I am finally getting to post about our weekend! Saturday morning, Jeff worked outside cleaning out the whole garage and doing some yard work. He is really enjoying working outside. Thank goodness because 2.5 acres will include a lot of outside work! He also took care of the girls, (or should I say that they entertained themselves outside while he worked) while I went on a girls day with my friend Emily to a fabric store. I purchased 4 projects worth of stuff that I won't go into detail about just yet. I am notorious for buying projects, but never finishing them. I really hope that Emily pushes me and makes me do them. After our girls morning out, Kamryn had her last soccer game of the season. She did a great job, as usual.

Picnic inside

I recently contacted one of my old companions from my mission. I shouldn't say "one of my old companions" because she was actually my mom, my trainer. She molded me into my tour giving, testifying and referral getting self. She was and is still AWESOME! Well, come to find out, she lives right by us in a neighboring city. We set up a luncheon at our house and let the kids play. It was so much fun to reconnect with her and get to know her little family. I hope that we can get together more before they move to Boston in August!


And, because they are so adorable...a couple pictures of my girls...

Lost her tooth...literally

Kamryn came home after school one day last week with a new wiggly tooth. She has already lost 4 teeth on the bottom row and now has a wiggly 5th. It did take some time from wiggliness to actually letting Dad pull them out, so I didn't expect it to happen the very next day.

The next day, Kamryn came home from school with a new hole where her wiggle tooth was. I was excited "Where is it, let me see." "I lost it" K said. By now, you've all figured out the whole story...but, for record keeping I'll go on. "I know you lost it, where is it" I said. Then she proceeded to tell me that she bonked heads with a kid at recess and didn't realize that she had lost her tooth until the end of the day. Her tooth was lost in all the rock and rubble of the play ground.

Fortunately, her teacher sent a note home with her:

Dear Tooth Fairy:

It has come to my attention that Miss Kamryn was out at recess when her head bumped into another student's head. Both children were not hurt, however, Kamryn's cute little tooth popped out. Her sweet little tooth is now nestled in the sea of tiny rocks and pebbles that surround our playground equipment. Please let it be known that Miss .... and I, Carrie ......, vouch for Kamryn on the whereabouts of her tooth, and we would appreciate it greatly, if this note can take the place of Kamryn's tooth underneath her pillow.

Thank you so much!


The tooth fairy found the note and left $3 of quarters behind. Kamryn was so happy that the note worked, that she worked on a Thank you note for her awesome teacher who took time out of her busy schedule to write that letter to the tooth fairy.

London is finally paid for!

Finally! One of our little miracle girls (London) who was born much too early and spent her first month of life in the NICU is paid for!!! Now their is no danger of the bank repossessing her! All I can say is that it feels good, really good to be free of this debt.

Working on our V's

In London's speech therapy they are working on the letter V, which London pronounces with a B. So, London and Liz (her speech therapist) play go fish with V word cards (vest, vulture, vanilla etc.) This also helps with the letter V because London has to ask "do you HAVE..." Have is really hard for her to say. This particular day London was pronouncing all of her v's correctly. She was doing so well that I actually thought that we might introduce a new letter/sound, that is until Liz shared with me the following story...

As they were cleaning up the cards, London just kept staring at Liz. (As Liz is sharing this, I know exactly what is coming next because London does this all the time at home.)Liz keeps cleaning, but London will not quit staring at her. Finally, Liz says "what?" London smiles her biggest smile and says "I lub you." So much for spending all that time on the letter V!

Floor Plans

Last Thursday we toured several homes of a popular contractor where we live. We really like the details that he puts in each home. Most of his homes have several plant shelves, high ceilings and cool fireplaces. Though we like him a lot, Jeff and I seriously need to put a lot of thought into what we are doing so that we get the best deal possible. We haven't picked this contractor as of yet, just testing the waters. We did like this layout.

And, we also picked this one out of a home plan book that we took with us when we visited the contractor. We're not sure yet if we are dreaming too large, I guess we will see because the contractor will draw it up and give us a price this week sometime. We really like the extra family room! One thing that we did decide on was having a basement framed. Though this basement won't be completed for years, to have the builders put one in will only cost us between $12-15,000 extra. It would almost double our square footage and might be a great investment when we resell our property.


And finally, last but not least...Jeff's youngest sister, Ashley, came to visit us this weekend. The girls just idolize her! So, instead of asking me to read them a story, push us on the swings, dance to Hannah Montana, they got Ashley to do it! It was a nice break for me :)

Our future home

This wasn't a decision that was taken lightly. We've prayed and thought about this for a long time. We are now the proud owners of a 2 1/2 acre lot. Of which, we will build a home on in a little over a year. We are currently house sitting for Jeff's boss while they are serving a mission in Chile. It has been such a huge blessing to do this for it has allowed us to pay off debt and make this dream of ours come true. So, my question to all of you is...If you had some land, what would you do with it? I've already been thinking hard about this and have some ideas, but would like to know other suggestions. Jeff's ideas: basketball court, large backyard for soccer, flag football and wiffle ball tournaments. Jen's ideas: Orchard, huge garden spot, maybe raise some beef, a track around the perimeter, swing set, trampoline etc.,.


We are excited at the prospect of laying permanent roots here. It has been a good city for us, we have many great friends here and we are close enough to family that it would be easy for us to go and visit as needed. The process of choosing a floor plan that fits our needs, picking colors and decorating exactly how we want is also so exciting for us! We can't wait!

I love...

getting new book orders!!!

(Jeff here) Jen asked me to write about our baseball experience in Colorado. That's kinda my thing. It's been a few years since we had the opportunity to see a Major League baseball game, something we did quite a bit in our first few years of marriage.

The Atlanta Braves have been my favorite team since Dale Murphy was starring on a terrible Braves team in the eighties. My best friend and I both idolized him and I enjoyed the chance to watch whenever the Braves were on TV. In England, I would even stay up until 2am to watch games (time difference made them start MUCH later for me than people stateside, of course).

Anyway, a little TOO much background perhaps. I was really excited to see the Braves again and let my girls experience a professional game. There's nothing like it.

We bought tickets for two games while were there in Denver. Monday night we got to the park early (paid $10 for parking an another $36 for a less-than-stellar dinner of hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers and $5 drinks. Ouch). Kammi and I went down by the Braves dugout and got one of the Braves outfielders, Mark Kotsay, to sign her ball.

The game was a blast, but REALLY cold. Jen and the girls spent about 7 of the 9 innings up in the indoor club area while I braved (no pun intended, but it'd be cool if it was :)) the weather just enough to watch a 2-run home run by the Rockies sink my Braves in the 8th inning. It was 2 hours and 5 minutes, the shortest game in Coors Field history.

Game 2, Tuesday night, was much more comfortable. Before the game, Kammi and I once again went to the Braves dugout, and Kammi got one more autograph on her ball; Braves middle reliever Will Ohman. Not a great "autograph" haul, but we had fun.

Our seats were quite a bit further away and much less expensive, but we sat by a family with a lot of young girls, which kept ours quite occupied. In a later conversation with the Dad, it turned out they were from Pocatello (just down the road, and where Jen and I spent a good bulk of our marriage). He's a cop there, and tries to make it down for some games every year. It was pretty cool. Really nice people. Again, the Braves lost, this time by one run again, but we had a great time.

It's not about whether they win or lose, but that we SAW the game. I was happy regardless of the outcome.

Swimming

The best part about staying in a hotel is having unlimited access to a swimming pool. We seriously had so much fun! I did go swimming, though I am not posting any pictures with me in them and please forgive Jeff's non-existent tan!

Nature and Science Museum

Another attraction that we hit in Denver was a Nature and Science Museum. We only lasted about 2 1/2 hours before we left. It was interesting in spots and rather boring in others. I can only take so much of looking at dead stuffed animals. The positives about this museum are a cool kids discovery area where they actually got to play with odd things like dead animals that owls regurgitate (and I am serious), bubbles, and a human puzzle where you put back human organs into the body etc.,. One section of the museum gave you a life card (like a credit card) and you go through and weigh yourself, get a blood pressure, measure your stress and so on and at the end you get a little print out about what you can do to be healthier. One experience that we had during out little tour was when a Chinese family grabbed Kamryn and had a photo session with her for about 10-15 photos. They were hugging her and trying to get her to smile. I was just grateful that they didn't try to get London to do the same, she would have freaked out. Afterwards, when Kamryn joined us again, she said "that was weird".

Denver Zoo

We had so much fun during our little mini vacation to Denver, Colorado! We took way over 200 pictures and I am trying to sort through them and pick out my favorites. Anyway, the zoo is always a kid favorite and the Denver Zoo was better than we expected. Jeff kept singing "this is the zoo that never ends." It was huge! At the Jaguar cages, Kamryn was running beside the cage back and forth and the jaguar actually was imitating her. She would run faster and so would the jaguar. Though everyone around us thought this was cute, I couldn't help but think about the animal attacks that have happened at the San Diego Zoo. I know, I am a little paranoid. I was excited to leave the jaguar cages and move onto the more friendly monkeys.

Field Trip with K

I was able to go with Kamryn's class on a field trip to a greenhouse. It was interesting, but the best part about being there was having Kamryn hang on me and show me off. Luckily, she isn't embarrassed by her mom yet!

She shoots, She scores

The title says it all...Kamryn scored a goal! Not just any goal, it was the very first goal for her team, the very first game of the season...and, it brought tears to my eyes! It definitely beats last year where I don't even think she kicked the ball during the games. It didn't matter to me as long as she had fun. I guess we just weren't expecting her to be as awesome as she was, let alone score a goal! I am soooo proud of her!

FYI...I(Jen)played soccer my whole life (since age 4). My brother was a stud at soccer and I'd practice with him and a few other neighborhood kids everyday. I had the skills, just not the speed. Though I did make it on the varsity team my freshman year in highschool and I scored two goals during that season...which was pretty good since I was mainly in defensive positions. After my freshman season, my family moved to a small city that didn't have any soccer teams near:( I then tried other sports, but soccer has always been my one true passion. Also, I did get to play on a few intramural teams at BYU, before the big car accident.

I/We absolutely love watching Kam play soccer and do so well at it, especially because this sport is something that I love. It would make me so proud if we could share this passion together!

Tagged

Four Jobs I've Held

1. Mom
2. Dental Assistant
3. Pea Pealer
4. Babysitter
FYI...I haven't actually had a paying job since my car accident

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:

1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
2. Nacho Libre
3. Cutting Edge
4. Tommy Boy

Four Places I've Lived:
For adoption purposes I will only mention the states that I have lived in the most recently.
1. Idaho
2. Utah (18 month mission) Arkansas (4 month proselyting)
3. Oregon
4. Wyoming

Four TV shows I like:

1. Lost
2. CSI's
3. House
4. 24

Four People Who Email Me Regularly:

1. My sister
2.
3.
4.

Four Favorite Foods:

1. PICKLES!!!
2. Black Olives
3. Only the seasoning on Cool Ranch Doritos (yes, I only lick them)
4. Mexican

Four Places I'd Rather Be:

1. England
2. Any temple
3. On a road trip
4. in bed

Four People I'm Tagging:

1. Katherine
2. Jamie
3. Lauren
4. Alita

Thanks to my great friends!

First off, I had Jeff read my Adoption Analogy entry of our blog. Instead of commenting on what a cool analogy it was, he said "you have some great friends." He was obviously talking about all of you that commented on my last entry. And, for that I must say...Thank you so much for all of your support and love! I loved all the comments and needed to hear your encouraging words at the time! Not only was I sad about the "waiting" that comes with adoption, but we also lost a family friend to a car accident on March 27. So thanks...you were all there for me when I needed it!


Also, my most awesomest friend Emily, made me the cutest work of art (framed and everything)EVER. I wanted to post a picture of it, but for some odd reason I can't post pictures right now. I will post it later. It is so adorable that I plan to decorate the girls room around the colors (turquoise, pink, yellow and green)and theme (Let the sunshine in) she used. We just need to buy a house first :) Thank you Emily!