Moving down the street

So after too much time looking for a home outside of our townhouse complex (we were looking for a yard and to get even closer to the school) ... we ended up moving down the street from our old home.  Literally we can walk from backyard to the next row of houses where the new one is.  Faces east instead of north, and the floor plan is all backwards, but it's the same layout/sq ft and it will work for another 2 years.  I was in love with the idea of our own place and backyard but we just aren't there yet.

We moved end of May and had some wonderful helpers - some of David's school friends did the heavy lifting, all our Clark clan, and then my Mom was in town too!

The hard part of living in this new place for 2 years, is that we know there's an end and why should I get all excited about hanging pictures and such?  We have most of the rooms pretty unpacked except the family room I still can't figure out where to hang things.  It's a much larger room (so the kitchen is small and there's no closet on the main floor - been hard adjusting to that!) so that is great for Tyson at least.  They also don't have blinds here and with the sun on both sides of the house - it can get hot!  We at least have some good drapes and are figuring out how to survive a hot hot summer here.

The backyard though, small as it is, is much more private than our other one and we have been outside almost every morning and Tyson loves it.  And so do I if he does.  With the larger family room we can have kids over too a little bit, so that is a bonus right?

Just lucky to have found a place when we got down to just a couple weeks from having to be kicked out.  The whole - having to move out - process was hard, and rather than focus on that, we are just happy to have a new place with much better owners and glad to have another place that is starting to definitely feel like home.  I will miss our first "family" home where we brought Tyson home and he had many of his firsts, and that part will always be special to us.  Now on to new adventures!

OLD HOUSE PICTURES - First Real Home as Family

OLD HOUSE ABOVE

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NEW HOUSE BELOW

more new house pictures to come once it's all looking good ;)

Mother's Day 2015

I'm so blessed.

I've got the best boys and I'm lucky to be the little one's mom.

David succeeded spoiling me a bit, thanks babe!

Mom's do a lot for everyone and I'm thankful to those in my life - my mom especially, and every other lady in my life - who have been a great support to me or even just an example of a great mom.


This Mother's Day, D & T made me waffles!  Before 9am church, that's saying something!  They gave me some other sweets the day before too - cookie pizza and free cupcake :-)  Then I got a gift certificate to a professional massage - Yessss!


I know sometimes being a mom is hard, okay a lot.  There's lots to always get done for the house, for the little one, and even for the big one ;).  But I sure wouldn't trade it for anything.  I am okay to sacrifice some of my time to keep them alive and happy.  They bring the most joy and that's worth more than the rest.  Just need to keep that in my mind when the to do list gets rather long.


The other plus to this day... we had almost decided on a house and asked in prayer for something else to come up if we needed to be somewhere else, and it did.  Now after the very stressful decision, looks like we aren't moving too far away!  More on that later.

Tyson: 21 Months

Tyson turned 21 months on May 9th! What a little boy we have - smart, silly, and so sweet.  The last few months have been a pleasure watching him grow and have such a fun personality and be my little buddy every day.  Here's an update from February 10 - May 9.

• Counted to 10 one night on his own, then right after went all the way up to 15 when we were showing Daddy later that night
• Getting better at the alphabet, he was learning before we were really focusing on it
• After 6+ months with Tyson's rash, he went to an Allergist and got tested - so sad, and yet, things are looking a lot better after changing to hypoallergenic products, lotioning 3x a day, and vasoline after baths.  We are also lessening the lotions and such now.
• When crying, to calm him down I ask him to count to 10 with me, a good distraction
• Was finally liking strawberries and okay to eat carrots and bananas (if on a toothpick), but then went through a spell of hating again and we've had to negotiate a lot - you can get milk or jello if you eat one more bite, etc.
• Has a few phrases: "Mama, where are you" or whoever it is that he's hiding.  Then when you ask about it he says "I don't know!" --- "I get it, I got it" when he's chasing the ball outside --- When we tell him to say how are you doing he just says "Good" --- when we ask how old he is he says "One" ---- "Come on" --- "Oh no" --- "No way"
• Really really into hide and seek - but gives it away when I ask where he is he says "I don't know" from wherever he is.  I also ask if he's under the table, etc. and he says "No" from his hiding spot that's usually obvious
• Nursery:  It took a month or more for him to be in there on his own.  The first time Mama just ran out half way through and then he was hesitant after that, but finally he's become okay with Bud, a leader there, so Bud takes him straight from sacrament to nursery taking us out of it and while he has screamed not to go, he moves past it after 2-3 min
• Being clingy to Mom and Dad
• Loves talking to Grandma O on FaceTime
• Starting to imitate mama's hum or sing a little
• 3/27 - loving the abc magnets and started trying to sing the abc's, so cute
• Counts and says "1, 2, 3, 6, 7, I did it" - randomly
• 2nd Easter - Loved the eggs and opening them and would eat whatever was in each egg as he went around finding them
• 4/1 - Knows the actions to some primary and library singing time songs now - so cute
• 4/9 - Started singing something we couldn't figure out till the weekend, the latter-day prophet primary song.  He was saying Brigham Young in a sing song voice and we finally caught on!  By the next week he was saying John Taylor and Joseph Smith - he asks to sing that song over and over when we get the Jesus book out
• Loving the hot wheels track we gave for Easter, played all day with it for that week after
• 4/10 - Extra constipated and we had to help calm him down and not hold it in
• Liking trains - we got an IKEA train set he's enjoying
• Loves play food, and feeds the stuffed animals and us and questions the one mystery food item like we do - looking at it funny :)
• All this week eating Kix for breakfast and asks for it without milk sometimes
• We bought some new pajamas and he has insisted on looking at them in the mirror - he also knows they are "new"
• Sang rain rain go away after I did (once only!) then the snow storm came
• Says "Mama-Jello" - no idea where he got it from but it's endearing
• Baba & Nana visted end of April - he enjoyed them playing and hanging out
• Spent a week learning about BUGS and he has held 2 ladybugs and loved it!