A Good Excuse

Well, I can finally FINALLY announce why I have been so preoccupied these last many months and not posting very regularly.

We. are. MOVING!

Yes.  It's true.  I never in a million years thought I would ever have to post something like this because I already had my whole life planned out and let me tell you- moving was not part of the plan.

I distinctly remember having this moment last August- just an average, ordinary day- when I looked around and thought to myself, "wow.  my life is perfect.  could it possibly get better than this?"

So, you see, it's my fault we're moving.  I jinxed us.

Sorry, Jay :(

I admit, I was heartbroken at first.  Even now, I'll have occasional sad glimmers in my eyes to leave behind all we have fostered here...  (or maybe that's the exhaustion?)

But I always like a good adventure too, and this will surely be that.

I should really be sleeping right now, so I'm not going to go into the details.

yet.

BUT, I just had to get that off my chest.

We're moving, and that's why I'm MIA.  I've been cleaning and packing and posting pictures of the house, and learning about selling a home on my own, and cleaning, and weeding, and climbing trees to saw out dead limbs and not cooking good meals and allowing my kids to spend WAY to much time in front of a screen and, OH, did I mention that Jay has been out of town for most of all this?

Yes.  He has.

Luckily, I have fabulous parents and neighbors and family and I'm doing alright.

In fact, our home is officially under contract as of a few hours ago, pending the sale of their home, so it must have all worked pretty well.

However, in the contract, I am allowed to take other offers and save them until June 23rd, (Jays' birthday!) the date they have to have their home under contract with another buyer for us to honor the contract with them.  So, in the meantime, I must keep up appearances and keep holding open houses until we are goners.  Most likely we'll be completely moved out by June 27th (my brother's birthday!).

Carazy, eh?

Oh, and just so I don't keep y'all (2 of you) hanging, and if you haven't seen on facebook already, we're moving to Poughkeepsie, NY.

G'nite!

Ward Christmas Breakfast

We had our ward Christmas Party on Saturday and the decor was crazy awesome.  Like Pinterest awesome.  I can't believe the work that must have gone into it!

The food donation area

cute mini presents stuck to the front of the stage

The program backdrop and where pics with Santa will be later.

Isn't that a sweet punch bowl?  It feels so festive!

Crazy marshmallows at the hot chocolate bar

Giant Cardboard ginger people decorated the walls all over

Can you believe the cardboard reindeer?  That must have been soo painful to make...  I have a hard time cutting out symmetric windows in a box house...

Cute gingerbread men.  Do you see the one with the casualty?

Plasticware is not supposed to look cute at a ward party...

Cereal and fruit.  I love those huge containers.

There was one of these at EVERY SEAT.  hours.  hours and hours is all I think of looking at this.

My visiting teachee's family just had a new baby last month and they dressed for a nativity while the birth story in Luke 2 was read and I played "Away in a Manger" on the piano.

When it was The Frog's turn to sit on Santa's lap, he crawled over and started barking.  This one never breaks character...

I thought Iris would like to talk to Santa and maybe Peach wouldn't cry if she was there too :)

Ward History Party

Our ward had a fun ward history party that was movie themed.  They took a bunch of famous movie posters and inserted people's faces.  Here was ours:

Iris's Volleyball Pics

We have taken a million-billion photos of Iris's volleyball games.  I have officially gained a new appreciation for sports photographers...  It's HARD to get anything to be non-blurry!!  

We have had so much fun going to all her home games (and a few aways that aren't too far) and we are excited to announce that the Timpview Volleyball team has qualified for the state tournament, ranked 2nd in our region!!  We are so proud of Iris- she is wicked good!

team lineup before announcing the players

It was always exciting to see how they would pronounce her name :)

Iris serving

I've never seen her miss a serve!

She may be short, but she is the left-side hitter.

T-BIRDS!

This shot makes me think she should play basketball. :)

Don't worry- she got it!

Iris wanted to make something for everyone on varsity, and she designed these flags to pin on their bags herself.  She did the embroidery (THS and around the edge) and I helped her sew on buttons, cut stuff out, and sewed the colored part of the volleyballs with the machine.  I think they turned out really awesome!

super cute flags

warming up

huddle!

L spikes it!

E just saves it!

Look how high Iris can jump!

There was always a small gathering of students to cheer the team on, and they always rushed the court when we won.  (which was most of the time :D)

hugging coach Bailey

At the last home game, they always celebrate the leaving seniors, but they also honored Iris since she will also not be returning next year. :'(

My friend took a picture for us, but Iris couldn't see where the camera was, haha.

The seniors and Iris :)

Happy 40th Anniversary! (Mass Trip Part 1)

Our family made our annual trip out to Mass to visit Nanie and Gampie this July.  We feel so lucky that Jay's job is flexible enough to allow us to stay for 2 weeks!  As always, we had a great time.  I can't believe it, but I FORGOT MY CAMERA.  Luckily, his parents let me use theirs.  I didn't have enough time to figure out the manual settings until midway through the trip, and for some reason, many of the photos got corrupted, but I'll share some that survived. 

Jay's parents celebrated their 40th anniversary this year and so he and his older sister decided to throw them a celebration.  We planned it for when our family was going to be out visiting them.

 Instead of a guest book that they would flip through once and never again, we decided it would be fun to have people write well-wishes on river rocks and place them in a vase as a home decor reminder.

I don't have any pictures of the final result, but I think it looks really great!

Kids' table:

 Jay's older sister made the beautiful cake herself!

 Jay's parents got married at the courthouse, so we thought it would be fun to have them cut the cake for us :)

 I'm realizing now that most of the pictures were taken before or after the event since Jay and I spent most of the time being reminded why we never take our kids to restaurants...

Someone brought this lovely bouquet (stuck full of $5 and $10 bills), I just had to take a picture :)

Alternative Thanksgiving

This year, since my parents are on a mission in Chile, the only local family I have is doing Thanksgiving with the in-laws, SO I took matters into my own hands and did something early with everyone. I'm saving my turkey for Thursday, though there will only be 2.5 people eating it, so instead I just made chili and potato soup and the other families brought corn bread. It was yum.

Here's little cousin S. He has the longest eyelashes! I didn't have my camera out enough, so he's the only kid who got a close-up.

Here's Audra with her white w/ chocolate truffle frosting cake. I was ill-prepared in the candle department (I can't even count how many times that has been the case) so her wish was a bit easier to obtain than it should have been. Oh well, she probably deserves it :)

Before everyone left, I insisted on a sofa shot. This is the one closest to getting them all to look at me. I think two pictures later, cousin W started smacking everyone on the head :D

Anyone Want to Come With Me?

I've been meaning to go to this since I moved to Provo, and this time I'm really going to do it. Anyone with me? Think, unique Christmas gifts!

Sunday School Slip 'n Slide Soiree

Jay and I teach Sunday School to the 12/13 year-olds at church. We decided it would be fun if we had a little class party- plus we really wanted to try out Jay's new slip 'n slide (his birthday present from The Frog) I think we all had a really great time.

I got a bit carried away with the camera and ended up taking over 200 pictures! (yikes!) Here are the highlights :D