Repairs and more repairs.

Whew.  Get ready for a big catch up post.  This house selling/buying thing has messed up my rhythm.   Oy.  What can you do?

5/3—Was a day filled with soccer.  Josh had 2 games and Andrew had 1.  One of my favorite things about having kids is watching them play sports.  It’s something I totally didn’t expect.

5/4—In place of our Stake Conference we attended Mike and Tanya’s ward.  Mike was put in the bishopric and it was neat to be able to support their family.  I’m confident he will be great.

5/5—For the last couple winters, our back door has leaked a little bit whenever it rains.  We spent a lot of money fixing a problem that we thought was causing it: gaps in the siding.  When it rained again after some caulk and a paint job, it started leaking again.  Talk about stressful when you’re trying to sell your house.  Darrin came home from work the next day in de-bug mod and started doing lots of tests with a watering can, hoping to get it to leak and identify the problem area.  With a prompting, he was successful.  Since then we have had the window company come out and make a repair for free because the windows are still under warranty.  It’s rained since the repair, and I’m happy to report no leaks!!  So glad to have it fixed and for a husband who problem solves for a living.  And if you’re in the market for new windows, go with Milgard.  Their customer service has been fabulous. 

A little GNO for Cinco de Mayo. 

Love hanging out with these girls.

5/7—At the park during piano lessons.  Ella sure loves to swing. 

Andrew got to take his bike to cub scouts.  He had a blast riding around the parking lot and learning about bike safety and care.  He was totally embarrassed that I took this picture from the van. lol.

While the older boys were at scouts, Luke read Ella her favorite book:  Where is the Green Sheep?

5/8—Who is this girl and when did she get so big???

5/9—Luke’s B-day!  Everyone woke up bright and early so he could open his presents and eat doughnuts before school.  He got Legos, books, clothes, a game, and a moon light that shows the phases of the moon.

We had some repairs done in the attic that day so I let Ella take a nap in Luke’s bed since the attic access is in her room.

Ella’s very much in the “monkey see, monkey do phase.” 

Luke’s b-day party!!  We had about 6 (Zack, Cason, Ethan Y, Ethan P, Cameron, and Christopher) of his closest friends over for games, pizza, and cake.  The theme for the party was bugs and insects.  We played bug bingo, pin the spider on the web, and had a bug toss.  We ate dirt and gummy worms with our cake.  It was a blast!  Each boy got a bug catcher and plastic bugs to take home. 

 

We love our Luke and can’t believe how old he’s getting!

After the kids were in bed, Darrin and I stayed up late assembling the Mother’s Day treat for all the ladies in the ward.  I loved all the pretty colors of chocolate :)

5/10—Another busy day filled with soccer.  The soccer field had a big meadow by it where Luke and Andrew loved to explore.  They were very sweet and took Ella out there for a bit.  Andrew is so sweet with Ella. 

 

Darrin and I went out for our anniversary even though it is technically on the 11th.  We went to BJs for dinner and to Lowe’s to see what kind of carpet we want to put in our new house.

5/11--Mother’s Day and 12th anniversary on the same day.  So fun to celebrate both together.  Without one, I wouldn’t have the other.  This was Luke’s card to me.  Love that it’s in English and Spanish. 

5/12—Getting Sonic shakes for FHE.

5/13—She insisted that her sunglasses go on the top of her head like mine. 

The plumber came to fix the leak that the inspector found evidence of in the crawl space.  Unfortunately  he realized that it was coming from a drain pipe in the kitchen wall.  He started making cuts to see if he could find it.  We were very blessed when the plumber quickly found the cause of the leak: when the microwave was screwed to the wall, the screw went right into the drain pipe.  Nice.  But it was very good news we only had to remove the microwave to fix it and not cabinets and countertop. 

Luke had a soccer game.  He’s had a great season!  His team is very aggressive and has beat every team they’ve played. 

Andrew forgot to give me this on Mother’s Day, so he hid it under my pillow several days later.  It was a fun surprise I totally wasn’t expecting.  Made my day!

5/15—Birds got in the dryer vent and broke our dryer.  Darrin had to be a man and clean up what remains he could see in the vent and the opening in the dryer.  We had a repairman come the next day and he cleaned out a dead bird way inside the dryer too.  It was pretty fun watching the repairman be squeamish.  He was sure to give me a detailed description of what the gruesome scene looked like.  lol.  Luckily the dryer worked after the dead bird was removed.

5/17—I got an Intel tablet for Mother’s Day and the kids think it’s pretty awesome.  They were cute all gathered around it one Saturday morning. 

Andrew playing soccer.

Once we got home from all our soccer games, Darrin and the boys went down in the crawlspace to make some repairs.  The boys had a blast exploring and helping Darrin. 

After we finished, we went over to Terry and Laurie’s for a BBQ with the missionaries.  You can’t go wrong with good food and good friends!

5/20—I called the builder about the hole in the drain pipe made from the microwave.  They said our warranty ended 6 years ago, but they would send someone out to look at it.  The customer service guy came that same day. 

They fixed the pipe, but at the same time snipped the electrical wire running across there, so an electrician had to come fix that.  A couple days later, a drywall person came and fixed all the holes.  We feel very blessed the builder covered all this. 

Well there’s part 1 of the catch-up! 

Stay tuned for more!

For sale, a baby, and 3 offers.

4/21—Found this paper in Andrew’s folder.  I would sure like to know what kind of secrets he’s taking about :)  But I love how positive this paper is.  We’re always trying to teach our boys that their brothers will be their best friends.  I’m just glad it doesn’t talk about fighting and brothers who drive him crazy.

Story time before bed.  Ella sure loves that toddler bed.  Maybe once we move, it can be hers.  lol. 

Work continues on the pinewood derby cars. 

4/22—We’ve been working our tails off to get things clean, fixed and organized around the house, so we can put it on the market.  Our deadline is Thursday so hence that lack of pictures.  This house selling stuff is not for sissy's. 

4/23—The big day has finally arrived!!  Andrew’s first pinewood derby and Josh’s last. 

Andrew’s den did the skit where they joked about how dad’s tend to get too involved in the pinewood derby and do all the work. 

Josh was awarded the spirit of cub scouting award.  His special pin is in the shape of a pinewood derby car.  He wears it proudly!

And let the races begin!!  It was fun for Josh and Andrew to race each other.  Josh’s car was super fast in the beginning and beat Andrew’s.  But by the end of the night, Josh’s car had slowed down a lot and Andrew’s car beat Josh’s. 

 

Consulting with his dad about the race.   He really enjoyed the whole process and it was really cute to watch.

Andrew ended up getting 4th place overall and Josh got 5th. 

Andrew won the people's choice award by a landslide.  Everyone loved his car appropriately named The Pencil.

4/24—The photographer came to take pictures of our house so it could go on the market.  It’s been years since our house looked so clean and clutter free!  Why can’t we live like that all the time?

While all that crazy stuff was going on here, my sis. gave birth to this cute little person.  Welcome to the world Blake!

4/25—We officially went on the market.  I sat around all day for floods of people to call and want to look at it.  Surprisingly no one called and it made me a tad worried. 

4/26—At 7:30 in the morning the realtor called and said we had a 10:45 showing.  That would be easy, we would already be gone to Andrew’s soccer game.  We just had to make sure we left the house spic and span.  Two different people ended up coming to look at it during the time we were gone.  One really loved it and the other never gave feedback. 

4/27—I told the realtor when our church was and to send people over during that time if he had any interest.  He did text me at church and let me know someone was going over there at noon.  We took the long way home and by the time we got home, they were gone.  Right around 2:00 we got about five minutes notice that someone was coming to look at it.  We hurried and cleaned up, woke up a sleeping Ella and went for a drive.  I felt good we had pulled that one off okay.  The only problem was the house smelled like teriyaki sauce cause I was in the middle of making dinner. 

4/28—This cute girl waiting for her breakfast to pop up in the toaster. 

The for sale sign was finally put in my yard.  Sad :(

We got notice of another showing at 6:30pm.  These people wanted to buy the house behind ours, but had been too slow, so the realtor was fairly confident we’d get an offer from them.  I tried not to get my hopes up!  We all headed to the school for Luke’s soccer practice.  The weather was beautiful!

I took the kids to Wendy’s after practice to kill more time until the showing was over.  On our way home, Darrin called and said we had 2 offers on our house, and that didn’t even include the people that were just there.  And they were writing one as well.  We couldn’t believe it.  5 showings and 3 offers.  After the kids were in bed we called up the realtor and chatted about each offer and decided on the best one to take.  We picked one, but we did need to counter offer and see if we could rent back our house from them for 10 days until we can close on our new house. 

4/29—The counter was accepted!!  I’m super glad to be done with the whole showing thing cause it’s a ton of work to always have the house clean!  We feel very blessed that we got offers so quickly. 

4/30—The weather has been very summer like the last couple days.  The boys could hardly make it home from school.  I think it was 80 degrees.  lol.

Hanging out at the park during piano lessons.  in the shade.

After the kids went to bed, Danielle and I escaped to Kohl’s to buy Ella some summer clothes.  We stopped by Sonic on the way home and chatted in the car for a long time.  Yeah, she’s pretty much not allowed to move.  Why do all my friends move??????  Jenae-you better not be next.

5/1—The kids are obsessed with Rainbow Loom right now.  They used their allowance to buy more bands and a new loom.  It’s all they want to do all day long.  Hey it’s better than video games.  I just wish the tiny rubber bands didn’t end up all over the house. 

Ella’s starting to be very into my shoes. 

5/2—Don’t you wear your sunglasses right when you wake up?

and pretty much all day long?  She’s kind of obsessed with the sunglasses at the moment. 

The kids had a school assembly this afternoon, and Luke won the award for the character trait of honesty.  Way to go Luke!!

With the awesome weather we’ve been having, we’ve sure been at the park a lot.  I got the chalk out for these two to play with.  It kept them busy for 3.2 minutes. 

Snuggles with daddy. 

 

Our night ended tonight watching the awesome win by the Blazers.  I’ve never really been a Blazers fan, but I guess I might have to start.  lol.  Our yelling and screaming was so loud Josh and Andrew (who should have been asleep) came out of their room to see what the ruckus was all about.  It was pretty awesome.