8 Wheels

It has been a while since the kids had decent bikes to ride.  They got too big for their bikes, the bikes got neglected and left out in the rain, and there was no good place to ride bikes at our old house.  The time has come to replace the bikes and get riding again!  The kids were so excited!  It is even better because now that we are on a cul-de-sac the kids have lots of area to get out and ride!!  We now have 4 kids out on 8 big wheels :)

Sandra is big enough for a 2 wheeler now... no more training wheels for her!  She was so excited for her big bike!

Here is Mhari with her new bike.  So excited to be riding with the big kids.

Lorna hung out in the grass during all of the riding.  She really enjoys being outside!  I never got a picture of Clark, but he loves to push the umbrella stroller around the cul-de-sac as the kids ride.  It's pretty crazy with all of the kids riding!

Sandra was having a hard time learning to ride her big girl bike.  I got to teach her and I knew she could do it, she just needed to keep practicing.  I took a picture so she could remember how sad she was before she figured out how to ride.  Oh, it's hard to try new things, but she kept at it...

Until she was riding all by herself!  She really did great and figured it all out in less than an hour ;)

There's the happy face I knew I'd see!!

The girls

Talmage on his new big bike

Ready to ride!

 Jeff adjusting Grant's bike a bit

It was a great Saturday!  The kids rode for a few hours, the little ones played, Jeff and I threw a football.  What a way to spend the afternoon!  We are looking forward to lots more Saturdays... and other days spent out in the cul-de-sac and maybe even some family biking adventures!

Playing Dress up!

My kids sure like to play dress up.  I think the girls really enjoy it.  The wood floors make it even more fun to wear the dress up shoes and klunck all around the house.  Mhari usually dresses up at least once a day.  I think it's fun so we just go with it.  One day she included Lorna in her dress up fun.  

Such a cute bug 

One of Mhari's favorite things to dress up as is the leopard outfit from Halloween!  Too cute!

Oh, and Clark is not to be forgotten either... Here is Mhari and Clark wearing their crowns.  So much fun!

I'm glad they like pretending and using their imaginations :)

Dallas Zoo

At the end of February we joined our ward on a play date at the Dallas Zoo!  It was our first time going and the little kids had a great time!  Too bad those older kids had to go to school... they love zoos!

Here is Mhari on one of the elephant statues.  The kids liked climbing the statues almost as much as seeing all of the animals!

When we first got inside the zoo we found the penguins.  The kids got to watch them as they were being fed.

Mhari wanted to measure herself :)

This was Lorna's first time to a zoo... and this is how she spent it - in the stroller ;)

Mhari looking at the lion

Clark and the lion

Some of the nice ward members bought food to feed the giraffes and shared with us.  The giraffes were probably the coolest part of the zoo!  The kids even got a chance to pet them since they hung around while they were being fed :)

Mhari's favorite part of the zoo was everything inside the barn:  the owl, the rabbits, the pig, the horse.  I guess next time I should save some money and just take her to a farm :)

It was a fun trip and it wore us all out!  Yay for zoos and yay for friends to hang out with :)

9 Months!

Lorna is 9 months already!  OK, so she will be 10 months really soon, but here is all about her at 9 months ;).

She is so good at the stairs!  She goes up and down them really well.  I figured that since she loves the stairs so much that is where we would do her 9 month photo shoot...

So beautiful!

Oh, and we can't leave out the big brother :).  I just love her face here!

Little scooter

I think this is my favorite picture!

She is 21 lb and 29 inches!
Lorna loves hair, her tongue, eating, crawling, being held, going outside to the bus stop, going anywhere, playing with her siblings, staying up late, laughing, talking, etc!
It really amazes me how much she thinks she's like the big kids.  She tries to talk and tell me things when all of the kids are busy talking to me.  
She has been not sleeping well at night and I think she has an ear infection so she's on meds for that now.  She is waking up, but just once so that's not as bad.  She naps several times during the day and does pretty well being flexible when we are busy and not right at home for her nap.  

She just fits right into our family.  I think she wouldn't have it any other way!

Child Proof

Our little Lorna bug is growing up too fast!  She has figured out how to open the kitchen cabinets already :(.  

I wonder if she figured it out so fast because that's where the kids are going to get their snacks all of the time now.  

So sweet :)

I have child locks we can put on, but she is a pretty good listener when she knows she shouldn't be in something.  We will see how long it takes her to leave them alone.  I'm sure I'll have an update in the future finding Lorna eating everything she can from the snack cupboard.  Oh fun times!

Getting Settled

We have been in our new home for just over 3 weeks.  We have been trying to organize and decorate as we unpack so that it is all put together.  I have upstairs stuff done too, but no good photos so today I'll update what's done downstairs :).  

This is our front entry and living room.  We are still going to get furniture for this room.  We did hang the circle lamp in the corner :)

We also put this cubbie hole unit on the side wall to hold knickknacks. It will be nice when we have this room finished.

This is the formal dining room - connected to the formal living room.  We got a rug to go under our table.and we hung up our Scotland blanket and added Jeff's parent's blanket (they got it from a lady on Jeff's mission, same as ours, and they hadn't ever used it so we asked if they would give it to us).  

I also made a table runner from one of my kilts that I never wear.  I think it turned out nice.

The kitchen.  Nothing too new that we did, but I do enjoy my kitchen :)

The nook behind the kitchen... we got a table to go here as well as the rug for under it.  I also made a runner for this table.  This is where the kids can do their crafts etc, instead of on the nice dining table.

From the nook you look into the family room.  We finally have everything pretty set.  We got the rug to go under the furniture.

Hung up more pictures

Even have a side table thing with a small tv that we will show family photos on.  This is looking back toward the front living room.

The fireplace.  We want a plant to go in the corner and will hang a few more pictures, but it is really starting to feel like we live here now!

 We really have been enjoying our new home and all of our extra space!

The Big Day

It really felt like we were moving forever!  I had started boxing things up in November to prepare for the December move.  Then everything got delayed.  Along the way there were other houses we considered, but we kept coming back to the house we originally got a contract for.  We also had our house under contract and ended up ready to close on both homes on the same day.  It was a miracle - 1 we were selling our house and 2 that everything actually came together as fast as it did to buy our house.  Through all of the delays I know that we were blessed to be able to move!

Here are some of the piles of boxes we accumulated throughout the house:

Jeff rented the biggest U-haul truck they had and figured we would have plenty of room...

Ya, it was really stuffed full!
We had borrowed a friends enclosed trailer, loaded the back of our F-250 and had to rent another small trailer from u-haul to make it all work.  It was crazy to get out of the house, but we were out and signing papers at noon on Jan 31st :).  

Jeff :)

The awesome men who helped load up the truck the night before we had to be out of our house.  

One of our able helpers complained that I took a picture when everyone wasn't working... so he posed for this one :)

Good-bye house!  You took care of our family and now have a new family to love you :)

But there was more to this story....

Now while we were loading the last items into the trailer I got a call from our title company asking when we would like our closing for on Friday, the next day.  We had been planning on a 3 pm closing the same day (Thursday) so this was shocking news.  After everything we could think of to get our closing to happen that night we ended up having to close on Friday.  We were homeless for about 24 hours.  It was a hard night in the hotel with 8 people. 

The next day we showed up for our closing and signed away on our stack of papers.  We were told our realtor would give us our key in about an hour when the money went through.  We hung out at a local McDonald's and awaited the call.  Of course it couldn't be that easy.  Suddenly there was paperwork they needed, house ins info they had to verify, etc.  Another 3-4 hours and THEN we finally got our key.  We had just started unloading the trucks onto the driveway since our moving help was supposed to be there soon.  Really I don't know why some of this had to be so difficult and if you want to hear about a title company to not go to we can tell you all about them, but it's over, we are here, and we are loving it!