We're Moooving!

It's that time again!  This is one of the most exciting moves for us.  I know most of you know, but we are moving back to Utah.  Back to what I call my happy little town, (aka St. George).  I fell in love with that place long ago and it feels like home to us.  Before I go on, first, here is the outside of our new rental. We couldn't be more excited!!!!

We love the house (even though we've only seen pictures (I have more than I am posting here).  IT'S A HOUSE.  A HOUSE!  NOT AN APARTMENT.  A BEAUTIFUL SINGLE FAMILY HOUSE.

Something that we have been dreaming of for years now is to have a back yard.  A fenced in, private area that our kids could play safely in.  A place that our family could soak up the sun and relax without having to pack a bag or leave the house.  A place for the kids to explore on their own.  The list goes on.  It's a dream come true for us.  Having 3 boys who love being outside; this was top on our list.  It's not the biggest backyard, but it is the biggest one we have ever had (with grass).  It is plenty for us and we are over the moon excited about it!  The play set is actually going to stay for a while, until the owners figure out what they want to do with it.  It may end up staying the whole time.  If not, it just means more room to run. 

Our backyard has a peach tree that apparently produces a ton of peaches (especially around August).  That's a bonus for our friends and family as well:)!

We can hardly contain ourselves over here.  I'm even writing notes on the bathroom mirror.

And we are dancing, screaming, jumping, and praying prayers of gratitude every day (we've known for a couple of weeks now). 

As far as the house goes, it's the little things we are most excited about.  Number one, being the fenced in backyard.  Other things that are making us jump for joy are things like:

*Having a real garbage can, not a trash system like here in our apartments.  One that is just so conveniently on the side of our house and a trash man comes! 

*Having a hose...yes a HOSE!  When something gets barfed on, pooped on, or covered in mud...oh just simply take it out back and hose it off (maybe with a lot of soap for the barf and poop, but you know what I mean)!  A hose is also exciting because it means we can wash our cars on our driveway.  And of course kids can always find entertainment with a hose in the summer time.

*A driveway.  Right now we have a spot in front of our garage (which is a two car garage, but it's a tandem garage, so on the outside it looks like a one car garage) and when we get in or out of the car, there is a curb that we trip on constantly on both sides of our van.  It makes getting in and out (with a toddler too) a little challenging.  I know it could be worse, way worse, but it is annoying and we are looking forward to that driveway.

*No more hearing neighbors above/next to us slamming doors, running, pounding...waking up my sleeping babe.  Not to mention, they can't hear us.  It may take some getting use to again, but I know I'm going to love it!

*Having a neighborhood, not an apartment complex.  Awe.  The thought just makes me want to take a walk.  Maybe even start up jogging....wait a minute here...I'm getting carried away.

*Windows on all sides of the house.  This makes me so so so happy.  I love light.

*Being able to open my blinds without my neighbors being RIGHT there looking in.

*A place for our guests to park.  Holy toledos, that is so cool!  Right now our guests have to park down the street to come see us; and Rich can't even park near our apartment.  At the new house, they can park on our driveway, our R.V. parking, or right in front of our house along the curb.  How convenient! 

So honestly, those are the things that are exciting us the most about being in a house again.  It's such an amazing feeling to know we will have those luxuries again.  But what we are most excited about, (and this is not an exaggeration), about moving back to St. George is being near FAMILY again.  Truly!  I would live in an apartment again just to be near them again.  And I was willing, but this worked out to our delight.  Having that support system is seriously the greatest thing that we have missed.  I have my dad here, and I don't want to take away from the support he has given us or how much I love being near him.  It's just that in UT we have more people.  The kids will have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  And best of all, we will be living just minutes away from most of them!!!  I'm going to miss my dad like crazy and trust me, I want to pack him in my bag, but I can't.  (This is a post in itself...lets focus on the positives here).  Birthdays, holidays, baptisms, sports, and just everyday life....oh how we have missed having a big family around.  We can't even begin to express what it means to us.  Family is everything.  Another perk about being back in St. George is that it is in reasonable driving distance to family out in Las Vegas and CA.  Again, there are no words for our excitement in that!  I will get to see my sister, her hub and their beautiful babies again, more frequently!!!  I haven't seen my mom since the beginning of 2008 and I haven't seen a lot of my family since 2007.  It's very exciting.  And I am looking forward to seeing friends in St. George, northern UT, and CA again too!!   It's the people that give us the most warm fuzzies when we think about this move.

But since I'm on a role with making  lists today.  Here are a few things I love about St. George besides what I listed above:

*The temple with a visitor's center.  We love going there, especially on Sunday (to the temple grounds), to let the kids walk around and feel the spirit.  It's so lovely.  I love the temple here, but unfortunately the temple grounds are closed on Sundays and it isn't a place to walk around; it only has a parking lot.  Love the temple though.

*Lakes near by!

*St. George has the best parks!  We haven't found any that compare (besides CA), and as you all know, we've lived in many places.

*It's centrally located to many fun places.

*It's easy to get around and find places.   It's not too big or too little.

*It's beautiful. We miss mountains.  And we love the red rocks against the green grass.

*It's just an overall great town that feels happy, safe, and homey, hence "my happy little town."

Texas has been good.  We really like San Antonio.  I think it's a great place to live, especially where we live in San Antonio.  There is a lot to do here, entertainment wise.  But it just isn't the same as having a lot of family around.  We'll be looking forward to visiting San Antonio again when we come to see my dad.  We like a lot about it.  But we love St. George.  We will be arriving in St. George sometime between the 29th of Feb-March 3rd.  We aren't certain when we will be leaving at this point.  Can't wait!!

A big shout out to Rich's brother Russ!  If it weren't for him, we more than likely would not be moving into this house.  When we found the house online, we immediately sent them an email and a family picture.  We later found out that they said, "this can't be real.  It's too good to be true."  Because we were out of state, they also felt sceptical about replying.  So we actually never heard back from them right away.  The next day, Russ called the number since he had the same area code (hoping to increase our chances) and they answered.  It turns out that the owners and Russ knew each other from church and because of the kind of people Russ and his wife are, they became open to us renting their home.  I won't write it all out, but it worked out so quickly and smoothly and we consider it to be a huge blessing!  Thanks Russ and Ren!!!!!  Times a million!

Valentine's Day 2012

I found this idea on another blog and adopted it as our new February tradition.

What you are looking at is the aftermath of a family home evening activity where we wrote what we love about each member in our family (on heart shaped paper), and then hung them all over the kitchen to feel the love all month long.  We had that FHE a couple of weeks ago.

It worked out great, just as I had hoped.  The goal was to make each person feel special and loved, and boy did it work.  It was so fun to take turns reading what we love about each person and to see their smiles light up and collect their pile of hearts.  The kids helped me hang them all up when we were done. 

They all melted my heart.  Here are some of them:

On the real Valentine's day I took Jonah to Julien's class Valentine party.  He was super excited about getting to participate!

Julien was SO excited to have me come to his class.  He couldn't wait for me to meet his BFF, Henry.  I've been excited to meet little Henry too because Julien has made him out to be the greatest friend ever.  He just adores Henry.  We tried to have him over, but he hasn't been able to come yet.  So at last, I met Henry! 

And he was cute as a button and had the best smile! 

This here is Julien and Heidi.  They are also friends at church.

And a few more friends.

And his lovely teacher, Mrs. Branch.

They frosted cookies and exchanged Valentines.

Rich and I had planned to go out, but he needed to work and with everything going on right now, we decided to postpone our date.  We still exchanged gifts.  I got him Apollo 13-the dvd, some candy, and I made him a scrapbook of all of the love letters/cards we have ever written each other.  It was a trip looking back at some of those early letters.  It made me cringe at how immature I was.  I'm sure glad he stuck with me because I'm a lot more mature now (wink wink).  He loved the scrapbook, and that made me super happy!  He got me the cutest tote bag on the planet.  Well, maybe not the planet, but the cutest one from Target, that's for sure!  It's green (my fav. color) and my camera fits in it!  I'm smitten by it.  One of these days, in the near future, we plan to cuddle up and watch Apollo 13 together and hopefully go out to eat and call it our Valentine's date.  Hope you all felt the love this Valentine's day too!!

Cooper's First Haircut

Out of our 3 boys, Cooper's hair took the longest to grow.  He is 25 1/2 months and we finally gave him his first haircut.  It was a tough thing, especially for Rich.  We both love baby hair and those curls at the bottom.  Rich wanted to grow it out longer.  But it was really starting to get too long.  So he agreed that we should probably trim it up.  Let's take a look at just how long it got:

So we took him to the family barber; Rich.  Cooper was a little uncertain and nervous about the whole thing.

If you are wondering why our kid is covered in rashes all of the time, it's because he suffers from eczema.  

We tried to relax him by clapping whenever Daddy would snip some hair off.  He joined in and it helped.

We weren't sure what we should do with his hair.  At this point we realized we would need to use the clippers.

He tensed up a bit.  So we did the clapping thing again.

He looks like a new kid.

I miss his long hair.  But I'm slowly getting use to it. 

Once we comb it, it looks better; we definitely don't style like that (above).  Rich still wants to blend it a little better because sometimes it looks like he sporting the bowl haircut.  I think part of the reason we have a hard time cutting their baby hair is because it makes them look like big boys.  Our baby is growing up!

He Prefers Showers Now

Every time someone around here is about to get into the shower, Cooper rips his clothes off faster than we can stop him. He wants in!  He LOVES showers.  Even by himself.

It gives us a good laugh.  He is growing up too quickly!

The Karate Kid(s)

Those who know me well, know that I have no attention span to watch movies.  Actually, it depends.  If it's something that I REALLY want to see or interests me in some way, then I will willingly watch it.  (This doesn't happen with t.v., just movies).  Around here movie nights are huge and (unfortunately) I often do my own thing because I start twitching (just about) if I am watching something of no interest to me.  I hate it because I want to be a part of what the family is doing but I end up not being able to focus on the movie because my mind won't stop pestering me to get up and do something more "productive".  I realize spending time with the family IS productive, but when it comes to watching a movie I have the hardest time.  It's one of my selfish things that I am working on. 

Anyway, with that being said, Rich recently brought home The Karate Kid (the new one, with Jaden Smith).  Right away I knew that I was interested (I LOVE when that happens!!), and I knew I would be joining the family for movie night.  I loved this movie!  So did everyone else!  It definitely made me teary eyed and I got into it (also love when that happens).  Julien was extremely inspired by the movie.  I had a feeling that would happen since he loves movies like Rocky.  Afterward, Julien busted out his "karate" moves.  The next day, I was "invited" to watch the boys' karate match (is match the right term here?).  They are too funny.  And they think they know what they are doing.

I even got a ticket that I had to hand them to come and watch.  That is a very common thing around here (the tickets).  Julien gets very serious about this stuff and I think he is adorable.  I have most of those tickets from all the various events that I've been "invited" to and I will have to do a post on them one day.

Here is a sign from another day recently, but this was the only picture I got from that day...

Like I said, he takes this stuff very seriously!  I love his passion.

Cooper Likes to Dress Himself

Cooper is always dressing/redressing himself throughout the day.  Julien and Jonah never did this, as far as I can remember.  This is what he came up with one day. 

That hat is one that attaches to a snow jacket:).

Silly, cute boy.  Never a dull moment with you around! And YES, he STILL has a binki.  It's a life savor right now that I'm not willing to let go of quite yet.

Cooper's Big Boy Bed

My original plan was to keep Cooper in his cage crib for as long as possible.  He went down so nicely in that thing and nap time was no different.  But recently Cooper thought it was a great idea to rip his diaper off and pee in his bed or out of it, at some point during his nap and/or in the morning when he woke up (every single day!).  I was getting very sick of scrubbing the crib and the carpet, and of course washing sheets, blankets, and his mattress pad 1-2 times a day.  I started wondering if maybe I should just transition him to a big bed so that I could start potty training him.  I was also hoping that being free to get out of bed and come out of his room might also distract him from wanting to pee everywhere.  So I made the call.  To my dad, that is.  He bought this bed for Julien to sleep in when we use to visit him in CA (when he lived there and Julien was little; he is now in Texas).  I knew he had it in storage and wasn't using it, so I asked if I could buy it from him.  Being the generous guy that he is, he gave it to us!!  It's really nice and we are so thankful!  I still want to give him something for it!  Thanks again, Dad!!!! 

Rich picked it up and put it together with a little help from us. 

At first Cooper was so excited and was jumping on it and squealing with delight.  His brothers were feeling pretty jealous too.  They fell right in love with that comfy bed.  Sorry, no pictures for that part.

By bedtime, Cooper was saying "noooo" and would not lie down.  So I caved and laid down next to him.  The first night, he drifted off to sleep pretty easily with me next to him.

So I  grabbed my camera.  Where is he in that big bed???:)  And you better believe that that crib mattress was/still is next to his bed in case he rolls off.  Hey, I don't have a rail.  It makes me feel better for the time being. 

He is just so precious.

Gotta get every angle.  Why do parents melt over things like this?  Rich was standing in the room as I was taking these and he was oohing and awing over him too.

There's just something about this transition that tugs at our hearts.  Such a little guy in a big bed. 

And here it is all made:).

These are Cooper's favorite guys to sleep with.  Yes, he prefers to have both Pooh Bears.  And every night he kisses and hugs them before going to sleep. 

We are a couple of weeks into this transition now and it's not going so well.  Actually, the peeing all over has stopped.  He only did that the first night.  When it comes time to go to bed, it's...well, making me really miss the crib.  At first I was lying with him just to help him get used to it.  Then that stopped working because he would get up and start playing, so I resorted to locking the door and letting him cry it out.  Each night the cries have lessened but he still falls asleep next to the door.  I wait until he has been asleep for a while and I unlock the door and I have to push his little body with the door, just to open it.  I put him to bed and some nights he sleeps through the night, and most nights he climbs in bed with us.  Not a habit I want to stick, but hopefully he will adjust soon and be comfortable alone in his room.  My other boys adjusted really well.  Julien was only 19 months when we transitioned him and he was fine.  Jonah was fine because he shared a room with Julien.  If the rooms were big enough I would put all three boys together, but they aren't.  I plan on potty training him in the next month or two.  *A note to myself to remember...  When Rich or I lie in bed with him at night, he kisses his stuffed animals, makes us kiss them too, and will randomly reach over and give us a big hug and kiss.  It's presh!

Moments to Remember

First off, I rarely dress Cooper in footie pjs...I may have twice, besides when he was a baby.  I had put these on him one night after a bath and I was instantly obsessed with his cuteness.

He knew it too.

But staying on track with the title of this post...sometimes you just have to capture those sweet moments that melt your heart.  Like this:

and this...

What is so special about these pictures?  Well a couple of things.  One, Jonah and Cooper fight like nobody's business.  It's really because Jonah struggles to share and sympathize and understand that Cooper is much younger than he is (most of the time anyway).  So when Jonah initiates this sort of affection, my heart melts like butter!  And good thing I already had my camera out.  Second, Jonah is wearing a backpack!  Note, that it is right before bed, and he is fresh out of the shower.  He has this new love for that backpack of his, and I think it's adorable.  Jonah will be starting Kindergarten in a few weeks (well, I mean, public school kindergarten).  More on that later.

 He fills that backpack up with all kinds of stuffed animals, school work, a packed lunch, and he even wears it when we walk to the bus stop to pick up Julien.  One time I looked back at him in the car and noticed he was hunched forward because he was wearing it in the car!  I did make him take it off for safety reasons though; sorry bud.


...Jonah was feeling extra loving towards Cooper that night.  I want to kiss them both right about now!

Then Julien, who was also fresh out of the shower, hence the flat hair, joined in the love...

Man, I love these kids.

 And I sure love my camera, but obviously, I have no idea how to use it yet...

Meet Our "Spy"

One day, back in December, we noticed we hadn't seen Julien in a while.  So we looked around and noticed his door was locked.  He let us in and we found him dressed like this.

I know.  We laughed too.  Of course our first question was, "what are you doing?"  He got a little embarrassed and then said, "I wanted to dress up like a spy (maybe he is thinking more along the lines of special agent??) but I couldn't reach my whole suit."

He hammed it up for the pictures.

Love the hair-lip. 

 You're definitely going to kill me later for these.  Love you cute boy.

Now this guy could definitely pass for a special agent.....

I should note that this picture was not planned to fit this post.:)  It was just some random picture I took of him a while back, right as I opened the door after he just got home.