Peter saves the day.

So many of you know that we were planning on finding somewhere to stay in between houses, like an extend-a-stay hotel or something. Well, I went looking at hotels last week and the only one that was affordable was two beds, a kitchen and bathroom crammed into a space about the size of my living room. While it was here in American Fork, which is convienent...we would have killed each other by the end of our stay!!:) We started looking at some bigger hotels but they are like 7 to 8 hundred a week! which is not something we are willing to pay right now. Needless to say I have really been starting to stress. Thinking this tiny hotel room was our only option, we need to find a house fast so we spend as little time there as possible.

We toyed around with the idea of finding an apartment but the cost of hooking up utilities for only a month or two wouldn't be worth it. Well, Peter went to great rentals and found a vacation rental in Orem (about a 10-15 minute drive) it's a 2 bedroom/1 bath 2000sf condo. comes fully furnished, full kitchen, washer/dryer, ping pong and pool tables and all that fun stuff that comes with a vacation condo, AND it is cheaper than the tiny hotel!! YAY!! So we booked it for a month(which gave us an even bigger discount) with an option to extend week by week once the month is up. It is a further drive to take the boys to and from school, but well worth it to actually have enough space to not want to kill each other:). Now I feel like this weight has been lifted from my shoulders. We dont have to feel so rushed to find a new house, we can take our time and really find what we want.

We have also rented a storage unit for all of February and March and with their 1st month free promotion we got it for really cheap (can you tell I like to save money:) ) But this way, I can start packing boxes here and there as I have time and take them over to our storage unit. Instead of trying to load a truck in one day, I can slowly move our stuff over the next three weeks. We also got the inspection and appraisal done today too, so I feel like it's been a very productive day. Tomorrow I am going out with our realtor for a few hours to start looking at houses, should be fun.

Party Time!

Yesterday was the boy's birthday party. They chose to go to Kangaroo Zoo, which is this huge building full of bouce houses and slides and all those kind of inflatable toys. They got to run around and play for about 2 hours and then we went into one of the party rooms for cake and presents. They each invited 7 people and each had 5 show up...not too bad for nobody rsvp'ing rrgghh:(

These are just a couple pics of the building. Behind all these ones upfront, are about 8 more huge toys that I forgot to go get a picture of.
They had so much fun and we sure tired them all out...and only one casualty. One of Hadley's friends for some reason decided to chew on one of the toys(???) and got a loose tooth and by the end of the party it had fallen out. At least it was a baby tooth:)


This is Devin's group of friends from his preschool class. From L to R. Tucker, Niko, Carl, John, Devin and Trevor...he was a photo hog, evertime the camera came out he had to be the center of the photo.

Hadley's group of friends from school (minus Don who came late) From L to R. Hadley, Riley, Jake, Nathan and Braxton.

Devin getting sung to, waiting to blow out his candle.

Hadley's turn (yes, I did one cake this year. Usually I try to give them each their own but I just didn't have time this year)

We were in the Cosmo room. It had planets and stars and what not everywhere..they have other really cute rooms but they are pretty girly.

The birthday boys!

The whole gang, notice Trevor right up front blocking Devin:)

Some of the kids with the Kangaroo....Lexi was scared to death!

It was a fun party. I had two of my nieces come and help, which was great. We got our own party host who ran around with the kids and played games with them. He had a camera the whole time and took tons of pictures which I will get a cd of in about a week. He pretty much did everything for me, it was great!

Before and after.

Unlike her mommy, Lexi's hair grows really fast. Every week she has more and more. It's finally to that point where it's long enough that I can't just leave it alone or it looks awful but it's still short and hard to find things to do. Well, last Sunday we put her in super cute pigtails....it was adorable!!:)

This was her after she woke up, sleeping on her hair that had been in pigtails:)

So Pretty!:)

The House.

Well, after alot of counter-offers back and forth and alot of waiting and stressing, we got word today that our house is officially sold!

We are closing February 18th which means we have 27 days to pack and get out:) We are planning on having a 2 to 3 week overlap in an extend-a-stay hotel before we get into our next house. Even so, I am starting to stress! besides finding a new house and packing, I have a birthday party, a baptism and taxes to get done. between now and closing, Peter has 4 days off. One is Hadley's baptism and two of them are sundays:) which means I pretty much get to house shop and pack by myself, oh what fun!!!

Then there is the dilemma of school. By the time we sell and find a new house, Hadley will only have 7 or 8 weeks left of school. So we are trying to decide if we should finish out the school year, let him have some closure. or,make him be a new student for the last 2 months of the year. Everyone keeps telling us to move him so he can make friends before summer, but the thing about Utah, is people tend to hang out by "wards" so he will still meet kids at church and around the neighborhood. Kids he meets at school may not necessarily live by us.
There are also dilemma's with sports teams and all sorts of fun stuff like that. This is our first move with a kid that is old enough to be involved in things. It was much easier when Hadley was just little.

I am not looking forward to packing!:( the last time I packed, I only had 1 kid and we were moving from a small 2 bedroom apartment with no garage...we have so much crap now!!!
Despite all the stress I know I am going to have over the next couple months, I am so grateful that we were able to sell our house, especially in this economy. We will miss the friends we have made but we are excited to move on and make more and find a house we really love!!

Devin.

Well, Devin's dr. called today. His MRI was ok except that it showed several area's of underdeveloped brain tissue. Which may explain why he didn't speak til he was 3 and even now seems alot "younger" than Hadley did at this age. He will eventually catch up to normal.
The EEG showed that he is indeed having seizures.(which could cause the underdeveloped brain tissue) They think it may be something he has always had they were just so little we didn't even notice them and that the anaphylaxis back in september was so traumatizing on his little body that it triggered a bigger problem. We discussed it and agreed that we aren't comfortable putting him on seizure meds at this point. He isn't having them often enough or severe enough for us to feel comfortable putting that medicine in his little body. At this point we just kinda sit back and wait til he has another one and go from there.
At least we got some answers. And we know it isn't something really bad or life threatening...I had images of brain tumors and all kinds of stuff floating around in my head the last few weeks.

Happy Birthday boys.

Happy Birthday Hadley and Devin!!!
Today is the boys birthdays, Hadley is turning 8 and Devin 5. We love you so much. You are so much fun and I can't imagine our home or lives without you!

Damage Control.

Oh Hadley Hadley Hadley. I don't know what I am going to do with that boy. Part of me wants to be mad at him but the other part of me thinks he was being sweet...just did it wrong.
So, we are taking the kids to Kangaroo Zoo for their birthday party. We bought the 16 people party package so they each get to invite 7 friends. Hadley mostly invited the boys from his class. Well, they got a new student this week and Hadley told me that he wanted to invite him and I told him that I didn't have anymore invitations. So, Hadley took it upon himself to get one...by asking someone for their's back!!!
The kids mom called me telling me that he had come home in tears cuz Hadley uninvited him. I got the story from Hadley and had to call and explain to her that in his little kid mind he was just trying to be nice to the new kid and didn't seem to realize what braxton was going to think about being asked to give his invitation back!
I made Hadley call him and tell him he was sorry and that he really wanted him to come to his party...his mom says he is coming so hopefully I fixed the situation. And, Devin already has one friend that is going to be out of town so Hadley get's to invite the new kid too:)

ps. I hate it when people don't rsvp! I am sure they are going to just show up but it causes me stress wondering all week if people are going to come!

long day.

well, we are up at primary childrens right now for Devin's tests, have been all day. He is all done but not awake yet. They had to sedate him for the mri, he is going to be out for a couple hours and only one adult is allowed in with him so peter and I are switching. Peter is with him now and I am hanging out in the library playing on the computer:)
My wonderful visiting teacher has Lexi so the day has been much easier...except for me worrying about Lexi:) I have never left her this long before!
For those who don't know we got an offer on our house yesterday. We countered back and should hear from him by 5pm today. Our realtor called today and told us we actually got some more offers so we have something to fall back on if he doesn't accept our counter-offer. So yay for us! Multiple offers means we will for sure be outta here by mid to end february!:)
....now I gotta pack:(

Scaredy cat.

The boys were in the living room watching Independance Day while I was getting dinner done. They got to the part where they are cutting open the alien. Hadley knew that there was a part that makes you "jump". I heard him running and looked in and he was hiding behind the chair watching it:)

Getting a little braver and looking over the chair.

This reminded me of something he used to do when he younger. When he was 3, his favorite movie was spiderman, we watched it 4 or 5 times a day..sometimes more! (we actually watched it so much we wore it out and had to get a new movie) In the beginning when the menu comes up, the spider bites Peter Parker's hand...Hadley would run and hide as soon as he would hear the menu music come on cuz he was so scared of that part. It was so cute!

Her royal grumpiness.

Lexi has gone down to one nap a day. She usually naps from 1 to 3ish and then goes to bed anywhere between 7 and 8 depending on her grumpiness level. Well, we have had so many showings on the house the last two days that her nap schedule has gotten really screwed up. Today, she got up quite early so she went down for a nap at 11 instead of 1. which means that about 6pm...she was READY FOR BED!

I put her in her highchair to feed her dinner. She HATES to sit down in that thing. Usually she just stands in it and eats but tonight she was trying to climb onto the table so I had to very sternly tell her NO! As you can see from the photo...she did not like that at all. And it all went downhill from there.

After making her get off the table I buckled her in...she didn't like that one bit!

Now she is doing the gasping breathing, starting to calm down but still making the moaning crying sound thing...you mom's know what I am talking about.

Well, she ended up so upset that she wasnt eating and was starting gag herself so I gave in and just let her out of the highchair alltogether. She promptly went to the computer chair and was trying to climb it. After several "no's" and some tears I gave in and brought the chair over to the table. Thinking she would just be happy to be standing on the chair and would calm down and eat. It worked for about 10 seconds until she started trying to climb onto the table again and I told her "no".

This was the point where I gave up. I realized she was just way to grumpy and tired to eat. so we went and took a bath, she was happy for a few minutes but was soon rubbing her eyes and just wanted out. Then she fell asleep only halfway thru her bottle. I am sure she will be up soon, hungry, but at least she is down now!

I wonder how much therapy she is going to need from her mom just snapping pictures while she was having her meltdown...I couldn't help it, it was so cute!:)