Dan, Katy, Hannah, Isabella + One

Pictures of the new House

2012-01-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

Here is our house. I still have work to do and have some pretty big plans. But I thought I would share a few pics and will update as we do some redecorating and get some furniture. I also have big plans for repainting. The lime sherbet color doesn't look bad, it's just not me. And it's my house, so why shouldn't I make it my house. Mind you, all of the changes will take place over time. I will also try and show you our back and front yard. We have plans for those too. :)

The Door on the left leads to our office (and if I have my way nursery :). The door on the right is the front door. If you go more right that is the dining room. If you go more to the left, that's the master bedroom/bathroom. Behind me is the family room.

As you can see we are definitely not make much progress in this room. Right now it's the 'catch all' room.

Our dining room, which is a playroom right now. I look forward to using it as a formal dining room someday.

We're using the old bed set from Dan's parents home. That will most likely be changing in the next month.

We have more french doors leading to the master bath.

Separate dual vanities. Dan is a BIG supporter of this arrangement.

Family room, with my piano. The mirror off the side will go above the piano, very soon (right dear? :) The fireplace is a gas log, which we've really liked so far. You just pop a switch and it turns on, you then just pop the switch again and it's turned off.

Kitchen nook. The table and chairs we got from Dan's parents. I look forward to having real chairs! They get so cold in the morning!

Obviously my kitchen! I'm lovin' it!

Not all of our appliance match but, we are so grateful to our friends the McNabb's for giving us our stove and fridge!

Those big french doors on the right is the laundry closet. Also if you go straight a head that door leads to our garage and there is a doorway and stairs to the right of the garage door that lead to our bonus room.

I have plans to change some things about the laundry closet but won't go into them.

Bonus room view as you look out at the stairway and bathroom.

The bonus bathroom even has a bath!

This hallway is located off the the left if you are facing the kitchen nook from the kitchen. The first door on the right is the girls' room. The middle door the bathroom. Third door, my craft room, which will eventually be this coming babies room. And the door at the end is the linen closet.

Lots of pink!

Bookshelf that Dan's dad helped me with. He is so handy!

The girls' bathroom. It's pretty much an empty canvas, I still don't have any ideas.

Craft room. It's also used from when Ben and Shalyse bring Andrea over and so Bella can have nap time in a separate room from Hannah.

There is our home. It's been pretty exciting just the last 3 weeks dreaming about things I would like to do with the home. Dan has had fun dreaming about what to do in the garage and with the yard. We are so happy and enjoying this time in life as first time home buyers!

Just for Fun

2012-01-08T09:23:00.001-08:00

At the Holly Springs Christmas Parade. Bella was having a rough time.

Bella loves to find any little nook or cranny to sit in.

The irls enjoying some whipping cream from the can.

Hannah pretending to sleep in the hamper.

Cheesiest smile ever!

This is a typical lunch for us. Both the girls were laughing but I think Bella got a little camera shy. Hannah of course did not. :)

2012-01-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

This year for Christmas was full of time with family. On Dec. 24th we had a big dinner and opening of presents at Dan's parents home. His brother Vaughn and his wife Becca (their 4 children), his sister Laurel and her son Josh, his brother Ben and his wife Shalyse (their 2 kids), his Aunt Victoria and of course his parents were there. I wish I would have gotten pictures of that day. For the dinner we had Ham, cheese potatoes, rolls, fruit salad, and spinach salad. I also made a green cake in the shape of a Christmas tree. Hannah asked me if we could make a cake for baby Jesus, since it was her birthday. I thought it was a great idea. After enjoying the delicious dinner, we opened a HUGE mountain of presents! Again, I wish I had gotten pictures! It was pretty amazing. I am thankful for all of the family, and for all the thoughtful gifts. It was very enjoyable. After opening the presents, Vaughn and Becca had to run because her parents had driven from Iowa.
Christmas morning was a big rush. We had church at 9 am, so we got up at 7:30. The girl's slept in so Dan and I were able to get ready before the girls even woke up. I was thinking, why can't they sleep in on mornings when we don't have to be somewhere? Either way we rushed to get them ready and Dan's mom and aunt stopped by so Auntie could go to church with us. As you can see from the pictures below, they were there with us when we opened our presents before heading off the church. We were a few min. late but still made it for the opening hymn! Hannah received a Tinkerbell book with figurines from mom and dad, a magnetized ballerina doll (like a paper doll only with magnets) from Santa, a princess puzzle from Bella and a little mermaid play vanity. Bella received, a book with sing along songs with CDs from mom and dad, a rainbow fish puzzle book from Santa, and dress up jewelry from Hannah. Hannah and Bella received finger puppets from Uncle Will and Aunt Jodi, a princess balloon from Andrea, coloring books, crafting paper and candy canes from Uncle Ben and Aunt Shalyse, and a princess castle tent from my mom. From Dan's parents Hannah received a rocking chair, a barbie doll, a singing penguin stocking (we have since hidden it because it there was a constant singing of jingle bells :), and a stocking full of goodies. Bella received some clothes and a stocking full of goodies as well. I do apologize if I have forgotten everything, my memory has been especially bad recently. Dan and I also received many many gifts for The Parents! They were very generous, and I know they were glad to downsize on a lot of stuff. They have also been so kind as to help fill our house with things like flatware, and slotted spoons. Dan's dad made a tray for our flatware that he custom built to fit into a drawer for me. We feel so blessed to have them so close by and are thankful for all the help they give to us. My mom gave Dan and I a new camera (our last one had died on us) which we are still trying to figure out. Dan surprised me with a gift of a hand cheese grater (the kind used in restaurants) and a slotted spoon. Which was pretty sneaky of him considering we both agreed not to get each other anything this year. The house was our Christmas present. We were pretty proud that we were able to spend so little on Christmas this year. Will and Jodi sent Dan a gift card for Home Depot, which we faithfully went out and spent the next day on some supplies for a french drain, Dan is working on. I received a fancy Belgian waffle maker, the kind that turns! How awesome is that! Dan received some nice bullets from Ben and Shalyse gave me a deck of cards called, Hand and Foot.
After church, we came home and had a great big breakfast, which is my family's tradition. It included: A danish pastry (which I made the night before), pillsbury turnovers, cream cheese eggs, fruit, and hot chocolate with a candy cane and whipped cream. We were so glad Auntie was here to share it with us. In the evening, we invited Ben and Shalyse over to play Hand and Foot. We watched "Joy To The World," and explained to the girls that the movie was telling the story that's in the scriptures. We then sang Away In a Manger and said prayer and put the girls down for bed!
We felt so blessed to be around family and to have so many people who cared about us. It was indeed, a very Merry Christmas!

First thing when we woke them up they wanted to go see the Christmas tree.

Such a goofy face :)

You can tell this is one happy little girl!

Updates

2011-12-07T08:44:00.000-08:00

- Family Pictures

- A Little Catch Up

- We Bought A House

Family Pictures

2011-12-07T08:19:00.000-08:00

Ben, Dan's brother was so kind as to take pictures for our family. I thought he did an amazing job!!! You should be getting one of these with our family Christmas letter!

A little catch up!

2011-12-07T08:07:00.001-08:00

So due to some problem with our camera I missed some important events that happened in the last few months. Dan turned 27! We did a double birthday party with our nephew, Peter. It was lots of fun and I think Dan really enjoyed his birthday. And another event was that Hannah turned 3! We did get pictures thanks to grandpa, I just need to get the pictures from him. She really enjoyed her birthday, as you could guess any three year old would! And Grandpa also has some pictures from Halloween which I will try and get as well. Halloween was a especially exciting because that was the day we found out our offer was accepted on the house we now getting ready to close on!

Another things that happened in October was, I found out my egg supply is diminishing and that I will go into menopause early. If you would like to here the whole story you are free to call or e-mail me. But what the Dr. said was that it would be hard for us to have more kids and that we are so lucky we started so early having our family, otherwise we probably wouldn't have gotten to have a family. We were so excited when we proved them wrong by getting pregnant just weeks after finding out the news. That's right!!! Baby # 3 is on the way. Baby should be due towards the end of July. I go in next week for my first prenatal check up. It's exciting how quickly life is changing and how all the dreams we've had the last several years are coming true!! We feel so so blessed and know the Lord's hand is in our lives.

We received and early Christmas present from my mom of a camera, so I can hopefully start updating more often!

We bought a house

2011-12-07T07:51:00.000-08:00

..........or at least ALMOST! We close on our house on Dec. 15th. That's in just 8 days. After months of searching and having made another offer that fell through, we finally found a house! When we saw it for the first time, we knew right away that we wanted to make an offer on it. It has 3 bedrooms, a bonus room, and an office, plenty of growing room. We will also be in Ben and Shalyses' ward! If you are interested in know more about the house here's some info.:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/734-Willow-Bay-Dr-Fuquay-Varina-NC-27526/65341816_zpid/

2011-09-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Three New posts:

- A Paid Vacation
- Bella turns 1 yr.
- Bella walks

A Paid Vacation!

2011-09-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

So during Dan's second week at Fidelity Investments, he got a call from an HR lady that he had been working with from Credit Suisse. She said there was a job that had opened up that he should apply for. Dan figure, "Hey why not?" So he applied and forwarded some of his work (mind you this work was our financial spread sheets. He had taught himself VBA coding just for fun and so he could implement it.) With in 24 hours he heard back from them and they wanted to interview him the next day. Our heads were spinning. He went in and interviewed. He said the 1st interview had been great and the other two had been so-so. We enjoyed a 3 day weekend ( it was Labor day weekend.) And on Tuesday the HR lady called him and said if he hadn't heard back from anyone by the next day to give her a call. The next day she called him again and said they we going to make an offer to him and asked him for salary expectations and said she would call him the next day with a verbal offer. We were blown away when she called and made the verbal offer. They had given him what he had asked for and MORE! We were shocked! We were going to receive a 50% raise!! Dan continued to go to work for Fidelity until he got the soft copy of the offer in his e-mail and went into work the next day to give his two weeks notice. Much to our joy they sent him home and said he would continue to receive payment for those two weeks. Dan started up on Sept. 19th (his birthday.) His new title at work is Equities Product Controller and we could not be over joyed!!

We are so grateful to The Lord. He has blessed us sooo much. We had faith that he would bless us if we decided to have a family and to put our family before everything else. I have such a testimony in following the commandments and have righteous desires. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for our family!

Bella Turns ONE!!!!

2011-09-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe sometimes that my little girl just turned 1! Here's some things about Bella:

-She's a climber! She LOVES climbing on top of things and seeing how high she can go!
-She loves loves loves food! She will eat about 4-6 jars of baby food, 2-3 bowls of baby cereal, 1-2 whole bananas, lunch meat, cracker and other snacks every day! She loves food!
- Her favorite foods are: Bananas, apple sauce, Cheese, turkey meat, and mac 'n cheese.
- She has a toy basket that she carries around almost all the time. She spends a lot of her time putting things into and then carrying the basket where ever she goes.
-She loves music. She'll dance and she loves to play the piano.
-She loves shrieking and screaming. She only says one word, "Dada."
-When she wants more of something or just something in general she holds her hand out and open and closes her fist in the direction of the wanted item.
-She loves to turn pages of books or play with flaps and buttons. She points her little finger at everything!
-She loves jewelry.

For her birthday I made her a pancake in the shape of a 1 for breakfast and we had a family party about a week later (and we also celebrated my Mom-in-law's birthday). Also she received a book from my mom int the mail. Here's some pictures:

Poking the pancake with that pointer finger

Sharing birthday cake with the photographer (Grandpa :)

Sharing Birthday cake with Mommy.

Watermelon Sherbert cake!

We got a package in the Mail!!!!

Always the climber.

Bella WALKS!

2011-09-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a few videos of her in the process of learning!

This is when she would just lunge and laugh like it was the funniest thing!

When she learned to actually walk! She still would get so excited!

This one is just showing how cute she is!

She's been walking for a few weeks now and is a pro! She loves being able to keep up with Hannah more!

Dan got a job!

2011-08-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

About 2-3 weeks ago Dan got a call around 7:30 pm from a company called, Fidelity Investments (it's known as just Fidelity but around here there is also a bank called Fidelity so to differentiate I added the Investments at the end.) Fidelity is the worlds largest mutual fund and financial groups. If you have a 401K, there's a good chance it could be with Fidelity. Dan is starting at the bottom but there is lots of room for growth and they do exactly what he would like to do. For now he will be helping customers set up their 401Ks. The job isn't his ideal job but it's a good start. He will start training on August 22nd, and will be in training for 8 weeks. It's with a great company that has great benefits. I guess going from being a student and having a student job with very, very few benefits, it's amazing to see the benefits you can get with a real job. We were blown away! One that we are very excited about is they will help pay for educational costs. Dan plans to take advantage of this by possibly getting his MBA in a few years. We are very excited and Dan can not wait because he has been going a little crazy not working. It has been a wonderful summer just to be lazy and relax. We are greatly going to miss having him around when he starts work.

We are also looking at houses. We probably won't buy anything immediately. We are hoping to take our time and find the right house and save up a good down payment. Though if our dream house went back on the market we would do everything in our power to make it happen as soon as possible. In the mean time we are enjoying our time with Dan's parents. They have been so wonderful and supportive. We are so very lucky to have them and to know there's no pressure to leave until we are ready. They have been so great to us. We are truly BLESSED!

My 23rd birthday

2011-07-25T11:49:00.001-07:00

So the morning of my birthday Dan had a job interview with Credit Suisse. Which he said went very well except for the fact that they had two internal candidates as well. Dan surprised me with some jewelry after at wonderful nap! And Dan's dad gave me a puzzle ring. And then later that night surprised me with a dinner at The Melting Pot. It was SOOOO much fun! The food was fantastic (four courses of the most delicious and fun foods I could imagine) ! And the experience was fun and I even had the best company someone could ask for! It was wonderful and I LOVED it!

My family sent me a box of delicious goodies, including different fudges, some English toffee, and lots of other good stuff!

My mother-in-law took me out to a delicious lunch at Red Lobster. Where we enjoyed a four course meal!

The Sunday after my birthday we had the whole family (minus Laurel) over for dinner and birthday cake. For dinner we grilled hamburgers, hotdogs and BBQ ribs. With lots of enjoyable side dishes. And for the cake I made a cake called hummingbird cake. It has bananas, nuts, pineapple, coconut and cinnamon. It was so enjoyable spending time with family. And I received some wonderful gifts!!! Vaughn and Becca gave me an embroidery machine that Becca's mom had given to her years ago. I was so surprised and excited. I think I said, "Oh my gosh!" At least a dozen times!!! Ben and Shalyse gave me lots of fun kitchen ware (we downsized heavily when we moved) that were wonderful and I'm excited to have my own kitchen in which to use them. And a bonus they were almost all red! Then The Parents and Josh gave me a fun Jelly Belly basket of goodies. And Dan gave me a piano music sheet book. Thank you all for making it so enjoyable!!

Hummingbird cake with dried pineapple flowers and toasted coconut on the sides. If you look to the left you can see some cupcakes I made with the left over batter. I put toasted coconut and whole pecans on top.

The 4th of July!!

2011-07-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

This year was a very fun and enjoyable July 4th! We went camping the 1st-2nd of July up at Falls Lake with all of Dan's family that lives up here (Minus his dad, Laurel and Josh.) We had fun enjoying delicious hot dogs, brawtz, chips and watermelon. And finishing up with delicious marshmallows and s'mores. We then enjoyed an evening around the fire just chatting and having a good time. The next morning we got up and enjoyed a leisurely morning and then headed to the lake. The guys took at the kids 2yr and up to swim, while the ladies and the babies (who took naps, YAY) enjoyed chatting and relaxing. Around lunch time I realized we were by some mean ants who have bitten Bella 13 TIMES! Poor little girl, you can still see all the bites on her legs and arms. We then enjoyed some lunch and then headed home!
On the 3rd Fuquay-Varina had their firework show so Ben, Shalyse, Andrea, Josh, Hannah, Dan,Bella and I, went and enjoyed the show.
Then on the 4th the we crashed Ben and Shalyses' ward pancake breakfast. And enjoyed nice fluffy pancakes with scrambled eggs and sausage. They also had some fun crafts for the little ones so Andrea and Hannah had fun with that. Later the whole family(minus Laurel) got together for a late lunch earlier dinner. We grilled more hotdogs and brawtz, had watermelon, rainbow pasta salad, Julie's frog eye salad, and corn on the cob. For dessert we had a red, white and blue berry triffle. We enjoyed some homemade fireworks that Dan made while it rained. After it finished raining we lit up some fireworks that Vaughn an Becca had brought and some old ones we had. All the kids enjoyed playing with the sparklers. It was an enjoyable day spent with family.
On the 5th Vaughn and Becca came down again and we all went (minus Dan's dad) to the firework show that was here in Holly Springs. It had been raining and raining until about 10 min. before the show. We all stayed at the big house and had cookies until about 8:40 pm and then headed over. When we arrived at the park it was still raining but luckily it stopped 5 min. after we arrived. The rain scared off most of the people so we were able to get amazing seats and enjoyed a spectacular show with a nice cool breeze. It was a very enjoyable 4th of July, that lasted several days! Now that the holiday is over we are busy preparing for Dan's mom to arrive home tomorrow evening. ) I am sorry but our camera has died so we did not get any pics :( )

Random pictures

2011-06-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

So I was finally able to figure out how to get the pictures off of our cameras memory card (Thank you to Dan's Dad). So here are a few random ones from before we moved. I probably didn't give these to you, Kristi.............so here they are !!:)

Hannah riding her bike.

Hannah and her best friend Davey (I put two on the blog because I couldn't get one with them both looking at the camera). In front of the Liger at the Bean Museum on the BYU campus. We would go there for story time sometimes. It was fun because they would always a real live animal that the kids could interact with. One time they had a tarantula, and Hannah was so excited to hold it!

A preschool craft we had done. Hannah really misses Davey, they were really good friends. Sometimes they were partners in crime........is was always Hannah showing Davey things he would never have thought of doing :)

Matching aprons I made for all of us.

Having just crossed over the Mississippi River for the first time!

The latest and greatest of Bella

2011-06-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

Bella is now 9 months! It's so hard to believe she'll be turning 1 at the end of the summer.

This is her newest trick! She really enjoys being able to 'walk' and keep up with Hannah a little more. She's not walking yet but I know it will be before the summer ends. She gets pretty excited in the second video I took of her on this (this one was the first time she had pushed it) she has gotten faster and has gotten more courageous when it goes to cruising on furniture.

Pictures of the girls

2011-05-27T13:30:00.001-07:00

And you thought I was going to actually post pictures! I sure got you! ;) Actually my sister-in-law Jodi took some adorable pictures of the girls and made a blog post with pictures of them. If you are interested here is the web address:

http://jodi-clayton.blogspot.com/2011/04/youre-adorable.html

I will hopefully be able to get a few of Washington D.C, a Mississippi pic and some more recent ones of the girls soon. First of all our camera battery was dead for the D.C. trip so I will need to get some from some one else, just have to remember to do that! Mississippi River pics on Dan's phone, I'll have to figure how to get that (we also have a few D.C. pictures on there too). Once we found our camera battery and recharged it, I took some pictures............now I just have to find that special USB cable to transfer them onto my computer. So, sorry for the delays but if you check out Jodi's blog you will see some real talent!! Miss all of you that are not here with us. And love you all! I really miss my friend, Kristi ( one of those friends you are lucky to find) And especially you, Mom. I really miss you :) And of course I miss all my family!!!

The Renaissance Fair

2011-05-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

We had a lot of fun visiting Will and Jodi! They are super awesome! They were very kind and invited us to a local Renaissance Fair. It was pretty fun! There was a knife thrower, a whip guy (who lit some whips of fire), a guy who was was a little bit of everything and much much more! It was so fun to see so much fun. There was a lot of fun and funny people :). Thank you guys for sharing this experience with us! And thank you Jodi for e-mailing me the pictures!

In my costume :) Almost everyone was wearing some kind of costume.

The Falconer.

Dan and Hannah.

Lizzy and Bella. Rachel and Lizzy were AMAZING with the girls!

The guys who did a little bit of everything. I'm sure there's a better title for him but i can not think of that right now!

Hannah Banana

I wish I had posted sooner because I could have given better details. But one thing i do remember is how amazed I was by how good Will and Jodi's kids were! I need to take lessons from her, she knows what she's doing ;)

A little Tid Bit of an update

2011-05-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

So we STILL have not heard from the laws schools............very weird but I guess it wasn't meant to be. He has been applying for jobs for about the last 4-5 weeks. So we are now just waiting to hear back on any of the jobs. We have a "dream" house. If you are interested here's a link to the house we are interested in:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1404-Poplar-Ridge-Rd-Fuquay-Varina-NC-27526/6559874_zpid/

There is some work to be done but it is mostly stuff that we would work on over time. It will most likely be gone before we get a job, get approved for a loan and make an offer. But it's still fun to dream and to hope that sometime in the next 6-8 months we will hopefully get a house.

Anyways, Dan is participating in a sleep study at Duke University in the mean time to make a little money. He has a sensor he wears as a watch to detect his movements throughout the day and during the night. He keeps a daily journal on his sleep, like what time he went to bed, what time he woke up, how long it took him to wake up, how many times did he wake up during the night, how did he feel when he woke up. Things like that. We spent a night last Wednesday and the whole next day sleeping over night and taking naps to see if he was eligible for the sleep study. Tomorrow night and this Thursday and then next Wednesday and Thursday night he will spend at Duke University. One night he will be given an anti-psychotic drug and then monitored and then the other week he will given the placebo. Anyways, pretty interesting. Hopefully all will go well. It's funny because he had to sign a contract saying he would not conceive a child during the next month after taking the drug.

Bella is 9 months now! She is crawling all the time and is a very fun baby! She's so mellow! She is doing very well. Hannah is doing alright. The move has been pretty hard on her but she does seem to be adjusting little by little. I will try and get some pictures posted soon of the girls and other things that we've been doing. Anyways, this is just a little update.

Life As We Know It

2011-05-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

So finally another blog post!! Sorry for those who've been wondering what in the world we've been up. If you don't know the last month or so here is what we've been up to:

DAN FINISHED SCHOOL!!!!
Packing up our apartment in Provo, UT (I do miss that apartment probably because all the extra love I put into plus it was the longest we had lived in one place) Then packing a truck with all of those items, cleaning our apartment and then heading off into the wild blue (not really just North Carolina :)
We stopped in at Aurora, CO and spent time with Dan's two sisters, Dorothy and Elizabeth and their wonderful families. Dan's sister Dorothy and her husband, Jason, own and run a Baskin Robbins so we were able to get free DELICIOUS ice cream!! Pretty awesome! It was so great to see everyone there!
We then heading south to Flower Mound, TX. And spent time with Dan's brother Will's family. They took us out on a double date to celebrate Dan graduating. Then treated our family to a day at a Renaissance Fair (pictures to come). We had fun with them and enjoyed a long break from driving when we realized that Dan's parents' home would still have some work being done, due to a tornado that slowed the repairs.
Drove over the Mississippi River. This was my first time ever crossing it (not counting our honeymoon in FL. I don't count that because we flew and I didn't get to really see the states) It was fun because when we arrived in Mississippi they had a State Welcome Center with free cookies (and coffee :) and I was so surprised. I had never heard of a State welcome Center before! I enjoyed seeing completely new landscape.
We crossed over to Alabama.
We crossed over to Georgia and stayed at a dinky (and slightly shady) hotel just East of Atlanta.
We ARRIVED in Holly Springs, NC. We then spent several days with Dan's brother Ben and his family while the big house (Dan's parents' home) was being finished.
After a couple of days of unpacking we headed out to Washington DC. Another thing I had never done! We spent three days up there (pictures soon to come for this as well)

We now need to get settled in and find Dan a job. We've done some fun house browsing and went and saw a few with a Realtor called Jon Netherton. It was good because he showed us a huge range of housing situations. The first one was a house that was a foreclosure and was in terrible condition and would need LOTS of work and the last one was a brand new home ( in fact it is still in the process of being built) that was a cookie cutter that we didn't like. Some had garages, some didn't. Some had nice lawns, others didn't. It was lots of fun and was a learning experience. It will still be months until we can get into a house but figured 'why not look around' in the mean time!

Thankful

2011-03-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Today we realized Dan has 3 weeks of school left! With the end in sight I started to think about how blessed we have been! We are GRADUATING!!! And with two kids.......whoa how did that happen? :)
So first off, I just want to say thank you to all of our friends and family. I don't know how we would have made this far with two kids without all of you. When we prayed and felt like it was time to start our family, it made no sense financially. Especially financially. But we had faith and started our family. We struggled, scraped and put all of our extra money towards preparing for our first baby. Thanks to family members and friends we were able to borrow and were given baby clothes. Once our child grew out of those clothes we knew we would have to buy more clothes, so the praying started. Where was the money going to come from? And with in that week, my wonderful sister-in-law calls out of the blue and asks what clothes we need for Hannah. I was amazed! And that sister-in-law has been so wonderful to fulfill our need for clothes just when we were wondering what we were going to do about clothes for our girls! And that is just one example of all the wonderful things that have happened.

I was just thinking about all the wonderful blessing and help we have received from so many of you! I am so thankful for all of you and all that you have done for us. As this part of our lives end and we start a new phase we will always remember all that you have done for us. I just wanted to say thank you!!!

My day off from house cleaning

2011-03-11T20:15:00.001-08:00

So today instead of cleaning my house I decided to work on these babies..............

So you might be wondering what they are or you might already know, if not here's some pictures of what they are used for:

Hannah can wear them too! These cuties are leg warmers!

Hannah showing off her boots and leg warmers.

With Bella getting up on her knees more and more lately I've been noticing that her knees turn red and heck, they are sooo cute! So I decided to buy some socks and make leg warmers. If you feel so inclined to try it yourself here's how you do it:

And they only take about 15-20 min. to make!

Whoooo Whoooo likes preschool?

2011-03-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

Last week for preschool the theme was "All About Birds."

Book: Whose Chick Are You by Nancy Tufuri

Songs:
The Owl Song by The Wiggles
The Five Ducks
Old MacDonald with just birds
Two Black bird
Nursery CD Song
Wiggle song

Nursery Lesson: Noah and the Ark. And sang the verse about Noah from "Follow The Prophet"

Games: Dice that had different birds and we went over the noise that each bird would say, parachute with a sheet (We would lift as we counted and then on the count of three we would fun under the sheet and sit down), duck duck goose, London Bridge

Crafts:
Egg dying. We made egg dye and had the toddlers dip boiled eggs. ( we also ate them for lunch)
We made and owl from a empty toilet paper roll and paper cut outs.
Nest with items gathered from outside like leaves, twigs, pine cones, etc.
Bird head made with feathers and a Styrofoam ball.

6 months

2011-03-10T19:18:00.000-08:00

Bella's six month (more like 6 1/2) stats are in! Here they are:

Weight: 16 lbs 13 oz (55 %)
Height: 26 in (50 %)
Head : 42.5 cm (20%)

Bella is getting so big!!

She still wears 0-3 month and some 3-6 month.
She can sit up without support for a few min.
She rolls ALL over the the place, which is interesting because Hannah never was a big roller!! She has barely started to show interest in crawling. She's gotten up on all four a few times and continues to try. Once she gets up on all fours she will rock. If I had to guess she will probably start crawling right around the time we move. Of course what great timing :)
She does lots of squeals and shrieks!
And I'm sure I've mentioned before but this little girl LOVES LOVES her food! She will eat anywhere from 2-3 meals of solids everyday and will eat LOTS when she does, I'm talking close to 1/2 a cup of cereal and a veggie or fruit. She has also learned to pick up and eat cheerios. She hasn't gotten the pincer grasp down yet but just barely learned to actually open her fist to get the cheerio.
She wakes up about 2-3 times a night.

A think there might be a family resemblance.

Happy face!

She loves eating her toes......

and fingers!

In a 3-6 mon size sleeper!! Her feet are about where the third pink line is.

Sleeping so peacefully. She sleeps with her arms up or she has to have something to hold.

Watching Hannah color. You can see she's really close to getting up on her knees as well!

My two pretty girls!