Long Overdue

Yes, I know. I am absolutely TERRIBLE at updating this thing. Let me tell you, my personal journal isn't much better. Sad, sad story people. Life is zinging by and I'm missing it because if I don't take the time to write it down, it disappears faster than I can relish it and soon I forget all the small things that make life right now what it is: wonderful.  SO... I'm going to take a second and give a quick update. Someday I will finish all my backtracking posts and get you totally updated on our life over the past 8 months, but that won't happen tonight.  NOTE:  None of the following posted pictures have been edited.  I know you don't care and probably don't notice, but I am absolutely cringing at the thought of posting unedited pictures on here.  C'est la vie!!


We moved into our beautiful home on June 25th and are absolutely in LOVE with it.  Clint took that first week we were moving in off from work so that we could get totally unpacked and settled as soon as possible since this is our forever home and we wanted to live HERE and not out of boxes.  Sorry, the pics are only of about 1/2 the house and unfortunately only one of them are of the outside {kinda, it's our family pic from the 4th of July.  It was taken in the courtyard out front}.  I'm still working on the rest!  It's on my "someday" list LOL

This house has felt like home since we moved in.  We are so excited, even with all the responsibility that has come with it.  We have almost an acre and a half with the house and Sandra {the woman we bought the house from} planted all kinds of yummy stuff.  This fall {ok, every fall from now on} will be a busy one trying to figure out when and how everything needs to be harvested, but it's a great challenge and SO rewarding!  Our garden was very generous, the grapes and figs were fab, apples are just starting to come off and in the next month our pecans, pistachios, walnuts and pomegranates will be ready also.  Crazy busy, bring it on!!  :O)


Next up, we went camping with my family on our beautiful mountain in mid July.  It was such a great weekend - although sorry to my BIL Troy who isn't quite simpatico with heights and had to drive up the cliff-side road with no guardrails... SORRY!!!!  We hiked and found a TON of lady bugs {note the difference between how many bugs are crawling on my girls vs my nephews... city boys!  LOL}.  It was just nice to get to share our mountain with my family.  My grandma had actually camped there as a little girl during the summers and until 2 years ago hadn't been back in almost 70 years!  CRAZINESS!!  Grandma, you don't look that old my dear!

Clint's Grandma GG came down from Oregon in April and stayed through July with Russell and Jonnet.  It was such a treat to have her here, the kiddos LOVE their Grandma GG and she will definitely be missed!

Ah, next comes the 24th of July.  Clint has somehow ended up in charge of our ward's float for the last X many years and this year a few days before he decided that we as a family needed to dress in pioneer garb and walk with the float to hand out all the candy.  Great idea except that we live in 2012 and don't have pioneer garb.  SO, I took a few old sheets and some extra fabric and sewed the girls and I bonnets and aprons.  Well, after working on them for 2 days my sewing machine evidently thought I needed a break cuz it bit me.  The needle went in exactly where the nail leaves the skin at the nail bed, I jerked my finger away from the machine with the needle still in my nail, tearing through the length of the nail all the way to where the nail leaves the skin underneath and turns white.  Yeeeeeeah.  Needless to say I cried like a baby, Clint took me to the doctor and all they did was give me a bandaid and a tetanus shot {which hurt worse than the original injury I came in for!  Hello?!?  Didn't they know I came IN with a needle injury?  I wasn't looking for another one!}.  I was so burnt about the bandaid that I made Clint take me to sonic.  :O)  See, I'm a little baby!

On August 8th, school started.  Madi took her first step as a big first grader {sob!} and Maelee began "Mommy School".  They are both doing great and loving it!  Madi loves her teacher, who is a great fit for us, and she has a lot of friends in her class.  Maelee has already learned to count to 13 {except that she keeps wanting to jump to 6... "1,2,6" "Try again, 1,2,3" "oh, ok!  1,2,3,6"... too funny!  Once she actually GETS to 6 she's perfect!} and most of her colors.  It's going to be a great year for both girlies!

Madi turned 6 in May and is still so sassy!  I mean that as spunky not as a turkey... actually... she's pretty good at both!  :O)  She tested into intermediate swim lessons this year {woot!} and enjoyed carrying Marcus around all summer.  Going back to school has been really good for her, she craves the routine.  She has mellowed out a lot in the last few weeks as far as stinker moments go and her sweet side is really starting to shine.  She's such a great helper and her most recent quirk is when she comforts Marcus, she tells him, "Sssssssh, it's ok."  Except she doesn't leave a space between the "sssh" and the "it".  So, honestly my 6 year old walks around telling my 8 month old "Sssssshit's ok!"!!!  And when he's really fussy, there aren't as many s's!!  Makes me smile.

Maelee is as always... our little coconut!  She turned 3 in June and still keeps us on our toes.  She has the funniest little personality and comes up with the silliest things.  She wants so badly to carry Marcus around and play with him, but typically it ends with him in wide-eyed tears, pleading with me to save him.  Give him another few months sweetie, then he'll be more ready to play!  She loves Mommy School and mimics everything Madi does.  She's also turning into quite the little pesty sister and LOVES to drive Madison crazy - poking, touching, kicking, looking at her... it's all fair game and Maelee eats it up.  Her biggest news is actually a total bummer: she has to have surgery next week.  :O(  She has had 7 UTI's in 10 months, her fever got up to 107.5 twice and it just gets worse with each infection.  We had a VCUG {awful, awful, awful experience for the poor girl} and it showed that she has stage 4 reflux which basically means her tubes which drain urine from the kidneys to the bladder didn't form right and so they don't stop the pee from going back up into the kidneys - which is a big no no.  In the surgery, they'll disconnect the tubes and reattach them properly.  Yuck.  BUT, to have the UTI's a thing of the past will be worth it.  SO not looking forward to recovery but hopefully she'll bounce back quickly!!!!!!

Marcus has grown by leaps and bounds!  We started him on cereal and baby food when we moved in, and now he's eating stage 3 baby food, cheerios and small bites of table food.  He hasn't mastered the pincer grip yet, but is quite proficient at the grab and shove method.  His first little tooth popped through 2 weeks ago and will hopefully be joined in the next week by a friend.  In the last week he has made the transition from crawling backwards to finally crawling forward, and has also discovered how to pull himself up onto his knees AND his feet.  Jeez kid!  I had to move his crib mattress all the down to the lowest setting today and he did NOT like it!  He was so mad at me for taking away his new found ability to look OVER his crib that he refused to go to sleep tonight for about an hour.  Poor kid was exhausted and still protesting!  Marcus has also discovered cause and effect.  When he waves his hand in front of the XBOX it beeps and flashes pretty green lights.  When he waves again it beeps more and the lights turn off - magic.  Or when he puts his hand in front of a night light it lights up.  ACK!  Baby proofing again?!?  :O)  He is the sweetest baby and we are all so smitten with him.  How can we not be?

That's the last 2 months in a nutshell.  A big nutshell.  Like a black walnut shell.  :O)