Reasons to celebrate

Home has taken hold and we have not looked back. No more city living and things are going great!
Life is fast and furious with so much on our plates but we had a few reasons to celebrate.
First off, my baby has turned 5!! What a reason to celebrate and help her on her first major milestone. No more baby, just 100% big girl. I think that I should be surprised about how independent, strong, assertive, curious, nurturing, silly and beautiful my little girl has become but I'm not. I told her upon on first meeting that she was strong, beautiful, capable of anything put before her on our first meeting and nothing has changed.




so proud of her milestone (and earrings)

 


nurturing and supportive- helping mom celebrate her birthday




smart and strong and full of life!





brave, soo soo brave (at the tattoo shop waiting to get her ears pierced)

 


curious about her world





nurturing and caring celebrating with her friends

 


smart girl and her teacher- special friends for life!





silly with dad

 


growing faster than we can keep up-she has already lost her first tooth (sob, sob)

 


perfectly wonderful

  And after the frannie and mom birthdays passed, we had easter and a first tooth was lost by frannie. How fun this month has been!! We had grandparents visit and trips to Missoula. Busy times during moving in and balancing work but the reasons to celebrate were plenty. Next month, Lou has a birthday and we try to survive the April snow showers-stay posted ;)



Egg hunts are the best!




lost tooth shot with eggs




Still excited about his treasure





getting the egg hunt down, woaa!

 




making the reach...

 


easter bunnies are good to one year olds




dumping your bucket is just as much fun as finding the eggs




oh yeah-another egg!!



Saying Goodbye...

The last 4 months have been a whirlwind of projects and schedules and budgets and goals and kids and more projects and moving. We moved! We've said goodbye to our home on 6th avenue that gave us so much. We moved in after going to a garage sale and loving the potential and the yard size/location. We were in an old apartment building with two dogs (which werent supposed to be there)-Murf was a pup and Luna ready for a yard of her own. We were engaged and had our lives ahead of us! It was an exciting time and we were ready for our first home. Over the years, we shared our lives together and grew a family. Worked on making our house our own, worked on the yard and said goodbye to our first dog, Luna. Gabe came along and then we realized that we need to work on our long term dream-to move out of town to have some quiet and some room for our energetic kids to learn from nature and be safe. It was time to get out of town. But that meant leaving our great neighbor behind and those constant reminders of what weve all shared there and grown through. It meant leaving memories of my dads visit to see frannie and behind knowing that he'll never sit on the couch in our new house and look at our beautiful views out the windows. oh, he would really love the new house...



The day we put our house on the market

 So we've said our goodbye's and are settling in to our new life out of town and making new plans. We hope to share them with you here and there and have you come see what it is all about. More to come once I find my camera and my wits- oh and hopefully Spring!!

Come and Gone

1/7/2013

We've settled back into our old routine and said goodbye to the Christmas Tree. The Holidays are gone. The funny thing is that I think that we'll never make it through. Its funny how the holidays will turn your world over if you let it...or in our case we've decided to not let it. We keep things simple and enjoy staying at home not being on a schedule and spending time with the kids or just watching them in amazement-how have they changed so fast!!??

They had a fun time celebrating and hearing stories of how our families spent the holidays growing up and learning new and old traditions from us. One thing is that we always try to enjoy the snow (weather permitting). Christmas Eve was in the single digits so we spent little time outside. When it warmed up (to double digits/teens) we went outside. You might now be aware of how much time you can spend outside on sunny days no matter how cold (and we did).

Lou has been working hard at getting our new house ready to move in and we might be able to spend more time there at the end of the month. It is so great to take a place full of vision and turn it into your own. We are so anxious to get out there and leave the city behind!! more to come...

1/8/13- WALL BETWEEN KITCHEN IS GONE!! THE KITCHEN IS NOW OPEN TO THE DINING/LIVING ROOM ON MAIN FLOOR.

I mostly wanted to share pictures with you and wish you a happy return to normalcy - you made it!!


PICTURE UPLOADER IS NOT WORKING

WILL POST PICTURES ASAP

HERE THEY ARE

FRANNIE AND JUJU



THIS IS HOW GABE GIVES KISSES



MURF TREAT- HE JUST CARRIES IT AROUND AND WONT CHEW ON IT

BATH CRAYONS

Long Time Coming

Time has slipped by this last month...or two. Things have been moving at warp speed and there are no pictures to show for it.

The end of October, Gabe had bilateral tubes put into his ears. We were hoping that he would have started to sleep through the night but that STILL hasnt happened yet. He had virus, ear infections, and teeth holding him up and now he has moved into a twin bed and sleeps like a big boy (but not all night). I think that being out of his crib will help but we just might not see it for a while.

We went to Idaho for Thanksgiving and then all hell broke loose....we bought another house. Yes, we are crazy and no remodeling is not our favorite hobby. Everything is been revolving around the two houses and getting our ducks in a row. Then there are holiday festivities and activities with the kids. Idaho was fun, rainy, but a good time to get out of town and see friends. Hope that you all enjoyed the holiday as much as we did.

Now the holidays are here and we are going to keep things simple while we remodel and are in two places at once. We got the ornaments on the tree last night (even though is has been up with lights for two weeks) and found out that it will also need to be simple since Gabe is determined to rip everything off of it, including hte lights. He is like having a bad puppy most of the time. Here is proof, he gave me a black eye by whacking me with his head. ouch!

Day one of black eye from the little guy

I like this one b/c Murf show his presence...he is always watching and protecting

Gabe is almost 1 1/2 and moving fast towards two. He loves to read and build and race cars. Every day it seems like he is saying a new word and runs faster and faster. We all seem to say, "why is he always running?" He doesnt climb a ton but likes to scale a little. His favorite book is, "Go, Dog, GO!" b/c it has his two favorite things in it: Dogs and Cars. He has had a little biting streek and we hope it goes away quickly. Its hard being a little guy some times.

Getting ready to run and terrorize the house (with murfs help)

Frannie takes each day as it comes and is so pleasant to be around (most of the time). She is getting ready to start kindergarten and she wishes it was in January not September. Mostly she is happy to experience life and master what ever comes her way. This year she actually knows what it means to be Christmas time and remembers that it happened last year. She has been pushing to open gifts and get the house festive and do all the fun things and that has been a fun distraction while we move forward on the other house.

So long ago, it seems, I wished for a family of my own. Not knowing that it would ever come and then having a little baby girl. Now that little baby is nothing like she was her first christmas and I hope to hold onto that time with her. She will always be that little baby full of hope as she grows and amazes me daily. Now that I have a little boy of my dreams I cant believe my luck-two children! His first christmas was harried and more subjected to helping foster good memories for sister and now he'll be experiencing a holiday of his own. The subsequent children ride the coat tails of the first but having two will make giving them their own experiences easier than three or four. I am so proud of my children and hope that they feel all the love in my heart this Christmas and New Year.

Enjoy the happiest time of the year and enjoy the Solstice -

Enjoy the Season- Frannie and Gabe Christmas tree cutting

holed up

Life has been a blur lately. rush - rush - rush. This weekend was different. We got a snow storm and below zero temps that would keep any high energy canine and small child inside (or at least outside for a short time). It was good to be able to say that it was not safe to go outside of our house or in a car and just be a family together in our home. Murf might have something different to say but then again nobody can here him anyway. The kids had fun getting christmas projects done and destroying every inch of our home. Nothing that I am aware of was broken but Gabe did take a dry erase marker to the wall while I was in the shower and Frannie was watching him in the play room...We survived otherwise.
Halloween was really fun for the kids and again I only took them to my work building to trick or treat. It is a lot for them to get drug around and put through the paces with the other kids. I have to keep telling myself that Frannie is only 4, not 8, and that she is still sensitive like a little kid to craziness. Gabe really had a great time and got right into the action so he'll be ready to head out with her next year. As long as he has his sister he can do anything.
Other than that, we are trying to find a bigger home with quiet surroundings and are getting things ready to move. More updates next post!

Mummies work is scary!!

Fairgrounds duck pond

crabapple tree in the snow with frannie buried in the background trying to walk around the yard

Hi-ho, Hi-ho