No really I am here!

I really do still check on my blog and I am planning on getting back with it soon.  We made the move and are getting all settled here in Wyoming.  Tomorrow we get our official internet connected, so I will be able to blog more easily and have a lot to catch up on.  If you are still stopping by I appreciate the support and will be posting regularly again soon, I am even planning on participating in the A-Z Challenge again in April and have some fun ideas for posts for that.

Questions at 4

It's hard to believe the time has flown by, but today my boy turns 4!  

Last year several of my bloggy friends who have similar aged children had their kiddos answer a questionnaire and blogged about it, and so did we- you can find that post here.  Now that Austin is four I asked him the same set of questions.

Questions for Austin at age 4:

1. What is your favorite color? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Ducks and cars
3. What is your favorite fruit?  Mango
4. What is your favorite show?  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Noodles
6. What is your favorite thing to wear?  Mario shirt
7. What is your favorite game?  Super Mario Galaxy
8. What is your favorite snack?  Fruit snacks
9. What is your favorite animal?  Zebra
10. What is your favorite song?  Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
11. What is your favorite story?  High Five Magazine
12. Who is your best friend?  Redick or Mama
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Purple cereal (fruity Cheerios)
14. What do you like to do when you go outside?  Play basketball
15. What is your favorite drink?  Apple juice
16. What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you? Steggy (stuffed stegosaurus) and ducks 
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  Eggs
19. What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner?  Noodles
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Like Jake and the Neverland Pirates

Feathered trespassers

We have been having two visitors showing up in our yard in the last month.  One thing I will not miss about this community is how people get animals and then just let them go when they no longer want them.  We have had visiting dogs, cats, rabbits, and now turkeys.  One time we even had cows in the lot across the street, although they just escaped their home and weren't released like the other animals.

On December 23

On December 30

On January 7 (this did not at all set well with Dustin)

On January 14

Hot Dog!

We had a huge birthday bash for Austin's fourth birthday last Saturday.  His actual birthday is Jan. 22, but that is the day our stuff, and hopefully us too, rolls out.  We had quite a house full as pretty much everyone who was invited accepted the invitation and most of the parents came too.  I think everyone had in mind that we will be gone soon and wanted to spend some time with us.  Overall it went well and everyone had a good time.

I crocheted the Mickey/Minnie hats for all of the kids.  I had a lot of time during our house hunting trip as it was an 11 hour drive there and back.  However, 4 more kids RSVPed after I got home, so I had a lot of catch up crocheting, but pulled it all off.  If you are interested in the pattern, here is the link:

Source: repeatcrafterme.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I had to adapt the pattern as it was for babies.  I used a bigger crochet hook, and added a few more increases in stitches.  I used the same ear and bow pattern, just used the bigger hook.  I also ran out of time to sew the buttons on so I hot glued them and it worked pretty well.

I was a little concerned that the kids wouldn't want to eat the black frosting on the Mickey cake, but I was wrong, they were asking for the ears.  Austin asked for funfetti cake for the main cake and the cupcakes were yellow cake because one of the guests is allergic to milk.  

Austin is already telling us what he wants for his next birthday party theme.  Kind of like he keeps asking when Santa is coming again.   When we get to Colorado on our way to Wyoming we will have another small birthday celebration with Grandma and Aunt Cathy.

House sweet house

It was quite a busy and chaotic house hunting trip, but we came away with a pretty good place.

The rental market in our new city is crazy.  They said there has not really been a recession there, so things are still booming and rentals get snapped up within days.  We looked at several places that were small, super expensive, or in bad areas, but we lucked out and got an agent who had this house and just got the previous tenants out and hadn't even gotten it show ready yet, but said he would have it ready when we need it at the end of the month.

Now we just have to pray that our house here sells soon so we can find and buy a place there to make our forever home.

Do I still have a blog???

Yes, I am still here and am so far behind on this blog.  See I have two kiddos now who demand nearly constant attention, and I'm getting ready to move, and there was a major holiday for which I attempted to make several projects for both home and gifts, so I have been B-U-S-Y!  I'm only here now because baby girl is being little miss insomniac and I'm waiting for her to get good and asleep before I turn in myself.

Christmas was good, we were here at home just us.  We went to Mass on Christmas Eve and both kids were extremely well behaved which was such a gift in and of itself.  We came home and let Austin open one gift which I think will be our tradition from now on, that we will each get new pajamas that are to be opened on Christmas Eve to be worn for the night. Austin had a blast this year and it was really fun to watch him enjoy the whole process.  We tried to feed Katy cereal for the first time, but she wasn't too impressed.

We went sledding the Sunday before Christmas and had a blast.  We went to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes because they make fabulously smooth sledding runs.  We went for a while with just our family, then we met up with a group of friends.  They had a camp fire which was so nice to warm up by.  Great times were had by all!

We are heading back to Wyoming next week for our house hunting trip.  I am SO EXCITED to be there! It's going to be so hard to come back here for two more weeks after that.  I hope that we find an acceptable place, the market is tight there.  I have been looking into restaurants, the rec center, and other stuff to see while we are there and it is going to be a fun trip.  I am also trying to figure out how to select a Pediatrician too as both kids will be do for well child checks right after we move.  Here it was never an issue as we just went with who was available, but there are a lot to chose from there.  Hopefully the weather holds our for our drive.

We have started plans for Austin's fourth birthday bash.  We are doing it 10 days early this year since we are moving the week of his birthday.  We still don't know the exact date that the moving company is coming, but we are anticipating being here and that his last day at the Learning Center will be his actual birthday, so he can take cupcakes as birthday/going away.  We are hosting the party here at our house and going with a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme.  It will be fun to have all his buddies together one last time and give him a good send off.  I'm also hoping to pick up some of the supplies for the party next week while I am in Wyoming.

Well I think Miss Katy is good and out now, so I'm going to head to bed.  If I don't blog again before the new year I hope you have a fabulous day and a prosperous 2013!

Oh my this girl!

We took the kids to see Santa at the local grocery store this morning.  They have Santa for the kids to visit for free and you can take your own photos.  I have to say that it went exceptionally well this year.  Austin was great, he just went straight for Santa, got on his lap and had a nice little conversation with him.  Katy sat on his lap for photos and didn't cry a bit.  I got home and downloaded the photos and picked out the best one of Austin and Santa, Katy and Santa and then both kids with Santa.  I posted them to Facebook and a few people liked them.  Then my oldest brother caught me online tonight and said they thought Katy wasn't too impressed, and I said I thought she did ok since she didn't cry.  He was like, maybe I shouldn't point this out, but did you happen to look at her hand.

Yep, that's my girl flipping off the camera at the ripe old age of 4.5 months old!

Wise beyond his years

Yesterday I was in Katy's room changing her diaper and Austin came in the room.  He said the letters on her wall "K-A-T-Y, that spells Katy!"  and I said "yes, good job buddy."  Then he asked "what does that spell" and pointed to a banner that I saved from my baby shower and hung under her name.  I said the first word is "B-A-B-Y and that spells baby, and G-I-R-L that spells girl."  He looks at me and says "I like girls... they're a little tricky"  I about fell over laughing, who knew at 3 that he would have such an understanding already!

The ship finally came in

We have big and exciting news at our house, Dustin was offered and accepted a position with the Bureau of Land Management in central Wyoming, so we will be moving in January.  I will live just under 4 hours from my Mom, just over 3 hours from my sister, 2 hours from my friend Brandi (her blog is Life of a New Mommy of Two), and about 4.5 hours from my youngest brother.  Unfortunately we will live further from my older brother, but there is an airport near where we will live, so we can fly to Phoenix to see him.  We drove there while we were back in Colorado for Thanksgiving and we love it.  We were unable to find a rental for now, but the realty companies all said there would be several more before January. We will probably take another trip there in a few weeks to secure a rental.

Dustin's start date is January 28.  I am excited about that as Austin's birthday is the 22nd, so we will have a big birthday/going away bash for him with all his friends before we leave.  It still is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we are moving after living here over 8 years.  I guess it will settle in when the moving truck comes and takes our stuff away.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us that we are able to sell our house here.  We lowered the asking price significantly as we decided it's better to take a loss and move it rather than hold out and have to pay our mortgage payment and rent.

Warms my heart

Tonight I was sitting in the bathroom while Austin was taking his bath and I was holding Katy.  I would hold her up to my face and tell her "I'm going to eat your belly!" and then kiss her belly and make little growling sounds.  She would giggle and smile at me and was totally loving it.  Austin got a concerned look on his face and in a serious tone says "don't eat her belly Mom, she is special!" I love that kid!

Halloween

I know it’s way late, but here are some photos from our Halloween.

Freedom!

I just got back from casting my votes today and thought I would share some election day thoughts.  I was surprised to see this morning that none of the blogs that I follow had done a post about voting yet.  Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you who I voted for or try to twist your arm to support any particular candidate.  I personally wish more people would keep their political views between them and the ballot booth.

My first memory having to do with election day was when I was a pretty young child, although I don't know exactly how old I was then.  My Mom took me with her to the voting precinct which was at the old Chevy dealership in our small town, the building is now a Mexican restaurant.  I got out of our old blue station wagon and when I went to shut the door I put my other hand on the side of the car for leverage and slammed the door shut.  Unfortunately the tips of my fingers were in the way and I smashed them in the door.  After crying profusely for some time my Mom was able to take her tear stained girl in to cast her votes.  The election official lady felt bad for me and she gave me a ballot and said I could take it home and fill it out and my Mom could bring it back in for me.  I took it home and colored in some of the ovals with my crayons and gave it to my Mom.  You can imaging my disappointment when my Mom refused to humor me and said that I was too young to vote and the lady was just trying to be nice.

I have been proudly voting in every election since I turned 18.  I know a lot of people were opting for early balloting this year, but there is just something too nostalgic about going in on election day.  Today it is a beautiful blue sky mid 70's day so I pushed Katy in the stroller to the firehouse to vote.  When I walked up there was a sign marking off the 75 ft buffer zone for demonstrators, but there were no demonstrators in sight.  I went in and was the only voter at the time, just 8 election officials sitting around waiting to help me.  Pretty uneventful.  Way different experience from when I lived in Fort Collins, Colorado and stood in line for over an hour to vote in the Bush/Kerry election 8 years ago.

I know some people feel that their one little vote is insignificant in the sea of millions, but I take a great deal of pride in voting.  I am so grateful that I was born in this country and think even all the nasty political mudslinging is a wonderful sign of our freedom.  I hope that my fellow American blog friends have cast their votes, or will do so before the polls close today.