Jackson dude... loves to jibber jabber. He can say quite a bit. He'll copy what you say with some words like blue or green. He tries to say it when you tell him colors. He knows what hot is (thank goodness). Makes dinner preparation a lot easier. He will try to say cold if you say it. He can kinda say milk. When Charlotte is crying (especially on the floor throwing a fit) he goes over and says, "You okay?" It's pretty dang cute. He says "Hi" if he sees someone walk by outside. He says "Bye" and "Go" when we're leaving somewhere. He loves to say "shoes and socks." These words must also never be brought up unless we're leaving otherwise his little heart gets broken. He also likes saying "It's Daddy." I think because I say that whenever Scott comes home and he gets all excited to see Scott. I can't remember any other specifics right now but he does try to mimic a lot more of what we say. He's still a great sleeper. He only does one two hour nap a day and then sleeps about 10-12 hours at night. He's a very sweet boy and gives lots of hugs and kisses. He's also into everything. He's calmed down a bit with the climbing for now but I'm sure he'll always be a climber. He's growing fast. His little belly pokes out from some of his shirts. At least fall isn't too far off but I'll need to be looking at getting him some new clothes soon. He's growing fast. He's a pretty good eater. He'll try most meats and usually eat a decent amount. He loves fruit. Grapes are his favorite but recently he's really been eating a lot of bananas and berries. And I scored some amazingly sweet blackberries and raspberries from Costco so I think that's helping. Best I've ever bought! I haven't taken a ton of pics but here's what I have of him...
It was so nice when my parents finally got their satellite and internet hooked up at their new house. It made all the difference when we were working over there. I'll go into all that later. Jackson was excited to have the Roku working so we could use my mom's Amazon Prime to watch Yo Gabba Gabba.
Scott had done this with Charlotte. Since we are basically a neutral family when it comes to the big BYU/Utah rivalry, Scott sets down a helmet from each team and lets the kids pick their team. I think Charlotte did the same thing Jackson did. Picked up both, then put down the UT helmet. Guess he's chosen his team. Hahaha.
Dude eating breakfast. He does okay with eggs but won't eat a ton. I try to switch it up each day otherwise he gets sick of it.
Now onto Charlotte. She has been a big help this past month. She has helped me in keeping Jackson busy. She's also been having a ton of fun at my parent's with all the animals. She love the ducks and chickens. She loves her family and is always excited when she gets to spend time with them and any other family. I know how much family means to me and I'm glad she carries this trait too. I've always loved hanging out with my family and doing stuff and she's the same. She loves her grandmas and grandpas and she's always talking about all her cousins. I can't believe how much she's grown up. She dresses herself every day and some days her outfits just make me smile. She likes to help with things. Especially when it comes to making pancakes. She loves to color and play in her room with her toys. She loves bugs even though I think they scare her sometimes. Oh and this girl loves Zupas. We don't go out to eat often and RARELY take our kids out. It's usually just too hard when Jack wants to run around and they really won't eat much. Usually a waste of money. But last Friday we went to Costco and Winco and ended up doing dinner at Zupas. Charlotte loves the Wisconsin Cauliflower soup and loves to dip bread and crackers in it. She also tried my nuts about berries salad and really liked it. She ate quite few bites. Jack was pretty restless and for whatever reason there were only like 2 highchairs and both were being occupied so he had to sit on Scott's lap which is just not gonna work. We tried. I think I only had a couple pictures of Charlotte.
She loves dressing up in her Rapunzel costume and here she wanted her picture taken.
Charlotte asked that we bring the slide back up. We thought with Jackson being older now that would probably work. So we did and they played and laughed but then Charlotte kept sliding down while Jack was in the way and it resulted in lots of crying and fighting so back down to the basement it went. Maybe again soon.
So lets go back to June. My parents had signed papers and were just waiting to get keys to their new house. Finally got keys and we went in to see what needed to be done. It was a joke. After everything I have no respect for the people that lived there before. If they ever cleaned that house it was minimal to where you couldn't even notice. There were dead bugs and spider webs all over. The carpets were filthy. Food and drink spilled and not properly cleaned. Mouse droppings all over. It was just gross. So we started the first week with lots and lots of cleaning. I vacuumed bugs out of the window sill and bleached and cleaned those all out. We washed walls, wiped floorboards, vacuumed near the floorboards, and disinfected EVERYTHING. It was some intense cleaning. The majority of my days were spent going down right after breakfast, bringing Jack home for a nap, coming back after lunch, cleaning until dinner, going home to feed the kids, then I'd go back by myself while Scott watched the kids. They were extremely long days and I was exhausted. We'd work all weekend. The second week was spent painting, removing wallpaper, and cleaning more walls. The schedule was roughly the same. Sometimes we'd take mornings off so my mom could pack and clean the house they were in. The beginning of the 3rd week involved carpet cleaning (made a HUGE difference) since my parents can't afford new flooring at the moment. Then we worked on moving stuff in and by June 30th had to have them all moved in.
Now when they got the keys to the house stuff was still there that the original owners had to get. They have this business (Last Ride or something like that) where they have a special trailer that will pull the casket behind a motorcycle for all those hardcore Harley fans. So they left a horse trailer, a big white trailer, this motorcycle and the trailer with a casket in it. One day some guy came back to help them and said they were going to be picking up this stuff. Then the lady shows up. She is a piece of work, let me tell you. Oh and a little background... this house was practically a foreclosure... or even a short sale. These people haven't been making a house payment for at least a year possibly more. They sold off a bunch of water shares leaving my parents with hardly anything. Just enough to water the horses and have water for the house (and to purchase water shares its like $8k right now). The guy is on disability. I think he might have MS. My mom has heard quite a bit since they were in that stake before and that ward used to be part of their old ward. Basically the lady has burned through his money and buys all kinds of stuff and they take all these trips around on their bike. So they are in the state they are in because they made bad choices. But she comes to the door one day and I hear her talking to my dad about all this stuff. She was saying how they came back from this trip and all of a sudden they're told they have two weeks to move out. She must have forgotten the part how the bank was going to kick them out in APRIL! If it wasn't for their realtor and the judge they would have a big fat foreclosure on their record. So she's trying to make some sob story. Then she manages to get in the door and was asking why they hadn't moved stuff in yet. Did she see the house when she left? We had been doing some cleaning at that point but it was no way livable yet. She is delusional. That place was gross. Then she sounded all offended that we were going to be painting. Ugly orange is not a nice color for an entire living room lady. Then she starts trying all these keys in the door and she's like, "Oh you already changed the locks?" Duh! Because the realtor said not to trust you or your family and they have criminal records so make sure we do that first. Then she goes on to tell my dad about how she's selling the dog run on KSL. Sure you are. Then we realized that the guy that took the horse trailer took some panels and something else out of the shed. Not sure what. It was just crazy. But it didn't end there. So once everything was totally official they still had a motorcycle on the property. I told my dad he should just have it impounded. He didn't. But then we took apart the dog run because we were going to be setting up the chicken coop and needed the fencing. We set it on the side of the driveway and my dad also had a roll of horse fencing there. Well at some point when my mom was at the other house doing stuff the original owners had some friends go by to get the motorcycle then they took the dog run we took apart and my parents horse fencing. That was it. My dad got the Sheriff involved and to date the stuff still hasn't been returned. He tried to work it out with the owners but they kept saying they didn't know what happened because they weren't there and the dog run was their's anyway. But problem is whoever you had come on that property stole my parents horse fencing. I hope my dad keeps pushing it because from what they've been told all these people do is take advantage of others. They need to be held responsible because they have been living in some fantasy world thinking everything should be handed to them. They've had no real responsibility the last year or two. And you think these people wouldn't be this way when they're older and in their 50s or 60s but they're ridiculous. They also didn't disclose a lot of stuff. Like how the whole sprinkler system is messed up. Or the faucet in the barn leaked really really bad to where my dad had to dig down 3 feet and will have to replace all the pipe just so they can water their horses. Right now they're running hoses from the house. Both water valves for the washer leaked and they had to cut into the wall to repair that. The water softener hasn't worked in forever because all the faucets had really bad mineral deposits. Worse than our home was when we moved into it and ours was a rental. The filter for the well hadn't been changed in a very very long time. There are just all kinds of issues. It has definitely been a work in progress but its coming around. The inside looks way better than it ever did. It's a great place for the kids to run around and play. My dad even put up a swing for Charlotte in one of the trees. There are a million snails but I guess the chickens and ducks love them so when it rains they love it. The horses love it. Quick story about that... Mouse loaded the trailer fine and Dove wouldn't go so they ended up taking Mouse over on her own then my mom rode Dove from their friends house to the new house. Probably about 3 miles. I walked with her a good chunk of the way because I was nervous. If I was a more skilled rider I would have offered too but Chloe was too scared and I don't have the experience so my mom did it. Her friend also followed in her car driving slow so some of the way I sat in there with her. That was crazy day. So although this was not the ideal move it's all coming together and over time it'll be a fun place for the kids to be and just to be together as a family. My brother said when my parents go I can have the house because he doesn't want it and doesn't want to move their stuff. Hahaha... ummm.. okay...
So that was basically June. Once we got the other house cleaned out and my parents all moved in I realized I had two weeks to focus on camp stuff. I was in charge of the flag and the sweatshirts. I guess the girls really wanted sweatshirts. We spent a lot of money on the sweatshirts. We couldn't afford to screen print them so we did a small iron on on the front. It was in a circle and said I will stand with the year and the girls name. All us leaders got one too. Our theme for our ward was "I Will Stand Unspotted." We chose South Africa for our country and ended up letting each tent pick a safari animal to represent them. Here is a picture of the flag. The girls painted the tree (our little savannah tree of life) and did the stenciling for our ward name and theme. Then I traced the animals on and painted them. Later on we made signs by each animal and put the girls names on the signs corresponding with the animal that represented their tent. I was lucky enough to get it all done just in time. Phew!
We also got to celebrate the 4th of July. Charlotte loves the parade and Scott's parent's have a friend that lives on the parade route and she's nice enough to let us come down and enjoy the festivities. They do a brunch and its all shaded so it makes it so much more enjoyable. Charlotte loves the candy too. She had a blast. Here's the pics I took...
My dudes... so cute!
Her grandma is just too nice! We didn't have cash so she gave us some because Charlotte wanted the cotton candy. Lucky girl!
That night we did some fireworks here at our house. We didn't have to do much though. People around us put on amazing show. When my parents left there was so much smoke you hardly had any visibility. And the people close by were setting off some really cool stuff like the big ones that shoot in the sky. It was pretty cool to watch it all from our yard. Thank you neighbors! It'll be interesting to see how Pioneer Day is tomorrow since we'll be doing more.
July 18th I got to see Jimmy Eat World with the X Ambassadors at The Depot in SLC. That was awesome. If you know me at all you know I love Jimmy Eat World. I don't know if there is anyone I listen to more than them. Seriously... all their music is just great. My sister went with me because Scott doesn't really like concerts. We got a good spot in line minus how it was in the blazing hot sun and we were sweating like nobody's business in line. Luckily it was air conditioned inside. We basically were second row. There was a couple in front of us up against the fence thing they put up and we were behind them. The X Ambassadors opened and are really really good live. The lead singer has a blind brother who plays the keyboard and he is awesome. They put on a good show and are just very talented. Jimmy Eat World played a HUGE set. I wrote all the songs down at home and hopefully didn't miss any. These are also in no particular order:
Bleed American, A Praise Chorus, The Middle, Sweetness, Hear You Me, Big Casino, Let It Happen, Like She'll Always Be, Chase This Light, Lucky Denver Mint, Your New Aesthetic, Crush, Appreciation, Damage, I Will Steal You Back, Please Say No, No Never, Futures, Work, Kill, Pain, Heart Is Hard To Find, My Best Theory, and a Taylor Swift Cover - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. That cover was pretty awesome. It was the most fun I've had at a show in a long time and I just love hearing them live. It was just so good! I did take a few pics. Not the greatest (thank you ghetto camera) but not too bad.
So now I'm trying to remember what else we've been up to. Let me add some more pictures and that might help. Might also be pretty random...
I loooooove summer thunderstorms in the desert. The clouds do cool things and I just love weather in general.
Went with my parents one evening to pick up some hay in Heber. There was some crazy weather that day and we avoided a whole bunch of it somehow but it was swirling around us. Pardon the blurry pictures.
I don't make cookies often because high altitude cooking can be a pain. Cookie recipes are not universal. The top right was the first two I tried. I usually follow the Nestle recipe but I always end up needing more flour, thank you high altitude. So the bottom right is a much better batch. Oh I totally just remembered! I made these for Scott when he went to St. George with his dad and brothers for Father's Day. They went for the weekend. That is the first time since Scott and I started dating that we had been apart for more than 24 hours. He had a lot of fun and they want to make it an annual thing. I think its good for them to spend that time together. So anyway the bottom right was awesome. But on this busy day where I squeezed it in between helping my mom and the new house and taking care of my own I forgot I put in a batch in the oven then hopped in the shower. Good one. Overcooked the last bunch. I'm awesome.
Do you see the typo on this ad? It kills me. How you do let this go to print with a pretty obvious typo. It was one of the first things I noticed about the ad.
Needed a dessert for dinner with my family. Got too busy working on a lesson I forgot to go to the store but happened to have some frozen peaches and butter so I whipped up a peach pie. Never done a top like this. Just need to roll it out thinner next time but over all wasn't too bad for my first try.
So I think that sums it up... wow... took me long enough! Tomorrow is the 24th and as usual we will be celebrating at Lagoon courtesy of the Transcript Bulletin. Scott's family will be going to so it'll be fun to hang out with everyone there and just have fun. My nieces and nephew are also out so we've spent lots of time with them and have some fun things planned at some point. I'm sure I'll have more pictures and hopefully won't take too long in between!
1 comment:
Hi there! My name is Heather and I have a question about your blog! My email is LifesABanquet1(at)gmail.com
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