Almost 7 months old!!

Where does the time go? I can't believe that Kimber is already almost 7 months old. She is our little "Scream Queen". Seriously the girl has pipes. We think that she'll either grow up to be a singer or the girl in the scary movies with the ear piercing horrifying scream that makes the hair on your neck stand up.

Kimber is so much fun! We just love her too pieces. She has dimples just like Mommy but her's are totally cuter.

She has been able to stand (with help) since she was really little. She has very strong legs. I think she started rolling over sometime around 3 months old. The last couple of weeks she has been flirting with crawling or at least inching forwards. Madi was 9 months old before she was crawling or inching forwards and she could sit then too. Kimber isn't even sitting up yet. I don't know why she is in such a hurry.

She has started having rice cereal and I think she likes it pretty well. A bunch of the cereal comes back out but she is getting the idea I think and that's what counts.

She definitely is a girl that knows how to get what she wants. I haven't decided if that is a good thing or a bad thing. She sure is a sweetie and we are so happy to have her in our family.

Scary noises in this old house...

I love old houses but they creep me out at the same time. I have probably just seen one too many scary movies but if I hear a sound my ears perk up. This house that we live in was probably built in the 50's but I'm not sure I just know it's fairly old. I always hear little creaks and sounds so I always sleep with a fan on and a night light. That's right a night light I'm not too scared to admit that I'm a big scaredy cat.
Our computer is in the basement of our house and thankfully I'm not real creeped out about it down here or at least I try not to be. Sitting here in the basement I hear a few different noises most of which I can name what they are but if I do hear something that seems weird I run upstairs to investigate. Tonight as I was working on a blog post I thought I could hear someone walking around upstairs. Brett was at work and the girls were both snugly in their beds. I walked upstairs to look around but nothing seemed to be amiss. I went in and checked on Madi and she was in her bed, not in a deep sleep yet but in her bed. I just told myself that it was old house noises and then the furnace had just turned off so that was probably some of the noise too. So I went back to my post then I heard noises again. It sounded like someone was walking in the living room and maybe the master bedroom. It was really starting to freak me out. I went up and looked around again but didn't see anything. A little bit later the furnace had kicked on and then off again and then I heard it.... Madi was running around upstairs. That little munchkin was getting into anything and everything. Mystery solved!! I guess getting spooked like this helps to keep my heart healthy... I am such a wimp. Ahhh!! Just as I wrote that I heard a noise from upstairs and then this loud rumble.... Darn that furnace!!!! Hopefully I'll get used to all of these noises soon and then I'll be able to tell when Madi is running amuck.

Pumpkinland Iowa

This past Friday we went to Pumpkinland Iowa to pick a few pumpkins for our front porch. We all had a lot of fun. The weather was beautiful just perfect for picking pumpkins.

Madi had so much fun talking to and feeding the animals in the petting zoo. We had to warn her about putting her hand in front of the animals without food because they might bite her. She has recently started calling dogs, "Woofies" and was very excited that there were woofies there to pet.

Madi led us all though the Munchkin Maze. She marched through the maze like she was on a serious mission. A few times I spotted her just swinging her hips. She is a little girl with a HUGE attitude. The maze was in the shape of a tractor. I guess they do something new every year.

After the corn maze we loaded Madi and Kimber in the cart to go pick out pumpkins. Kimber rode in the cart for just a few feet, she doesn't sit up yet and Madi wasn't really into holding her up. It did make for a cute photo though.

There were a bunch of pumpkins to choose from. Brett and Madi set out and found some really cute pumpkins just right for our front porch.

We visited the little store that they have and we purchased a yummy home made carmel apple pie! Yum!

I'm so glad that we finally went out and did this. I have been wanting to take Madi to a pumpkin patch the last couple of years but haven't so this was really fun. It was also fun to drive to a new part of Iowa that we haven't seen yet.

(I love Madi's Flock of Seagulls hairdo in this photo! It was very windy.)

Kimber update!

Kimber is six and a half months old. She is our little dolly. Just before we left from Arizona she started saying her Da da da's. She completely melts my heart. I know I've mentioned before that she screams like a banshee. That hasn't changed at all and it probably has gotten worse. She is completely content while being held by Mom. She can be playing with toys or being held by Brett and then if she catches sight of me she twists her body clear around so she can see me. But, if I walk past her or out of sight she starts to scream. Now this scream that I speak of is like no other I have ever heard. We think that she'll either grow up to be a singer or the girl in the scary movies that has the blood curdling scream.

It's really very cute how she wants to be with me 24 7 and I'm so glad that right now she prefers me to anyone else. I know that in a year or so she'll be more interested in playing or being with Daddy. But for right now I'll take advantage of all this cuddle time.

In the mind of a little girl

I wonder what goes on in the mind of my little Madi. She has such a great imagination. She'll pick up her play cell phone and carry on this long conversation. She even tells me to shush because she is talking, that's something I say to her when I'm on the phone. She always cracks me up.
Tonight I put her to bed and about 30 minutes later as I was in the kitchen cleaning up I could hear Madi talking. When I went into her room she hurried and covered up with her blanket. I asked her what she was doing and she said that Eric was talking to her. I had a little giggle and then I told her that she needed to go to bed. I then said, "Eric, you get in your bed and don't talk anymore." I didn't think I would ever talk to Madi's imaginary friend but there it is it happened. Then Madi said that Eric needed to get in her bed and I told her that he was in his own bed. How silly! I wonder if she actually has a picture in her little mind of her friend Eric. I also wonder how little kids come up with these imaginary friends. I don't remember having one but I probably did. Ahh to be young and carefree again.

Cleveland Castle (The ice cream park)

When we first got to Le Mars we stayed in a hotel and you all know how difficult it is to be in a hotel with kids so we had to get out as much as possible. In the Le Mars visitors guide I found a list of parks and saw photo's of the Cleveland Castle. It looked really cool so we set out to find it.

Madi had so much fun exploring and climbing all over the fun things. She also really likes to chase after the squirrels. She says that she needs to pet them and I tell her that they have cooties. Such a silly girl!

We visited The Cleveland Castle a few times while we were in the hotel and then after we moved into the house I realized that we were just a few blocks away from the park and we can even see it from our front window. The past week I've been working like a crazy woman to get everything unpacked so everyday when Brett got home from work he would load the girls in the stroller and walk to the park. It's been so nice to let Madi get out and run and play. Kimber really likes going to the park too especially when she is all snugly in the her snugli.

I'm glad that the weather has been so nice so that we could go enjoy the park. I'm sure that once it snows we'll be able to go sledding or ice skating at the park too.

This is just one of the fun things that we like about our new home in Le Mars, Iowa.

Don't scare me like that!

Brett was just about to go out the door to run an errand when we heard a siren going off. We both just stopped and looked at each other because we didn't know what it meant. I just froze for a minute and then I turned around and walked to the TV and turned to a news station. There wasn't anything about bad weather so I thought I had better call someone to find out what the heck. I called this salesman that we had talked to and asked him what the siren meant. He said that every once in awhile they do a test of the siren at 1:00PM. He said that it took him a little while to get used to when he first moved here. I asked him if that's what we would hear if there was a tornado and he said yes. YIKES!!!!!!!!!! I think my heart stopped for a minute when I first heard that siren blowing. The girl that lives behind us told me that there was a siren that would sound if there was a problem but I didn't know they did tests!! Well, it's just good to know what I need to listen for. Now I just need to find out where in the house is the best place to hide if there is a tornado.. YIKES!!!!!!!!!

Duh!!

Since we've been in Le Mars we haven't been to church. It's so bad and I really want us to go but we haven't just because we have been all out of sorts with the move. Anyway, Madi has been begging, crying about going to nursery. We were already planning on going this Sunday anyway so I told her that we were going.
This morning I woke up at 6:30AM so that I could get myself ready and get the girls ready and then get to church on time. The drive to church is about 30 minutes so Brett and I planned out 40 minutes so we would have plenty of time. Well, as things go we didn't leave the house at the time we had planned and were running about 15 minutes late. So we rushed it a little trying to get there before 9:00AM. Then I was telling Brett a story so I didn't pay attention and we didn't take the right exit so we were still about 15 minutes late. Not too bad we could still catch the greater part of sacrament meeting. As we rounded the corner and I could kind of see the parking lot in the back of my mind I thought, "Where are all of the cars? Is it conference?!" Brett drove to the far side of the building and we could see the other side of the parking lot, the empty parking lot. We both said out loud, "IT'S CONFERENCE!!" Sheesh! If only we paid attention to something other than getting the house put together maybe we would have put that together before we drove down there.. We're so silly. It was a nice drive anyway we turned around and came back home and watched the end of the first session. Silly us! I'm glad that I did get to hear President Monson speak he's so great.
Anyway, that's my duh for today hopefully I won't have another one for a while. I guess I should have tried to take a family photo because we all looked pretty cute today. Oh well!

Ice Cream!!

I don't think I have ever mentioned what it is that Brett does now. Well, he works for Blue Bunny Ice Cream. He is a Production Supervisor just like what he did with Pepsi just now he makes ice cream instead of Gatorade. He is really enjoying his new job and learning about making ice cream. While he is at work he can eat ice cream and I think that he sometimes has to take a sample off the line.. I know what a terrible job right... We have tried a few different flavors of ice cream and some of the ice cream sandwiches and we are total fans. We just need to be careful and not eat too much ice cream so we can fit in our clothes.

Cute neighbors

Today as I was unpacking boxes (actually I was taking a break and playing on the computer) I heard a knock at the door. When I arrived at the door I saw a very tiny little old lady. My 93 year old neighbor came over to say hello and bring us cookies.. What a sweetie!! A few hours later when Brett was home from work there was another knock at the door. Another cute neighbor came over to say hello and bring us some cookies.. So cute!! Then while we were outside hanging the bug zapper (a necessity here) Madi saw the neighbor girls out jumping on the trampoline. She kept waving to them and yelling to them over the sound of the lawn mower. I thought that since they were all older girls they wouldn't want to hang out with Madi. Well, they all came over and wanted to have Madi come hang with them. It was really cute! The girls were eight and six years old. Madi had a great time jumping on the trampoline and being tickled by the girls.
Everyone that we have come in contact with have been so nice. I'm very excited to meet more people and learn more about Le Mars it's such a cute place.

Moving sucks rocks!

Ok moving sucks and I just always used to say that things sucked rocks so I had to title this post that.

Thank goodness for the company paid for packing and moving of all of our stuff. Too bad they don't come and put it all away for me when it gets here. Today I had a break down over where to put my mountains of beauty products.. Ahhhhh!!! I have promised Brett that I will buy one product use it up and then buy another one instead of buying one using a little putting it away and buying another one. This wasn't really an issue in our Buckeye house because I had tons of cabinet space. Well, here in this smaller house we have limited cabinet space so I'm going to have to either get clever about where to put things or maybe actually use the stuff that I buy.. How silly!

The day that all of our stuff was delivered I thought that I was going to get the house put away so quickly. I don't know why I'm being so crazy about this it's only been a few days I just want it done already.. I know boo hoo but it sucks..

A tiny break from unpacking with a few Madi quotes!

Hey! We finally got our internet hooked up today. I have so much to write about but not much time. I thought I would take a little second and write down a few of Madi's cute little quotes from the past few weeks. Enjoy!

~~~~~
"Hair in your nose."

Madi, "Daddy, you have hair in your nose!"
Mommy, "So do you Madi."
Madi, "No I don't! I got boogers!"
Daddy, "Yes you do have hair in your nose."
Madi, "I don't have glass slippers in my nose but I have boogers in my nose."

~~~~~
What do you want to eat for dinner?

Daddy, "Madi do you want a sandwich for dinner?"
Madi, "No."
Daddy, "Do you want mashed potatoes?"
Madi, "No that's yucky!"
Daddy (after trying a bunch of other things), "Do you want to eat rabbit?"
Madi, "No I don't want to eat rabbit!"
Mommy, "Do you want to eat a squirrel?"
Daddy, "Yeah do you want to eat a squirrel?"
Madi, "No, it has cooties."

The story behind squirrel's having cooties is this. Whenever we are at the park Madi runs afters the squirrel's trying to pet one. I always tell her that she doesn't want to pet the squirrel's because they have cooties.. I'm so glad that she remembers the things that I tell her.

~~~~~
At breakfast the other morning Madi was being a little rambunctious. Brett was trying to talk her into calming down just a bit. She looked straight at him and said, "You're like a crazy woman." Brett laughed and said, "You should know."
She keeps us laughing!

House hunting...

Ok so the other day I mentioned that I had put a deposit down on a house to rent. Well, I changed my mind on that house (which was gigantic!) and went with a smaller cute house that I'm way comfortable with. The first house is a really old Victorian house with millions of stairs. I was just fearful of my little sure foot (Madi) falling down all of the time.
So, we are able to move into the house tomorrow. The movers aren't going to arrive until next Wednesday so until then we will be in an empty house with an airbed and the kids pack n play. It will be kind of like camping.. At least we wont be paying $80 a day for a hotel anymore. Thank goodness the company picked up the tab on the first six day we were in the hotel because can you imagine.. OUCH!!!
I left the address in our room so if you want it let me know and I'll send it to you. Well, since we will be without computer for a week I'll get you all up to speed when we are back up and running.. Until then don't give up on our blog I hope to have something fun to write about really soon including the stuff we did while visiting family in Utah.. Stay tuned!

Sleeping beauties

We are still holding up at the Holiday Inn Express here in Le Mars. We have put a deposit down on a house that we are going to rent and should be in by Monday. I'll keep you all posted on how the move and everything goes.

Check out our little sleepy heads. They have done so well this past week being stuck in a hotel. All I can say is thank goodness for box fans that make a lot of noise for sleeping. OH and thank goodness for pleasant weather so we could go to the park to run around. I'll post something about the parks next time, they are really so much fun.

We're Here!!

Well, we made it! We arrived in Le Mars, Iowa yesterday around 7:00PM. Right now we are staying in a hotel until we can get into our new place. So far it seems like a real fun place to live. Later today we are going to go to the ice cream museum which should be fun. Anyway! I'll post some photo's just as soon as we get our computer and all of our stuff. Wish us luck on finding a house really quick!!!
On another note... We still have our Arizona cell phones numbers.

Happy Birthday Kimberly!

Today is Brett's baby sister Kimberly's birthday. She would have been 27 years old. She will forever be a sweet baby girl. I know that Brett's parents will have the chance in heaven to raise Kimberly from a baby and she will be healthy and strong. She is loved dearly and missed completly. We love you Kimberly and can't wait to meet you again one day.

Moving, allergies and teething

So far our trip to Utah on our way to Iowa has been a lot of fun. We have been able to do some fun things with our families. We have been having a few issues with sleep. The first few nights we didn't get much sleep so Brett slept in the den with Madi and I slept in the spare bedroom with Kimber. It really seemed to work out except we weren't able to sleep because the girls kept on waking up. Madi was waking up because she couldn't find her silky and she freaks out. We think that Kimber is teething so she was waking up screaming every hour. It was a lot of fun! (notice the sarcasm)

Then on Saturday we noticed that Madi had a really goopy eye. It didn't look like pink eye so we weren't too concerned. Then Kimber started having a goopy eye. Both of the girls were stuffed up so we started giving them both eye drops and benadryl. Then last night Brett said that he wasn't feeling very well. His hands and feet were all clammy. He said that he was freezing and that he needed to sleep under all of the blankets. He never ever sleeps under the blankets because he is always too hot so I knew right away he wasn't feeling very well. Thankfully Brett feels better today so we figured that it was an allergy thing. The girls eyes were starting to look a little better but I wanted to get them in to see the doctor before we headed into the unknown.

We were able to go see the same doctor that delivered Madi and that our sister in law Megan works for. He ended up giving the girls a prescription for eye drops and said that they looked good other than that. I guess there are a lot of these allergy cases this time of year. It's really no fun having sick kids any time but it's really a big huge bummer when you are traveling. I just hope that they are a lot better by the time we head out on Wednesday. On the other hand it was a lot of fun to see Megan at work and to see Dr. Anderson again so I guess the girls with their allergies wasn't all that bad.

"I want to go home."

This move has been harder on me than any other. I think it's because Madi is old enough to kind of understand what's going on and it's hard to take her away from her cute friends.

Just before we drove away from out house in Buckeye some of our great friends came over for a visit. Brinna looked around our empty house and said, "Heather, where did you move your couches?" Then a little later she asked me where all of Madi's toys were. I was already a little emotional about leaving and so when I started to tell this sweet little three year old that we were moving far away I just started crying.

Just a short while later our good friends the Wright's showed up and the kids all started running around having great fun. The three little girls were in the den running around on the bare hardwood floors. Then Kutter (the only boy) would run in and all of the girls would scream. It was great fun.

After awhile it was time to get on the road. That first night we drove to Flagstaff and stayed the night. The next morning we got on the road around 8:00AM. After being stuck in the car for hours Madi started getting a little restless. She started to get a little fussy and cried, "I want to go home!" I was driving the car when she said that and the tears just started to roll. Brett was very quick and told Madi that we were going to Nana and Papa's house and that made her really happy. Madi is just happy to be with family and friends so I'm sure she doesn't think anything about our old house. Although she has been talking about Brinna and Payton so it's probably not far away that she will be begging to go play with her friends. It's going to be interesting trying to explain that we can't just walk over to Brinna's or drive over to Payton's. I know she'll make new friends soon but I hope that she remembers her Buckeye friends.

She speaks her mind

Just a quick post before I forget.

On our trip to Vernal from Arizona we needed to stop for a potty break but we hadn't seen a gas station for awhile. We finally came to this little diner and decided to stop. The bathroom in the diner wasn't really for the public to use but little old lady behind the counter offered to take Madi to use her private bathroom. When they arrived at the bathroom Madi said, "I don't want to use the potty it's dirty!" I've said it before and I'll say it again.. She is such a girl and I love it.

Move from Arizona to Iowa (continuation)

So we left Buckeye a day earlier than we had originally planned. Since the movers were finished we decided that we should just get on the road. We said our tearful goodbyes and set out on the road. Our car was packed to the brim and then some. We had the rooftop carrier full of stuff and the floor under the girls full of stuff the back of the car over flowing with stuff it was a lot of stuff we had with us.

My emotions were very close to the surface because things were a bit uncertain in our future. We had left our house to move to a new state that I had never even visited and we didn't even have somewhere to move to yet. I wasn't very nervous about finding somewhere to live I thought that was coming together it just wasn't set yet. We had done something similar to this before but we didn't have kids back then. When we moved from Colorado back to Vernal we sold our house so quickly that we just packed up and headed out and didn't have anything set of where we were going to live. That time we just put all of our belongings in three different garages and stayed with Brett's parents. We ended up buying Brett's brother's house (which is the childhood house that Brett grew up in). Anyway, back to the move from Arizona. That night we drove for a few hours until we reached Flagstaff where we stayed the night.

The next day as I was driving Madi says, "I want to go home." She was sick of being in the car. I just started crying. I didn't know where home was yet and we had just left the home that she knew. I tried to keep a brave face and told her that we were going to Grandma's house because I knew that she would be happy about that.

We lived in Arizona for two years and only made the drive back to Utah this one time and it was when we were moving away. It's such a long drive for kids so we packed a bunch of movies and books and toys and treats to keep the girls happy for as long as possible. We also made the best investment ever and purchased a portable DVD player. That thing was a life saver for Madi. Poor little Kimber was a trooper as best she could at six months old. She was happiest if she had a blanket to cuddle with.We reached Vernal at about 8:30PM on the second day of our travels. I think we kind of took the longest road to get there but we got there and all in one piece. We were so happy to be in a familiar place. It was also very exciting because only Brett's Mom had met Kimber so Kimber had a lot of people to meet.