Temple Lights

 Our annual trip to the temple was a success.  It was not crowded at all, which was unexpected and very nice.  The girls loved it and were happy the whole time.  Emery rocked her outfit that is way too small.  We love to see the temple and are so blessed to live so close to one--soon to be TWO!

December so far

 Sage completed her first solo puzzle.    (And then did it 30 times after that.) I was and still am so proud!

 Our new rental came with this awesome washer and dryer set.  I think it's safe to say that 1: I will forever be a washer/dryer snob from now on and will require a front loading set!  They are unbelievable! and 2: Charlotte is obsessed.  She likes to sit and watch the clothes and gets SUPER excited when she spots something of hers.

 Every Monday and Wednesday, I pick Sage up from preschool carpool at this little shopping center.  At said shopping center is a little whole-in-the-wall Water n Ice ice cream shop.  The girls beg.  Every time.  So...last week we went in.  I let them split a little cupful and it was like magic!  They were so happy and excited!  I'm pretty sure it is now a $1/week MUST HAVE.

 

It's still in the high 70's, low 80's here.  So pretty much every evening is spent outside taking walks in our new neighborhood.  The girls (esp C) love to strike a pose.

 Speaking of striking a pose.....

 And putting all three pics up here was a  must.  I seriously crack up at the different facial expressions.

Christmas Festivities

 We are putting our advent calendar to good use this year.  It's quite possible that I wait until the night before each day to decide what to put in each little slot--how much time we have to devote to each Christmas activity determines what we are able to do.  Some days it's just singing a Christmas song that we have time for--but thankfully my ladies think even that is the most amazing thing ever.  They LOVE moving the candy cane from one day to the next and finding out what fun activity we get to do each day.  I love their enthusiasm this year.  They are totally into things and it's so fun.  Red (elf) has made his appearance, and after seeing him drinking from a straw, roasting marshmallows, watching a movie with Barbie, etc--Sage is convinced he is alive.  She gives him a wide berth and REALLY keeps her distance.  But loves him, too.  They love looking for him each morning.  We took them to the dollar store tonight to pick out gifts for each other and for a few special people.  Charlotte had a hard time -- she didn't quite understand why she wasn't getting to pick anything out for herself.  But she had fun picking out for other people.  Sage was in heaven and really thought about what each person on her list would really like.  It was precious.  We love driving them around at night to look at lights.  Even the smallest sting of lights on a tree gets the most enthusiastic "oooohhhhh it's so beautiful!" out of them.  Every. Single. House.  It's awesome.  I sure love these three.

 Before I had kids, I was not a fan of trinket type ornaments.  But now I'm pretty sure my big tree will eventually be theirs to decorate.  I LOVE pulling out the ornaments they make each year and seeing how excited they get about each one.  I'm pretty sure I'll be that person who has boxes full of hand print ornaments from all of their kids from every single year.  And I'll cry when they break.

 Our entryway set up.  Christmas overload!

 Playing piano with grandpa while grandma sets up the tree

The girls had a ball decorating the tree.  We had probably 20 bulbs at the very bottom of the tree and one or two at the top.  I might have snuck in later after they went to bed to re-arrange.  I LOVED their expressions when we had them turn around to see the tree lit for the first time.  So sweet.

 Santa's little helper.  Or destroyer.  Whichever.

MOVING

So, we moved.  Again.  For the second time in 6 months.  I don't really recommend that to anyone.  :)
Our original plan when we moved into the rental of my brothers, was to eventually buy it and stay there permanently.  And then pretty much the day after we moved in, my job pretty much just went away.  I still have it, and I still hope for orders to pop up every day, but I have had maybe 10 orders total in the past six months.  While Clint makes decent money, the cost of living is just so high right now that there was no way we were going to be able to make it each month, let alone save up for a house.  So, we started looking.  Wait, no.  I started looking.  It took me several months to convince Clint that we had to  make a change before we were so under water there'd be no re-surfacing.  I looked for months.  I went and took the girls with me for weeks, to house after house after house.  If they didn't smell like dog/cat pee, then they smelled like cigarette smoke.  And if they didn't smell like cigarette smoke, they had only two rooms.  Or were so dirty I would rather live outside than in them.  Or whatever.  I got pretty annoyed looking at so many rentals that people were asking good money for but were just not worth it.  I finally found one on Craigslist---and after a few days of negotiating with the owner, signed a lease.  I actually feel really good about our move.  We are living more within our means, and we no longer have to rely on any income from me for us to pay all of our bills each month.  Yes, we sold stuff.  LOTS of stuff.  Yes, we downsized by  more than half of a house.  Yes, we live really far out and the commute is not fantastic.  But really?  I kind of love it.  I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from our shoulders.  It's going to take a few months for us to get caught up on bills and be able to start saving, but there is light at the end of the tunnel and I'm so happy about it.  Our new home is clean, and smells fantastic, and is homey. 

The move, on the other hand?  Gag.  It blew.  I took a load a day from one house to the other pretty much every day for two weeks.  I stayed up late moving and organizing and selling.  I had a garage sale that went CRAZY.  People were fighting over stuff--before the sale even began!  We could not have gotten everything moved without the help of our parents.  My mom helped me with the little van loads each day, and watched the girls for me when I needed her to.  My dad helped assemble/disassemble things.  Shari and Joe helped us load and unload heavy furniture, late at night.  I am so grateful to live close to family. 

It's been a week now that we've been in our new home.  I still have boxes in my garage full of things that won't fit in the house but that I wasn't willing to sell.  For now, I'll keep them in the attic or garage.  I'm slowly getting things the way I like them.  I think what's frustrating for me is that I like 'like' things to be together.  Pots together.  Pans together.  Spices together, etc.  With the limited space, I've got dishes in my hall closet, toys in the same closet as my medicine shelf, decorations stowed in my closet, etc.  Things aren't where I'd ideally like them to be, and that doesn't bode well with me and my OCD.  But I'm coping.  LOL. 

I realize my new home is so so much more than a lot of people have.  I try to remember that and to be grateful.  I think it's just always harder to go from a big place to a smaller place.  Not awful.  Not unmanageable.  Not heart-breaking.  Just harder.  And my closet is just the perfect size for our pack and play.  So although this isn't a pregnancy announcement, a baby would fit just fine. 

Charlotte is, so far, the only one having adjustment issues.  We pass by our old house every few days to take the girls to school or visit Shari and Joe.  Each time, she cries.  She begs to "go home" and gets so sad when I tell her we can't.  She used to be my independent child, but lately she refuses to go to school, kicking and screaming when I try to leave her.  She is also up at night.  A lot.  Like every hour.  She used to sleep so well all night long, so her new sleeping woes have really thrown me.  I'm hoping that with time she will adjust and get back to her happy little self. 

I'm a lazy packer.  I just threw stuff in my van and unloaded right into closets.

Yikes.

My job while Clint put our bed together at midnight was to lay on our mattress so it wouldn't get in the way.

When I took Emery's crib apart, I found all of her missing pacifiers and her blanket.  Good thing I had made a late night Wal-Mart run for pacifiers the night before.

Last night.  Trying to get everything out, cleaned, and back to it's original condition before new renters came the next morning.

My baby.

 My baby. 

Turkey Trot 2012

 We continued our family tradition this year at the Turkey Trot!  The gals did great and we had a lot of fun.  It's always such a fun way to start our Thanksgiving day.

Furious Five

About a month ago I participated in a Crossfit Competition, and it was a bit more intense than the last one I did.  It was amazing.  So fun.  It would be so easy to let myself get addicted to the competition side of things and let myself spend way too much time crossfitting.  I have been happy lately in my decision to let myself do the occasional competition but to limit my time in the box to an hour a day.  Any more than that and I feel like I'm neglecting my kids and putting too much of my effort and focus into something that just--in the grand scheme of things--isn't what's important.  I think having fun and doing something I love is just fine-but there have to be limits.  Before I went to this competition I was dead set on having a baby STAT.  I have been having baby cravings bad.  An hour into the event, though, I was sure I would wait another year so that I could compete in any and all competitions that came my way.  I really was ready to put off babies for the sake of keeping up with crossfit!  LOL.  Ridiculous!  About 1/2 way through the day though, I saw a baby.  A cute, chubby little boy.  Let's just say I changed my mind fast.  My family is so much more important to me than anything else.  Now--when they're all in school and I have more time on my hands?  Ya.  I might be more involved.  Until then, though, my place is with my babes.  And I'm more than ok with that.  ANYWAYS. 

I signed up for the team side of the event and my partner is out of this world amazing at Crossfit.  His name is Gene, and we work together lots in the box.  (the box is another name for "gym") There were four WOD's we had to complete.  We started with a two mile run carrying a 45lb bar.  We did super well on the run and had an advantage over lots of the teams because we are about the same height.  One hour after the run, we did a "Fireman" WOD.  Sledgehammer, rope climb, buddy carry, box jumps, etc.  We did great until it came to the rope climb.  It was awful and SO embarrassing!!  I can climb the rope.  Fast.  It's one of my favorite things because I kind of rock at it.  haha.  Anyways, right before we started the WOD, I changed into old shoes so as not to ruin my nice ones, and wrapped them with tape.  Brand new, shiny, slippery tape.  So it comes my turn to climb the rope and my feet just will not grip.  I am sliding all over the place.  My arms were shot from the sledgehammer hits so I couldn't just upper-body muscle my way up.  The trick to these workouts, is that you can't move on from one part of the workout to the next unless BOTH team members can complete at least one rep of each exercise.  So.  Since I couldn't climb the rope, we couldn't advance to finish the WOD.  It was so bad!  I was pretty furious.  Poor Gene didn't know what was going on because I climb rope all the time.  Oh.  And I was being watched by a TON of people.  Let's just move on. 

The next one we had to do was a Police/SWAT WOD.  We rowed, buddy-dragged (which was a little awkward!), climbed wall, shuttle ran, lunged, carried water, etc.  It was awesome.  We did super well and gained quite a bit of headway as far as our place in rank was concerned. 

Our final WOD was the standard Crossfit one.  This consisted of buddy-burpees, pull ups, one-arm KB OH squats, thrusters, and clean & jerks.  Of all the workouts we had to do, I was most worried about this one.  Because we were a co-ed team, I had to use the men's bar and lift the same weights as my partner.  So I had to do 115 lb thrusters and clean & jerks.  I ended up doing fine on them -- but watching the video of myself afterwards was bad!  My form toward the end was pretty ugly.  We did really well on this one also and gained more ground in the ranks. 

Overall, we ended up placing 7th out of 49 teams.  I was happy with this, but also a little annoyed because of that dang rope.  If we had been able to complete the workout our score would have been high like the others and we for sure would have been top 4.  Apparently I'm way more competitive than I think I am, because I was pretty mad.  I even had to prove to myself that I could climb the rope--so I put my other shoes back on and did it just fine.  So now I know for next time -- don't change shoes! 

It really was such a fun day and I LOVE the rush of adrenaline I get each time I compete.  I wish they all didn't cost so much--they have one at least once a month but $50 each time gets a little out of hand.  One day when Clint has more time, I want him to come with me and get involved.  I think he would love it.