Ivy June is 3

Our beautiful red head turned three in January.  We had a great time celebrating the day our family was blessed with this darling girl.

She loved her Rapunzel cake from the bakery.

She chose the "Balloon House" for her special birthday activity.  We brought along her little friend Abigail.  They were running around like crazy the entire time- so much that THESE are the best pictures we could get:

Her exhaustion upon leaving the Balloon House can only be described with this perfect picture:

Ivy is such an important part of the family.  She has a super nurturing heart and  loves to help mend "boo boos" (even if she was the culprit behind the violence).  She has a beautiful singing voice and uses it all day long.  She loves to read, story tell, and create masterpieces with her scissors and glue.  She has lots of imaginary friends and enemies.  And last, but not least, she has NO self-control whatsoever and just can't stop herself from destroying toys, books, and anything else that might end up in her sweet little fingers.

Here's what a typical Ivy day is filled with:

Accessories and Beautification

Plenty of attitude

Babies, Books. and Tea Parties

Cooking with Mom and Dad

Princesses and "Bad Guys"

Make-up

Whining Galore

Dress-ups

Plentiful "Hugez and Kisses"

And lots and lots of laughter

We're so, so blessed to have this little ray of light (sometimes the ray is a little too bright) in our lives.  She isn't the easiest- she takes quite a bit of energy and creativity to raise,  but there wouldn't be enough laughter, dancing, make-believe, treat-eating, singing, reading, chasing, tickling, snuggling, and loving without her! 

Designed to Sell ... SOLD!!!

We asked for a miracle and we GOT one. 

Staging our home to sell was incredibly intimidating to me for several reasons:

•  I have no idea how to design anything.
• My budget was very slim.
• It was crucial that the design appeal to a large amount of people.
• We have to live here so we have to like it too.
• I knew staging was the best way to sell our house quickly, so the pressure was on...

After about two weeks and 4 showings (two of which were the same family.)  We sold our house to a nice lady and her daughter- the first people to see our house. 

As I was staging I kept wondering how I could express the love we have for our house, our neighbors, and the neighborhood.  Could I write little sticky notes everywhere explaining:

 "This is where we played silly games and laughed 'til we cried." 

And "this is where Ivy took her first steps." 

 "This is where Hyrum learned to read." 

"This is where we brought Delia home and realized we DID have enough room in our hearts for her even though we thought it was impossible."?

No, I didn't write sticky notes, BUT it just so happened that through a little mix up they came to look at the house while we were still there.  (It was very awkward and I would never have chosen THAT to be their first impression.)  As we were hustling to get out the door and out of their way, they refused to let us leave.  So we did a little dosy-doe around the house to give them their privacy and all ended up in the front room at the end of the showing.  I decided this was my chance to tell them we love the house and neighbors.  I don't know if that helped sell the place or not, but I do know it started a connection with a sweet mother and daughter.  It's so crazy how we'd been praying for someone to buy the house who'd love it and would be grateful for it. Not only did we find a great family to live in our house, but we also get to live here until Bryan graduates.   Tender mercies...

So, back to staging.  I really tried to design the house so it was peaceful, comfy, and displayed the fact that this is a happy, loving place.

So here are the pictures:

Dinning area:

Cute plate:

(Plates are a great, inexpensive way to fill a lonely wall.)

 

Sitting Room

 

These wall decorations are actually place mats-  it's amazing what can be accomplished with a lot of prayer and a little creativity!

Back wall storage thingy:

Kitchen:

Guest Room:

We have LOTS of stairs.  So, to distract exhausted buyers, we put this pretty pendant up on the landing:

Master bedroom dresser:

Masterbed:

Masterbath Shelves:

Kids' Room: 

(The quote says, "Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart. -Winnie the Pooh")

One of my favorite creations for the kids' room, inspired by my super awesome sister Jen: 

(They're just paper and modge podge on canvas.)

Big kids' room:

Downstairs Bathroom:

Bathroom Mirror:

When we told the kids about the big move their reactions were adorable.

Hyrum:  "I don't want to move!  The view is too beautiful!"  (We do have a pretty little view, but how does he know that?)

Ivy: “Are we taking our house to Texas?”

Bry: “No, we’re going to sell it and get a new one.”

 “Is it because it’s broken?”

“No, we just need to go to a new house.”
 “A bigger house, where Santa can live, and eat our cookies?”

I've learned a lot about myself through this process- I didn't know that green is totally my favorite color.  I didn't know that I have a crazy decorate-with-birds/ birdcages-fettish (they are so cute and perfect for gender-neutral decorating).  And, I didn't know how much I would LOVE Interior Design!



Delia at 6 months

Our darling little surprise baby is already 6 months old and we can't believe how cute she is every day (you'd think we'd just get used to it).

Here's her stats:

Weight:  13lbs. 11oz. (10th percentile)

Length:  26'' (50th percentile)

Head:  40 1/2 cm. (5th percentile)

Her favorite place in the whole world is in this baby carrier.  Whenever we're out and about we stick her in this and she's perfectly content even if she's tired or hungry.  It's super nice, but there are still limitations...

Stuff you cannot accomplish while holding a baby in her carrier:

• Eating anything that those sweet little hands could grab
• Sprinting after wayward children who somehow cannot hear their parents SCREAMING their names.
• Driving
• Cooking
• Using the bathroom (trust me, I've tried)

She still hasn't gotten the hang of sitting or crawling, which I'm still happy with.  On the other hand, she's just not as content to snuggle and lay on the floor anymore.  She's ready to be more active, and there's nothing I can do to help, so it's a little frustrating for both of us.

She's super intense and curious about the world around her.  It's so fun to see the world through her eyes with new experiences, tastes, sounds, and textures every day.

We're so very grateful to have these kiddos in our lives.  I've never been so exhausted and overwhelmed, but so truly happy and filled with so much love at the same time.  It's one of motherhood's crazy surprises!

Grandma and Sarah Come to Town

We have a blast whenever out-of-towners come to visit. It's a great chance to get out of the house and explore all the fun places in our area. It's hard to keep track of all the kiddos when we're out, so we like to take advantage of the extra hands and eyes!

Chuck E. Cheeses, Inflation Nation, and Bowling- yep the kids were DELIGHTED.

Sweet eyes and freckles- I LOVE Grandma's camera!

To many, a picture of exhausted kids isn't cute, but I LOVE when my kiddos have had such a fun day, they crash on the couch with exhaustion!

Bry's secret goal in life is to beat every person he knows at Monopoly.

Ivy's excited about her new Rapunzel Barbie from Grandma.

We got to eat out at lots of yummy restaurants too.

We had to check out the Zoo one last time since our passes were about to expire... weep.. weep.

This is an awesome picture- not only because of the cute Ivy girl, but there's a battle to the Wii death going on in the background.  I strive to excell in every aspect of my life... even beating my 6 year old son at video games ... and yes ... he won.

We have happy kids when family visits!  Thanks Grandma and Sarah!  We love you!

Hyrum is 6

Our sweet Hyrum turned six on Christmas day and we had a great time celebrating our favorite little man.  We enjoyed a quiet family day (my favorite kind) with fun presents and an Ivy safe cake of course.

(I'm not sure why he tilts his head whenever we take a picture)

This is his "I'm 6 now" picture complete with his favorite colors, a picture of himself, and the all-important "color changing chart".  (An ingenious discipline device his Kindergarten teacher uses.  Pretty much, if he doesn't get a color change all week he gets to choose a prize out of the treasure box.  He's very ashamed to tell anyone who'll listen that he received one color change... the path of delinquency begins...)

He loves running around and wrestling with Daddy and Ivy.

He loves riding his bike even in the freezing winter.

He takes care of his little sisters even though he's not quite big enough for the responsibility yet...

He'll even play dolls and dress up once in a while- although he'd much prefer his macho Transformers and Legos.

He loves to sing Delia songs and make her laugh- she can't get enough of his attention.

 

He got to choose a "special place" to go for his birthday.  Chuck e Cheese's is ALL THE RAGE in Kindergarten so he HAD to go there.  We waited until his Grandma Trump and cousin Sarah came into town (good thing too- the more adults per child ratio the better).  We've never been before and I was hilariously surprised to discover that it's pretty much a casino for little kids.  There's tons of games where you use tokens to win tons of tickets that "buy" SUPER cheap toys (the kind you throw away as soon as the kids are distracted).  It was a total blast for Hyrum and the adults even had a fun time too.

I literally cannot squeeze and love and kiss this adorable kid enough.  We're so very privileged to have him in our family.  We love you Hyrum!!!

One of my favorite Hyrum quotes:

"Charlie is my BEF."

"BEF?  Do you mean BFF?"

"NO MAWWM.  BEF."

"What's BEF mean?"

"It means he's my teamate."

Christmas (a little early, and very late)

Hello Blog, I have missed you dearly.  Things have been so incredibly busy around here and you've been severely neglected.  Nope, not the "I'm on vacation and having the time of my life, so I'm too busy to sit at the computer" kind of busy.  The kind of back breaking, moving all our junk, taking up and down pictures and decorations 500 times, deep cleaning every nook and cranny, and touch-up painting until the wee hours kind of busy.  Yes, we spent the entire Christmas break staging our house to sell.  And yes, it might not even sell according to top market specialists, but we are gonna make the house look as beautiful as possible anyway- so HA!!! 

Finding out we needed to put the house on the market in early January was a huge shock (my little naive brain thought it would only take a month or two to sell).  So our dear friend Santa Claus came a week early so we could pack up all the Christmas stuff and start this crazy process.

Even though we were super busy and stressed, we did have time for a little fun...

We made Santa some cookies:

Decorated a Gingerbread House:

Took some pictures of Daddy's cool new beard by the tree and with Hyrum in it so people didn't think we were just trying to show off Daddy's cool new beard:





Opened lots of awesome presents

Hyrum proudly displaying his new Night Fury (you can see the "Christmas Morning" damage in the background)

Played some major dress-ups:

 Tickled and giggled:

Posed in our ADORABLE aprons Amanda Sorenson made:





 Had major fun in the snow:

And... had lots of Daddy time, which was the best present of all!