Diva

Addison is in that stage where she likes to change her clothes ALL the time, and she has to get dressed by herself.  Most days she changes clothes about 3 or 4 times (she sneaks upstairs and comes down dressed differently, sometimes even to the shoes!)

On this particular day she was dressed, and even let me fix her hair and put a "pretty" in it.  It didn't take long for me to find this...

 "but Mom, aren't I just so cute here naked under a blanket, with my hair pretty?"

 On this morning I told her to go up to her room and get dressed so we could go on a walk.  Here's what came down the stairs! haha!  I LOVE this girl!

 She even posed for me :) 

Ether 12:3

"For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed, saying unto them that by faith all things are fulfilled-"

I was looking for "my favorite" scripture for a project my Mom is doing.  I don't really have a "favorite".  I think they're all good, and can all be interpreted different ways, depending on what you're in need of.  I flipped to Ether (my smart phone makes flipping around very easy), and just started reading.  For some reason this scripture really stood out to me.  Maybe it's because I've been thinking about my little brother on his mission, and the importance of the work he's doing.  Maybe it's because I need to share my testimony more often.  Whatever the reason, tonight this is my favorite scripture!

Jail-Break

See this big, grated gate.  It's been working hard to keep Brogan off his favorite place in the house -the stairs.

See how it's now tilted off the stairs? Yup, looks like this gate has met his match.

The eleven month old Brogster has gotten the best of this silly gate.  

  We haven't had a roll-down yet, so I guess we'll just keep our eye on him and hope he doesn't have to learn the hard way!

 "Hi Mom!" from the top of the stairs.  He slides down on his belly now, one stair at a time.

 Look at this little rebel.  Making a break for it!  I just can't keep this kid off the stairs!

Brogan has spent the day climbing and descending the stairs.  I'm pretty sure he's a bit worn out, he's on nap number two right now!  Silly boy!

President's Day 2012

Today has been the best day ever.  SERIOUSLY.  It's President's day, and pretty close to everyone I know is going skiing.  Even Antonio went boarding today.  I thought that this was going to be just another boring day at home with the kids.  But with a little creativity, and a whole lot of cooperation from the kiddos, we've been able to turn this dull day into a super fun one!  

We started the day with "Occupy Living Room".  I think the kids were protesting nap time, but I don't think they know what they camped out for ;)

 Thanks to last summers' yard sales, and the DI, we have quite the collection of tents!

 Grandpa Jensen was here this morning helping Dad change a breaker, and he even joined the protest!

 Addison loved the tent setup.  In fact, she wanted to take her nap in the tents (an unsuccessful attempt, but valiant effort on her part).

Brogan woke up early, so he napped early (and for a surprisingly long time).  Stewart didn't leave for work till late morning, so Addison and I made a quick trip to the store to get a redbox.  We grabbed some soup and circus cookies for lunch while we were out.  (Addison loves to GO).  When we got back we shared soup, cookies, and lemonade while we watched 'Dolphin Tale'.  Wasn't a bad movie!  Addison was being so silly today.  Mostly just small things that made me giggle.  Like when I was getting stuff ready to eat our soup she kept saying "poop, poop Momma".  I thought she had to poop, but upon further investigation, she was just ready to eat some SOUP!  haha!  I tried to help her say soup, but it's still 'poop' to her.  Oh well.  She's cute.  I wish that I could've somehow recorded this whole day, with all the little cute things.  I hope that when my kids are in school, their days off will be spent just like today!

Teenagers

I'm pretty sure I can wait for my kids to become teenagers.  Here's Stew sitting in the boise mall waiting for Antonio to finish shopping the big American brands. Yup, I can definitely wait for our kids to be teenagers!

While we waited we decided to get our pictures taken.  We've never done these photo booth things, but it was worth our $3.00!  We thought we lost Antonio while we were in the photo booth.  He was in Abercrombie, and when we came out, we couldn't find him in the store anywhere!  (Don't worry- after a bit of fretting, we found him in the dressing room).

 Antonio with his "very cheap" clothing.  Didn't seem cheap to me, but I guess compared to Brasil, the six hundred dollars he spent on clothes today was a steal! One store was having 30% off everything in the store.  He bought like 6 shirts there.  When he came out he said, "today is the best day!"  He cracks me up.

(Thanks Mom, Dad, and JoAnna for watching the munchkins for us!  It sure would've been a tough day hauling them everywhere.  You guys are SO GOOD!

Wrestle-mania

Stewart was wrestling with the kids the other night.  It was too cute.  Now Brogan knows how to use his weight against his sister ;)

I love these hooligans!

Walks

Yesterday we loaded up and headed to the library for our "Every Child a Reader" program.  Addison is always a holy terror when we go to the library, but it's okay.  I love her so much, we'll go again next week. She even checked out her first library book. 

We also walked down to cooks to get some stuff to make our valentines (giant rice crispy kisses, which I overcooked). It was a chilly day, and by the time we headed home the wind had picked up.  Good thing we only live 2 blocks from the store (although that double stroller loaded down with kids and groceries.... was a decent little workout).  This is our 2nd walk since we've lived in town, and both the kids love them!  

Meet Antonio

This is Antonio Coracini.  He is from Virgin Grande Dosul, Brasil.  He's our exchange student! 

Antonio got off the plane in Twin Falls, only to find that his host family's basement had flooded, leaving him without a home.  Since he'll only be here for 4 and a half months, and since we now have an extra bedroom, I decided I couldn't not give him a home.  I thought, what if this was my kid in a foreign country, without a home?  I also thought about all the good people in Brasil that took care of Stewart while he served his mission. How could I not give him a home?  (Plus- Antonio will help Stewart brush up on his Portuguese!)

Turns out that Antonio is an AWESOME kid!  He's very good with our kids.  So patient with Addison being a meanie, Brogan's new temper, and the kids' crying at night (the move's been tough on them). He speaks very good English, but we've enjoyed laughing at some of the his language bloopers.  A few of my favorites "The new Iphone 5 comes out in my".  "In my? Ohhh, you mean MAY!"  And also - "How many jigga-bytes does that have?"  "jigga-bytes?  haha!  You mean gigga-bytes!"  Last night I told him he had to eat at least one of each vegetable.  He's really becoming part of the family!  He's learned to do his own laundry, cook eggs, and warm up food in the microwave.  He's very willing to help, and is eager to learn how to do household chores (in Brasil- he has a maid).  We're so very glad to have him in our home with us, and hope he enjoys his time here in America!

More pictures of the New Place! (upstairs)

Welcome back to our online house tour.  Let's start out in Addison's room!

the view from her doorway

She has a nice little closet, and these boxes in the corner are fun.  (only the top one opens -the bottom one might if the window sill didn't jut out).  All of her stuffed animals are hiding in her top toy-box.  I LOVE this fun little room. 

Addison's bed, letters, and 'Princess of Quite a Lot" sign.

The other wall.  She has her coats, doll house, bookshelf, and tucker toy box.  I think her bow board will go on this wall too.

Brogan's room.  I love the colors for his room.  Maroon, dark blue, and green.  Love how soft, yet bold this room is!  

Love these letters too!  Going to put some over-sized pictures above them (eventually)

His crib is in the corner (helps keep the morning sun to a minimum).  His cute coat rack (made from a 2x2 and some nails (I know- I'm so creative :)  

The built ins in Brogan's room.  They need a bit of paint and love, but for now they work fine.

This will be our guest room.  Thinking we'll try to find a queen bed, and keep this for when family comes (Rick... we even have a place you can stay).  But for now this is Antonio's room.  (Oh- you haven't met Antonio yet?  We'll don't worry- I'll introduce him to the blog later tonight! {hopefully})

The guest room closet (it's HUGE)

I love this bathroom.  It's super small, and our kids will have to learn to share space, manage their bathroom time, and  learn to get along!  I've always dreamed that my kids would be lucky enough to have to share a teeny bathroom.  Makes them better people.  What a dream come true.  :)

So there you go Rick- There's our house!  I'll upload a picture of the front in the daylight.  It's cute too.  We love it.  Love the big space, love that we can grow in it, love that we don't have to pay rent ever again, love that we got it for a steal of a deal, (and love that we were actually able to get it!)

It's a nice feeling to love where you're at!  

Pictures of our New Place! (The Main Floor)

I have been promising pictures, but I've been unpacking like crazy, (trying to get things ready for the baby shower I hosted today).  This morning Stewart's brother Rick called and wanted some pictures.  I guess if it means that much to Rick to see pictures of our new house he should just come see it himself I will put them up.  :)

So here's the official (online) tour of our new house!  

As soon as you walk through the front door, you enter the craft room/office.
{It's Awesome}

(from the inside) you can see the front door, the space between where  the craft room is, and our inside front door (which you'll have to knock on if you come over.... cause the doorbell doesn't work)

Our two front rooms (this is the view from the front door)
(please notice in the lower living room, the door on the right side... that's the garage door.  I mention it a lot later, but  never post a picture of it)

You can see the kitchen, that door leads to our scary basement , the stairs wind back up (you can see the slant above the door), and at the bottom of the stairs is the front door.  

Our dining room (new windows), and there's a little bar where the stools are.  

The view from the dining room into the kitchen (which is pretty big!)  That door  leads into the laundry room.

My brand new stove!  (Came with the house) (and my teeny tiny dishwasher that's somehow not connected... ?)

My huge laundry room.  to the left is the half bath (next picture), and out the door is the back porch and yard. 

This "vanity" needs some TLC (hopefully this summer).  The toilet is to the right.

The view out our back door.  We have a nice sized porch (it's covered in boxes so I didn't include them).  We have a nice big, fenced yard, and a nice bully barn shed for our gardening stuff.  (We haven't exactly looked in there... hopefully there's not a body hiding in it.. that would freak me out.  I'm thinking of doing raised planting boxes along the fence for my garden, but that probably won't be this summer.  That's okay- I'll take a year to work on my tan and chill by the kiddie pool. 

The covered portion of our deck.  Perfect for our patio furniture (someday) 

back to the living room we go.  This is the view from the garage door.  This living room is HUGE!
(Oh ya- did ya notice?  We got new couches! They're a poly-blend leather, SO comfortable!) I love em!

Panning around the living room... there's the door to our bedroom.

These doors (are next to the garage door).  There's a little alley between our garage and kitchen that leads to where the new hot-tub is going  the back yard .

The view from the master bedroom.

Our master bedroom.

our double closet (that's quite roomy), and the bathroom door to the right.

Our huge master bathroom.  I think the old owners had great intentions, but never got around to putting a tub under the window, and great cabinets all around.  So this will be a project bathroom (eventually).

The shower and Cadillac toilet

and this is our "creepy basement". It's stinkin huge!  The perfect place to store all our food storage, and tucker tote stuff.  I call it "creepy" because there's an old freezer,  (which I was sure was hiding a body), lots of spiders, and the fluorescent light is flickering on and off like a mad scientists' lab.  I prefer to send Stewart down there to get stuff :)

So that's the main floor.

Stay tuned for the upstairs tour.  

Finally In Our OWN Home!

Last Friday we made the big move across town, into our very first house!  Tim Bullers brought his crew of boys that work for him, his HUGE snowmobile trailer, and just two loads, and three hours later, we had just about everything moved out of our 800 sq foot trailer, into our huge new living room!  I seriously don't know what we would've done with all the help he brought (and on such short notice!)  We got the keys Thursday evening and talked with Tim that night at a basketball game.  Bright and early on Friday they all showed up, ready to work.  I'm still so impressed with those boys, and Tim!

So once we got all the boxes in the house, we ran into our first home-owners delights.  Our upstairs toilet leaked (into my kitchen cabinets).  Daddy to the rescue!  The boys headed out to Twin to buy a new toilet to install upstairs.  They came home with (and I quote) "The Cadillac of Toilets".  It was way too nice to put upstairs bathroom, so it went into our master (with the intent to put our old one upstairs).  My parent's didn't like the thought of putting a crappy toilet back into the house, so for their housewarming present they got us another "Cadillac" for upstairs.  (I truly have the best parents! They've been here around the clock for the past 3 days helping out!)

I've been living in the old house surrounded by boxes for about 2 1/2 weeks now.  So first things first, I've been unpacking as fast as I can!  My AMAZING Mother, deserves pretty much ALL the credit for my swift unpacking.  When I don't know where things go (in the kitchen), she pretty much unpacked it all for me!  She helped clean the new house, and ALL of the old house! She even took a day off work to help me unpack and re-arrange the kids' rooms and clean!  I can get so far, but then I go into "basket-case" mode, and that's when she really steps in.  She's so awesome.  I seriously would still be so unorganized, and have many, many more boxes without her help!

Stewart has truly been a saint through this whole move.  When we had to postpone closing over and over, he was upset, but was still there for me.  Now that we've moved, he's been trying to fix water issues, heat issues, and every other issue that a new home-owner has, ON TOP of work and school.  Today he came home and helped me hang a whole bunch of stuff throughout the house.  Seriously- how'd I get so lucky to get such a great man!?!?

I will post pictures soon, but here's a few things that I'm SUPER extra excited about in this new house.

• Our new couches we got as soon as we moved in
• Our awesome new carpet (it was already in, but it's awesome)
• Our HUGE living room space (seriously- the best space EVER!)
• Cable!  We couldn't get a signal for our old internet (or the other company) because we have too many huge trees around our house, so we had to get Cable One.  It's comparatively cheaper to get the internet/phone/Cable bundle rather than the expensive cable alone.  So now we have a whole bunch of channels of real TV! (not that I missed it too much, but I know Stew missed ESPN)
• My awesome scrapbook room that is it's own designated space!! (I'm so excited!)

So if you're ever in town- don't be afraid to pop on by and see our new space!  As soon as I get a few more things up- I'll post some pictures!  We're IN!

Closing!

We signed the closing papers on our house yesterday! The kids went to a friend's to play (THANKS JAIME!) and we spent about an hour and a half signing away our life!  We were actually supposed to close on Monday. We had an appointment and even went to the office, only to be told the seller wanted to go through their own lender (IN BOISE).  So Tuesday we did a "courtesy closing" here in Gooding through Insured titles.  I do have to say it was a little unorganized, and super rushed.  (I think I was expecting a little more first time home-buyer "padding") but either way I was SO happy to finally just get this over with!  Now we're just waiting for the seller to sign, and the lender to put the funds through.  THEN we'll be out of the woods, and have keys in hand!  (only then will I be completely at ease- back to sleeping at night)  :)