Mandy T. is AWESOME!!!

So I got a sweat e-mail after my last post from a friend from my high school years, and she knew how to get my pictures back!!! How AWESOME is that. I made Ryan do it, well because it was computer and program related. But I'm ecstatic! We didn't get all the pictures back but we did get some really important ones!

We didn't find any of the Texas/Utah trip pictures, but this one was of Logan just after we got back.

He's just so cute.



The ones from the day we bought our house were recovered!
Opening the door to our new house for the first time!!!!




The Key works!!

SO excited!!!





Before we moved in, but after we became a home owner (!!!!!) We had Jace do some quick work. hahaha. So I learned the hard way that house projects do not go as planned. In the kitchen was some outdated flooring and in the dinning room was carpet. Both were not a big deal, but I thought since we weren't moving in right away, it would be the best time to switch it out then. There was beautiful wood underneath it all. Well Jace spent DAYS ripping up the floor, just to get down to the wood, spent time, money, and lots of elbow grease to find out-we couldn't sand the floor down. That ment we had to BUY foor. I was bummed, but luckily we were able to do it. The floor did look pretty bad for a little while in between though.
Jace and Ryan were able to put new wood floor in and it looks BEAUTIFUL now. I love it! Anyway I say all that to explain the floor in the next picture.

I was cooking dinner and Em just CRASHED! We thought it was so cute! -She brought her pillow downstairs and layed herself down. To cute.



We were driving home from somewhere and Kaitlyn had fallen asleep. We were laughing pretty hard. She woke up enough to take it off, then went back to sleep.

Sad, Sad, Sad

So I haven't blogged in a while because I couldn't bare to. Before you get to worried, It's because I have NO pictures. Kaitlyn got a hold of my camera and deleted 2 months worth of pictures. My trip to Texas, Em's first success at going in the potty, when Ryan and I bought our house... to name a few. It has been a very eventful couple of months and I had some great photos. Next time I WON'T ignore the prompting to download my photos and wait tell the morning to do it.

So here's my photo-less blog about Texas. :(

My WONDERFUL (seriously she's amazing!) mother in law flew up to Wisconsin, for the sole purpose of helping me drive down to Texas. I was thinking I could do it on my own, but VERY happy for the help. As it turns out I had to have a wisdom tooth pulled just 2 or 3 days prior so it really was a life saver that she came up! I couldn't have done the drive by myself. I think it was nice for her too. When we got to Texas there was so much family wanting to play with and hug my kids, they were kind of overwhelmed, but since they'd already spent a few days with Grandma Dalton they'd run to her. She loved it!
We spent a lot of time hanging out and having so much fun with Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, cousins, and friends. We had a great time. The excuse, Um I mean reason I had for going to Texas was Jace and Shawn were graduating from High school. Since there was 2 really close (they got to different schools) together, and I hadn't been back since Christmas I decided to go. I mean we decided. Haha, who am I kidding I decided and Ryan relented! I was very sad that Ryan wouldn't be able to come and it ended up being a month stay! He met us in Utah for 5 days in the middle. That was WONDERFUL to see him! And then we were back in Texas with out Ryan. That was the only bad thing about the trip. The kids and I missed Ryan terribly.
So LOTS happened in that month. We met up with friends and spent time with all the family down there. We went to Shawn's graduation. Man Allen doesn't know how to do things! They need to take a note from East! I think Mom said they called names for 3 HOURS!!! I'm glad we left early! It was fun to see Shawn walk though. So proud of him and Jace! Then we went to Utah and I met tons more of Ryan's family. We did a lot in those couple days and had a nice time. Plus it was WONDERFUL to be back together with Ryan. Em wouldn't let him out of her sight! Oh and we flew. The kids did pretty well, but I was pretty stressed out. There was tons of family to help, but I felt the pressure because Ryan wasn't there.
Imagine here a really cute picture I took of the kids in the plane.
When I got back to Texas things were a little crazy. I actually was watching my little sisters Jessica and Tiara while my parents and brothers went on Trek. (A reenactment of some of our church and family history) That was pretty crazy! The kids were great and my sisters are huge helpers, it's just a lot to have 5 kids! We got together with Julia and Cooper (and Cody) so that was fun too. After the family got back it was just a few days and then we were off to Wisconsin again. This time my brother Jace came with me. He's staying with us until October, he's saving up for his mission. I was so happy to get back! Ryan has said, quite frequently that I'm not to do that again! He really missed us while we were gone. We got back on a Wednesday. I worked Thursday, we packed all weekend, and on Tuesday we bought our first house!! It was a CRAZY CRAZY week/month! We are so happy in our new house though. It's wonderful. So there's a quick(ish) update!

Garage Sales

In Lancaster every year they have a city wide garage sale. This year I decided to have one. My friend Coreina came over and we did it together. Umm, lets just say it's a good thing she came over! If she hadn't of been there it would have been TERRIBLE! Luckily she was there. lol. Live and learn, I learned that for the safety of my marriage I will not do that again. haha. Anyways that weekend I did get a GREAT buy. My friend Laura was selling her entertainment center! Ours broke a couple of years ago in a move and I have been WANTING one forever! This is seriously perfect, excatly what i was looking for, and the kids love it too.

HOUSE!!!!

Before I left for Texas, we were fairly certain we would be getting this house! I took tons of pictures for your virtual tour. While I was in Texas we got the final word, the house would be ours!!!! I can not tell you what a HUGE blessing this is. We could not have done it if it wasn't God's will. Many things fell into place at the perfect time. We DEFINITELY know God blessed us with this house, it could not have been ours otherwise. I am truly humbled that Heavenly Father thought I deserved such a blessing, I just hope and pray I can continue to deserve it.

-It's at least 100 years old, but we are only the 3rd owners and it was been VERY well taken care of. AND we live in THE BEST neighborhood! They get together and do fun things, are so nice, have kids, came over and met us...the list goes on and on! I LOVE it here!

Here are the pictures of our BEAUTIFUL house!
When you come in the front, here's the beautiful stairs on the right.



On the left is the tv room (and Jace's room, he's here until October), here's standing inside looking towards the stairs



Looking forward when you come in the front door



If you go through that door it leads into the family room. I also like to call it the sun room cause there are TONS of windows, it's my favorite room. Somehow I don't have a picture of it though.

On the right is our bedroom (right after Jace's/tv room) Our bed BARELY fits in there! but there is a nice closet.



And strait back is the dinning room. There is a second (how cool is that!) set of stairs behind the dinning room. If you turn right there's the kitchen. Gotta love the color scheme in here!



and the laundry room right next to the kitchen (it's between the kitchen and our bedroom) there is also a small bathroom in this area (no photo)



If you go back to the dinning room this is the second staircase from the top



that room (the playroom)




if you go through the open door your in the upstairs hall way. On the left is the HUGE and WONDERFUL upstairs bathroom! I can actually bathe the children with out having a heart attack! It's great! It has TONS of closet space too!






Down the hall a little and on the right is the girls bedroom




And on the left is Logan's room




And then your back at the front stairs. There is also a screened in back porch, an attached (big deal in the winter!) garage, a swing set, and rhubarb! It is beautiful and there are lots of little details and nice wood work. Also it is WAY bigger than our last place, so we have lots of room to run! YEA! Ryan and I are so excited and love it here! It'll be fun to decorate and put our own touch on it.

Logan's first time standing up!

This was in May. He was SO proud of himself!





A couple days later, looking super cute in his Sunday suit.




This shows his true glee in being able to stand up- and more importantly to be able to get into things!





He still loves to get into the recycling bin- lots of treasures inside!

Randomness

Here are a bunch of fun pictures from May:

Grandma sent some fun bathroom crayons and Logan thinks they are delicious! We thought this was really funny. He's so cute!



Logan's first time falling asleep in the highchair. Too cute. This has been happening more and more lately- It's pretty tiring trying to keep up with 2 big sisters!



One day Kaitlyn was actually sitting still enough to let Daddy hold her!





Eating popsicles. Even Logan got a purple tongue.

Dentist

In May I FINALLY went to the Dentist. I have a fear of new dentists. Once I have been it's not so scary, but going to a new one- yeah it took me 4 years and a REALLY bad tooth ache to finally go! Plus our dental insurance was about to end so it really was a now or never thing. At the time we lived right across the street from a dentist, and I knew the dentists wife. I just kept telling myself that he (the dentist) couldn't be SO bad if he had such a nice wife and cute kids!

So the big day came and Ryan stayed home and watched the kids for me. The dentist and the assistants were so nice! And because my parents are AWESOME and took me to the dentist all the time before I was married, I needed a lot less work then I thought. I thought for sure he was going to tell me I had to have all my teeth pulled, I even had a nightmare about it! I did have to have 3 or 4 fillings though. After I had gone to the dentist once a week for 3 weeks, I decided I should get Kaitlyn's teeth checked too! So for the 4th week in a row, we went to the dentist. (They were really starting to know me by this point!)

For the kids first appointment the dentist, just kinda warms them up to the idea. They get to ride in the chair a couple of times, watch a short video about a dog going to the dentist and then the dentist comes in and checks the teeth. Kaitlyn did very well and Em helped her by riding in the chair with her!

Here's some photo's:



Still a little nervous


This is fun!


They asked for lots of extra rides on the chair and the dentist was very sweet about it!

I think all in all they had a good visit.


About a week later I couldn't sleep all night because of another tooth ache. So off to the dentist again. -At this point I felt like I had seen the Dentist more than my husband! I ended up having one of my wisdom teeth pulled. This was just a few days before I was leaving Wisconsin for a MONTH! And I was supposed be driving the kids and I down to Texas. Luckily for me my mother in law was coming to help anyway. She ended up doing most of the driving, and I was VERY grateful for it!

One of the mornings I was at the dentist Ryan came home for lunch and found us like this! I was pretty worn out!