Teenagers....

Even though Emilia has been a teenager for a couple of years now we really haven't seen a lot of the the often joked about "teenage behavior" until now.  It's good though.  She's pleasant and cooperative most of the time, but it's good that we see her developing like a normal teenager should.  There must be reasons for this teenager behavior. Doing things like hanging out with friends a lot.  Sitting in her room listening to music, sitting in her room reading, sitting in her room drawing, sitting in her room trying to avoid interacting with "little kids".  Rolling her eyes.  Grumbling.  Putting threatening signs on her bedroom door.  Normal teenage stuff.

Sewing

Between all the crazy new house stuff we have been doing, school, work and soccer, I haven't had much time for sewing.  A friend gave me a project idea that she wanted me to brain through and I finally got around to it.  While I was working on it I kept thinking about how much I enjoy sewing and how I had really missed it.  I decided I need to pick it up and do more sewing.  I decided that I wanted to teach sewing classes so I got on our local Facebook page and advertised.  There was a lot of interest at first and it looked like I'd have 4 adult students.  One bailed and one said she wanted to start in November.  I also got some names for another sewing class with kids.  I decided to wait to start the kids class until soccer gets over since I am way too busy after school with soccer practice.  I taught my first class last week and it was fun. I am excited to start my kids class as well. I am planning to reduce my hours at work (or maybe even go back to a temp status) because I just haven't had the time to do stuff that I need to do.  And also the stuff that I want to do.

Ian is going to be a scary clown for Halloween.

Alicia

I babysat Alicia for a few hours this week while Kathy did some substitute teaching.  Usually Alicia is pretty cooperative but this time she was so agitated and had a hard time settling down.  She gets really fixated sometimes and can be really hard to redirect.  I was finally able to get her focused on something.  But of course, she doesn't do anything halfway.  She got every last book from Adele's bookshelf and piled them on the couch. It did keep her occupied for several hours though so it was worth it.  It has been good for my kids to have the opportunity to interact with Alicia and learn some compassion and acceptance for people with special needs.  And it's pretty funny when Adele is fighting with her adult cousin who is stealing all her stuffed animals and blankets.  It's good for her.  Because she doesn't have any younger siblings who take her stuff.

Ian the Proud Man

Ian won a medal this year for his entry in Reflections for his visual art.

Lookin so cool

I had to add this picture too.  Ian built a huge car out of K*nex and he was pretty proud of it!

Pumpkin Patch

I was reading through a community calendar and saw some info about a pumpkin patch in town. The kids have been but I haven't. I thought it would be fun to go for FHE and get some pumpkins to carve.

Gotta find the right one

Funny selfie (I had to be in at least 1 pic even if it was dorky)

AMY! Our Favorite Friend!

My bestest friend Amy came to visit us in October.  She stayed for about 5 days and we partied like we always do (unfortunately we didn't get around to playing Scrabble this time).  We went exploring in the area behind out house, took the kids to the "rock couch", went to St. George to the Children's museum there and had a mini-cheese party.  And we watched lots of "Chopped" on Netflix.  It was so much fun. It was sad to see her go.  

She threatened to hurt me if I put pics on Facebook. I told her I wouldn't but I would have to document it on the blog.

Soccer

When it was soccer sign ups this spring Adele really really really wanted me to sign her up.  She has done dance in the past and I really didn't think she'd like soccer but I signed her up anyway.  Surprisingly, she has loved it and has even scored a few goals during games.    Her team is the "Candy Crushers".  Ian's team is the "Black Dragons".  He has done well this year too and has scored several goals for his team. It has been so much fun to watch these guys play.  Little kids playing soccer is a hoot!  And they all look so cute in their matching uniforms too.  Unfortunately we have lost several water bottles this season and have left shin guards at the practice field several times as well.

Friends

One thing we love about our new house is the neighborhood where we live.  There are lots of kids here and they are within walking distance (HOORAY!  FINALLY kids to play with that I don't have to drive!)  Adele has a cute friend named Mallory that she plays with often.  The other day they had this going on.  It was pretty awesome.  My phone always autocorrects Mal's name to Map so she has kind of gotten the nickname of "Map" around here.

Job

I realized when I was writing my post about what we did this summer that I forgot to write about my job.  I guess I should write a little about it.  It's kind of a long story.  Let me sum up.

In the spring I started working one day a week, subbing for a dental assistant who was pregnant.  She was working full time and wanted to have an extra day off.  I did that for several months.  I had let the boss know that I was really interested in working part time doing dental assisting and hoped that when the girl had her baby I could maybe work part time. He really didn't want to hire two part time assistants.  Then there was a position that came up at the front desk for the hours I wanted.  He asked me if I wanted to do it.  I hesitated.  I prefer assisting. I reluctantly decided to do it, and am still hoping that the girl who just had her baby might want to also come back part time.  We shall see.  Right now I do scheduling and billing and a bunch of other junk.  The timing of everything wasn't the best.  This job came open right as the summer started so I ended up working a lot more during the summer than I had planned.  I had really wanted to be home more to do more fun stuff with my kids.  I guess there are always trade-offs.  It will be interesting to see how this evolves.  I am still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.  I can't decide if I want to go back to school.  It's a big time and money commitment.  Right now I'm trying to decide what I want to do.

What We Did this Summer!

We did actually do a few things this summer besides living in a rental house and building a house.  Life goes on right!?  Here is some of the other stuff we did this summer.  

While at a 7th grade physical we did a quick eye screening and found out that we needed to get Elise's eyes checked.  Turned out that she really needed glasses.  So we went and got her these. I think they look so cute on her!

And, to go with the glasses,  Elise got braces.  This was a very busy summer for Elise.

We went to Tuachan and saw The Wizard of Oz.  It was SO cool!  We all loved it.  Too bad Elise didn't have her glasses yet!

We went to the Happy Factory a couple of times and helped stain the cars that they donate to children all over the world.

Adele got a new bike and learned to ride it in just a couple of hours. 

And I worked and posed for pictures with dorky glasses.

A couple of other things:

• Ian had a Mohawk (I will have to go look for pictures. You can kind of see it in the Tuachan picture).
• Elise and Emilia went to girls camp twice.
• Emilia got into Success Academy, decided to do it and had to drop her band class.

Happy Birthday to Kent

Happy birthday to this awesome guy!  He wanted me to make him a strawberry cream cheese pie. I learned something:  You can't really substitute margarine for shortening in pie crusts.  There is too much moisture.  While my crust was baking it was falling over.  I was able to salvage it by putting it on a flat pan, but it became a tart instead of a pie.  It still tasted pretty good.  Ooops.

 Love you dude.

First Day of School

Don't these guys look so cute!  We barely had time to get this pic taken before we had to rush the bigger kids out to the bus!  This is a momentous day for me.  This is the first time I have ever had my kids all start school on the same day and ALL go to school ALL day!  I wasn't really sad.  I won't lie.  I had been working half days all summer and I worried about my kids being home alone so much.  Emilia and Elise are big enough to babysit but there is always the issue of fighting, and the question of whether they are just hanging out in their rooms or paying attention to the kids.  So having them all go to school was actually kind of a relief.  Mornings are pretty crazy though. I have to be at work at 7:45.  I get Emilia and Elise out the door with me and then Kent has to get Ian and Adele to the bus. I think we are adjusting to the the schedule now but some mornings we barely make it.

Family Reunion 2014 Heber City

The huge and awesome Timber Moose Lodge where we stayed

We all rode the Heber Creeper

These girls decided to pour water on each other.

Look at all these cute girls! I wish they didn't live so far away from each other.

Waiting for a turn on the jet-ski

Surgery

Gotta make sure the cap looks just right.

This year seems to be the surgery year.  Since Kent had his gall bladder out in February we met our insurance deductible and I decided it would be a good year to have my endometriosis taken care of.  I did a lot of research about doctors and felt like I really needed to go to a specialist instead of a regular OBGYN.  They are great for babies and simple stuff but I wanted a doc who first of all did excision, not ablation and someone who knew what they were doing.  So many times doctors don't get all the adhesions and then it just comes back.  I read about this dr. at McKay-Dee up in Ogden and I had some email consultations with him. He agreed to do surgery on my endo.  He was pretty booked out and I ended up having to wait a couple of months to get in for surgery.  I had the option of doing it at the end of July or in August.  I wanted to get it done before school started, and our house was supposed to be done at the beginning of July.  The house was done in mid-July, which was fine.  The problem is the loan.  Our loan got stuck SOMEWHERE and EVERYWHERE and we haven't been able to close.  Our builder was so nice and let us move in to our house before we closed.  So that's what we did last weekend.  The next Monday Kent and I went up to Ogden and met with the dr. for a pre-op visit.  We hung out in Ogden, which wasn't very fun for me because I couldn't eat anything.  But we did get to go to the mall, and it was nice to get away from our messy-just-moved-into house.  Let me say, these last few weeks have been really. really. really stressful.

The surgery went great.  Everything went as planned and we got discharged a couple hours after the surgery.  We had to make the journey home afterward and that wasn't my favorite, but thanks to painkillers it was ok.  Now I just have to chill in bed for a few days and try to not work on putting away boxes and getting stuff put away.  It's good to have some of these things over with.  We are ready to settle in (and close on the house!).

Moving Day

 At last! The day to move out of the rental finally came!  It wasn't so bad there for the first couple of months but by the end we were starting to go a little crazy with so many people in such a small place.  Not to mention that 3/4 of our stuff was in the garage and the stuff that we had in the house was just EVERYWHERE!  We learned that Adele and Ian should never share a room for a couple of reasons:  1.  They fight all the time.  2.  They are both like little tornadoes and their room was a constant disaster.

We had so many great friends help us with moving.  Our awesome friend Kirsten and her kids helped.  My friend Melanie helped watch the little kids while I made the big kids help me move and clean. We still haven't closed on the loan.  Let me tell you, this part of it has been a NIGHTMARE.  Our loan guy keeps saying that we will close soon but it isn't happening.  Our builder was awesome and let us move in because I have surgery next week.  It's good to be in the house but we aren't done yet!

It's a mess but we are HERE!  We are SO glad to be here!

Finishing Touches

 The counter tops went in, and they just got done with the carpet.  We love how it all came together.   We are so excited to be able to live in our new house.

The backsplash turned out so nice

Ready to move in!  Too bad we don't have grass.

Stone

We were so excited for them to do the stone to see how it all came together.  The stone was one of the last selections we made and we pretty much had to look at pictures and decide.  We could have gone to St. George to the stone store but they weren't open on Saturdays and we just never had a chance to go down.  We saw a lot of pictures but we really weren't 100% sure what it would look like.   It turned out really nice. We like it because it is a bit different than most of the other stone in our neighborhood.  We have had quite a few comments from friends on the stone. Phew. Another thing that worked out. It's hard to put together a house from little tiny samples.  You never really know how it will all come together. We have been really happy with the way it has all come together. It has been a little bit stressful though.

A Dress for Carrie

I spent WAY too much time making this tiny little dress for a doll. Seriously, it probably took just as long as a person dress.  But it turned out cute and Adele was thrilled, so I guess it was all worth it!  ;)