Happy New Year!

I would say that my new years resolution is to blog more often but I'd fail at it. It seems like when things are going on that people would be excited to hear about (such as moving into our new home that we spent 6 weeks working on and are STILL working on now that we are in) there is just absolutely no time to blog about it! Then when I do have time to blog, there is nothing going on so it's like, "Why should I post?" So, here are some pics of our house since some people have been asking. This was right before we moved in, like December 13th. Now we are moved in but we just have our futon and our recliner in our living room and our TV on a little end table so it looks pretty sad! The bedrooms are nice. Maybe I'll post some more of those. But this is all pre-move in.

Our Christmas was good. Gabe is so spoiled. Our new toy room is already packed. I should post pics of it. My grandpa came over and looked in it and said, "Poor kid, I wish you'd get him some toys to play with!" (sarcasm) It was nice to have our first Christmas where we woke up in our own new home. Though, I was pretty sick so I was ready to go to bed at 8 pm on Christmas eve and did not want to be Santa's little helper all! But it all went well and Gabe loves his new trains. Caleb is getting HUGE! At his six month appointment he weighed 25 lbs 4 oz. He is off the chart for weight and I think 95% for height. We need to switch him to a bigger carseat already. He has this jumperoo thing that hangs from the door frame that he LOVES to jump around in. At least he is getting some exercise!

We hope your Christmas and New Year were good as well! I'll try to post again soon!

New home!

Hey everyone! We have moved! If you need our address email me at bes02001@yahoo.com. Sorry I haven't posted new pics yet! Super busy! Merry Christmas!

I don't have tons of time lately but here's a quick update. It's Gabe's and Caleb's rooms before and after. Still lots more to do though!

Here are some Halloween pictures. We did the cast of the Wizard of Oz. Josh was very excited to be the tin man. (That is a lie.) It was so cold when we did trick or treating, then like, 3 days later it was so beautiful! We had three days in a row that it was 65 to 73 degrees!!! Why couldn't it have done that on trick or treat day?! We've been feverishly working on our house every chance we get. Gabe's room and Caleb's are pretty much done. Josh is laying bathroom tile today. It's such a huge project! I'll have to post some pictures soon. See ya!

Our new home

I thought about not posting pictures until the "After" was finished, but then I realized we might not all live long enough to see it since it may take years!!! j/k But seriously... you will see.

Today was our last Saturday as non-homeowners so we enjoyed the day by taking the boys to the Little Farmer (a hobby farm in our town that has a pumpkin patch, goats, chickens, a play area with hay stacks and all sorts of fun stuff, and they sell caramel apples, hot cider, etc.) and then we left Caleb with my sister while we took Gabe to see the new HSM3 movie. (That's High School Musical 3 for those of you over the age of 12.) I must say I really liked it. Josh even was into it. When Gabe said his diaper was poopy within ten minutes of the movie's end, Josh was like, "He can wait! Shh!" (Josh wanted me to add that he wasn't even really poopy, which he knew, and that's why he told him to wait till the end.)

So here's some pics of the boys and our beautiful new home! Just keep in mind the things we loved about it were A) The neighborhood, B) The yard, and C) The size/layout of the home - All the things you CAN'T change. Pretty much every thing that CAN be changed (paint, for example) will be. But hey, maybe in a few years if the market picks up and we've got it all pretty we can make a little profit on it. With an ex-carpenter for a husband it's almost a waste of talent to not buy a fixer-upper, right? So, with that said, Wish us luck! I have a feeling we're gonna need it!

Lucky Gabe

So, I have decided that Gabe either has a really good guardian angel or that Heavenly Father must have some really important work for him to do here because I swear that kid has already dodged death like, three times in his short life.

As most of you know, my water broke at 29 weeks pregnant and as I was getting ready to have him the doctors told me it didn't look good and he'd probably have to be sent to Salt Lake for a long time. Then he's born and he does well and they keep him in Rexburg and he's had no lasting health effects from it. Then when he was about 18 months old, we were at a friend's apartment and Gabe and her little boy were playing in a bedroom and after about 30 seconds of them being in there, I went to check on him just as the giant dresser was about to fall onto him and crush him. I managed to catch it enough so that just the bottom drawers fell onto him.

Now here is the most recent bullet he's dodged. As you can see from the pictures, it doesn't look very good and the impact happened right where Gabe was sitting in his carseat behind the passenger seat. I was on my way home from Walmart and I pulled up to a four-way stop heading north just blocks from my house. I saw a large service-type van with a ladder on top of it that was coming from the east approaching the stop sign also. It looked like he was slowing and I proceeding to pull out and cross the intersection. The next thing I knew, out of the corner of my eye, I saw his van speeding towards the right side of my car right towards Gabe. In my mind I thought (and may have screamed) "Oh my Gosh!" and I also thought in that split second, "Gabe is going to die." The impact was so hard I started to fly out of my seat to the left but my seatbelt stopped me and when I landed back in my seat I hit the seat belt buckle pretty hard - leaving me with a pretty bruised right hip. But I just immediately jumped out of the car and ran around the other side to get Gabe. I pulled him through the completely shattered window as he was screaming, but thankfully, and unbelievably, all he had was a large bruise on his forehead. By this time the other driver had gotten out of his van and ran over and I think I screamed (as a crazy mad mom) "You totally ran that stop sign!!!" And he said, "I'm sorry I had my foot on the brake and then it slipped off onto the gas and I couldn't get it unstuck." I noted that both of shoes were untied as he stood there and I thought, "Gee, maybe that had something to do with it!" Caleb was screaming still but he seeemed okay in the middle of the back seat, still strapped in. Lots of people stopped right away and were helping me and the boys. One nice girl whose younger sister I knew from highschool actually pretty much held Caleb the whole time I was answering the police's quesions. There were many witnesses and the other driver who all said the same thing - it was his fault not mine. So at least that shouldn't be a problem to dispute. But sadly, our little old Honda is probably no more. I'd be really surprised if our insurance did not total it. As we went to the ER to get Gabe checked just to be safe, all he kept saying was, "Where'd our car go? Oh no!" He was pretty sad about that. He must've watched the tow truck take it away because when we got home he found a little red SUV car he has that looks most like our Honda and hooked it up behind this Big Bird driving a tow truck that he has, then he came and got me to show me. I was like, "Yup, our truck went with Big Bird."

So that's a bad Monday for you right? But at least we're all okay. It could have been so much worse if the impact would have been even a foot more towards the back of our car. Gabe wouldn't have fared so well.

In other news, we are hoping to close on a house October 31st so we've been running around trying to get things organized with that. Hopefully we canget a decent amount of money to buy another used car so it all works out, but we'll see. You know how these things with insurance go. (Right Charm? :) We're just mainly glad Heavenly Father was watching over us and kept us safe. Hope you all had a better Monday than we did!

Four months already!

Wow, when you're in the newborn months they seem to be going so slow but then you look back and say, "When did my tiny baby suddenly become 20 pounds!?" (yes, I did say 20.) I went to the doctor on Tuesday and Caleb officially weighed in at 21 pounds 5 ounces. I swear I can hardly carry him in his carseat these days. He's changed a lot since he was born (mainly in size) but also in personality. I liked it when he slept 20 hours a day! I used to think, "How will I handle him and Gabe when he doesn't sleep all day!" The answer is - chaos. No, not always but there are definitely moments when I say, "2 kids is enough."

Example: A few days ago Caleb had just woken up and was screaming. Gabe has a way of always needing attention at the worst times. So I hear Gabe yelling, "Mama! Help!" from the living room. He's been doing the little boy who cried wolf thing lately so I didn't run too fast. But then when he got more frantic, I saw he had stuck his foot into his Little Tykes train mountain thing, into one of the caves that is about 3 inches high by 2.5 inches wide and it had gotten stuck! I finally laid down screaming Caleb and was pulling with both hands to try and dislodge it while Gabe's going, "Oww! Help!" I seriously had to stop for a second and just laugh. It was either that or cry with them.

Anyway, back to Caleb. He usually wakes up around 7, sleeps about an hour in the morning (9 to 10?) and then goes back to sleep around 12:30 till sometimes 3:00. (I then force Gabe to take a nap at 1:00 as well so I can get an hour or two of sanity.)
He sleeps pretty well at night. Usually wakes up once around 3:00 and that's all. I know he has the weight to sleep through the night so maybe I will start letting him cry a little. I hate to do that though if we're going to be moving soon. For those of you who didn't know, we have an offer in another house. We'll keep you posted. So anyways, what else. Caleb has a much more easygoing personality than Gabe ever did. He's pretty easy to make smile. He laughed for the first time about a week ago. His pet peeves are when I wash under his neck in the bathtub and when I put his arms through his shirts. He falls asleep to Thomas the Tank (so do I) and me walking around with him on my shoulder and his pacifier. He's been pretty low maintenance. Definitely compared to what Gabe was. Here is a picture of him at one month and now. Definitely balder and fatter! Hopefully his real hair will start to come in now!

Hope you are all doing well!