Just Another Week

Not a whole lot happened last week, thus the lack of posts. We mainly spent our time getting house stuff going, storytime at the library, school with the Potters, and then my parents came up for a quick visit and we spent a whirlwind weekend having a great time with family (although we were missing Candace, Angela, and the Kimball clan). Friday we did a big dinner and stayed up way too late playing Monopoly Deal and then the guys got up at the crack of dawn to go ice fishing with most of the kiddies, allowing the girls and the younger ones to go shopping. Then we loaded the kids up in the vans and put on movies so that all the adults could tour our new home while we took measurements for appliances and window fixings. We ended the family fun with the classic Papa Murphey's pizza dinner before saying goodbye to Mom, Dad, and the boys. Yesterday was church and I was once again reminded of why nursery is so great. The kids are so sweet and if you are only trying to keep 7 (instead of 14) reverent, it really isn't that bad! :) Then we had Jake and Stacey over for the Smith family traditional Sunday gooey rolls and some more Monopoly Deal. And now we are on to another week which will most likely be full of more fun with the Potters and more stuff for the house. I will try to take some pictures when we go for the inspection so those of you who missed the listing can see what we are looking forward to! Our banker also let us know that we will be closing a few days earlier than planned because of our interest rate lock, so we are hoping to move in the last weekend in February!!

We Bought a House!!!!!!!

http://www.snakerivermls.com/

The MLS Number is 169469
To see more pictures of the house, click on the camera below the main picture.
Because we have an accepted offer, the house may be taken off the listings very soon, so go check it out quick!!

Sledding with Daddy

Robert has been around alot more this winter with being home by about 6 every night and having every Saturday off.

Today Sammy and Daddy decided to go sledding in the front yard since there was some new snow on the ground to work with.

Isn't he just the cutest little man? We sure love our little guy!

Here's a little video of Daddy helping Sam sled down the hill :)

Sammy is Three!!

Here's the birthday boy enjoying his cupcake

Pulling out the airplanes each of the Potter girls made for our fridge - thanks girls!

The first gift Sam opened got him quite excited for the rest - a set of airplanes and helicopters

And a homemade teepee which Sam calls his tunnel. This is going to bring so much entertainment in the months and years to come! Thank you so much to Grandma and Great Grandma!! All of Sam's gifts were thoughtful and will bring many hours of enjoyment - thanks to all who helped us celebrate Sam!!

And the birthday cake. It turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated, but we managed to get it done. The cupcakes were for the kids and the adults enjoyed the yellow cake with chocolate marble and cream cheese icing. Sam's favorite part was his "spaceman" candle, which he lovingly used to stamp blue frosting across the top of the yellow fondant before the party. Sam had a great day and would go around singing "happy bird-day to me" :)

The Nightmare Continues

Ok, I'm admitting it: I've had a rough day (and it's only 2!) Sam gave me his cold, which has left me congested, difficult to sleep and just dragging through each day. But somehow I manage to drag myself out of bed and get me and Sam gone by 9 am to do my visiting teaching. Now don't get me wrong, I love visiting teaching and I love the sisters we see, but it gets really difficult to keep my sanity when Sam fights at every little thing and each visit takes an hour and a half and they are not scheduled quite together. So we get home around 1 and Sam is having a meltdown because he is tired and hungry. I'm not feeling great myself, so I get into some comfy clothes and set about getting lunch, when I notice a big pile of dirt outside the back doors. It has been pretty warm around here lately, but I didn't think we had a big pile of dirt under the snow in that spot, so I open the door to check things out. My worst fears are confirmed when I see the two to three foot long hole that has been dug right next to where the previous hole was - the skunks are back. I try to call Robert and he doesn't pick up, so I sit down and just cry. I am so ready to be done with this house!! Robert called back and helped me calm down by saying that its ok because we'll just buy a new one tonight (we are looking at two houses in our area tonight) and we will be calling the skunk guy, if we can find his number again. Appparently skunks are undesirables, even among the pest control community, and it is difficult to find someone to take care of the problem. So if you were thinking your day has just been horrible, know that someone you know is also thinking the same thing and that someday life really will get better - you just never know when it will be better or when it will be worse! :)

Staying Busy

Lucy didn't want to be left out of the picture taking

Sam, Natalie and Josh "swimming" on their ocean made from a blue blanket with the flattened moving boxes along the sides for a beach.

We have been spending most of our time this last week welcoming my older sister and her family to the area. It has been great to watch Sam interact with all his cousins and I cannot describe what it is like to have my big sister closeby again. Some of you may remember when Robert and I moved to Kennewick, Washington for a summer while he did his internship for the church farms. Corinne and her family lived in Prosser, which was around 40 mins away, but we didn't let that stop us from being out visiting them just about every weekend and several times during the week. We grew really fond of the Potters that summer and have always talked about living close to them again and so it seemed like a dream come true when they let us know that Ben was going back to school and they might be as close as Idaho Falls! Now they are here and they live right in downtown Rigby and we are so happy to have them, although we are working on sharing them with Ben's brothers and sister who live in the area as well :)
Sam has been battling a cold this week and now that he is finally just about past it, Mommy is feeling under the weather. This week we were called in to speak with the bishopric and even after expressing my concerns (ex: I'm pregnant and will only be getting more so, what I am supposed to do with a newborn in nursery, if I am nursing I will most likely have to leave the other teacher with all the kids at some point during church, etc) I am now called to be a nursery worker - obviously someone in charge has a sense of humor (they also wanted me to remain the visiting teaching coordinator, but I told them when the baby comes it will be time for someone else to have that blessing)

Daddy has been working hard or hardly working, we're not quite sure :) It has been great to have him getting home between 5 and 6 most nights and home every Saturday. So we used our free Saturday to go up to the shop and spend some time working on Robert's sandrail (more details and pictures to come at some point) Later that day we were able to go shopping for Sam's birthday - I can't believe he will be 3 on Friday!! We will be doing just a small party with family and I'm excited to try an idea I saw online for his birthday cake incorporating Toy Story 3. Pictures to come!!

Another Memorable Day

We have had another one of those days that you just won't forget anytime soon. The day looked promising with the return of our water supply last night after two days of absolutely nothing. But alas, it had more in store than I was betting on. I felt great being able to accomplish many of the things that have been bugging me since getting back from our trip: dishes, laundry, putting away Christmas, reorganizing the "catch all" table and the office, getting the snow tires put on the car and even getting a chance to get some gas station hot chocolate (my favorite!)
The first thing to go awry was the discovery of a ball of black and white fabric in the rubber seal of my washer. Since it was the load of Robert's work clothes, I thought it was just some fabric or lint of some sort. When I grab the thing, it turns out it is a MOUSE!! A dead, wet and very gross little mouse that had made its way in with the laundry somehow. I have to admit, I lost it a little bit. But thankfully it didn't scare Sam, he just thought Mommy was playing a game and being silly, even when he heard me telling the story to Daddy on the phone he simply thought it was an adventure worth repeating over and over again (even though he wasn't in the room for the discovery)
Most would think that in itsself would be memorable enough. But no, we need a little something more to keep this day alive, so Robert comes home from work and when I notice a rag and electrical tape wrapped around a finger he tells me "I don't want to show it to you because I know you will just make me go to the doctor" Great. These are words you don't really want to hear, but now that they have been said, you must trudge on. The result is the above picture, which is only part of the gash. I tell him he really should go, but he decides to take a shower first. I call my nursing sounding board (Corinne!) to confirm that he should at least get it looked at and ask the neighbors to watch Sam for us. I wondered if that was really necessary, but it turned out to be a really good idea. Not because it took all that long, but because after getting numbed up (which anyone who has experienced it knows usually hurts more than the injury itsself) Robert starts turning gray and calmly asks me for a drink of water. He didn't faint, but he definitely made us think he was going to. Now he is all stitched up pretty and got a tetanus shot and I will get to spend the next few days giving drugs and changing the bandages. How was your day?

Christmas

Here's the front room after Santa visited

And the stuffed stockings

Jolly Old Saint Nick even ate some of the treats we left for him! These were pretty yummy - an Oreo baked inside of a brownie - mmmm!

Sam had a great time Christmas morning opening gifts from friends and Santa and was a little frustrated when he needed help opening a few.

And by far the favorite present of them all was Buzz and Woody figurines. It was a great Christmas for all of us with very thoughtful and practical gifts. We enjoyed getting to be at home together being lazy all morning and then we packed up and left for the warm country of Arizona. There we spent a week enjoying family, food, motorcycle riding, bunny bashing, and paintballing. But as always, the week went by way too fast and we are now home again in good, COLD Idaho anticipating the move of the Washington Potters to Rigby - we are so excited to have them live close again! Hope all of you had a great holidays!