When It Rains it Pours

In a good way.

In less than 24 hours we will be homeowners.  This means:

*I will have one extra key on my key chain. 

*I don't have to worry about my kids breaking something that doesn't belong to me.

*We're actually putting our money toward an awesome investment.

*I can start a garden next year.

*I can paint!!!!
*I will have all of my stuff back in my possession after having it in storage for almost a year.  I have missed you pots, pans, pictures, and recipe cards that I forgot. Oh and you, too, california king sized bed.  

I'm just a little bit excited for my hand to be super sore from signing so many papers tomorrow.  

Maybe this means that I'll stop dreaming about moving in every night.

And let me give a major shout out to Ikea and Craigslist for helping us get the things we needed so cheaply.  I love you.  If I had to choose between a shopping spree between the mall or Ikea, Ikea would win every time.

And as if all of these things haven't been awesome enough something absolutely beautiful happened this week:

Lily counted to 9!

By herself.  And acted like it was nothing new.  And she keeps doing it over and over.  It's just a big shock seeing how she had only ever counted to 4 before she counted to 9.

Oh and Lily sang with Pocahontas this morning.

I am seriously loving this rainstorm.

Behind the Scenes

Here's our official family portrait.  Don't we look so happy?  We are, but the truth is that we had to hide marshmallows behind our backs so that Lily would stay with us AND stop crying for EVERY SINGLE picture.  Also, it's strange to think that it was on this very day that we found our house.  I know it sounds weird but I'm glad I have lots of pictures of that day to help me remember that feeling we felt.

*We close on our house on October 29th.  Ben and my dad will be flying out to Utah on November 4th to pull our stuff out of storage from Idaho, and then we will be moving into our house around November 10th.  And although it is so thrilling to be starting a whole new adventure (I feel like ever since I left for college every year brings a whole new adventure), it has been soooo stressful.  Finding cheap home insurance, doing paperwork, budgeting, more paperwork, walk-throughs, and of course more paperwork.  Since my body is infamous for behaving badly when I'm stressed out this experience has been no exception.  My eyelids started swelling up (seriously????) and on top of that we've had a few rashes going around our house.  Honestly I just read that again and I have to laugh at how weird we are.  Let me rephrase that.  I have to laugh at how weird I am.  Sigh.

*I wish I could say that by now Lily is making huge improvements in her speech.  In a way she is improving because she says many more words and is able to explain more clearly what she needs.  However she usually just says one word at a time like, "snack," "water," "monster" (Sesame Street), or "walk."  The hardest part about Lily's speech is the fact that she says everything backwards.  Since we've been working so hard on getting her to put words together it has overwhelmed her and she has to work her memory backwards like this:
          Me:  "Say 'green block.'"
          Lily:  "Block..... green."
That is how EVERYTHING goes.  Her therapist has told us to keep working and eventually she'll grow out of it.  About a week ago she actually said "Help please" instead of "Please help" and I seriously almost burst into tears.  It was such a sweet experience.

*Skyler is my comedy relief right now (when he's not waking me up at 5AM).  His new phrase is "Oh boy!  Oh boy!!!"  He usually says it when he sees a very cool toy.  So funny.  He's also such a fast mover!  He doesn't run yet but boy does he hobble!  It looks like he's going to fall over any second but he just keeps going and going.  So much fun to watch!

*Ben loves his job.  To be completely honest, I think this may be an even bigger blessing than the house.  Perhaps it's the fact that we went through 10 months of unemployment aka constant freaking out/frustrations/feelings of worthlessness/etc.  I know of a few couples who are fighting the same battle that we once did and my heart breaks.  What a terrible thing to go through.  I can't say how grateful I am for Ben's job.  It really is a dream come true.

So there's a rough synopsis of our lives right now.  Yeah, we know we're weird.  :o)

Mum and Dad's Visit

Ben's Mum and Dad came all the way over to NC from St. George, Utah to visit us!  We had a lot of fun playing at parks, touring our new house, and enjoying the babies.

As you can see Lily was in Heaven.

 Skyler had fun too.  Just not on the swings.  :)

 Lily gave Pop Pop thumbsucking lessons.

 Skyler's always snuggling on his blankie.

And he gave out LOTS of kisses.

It was a fun trip and we're so glad that they were able to come out and see us, but we're especially glad that they were able to get to know the babies better.  Skyler took a little while to warm up to them (as usual), but Lily was in their laps and playing right away.  I think the highlight of the trip for me, personally, was watching Lily run around all day Sunday yelling "HAPPY DAY!!!!!!" over and over and over again (I'll post a movie of that soon).   She was so thrilled to have so many people around loving her.  She even sat in Grandmum's lap for a couple of hours playing with a felt board Noah's Ark.  CRAZY!  Thanks, y'all, for coming out!!!!

Skyler's Quote of the Day

Skyler trying to be Mr. Potato Head.

Seriously go ahead and just roll your eyes before I even tell you this.... but I'm just SUPER DUPER EXCITED to be Mrs. Claus this year.  I know it's barely October but I've been waiting for this my WHOLE LIFE!!!!  So, of course, I just started trying to get Lily and Skyler excited about Christmas (because it'll probably take a while for it to sink in) and so tonight at dinner this is what happened:

Me: "Do you know who's coming to visit in a few months?!?!?!"

Then at the same time Skyler and I said:

Me:  "Santa!!!!!"

Skyler:  "Jesus?"

And then it hit me.... the Little Handsome is way more into the spirit of Christmas than I am.  I burst out laughing which of course turned into tears because that was seriously humbling.  I'm grateful that I had this experience early on so that I can remember the true meaning of Christmas.  And yes, you really are reading about Christmas in October.

Anyhoo, my papala works for IBM and they had their "Family Day" today and we went to enjoy a day full of free food and rides.  Here are some pics of the day:

One of my favorite parts of the day was when Lily called her hamburger patty a "cookie" and was very surprised when she took her first bite.


In the meantime I continue to be amazed at all the wonderful things that are happening to us with our house.  It really didn't make much financial sense for me and Ben to go ahead and buy a house now but the spirit just kept prompting us toward this one house.  I'd get excited and then I'd realize something else and start to worry.  But miracles just keep happening:

Miracle #4: the builder installed the wrong doors in the Play Room (except they were actually the doors we REALLY wanted in the first place) and so they apologized and charged us for no doors which took an extra $700 off of the house price (we'll take anything we can get!)

Miracle #5:  Ben found a diamond ring buried a few feet underground 3 years ago when he worked for Rexburg's water department.  After failing to find the owner (which was close to impossible considering how deep it was buried and the fact that it was at a public park) we were left with this diamond ring which Ben had completely forgotten about.  Then this week Lily got into some of our stuff and pulled that out of nowhere!  So we will be selling it to put that towards the house as well.

I cannot believe how miraculous my life is right now.  This house is PERFECT and I'm so excited to move in. I think it's safe to say that the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves.