Moving up in the world...

So, we've moved!

We've moved more than a few times in our marriage, but not since our babies came along! 

We were actually in the process of moving into our last apartment when we got those two little lines that meant Evie was about to become a reality (seriously, I took one test at our new apartment, and confirmed it with another at our old place while we packed more stuff!).

Our apartment on Cherry Lane is the only home either of my children has ever known!

Other than sentimental reasons and missing people in the ward, I can't say that I'm sad about leaving... It was a fantastic little apartment while I was pregnant with Evie, and even while she was little, but recently, it has been kind of a nightmare! With two kids and Karl working from home, our little two-bedroom place was QUITE the squeeze, but then we've had Graeme living with us since June-ish. Let me tell ya, that place was NOT meant to hold that many people!

We had no air conditioning, and with that many people, it was SO hot! Plus there's the fact that we had no dinning space/table, so our little living room/kitchen combo was kind of it. With Graeme sleeping on the floor in the living room, he was basically right in the middle of half our living space. It wasn't so comfy!

We are so much happier in our new place! We have three bedrooms, but soooo much more living space in general, and my little ones have a real table at which to eat their meals for the first time in their lives; I feel so civilized ;)

Moving was... horrible. I never want to do that again!! Lol! We've accumulated a lot of stuff, and with two little ones who constantly need something (Declan's been super clingy...), it was difficult!

It's just so much work!

Evie has been mostly ok with everything, and Declan, being only 6 months old, is pretty oblivious. As long as mommy is there, he doesn't much care where he is, haha! 

Evie has had a couple moments where she has just wanted to go back to the old house, but it's mostly when she's supposed to be going to bed. After we turn off the lights she'll ask why we moved here, and tell me she just wants to go to our old home. 

Most of the time she likes it here though. There are lots of little kids around, we have a playground and a pool, and a fenced area where she can play. I was a little worried about nursery, since she was not so happy about going alone at our last ward, but this ward has like a whole room full of toys! She walked in the first Sunday and was like, "ok... you guys can go", and when we tried to get her to leave she said she wanted to stay there forever.

The first little bit was overwhelming, with trying to get things unpacked and put away, recover from the move, and get everyone settled and back onto their schedules. I thought we were never going to figure it out! But things are getting put back together slowly, but surely, and we are so much more comfortable and so much less stressed now!

I don't know how long we'll be here, but we are so happy, we don't much care ;)

Declan's Blessing Day

Our Family!

We finally got to bless Declan! He's only almost 4 months old now... We were waiting to do it when Grandpa Pat would be able to participate (since he didn't get to come out when baby boy was born!), so here we are! 

Since Declan was so old, he was actually able to wear the same blessing outfit that his uncle Jo wore (he was a March baby who was also blessed a couple months later, apparently!), it was imported by Papa Gary straight from Italy, so that was pretty cool!

It being summer and with so many people coming to help us with this special occasion, it got pretty darn hot very quickly, and by the time we got everyone there, poor Declan was tired again and therefore very fussy.

The bishop had all the great-grandparents say a few words before the blessing, which was very special, and I really appreciated. Then Karl, with the help of so many people we love, gave Declan a name and a blessing. 

And Declan decided to SCREAM the whole time.

So funny, because he is such a laid-back kid! This was totally uncharacteristic of him, and of course his melt-down had to happen during this particular event, haha!

It was a short, but sweet and special blessing. I feel so very happy and blessed to have our little Declan Kelsier Smith as a part of our family!

Museum of Natural Curiosity

We went to the brand new Museum of Natural Curiosity today! We got there a little later in the afternoon than I'd have liked--after about an hour the place was PACKED--but Evie still had a great time. There are so many things to see and do, I was very impressed! Here are some pictures of our many adventures ;)

Hangin' with my little buddy :) Love my view when I've got him in the carrier!

He actually slept most of the time, just content to be carried around, but the few minutes at a time that he was awake, he was very charming, haha.

Can you spot my dare-devils?? Evie LOVED the rope bridge/climbing tower thing; it was one of her favorite parts, I think! Didn't bother her at all that she was up so high... Definitely doesn't get that from her acrophobic mother ;)

Evie loved the Noah's Ark fountain so much, she ended up in it! Too bad it was a slightly chilly day!! We ended up taking her clothes off, wrapping her in one of Declan's blankets, and heading home. Poor thing really wanted to keep playing, but she was naked and we'd been there for 3.5 hours!!

 

 

 So much fun!! We're super glad we splurged and spent the money to buy a year pass, I get the feeling we'll definitely be here a lot!

Evie's First Sleep-Over ;)

Amaia decided that she was going to have a sleep over at our house. She's been planning it for over a week. She brought it up while we were at their house the other day, and I totally thought she'd forget about it, buuuuut no, haha! I'm seriously amazed at her determination and her amazing memory (I think Evie takes after her!!).

Anyway, she came over and Evie had to be woken up from a VERY late nap... They watched the Lorax together and played for awhile. Evie thought it was great. Maia even brought her FAVORITE book (Green Eggs and Ham) which Evie now loves, and Evie (who won't normally eat breadsticks with out her beloved "pizza sauce" to dip them in) decided she doesn't like sauce anymore because Maia didn't want any... I can't believe the peer pressure thing is starting already!

Time for bed rolled around and THAT is when the nightmare began... Evie was super hyper because Maia was there and not tired enough to sleep because of her late nap. Karl was getting super frustrated with her, and I told her that I was going to call Grandmama to come get Mai if she didn't go to sleep... So Evie decided that she'd rather have Maia go home than have to go to bed herself, haha! I had to explain to her that it doesn't work that way.

Eventually I did get them both to sleep, but it was QUITE the process!! I'm glad Evie loves her auntie though ;)

"Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"

We got a surprise visit from Christer and Myrna today! 

They were down this way for job interview stuff and decided to drop by and pay us a visit :) Evie was super happy to see them; I think she's finally getting to the point where we see them enough and she remembers them enough in between visits that she doesn't have to do the "warm up" thing every time (THANKFULLY). She was also tired from waking up at 7am and not having taken a nap of any kind (they got here around 3pm), so she was very giddy in addition to just being happy to see them ;)

Anyway, she showed them all the fun stuff in her room and they even turned off the lights and had a "dance party" with her little bear nightlight thing (which she uses as a rave/disco/party light, lol) and my phone. She thought Christer's dancing was absolutely hilarious (again, she was tired), and she ran around in circles (I mean, danced) for ages! She really liked dancing to the "fox song" and songs from "Frozen" especially.

After all the dancing she was pretty worn out, but somehow they still managed to convince her to the park and go sledding! Poor thing hasn't been to the park in a couple months, so she was super excited, plus we haven't had a chance to go sledding at all this winter, so it was quite the event for her!

They ended up sledding, playing on the frozen playground, and we even built a snowman! This was especially awesome because Evie's been obsessed with the movie "Frozen" for the past few days and she very much wanted to build a snowman :) On the way to the park she was telling Christer: "Snow everywhere! Kinda-ta like the ice movie!"

She had so much fun today, and in true Evie style, didn't want to leave even though she was soaking and it was freezing! 

Hopefully Myrna and Christer will live closer someday so they can come play more often :)

Halloween 2013 :)

My Jedi and Little Snow White :)

Yay for Halloween! It's always been one of my absolute favorite holidays, and now it looks like Evie is following in her mother's footsteps ;)

This Halloween season really started for us at the end of September... That's when I made the mistake of leaving Evie with Karl and Christer while I went to the General Relief Society meeting broadcast. They took her to the mall to play on the playground, and while there, Evie discovered the TaylorMaid Halloween shop. Why they put it RIGHT next to the playground, I'll never know. I mean, there were super creepy zombie/possessed/evil/clown/insane automated mannequins in the windows. I was even a little off-put by them. 

Evie, on the other hand, was obsessed with that store...

She really liked that they had cardboard cut outs of Darth Vader and Rapunzel and there was stuff from a bunch of Disney movies she's into, so I think that was the major draw for her, but she was also very interested in the creepy stuff. 

Over the course of the next few weeks we made at least a couple trips a week to the "Halloween store" (which included that store and two different "Halloween City"s). She was very serious and a little unnerved, I think, but she kept wanting to go back and look at everything; I'm still slightly worried that we are terrible parents and have ruined her for life.

Evie now loves everything Halloween and especially creepy things: ghosts, zombies, spiders, mummies, etc. I wish we had gotten some pictures of her at her favorite stores! She was so sad when Halloween ended and all the special stores closed.

By the time we got to the day itself, she was pretty excited! She'd been talking for weeks about "tricken-treating", it was super cute.

The nearly finished product

I really wanted Evie to be Snow White this year; I thought she would make a perfect little Snow White and I figured this would be the last time she wouldn't have a huge opinion on her costume! I got the idea to make Evie's costume from scratch, and I just have to say, I am so proud of myself for going through with it! Usually I have all these ambitious ideas and they never go anywhere... There were so many places along the way where I could have given up, but I didn't! And I think the results were pretty cute ;)

Karl also had a pretty ambitious idea once he saw that I could kind of sew... He wanted to be a Jedi, and he wanted me to make the costume. Considering we've had costume ideas every year, and yet never completed one since we've been married AND I'm not very confident in my sewing skills, I was a little skeptical that it would happen. I have to say, I'm pretty stinking proud that I managed to finish TWO costumes. I'm not a very good seamstress, so it took a lot of late nights and incredible frustration, but they got done (barely) in time! Unfortunately, with the complicated nature of Karl's and Evie's costumes and the lack of free time to work on them, my costume never got finished. So, I was boring this year, hopefully next year we'll get everyone dressed up!!

 

Princess Evie: Jedi Knight

 A couple of days before Halloween, we got to go trick-or-treating at Riverwoods! I honestly didn't know that there were so many places that did trick-or-treating events, but you learn a lot once you become a mom of toddler who needs lots of things to do, lol! We were a little nervous about how many people would be there, but decided Evie would like it anyway, so we gave it a try.

 

She seemed a bit overwhelmed most of the time, but she really liked it! She loved seeing all the other people in costumes (especially the costumes she recognized from movies, haha). My one complaint with the whole experience was that they had very cheap candy... Not that I'm a snob or anything, but it was all the super hard kind that is terrible for little kids, unfortunately. Also, a bunch of shops ran out of candy by the time we got there, which was only about a half hour after they started, and the thing had another hour and a half to go!

 

 

 Halloween itself, we started our trick-or-treating at the mall! Once again, she seemed pretty overwhelmed by all the people and things to see (and I think she was a little tired), but she had such a great time getting candy in her pumpkin! She got a lot of compliments on what a perfect Snow White she made :)

 

Finally, we got to go trick-or-treating around my parent's neighborhood with my little sisters, Mary and Amaia (and grandmama, Susi, and Andy were there too)! This was by FAR the best thing that happened EVER. I wish we had gotten some pictures, but it was already very dark by the time we got out :(

All the other things we had done were great, but this was the real experience Evie had been waiting for. She had a great time marching up to all the doors and saying "tricken-treat!" and getting candy in her pumpkin! She had a hard time keeping up with Mary and Maia, so there was one point where she tripped and fell in street trying to go "fast like a superhero!" and she got an owie, but she recovered pretty quickly (though she will continue to comment on the incident for months to come).

After going just halfway around the block I noticed that she was starting to slow down more and more. It took me a bit to figure it out, but I realized that her pumpkin was getting so full of candy that it was too heavy for her! I tried to hold it for her and even asked if I could just help her, but she adamantly refused to let anyone touch her candy bucket! She dragged that thing along for at least 20 more minutes of trick-or-treating (meanwhile, it's getting heavier and heavier!). I can't believe what a determined little girl she is!

All in all, it was a pretty good Halloween :) We discovered Evie's slightly morbid side and got a ton of candy!!