Time to relax

Well, my forever ongoing overwhelming project is almost done. We finally, finally, finally have carpet downstairs!! I love it. It is so nice to have extra space and an official guest room (can't wait to have visitors!) The girls got a new bunk bed and slept in their new room for the first time. I'm surprised they even slept at all. They were so excited and had a perma-grin on their faces the whole night. I spent all day yesterday organizing rooms and rearranging things and cleaning so now Preston has his very own room with a toddler bed and the girls' stuff is all downstairs and baby's room is ready to go. It feels so nice to have a house that is warm and clean and organized and comfortable! Now I hardly know what to do with myself. Hmmmm...how about relax?

In the meantime, Preston has decided within the last month that he wants to go potty like a big boy! He did really good for a day or two when it was new and exciting, then started not wanting anything to do with it so I thought I wouldn't push it (made that mistake with the girls) and thought I would just put him back in diapers. Well, that doesn't really work once the can of worms had been opened. He didn't like wearing diapers and would take them off every time they were wet, (or Baylee would help him) put on his big boy underwear, then have accidents because he didn't want to try to go when I asked him. One time, we had been out and about for hours while he didn't have a diaper on (which I had no idea) only to have an accident right when we got home, which was a huge surprise for me. So, with the help of some new special potty treats and not really pushing the issue, he has all of the sudden started telling me when he has to go and has had two days of almost no accidents including #1 and #2 even when we are out and about! I can't believe he is that big already. He loves playing in his sand box in the back, especially now that we have had some days of nice (meaning no snow and above 40 degrees) weather. One morning, we couldn't find Preston anywhere in the house and saw that he had gone outside in his pajamas and was playing in the sand. =)

Winter

It seems like this winter has flown by. We are looking forward to the arrival of our fourth child, a boy, in a couple months. He still has no name planned for him so hopefully we can come up with one soon. I have kept busy working on the basement and running the girls to preschool and gymnastics. My sister Stephanie came and lived with us for a month which was fun. It was nice to have a companion throughout the day and she was a great help with the kids and basement! We are going to pick out carpet this weekend and then we will start moving stuff downstairs.Yay!  =) Here are a couple pictures before we hooked all the electrical up. The colors don't really show very well but at least it gives an idea. 

We just got back from a quick weekend visit to our parents. It was great to see them be able to enjoy the kids. Nate and I also picked out our new glasses from Wardell Vision Center, my parents new optometric practice that is up and running. The Billings Gazette did a follow up story on my dad today. It is just a miracle to see how far he has come and see all the work he and mom have done in the past year to get their business up and running. It looks great!

Halloween

October has flown by and we've enjoyed many visitors from Bryce, to Mike and Tiff and baby Whitney, to Mom and Dad Rawlinson and Kristi, and finally Mom and Dad Wardell. It has been so fun to see family much more often as they are coming and going between Montana and Utah or just coming to see us on purpose! =) All the kids, especially Baylee just adored their little cousin Whitney. Ever since her visit, Baylee has been carrying her baby dolls around the house and putting them down for naps just like Tiffany did, making the blankets just right, turning off the lights, even singing to them. 

October is a busy month with all three of the kids' birthdays a day apart. I can hardly believe the girls are 4 and my little baby boy is 2! We celebrated them altogether on the same night, the girls had their own doll cake (they love it), and Preston's cake was an airport runway. Mike and Tiff and Mom and Dad Wardell and our neighbor Kriss joined us for an fun evening of cake, ice cream, and lot's of presents. And with the money from Grandma and Grandpa Rawlinson, the girls picked out some princess sleeping bags and a Cinderella and Belle dress, one of which Mckenna wanted to wear for Halloween. The kids enjoyed trick or treating, and our neighborhood got hit with about 200 kids. Our kids liked getting candy but it was slow going because they couldn't help gawking at everyone else in their costumes and all the decorations. The afternoons are still pretty nice here, but there is always frost on the ground in the morning. I can feel the snow threatening it's first fall. So, we've been trying to make the most of some of our last days outside.   

 

Summer Summer Summer!

This week is the first time I've been hot! But it's not the humid kind of hot. You can still be out in the middle of the day and I love it. The kids and I go to the park almost everyday for lunch and spend a lot of time playing outside in our sand box, running through sprinklers, visiting the splash park, or jumping on our neighbors trampoline. There has been hiking and mud fights and bike rides. Of all the seasons, I love summer!!!

We head to Indiana in a few weeks for Nate to work more on his research.

Spring Please

I feel like life has been flying by these past few months. You'd think spring would be here by now, but there is still snow outside and the wind is howling. So, here's the highlights of what people do in Rexburg until spring comes:

• With the help of Dad and my brother Michael Craig, we are starting to make some progress on our unfinished basement. The plan is for Nate and I to finish the drywall and taping this coming week while he has a break between semesters

• Baylee and Mckenna started a gymnastics class. They love it and their "coach Connie." At home we have been making a ramp with the couch cushions so they can practice doing forward and backward rolls down.

  hugging before class starts

on the balance beam

we have since put a 2 by 4 in our living room with one end on the couch that the girls love walking up and down

• The kids and I spent Easter weekend in Utah watching my little sister Ally throw the javelin for BYU track team (she won the meet!) and meeting her fiance to be and his family. General conference was wonderful and inspiring, and we made it back Saturday evening in time to celebrate Easter at home. The kids loved finding eggs, Baylee is the queen and found probably 3/4 of the hidden eggs but gave most of them to Mckenna and Preston. She is so thoughtful and kind for a 3 year old! even for an adult sometimes!!

 

• The girls and daddy made homemade kites and we tried to fly them at the park for family night. They looked cute but didn't fly well. Nate and I spent probably and hour tying to get them in the air until it was almost dark and the kids and us were exhausted. People were watching and laughing. Don't worry, Nate is determined to figure out how to get them to work. =)

I can't believe these girls are almost 4!!!! Even though they are in the stage of just totally ignoring or completely disregarding what I say sometimes, they really are such a joy to have in our home!

• My dad is practicing optometry again, 6 months after a massive stroke that left him paralyzed on his right side and unable to speak. He is a walking talking miracle! This whole experience has truly brought our family even closer together and has given us opportunities to serve each other. I have been helping with a business plan for his new practice, learning how to design a website, a logo, postcards for mailers, and have spent a lot of my "spare" time (during naps and bedtime) learning adobe photoshop and working on these. I'm remembering that I do love to learn and be challenged by having something worthwhile to work on. Examples of what we've come up with:

logo

business card

their website: (still under design)

www.wardellvisioncenter.com

Weekends

I'm starting to enjoy weekends again. For many months while we were in Indiana, the weekends, well Saturdays, were the same as any other day of the week. Nate would have to go into school to work on research while I was home with the kids all day. Nate still usually has to do some work on Saturdays, but not half as much and I get to enjoy him more. We have set apart time for official date nights together on the weekends as well as parent date nights with each of the girls. Each month Nate and I rotate and take each of the girls out on a date with must daughter and parent. They get to choose what they want to do. So far, the tradition seems to be ending the night with frozen yogurt from Mill Hollow. They love it and so do we. It's just so nice to be able to be one on one with them.

Over Valentines Day weekend, our family drove up to Midway Utah to spend the weekend in a vacation home of some of our friends that we had met in Bloomington that now live in UT. We swam in the pool, hot tubbed, played games, watched Olymipics and stayed up way to late every night with the Halversons and Atkissons. It was great.

This past weekend was great with the visit of Grandma and Grandpa Rawlinson and Kristi. We crammed a lot of fun into a quick visit, going out to eat, touring the ever growing BYU-I campus, going to family night at the gymnastics school doing a little of everything; slack-lining, sumo wrestling, jumping in the foam pit, letting the kids run, and watching Nate do a cart-wheel on the balance beam, a round-off back flip on the floor, and catapulting his body off a trampoline over a tower he and some other guys built onto a huge soft mat, then ending the night with Mexican food. We had a blast and love having family visit more often!!

Grandma couldn't resist some Easter outfits for the kids. Thank you!

Preston continues to melt my heart every day with his cute smile, his happy personality, and easy laugh. He is saying everything we say adding more words to his vocabulary every day. 

Everyone still says he looks just like his daddy!

Catch Up

I can barely begin to sum up this past month:

• packed entire household for the second time in four months, said good-bye to friends we loved, and drove away from what was our home for the past 6 years
• traveled across the country in the middle of winter (great roads though!) with our three kids, Nate's mom and I in the van, and Nate and my dad in the car - got to stay with two of my dad's siblings along the way as well as spend a night in a hotel with a pool. I think the kids actually liked the whole trip because they got lots of candy from grandma, played with new toys at our stops, watched multiple movies a day, and got to eat and play at McDonalds a lot
  
• spent a few days relaxing at Nate's parents house, then left our kids with them while Nate and I headed down to Rexburg to see our new house for the first time and unpack (we had over 20 members of our new ward show up to help unload the moving van so that part took about 45 min., then Nate and I spent the next few days unpacking basically everything inside the house
  
• back to MT for Christmas, spending a lot of great time with both families - games (mostly Blokus), cutting down a Christmas tree, swimming in the Wing's indoor pool, hardly parenting with all the grandparents and siblings around, singing, arm and leg wrestling
  
• then back to Rexburg again with the whole family - the kids loved seeing some of their stuff was out for the first time in several months
• Nate starting teaching at BYU-I as well as working on data for his research
• me trying to get adjusted and organized after all the craziness
•  overnight visits from my brother Bryce and sister Ally on their way to BYU Provo
• another overnight visit from MC and Tiff on their way back to Utah
• Mom, Dad, and Wade visit overnight on their way to Ogden to visit grandpa Nielsen who had a heart attack, which I ended up taking the kids and going with for the week, then Nate drove up for the weekend so he could visit his grandma in Provo while I spent a wonderful day at the temple doing family names for the first time
  
• And oh yes, Snow, Snow, Snow........

The kids have loved playing in the snow almost daily, followed by hot chocolate. There has been enough that they have started body sledding down the piles on the sides of our driveway. Preston's favorite word since he could barely talk has been "ball" but now he often says "no ball" because he likes snow balls

Nate in his new office before classes started - moving his stuff in, preparing lectures, and working on research data.

My mom, dad, aunt Kathy and Dennis, and Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen and I at the Ogden temple. It is the first time I think any of us had ever done work for our own family. It was a very special day. Some of the names we did baptisms, confirmations, and initiatory work for included Granpa Nielsen's mom, Dennis's dad and sister, and several others on the Nielsen side of the family. I helped Grandma put a lot of the information she has on paper into the computer, much of it written in other languages which she had had translated. It was a very special day and week with them.

Being in a new place always takes some getting used to. For example, Walmart (and basically the entire town of Rexburg) closes at 10pm on weekdays and 11 pm on weekends. What! Our ward is the biggest in Rexburg and looks like stake conference each Sunday. It is a bit overwhelming. Nate and I just got called to work in the Primary in one of the four nurseries!

We like our new home and neighborhood. We have a lot of work to do to finish the basement, but that's ok because I like working with my hands.


Preston is getting three new teeth all at once, two of them molars, and the girls had a bit of a cold, so this week involved some not as happy kids stuck in the house a lot. I have discovered our public library has these wonderful file bins arranged by topic that are filled with books, folder games, stories and activities for young children. They are great. I try to have "school time" each morning with the kids. Baylee can write letters surprisingly well.

Overall, I would say we are adjusting well and there are some definite perks to being here. One, we get to listen to devotionals every Tuesday either on campus or on the radio. This week, Elder Nelson will be speaking and then Elder Ballard (and I think Elder Ballard is presiding at our stake conference too) next week. There is even a special fireside with sister Nelson that all the women faculty or women spouses are invited to attend this week. The temple is beautiful and only 4 min. away.

The members here help clean it nightly and I was able to help do that last week. Funny thing is that they said they give you clothes to change into so in deciding what to wear, Nate convinced me that I really should wear a skirt, because it was the temple and everyone would be dressed up. So I did. Then I get there and everyone is in jeans and the clothes they give you to change into are long sleeved, white coverall pants. I had on this long skirt that I had to bunch up my skirt under my overalls! Nice...

There are lots of fun events and concerts going on at the college that we can attend either for free or for $5. Our whole family has access to the Hart gym which includes the pool, racquetball, exercise equipment and free exercise classes. All our neighbors on every side are members.....it is a good place. I just need to remind myself of these things when I get lonely during the days and am missing many of my Bloomington friends and wanting some adult conversation.