the claytons

Henry's Baby Shower

2012-01-22T15:19:00.009-06:00

I had a baby shower last night for Henry. These three lovely ladies (Tory, Daniela, and Beth) put the whole thing together and they did a wonderful job!

They chose a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme, which turned out super cute!

I seriously think that I have the worst luck with parties though, because there ended up being a lot going on yesterday for the ladies in the ward (stake dance, birthday party...), so we only had a handful of people show up. But we still had fun eating all of the delicious fruit and cake and playing some games. One game involved everyone putting balloons under their shirts. Beth's daughter Sierra didn't want to be left out and it was pretty funny seeing her walk around with her big round belly.

My own belly is getting huge. And after looking at these pictures from yesterday, I realized that it looks even bigger when I'm sitting down! yikes! I blame my short torso.

We're getting anxious to meet this little guy next month. Technically 5 more weeks to go, but I'm hoping that he'll be willing to come a couple of weeks early like his sisters did.

Quick Trip to Dallas

2012-01-20T12:07:00.009-06:00

Brian had a 4 day weekend recently (he took the 13th off for his Birthday leave and the 16th was MLK Day), so we decided to take a trip down to Dallas. We had originally planned on going for the whole weekend, but quickly realized that we weren't sure what there was to do exactly. There are a lot of cool things there (like the 6th Floor Museum, which is all about JFK's assassination) that would not be very enjoyable with two kids in tow.

We ended up just driving down to Grapevine on Saturday morning and taking the girls to the "Lego Land Discovery Center". It had a little ride at the beginning that I will compare to the "Buzz Lightyear" ride at Disney (if any of you are familiar with that). You sit in a car that goes around a track and you shoot all of the bad guys with a gun. After you get off the ride, there's basically just a big room with lots and lots of Lego activities. My favorite were the giant rubbery Legos. I would seriously love a set of these.

They had several Lego objects for climbing on...a giraffe, a dog, a motorcycle...

And you could build your own little cars and race them down a track against other people.

Some things that I didn't get pictures of were the jungle gym, the 3-D Lego movie, and the mini town (Lego replicas of all of the famous sites/buildings in Dallas). But I couldn't resist taking a picture with Lego Dirk Nowitzki. I look pretty shrimpy next to a professional basketball player!

Speaking of the NBA- that evening, Brian and Greta went to the Mavericks game against the Kings, while Jade and I chilled in the hotel room.

Both the girls stayed up way too late and were pretty crabby all day Sunday, so it was a good thing they had Monday to get back to normal before we had to get back to our regular routine.

30 Years

2012-01-20T09:15:00.008-06:00

Brian and I turned 30 last week. It's kind of weird to think about. But since we are literally the exact same age (within a couple of days of each other), I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures of us as we were growing up.

And here we are now...12 years and almost 3 kids later (has it seriously been 12 years since high school?) I definitely look better without the braces.

32

2012-01-02T15:14:00.004-06:00

32 weeks along and getting huge and uncomfortable! Still 6-8 more weeks to go...

I was trying to find a comparison photo from my last pregnancy. This was taken at Brian's graduation when I was almost 34 weeks along with Jade. I'm definitely larger this time around!

Settling In

2011-12-28T20:34:00.007-06:00

We're all settled into the apartment...well, sort of. Things are still a bit unorganized around here because I can't seem to find a place for everything, but we managed to pull off Christmas. I set my alarm for 6:30 because I knew that if we were going to make it to our 10:00 church meeting on time, we would need to get up early to open presents. The girls came in and woke us up around 6:15 before my alarm had a chance to go off. This is what things looked like on Christmas eve:

Victor has spent a lot of time hanging out in the tree- since he doesn't get to go outside and climb trees on a regular basis, I have permitted this behavior.

I didn't take a ton of pictures on Christmas morning because the lighting at 6:30 am in our apartment is pretty crappy and they were all turning out blurry. But here's Greta opening "The Gross Game" and Brian with his new keyboard.

Brian really wants to learn how to play the piano and has been on his keyboard all week. He's trying to teach Greta as well because he has a secret (well, not really so secret) dream that the girls will have their own band someday and be hot rocker chicks. They have been watching tutorials and practicing the song "Ob-La-Di" by the Beatles and are sounding pretty good. Brian's ability to "play by ear" really fascinates me sometimes.

So Long, House.

2011-12-23T10:03:00.004-06:00

Well, we did it. We are no longer homeowners. Sad day. This week has been exhausting- packing, moving things to storage, packing some more, moving things to the apartment, and cleaning (and cleaning some more). Last night after it was all over and done with, we decided to watch "Rudolph" with the girls and I fell asleep on the couch at 7:00! I slept there for like 2 1/2 hours, woke up, ate a snack, and then went to bed again until Jade woke me up this morning at 6:45. I'd say I was a little tired. The apartment is still very unorganized and probably will be until after Christmas. There are presents taking up valuable closet space and it seems so cramped here compared to what we're used to, but it will be fine for a couple of months.

Here's us the day that we bought the house- August 23rd, 2010:

I wanted to take a similar picture yesterday on our way to the closing office, but we ran out of time and decided that it wasn't the end of the world. But here's a more recent picture of the house (I think this is from October) with the finished flower beds and fence:

We closed on December 22nd, 2011, so that means we were homeowners for almost exactly 1 year and 4 months. We figure that wherever we move next, we'll probably wait about a year before buying again. It was nice having a home, but kind of a pain when we realized that Oklahoma was not a place that we wanted to stay for very long. Our realtor, Fern, thanked us for being so easy to work with (I guess she gets a lot of difficult people in her line of work) and she even gave us a baby gift for Henry. I'm hoping for a nice Christmas weekend. Brian is off at noon today and doesn't have to work on Monday! Hooray!

Jingle Bells

2011-12-15T19:55:00.002-06:00

The pre-school kids rang "Jingle Bells" at the school assembly on Monday morning, so Jade and I went to watch Greta. Sorry for the shaky video- I was trying to hold Jade in one arm while video taping with the other. Greta is the third from the right in the green shirt. (Her little boyfriend, Jackson, is the boy in the argyle sweater).

Greta's class had their Christmas party today and apparently Santa made an appearance. She told me that she asked Santa for "The Gross Game" for Christmas. I'm sure Santa was very confused! "The Gross Game" is actually called "What's in Ned's Head". It's a game that Greta used to play with her speech therapist last year. Lucky for Santa, I already bought it for her.

Family Pictures

2011-12-12T17:36:00.009-06:00

We had some family pictures taken on Saturday. The girls were not the most cooperative, so we didn't get very many with them looking and smiling. This is the one that I'm using for our Christmas cards:

And this is the other decent family shot that we got:

Here's one of just me and Brian- my belly definitely looks a lot bigger from this angle than from the front!

I LOVE this shot of Brian and Greta:

And here's what the girls look like when they're not behaving:

Pottery Class

2011-12-08T20:22:00.006-06:00

Back in September and October, I took an evening pottery class at the local art center. It was a lot of fun to be able to just go and make things and get away from the house for a couple of hours once a week. Our first project was a coil pot. I wasn't too thrilled with the way mine turned out and I don't know if I'll ever use it, but whatever. The glaze ended up being too thin on this piece, too.

The next project was a casserole dish. I'm happy to say that I've already used it and it didn't explode in the oven or anything like that.

And lastly, I made 4 small bowls/pots on the wheel. The only one I don't really like is the little brown one. The glaze color is a little too blah. It's kind of hard to choose colors because you just have a little chart to look at. The glaze is a completely different color in the container than after it's been fired in the kiln.

I found some of the pots that I threw on the wheel back in my high school pottery class and these ones are a huge improvement. haha!

Grandparent Visit #2

2011-12-08T20:02:00.010-06:00

We decided to drive to Denver to visit Brian's parents for Thanksgiving this year. We managed to fit in a number of activities over the long weekend. Lots of reading time, of course.

The weather was really nice on Thanksgiving day, so we spent some time at the little park in Curtis and Barbara's neighborhood.

We told Greta and Jade that we would be decorating gingerbread houses while we were there, and it was all they could talk about! As soon as we arrived, they were asking about it, and they wouldn't shut up until the candy was on those houses! I didn't get a picture of Barbara's house, but she's a pro. She's been making them for 30+ years.

Brian drove us down to Castle Rock (the city he went to high school in) and we hiked THE "Castle Rock". The girls kind of pooped out on us near the end and Brian carried both of them for a little while. The Castle Rock has a big star on the top and if any of you with kids are familiar with Dora the Explorer, we told the girls that we were going to climb up "Star Mountain" They were really excited about that. bwhaha.

The last day we were there, Curtis took us to the Butterfly Pavilion. They had a room with a bunch of butterflies all just hanging out that you walked though. Brian and I also held the resident tarantula, Rosie, while we were there.

It had been a whole year since we had seen Brian's parents, so it was fun to spend some time with them. When it was time to leave, Greta kept saying "You and Dad can go, Jade and I are going to stay here."

Grandparent Visit #1

2011-12-08T19:52:00.006-06:00

I've gotten a little behind on my posts. Last month, Greta and Jade got to hang out with both sets of grandparents! My parents stopped by to see us on their way back from a wedding in Florida. We mostly just hung out around the house since Ardmore isn't very exciting. But while they were here we did the ultrasound for little Henry, played at the park, and went to the school book fair. Jade got in some reading time with both Grams and Gramps. As you can see, their styles are a little different haha!

The girls also had fun wrestling with Gramps. He pulled out his classic "muckle" move on Greta.

It was fun having my parents visit- and they finally got to see our house...now that we're moving out of it. ha!

Thanksgiving Feast

2011-11-22T21:19:00.003-06:00

All of the pre-school classes at Greta's school had a Thanksgiving Feast today. The kids in Greta's class were the "Indians" (the others were Pilgrims and Turkeys). These pictures were posted on the website for the local paper and I thought they were cute.

Update

2011-11-22T12:27:00.002-06:00

I was able to get a 3 month lease at the apartment complex that we lived in before we bought our house! So, it looks like we'll be sticking around here until Henry is born after all! We'll be cramming into a 2 bedroom apartment, so we'll have to put a bunch of stuff into storage (definitely don't need our lawnmower right now), but I think this will be less stressful than trying to move across the country right before Christmas.

26 Weeks...

2011-11-21T12:38:00.003-06:00

...and getting huge already! I think this is how big I was at 37 weeks with Greta (okay- maybe I was a little bigger, but not much). Darn this 3rd pregnancy!

Sold!

2011-11-20T21:46:00.004-06:00

We're still kind of in shock, but after being on the market for just 1 week, we sold our house today! (well, pending inspection, etc. of course) The first person to look at it, made us an offer. They were willing to pay the full asking price if we paid some closing costs, so we went with it and we'll be moving out right before Christmas. Crazy. We were trying to prepare ourselves for situations if our house took too long to sell, and now we're dealing with the opposite problem! Now our predicament is whether to try and leave Oklahoma right after we close, or try to find a short-term rental here until after the baby is born and then take off. gah!

It's a...

2011-11-14T15:44:00.005-06:00

Brian didn't think it would ever happen, but we're having a BOY!!! We went for the gender ultrasound this morning and got to see some fun images of our little boy. We plan on naming him Henry Christopher Clayton (I think it sounds very distinguished). Christopher is Brian's middle name. It was fun having my mom in the room for the ultrasound. We were only allowed to bring 2 adults in with us, so my dad opted to sit in the waiting room and read his book (if you know my dad, this should come as no surprise). I'm going to have to start stocking up on little blue outfits!

Greta Art

2011-11-12T19:07:00.003-06:00

Today, Greta drew this picture of Brian and his co-worker, Peter. Brian's the one on the left with less hair. haha.

Here we go again...

2011-11-11T12:12:00.003-06:00

I've been avoiding posting about some of our crazy plans until things were more definite, but I figure I should fill you all in on what's going on. Over the past few months, Brian's job has taken a serious downturn. It's not the people that he works with, but the way that things are run in the office. As a consequence, he spends at least 4 hours every saturday catching up on notes and he feels like he has no free time to do anything fun. Note that since he is paid a salary, he is not getting compensated for these extra 4+ hours and that equals a very grumpy Brian. One of the reasons that we moved to Oklahoma in the first place was so that we could get some loan repayment. We figured that we would stick it out here while getting out of debt and then move on to where we really want to be (the lovely pacific northwest).

We found out recently that if he wants to, Brian can "transfer" to another loan repayment site to finish out his contract. This idea got us all kinds of excited! So, last month, Brian flew out to Portland and spent a week interviewing at some various prisons in Oregon and Washington. I know that the word "prison" sounds scary and it seems weird that Brian would want to work in one, but they're actually pretty cushy jobs. He loved all of the people that he interviewed with and they loved him, but since this is the government that we're talking about, they take forever to do everything! We're STILL waiting for paperwork to transfer in order for them to give him an actual job offer. boo.

But since we know that we want to get out of here sometime in the near future, last night we met with a realtor and put our house up for sale. We're nervous because this is our first house and we've never had to do this whole process before. But we're crossing our fingers that something will work out. If by some miracle, our house sells really ridiculously fast, we'll have to find a rental to move into for a couple of months until the baby is born since at this point, I'm getting too far along in my pregnancy to be traveling across the country. If it takes forever to sell, then who knows. But this is what is constantly on our minds these days.

New Car!!!

2011-11-05T20:27:00.003-05:00

We finally went out and bought a 2nd car today folks. Some of you probably didn't realize that we've been living with just one car for awhile now. But since our city is not that big and Brian's work is less than 10 minutes away, I simply drive him to the clinic every morning and pick him up at 5. It's annoying, but it's been working for us and it's been nice to only have to pay for gas for one car and only have one car on the insurance, etc. When Greta started school, it became a little more annoying though. Since August, I have been waking up, getting myself ready, driving Brian to work, driving back home, getting the girls ready, and taking Greta to school. And since Greta is a world class dawdler, it makes my mornings very stressful! We knew that we needed to get a larger car for when the baby is born since we can't fit three booster/car seats in the Civic. I had been looking at the Mazda5's for a little while. I liked them because they're kind of a mini-minivan. Regular sized minivans just seem so huge to me because I'm petite. I hate driving them. I spotted a 2009 Mazda5 for sale last night online that had amazingly low miles (a little less than 19,000) and showed it to Brian. We drove down to Fort Worth this morning to check it out and ended up driving it home! It seats 6 people (3 rows of 2), has the sliding rear doors, and it's actually a stick-shift, which is pretty rare in any type of SUV/Wagon/Minivan. I'm excited about having a new car (not so excited about having a car payment- blech!) and I hope that it lasts us for awhile- crossing my fingers!

Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-29T20:40:00.008-05:00

We headed over to the pumpkin patch this afternoon. Here are a few pictures from our trip:

Brian feeding the sheep

Greta milking the fake cow

Posing on the old truck

The giant sand pile

Rocking chairs

Jade was saying "Help me, mama! Help me!" as she was attempting to pick up a pumpkin. Yes, she calls me "mama", not "mom". I think we've been in the south too long. haha.

"How Tall This Fall?" comparison from last year

Halloween Party

2011-10-29T20:18:00.005-05:00

Like a month ago, Greta announced to me that she wanted to be a lion for Halloween. So, I did my own simple version of a lion with a brown hoodie and a skirt. Brian said that she didn't look like much of a lion, but she loved it and I thought it was kind of fun and girly. I decided to have Jade be Minnie Mouse this year because she LOVES Mickey and Minnie. She already had the pink dress, so I just had to buy black tights, a black leotard, and some ears from the Disney Store. So easy.

I went pretty simple with my costume this year as well. I found the idea for it on Pinterest. Gotta love it! I simply bought some black sweats and did a classic skeleton costume using a freezer paper stencil. But the twist was adding a little baby skeleton on the belly since I'm pregnant.

Wednesday night we had our ward Halloween party, which I was kind of in charge of planning. I'm VERY glad that it's over and done with! I had to go to the church a little early to help set up for it and had Greta and Jade with me because Brian was still at work. We had a "cupcake decorating" table and they would not stay away from the little bowls of candy while I was trying to get things organized! I was already kind of tired and frustrated by the time the party started and Brian got there late because he was still putting his skeleton make-up on. Our church building isn't very big and it got very crowded and very hot. blech.

I survived though and it's one thing that is crossed off of my to-do list. woohoo! Next up...the primary program.

Rude

2011-10-17T12:44:00.003-05:00

I had an OB appointment this morning. On my way out, I stopped to make my next appointment and set up the time to have my ultrasound when my parents are visiting next month. The lady at the desk was so snippy with me, I couldn't believe it. She asked if I preferred mornings or afternoons and I said, "It just needs to be after 8:30 because I have to take my daughter to school." Her response? "Uh- we don't even get here until 8:30." Sorry that I wasn't aware of your exact opening time- a lot of places open at 8:00. Then she proceeded to tell me that I don't look like I've gained enough weight to be 21 weeks along. Ummm...thanks, but the doctor just told me that I was right on target. When I had my initial "confirmation of pregnancy" appointment, they did a vaginal ultrasound, which I had never had before. I asked the lady if this next one would be a regular ultrasound, or another vaginal one because I thought it might be a little awkward to be in stirrups with my dad in the room. She looked at me like I was a complete idiot and said "You'll have a sheet covering you and he'll be sitting off to the side so it's not like he's going to see anything." Maybe I'm a prude, but that still sounds awkward to me. Anyone else?

House Projects

2011-10-11T12:09:00.004-05:00

So, Brian is out of town this week. Do you remember how the last time he left, I built a bunkbed? Well, to keep up with the tradition of taking on large projects by myself, this week I'm attempting to put up a tile backsplash in the kitchen. I think that I may be insane.

I originally bought some cool glass mosaic tile, but they were REALLY expensive and Lowe's didn't have a matching edge piece for them, so I decided to go with a classic white subway tile. I'm still in the process of putting them up, but I love it already! And I'm going to use a dark gray grout, which is going to look awesome. I'm going to try to use the tile saw tonight. bwhaha. Wish me luck.

Half-Way!

2011-10-10T12:27:00.003-05:00

Technically I could be finding out the baby's gender this week, but I'm going to wait and do the ultrasound in 5 weeks when my parents are here visiting.

El Scorcho

2011-10-09T15:50:00.002-05:00

After the first couple of songs, we were able to move over to the middle section next to our friends Adam and Tory since a lot of people had run up to be right next to the stage. This put us like 20 feet away from the band, which was really cool. At one point, Rivers started singing "I Want You to" and walked around in the audience. When he made it back to the front of the room, he moved on to "El Scorcho". He sang half of the song while still hanging out in the crowd and he was seriously 10 feet away from us! Here's the video that I took of that song last night:

In hindsight, I probably should have given the camera to Brian since he's a foot taller than me and could actually see over all of the other people. The concert only lasted an hour and a half, which was a little bit of a disappointment. But I don't know if I could have lasted much longer standing on my feet. We had a really fun time though and my head definitely hurt this morning!

We Have Reached a New Milestone!

2011-10-09T00:00:00.002-05:00

WE SAW WEEZER LIVE IN CONCERT!!!!!! It all started as I was driving down to Texas one Saturday morning a few months ago. As I past the Winstar Casino (where my paychecks come from), I noticed a big sign advertising that Weezer is coming on Oct 8. I was so excited that I called Audrey that same minute to break the big news. Audrey soon after got online and bought us some VIP tickets.

This band is in my top 5 greatest ever. I grew up listening to these guys. I remember when I got their first Album (the blue Album). I was 12 years old, and my Mom gave it to me for Christmas. I spent the rest of the morning listening to it on my cassette tape walkman while at my grandparents house in Utah. As I listen to the blue album now-a-days, it brings back memories of sitting on my grandma's 70's style furniture listening to "My Name is Jonas" while my Mom was trying to talk over my headphones to ask if I had a merry Christmas. Yes Mom, it was a very merry Christmas indeed.

So, back to the concert. We were there, and we were about 15 feet from the stage. At first, It appeared that Rivers Cuomo (lead singer) had tattoos all over his arms, but we were close enough to see that he was wearing those fake tattoo sleeves. How cool is that? At one point during the show, Rivers jumped off the stage and sang "El Scorcho" as he walked through the crowd shaking hands. He made his way back towards us, and he was just two rows in front of us. Audrey almost fainted. I tried to motion to him to come closer so we could shake his hand, but it just did not happen. None the less, it was a cool show. Audrey will probably want to make her own post later to share her experience at the Weezer show because she was so excited that she cried. Below are some pictures of the band.

And if you don't know who Weezer is, you should watch this video which was made back in 1994:

Jade's 2 yr. Pictures

2011-09-19T20:43:00.006-05:00

So, we FINALLY went and had Jade's 2 year photos taken last weekend (only 3 months late). She wasn't really in the mood to cooperate initially. She wouldn't stay in one place long enough to take a picture and when she did sit still, she wouldn't smile. Jade loves Mickey Mouse, so I eventually got her to smile when I asked her "What does Mickey say?" She would yell, enthusiastically, "Hot Dog!" We had to do this several times in order to get some decent pictures. She also really liked the big wooden letters that they use to spell things out (the kid's age or name or whatever), but in order to photograph her with them, they had to switch the backdrop to the awful grayish-blue swirly print. blech. Not a big fan. It looks so early 90's.

I can't believe how much bigger she looks than her pictures last year. She certainly has a lot more hair now!

Dinner Conversation

2011-09-15T10:55:00.003-05:00

When we eat dinner, it's very rare that Jade actually eats anything. She usually just sits in her chair and talks to us. Her typical conversation topic is animal sounds. She will say "What does the cow say?" and then answer herself by saying "Mooo!". Last night at dinner, I heard her say "What does the cracker say?" I don't know, what does a cracker say? According to Jade, they say "Open the mouth!" (She said this in a raspy, monster-esque voice like the cracker was asking to get in her mouth). I was laughing so hard!

The Belly

2011-09-12T13:17:00.003-05:00

I thought I would post a picture of my 16 week preggo belly. I feel like it's really starting to show, but nobody has said anything about it yet. They probably don't want to offend me by accidentally calling me fat. ha! I think I'll take one of these every couple of weeks or so.

I've been thinking about making my own maternity jeans this time around. Has anyone else done that? The tutorials that I've found seem pretty simple. I can't ever find maternity jeans from the store that fit me like regular jeans in the thighs- they're always huge and it drives me crazy.

Grass!!!

2011-09-12T11:25:00.003-05:00

On friday we finally had the sod laid down in our backyard! This has been a long time coming since we've been in our house for a year already. This is what we have been living with:

Not so pretty. We had saved up the money for the grass, but since it's been so hot this summer, we decided to wait until it cooled off a little before we put it in. Well, this past week, the temperatures were a comfortable mid-80's, so we called up the sod farm!

Here's the yard after they finished laying all the grass down:

Still has seams and some lumps, but it's a vast improvement! We have to keep it pretty moist for the next two weeks while the roots dig in. I'm afraid to see what our next water bill is going to look like!

Trip to the Zoo

2011-09-12T10:58:00.008-05:00

For Labor Day, we took a day trip down to Gainesville, Texas (just a half-hour down the freeway) and went to the Frank Buck Zoo. It's a pretty small zoo, so there wasn't a whole lot to see. Their "Main Attraction" is two giraffes. ha! But I think the girls had fun walking around and seeing everything. There's also a big wooden castle playground just outside of the zoo that we played on afterward.

Here's Jade showing her wingspan compared to a turkey vulture. I'm not sure why she decided to open her mouth- she's goofy like that.

Greta in the Giraffe cut-out:

And of all the random things, they had three Capybaras at the zoo. These things were gigantic! Totally reminded me of the ROUS' from The Princess Bride. bwhahaha.

The highlight of the trip was seeing two kangaroos get into a fight:

Updates

2011-09-01T12:24:00.004-05:00

It's been awhile since I posted last. My days are now scheduled into drop off/pick up times. 4 of them, to be exact. Since we only have one car, we have to be very organized. I have to take Brian and Greta to and from work/school each day. It's a bit of a hassle, so we're contemplating finally getting a second car so that Brian can go into work early if he needs without disrupting everything else. We've done pretty well with only one, but Greta starting school really threw things off.

I am definitely not a morning person, but I told myself that I was not going to be the mom who drops her kid off at school while still in her pajamas. So that means that I have to wake up after Brian, but before the girls so that I can take a shower. I've been trying to get to bed earlier, but I can't help but be groggy when my alarm goes off at 6:15. I have a strict belief that I shouldn't have to get up before the sun. Unfortunately, life doesn't work like that.

But getting up early isn't the only reason that I'm always exhausted... Clayton baby #3 is on its way! The due date is February 26th, but Greta and Jade were both born a couple of weeks early, so I'm kind of doubting that this one will last any longer. Although- if by some random chance, I happen to go past my due date a little, I could end up with a leap year baby! That could definitely be cool. This is the initial ultrasound that was done, when I was 9 weeks along. I'm 14 weeks now, so obviously the baby is currently a lot bigger than this.

So far, this pregnancy has treated me a lot nicer than the last one. Less nausea at least. Maybe I'm weird, but it really annoys me that I have to eat ALL the time. Does that bother anyone else? I know that I need to eat so I don't get sick, but nothing sounds appealing. And the things that I randomly do want to eat aren't healthy, which annoys Brian (but he puts up with it because I'm pregnant). So, that's the big news around our house right now! Oh- and next week the temperatures are supposed to drop down to the mid-90's. I know that's still ridiculously hot for September, but it's a lot better than 105!

Conversation with Greta

2011-08-16T15:49:00.003-05:00

Me: Go put your shoes on.
Greta: I don't want to wear my shoes, I want to wear my sandals.
Me: You can't wear your sandals today because you have P.E.
Greta: I didn't pee on my sandals!

First Day of School!

2011-08-14T11:23:00.006-05:00

On thursday, Greta had her first day of pre-school! When I woke her up, she said "What? I'm still sleeping!" I told her that it was time to get ready for school and she leaped out of bed because she was so excited. I took a few pictures of her in her first day outfit before we left (Jade has some crazy hair and a crazy expression going on).

Greta wanted a picture of her new Hello Kitty backpack and Jade was pretending that she was showing off a backpack as well.

Random Sidenote.......Since the Bee backpack was too small, we went wednesday evening over to JC Penney to find a new one. A couple of years ago we randomly signed up for a JC Penney card while Brian was buying some new shoes. They always have really good sales and they always send me coupons in the mail because we have a card. One coupon that I get fairly often is for $15 off of a purchase of $15 or more. Awesome, right? Greta's Hello Kitty backpack was originally $30 but was on sale for $15, so with my nifty coupon, the backpack was FREE!

Anyway- so at 8:05, Jade and I took Greta over to school. They let the parents stay for a few minutes the first day. Her teacher had little containers of play dough set out for each kid and leis for them to wear.

A couple of the kids were bawling, but Greta did really well. When we picked her up at 2:45, she was excited to tell me all about recess and eating lunch and story time. I think she's going to have a fun school year.

And miracle of miracles- it rained on Thursday!!! Like I said in my previous post, it has been unbearably hot here all summer. But some MUCH needed rain was poured down on us and I was very grateful! Jade and I watched it excitedly all afternoon and then ran outside to play with some bubbles when it finally stopped. I am anxious for fall to arrive!

Still Too Hot

2011-08-10T13:07:00.004-05:00

Well folks. It's still a million degrees here in Oklahoma (okay- maybe not a million, but at least 105 every day) and I'm kind of surprised that I haven't died yet. The girls and I pretty much spend all of our time in the house where it's air conditioned, but I do let them go outside very early in the morning (like before 9am) while I'm watering the grass since it's a mere 85 degrees at that time of the day. This is how we spend our time since it's too hot to go to the park: (and no, Greta is not wearing any pants. She rarely has them on when she's at home)

In big news...Greta starts pre-school tomorrow!!! She's very excited to get to go to school (I'm pretty sure there will be no crying when I drop her off) and I'm very excited at the thought of only having to cart one kid to the store with me! We went to the school this morning so she could meet her teacher, and see the classroom where she will be spending 7 hours a day. Yes, 7! Here in Oklahoma, they do a FULL day of pre-K. I couldn't believe it since when I was a kid, I only went to a half day of kindergarten. The sad news is that I'm going to have to get her a different backpack because her adorable bee backpack is too small to hold her school notebook. boo. I guess the bee will just have to stay at home for Jade to play with. I'll post a picture tomorrow of Greta on her first day!

Happy Birthday Victor!

2011-08-02T19:43:00.000-05:00

He's one year old! In this past year, Victor has become the joy of our life. He is such a wonderful cat, always willing to snuggle, talk, play, and wrestle. This next year he plans on entering some cat shows or the Russian Cat Circus. No matter what he decides we will always love and support him. We love you Victor!

6 Years

2011-07-29T12:00:00.015-05:00

It's weird to think that Brian and I have been married for 6 years today! It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but in those six years, we've had two kids, survived grad school, lived in 4 states, and bought a house. Here's a recap of July 29th, 2005:

$100 from Grandpa Jack for the honeymoon ;)

All of my siblings! (Fletcher and Hannah look so little)

Sisters!

I really like this kissing picture of us and our parents- I think it's super cute.

Trying to cram all of Brian's family into one picture. When we got married, he already had 6 nephews and 4 nieces. I just realized that Jordan isn't in this picture- where the heck was he?

This is the picture that I have enlarged and framed in our living room:

This would be a picture of Brian surprising me by grabbing my butt. And our wonderful photographer caught it just at the right moment.

Brian's siblings had a tradition of all getting the newlyweds padded toilet seats as gag gifts. This was the wonderful assortment that we ended up with (and promptly returned to the store to buy things that we really wanted):

The traditional cake in the face. Some of it ended up on my dress...

A little musical treat from my sisters

And me bawling my eyes out after my dad sang a song

Happy 6th wedding anniversary to my wonderful husband, Brian! I love you!

Funny Kids

2011-07-13T12:51:00.004-05:00

I think I've mentioned before that Brian taught Greta to recognize all of the 50 states last summer. Sometimes it amazes me that she's able to memorize things so well. The past couple of days she's been cracking me up. I gave her some saltine crackers to eat and after biting into one, she said, "Look Mom! It's Arkansas!" I looked at the cracker and then I went and grabbed a map (I didn't have any clue what shape it was) and sure enough, the cracker looked like Arkansas! The next day she did the same thing, but this time it was New Jersey! I made her hold it up for a picture before she ate the rest of the cracker. She did this without even looking at a map for reference! Crazy.

My other crazy girl, Jade, is REALLY into shoes right now. She is constantly getting everyone's shoes and parading around the house in them. Well, last night before I went to bed, I went to go and check on the girls and I found Jade asleep like this:

I guess she got out of bed, found some of Greta's old sneakers in the closet, put them on, and fell back asleep. Too funny.

School on the Brain

2011-07-02T14:18:00.003-05:00

Greta is going to start Pre-K on August 11th. In Oklahoma, there are preschool programs in the public schools but space is limited (luckily I was able to get her a spot). They actually do a FULL day of preschool, not just a couple of hours or a half-day. I thought it was weird since I grew up doing just a half-day of kindergarten. But it will nice to have time with just Jade at home. I'm getting excited to get all of her little school supplies, so I just ordered this adorable Bee backpack and matching lunch box from Skip Hop. There are a bunch of other animal choices, but I let her pick which one she wanted. I can't wait for it to get here!

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T19:05:00.001-05:00

My Dad has worked very hard to support our family, and he has endured many hardships throughout his career. I don't know how he did it, but we all appreciate everything he has done for us. I come to my Dad often for advice, and I love him very much. The last picture is of my Dad and I standing in front of a rocket a few days before it was launched. He is a real life rocket scientist equipped with pens, pocket protector, and a calculator. When I was in high school he flew my Mom and I to Florida to watch one of his rocket launches. Days before the launch, he was able to pull some strings, and I got to go inside the rocket. That was really cool.

Bunk Bed

2011-06-17T12:10:00.011-05:00

When Jade's birthday was coming up, I knew that we would want to move her out of the crib and into a bed. We already had a toddler bed that Greta has been sleeping in since her 2nd birthday, but I decided that I wanted two twin sized beds instead of one twin and one toddler in their room. The only problem is that the girls share a room and their room isn't huge. I measured it out and realized that two twin beds would take up most of the space. blech. So, I thought that maybe a bunk bed would be better, but there's a ceiling fan right in the middle of the room and I didn't want Greta getting hit by it every time she climbed into bed.

My solution came from my new favorite website, Ana White. Ana draws up free building plans for pieces of furniture and shows step-by-step how to make them. The great thing is that you can easily modify them to fit your own needs. I decided that I was going to build a bunk bed for Greta and Jade. I started with her plan for the "Classic Bunk Bed", which looks like this: (The bed is actually made up of 4 different panels that bolt together to form the bunk bed)

I needed it to be a little shorter because of the issue with the fan. I ended up just leaving off the legs, so that the bottom bunk was directly on the ground. That way, Greta's bed wouldn't be quite so high up and I wouldn't worry about Jade rolling off of hers. It took me 2 1/2 weeks to build since I really could only work on it after the girls were asleep, but I am so excited with how it turned out!

Here are some progress pictures:

The best thing about this is that it cost me less than $150 for all of the lumber, paint, screws, etc, which is WAY cheaper than any bunk bed that I could have gotten at the store- even if I had bought a Wal-Mart bunk bed. And I have the satisfaction of saying that I built it all by myself!

Daddy's Girl

2011-06-09T08:54:00.004-05:00

I just thought I would post these comparison pictures of Brian and Jade. Brian's only a year old in this picture, but Jade's pretty tiny, so I think they're probably about the same size anyway. There is no doubt that she is her daddy's girl.

Happy Birthday Jade!

2011-06-01T12:17:00.004-05:00

I can't believe it's already been 2 years since Jade was born.

We are so grateful to have her in our family. She is full of spunk and is generally very happy (except when Greta is being mean to her). She is already speaking really well and loves to repeat everything that we say. Jade even knows a lot of her numbers and points them out everywhere we go. She loves making animal sounds, dancing, and Dora the Explorer.

When we ask Jade how old she is, she gets a big grin on her face and says "Four!". Then she laughs and says "No, I one." (Now she'll have to start saying two). She thinks that she's pretty funny for tricking us like that.

Happy Birthday to our little Jade Rosalind!

Portland Trip

2011-05-19T12:55:00.011-05:00

We finally got to take our trip to Portland this past week! After we got our tickets, my sister Marcene decided that she would come as well with her two boys and, not to be left out, my three Utah sisters got in their car and drove out to see us too! So, we had a wonderful week with all 6 of my sisters and my parents! The only one missing was my brother who is on his mission in California.

We kept pretty busy taking the kids to the children's museum:

Going to the beach:

Taking my grandma out to lunch:

Hiking some waterfalls:

and having a pre-birthday party for Jade:

Our flight coming back to Oklahoma didn't arrive until almost midnight. Greta was so tired that every time we passed a gate on our way to baggage claim, she would say to me "I just go lay down on those chairs, okay?"

Victor was REALLY excited to see us when we finally reached home around 2 am. And apparently he learned how to open doors while we were away, because he managed to break into our bedroom twice that night while we were trying to go to sleep (we have lever-style doorknobs).

Working on the House

2011-04-23T12:27:00.007-05:00

Since the weather has gotten nice, we've been trying to finish up some of the outdoor projects that we started on the house months ago. Mainly, my flower beds and the fence. I've gotten a lot of planting done, but I still have some more bare spots that need to be filled in. I just hope these plants survive! It's really windy here and I find myself constantly looking out the window to make sure my beloved flowers haven't blown away. Some of my plants are looking a little scraggly and my poor dogwood is being eaten alive by the bugs, but my hostas and lilies are doing magnificently.

This is the cute snail that I got on etsy. He makes me happy. (My hostas have gotten bigger since I took this picture)

Brian finally went and bought fence pickets yesterday and has been working on getting them up! It's been a long time coming and I'm sure the neighbors have gotten sick of looking at our barren posts and rails all winter. He was trying to work on it last night, but we had a tornado watch, so he couldn't really be hanging around outside. The lot to the south of us is still vacant and the girls (as well as the rest of the kids in the neighborhood) love to play in the dirt. I'm secretly hoping that a house gets built there sooner than later.

4 Year Pictures

2011-04-04T19:57:00.005-05:00

We finally went and had Greta's birthday pictures taken (I know- it's been almost 2 months since her birthday). My mom gave us a Target gift card, so we decided to go to the Target portrait studio so we could kill two birds with one stone. It was similar to a JC Penney or Sears studio and they had the coupons for $3.99/sheet. Brian liked the full body shots and I liked the close-ups, so we got a little of both. I thought the pictures turned out really cute and Greta really got into all the posing. I scanned these in because I'm way too cheap to spend $100 on their picture CD's, so the colors are a little off.

Can't Remember if I've posted this before, but it is a must see.

2011-03-27T19:02:00.001-05:00

Greta's Dollhouse

2011-03-07T21:05:00.011-06:00

For Greta's birthday present this year, I made her a dollhouse. I didn't want to buy one of the expensive Victorian-style kits and I wanted something that looked a little nicer than the plastic ones. So, I ended up doing my own version. I started out with a Hensvik shelf from IKEA:

I mod-podged scrapbook paper onto the walls (it was a pain in the butt and I got very frustrated because it kept bubbling), bought dollhouse flooring at Hobby Lobby, created my own wainscoting for the bathroom and dining room, and bought various little furniture pieces off of ebay. I'm not quite finished yet. I still need to buy a bed for the second bedroom, put up the rest of the picture frames, and make some little bedspreads. But this is what it currently looks like:

First Bedroom

Bathroom

Second Bedroom

I'd like a cuter kitchen set, but I got this one for $1 and you can't beat that

Dining Room

Living Room

My favorite thing about it is that Greta plays with it every day. Totally makes it worth it. And I think I probably spent about half as much as I would have on a real dollhouse.

Dancing Before Bed

2011-02-18T13:24:00.004-06:00

Brian has Greta hooked on this song by The Bloody Beetroots:

The girls like to dance around to it before going to bed at night. Jade likes to pretend like she can jump.

Greta's "Pinkalicious" Party

2011-02-12T20:25:00.009-06:00

Monday was Greta's 4th birthday and we had her party this afternoon. I decided to do a "Pinkalicious" theme since the girls love the books so much. I invited a ton of people because it seems like when I throw parties, nobody can ever make it. Well, this time, almost everyone was able to come. So, we had a pretty full house. Everyone ate pink and green foods while I read "Pinkalicious" and then we played a couple of games before eating cupcakes and opening presents. This is the birthday banner that I made for the party:

Here's the food table with the cupcakes and pink and green foods (in the book, Pinkalicious eats too many pink cupcakes and her body turns pink, so she has to eat a bunch of green food to turn normal again)

We played "pin the cupcake in Pinkalicious' hand" and did a version of musical chairs which the kids didn't quite understand.

But they loved the big cupcake pinata and all of the goodies that I stuffed inside.

Brian's favorite were the lip whistles.

It was a fun party. I can't believe that my little Greta is already four!

Snow Days

2011-02-04T11:11:00.004-06:00

On Monday night it started raining and the rain turned to ice. Then it started to snow and everything in our town shut down. Brian's work schedule has been sporadic and the schools have been closed all week. It annoys me that they haven't figured out a system for clearing the roads here. No plows, no salt, nothing. Just stay in your houses all week and wait for it to melt. After the first day, it stopped snowing, but it was ridiculously cold. Today, it warmed up and decided to snow again. Brian's work was cancelled, so we went sledding down the hill in our backyard this morning. We don't actually own a sled, so we always drag out a couple of Brian's old skateboard decks and slide down on them. They actually work pretty well.

Greta LOVES snow

Jade does not. (Do you see the grumpy face?)

Here's me and Greta sledding down the hill:

eek!

2011-01-29T09:38:00.003-06:00

I just got the EOB from Brian's week in the hospital.

Total Bill: $12,791.73 (holy crap)

Total that we have to pay: $1,142.39

I couldn't believe how much the bill was! He didn't even have any procedures done- all he did was sit around on an IV the whole time. Thank goodness for good health insurance!

Birthday Week

2011-01-13T19:27:00.004-06:00

Brian and I both turned 29 this week- I can't believe I'm already in the last year of my 20's. I made us a "29" birthday cake that we ate on Monday night after dinner. Jade wouldn't touch her piece- as usual. I'll have to figure out something different when her birthday rolls around this year (cookies maybe?).

I had the girls make a card for Brian. Greta has really been into drawing people recently, so this is what she came up with:

I labeled Brian, Greta, and Jade. The rest of the people, according to Greta, are "ladies" and Jade is "flying in the sky". I like that she drew her and Brian holding hands.

Hospital Stay and a Canceled Trip

2011-01-05T15:39:00.002-06:00

Brian just got home after spending a week in the hospital recovering from Rhabdomyolysis. He's doing a lot better, but it was really frustrating for him to hang out in the hospital for that long when he started feeling better after the first day. The bad news is that we were supposed to leave this morning to go to Portland for a week and I had to cancel our tickets. We're planning on trying to go in February or March instead. The good news (if it can be considered good) is that we've probably already reached our yearly medical deductible and it's only January 5th.

Christmastime

2010-12-27T12:50:00.008-06:00

We had a typical lounging around and playing with new toys kind of Christmas this year. I woke up at 6:30 to the sound of Greta saying "ooh!" and then a loud "thump!" Brian bought me a croquet set and had arranged the mallets and balls under the tree unwrapped. Greta was picking up the balls and dropping them back on the ground. Luckily, she didn't break any of the other presents! The girls were so excited about their stockings, I began to wonder why I bothered to get them other presents. The girls got a bunch of stuff for their play kitchen, games, movies, books, clothes, a Little People farm, and beautiful dolls made by Grandma Clayton.

Brian got me the croquet set, movies, books, a fun new shower curtain, and an iPod dock.

I decided that maybe I'm actually married to a 10 year old boy because Brian wanted Hot Wheels and a kid basketball hoop for Christmas this year. I also got him some movies, games, and a Radiohead album on vinyl.

Brian also made freezer paper stencil shirts for me and the girls that have the states we were born in on them. Here's my "Oregon Love" shirt:

We had a wonderful holiday and we hope that you all did as well! Merry Christmas!

New Calling

2010-12-24T11:35:00.002-06:00

When we went in for our tithing settlement earlier this month, the Bishop asked me to be the new Primary president of our ward. I've been working as the 2nd counselor for like the past 6 months, but it was time for the current president to be released since she'd been in for about 2 1/2 years. I feel like my brain has been in overdrive since then. They sustained me on Sunday and I've been trying to wing it until we can get through the end of the year (just one more Sunday!) and start to plan for the new year and new theme. I told the Bishop that my main concern is that I don't have a "commanding presence". I'm not a loud and in-charge kind of person, so the kids don't always listen to me. I think that I found some good counselors who will help with this though and I think that this will be a good experience for me. I like being in Primary because of the "simpleness" of the teaching. The kids just want to know the basics and I don't have to get nervous that they're going to ask me complicated things that I don't know. The theme for 2011 is about the scriptures and I think it'll be a fun challenge to get the kids to search them and learn from them.

No Body Sings It better than Alan Jackson for Christmas

2010-12-17T17:44:00.001-06:00

**Note: This was actually posted by Brian. When we were driving today he heard this on the radio and said "Is this Alan Jackson?" And he was correct.

Family Pictures

2010-12-14T19:43:00.005-06:00

Brian's wonderful cousin Katy emailed me a few of the pictures that she took for us while we were in Utah:

Rough Day

2010-12-13T15:05:00.002-06:00

So, Greta fell out of a shopping cart today. And three hours of my afternoon were soon spent like this:

- Filling out an accident report at Walmart
- Taking the girls to the ER to get Greta checked out
- Greta freaking out every time one of the nurses wanted to weigh her, look in her ears, check her pulse, etc.
- Lots of dramatic crying
- More freaking out for the same reasons when the doctor came in
- Jade getting mad that I had to put her down
- Greta being completely uncooperative when they tried to do a ct scan
- Nurses strapping her chin down so she would keep her head still for the ct scan
- Finally getting some tylenol with codeine
- Watching Phineas & Ferb while we wait for the results
- The doctor says that the scan came back fine and we can go home

It's been a rough day.

Trip to Utah

2010-12-03T21:40:00.012-06:00

We made it to and from Utah safely for our Thanksgiving trip. We took off after work on Tuesday night and drove as far as Amarillo. This is what Greta looked like when we stopped for the night. She can sleep anywhere! I'm a little jealous.

Brian wanted to drive all the way from Amarillo to Tooele on Wednesday, but it ended up taking longer than we thought and we had to stop in Salina and then drive the last couple of hours on Thanksgiving morning. The girls had fun running around with all of their cousins and Greta was very excited to get to play in the snow.

On Saturday, we headed down to Provo to spend some time with my sisters.

Maranda gave us hair cuts, and we had some family pictures taken by Brian's cousin Katy. I'll share those when we get them from her later. On our way back up to Tooele, we stopped in to see Brian's grandma and then headed into Salt Lake to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square.

It was freezing! Thank goodness for the heated visitor's centers! Between Sunday and Monday, we got like 18" of snow in Tooele. blech. I'm not a big fan of the stuff. But we managed to go out Monday night to the Jazz game with my sisters and brother-in-law which was a ton of fun!

We headed out on Tuesday morning and drove as far as Gallup the first day. On the second day, we drove 2 hours to Albuquerque and stopped off at the zoo and aquarium for a few hours. It was a little chilly, but nothing compared to Utah.

We drove on to Amarillo for the night and then made it home on Thursday afternoon. It was a lot of time in the car and it's good to be back home (where it isn't snowing) and settling back into our normal routines again.

Projects

2010-11-22T22:12:00.006-06:00

We're heading out tomorrow evening for our trip to Utah! We're excited to be able to see a bunch of our family for the Thanksgiving holiday- but I'm not so thrilled about the 30 degree weather that we're going to encounter while we're there! I've really been enjoying the nice 60 degree days that we've had here in Oklahoma. We've managed to get some things done around the house since it's been so nice. On Saturday afternoon, Brian and I got most of the fence rails nailed up. This is what it currently looks like:

Once we finish getting the rails up, we can finally add the pickets and finish staining. It will be nice to have a fenced in backyard!

My other ongoing project seems to be the front flower beds. I've been trying for weeks to figure out how to add a brick border to my walkway. I tried just placing the bricks straight in the dirt, naively thinking that they would stay in place. But the dirt here is weird (sandy on top and clay deeper down) and the bricks just shifted around. I eventually came up with an idea that seems to be working so far. I bought a roll of that black plastic border stuff and wedged it into the dirt a few inches away from the edge of my walkway. I filled it up with a layer of dirt and gravel and added the bricks on top so that they're flush with the walk.

I managed to get one row done, but I won't be able to finish it all until we get back from our trip. We're driving the 20+ hours to Tooele, which should be an adventure (and by adventure, I mean pain in the butt) with the girls.

A fascinating documentary. It reminded me a lot of the Philippines. It is over an hour long, but worth watching.

2010-11-14T21:10:00.001-06:00

Audrey - The Cat Lover

2010-11-10T19:44:00.003-06:00

Audrey has become quite the cat lover. I will share with you 5 facts that support my statement, and you can ask Audrey to verify. Fact #1 - In early October, Audrey informed me of an ad in the classifieds advertising free litter-trained kittens, and she suggested that we take a look at them. Fact #2 - Audrey was the one who named our cat Victor. Fact #3 - Audrey was the first one in our home to cuddle with Victor on the day that we brought him home. Fact #4 - Audrey made a bed for him last night on the couch. Fact #5 - See pictures below. Other facts that Audrey may deny: Audrey talks to Victor and she cannot deny that she loves him. I am very proud of my wife and love her very much. She has come a long way.

The Most Inspirational Video I've Ever Seen. It Lead Me to Re-think My Life. I Cried.

2010-11-06T23:25:00.001-05:00

Pumpkin Patch and Trick-or-Treating

2010-10-31T21:41:00.006-05:00

We finally got around to going to the pumpkin patch yesterday. The girls had a ton of fun feeding the animals, milking the fake cow, playing in the bounce house, and digging in the big sand pile.

In Oklahoma, each city gets to decide when their "official trick-or-treating night" will be. Our city decided to keep it on Sunday, which was kind of a bummer since we didn't want to take the girls out on a Sunday. But the next town over was doing theirs on Saturday night, so that's where we decided to go for candy. It was a little bit of a bust because a lot of people weren't even home (or maybe just not handing out candy), but it's not like the girls really need a ton of candy anyway. And we've discovered that Jade may be a little bit of a chocolate addict. Brian had this urge to spike Jade's hair and spray it green, so instead of wearing her Olivia costume last night, she went as an 80's punk rocker. It was a big hit.

Ward Halloween Carnival

2010-10-24T13:47:00.005-05:00

We had our ward Halloween carnival last night. The primary was in charge of it, so I went over to the church at 3:00 to help set things up and then headed home to quickly get everyone in their costumes.

The girls and I all went as "Children's Book Characters". Greta was "Madeline" this year. I sewed the blue coat myself and just bought an Easter hat at the dollar store and spray painted it yellow. I always decide to sew these things thinking that they'll be easy enough. But then I end up getting frustrated when the stupid instructions don't make any sense to me. Luckily, they always seem to turn out okay in the end. Not perfect, but okay.

I was "Amelia Bedelia", which was pretty easy to pull off. I did make the white apron. Jade was "Olivia". I made a sailor collar and stitched it onto a red dress. I did make some pig ears for her costume, but she freaked out every time I tried to put them on her. So, I gave up on that.

Brian does not believe in "cutesy" Halloween costumes. He decided to be some sort of crazy bum clown this year. He really just likes to paint his face. But he informed me that next year the girls need to be something a little scarier like zombies.

Brian/Jade Comparison

2010-10-15T12:39:00.004-05:00

Brian keeps telling me that I need to show pictures comparing him as a kid to Jade. So, here it is:

Same crazy hair, same nose, and the same teeth. Jade is definitely Brian's daughter. Not that there was any question about it...

Meet Victor

2010-10-03T14:21:00.003-05:00

So, we got a kitten yesterday. For real this time- not like the last time when I almost adopted the neighbor's cat because I thought he was a stray. There was an ad in the paper for free kittens, so in between conference sessions yesterday, we went to check them out.

Meet Victor:

He's part Manx, but he doesn't have the stubby tail, just a normal one. He's about 9 weeks old and is kind of a scaredy cat. So far, he's spent the majority of his time at our house hiding behind the washing machine. Brian and I didn't attempt to get him out last night until after the girls were in bed because he was so nervous. He does pretty well though sitting on laps and being petted. The awesome thing is that he was already litter-box trained, which was a huge relief for me. Eventually I'd like to get him outside, but for now, he's just going to stay in the house.

Visit from the Grandparents

2010-09-20T12:30:00.004-05:00

Brian's parents drove in from Denver to visit us this weekend. It was a quick trip, but it was fun to be able to see them. Barbara said that she was pleasantly surprised to see rolling hills and green trees in Oklahoma. I felt the same way when I moved here. She brought "Pinkalicious" and "Purpleicious" for the girls. Greta loved them and kept asking to read them over and over again.

Brian and Curtis went on Saturday to pick out a lawnmower, so we'll finally be able to trim down our unruly grass! They took off after church on Sunday and this morning, Greta woke up and said "Where are Grandma and Grandpa?" Thanks again for making the long drive out to see us!

Approved!!!

2010-09-11T14:04:00.002-05:00

We found out today that Brian was approved for loan repayment! Essentially what that means is that he's required to stay at his current job for the next 2 years and in return, we will receive a big fat check for $50,000 to help pay off some of our student debt. We should be getting the money by the end of November. If we want to, after the 2 years are up, we can apply for it again in exchange for another 2 year commitment. At that point, all of our student loans will be payed off- which would be amazing. In case you're wondering- to be eligible, the job has to be in a rural, under-served area.

This is such a huge answer to our prayers. I know that the Lord blessed Brian to make it through grad school and that we were guided to this particular job so that we would be eligible for the loan repayment program. Brian works really hard to support our family so that I can stay at home with the girls and I am so grateful for him.

My P90X results video - I still got a lot of work to do

2010-09-09T22:45:00.002-05:00

The video is cut off, so go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLWEtS3J67I

I cry every time I hear this song. The lyrics are included for those of you who need to sing along.

2010-09-08T23:09:00.001-05:00

Wild Turkey

2010-09-07T12:32:00.003-05:00

I finally snapped a picture of those wild turkey that roam around in our backyard before they got away! It's a little blurry because I took it through the window.

15 Month Comparison

2010-09-07T11:46:00.005-05:00

I put Jade in this outfit yesterday and then decided to take some pictures of her because I knew that I had some of Greta in it as well. I can't believe how different they are from eachother! Greta had so much hair and was just barely walking at 15 months. Jade's blond tuft is starting to thicken up a little and she pretty much runs everywhere!

The Story of How I Almost Adopted What I Thought Was a Stray Cat

2010-09-03T12:14:00.003-05:00

I live in a house full of cat lovers and I am not one of them. Brian has slowly been trying to wear me down and get me used to the idea that someday we will own a cat of our own. I kept telling him that there was no way we were going to get any animals until we owned a house. And that time has now come. I have agreed to get a cat, but under the stipulation that it will live outside. We still need to get our fence put up though, so it will still be a little while.

Yesterday the girls and I were playing out front and meeting the new family that moved in next door. An orange cat walked up to us. It didn't have a collar on so I assumed it was a stray. Greta started chasing it around and as soon as she caught it, she didn't want to let it go. She carried it around the yard like a little baby and kept saying "nice kitty!" Then it wiggled out of her arms and ran down to the end of the cul-de-sac and jumped down into the storm drain. Greta freaked. She ran screaming toward it yelling "I want to hold the kitty! I want to hold the kitty!" Just as I was trying to drag her back to the house, the cat came out of the drain. Greta snatched him back up and wouldn't let go.

I totally caved. I let the cat into the house and fed it some tuna (afterall, I thought it was a poor hungry stray). Greta carted him around all afternoon until he finally escaped her clutches and fell asleep under my bed where she couldn't reach him. I called Brian and told him that I may have just adopted a stray and asked him what the crap I was supposed to do with it. He said that I needed to get a cat carrier and food, etc. So, we went to the store and I got a few necessities to tide us over. All the while, I was secretly freaking out because cats really stress me out.

Then at like 4:30, our other neighbors knocked on the door and wanted to know if we had seen their orange kitty. He had gotten out last night and he didn't have his collar on. I was so relieved. Greta was a little upset that her new kitty was going back to Simon's house with him, but she survived. I was just upset that I had spent money on cat food. But we do plan on getting a cat eventually, so I guess it can just sit in storage until that time comes. So, no cat for now. Thank goodness. But Greta had fun while it lasted.

Settling In

2010-08-30T19:17:00.002-05:00

We've been keeping busy this week trying to organize our house. We moved a lot of our stuff over on Tuesday, but I had to take a few extra trips over to the apartment later during the week to get everything that was left over. I also spent a couple of nights after the girls were in bed cleaning the apartment. Not fun. It's amazing how much dust and gunk can accumulate.

Our house still looks kind of barren. I'm a little scared to start poking holes in my new walls to hang pictures up. And we hardly have any furniture since we've been living in apartments for the last 5 years, so our living room is pretty sparse. We finally managed to get blinds up in all of the windows- except for one. They cut one the wrong size so I need to go back to Lowe's and get a new one.

Other than that, we're just trying to figure out what order to do all of our new found projects in. Do we put in the sprinklers and then the fence or vice versa? Should we seed the back yard instead of laying down sod? etc.

Oh- and we have bobcats and wild turkey that live in the woods behind our house. Last week I saw a herd of turkey dart across my back yard. There were like 10 of them- no joke. But I was too slow with the video camera. bleh. I did manage to take a picture of the armadillo that was hanging out on our driveway the other night though.

We're Homeowners!

2010-08-23T20:26:00.002-05:00

We finally closed on the house this afternoon! It felt like I spent a lot of the day running around trying to finish last minute things before we met with the lady at the title company. Brian only worked a half day so we were able to go at 2:00 and sign all of the paperwork and get the keys to our new house! We got our first housewarming present tonight from Ryan and Holly Schafer (Ryan is the doctor who works with Brian). They gave us an Echo weed wacker! They taught Brian how to use it and he practiced trimming down some of the grass on the side of the house. We're planning on moving over a few small items tonight and then we're carting over the large items tomorrow evening in a u-haul. So, we should be all moved in by bedtime tomorrow!

aughhhh!

2010-08-20T09:20:00.002-05:00

So, we still haven't closed on the house and it's looking like it won't be until next week at this point. I'm getting really annoyed. I guess the title company is really backed up and they're still working on our paperwork. The aggravating thing is that I've been scheduling things and changing our address with people in preparation for our move because this whole time I thought we were going to be moving in this weekend. aughhhh!

Update

2010-08-16T19:45:00.002-05:00

We did our walk-through with the builder tonight. He tore up all of the dead grass and they're going to patch in new sod tomorrow. We're crossing our fingers that it does the trick. So, as of right now, we're still scheduled to close on Thursday!

Lawn Woes

2010-08-14T14:54:00.004-05:00

We're set to close on our house this coming Thursday (the 19th) but our front lawn currently looks like this:

And we are not very happy (to say the least) about it. There are many factors that have contributed to this (cheap labor, poor quality sod, our house faces west, etc.) and we're trying to get our builder to rip it out and lay down some new sod. But we're probably in for a fight and it's not going to be pretty. So, we may or may not be closing on the 19th- it depends on if the builder wants to cooperate and make us happy or not. I'll let you know how it all plays out.

Audrey is a tough mama

2010-08-11T19:33:00.003-05:00

I just want to make it know to all the doubters out there that Audrey is a tough mama. She may seem soft and cuddly, but she has proven her hardcoreness as she is now a P90X graduate. She faithfully completed the entire 90 days of extreme workouts. I'll leave it up to her if she wants to post any muscle pictures. I'll post some of my own next week. I am so proud of her.

New Table!

2010-08-06T12:58:00.002-05:00

The new table arrived today! Isn't it pretty? And it's super sturdy too! I love it. I haven't tried putting the leaf in yet, but it turns into a square.

Shakeology

2010-08-04T22:33:00.000-05:00

Church Videos

2010-08-03T15:58:00.004-05:00

Our friend who helps in the nursery at church told me that on Sunday they put on a movie of Joseph Smith for the kids. Greta got all excited, but as soon as it started, she got mad and said "No! No! Radiohead!" She didn't want to watch a movie about the First Vision, she wanted to watch a Radiohead music video instead. I swear, we do teach her about religious things and not just rock and roll.

Current State of the House

2010-07-30T12:37:00.006-05:00

5 Years!

2010-07-29T09:18:00.004-05:00

Brian and I have been married for 5 whole years today! I think that this picture pretty much sums up our relationship- Brian grabbing my buttt:

I'm grateful to have a wonderful husband who works hard so that I'm able to be at home with our girls. He is a great teacher and example to me and a great father to Greta and Jade.

Since all of our focus recently has been on the new house, our gifts to each other are, you guessed it, things for the house! Our current dining table and chairs are really quite pathetic and falling apart. I found this set at JC Penney on super clearance and I also had a 20% off coupon, so this is Brian's present to me:

Well, kind of. My set is going to come with the table and 6 chairs. Ignore the buffet in the background of the picture. I got Brian a gift certificate to a local nursery so he can pick out some trees for our back yard. This worked out very nicely since the "traditional" 5th anniversary present is supposed be something "wood". You can't get any more wooden than a table and trees! Happy 5 years to us!

2010-07-28T16:18:00.001-05:00

Jade just had quite possibly the largest diaper explosion in the history of all diaper explosions. It explains why she has been so crabby all day.

Greta's People

2010-07-27T19:14:00.004-05:00

Greta has started trying to draw people. I love the wavy hair and stick legs.

Fletcher's Mission Blog

2010-07-18T21:33:00.004-05:00

To any family and friends who know my little brother Fletcher, I started a "Mission Blog" for him. We'll be posting the letters and pictures we receive from him as well as listing his current mailing address. He'll be going into the MTC next week and then will be headed out to San Jose, California for the next two years. To go to the blog, click here (or I have a link on the side of my blog).

We Have Some Brick!

2010-07-15T21:45:00.006-05:00

They only have one side done right now- but at least you can tell what the brick color is. This is the back of the house in case you were wondering.

And we now have other stuff as well. Like sheetrock. This is looking from the entry into the living room and back to the kitchen/dining area.

And cabinets! They aren't stained yet- but they're in the house. That doorway along the back wall leads to the laundry room.

Pretty Girls

2010-07-13T13:59:00.004-05:00

Jade now loves to wear necklaces and hats. She'll disappear into the toy room and come walking out looking like this:

Sometimes she'll walk around with the hat down over her eyes and she runs into walls. It's kind of funny. Greta didn't want to be left out of the pictures, so she insisted on wearing the pink hat which is way too small for her now.

House Pictures

2010-07-02T20:38:00.004-05:00

It's only been two weeks and they're already this far on the construction. I guess it must be the interior work that takes the most time.

Front of the house:

Back of the house:

Unsuccessful Attempt

2010-06-30T09:17:00.002-05:00

After my Grandpa died, I checked online to see about flights to Portland so I could go to the funeral. They were about $700. ugh. Brian said- "Well, you can go to the funeral now or we can all go to Portland for Christmas." I didn't want to have to make that decision because I wanted to do both- but I knew I couldn't justify paying that much for one ticket. My sister Maranda has a friend who is a flight attendant and she said she could let me use one of her "buddy passes" to try and get on a flight. The pass is really just a standby ticket, but you're charged according to how many miles you're flying, so my ticket would have only been $240 instead of $700. So, Sandy checked all of the flights for me and looked at how many open seats there were versus how many people were already on standby, etc. We thought that I could probably make it to Portland, so yesterday Brian drove me down to Dallas and dropped me off at the airport. As soon as they started boarding, I knew that I wasn't going to get on the first flight. It was already overbooked and they were asking people to give up seats just to accommodate everyone who had confirmed seats. (Why do airlines do that?) So, I waited in line and eventually got to talk to an agent at the counter. I told her I was trying to get to Portland, so she checked all of the flights leaving Dallas and all of the connecting flights and things did not look good. at all. Every single flight was overbooked by 5+ people. The flights weren't that full the night before when Sandy had looked at them. What the crap. She said my only option was to fly into Atlanta, spend the night, and fly into Portland the next morning. At this point I was crying. I told her that it wasn't going to work. I had to call Brian and tell him that he needed to drive all the way back to Dallas to pick me up. He was nice and didn't complain about spending most of his day traveling in the car with Greta and Jade. It made for a very long and frustrating day and I'm not able to attend the funeral today. I'm just going to assume that there was some reason why I wasn't supposed to go- like a horrible plane crash or something. But it still makes me sad. The good thing is that I won't be charged the $240 since I wasn't able to get on a flight.

www.myshakeology.com/claytown/

2010-06-28T22:39:00.003-05:00

As Audrey has mentioned before, I am an independent Beachbody Coach. I want to share probably the best product that they offer which is Shakeology (thus, I posted the video below). I am a physician assistant, and I see overweight, hypertensive, diabetic patients everyday. I wish I could spend more time with each one and counsel them on diet and exercise, but I am only given 20 minutes per patient. It is a little frustrating because I would much rather teach disease prevention rather than manage disease. So, on my spare time, I try to get the word out. You don't have to go to the doctor's office to see America's weight problem. You can go to your local Walmart and see what America has done to itself. American's are literally killing themselves with their unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity. The good news is that obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes are preventable, and Shakeology is a great tool in the prevention of these diseases. This is not some 'silver bullet' or 'magical weigh loss shake'. We all still need to exercise and eat healthy. Shakeology is simply a tool that can help us reach our exercise and diet goals. I have never been obese, but I was 200 lbs. one year ago, which is technically overweight for my height. I now weight 165 lbs., I have more energy, and I never go hungry. So, anyway, please watch the video. If you are interested, go to www.myshakeology.com/claytown/ or go to www.claytownfitness.com, or email me @ cla00014@gmail.com.

Floor Plan

2010-06-26T11:51:00.004-05:00

I've had several requests to see the floor plan for our house. I was able to make a couple of minor changes to the original plan, so I'm going to show you both versions. If you're one of my interior design buddies, you might be able to interpret the second one a little better than others. It has all of the measurements and junk because it came straight from the architect.

Here's the original floor plan from the builder. You can click on these to make them bigger. It's nothing fancy- just a starter home really. 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, Kitchen/Dining area, living room, etc.

The kitchen is super small. So, I asked if I could make a few changes to help the situation. I put the red dashed squares around the changes that I made. To lengthen the kitchen, I changed the laundry/pantry area into just laundry and put the pantry as a closet in the kitchen. This added an extra 3 or so feet, so I was able to get some more cabinets. I changed the front entry closet into a mudroom. So, instead of having my entrance from the garage through the kitchen, it goes through the mudroom near the front door. And finally- the middle bedroom had a really weird door placement, so I just had them kick it back for me.

Grandpa Jack

2010-06-25T12:34:00.003-05:00

On Wednesday, my Grandpa Jack passed away. It's been very hard for me to be so far away from my family this week. As soon as I heard about his death, I wanted to jump on a plane and head to Portland. But instead I've had to cry to myself here in Oklahoma. I'm currently trying to arrange a flight to be able to go to his funeral next week. Brian will have to take three days off of work so he can stay home with the girls while I go, but it's looking like it's going to work out- cross your fingers. It will be a short trip, but I think it will be worth it to be able to see a lot of extended family that I haven't been around for awhile.

The last time I saw my Grandpa was about two years ago. Greta and I were in Oregon to see my Mom's mother who was very sick and dying at the time. We made a trip up to Washington to visit Grandma and Grandpa Miller while we were there. Grandpa has always been a character. My Dad is a lot like him and I imagine that he'll be the same when he gets older. While we were there, Grandpa pulled out a large framed picture of a group of hundreds of Navy men in uniform. He said to me "I bet you $10 you can't pick me out of that picture!" I scanned the picture and after a couple of minutes, I pointed to one of the men and said "This is you." I was right- but he didn't pay up. When we were getting ready to leave, I gave him a hug and he said "I'm so glad that you got to see me." It made me sad at the time and it still makes me a little sad that I didn't get a chance to visit him again before he died. He was a wonderful man and I'm going to miss him a lot.

Lot Pictures

2010-06-18T14:26:00.004-05:00

I took a couple of pictures of our lot today:

This is the view from the street. Our property will extend all the way back to the trees.

The back of the lot slopes down.

We're trying to decide how to best utilize this. So far, Brian has thought about planting fruit trees (although recently he decided that an almond tree would be super cool) and I was thinking that maybe we could try to terrace it and put garden boxes back there. We're open to any suggestions that you may have.

We're Getting a House!

2010-06-17T12:38:00.005-05:00

Since we moved here, I've been tracking the real estate and was getting frustrated. There are a ton of really cute little bungalows that I love-but they're in the crappy school district. And there are nice older homes in the good district, but their decor is stuck in the 70's or 80's and I would obviously want to update them, which would take a lot of time and extra money. See my frustration?

The first week we moved here, we were at the YMCA and a random lady started talking to us about a new housing development in town that had very reasonably priced houses. I figured out where it was located and drove past to check it out. At first I wasn't interested because it's a total cookie-cutter neighborhood and I like a little more character in my houses. So, I kept watching the realty websites, hoping that something that I liked would pop up.

Then recently, I had a change of heart. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that it would be the perfect situation for us. The development was created a couple of years ago because the city decided that there weren't enough decent starter homes in a particular price range in town. So, they sold some land to a couple of builders with the rule that they couldn't sell the homes for more than a certain amount per square foot in order to make sure that the homes were affordable.

Essentially how it works is you get with one of the builders, pick out which lot you want, pick one of their pre-set floor plans, and pick your finishes and materials. Like I said, cookie-cutter. Here's my logic as to why this is perfect for us:

1. The cost is well below what we "technically" can afford
2. It's a new house, so we shouldn't have any major repairs that we have to make for awhile (crossing my fingers)
3. Once again- it's new, so it's more energy efficient which means lower electric bills
4. By not spending as much on all of that, we'll be able to save up for all of the other stuff that we need (we still have all of our old crap college furniture and we'll need a second car one of these days)
5. It's in the good school district
6. We will finally have a yard for the girls to run around in!

Downside:

1. We're going to have to start from scratch with the yard- planting trees, putting up a fence, etc.
2. It's a little bit of a drive from the main part of town, but not too bad
3. We have to wait for it to be built (but it should be ready by about Labor Day)

The floor plan we chose is about 1600 sq. ft. and it's a 4 bed, 2 bath. All of the homes are brick, which Brian loves because it's easier to maintain than siding. And Brian has a severe hatred toward vinyl siding. He cringes every time he sees it.

We just signed the contract with the builder tonight and the construction will start soon! I'm going to take progress pictures and I'll keep everyone updated. We're very excited to have our own home soon!

Not to steal Jade's Fire, but this is the Most Important Video you will Ever see

2010-06-14T22:35:00.002-05:00

1 Year Pictures

2010-06-14T09:53:00.006-05:00

We couldn't get her to sit still for the photographer. She kept walking off to pull snacks out of the diaper bag. But we got a couple of smiling pictures of her.

To see all of the pictures click here and type in:

Customer Name: Audrey Clayton
Access Code: LTPP0733116027JCP