Sentosa home for an inspection or whatever and as soon as we pulled up the driveway we would feel such a peaceful feeling. One point I was walking around the backyard before we moved in and I had a distinct impression of my Grandma Melba. She loved trees and flowers and landscaping so much. She had an amazing yard that I loved as a kid. I loved my Grandma so much. That impression of her was almost like she was there with me giving me a hug or something and letting me know that she was very happy that I would be a steward of such a beautiful place and that maybe she had a hand in leading us here. Change is scary, even for adults, but I'm really thankful that these little coincidences or tender mercies were there to give us courage to move forward.
These are some pictures I took the night before closing. We had our final walk through and unloaded a few more things in the garage. We saw the house in April for the first time when the trees were just blooming and it continued to get even prettier all spring and now into summer. I can't wait to see what it looks like this fall! I love love all the mature trees and the variety of trees and plants and flowers. I could have never in a million years picked all this out myself. The backyard will be such a fun place. We have our fire pit, trampoline pit, secret garden, hot tub, garden, playhouse, weeping willow tree - so much to look forward to!
JULY ACTIVITIES - Swim lessons fell on the first two weeks of July this year. I'm not sure what possessed me to think this would be a good idea with moving. It was always frustrating to have to stop everything to drive to swim lessons in the middle of the day for me, but it was probably good for the kids to have a break. This year they all moved up a level and were excited to improve!
It was a big year for Kasen and Kinsley. They both had to learn a lot of new skills. Kasen had to learn to dive and Kinsley had to learn to swim underwater. Ava really improved too and is almost swim team ready! The only bad thing about this session was that Dallin nearly killed himself everyday trying to dive in the pools.
It was nice in the end that we had swimming lessons before we moved, because once we did move the kids got invited over to swim play dates nearly every day the rest of the summer. Apparently, everyone in Eagle has a swimming pool in their backyard. We went to one swim date at the primary president's house. She had a really fun waterslide in her back yard too. Dallin was glad he finally got to get into the pool until he was in the pool. Then he was deathly afraid of course. I love this picture of Dallin and Kinsley sharing a pool chair and a snuggle.
Ava continued to cook for us each month. One month her cooking box had a recipe for chocolate souffle. She did a great job! Kinsley is always super excited when Ava makes new dessert recipes. We also had our neighbor reupholster some chairs we bought at a yard sale for our new house. I think they turned out really good! I love the new fabric. I did a great job picking it out! lol
A few days after we were in our new house I found out about the Lego Historical Buildings tour where all these really important buildings in America are made completely by legos and then displayed for the public. We had so much to do at our house and so many boxes to unpack, but I took the kids down to the mall anyway. I knew they would like it and the boxes would still be there tomorrow. The kids were super excited and it was pretty amazing to see.
The U.S. Capitol Building was the biggest. It took up the whole main atrium of the mall. I couldn't even fit it into a picture frame. The details were pretty amazing.
Ava was most excited to see the Statue of Liberty. We decided that one of our family vacations really needs to be to see some of these sites in person.
The White House was really cool as well. I can't imagine living in such a huge house.
There are so many amazing places to visit on our list now! Kinsley asked if she could take a picture in front of Independence Hall by herself so I said sure. She proceeded to lay down on the floor. She is such a goofball.
Kasen was most excited to see the Lincoln Memorial because Lincoln is his favorite president. You can't tell by the picture, but there is actually a Lincoln built out of legos inside the building.
A week after we moved Kasen had his last pack meeting so we decided to go back to our old ward for it. Kasen was never advanced to a Bear because of some events that happened after his birthday with the ward calendar so he really wanted to get advanced. The previous scoutmaster did this cool ceremony for advancement where the scouts advancing from wolves to bears would get a wolf paw painted on their face while this ceremonial drum was being beat in the background. Kasen was so excited for that to happen to him. Then a month before his advancement that scoutmaster moved out of the ward and the new one called didn't do that anymore. For Kasen's advancement he had them dig for their patches in a pie of whipped cream. Luckily, Kasen still thought it was fun.
OUR NEW HOUSE WK 1 - In the past, every time we have moved we have either had a waiting period before or after so there was somewhat of a break before having to unpack everything again. This was the first time that that wasn't the case. We packed, moved, and then immediately after that we had to unpack. It was exhausting! lol I thought I had done a good sorting through of everything and felt like I had really de-cluttered and gotten rid of a lot of stuff. But as we started unpacking I realized we still had so much stuff! The hard part was I didn't really know where or what I wanted in certain places so it was slow going. Also Jed was working, so projects were slower to get done. The kids bedrooms got done first and then ours and then slowly the rest of the house. Actually that isn't even true, because even at the end of the month there were still boxes unpacked, but we are doing pretty good getting settled. The worst house to pack and unpack is without a doubt the kitchen though! The kids were pretty excited to be in their new house so I tried to enjoy the days too instead of being in slave-driver work mode.
One thing the kids haven't gotten enough of here has been bike riding. They love riding up and down the driveway and all the way down our private lane. It is really nice to not worry about them as they ride their bikes. There were so many intersections in our subdivision I was always worried they would forget to look both ways and get hit by a car. It is nice we have a private lane and that it is completely paved. They love starting up by the garage and gaining speed down the driveway.
We haven't done anything with the garden and most likely will not this year besides pick the raspberries. Dallin likes going out and playing in his clubhouse while we pick. Kasen and Kinsley have been excellent raspberry pickers. It is so fun to have those yummy berries to eat and eat. We have already made two batches of jam!
All of us are in heaven with our outside space, but especially Dallin. He loves being outside. We have to dead bolt the doors when we are inside or he is trying to open them and escape as fast as he can. When he is outside he just wanders and wanders.
Gigi has done a lot better in this yard as well. She has lots of room to run and play. She has ran over to the neighbors a couple of times and we have had to go retrieve her though. :( The kids have been trying to teach her to fetch. She is picking it up, although I'm not sure who gets more excited Gigi or Dallin. He thinks he needs to retrieve all the balls too. After being outran by Gigi too many times he retreated to the clubhouse and started trying to climb up the slide. This kid is way to adventurous for my taste...
Ava was doing so good teaching Gigi to fetch that Kasen thought he would give it a try. Gigi would chase the ball and then never retrieve it for him. He got so sad. Meanwhile Jed decided he would get our trampoline set up. We had measured and we had the right trampoline size already. So he took it apart and hauled it over here when we moved. Then he started setting it up only to find that the poles on the bottom didn't fit where the posts in the hole were. So we will have to buy a custom made trampoline which will be about $1000. Jed was also greatly disappointed, but unlike Kasen's reaction of sad disappointment - Jed's was more angry disappointment. So once again he had to take apart the trampoline again. He vowed to never set up a trampoline ever again.
One thing about a big, beautiful yard is there is a lot of yard work that needs to be done to keep it beautiful. I don't think any of the trees had been pruned or the flowerbeds weeded in a long time. In fact, I'm not sure the previous owners had done much at all with it in the two years they had been here. So every single evening once it cooled down, we were outside pruning, trimming, weeding, mowing, etc. It has been so many hours every single day until dark trying to get things under control. I think maintenance will be less intense once we get it to that level. Dallin likes to stay close to me when I am out weeding the flower beds. It is cute to see him examine the flowers. I've been teaching him to sniff them.
Like I said though, if he gets a chance to bolt outside he will. This summer I was worried about him sneaking away and getting lost! He is just such a curious boy.
The kids are really diving into the work and are really good at working alongside us which is one of the main reasons we decided to move. They usually have to take a break at some point for some playing though. One night they decided to take a break and go "rock climbing" in our backyard. The rocks are not high. The bottom of the picture is literally the ground. So they are not that high up at all. They went all out though like they always do with their imaginations and got out jump ropes for the ropes and tied themselves together. Kinsley was apparently the guinea pig and went first. It started out well enough, but once she got one rock higher she started screaming, "I'm going to die! Help! I'm going to die!" and wouldn't let go of the bush. Not dramatic at all...
ERICKSON REUNION - The Erickson reunion was about 10 days after we moved in down in Heber City, UT. It wasn't planned this way, but worked out date-wise to be the same time Seth was leaving for his mission. So we went down that weekend and were able to go to his farewell and say goodbye to him. On our way to Heber City, we stopped at the Olympic Park in Park City to do some ropes courses. We only had about an hour before they closed so we didn't plan it out too well. None of the girls had closed-toed shoes so we ran down to Walmart to buy some and left Jed and Kasen to start the course. However, Jed ended up weighing too much (just a few pounds over) to go on the course that Kasen could go on. So Kasen had to go alone. Meanwhile, we get our shoes and head back up to the park. We get to the ropes course and Kasen is sitting by Jed really upset and crying. We find out that once Kasen got up on the course he got really nervous and they had to bring him down on a ladder because he wouldn't go any farther. The girls and I then go up and it was actually really quite hard and scary. I was even nervous crossing some of the obstacles so I felt really bad Kasen had to do it alone. The only reason Kinsley finished was because I was right with her the entire time. Kasen would have done fine if Jed had been able to go with him. Kasen was super sad about it, but they wouldn't let him go up again with me so we promised we wouldn't tell anyone at the reunion so he wouldn't be embarrassed.
At the end of the ropes course the fun part was zip-lining to the bottom again. Kinsley was a little scared, but there was no other way down so I had to push her off the ledge pretty much. It's good to make your kids do scary things right?! Olympic Park was pretty awesome. We watched lots of people training on the ski jumps and land in the big pools. It would have been fun to have more time to spend up there.
Seth was called to Canada and we were able to go to his farewell that Sunday. He did a great job! We went back to the Andersen house afterward and I couldn't believe how many people were there. I swear the entire high school! They had some soft serve ice cream cone machines and I think we all ate about 5 ice cream cones a piece because it was so hot. We stayed in the Worldmark condos in Heber City and they were designed to look like Swiss Chalets. It reminded me of Sun Valley. It was a really cool area and fun place to stay. The kids went swimming one night with all their cousins too. It is always fun to just hang out and laugh a lot with everyone!
Because of a surprise notice that Jed had to renew his license before his birthday or lose it for the next year, we could only stay for 3 days in Heber City so that we could go home and Jed could fly to Nashville for a conference. The morning we had to leave we went down to the local fishing pond for one last activity. The last time the kids had gone fishing was when we first moved back to Idaho 3 years ago. Back then they had all caught a fish so they thought they would for sure catch more fish. We tried to tell them it wasn't that easy, but within a few minutes Ava caught the first fish. Unfortunately it slipped out of Jed's hands when he was trying to take the hook out. Not too long after though, Kasen caught a fish too. We were able to keep his and left it for the rest of the Ericksons to cook for dinner after we left.
Dallin wasn't interested in fishing at all, but just wanted to chase the ducks around. Some of the ducks even had a curly hairdo just like Dallin. Lucky for the ducks, Dallin isn't that fast yet. We had forgotten the pack-and-play for Dallin to sleep in so it wasn't the most relaxing trip for us. Also on the way down, Dallin cried and cried in his carseat for most of the way. On the way home we decided to turn him around. He is such a fun boy, but man having a baby around again is a lot of work!
We were bummed we couldn't stay longer with family, but aside from Jed having to be back, Ava had also decided to tryout for a club volleyball team. The club has summer and fall tryouts for the team and so since we were heading back Ava decided she wanted to go to the summer tryouts. They were two nights in a row and they were tough. Ava wasn't sure she would make it, but they promised her a spot on the 13 premier team! She should be able to keep her spot after the fall tryouts too as long as she doesn't totally regress. It really boosted Ava's confidence to see that she could play and do well with other girls that were pretty good. She was very excited. I can't believe how much she has improved since being at this new volleyball place. We were all very excited for her. One of the coaches told me after that the other coaches couldn't believe that Ava was only 11 years old and joked that they wanted to see her birth certificate. They said there was no way she could be 11 and that tall! One male coach said that he was surprised she was as coordinated as she was for being so tall. It made Ava's day - she thought it was hilarious.
OUR NEW HOUSE WK 2 - The last few days of July were back to the grind of unpacking and yard work. The kids continued to help and be fun. Kinsley got right back into making sure the tubs here let her have "mermaid hair" as she calls it. Check.
We
also discovered that we had a cat. The neighbors told us it was the
previous owners that they had left. It hung around for a couple weeks
and then we never saw it again. While it was here though Kinsley really
liked following it around of course. It didn't like to be touched so
Kinsley just followed it.
Dallin continued to be Dallin. He pulled out a stair baluster, had to be hand-fed Popsicles, discovered he had toy horses to ride, and was just plain adorable. What would we do without him!
Jed was able to make it to Nashville and spent the rest
of the month at conferences which he said was really boring and lonely
being there by himself. I felt bad for him, especially since he was
there on his birthday. Not too fun. Dallin was asleep when he got home so I had to get the annual birthday picture with just the older kids. Jed said all he wanted for his birthday was to come into a lot of money somehow so he could retire and never work again. :) I got him a jacket from the Nike store instead. The sunsets here are amazing. The kids ride down to the end of the lane each night to take a picture. They are getting some beautiful ones. I think that's a good sign that life in our new home will be just as wonderful as life in our last one.
No comments:
Post a Comment