indiana

we're here safe and sound. we've been here a week and i feel good. it's weird to have moved again, but i guess it was a little easier since it wasn't the first break away from home and family. we are already missing our friends in ny though. i don't think it's quite sunk in yet that i'm not going to be seeing them. it was hard to say goodbye.

the kids are doing pretty good. elliot started school on wednesday and he's already loving it. he gets to ride the big bus home from school. he was so excited when he got off the bus. the first thing he said was, "we don't have to wear seat belts!" it made me laugh. we've already done homework together and i'm really excited about his teacher. she really involves the parents and sends a lot home. it's nice to have some constructive things to do with elliot. he's already learning to read and write. it's really exciting.

sam is having a harder time adjusting. we're trying to set some boundaries and help him not be so out of control. it's hard to be 3 1/2, have people not understand half of what you say, and try to be as old as your 5 year old brother. life is pretty frustrating for him right now, but we're going to get him into speech therapy through the school district hopefully within the next 2 weeks, we're setting boundaries and keeping them(at least that's our goal), and i'm also going to try to find a preschool for him. he's so darling and he's our little man of many faces. he'll figure it all out.

jeffrey is loving his job! i've met some of the people he works with and they are all so nice. i'm so happy for him. he's going to be learning a lot too. he gets home a little later than he did in ny. we were so spoiled to have him home by 4:30 monday through thursday and by 4 on fridays. he gets home between 5:30 and 6 now, so it's still early enough for him to have dinner with us and spend some time with the kids before bedtime.

i haven't taken pictures here yet, weird. i usually take a lot. i've just been doing what i can though. i was thinking, i should have taken pictures of them unloading the truck, unpacking the boxes, me finally finding my wedding ring (i lost my wedding ring for 7 hours while they were moving us in - it was a nightmare), elliot going to his first day of school at his new school, elliot getting off the big bus, the boys playing outside in our yard, the playground we found down the street, picking pumpkins at a nearby farm, the rows and rows of cornfields here, the many water towers, the numerous churches everywhere, the huge crickets, my boys in their new bedroom with matching beds, my car parked in a garage, the dishwasher, etc. it looks like i have a lot of pictures to take. i'll try to catch up this week and then post them.

i'll leave you with a funny video i took in ny a while ago that i've been meaning to post. my question is, do you have this much excitement in your house?

our future home

a whole house to ourselves! no more upstairs neighbors walking around making the floors creak and slamming the front door in the middle of the night! we are just a little excited, can you tell?

anyway, i know a lot of you have been asking for pictures. We'll have better ones once we've moved in. here are a few when we went to take a look at it.

the kitchen

a side view of the family room, looking into the kitchen
the boys room. notice the red wall. :)
there is another bedroom and a bathroom near the boys room.

on the other end of the house is our master bedroom with a walk-in closet and a private bathroom. ahh, how nice.
there is also a 2 car garage and a small laundry room.

the backyard
i didn't get many shots of the city, so here are a few. this is a walking bridge. isn't it beautiful!
we went to a little festival while we were in town. lots of food, crafts, music, and people!
here are the old guys popping kettle popcorn. yum, it was good.

we are sad to say goodbye to all of our friends here in new york. we hope the move to indiana is a smooth transition. we'll update you in about a week and a half. wish us luck!

what happens when you give sam an apple...

and so the next 13 years begins...

elliot, sam and i got to go to elliot's school last week to see his classroom and meet his teacher. elliot was so excited. he saw a few friends from his preschool class and that made him even more excited.

here he is today right before we walked to the corner to wait for the school bus. that kid has no fear. if he does he hides it well. notice his cute shirt. it's a monkey skateboarding in an empty swimming pool. he's already noticing what's "cool". it's cute.
just waiting for the "dooda bus" as sammy calls it.
grandma homer sent elliot a little mcdonalds money for a first day of school celebration treat, so after jeffrey got home from work we headed down there and then took our shakes to the park. i'm going to miss this river so much. (sigh). it's so hard to move, even when it's the right thing.
me and my boys. i love them so much. even on the hard days. i'm so lucky.
oh and i had to throw this one in. elliot surprised us with a new use for leftover grocery sacks. you can make a suit out of them! (yes, he poked two holes in the bottom to fit his legs through) i think he should market it. what do you think? :)

we are moving!

well, you probably never thought this day would come, but we are really moving. we finally found out where we are going and when. we will be moving from new york to indiana the end of september. we're really sad to have to say goodbye to our friends here. we will miss them a lot. we will miss the beautiful scenery. we will miss the city.
we will be staying in indiana for at least 2 to 3 years, so we are looking forward to being able to settle down for a while. there will be a lot happening. i'll try to keep updating.
i also have a lot of pictures from my week in hebgen. skiing, wakeboarding, kneeboarding, family, beach, frogs, shaving cream fight, more family, sam's first stitches.... i'll try to post pictures soon.

camping trip.

we went camping last weekend. we hadn't gone camping since we moved to ny, so we thought it was about time. we went quite close to home, which was nice, and we had a great time.

these two pictures of the boys show you how excited they were.

don't you just love those smiles?! they melt my heart.

first we set up camp. the kids had fun helping us.
for dinner we roasted hot dogs and later roasted smores. yum.

we slept pretty good. the boys do so well thank goodness. we woke up with the sun and had a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. i think breakfast time is one of my favorite parts of camping.

the boys found this tiny frog. it's so cool to see how excited little kids get about nature and animals.
we had leftover ingredients to make some more smores so we decided to have dessert after breakfast.

getting the fire ready.

yum...

sammy loves his daddy.
we went to a nearby lake and played at the beach later that afternoon. the boys love the sand. i'm so excited to take them to hebgen with my family. they will be in heaven on the beach everyday. yippee!

a little birthday fun

we had a lot of fun celebrating jeffrey's birthday last week. thanks to everyone who made it a great birthday for jeffrey this year. even though we live so far away, we sure felt a lot of love from family and friends.

we gave jeffrey a little breakfast in bed.
the boys helped me make this poster. don't you just love their artwork?
presents!!
elliot got to light the candles for me. he was so excited!
the birthday boy.
i made an ice cream cake. it was mint chocolate chip ice cream with a crushed oreo bottom and whipped cream on the top. oh it was so good.
we went to the ward party on jeffrey's birthday and he spent nearly 3 hours straight in the pool. we had a lot of fun. i'm so sad i forgot my camera! we really had a great time though.

here are a couple shots of the boys.
best friends.
elliot's lego creations.
story time with sarah.
craft time at the library. oh how we love our library!

i wanted to put this in. these are some of my good friends from our ward out here. the relief society has a movie night once a month and i finally remembered to take my camera. i will miss these wonderful ladies when we move. no word on the move yet though, so i might be able to enjoy their company for a while longer.

jeffrey james is 29 today.

today is jeffrey's birthday.

he is so amazing. he is the best thing that could have ever happened to me. it's amazing the way we balance each other. he is my lifeline. i love it that way. i love how we all look forward to daddy coming home from work. i love that we all want to sit by daddy at dinner time. i love that we all want to ride with daddy in the car. he's the most popular guy in our house by far. i'm so happy his best friend beef set us up on a blind date on valentines day 7 years ago. i fell for him right away, and luckily he fell for me too! i'm so happy we've been married for 6 years. i love that we're an eternal family. i love being a parent of 2 wild and wonderful boys with him. he loves his kids so much. i love praying with him for our children. i love that he is so fascinated with photography. i love how he gets hooked on a new project every few months. i love that he tries new things all the time. i'm thrilled that baking bread is one of his latest ventures. i love how he cooks dinner often. i love how he willingly helps clean up every night. i love that he wants to be the one to put our kids to bed every night. i'm so grateful that he works so hard so that i can be home with the kids. i love that we like watching movies and shows together and that we have similar taste. i love that we love to go on road trips. i love seeing new things and new places with him. i love the way he sees beauty in so many things. i love that he is adventurous. his enjoyment of music also fills our life. life is so complete with him in it. it's hard to be living so far away from our families, but i keep telling him that as long as i am with him, i'm happy.

for those of you who don't know jeffrey personally, he is one of the kindest people you'll ever meet. he truly cares about people. that was one thing that really stuck out to me when i was getting to know him. i will always admire his sincerity. he works so hard. he doesn't give up, ever. oh, and he is so handsome. see for yourself : )










happy birthday jeffrey. this is your day! enjoy! we love you so much.