Welcome Baby Eliza!

Eliza was born earlier this week, and we are all madly in love with her. Long story short: I was induced; it took forever; I threw up a LOT; and in the end, we have a little piece of heaven. Baby and Mom are doing well. Here are some pictures of her first days.

The obligatory belly shot, one week before she was born


On Oxygen. Baby's heart rate plummeted with my contractions, so they had to give me a shot to stop the contractions for a few hours.

I honestly did not expect this, but Caleb totally loves her! He likes to hold her and he says to her, "I love you, Eliza." So adorable.

This is Eliza's cousin Elijah (Eli) born three weeks earlier. Eli is my sister Melissa's little baby.

Welcome to the world, Eliza!

(In other news, we are living in Arizona now. Glen started his new job in June, and he is enjoying it. We are currently living with my parents. We have been trying to sell our house in Washington but are not having any luck, so now we are working on getting some renters. As soon as that happens, we'll look for a home here.)

Change is a Comin'

Lot's of things are going to be changing for us in the next couple of months. Next month, we will be going from this:

Goodbye Evergreen State....


To this:

Hello Valley of the Sun!

Glen has accepted an awesome position with a great company in Arizona, and will be starting next month! We will miss the beautiful Northwest. But we feel very blessed for this opportunity and look forward living close to so much of my family! Arizona is where I grew up, and boy have I been missing the sunshine! Although I am in for some serious climate shock, people, so wish me luck in doing the last 2 months of my pregnancy in 100 degree + weather.

Also, in an effort to get our house ready to sell, we are back to this:

This is the current state of my upstairs bathroom.


Glen is working like a madman again!

B.C.

A couple of weeks ago we piled in the van and took a little day drip up to Vancouver, British Columbia for the temple open house. It's about a 4 hour trip (including waiting to cross the border) each way. Whenever a new temple is built, it is open to the public for a few weeks before it is formally dedicated for worship. It's a great opportunity see the beauty of the interior, learn the purpose of each of the rooms, and to eat some mighty delicious cookies at the end. The Vancouver, B.C. temple was dedicated last Sunday, May 2nd.

The fam at the front door of the temple

Caleb sportin' his stylish booties (used to keep the carpets clean)

The kids were pretty well behaved for most of the trip. After the tour, Caleb and I went to find a potty before we headed home. While Glen and Grace waited in the hall, Grace broke into a mega tantrum. Caleb is naturally loud all the time anyway, and as we were headed out, I heard a missionary say "those are the loudest kids I have ever heard."





Do we get an award for that?

The Wheels on the Bus

This is Caleb's school bus coming down the road to drop him off. He started preschool back in February, and I had my doubts about whether or not he would actually get on the bus. We signed him up to ride the bus a few weeks after he started school, and each time the bus would come by to pick him up, he wanted nothing to do with it. The bright idea came to me, hey, I'll ride with him! I rode the bus to and from school with him for two days. Then we told him we'd take him to McDonald's for lunch as soon as he rode all by himself, and the next day my baby boarded the bus and drove off without me.

I totally bawled on Glen's shoulder after the bus rode away.

But now Caleb loves it, and it sure beats driving him to and from school every day!

Grace always waves very enthusiastically at the bus as it pulls up to drop him off.

(She also insists on dressing herself most mornings, and she's not much for color coordination)

Here he is, getting off the bus in his raggedy old jeans (he'd wear these pants every day if I let him)

Adventures at Walmart, and other randomness

I should probably mention first that Caleb appears to be potty trained. He turned 4 in January, so this is a HUGE deal in our house. He even goes out to public places in underwear, including preschool and Walmart. I had my first experience today taking 2 kids into a public restroom for a potty break. And let me tell you, diapers are really not that bad. I guess it went pretty well, until Grace decided to follow some lady to her stall, then forcefully push the stall door open before the lady could lock it, resulting in a loud "Ouch!" from said lady. I quickly apologized from outside the stall and rushed the children out of the bathroom.

Then, I don't know how many times I bent over to pick something up that Grace dropped out of the cart or Caleb knocked off the shelf. And every time I bent over, my cell phone fell out of the pocket of my bag. Every single time. Don't ask me why I didn't either zip up the bag, or put the dumb cell phone in my pocket. After the 78th time the phone fell out I picked it up and muttered, "Oh my heck." A lady passed by me with a look on her face that said, "you're in over your head." I put the cell phone in my pocket and moved on.

We headed out to the van and as I was putting our loot in the back, I said "Wow, we bought a lot of stuff!" Caleb asked, "Why did we buy a lot of stuff?" To which I replied, "because we needed a lot of stuff." Caleb then proclaimed, "But there's people dying in Africa!"

He's right you know. And after I laughed for about 10 minutes I thought about that, but that's another post entirely.

Each day after Grace goes down for her nap, Caleb and I have "rest time." Which usually involves me dozing on the couch while Caleb plays with his toys. Today as I was dozing, I was roused to consciousness by a loud banging followed by very annoying music. I opened my eyes to see Caleb with Grace's baby doll. He was whacking the doll's head repeatedly on a shapes sorter to make the sorter play songs. Sometimes I wonder...

But then after nap and rest time Caleb and Grace were playing in Caleb's room. Caleb has a big Captain's bed with drawers and a little cubby underneath. He told Grace to get in the cubby, then he shut the door and said to her, "Now stay in there for 3 days, Grace...okay now come out! You came alive today! Mommy, Grace came alive! She resurrected!" After that I felt a little better about his general development.

One last thing. Apparently I am incapable of washing and drying the laundry in one day. For some reason, after I put that last load in the washer, my brain thinks, laundry's done! That's just one of many things I blame on my pregnant brain these days.

And that is the end of my mindless rambling.

It's a.....

Can you tell from the profile?

Doesn't she look dainty? ;-)

Sometimes we like the Northwest

Last week we had another beautiful, sunny, record-breaking day. So Glen took a long lunch and we headed to the beach. Living on the Puget Sound does have it's advantages.

Throwing sand!
(One of Caleb's quirks is that he absolutely CANNOT wear his jacket without the hood. The hood must be worn at all times)

Testing the waters...

Digging...

And building...

And burying...

And getting our bums very wet...

Grace is trying to do something about her signature Northwest white legs. I gave up on that a while ago.

This week we are back to rain, rain, rain. Like I said, sometimes we like the Northwest...

What not to say to your pregnant wife

"So you're about half way there now, right? Welp, looks like it's gonna be a big one."

*Disclaimer: This is actually way more funny to me than offensive, so no, I am NOT throwing my husband under the bus.

Oh, Glen also requested that I include the following:

Glen is the best husband in the world!

Smart Boy

Usually on Saturday's when I need to get stuff ready on the computer for Primary on Sunday, Caleb will watch TV while I'm in the office. I've determined that to be the only way to keep him from destroying all things electronic in the office. Just now Caleb came to the office door and said:

Caleb: Mommy, I need to tell you something.
Me: What is it, Bud?
Caleb: We need a Smart Mop.
Me: Huh?
Caleb: Yeah, you know, a Smart Mop. It picks up the mustard and the ketchup. And lots of other things. (Runs away)

This kid may be on to something...



*Image from buysmartmop.com

Without Further Ado...

Finally some pictures of our remodeled kitchen and our finished basement!! They both have actually been mostly finished and functional since September. I wanted to take and "after" photo of the kitchen after it had been painted and the crown molding had been put up above the cabinets (by Glen, of course). That happened a couple of weeks ago, and just so we can all look back and fondly remember all fun times during the remodel (a.k.a. crappy times) take a look back at THIS POST of basement "befores," and THIS POST of kitchen "befores." And also THIS POST just for fun.

And now without further ado, behold the basement:









And here is the kitchen:







I try not to make a habit of bragging about anything on this blog, but please excuse me while I brag about my husband for a minute, because he deserves it. Glen literally built half of our current home with his bare hands (with help from his dad, brothers, and some friends). The only work that he contracted out was the basement drywall, and the flooring in the basement and kitchen. But he designed the entire basement and kitchen, framed it all, demolished the kitchen, did all the electrical wiring, plumbed it all, painted, installed the kitchen cabinets, countertops, dishwasher, and microwave, installed all the bathroom fixtures, and all sorts of other details that I can't recall. Whew! Now we are nearly finished. And we're never doing it again.