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!

Changing the Restrictions

Hi everyone!

So, as most of you know, Josh is in the police academy right now because he got hired as a police officer here in Wisconsin. After learning some crazy stuff about child predators, he has informed me that my blog needs to become restricted only to those people we know. I haven't done this in the past because I know I like to snoop on people's blogs who I don't even know that well and I feel like others can do the same to me, but I guess this is the safe thing to do. I will be doing this in about 2 weeks so if you look at my blog ever please post a comment to this update and I will make it so you can continue. I just need to plug in people's specific usernames or e-mails I guess. Even if I don't know you super well that's fine, I just want to confirm that you are in fact a bored mom or housewife such as myself and not a crazy internet pedafile looking at pictures of my kids. Kay? Thanks! On that happy note, have a great day!

Back from Idaho!

Hi everyone!

We were so lucky to have just seen most of you Idaho folks this past week so you probably will remember firsthand some of these moments in the pictures! We had tons of fun picking huckleberries (three times), riding horses, and floating the river - okay I lied I didn't have fun floating the river the second time because it was 45 degrees and raining. But the first time was fun! Now we are home and getting settled in again. Josh will be starting his new job on Monday so we're enjoying the last lazy days of summer. Caleb is huge - as most of you know. I think about 20 pounds according to the scale with me holding him. Gabe is a ball of energy and can be very naughty but also very sweet (when he wants to be). Check back often, we may have house news soon or we may not, depending on the offer we just put in and if the bank gets a response to us soon!

Too busy having fun!

Hi again! It's been a while. I jusify not keeping a journal by saying, "At least I write highlights on my blog!" and lately I've even been slacking at that! It's pretty time consuming keeping a two-year-old and a two-month-old clean, fed, and happy. We've been filling every spare minute lately it seems like. Thispast weekend we went on a family getaway to Madison, WI and stayed at a Holiday Inn with indoor waterpark. Gabe LOVED it and got mad if we tried to go down the big slide with him. Then on Saturday we went to the zoo and the beach that's right next to it and spent more time at the waterpark at night. We came back Sunday afternoon. Our adventure for this upcoming weekend is the Packer family night. We are going to Green Bay to watch the team play eachother and there's some family games I guess too. Josh is pretty excited.

Caleb is getting ginormous. He's not even 2 months old officially and I had to put a 6 month sleeper on the past two nights. I had to re-go through all the stored clothes and get out bigger sizes again! He weighs over 15 pounds! Gabe is still beating on him while he can. His "kisses" are pretty smothering sometimes. Gabe is being a terrible two lately. Everything is, "Mine!" or "I do it!" (Is this the building their independence stage?) He does have his cute moments though. My sister-in-law and neice were in town from Montana yesterday and we all went to the waterpark by my house and Gabe was having so much fun going down the slides and jumping in for me to catch him. He kept telling me to move further back and finally I just let him go under. To my surprise he bobbled back up and paddled to the side! I guess it's good training.

Well I'll post some pics now. Hopefully we will see all you Idaho folks soon. We are planning a trip sometime late August I think. Take care!

Can you tell who's who?