Some friends we miss...

I have many pictures from the blessed Christmas season to blog about, but first I want to do a quick post about some sweet friends the kids made this fall. We were so thrilled to meet the Hoge's in our ward. Brooklyn and Will are about the ages of Jo and Tic and they all quickly became good buddies. I ended up watching the Hoge's kids about one day a week. Then they broke our hearts with the news that they'd be moving to Idaho just after Christmas. How we miss the Hoge's!

Here the kids are waking up Mags after her nap! This was a pretty regular routine:).

Jo and Brooklyn especially loved to craft together. I am not an especially crafty person so this was a little out of my element but tried to get creative. Remember how they look like twins?

Same hair, same size, same high foreheads.

Will was a hoot. He's the most coordinated kid I've ever seen. At the age of 2 he could serve a volleyball correctly, throw balls accurately across the family room, and sporadically drop kick anything. The kid is 110% male. Here he is shooting.

The picture does NOT do justice to the awesomeness of Will's shooting abilities. He'd usually stick his bottom out pucker up those lips, and hold his gun sideways as shown. We had to mock his dad (who is an expert hunter) for teaching his son this most excellent stance.

Ryan trying to get Will to show us his talent. Mostly it's just a great one of Ry though:). One to keep forever and ever.

Emily became an instant friend too and I dearly miss talking with her. But we're excited for their new life up north :). Love you guys!

Good News!

Our upstairs bathroom is finished! Joe (the "working Joe" as my kids call him to differentiate between him and my daughter) has been sprinting to the end of this project and tonight we're DONE. When we got home from Thanksgiving at Bear Lake and saw the progress Joe had made on the bathroom (specifically a tub and sink!) I asked Ryan for permission to kiss him. Ryan said something about that being okay if he could give Joe a good smack on the rear. Joe was very uncomfortable when we told him of our affections for him. We decided not to go through with our plan ... didn't want to scare him away before he'd finished.

It's hard to say which individual in our family was the most excited about a tub. We battled over who got to use it first. Ryan totally pulled out the trump "I'm sick" card. Lame. How could I compete with that? First time I wanted a fever in my life. Here are pictures of the kids enjoying their new tubby.

I have been feeling so sentimental the last few days. I don't know what it is... maybe the holidays approaching. But this morning I've been grieving the loss of time.

So much of motherhood for me thus far has been knee deep in diapers, spit up, throw up, waking multiple times a night, and fussy babies with separation anxiety. There have been so many moments spent stretching for increased patience and telling myself, "This too shall pass."

I will one day sleep through the night again.
Atticus will one day keep his hunderwear dry.
Maggie will one day gain weight and accept someone else's comforting lap.

So I'm surprised at myself this morning. On this Monday morning I do not want another minute to pass. I don't want peaceful nights or an empty lap.

But I do want Atticus potty trained.

Right now I ach for every single moment I've spent comforting one of my children. Those times I've been able to ease pain or fear. Or know at that precise moment they are 100% content.

I just finished looking through Jo and Atticus's baby books. My heart hurts that they will never again be babies. I know I could never keep up with triplets. And yet I yearn for Jo, Atticus, and Maggie to all be infants- right now.

Even though so many conversations were spent looking for advice and guidance and asking the question- "when will this stage be over?" In this very moment, right now, I'm wishing so badly I could somehow have all the moments back, feel the amazing- indescribable joy of each one. And not have those moments pass. I wish they could be ever with me. That I could, with all of my senses, remember everything. And forever have an Atticus holding my neck, a Maggie snuggling her snotty nose into my chest, and a Jo forcing my head to kiss me right on the lips.

Boy have these kids done a number on my heart!

Halloween

Josephine and Atticus loved trick or treating this year... not a big surprise, right? We started about 6 and ended at 8:30- after Ryan and I finally called it quits. Two and a half hours. I feel like that's a long time for a 4 year old and 3 year old. Mr. Atticus was an elephant, Jo was a flower (I bought the clothes from savers and glued petals around her hood), Maggie was a duck, Ryan was a Newsie, and I went as a Mom who didn't have time to dress up:).

Please note how far out her little bottom sticks. Pretty pinch-able!

I will tell you what- walking around town with Ryan is like being with a celebrity. His students love him a lot.

Driving to the "trunk or treat" first! Can't you just FEEL the excitement from these two!

And you HAVE to end the night by checking out your booty. The kids are now loaded. I'm not sure what to do about this since I am on a "no sugar diet" until Thanksgiving. So I can't even help them out!

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween too!

Stinking Cute Furniture

Christy keeps bugging me to post pictures of our new furniture. And I keep waiting to have our living room perfectly put together. I've realized we may not get to the finishing touches for some time still. So we're just going to settle for as is.

I found Katie on KSL classifieds. She takes old furniture and makes AMAZING custom slip covers to bring them back to life. I think she is unbelievably talented. You should check out her blog.

http://www.thesewingnerd.blogspot.com/

This is our couch before she worked her surgery.

And this is the couch I might love as much as one of our children.

I found the couch completed. When we went to pick it up we walked past these beauties in her basement. And they were not yet called for. Now put yourself in our shoes. Could you have resisted?

Here they are finished.

It took her two days to cover the chairs. How is that possible? I seriously heart her and them. Since the furniture is all slip covered you can take everything off and machine wash them.

While I'm posting I thought I'd show off my birthday presents from Ryan. I can never get enough Septober decor. I'd keep it up year round if Christmas didn't follow immediately!

The dresser was an excellent find. A man rounded a corner in his truck right in front of our house a few weeks ago. The dresser was in the bed of his truck and almost toppled over with the turn. So Ryan ran over to help him get it more secure. It turned out the dresser, and everything else he in the truck, was headed to D.I. So we kept it and a nice game/bumper pool/poker table (now in our family room). The end.

"The Buying House"

We moved. Awhile ago. And I have yet again taken a nice vacation from the internet social world. However, I can't be lazy forever. So here are a few pictures updating you on the new house and our family. Hazaah.

Here is our first official home which the kids affectionately call "The Buying House":

It rocks my socks for a lot of reasons. Perhaps the two greatest reasons are that it's 1.5 blocks from Ryan's school and that it sits on a large piece of property with excellent potential for fruit trees, chickens, exploring, etc. Here's my kitchen sink window view. Love it.

The house came with a few essential projects. First was to dig window wells in the front (where you see those nasty rose bushes) and fix a crack in the foundation.

We could have hired someone to do it, but that costs money.

And when would Ryan get another opportunity to drive one of these babies? The kids were pretty excited.

Window wells and crack: Done. Now we're onto the bathroom. Ryan's working on tiling it right now. It is a long project but will be wonderful when it's done! We currently don't have a tub- just a shower (I shouldn't say "just" because the shower is fabulous) which would be fine... except that we have 3 little churchlynns who like to splash around in tubbies.

Mags did not lose her cuteness with the move...

Jo and Tic find an average of 17 snails a day in our backyard which they collect in a plastic bucket. And then they die. :)

Jo and Tic also did not lose their attractiveness with the move...

Lastly- Ryan teaching Atticus how to shoot the neighbors.

We have a very "open door" attitude at "the buying house."

On being mean...

Christy use to pull my hair when we fought. But I didn't always play barbies the right way.

Jesse once drove the family boat violently enough to make my body go flying from the taco tube and painfully slam into the middle of bear lake. But I was wearing a life jacket, and everyone had a good laugh.

Eric tried to brake my arm. But I first erased his 9th grade English paper- on purpose.

Matt rubbed my back and asked "what are you doing later" just after entering into my engagement with Ryan, making me feel uncomfortable. But he was only trying to include me in the family love.

Atticus bit my wrist while visiting my neighbor next door. But I was putting him in time out.

Ryan broke my nose. But Casey did pull his leg hairs and I did carelessly leave my head directly behind his heal.

My statistics professor failed me on every single exam my junior year. But I did answer poorly.

Sometimes people do mean things to me. It's apart of life. I can forgive them because I can understand their behavior on some level. But lately some people have been very mean to me and I can't understand their behavior. And I want to ask them why they are being so mean.

Like the individual who stole my debit card number and tried to steal $750 in one day.

Like the individual who, the night before doing our final walk through on our new house (just signed Friday!) decided to go into the house and rip up the beautiful wood flooring in the family room. He claimed he was trying to "fix" it. There was a considerable amount of alcohol left on the kitchen counter when we got there.

Like the individual who stole Ryan's debit card number and (so far) has tried to steal approximately $1300.

Who are these people and why are they being so mean!? Sheesh. Needless to say I will be spending some time on the phone with our bank representative. And we will be replacing the wood floor with carpet. The end.