One gy-normously long sentence-disguised as a blog

So I am completely ashamed of myself. I have'nt blogged a single thing since our camping trip to The Pallisades. Before that, I had blogged that my brother and his wife had their new little addition, that Chris and I were (finally) expecting, and that we were getting our house prepared to go on the market. Well, I guess I have A LOT of updating to do. One step at a time, right? Ok. Here goes.

As you know, Chris and I found out Easter weekend that we were expecting again. We also found out-probably middle of July-that our new little bundle of joy was going to be another boy. Of course all of us are so excited about this. I have wanted a house full of boys ever since I can remember. And even though Clay really wanted a "jay-bug sister", I think he's getting more excited about the idea of a little brother. Now the real reason why I am so ashamed of myself is because with Clay's pregnancy I wrote in my journal, kept a scrapbook, and took pictures what seemed like every week, or every milestone. (milestones according to the "My Pregnancy Week by Week" book. Of course you couldn't see any milestones taking place except for my ever growing belly pertruding out from under almost all of my shirts) Everyone always says "it's the first child that you take all the precautions and take the most pictures and keep the most memorabilia." So I always thought "Nope not me. I'm gonna make sure that I do every thing for my second child that I did for my first". Well I can honestly tell you, that went straight out the window the day the house went on the market. I think I have taken a total of 3 pictures (of my belly) this whole pregnancy. Here I am, due in 4 weeks and I have merely browsed through my Pregnancy book, there is no scrapbook/ baby book even started, no journal entries, hardly any pics-only of my face, no birthing classes scheduled, nothing. I did however go through all of Clay's baby clothes that I saved. I washed and put them away. I also took on the project of refinishing a dresser especially for the nursery. I bought a horrible, old, warped, and paint covered dresser for $20 bucks off ksl.com. It took me about 2 months to strip the paint, sand, repair and replace some parts and when I was finished it looked awesome. I was originally going to stain it, but the wood had some imperfections that I didn't fancy so I decided to go with a wood paint. By the time I finished the dresser we had an offer on the house. Guess it was good for me. It kept my mind off the house, off the pregnancy, and out of trouble. Working with wood is a suppressed hobby of mine, only because it takes alot of time and attention-something I don't have a lot of right now. It did turn out pretty good but in the end it didn't match perfectly (and I'm a perfectionist) so we decided to use the dresser for my crafts and buy a brand new dresser for the baby. We also traded in the infamous "hornet", Chris's bright yellow Mazda, for a Pontiac G6. We needed something with more room for two car seats and a car that we weren't having to replace tires on what felt like every other month. Plus it was getting tough for me to climb up into the truck with my bulging belly, so I needed something to be able to drive to work that we could rely on. Thankfully around the same time that we bought our G6, my Aunt Patti received her mission call. Because she would be gone for 18 months, she needed to sell her car. Long story short, my sister bought my Aunts' car, and handed down the car that she was using (which is my brothers' car) It was a huge blessing and couldn't have come at a better time. I know, what a mess of a blog huh? I promise not to wait so long in between blogs next time. So moving on, after getting an offer on the house, it only took us two days (going back and forth with the buyer) to negotiate the final selling price. We got a fair amount, not quite as much as we wanted, but considering the market/economy we're in and the killer deal we got on our new house-we're pretty satisfied. We wanted a rambler style house-with everything on the main floor. We decided on a 4100 sq. ft. house in South Jordan. It has 6 bedrooms (7 if you count the theatre room) and four bathrooms. It has a mother in law apartment on one side of the house (with it's own seperate front door) which we are turning into my salon. We do need to do a little bit of tiling before it will be ready for me to take appointments, but we're hoping to have it done before the end of the year. Yes we realize that the house is way bigger than what we needed, but we couldn't pass up the location, the upgrades, or the price! Besides we comfortable with the fact that we can finally entertain guests when they come over, or even have out of town friends and family stay with us without it feeling so cramped and clostraphobic. The house was move in ready, except for blinds and a fence-so that was definately a plus! It has brand new wood flooring, carpet, and tile; granite countertops in the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry room. It has a large "great room" upstairs and down, along with a full second kitchen downstairs. It has tons of storage room, lots of closets and cabinet space, and a huge food storage/craft (aka junk room for right now). :) The backyard is a good size and it also has an rv pad-which was a big item on our "must haves" list. It took some major number crunching and some intense praying before we finally made a decision. We closed on our old house (officially) on the 18th of October then closed on our new house on the 20th. We moved out (of the old) and in (to the new) that weekend. How exhausting especially being 33 weeks pregnant! But I think it was perfect timing for everything and everyone. We moved just in time for Clay to enjoy the Halloween weekend, and a month before the baby is supposed to come (a month before his expected arrival-those babies, they come whenever they want. Went to the Dr. last Wednesday when I was 36 weeks along and 2 cm dialated-so he could be making plans to come sooner rather than later.) Now a days, with the move being over and the baby so close to making his debut, things have started to quiet down for us (whew! thank goodness). I'm still working full time-will be for as long as I can physically do it. I've been trying to get my dear Clayton on a regular/normal day to day schedule so he knows what to expect when the baby comes. (the last few months, we've had NO schedule whatsoever.) And last but not least every spare second of my time has been spent Scrapbooking. Wish I could say that I've been spending it on my scrapbook, or even one for the baby-but I'd be lying. Every year I make a hand made scrap book calendar for my mom and mother in law. I got a really late start this year, so I've been having to bust it out like nobody's business. I would post pictures but both of them read this blog-so I can't...at least not until after christmas. That's about all that I can think of right now. I have tons of pictures to post, but I will do that for my next post-all of them being so random. Honestly I will try so much harder to be more diligent in keeping this blog up to date. Pictures soon to come-I PROMISE!!! :)

Memorial Day, Weekend

Memorial Weekend we drove out to The Pallisades to camp and spend the weekend with friends. My sister and my niece Jayde came along too! If you ever get the chance to spend some time out there I highly recommend it! Memorial weekend is extra special for us because Clay's birthday happens to land on the 29th. So we loaded up all of his presents and cupcakes and celebrated at The Pallisades. Happy Birthday Clay! Cupcakes-So Yummy! Blowing out his #3 candle! Make a Wish! Clay got so spoiled by everyone at camp! He got a remote control escalade, four wheeler, AND helicopter! A big and little soccer ball, a huge Toy Story coloring book, two nerf guns and a target board, a riding helmet and goggles (that's not foreshadowing Christmas at all- :) ), a TOY story blanket, lots of clothes, cars, books, shovels, bathing suits, a new leapster game, some motorcycles, etc. He also got a huge Buzz lightyear space ship fort From Auntie Erin and Jayde that is set up in his playroom here at home! He sure does have a lot of people that love him! Thank you everyone for making his birthday so special for him this year! This camping trip held alot of firsts for Clay... Roasting Marshmallows-all by himself Throwing rocks into the lake...he LOVED doing this! Fishing-all by himself Riding in a paddle boat... Riding in a raft... And catching minnows with Jayde! They caught quite a few! We also found out that Molly can swim like a champ..... And Hurley..... can not! Chris's ride, Clay's ride... So cute! Clay always wants to be just like Chris! We had a blast! Can't wait to go back on July 24th.

Mini Me Evan

I have the cutest, most precious Nephew in the whole wide world! He looks identical to my brother Evan and his baby pictures! (yes my brother was this cute too!)

Tonight....

I taught my son the way to a girls heart... the key to relaxation... and the secret to (possibly) getting whatever he wants from me... Tickling my back!! He runs his cars and motorcycles up and down my back. It is heavenly! (it has to do for now til I can trust him not to get my hair all tangled up in my brush!) On another note, my brother and his wife had their baby yesterday. Ayden James Smith was born June 7th at 6:53pm. 7lbs 3oz. I think he looks just like my niece Jayde and my dad. What do you think? I am so excited to be an auntie again! 3 more weeks and I get to see him and hold him and kiss him myself!

It’s been weeks since I’ve posted anything, but I’ve been enjoying my weekends and staying busy. A couple weeks ago, when the weather was nice, we spent the whole weekend at the park. Saturday was beautiful, and I have peeling shoulders as a result of the sunburn, to prove it! Sunday we decided to get snow cones and take our kites to the park. It was perfect and Clay and Jayde loved it. The wind would die for a few minutes so Jayde got the bright idea to tie her kite to her handle bars of her 2 wheeled bike. She had just learned how to ride it that morning without training wheels and already she was a pro. I can’t believe her idea actually worked! What a smart little girl! Last weekend, was pretty busy as well. My dear friend and neighbor, Shelley, had her Baby Shower. She is due in about 4 weeks with a little girl. So happy for her! Clay’s gonna have a little playmate running around with him by next summer! And for this weekend we are off to the Pallisades to go camping for Memorial Day weekend....Pictures soon to follow.

Clayton and Jayde

Boy I sure do hope Clay is as close with his new sibling as he is with "his JAY-BUG". They are the best of friends, despite their age difference. (Jayde just turned 7 and Clay will be 3 in 2 weeks)

...the TWO reasons I got NO sleep last night...

I can't believe it's already May. I've had stuff to post for awhile now, but just haven't had the nergy. I knew being pregnant was exhausting...but being pregnant while entertaining a 2 year old AND working full time is insane!! I feel like I am running on fumes all day every day. The morning sickness seems to linger throughout the whole day (lucky me) and it's nothing short of vomiting. In fact, I've become very good friends with my john at home AND at work. Wednesday was my first prenatal appoitnment, and for obvious reasons, Chris and I were both extremely nervous. For 3 months, leading up to my pregnancy, I was on fertility drugs. Chris and I had been trying for a baby since Clay was about a year and a half. Without any luck, and not wanting our kids too far apart in age, we deceided, with the help of my doctor to go on some fertility treatments. So when we found out that we were expecting, the first thing we thought about were multiples. So we've been sweating this whole time, wondering how many babies were in my belly. Much to our relief, the doctor confirmed there is only one baby in there. It's amazing the amount of weight that was lifted off our shoulders. Officially, I am 9 weeks and 2 days along, with a due date of December 9th. Our next major milestone will be the on coming of the second trimester-hopefully the morning sickness will cease then, and finding out the sex of the baby. Easter went by way too fast. I did a small Easter egg hunt in the house, the morning of Easter. I was baby sitting my niece the night before and so Clay had someone to search for eggs with. I opted out of doing "the hunt" outside- because of one minor detail-it was snowing! I couldn't beleive it! Where's my spring? I also couldn't hide a ton of eggs around the house because I know I would have forgotten where I hid them and all and Molly and Hurley would have found them. They were already overly interested in the hard boiled eggs we had decorated the night before. The weeks after Easter were pretty eventful also. My sisters' birthday was on the 13th and my parents flew in from Texas to surprise her. It was so hard knowing that they were coming and not being able to talk to my sister about it. But while my parents surprised her, I surprised them-by telling them they were going to be grandparents again. They were ecstatic, and are hoping for a girl. That weekend was my niece Jayde's Birthday party and her first T-ball game. She did awesome! She';s the tallest one on the team! Clay was super jealous though. He wanted to play ball too. So dad (poppy) bought him a bat and ball. They played catch and practiced hitting the whle time we were at the park. I thought for sure Clay would lose interest after a few minutes, but he didn't. He loves it. Chris and I have been tossing back and forth the idea of soccer when he's old enough to play, but maybe T-ball is his thing? Jayde with her friends from her birthday party at the park. Trying to cross the monkey bars. Last weekend, Clay, Jayde, and I visited Discovery Gateway, downtown. Chris was at the motorcross all day with his brothers, and it was rainy out so we needed something to do. If you haven't been there before, I highly recommend it. The prices are decent and it has lots of cool stuff for the kids. We were there for 3 and a half hours! It is basically set up for kids to re enact and copy how the real world operates. Kids can pretend to be adults and it is so cute. There is a construction zone- where kids can work cranes and pulleys to build stuff with huge soft blocks. They can dress up as the mailman and deliver mail to all the mailboxes that are randomly placed around the whole downstairs. They have a playhouse-that every little girl dreams of-where they can pretend to do laundry, and dishes, and clean, and take care of babies. (i think if they love to do that kind of stuff- they can come to my house and do it for real! lol!) There is also a small rock wall they can climb...big enough for them to feel like they are accomplishing something, but not so big that they have to have harnesses or that they'd hurt themselves if they fell. I was able to help the kids get to the top just by standing there, and I'm pretty short. They have a farm setup where you can pick and grow your own fruits and veggies (fake of course). They have a life size horse the kids can climb up on and get their pictures taken. There is a kid size grocery store, complete with fake groceries and coupons. They also have a little water exhibit setup to simulate how water gets to people throughout the city, and a play area fr children under the age of 3. And this is all on the first floor! If you plan ahead, there are workshops and shows you can sign your child up for. They also do birthday parties! Clay loved the water exhibit. I don't even know how to describe it. It was just like a little wading pool made out of rocks with a buch of pipes and buckets and gagedts that had water running through them. You could push little boats through the canals and let ping pong balls follow the flow of water. I'm sure 70% of our time there was at this. Jayde love the little grocery store. She really liked working the cash register and ringing up peoples orders. There was also a little fort called the "Beehive". There were a bunch of tubes going everywhich way. They were like vaccums, so you put a small plastic ball in the tube and it would suck it up and then you could watch it go through the tubes to the opposite side of the beehive. It was actually pretty cool. (thank goodness for pictures-because without them- you guys would be completely lost! It's so hard to describe all these little exhibits, cause the really were so extraordinary.) Trying to gather a bucket full of balls to put into the tubes. The second floor seemed more for the older kids, but Clay still loved it. Kids could make their own short film, be the star in their own play, build all kinds of stuff with legos and blocks, be the weatherman, etc. They really had it all, and if you weren't paying attention-you were bound to miss something. Like I said we were there for 3 and a half hours and I still feel like we didn't see everything. Clay's favorite part of the whole thing was the helicopter they had outside. You could pretend you were part of the "Rescue Team" or Life Flight". The helicopter didn't have an engine, so the kids could get in and push all the buttoins and "drive" it. I seriously couldn't get Clay out of it. Finally I had to rip him from the pilot seat because it started to rain again. He was not happy! I had to promise him that we would come back. We had a great time and definately will be going back soon. Now... I get to relax as we head into Mother's Day weekend....Ahhhh!

!Baby On Board!

I am pleased to announce that we are EXPECTING!! Amid all these home improvement projects we’ve been doing-we somehow got pregnant! I noticed I was overly tired and super exhausted. But I decided to push the thought of “trying” for a baby out of my mind until we were done with all this construction. Well we finished our major projects last weekend-so that gave me a little bit of breathing room. And the second I relaxed-I realized- I was late! (that’s also when the nausea set in) After not feeling well Friday and Saturday I decided to take a test. Chris actually made me take a second one cause he is certain there was always room for error. After the second one came out positive that’s when reality set in. YAY!! We’re gonna have another baby! Then I got to thinking, maybe that’s what I needed, was to relax my mind and not think about the specifics of getting pregnant so much. However in all the excitement, comes a huge concern. Back in January, my doctor put me on fertility drugs to help us get pregnant since we were going on almost a year and a half of trying. Well with fertility drugs comes increased chances of….dun dun dun…..gulp….Multiples (we might need a bigger house than we expected, Yikes!). We aren’t sure of the sex of the baby(s) or even how many babies are in there-it’s far too early to tell yet. But there you have it! Another Conger(s)(?) on the way!

I know I’ve been absolutely horrible at posting blogs lately. These past 2 ½ weeks have been awful and a REAL eye opener. So I’ve posted “Before and After” of the new carpet and the new linoleum. You thought I was done right? Well you’re wrong. In the process of laying the new floors we had to remove all the doors and baseboards (AND some of the door trims). So while the doors were off their hinges we needed to put a fresh new coat of paint on them. I never would have thought that we have 14 doors in our house AND 4 sets of bi-fold doors. Seriously? Our house is NOT that big at all. But as I began painting and finishing them, I realized they were never ending! Chris kept bringing more doors down to me. I have never done so much detail oriented, time consuming, back breaking, shoulder aching painting in my life- than the painting I’ve had to do in the last couple weeks JUST TO SELL MY HOUSE!!! Now I didn’t take pictures of the doors. I didn’t want to bore you with that. I did however snap a picture of Clay painting. He wanted to help so bad, so I bought him some water color paints so he could paint while I was painting. Simple pleasures for the simple minded, eh? He is so focused! Anyways, so after I finished painting all the doors. I had to fill in all the little dings in the walls and holes (from the staple gun-kudos to chris- he LOVES his staple gun) in the new baseboards with putty and wood filler. Now we get to sand them and paint them!! YAY! (that was obviously a sarcastic celebratory shout) Isn’t that so exciting? I am so done with all these little but tedious home improvement projects. My weeks are all meshing together. It’s all a blurr. Sometimes we’re so tired we can’t tell whether we’re coming or going...which way is up…I’ll be so happy when this is all over. I am hoping and praying that we can bust the rest of it out this weekend and be done with it. Whew! Then maybe I’ll have something other than sanding and painting to blog about! :D

Caution: It’s A Doozey!

As you all may have heard (or previously read), Chris and I are planning on putting our house on the market sometime in the next week. So we met with our realtor last week to go over specifics- why we were selling, how much, where we were looking to buy, etc. Afterwards, the realtor did a walk through to give us some ideas on making the house “show” ready. He mentioned that for the most part the house looked very well taken care of and that he noticed a lot of upgrades. He also said we were in a great area-high demand- and that we should have no problem selling. He did however ask if we had considered replacing the flooring (carpet and linoleum). He said he could definitely tell there was a lot of wearing on the floors. Chris and I had discussed this very subject a few weeks before hand and had decided that we were not going to go that route. We wanted to basically sell the house as is and give a carpet allowance. The realtor said whatever we chose to do was fine with him-BUT- said that if we did decide to get new floors it would definitely help sell the house. He put it like this. “When a potential home buyer walks into a house and finds something wrong, or something that he may have to possibly replace, he then starts picking the house apart by all the things he may have to do. Whereas the fewer things he can find wrong with the house, the better chance you have to sell.” To be honest, we felt very discouraged. We had just managed to get ourselves out of debt and are so proud of ourselves. Who wants to go into debt for a house we are selling? Not me! But after a long discussion, we decided that maybe replacing the floors was our best option. We’ve been wanting to redo the floors before we even talked about moving, so we thought, even if the house doesn’t sell right away, we’re the ones that get to enjoy the new floors. Plus it gives us a “one up” on the buyer, because then they wouldn’t get a carpet allowance-which means more money goes into our pocket when it does sell. And also, if and when the house sells, we could use a little bit of the profit to pay off the carpet. So it seemed like it was a practical and efficient expense. We picked out darker carpet and linoleum, hoping the colors would hide dirt and animal hair, better than what we had. We did have white carpet and white linoleum (yes I said white- but none of you would have guessed that-seeing that it had been worn down to a dingy dirty brown…but only in certain spots.) It was a nightmare! I could mop and vacuum every 5 minutes and it still showed every little grain of dirt. Anyways, after picking out what we wanted, we decided that the sooner we got it installed, the sooner we could get our house up for sale…little did we know what we were getting into…… Friday, March 19- Chris and his brothers Brian, and Jerad moved all of our furniture into the basement and the garage. Then they proceeded to pulled up all the carpet from the upstairs (We don’t have any carpet downstairs, except for a coat closet). It didn’t take very long, and if you ask me they looked like they really enjoyed cutting the carpet with their knives and box cutters. All the while, I was hunched over pulling out each individual staple that the carpet left on the floor. The amount of dirt under the carpet was mind blowing and disgusting! That night, the boys started pulling up the linoleum. (we were told you could lay linoleum twice but after that you have to pull it up and start over- turns out, we already had two layers in our bathrooms and kitchen, so we had to pull it up). Ugh! This is before the carpet and linoleum was ripped up.... our dirty, dirty stairs...Yuck! Saturday, March 20- All the carpet is up. I taped off the base boards (except for the ones in our kitchen bathroom and laundry room- we had to pull those ones off)and the French doors and started to give them a fresh coat of white paint. The boys are still scraping the linoleum in the kitchen and getting nowhere fast! Sunday, March 21-The baseboards are painted. I start to pull off the tape only to find out that the paint leaked through the tape. Darn it! Now whatever the furniture doesn’t cover, I have to go around and fix. Let me tell you, of all the things I HATE, HATE, HATE doing… it’s dusting and painting!!! Moving on. The boys are STILL scraping the linoleum in the kitchen. My father in law comes over mid day to see the progress we’re making…which with the linoleum was none. Chris and Dad decide to pull up the whole sub flooring and replace it instead of scraping. And they’re off to home depot for the 7th time in 2 days. (yes they know Chris by name now). They come home with a saw that will cut around the cabinets and within a couple hours they have all the sub flooring from the kitchen, and bathrooms pulled up. Finally! The old linoleum is gone. Monday, March 22- I go to work. Chris and Dad stay at home to lay the new sub flooring down. I come home from work and they are still working-bless their hearts! They miraculously finish right before midnight. (I say “miraculously”, bc the new carpet and linoleum was scheduled to be laid Tuesday morning.) And we celebrated. Tuesday, March 23- The carpet guys come and lay everything down. It looks GORGEOUS! They get ready to leave and Chris and I decide we wanted a section of carpet pulled up in front of the french doors and replace it with linoleum. (this will help when the dogs come in from outside). They are coming back on Friday to redo that little piece, for a small fee of course. So that’s where we are at now. We are just trying to get our house back in order. It’s very hard though because all the doors need a new coat of paint and we still have to put up the new base boards in the kitchen and bathrooms. We are so happy with our new purchase! It made all the work and hassel SOOO worth it. We might just have to stay where we are for a little bit…. (sorry it was so long)