Breaking Ground!

We finally all the paperwork worked out and it is finally time to start digging!  The day before the dig started they brought in some bulldozers and cleared all the weeds off the lot.  Have I mentioned how much we love our lot?  Love it.

The morning of the groundbreaking we met our builder out there because they wanted to take a picture.  The digger guys took awhile to get there and to warm up their machines.  It was FREEZING and the sun wasn't up yet.  The wind was blowing and we could barely stand out there for a picture!  Exciting day!

Leprechaun Traps

Adele made a comment a few days before St. Patrick's Day that the holiday was pretty boring because all you got to do was wear green.  This planted a little green seed inside Kent who decided that St. Patty's day should be more of a big deal at our house.   So he got online, read a bunch of stuff and came up with some fun things to do for St. P's day.  One of those things was making leprechaun traps.

The traps were great.  They ALMOST caught something.  The leprechaun left them notes and some chocolate gold coins.  What a fun dad.  I have to admit that I wasn't really into the whole St. Patty's day extravaganza.  Not because I didn't want to be, I mean, I made green eggs for breakfast and everything... and corned beef and cabbage for dinner...but I guess we just don't have the energy for everything all the time.  So, I'm glad their dad took over this one and made it fun.  We even bought some fuzzy green mustaches but we forgot to use them! So we already have something awesome for next year!

Closed and Done

Yesterday we closed on our house.  It's not ours anymore.  Kent and I both had a few moments of nostalgia.  The kids had moments where they were sad and said  they would miss our house.   I was feeling particularly pensive and nostalgic one day last week when I was sweeping the garage.  I was thinking how empty everything looked and thinking about all we have done in the last 9 years in our house.  And looking outside and thinking that I'd miss our neighborhood and our neighbors.  Just as I was thinking this a car pulled up to my next door neighbor's house and a guy got out.  With him came the odor of cigarette smoke.  The neighbors who live here have been there for 3 months. They are renters.  In the last couple of weeks we have noticed an increase in activity over there.  Lots of different people.  Lots of them hanging around and smoking.  When this guy pulled up with his stinky smoke I suddenly didn't feel so sad anymore.  It's kind of a relief to move away from our hoodlum smoker neighbors with barking dogs in the backyard.  To make things even more interesting, a neighbor told me that on Thursday afternoon there were 3 police cars in front of my and my house.  One more was on the way and there was a cop in the street frisking a guy.  That is all the info I got, but it sounds like maybe we moved in the nick of time.  Putting all the pieces together I'm finally realizing that our next door neighbor's house is looking like a drug house.  I feel bad for the people who bought our house.  Hopefully these neighbors won't last long.  I heard they aren't paying rent either.  There are some things that make moving out of our neighborhood of 9 years easier.

We are beginning a whole new adventure in our new and tiny house.   The house was dirty and there is dog poop in the backyard.  This hasn't been all bad- it has been quite an effective deterrent to fighting.  The consequence of misbehavior and fighting is poop scooping.  

 We are looking to the light at the end of the tunnel when we will have space again and not boxes and junk all over the place.  The hardest thing by far as of yet has been the change the youngest 2 have had to make.  They used to have their own rooms. Now they share.  Ian is a provoker.  Adele is a yeller.  The combination has not been a good one.  Half the time they are best friends.  Half the time they hate each other and fight.  Hopefully they will learn to be more patient with each other and will benefit from the close proximity they are forced to endure.   Hopefully I will survive the close proximity they are forced to endure too.  I know we will look back at this time with lots of crazy and fun memories.  And really, we won't be here very long.

Using every last inch for storage.

We can (barely) fit our van in the garage!

Orthodontia

After 21 months of orthodontic torture (as Emilia would call it), the braces came off on Thursday.

Emilia says her teeth feel so small.  It was kind of tricky having a band concert the day she got the braces off.  It feels different to play her flute without the braces!

Can't stop smiling!

Movin

The day finally came.  After having our house on the market for 5 months and  thinking this would never be done we are out.  It is unbelievable how much stuff we have accumulated.  I have taken so many trips to D.I. and our garbage can runneth over every week.  When people came to help with the cleaning I would send them home with a bag of garbage.  It was kind of sad seeing the house get emptier and emptier but also a relief as things started to get done.

Emilia and Elise have SO much stuff and they haven't packed a thing!

Moving day

REALLY keeps getting better

...really not.

Kent was finally able to get into the dr. on Wednesday the 19th.  He had to wait extra long because he happened to have his gallbladder problems on a 3 day weekend.  He went in on Wednesday afternoon and called me about 20 minutes after his appointment started.  He said that the dr. thought he should get the GB out, and that he could do it any Tuesday or Thursday.  Including the next day (like TOMORROW).  He wanted to know what I thought.  And should he get it out before we moved or after?  I said, "let's just get this over with so you will feel better again", and with that the gallbladder surgery ball started rolling.

At 1 o'clock in the morning Emilia woke up feeling awful and with a fever. (oh great, more strep).  In the morning I woke up Adele and she didn't feel well.  Her body hurt and she too had a fever.  Great timing.  So the 2 of them stayed home, lying around and convalescing whilst I was at the hospital all day with Kent.  I hate moments like that where there are 2 places where you need to be but you can only be in one place.

  After they took Kent to surgery I went across the street to our family dr. office to get Rxs for the girls and then went home for lunch and stayed for a couple of hours and actually interacted with, medicated and fed my sick children.  I then went back to the hospital where Kent was just getting out of surgery. I was able to talk to the dr.  (who coincidentally went to med school in Wisconsin with my brothers Brian and Matt, I found out later).  The Dr. told me that the gallbladder was inflamed and they did find stones. I knew Kent would be happy to know this because he was worried they would open him up and find everything normal.  When Kent was done in the recovery they brought him back to his room and we hung out while he woke up some more.  It took awhile for the nurses to let him come home because the pain meds were making his oxygen saturation to keep dropping whenever he would start to fall asleep.  Luckily, we have great friends and neighbors who were willing to check on the sick kiddos at home, and one friend who had already arranged to bring us dinner that night.  She pretty much saved the day!

So, now we just have to get through the move in just over a week and then we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Can't wait for this part of the moving experience to be done.

Keeps Gettin Better and Better

...not.

So, Monday was a holiday.  President's day.  Ian had started feeling not-so-good on Sunday afternoon and by Monday was fully febrile and had body aches and a white patchy throat.  I called Instacare.  They were closed.  (Go figure. What the heck is the point of Instacare if they are closed all the time on Sundays and holidays? They have the cushiest non-urgent careish schedule of any urgent care place I have ever seen.) Lucky for us our dr. office was open and could get Ian in.   I must back up a bit for a second though.  Since our house is in the middle of being sold, we had a house inspection and appraisal scheduled for Monday.  We were technically not supposed to be there during the inspection so I took all my kids with me to Ian's dr. appt.  The big girls stayed in the car while I took Adele and Ian inside.  They examined him and decided that he had strep, gave him a shot in his gluteus maximus (because it was easier than having to remember to take antibiotics for 10 days, and provided a faster recovery too) and we were on our way.  Ian was so weak and  got very dizzy on the way back to the car.  He decided to lie down in the elevator and I told him to stand up.  50 paces later, just barely out the door, he threw up in the parking lot.  And again right next to the car.  Poor guy was not doing well.  I texted Kent to see if the inspector had been to the house yet. I was supposed to be gone during the inspection but I really wanted to get Ian home since he felt so sick!  I found out that the inspector hadn't even been there.  After we had gotten home, he finally showed up, over 2 hours late.  THIS, my friends, is why I can't wait to be done with this whole house selling business.  People are often so inconsiderate of people's lives and homes and schedules when they are doing house showings and inspections etc.

Gallbladder Woes!

Kent has had a touchy gallbladder for awhile now.  At the end of the year in 2012 he was having some problems and  had several tests on his GB to see if he had anything that would indicate that he might need to get it out.  He had an ultrasound and a scan with dye to see how his gallbladder was working.  All the tests came back looking normal.  The dr. told him that because of his family history which included gallbladder problems, he recommended that Kent get it out.  We debated about it, but ultimately decided to wait to see if it got better or worse.  It only intermittently bothered Kent and so for over a year, he kept it, and managed the symptoms he occasionally had. 

On Friday the 14th I met Kent at the hospital for lunch.  Adele and I often go up there to eat with Kent and to enjoy the tasty food and the free soda.  Kent had a bacon cheeseburger (doh!) for lunch.  After that, things were never the same!  That seemed to be the trigger for the gallbladder attack that lasted for several days.  Friday night he didn't sleep well. Saturday, he felt tired and gross.  Saturday night the pain got worse and we almost went to the E.R. at 2:30 in the morning.  The pain subsided quite a bit at that time so we went back to bed.  In the morning it was hurting badly again so we went to the E.R. around 8:00.  That morning we had stake conference.  The kids did a cheer of celebration upon learning that they would have to miss stake conference while we went to the hospital to get the gallbladder checked out. 

We were in the E.R. for about 4 hours.  Kent got his first I.V. and was given pain meds and antibiotics because his white blood cell count was elevated which indicated inflammation and infection.  He had another ultrasound which looked normal.  He was discharged from the hospital with a Rx for another antibiotic and some meds for the pain.  And the dr. told him to follow up with his regular dr. to see whether he would need to have the gallbladder looked at again.

Packing

The packing fun has started.  When you live somewhere for 9 years you really accumulate a lot of junk. I am a pretty good de-junker and do it periodically. It is a different story when you are packing up your stuff.  You ask yourself:  Am I gonna move this?  Twice?  Lots of stuff didn't make the cut.  We have taken sooo much stuff to D.I.  And thrown so much stuff in the garbage.  So much that we have even contributed to our neighbor's garbage cans the morning of garbage day just to get rid of some of it!  It's good to purge!

Snow

We finally got some decent snow for sledding!  We had one big snow storm at the beginning of the winter but it got so cold afterward that it was too cold to even go outside to play in it.  After this storm the kids were so excited to finally get to go sledding.  It wasn't too bad but the wind was pretty cold. Adele was quite the daredevil and kept going off the jump that somebody had built.  Good thing her bones are still made of rubber so it didn't hurt her.  

SOLD!

Our house is finally under contract!  After being on the market for over 5 months we finally got a buyer!  Our buyer came to look at the house at the beginning of January and we heard through our realtors that they had an offer ready to go but were waiting for pre-approval from their lender.  That pre-approval took almost a month so we were waiting and waiting to hear from them.  The offer finally came in but it was way too low. It wasn't something we could really work with so we countered.  They came back, just a tad higher than the original offer but we just couldn't accept it.  So we let it die.  A few days later another offer came in and we negotiated some more.  We finally came to an agreement and now we are under contract.  During the first round of negotiating they told us we wouldn't close for 60 days. On the second go-round somehow they moved up the closing to 4 weeks.  We close on March 7.  Suddenly we are scrambling to find a place to live for a few months, fill out paperwork and see how long it will take to start building our new house.  We meet with our builder on Thursday to sign contracts and hopefully schedule a date to start building.  Can't wait for this first move to be over.

Fish Tricks

This is our 5 year old goldfish named Goldie.  He/She has been doing a new trick lately.  It's called, "vertical dead man's float".  We keep thinking He/She is preparing to die.  But Goldie is still swimming strong.  I never thought we would keep a fish alive for this long.  Maybe it is because He/She has gained lots of fishy strength from eating all his friends.

Ice Skating

This is the first year they have had an ice skating rink here.  The kids, especially Emilia have been begging and begging to go ice skating.   We took Elise's friend AraMae with us.

Walkers for ice skating!  Brilliant idea!  Elise would not give hers up.  She held onto it for dear life.

Rockin my black eye.

The Black Eye

This is super exciting.  Super exciting if you are into pain and suffering. And embarrassment.  Everyone is entitled to do stupid things every now and then right?  I took my turn the night before Christmas Eve.  Here's the story:  A friend invited our family to come along and go caroling in the neighborhood.  They were pulling a trailer along and they were stopping at people's houses and picking people up.  The trailer started to fill up so Kent and I decided to walk.  The trailer had stopped for someone and had just started up again.  And I had a brilliant idea:  I would run and catch up with the trailer and just hop right up onto the area over the tire. (See photo).  Not a big deal right? I am agile.  Apparently I am shorter than I remember, however, or the trailer was moving faster than I thought it was, because I missed.  I almost made it, but before I knew it I found myself falling to the street, hitting my knees, palms and lastly, my forehead on the pavement.  Ow.  I got up quickly, trying to pretend nothing happened, hoping all the people in the trailer were looking at something else when I went splat in the road.  After the incident, Kent and I continued to walk for awhile, following the trailer.  About 10 minutes later I reached up and felt my head and HOLY COW there was a ginormous goose egg on my head.   I had a headache for a couple of days after it happened, and on Christmas day my eyelid started turning purple.  The bruising continued to make its way downward until I had a big dark circle under my eye.  Let me tell you, I got pretty sick of explaining what happened over and over.  (Especially because it was my own stupid fault for doing something so idiotic).  And of course, the comments about Kent beating me up were pretty awesome too.

I am thankful that despite my stupidity there weren't worse consequences.  Like being run over by the trailer and squished in the road.  I made sure to point out to my kids what a dumb thing I did and that I could have really been seriously hurt.  Lesson learned:  Don't ever get on or off a moving vehicle.

Christmas Joy

After reading the Christmas story from the Bible the kiddos couldn't wait to get to the presents!

All the kids decided to open their present from Grandma V. New blankets for all!

Christmas morning

Happy about all the loot they scored

Busy December (Nutshell Version)

December is always pretty busy.  This year was no exception, in fact it was probably worse than usual since I was in charge of planning the ward Christmas party.  We got home from our Thanksgiving festivities, all had the flu and at the end of the week was the ward party.  Thanks to all my great peeps helping, it turned out really fun, but it was definitely stressful.  We had a Feliz Navidad theme and had a fun photo booth.

Ole!

Elise had her first band concert and did awesome

Emilia also had a band concert.  She got to do some marching since the band was supposed to march in the Storybook Cavalcade parade, but it got canceled TWICE because of bad weather.

Adele had her first dance recital.  What could possibly be cuter than a little girl in a fancy dance costume?

Ian had basketball games every week 

And last but not least, Kent spent some energy growing facial hair.

Accidents With Superglue

This post is dedicated to Emilia.  She was the victim of the first superglue accident.  She felt vindicated about a week later when I accidentally superglued my fingers together.

Part 1: Emilia has been "into" making and wearing friendship bracelets lately.  She had one that we were trying to tie on her wrist but it kept coming off.  I decided to superglue the knot to keep it from slipping off.  The glue got slightly out of control and dripped on her arm, which resulted in actually gluing the bracelet onto her arm.  It burned. It stuck.  I felt really bad.  She finally got it off, peeling some skin of with it.  (I'm up for the mom of the year award).

Part 2:  I have really dry skin especially on my feet.  I can thank my Vernon heritage for this.  I had a big crack on my heel that I decided to superglue shut.  So I did, and again, I got too much.  Without thinking I wiped some off with my finger.  And then tried to wipe that off with my thumb.  Bad idea.  Instead of wiping it off, I glued my fingers together.  Gotta be more careful with the superglue.

Decorating the Tree

We finally got around to decorating the tree.  With Thanksgiving being so late this year and with the stomach flue we had we got delayed quite a bit.  It's always so fun to decorate for Christmas and to go through our ornaments and remember when we got them.  We have a tradition of buying a special ornament every year that represents that year.  It's so fun to go through those and remember the events of our lives.

Taking time for silliness

Tidal Wave of Disgustingness

No photos for this one.  (You're welcome).  In the previous post I mentioned the tidal wave of disgustingness that Adele was hit with and shared with our whole family.  She caught a bug on our Thanksgiving trip and was kind enough to share it with the whole family.  Last week was pretty much as crazy as it gets. The whole family took turns riding the wave and I was in charge of the ward Christmas party.  (Yeah. Really).   Ain't nobody got time for any of that.

The big party is over. (RELIEF!)  Sickness has now moved on to the rest of our city (really, everyone has been getting it.  NOT from us, mind you.  We stayed home.)  Fortunately for me I was available to save the day at my favorite dental office when one of the assistants had to miss 2 days because her kid was sick.  (I WANNA WORK THERE!  I even got to borrow the embroidered scrubs and I ALMOST felt like a real employee. *sigh*).  And finally we were healthy again for the next wave of Christmas activities (which I will blog about after this).