The Empty House on Stardust

We spent our last official night in our home yesterday. We'll be moving into my parents house today for a couple of weeks just so it will be easier to come back and do touch-ups in an empty house, and also because the new carpet is coming next week. I will be driving to the kids' school 3 times a day, which is about 20 minutes from my parents, so pretty much, I'll live in the car. My mom and Rachel came one day and we got a big bulk of the packing done. Now we just need to move all of the STUFF into the trailer. We haven't rented our house out yet, cross your fingers and say a little prayer for us :) I have been feeling sort of empty inside for the past week or so. I know I keep saying this, but I have just been so incredibly stressed out, worried about stuff, plus some other random things have been going on and I am just SO ready for all of this to be behind me. I am ready to start our "adventure" as everyone keeps calling it. My to-do list keeps getting shorter and shorter, miraculously (thanks to the help of some wonderful people in my life :) and also my "fun list" as I've been calling it (people I want to see, stuff I want to do, etc before the move) has also been shrinking. Thanks to everyone who has helped me out with anything. Pack pack away!


Here are some pictures of my house before we started packing. Like I have been saying, my house has been in shambles for a couple weeks now, so what you're NOT seeing is the giant mess that we moved out of the way to get these pics. And I didn't take one of every room becasue some things we never got to do that we had planned on doing which makes me sad. Someday I'll post before pics of my house and you'll be amazed :)

This was our first house. I will miss it SO much. We have SO many great memories from here and there are SO many things I will miss about it.

The Memories:

-Making plans for remodeling

-My hubby, dad, and father-in-law laying tile in the kitchen (there was CARPET when we bought it!) the week before we moved in, and fighting about which way to lay it (I wanted diagonal but Andy and his dad thought it would be too hard. My dad fought for me and guess who won? Me. Thanks dad :)

-Painting for hour upon endless hour, and room after endless room-almost always with Rachel who would come up specifically for said painting

-Watching my kids play in the backyard

-My hubby getting me a puppy our first Christmas here.

-Having Becca and her girls over to "play" just so Becca and I could sit and talk and do nothing.

-Having a "salon" night with Cristan ever couple months. She'd do my nails, I'd do her hair and then afterwards we'd get Leatherby's to-go and sit in my living room for hours and chat about anything.

-Getting to finally decorate my own home.

-Movie nights with our little family

-Finding out I was pregnant with Bear and also getting to bring him home from the hospital
-Laylah learning to ride a bike on the street right in front of our house.

-Daphne learning to sleep in a "big girl bed"

-Jonah throwing toys up in our gigantic tree in the backyard and then trying to climb it to get them out.

-My mom coming over to hangout every few weeks and help me do things around the house.

-Pushing all the kids on the tree swing out back

-Many more fun, wonderful, amazing memories....

Things I'll Miss:

-My gigantic kitchen sink.

-My bathroom

-The stripes in my girls' room

-All the new flooring

-All of the colors I so thoughtfully chose out for every room in the house.

-Driving up into our little carport with the sensored light always coming on to greet us.

-The giant-sized tree in our back yard.

-The creaks in the ooooold floor (sometimes when Andy was out of town, they terrified me :) because I always knew when a kid was out of bed if I heard that noise :)

-Playing freeze tag for FHE out in our huge backyard.

-Being here together as a family

I know most of these things we will be able to do in our new home, and it only matters that we are together as a family, but we will never forget our first home. The walls are empty, it's full of boxes, and it just doesn't feel the same. I will miss it. I have loved our first little home on Stardust.

Carpet Up-Check!

My sweet awesome hubby has been working so hard. He has been pulling up all of our old, nasty, disgusting carpet that I have hated and tolerated for 3+ years. He will be laying the Pergo tomorrow. Wish us luck as he has never done it before. The carpet for upstairs will be installed the beginning of February. I can't wait. I'll get to enjoy it for a few days at least.

I am in a mess. I know I will just have to tolerate it for a couple more weeks, but it is driving me CRAZY! Boxes are everywhere, rooms are torn apart, furniture/beds are in pieces, mattresses are on the floor and every morning I look around and think "I don't want to do anything." My wonderful sister is coming next week to help me pack. I'm looking for people to tend my kids so I don't have them to deal with as well. Any volunteers? Haha...

I am making a list of people I want to see and things I want to do before we leave in 3 short weeks. This is getting crazy!

We finally finalized our moving plans with Andy's company. They want us to take a company truck and trailer that Andy will use to drive our stuff. I will drive our Expedition and my mom is coming with me and the kids and then she'll fly home after a week. They will ship his company car there. I'm kind of looking forward to driving and getting to see so many states. Plus, I'll never have to do it again hopefully...

I called the kid's new school and it sounds great. I'm also happy/nervous because they will be riding the bus and I worry about bus bullying, but I am happy I won't have to take them/pick them up.

As you can see- LOTS going on, lots of thoughts going through my head at 100 miles/second. Busy busy busy.

Please bless I don't go crazy. I would hate to break my New Year's Resolution in January :)

Read Read Read!!

Laylah and Jonah's elementary school are having a competition with a bunch of other schools to see who can read the most minutes. Whoever wins gets an ice-cream party and a Jazz player will come visit the school. To help encourage the reading there was an all school Pajama Party Read-a-thon last night. There were treats and guest readers. It was pretty fun. The kids loved it and were very disappointed when it was over and time to go. I am SO glad that my kids love to read!

Prettiest Little Bride

She sure is cute! And she loved her wedding dress dress-up. She's been a bride every day for a week. Thanks Grandma and Papa Collette! (But pretty much just grandma...)

Jazz Game or Bust

Last weekend our very dear friends (whom we don't see nearly enough) had some excellent seats to the Jazz game and they were oh-so-kind to invite us. Dave and Tara were our first official married couple friends. We met them in our very first ward after we were married and they were our first friends where neither Andy, nor I, had been friends with one, or both, of them first. We were married the same month of the same year. We have so much in common and we have the BEST time together. We just love Dave and Tara.

We started out the night at CPK (try their California Club pizza- to die for...) and then did a bit of quick shopping at The Gateway (I couldn't help myself.... SO many sales!) and then we moved on to the game and sat in our awesome row 15 seats right as the game started. It was a great game and I had forgotten how much fun Jazz games were. We laughed.... and laughed.... and laughed some more. Jazz games are kind of "our" thing because of a hilarious incident (invloving Tara's boob and the YMCA) that I won't recap but it is what made us all fast friends more than 7 years ago. This night did not disappoint either. There is supposed to be another picture on here that Dave is going to e-mail me (of the back of a girl's head with ice cream dripping down her hair), but again, I won't go into detail because I know if I tried to explain, it would not be funny to anyone reading.

I'll just say that it was a beyond funny night with good food, good times and amazing friends. Thanks again Dave and Tara, you guys are the best and will always be our "couple" friends. We love ya!

Home Depot CAN be Fun

Wow. I have so much to do. But we've got another thing checked off our list. Somehow that happens even though half the time I feel like I am getting absolutely NOTHING accomplished. Last Saturday we headed to Home Depot to order new carpet and blinds for our house (ummmm, ya. We're finally getting new carpet and blinds and we're leaving. Whatev) It was taking forever! The kids hate Home Depot anyway and finally they started being crazies and running around like lunatics. We finally forced Bear to sit in the cart. This is his attempt at escape:

Here are the other kids entertaining themselves in the custom area rugs:

We had our house measured for carpet today and they'll be coming in the next couple of weeks to lay it. Andy is attempting a Pergo floor in our living room (we actually have real hardwood under the carpet, which we were going to restore until we found out it was MUCH cheaper to lay the fake stuff) and we have a PODS coming also within the next couple of weeks which we will slowly start filling with our possesions so they can take it all to VA for us. We officially started packing yesterday, we sold our extra car a couple weeks ago (yay!) and we also signed a lease for our rental home today and now all we need is for someone to rent OUR home. Please let anyone know who might be interested! It is a 4 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, completely remodled, fully fenced backyard, pets allowed, tri-level, 1600 square-foot home in Taylorsville for $1200/month. We have LOVED our little home and would like to rent it to some great people.

The clock is tickin'. I can't believe that in less than a month I will be living in Virginia. It is weird, but I am also getting excited for our new adventure. Some things have happened recently that have kind of prepared me, and now I am just ready to go. Of course I will cry my eyes out and I will miss my family and friends and home more than anything, but I know that this is what we are supposed to be doing and that it will bring us closer together as a family.

Okay, ready set.... go! Get that to-do list taken care of!

One Last Vegas Trip (for awhile anyway...)

This is how I felt the day after I got home...

A couple of weeks ago Andy had to go to Virginia one last time before we make the big move. He was going for a couple weeks, so I took the opportunity to head down to Vegas one last time to visit my sissy and also beautify my clients there for a final time.

I love going to Vegas, we always have so much fun, stay up way too late, laugh way too much (which, seriously, the first night I was there, we stayed up until 2 AM literally laughing our butts off. Really, I think we're skinnier because of it :), and eat a lot of stuff that is bad for us. This time I decided to hit 3 birds with one stone. Daphne had been begging to have a sleepover with her 2 best friends, Madi and Kenzie, so Becca was nice enough to keep her for the weekend and she says they had all sorts of fun together. Laylah had been begging to see her best cousin Alice a final time before we moved, who lives in St. George, so my sis-in-law Jenny was nice enough to have Laylah for the weekend. It was just me and my boys for Vegas (oh, and the furball who also tagged along). I did some hair, we played, Rachels' hubby took the kids to a movie so Rach and I could shop, we ate out a ton, we ate a lot of treats, and it basically went by way too fast. I love my sister and her family. They are the best and so so generous for always letting us crash there, feeding us, and also turn their home into a beauty salon.

USwirl Yogurt.... Best. Yogurt. Ever

Fun at the park the night we left

I am going to miss my every other month trips to Vegas, but I will miss my sister SO much more. Love ya Rach.

XOXO

The Twister that Touched Down at Our House

We have been having so much fun with all of our new games we got for Christmas. A few weeks ago for FHE we played Twister for an hour. It was hilarious. Here you go...

Mom and Dad gave it a go and the kids couldn't stop laughing..Dad is totally cheating at this point and ends up sitting on mom. No picture because the kids came to rescue me.

Good times. I love my family. Love them.

Daphne at Age 4

Our little Dafferdill is 4 years old. Where has the time gone? I really don't know. Daphne is the perfect fit for our family. She is so sweet most of the time, but she does have a little fire in her. She is so loving and kind and she tells me all day long how much she loves me. She'll say "mom?" and I'll say "what?" and there will be a pause and she'll say "um, I love you." She has the most horrible scream you can imagine though-it seriously makes me shudder when she does it, which is only when she is really hurt or really mad. She has the sweetest disposition and she hates to see anyone sad. She will try to comfort them by sharing a toy or giving a hug. She is just a tiny litte thing but she hasn't had her 4 year check-up, and I will have to post her stats once she does. She weighs a little less than Bear. She is so funny and is always making all of us laugh. She can throw quite the temper tantrum, but if I threaten to take away her favorite pink blanky, she will stop instantly. She knows how to get her way and I'm afraid we give in more than we should just because she's so cute and also because she has the worst whine and we just don't want to listen to it. She likes to tattle and she loves to play with friends. She is always asking to go to a friends house to play. She LOVES preschool and has learned so much already this year. She loves dress-ups, barbies, movies, ponies, playing Leapster, playing with her kitchen (baking and bringing everyone "food") playing games and on the computer, and she has quite the imagination. She is so quiet most of the time and is very content to play by herself. She likes almost all food and will pretty much eat anything we give her and if she doesn't like it, she'll at least have a couple bites. Her favorite foods are oatmeal, strawberries, cereal, eggs, bacon, milk (sometimes), pancakes, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, apples, pears, grapes, grapefruit, oranges, broccoli, asparagus, artichokes, noodles, chicken, potatoes, and hamburgers. I love this Daphne girl so much, and I truly am so grateful that she's mine. I cannot imagine my life without her!

I wanted to write my labor and delivery story on each of my kids birthdays this year since I have never recorded them anywhere. Daphne's delivery was extremely easy and uneventful, so this may be boring- sorry!

I was induced on Friday the 13th of January, 2006. It was about 5 days before my due date, but because of my history of having huge babies, my doctor wouldn't let me go into labor naturally. This baby was especially exciting because we hadn't found out the sex and so we were in for a surprise. I had thought it was a girl early on, but Andy was thoroughly convinced it was a boy and he had made me start thinking that it was also. We went into Cotoonwood hospital at about 7 AM and my mom was there waiting for us (she is a labor and delivery nurse and she was going to be my nurse that day! She had never been my nurse with my other babies and I was so happy to have her do it this time, I loved it, it was wonderful) She got me all hooked up with my I.V. and then my doctor came in and checked me. I had been dialated to a 2 or so and about 70% effaced at my previous appointment and I was maybe a 3 by now. I had tried to go natuaral with Jonah (but that's a story for another day :) and hated every minute of it, so right after the pitocin was started, I called for my epidural. After I got that taken care of, my doctor broke my water and labor started. It was the easiest labor I've had, I didn't feel one thing. My mom checked me a couple of times through the morning and I was slowly (for me) progressing. I have very fast labors, so I was frustarted when I hadn't delivered by 11 AM. I slept almost the whole time and around 12:45 PM I kind of felt a little pain. My medication had run out, so my mom called the anesthesiologist and he gave me a giant dose. Around 1 Pm, right before the meds kicked in, I felt the incredible urge to push. My mom checked me and I was at a 10! My doctor was in a surgery, but he came as soon as he could and I pushed for a couple minutes and out popped a baby GIRL at 1:13 on 1-13. Crazy, huh? We were a little shocked that she was a girl and also at how tiny she was. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 21 inches long. She was my smallest baby and I love her for it because I had no tear or episiotomy or anything. I healed so fast and felt great within a couple of days. It was wonderful. Daphne was such a beautiful, adorable baby. People would stop me constantly for months after she was born and tell me how beautiful she was. She was such a fun baby but also so serious. She was a total momma's girl which I had never experienced before. I loved it for awhile, but it got a little old :) Daphne was fast at everything. She got her first tooth at 4 months, crawled at 6 months and walked at 10 months. She was such a wonderful baby and I love her so much.

Happy 4th Birthday Miss Daphers!

Well, it came. Daphne's 4th birthday that she has been asking for since about last July has come.... and gone. She had such a great birthday and was so happy to tell anyone who would listen that she was indeed 4 now, not 3 anymore. The day before her birthday she had preschool and we made cookies to take as her birthday treat. She got to wear a crown and everyone sang Happy Birthday to her. She loved it. The next day started out with a phone call from her daddy (who has been in Virginia for 2 weeks) and then a birthday breakfast of Daph's choice (toaster strudles, bananas, and hot chocolate with marshmellows) We spent the morning getting ready for her party that night until it was time for her party with her friends.

She has been so excited to have a real "Birthday Party" with her friends. Now, I generally do not do birthday parties with friends until my kids turn 5. But because we are moving and because Daphne only has 3 really close friends that she plays with all the time, I made an exception. But I took the easy way out and didn't do anything theme-filled or cool- we went to McDonalds PlayPlace. I guess they all thought it was fun and Daphne thought it was an awesome idea when I suggested it, so I was glad I didn't have to do any work for her "party".The guests were Becca's 2 girls Mckenzie and Madison (Daphne is right in between them-9 months older than Madi and 9 months younger than Kenzie. The 3 of them are the 3 musketeers!) and also her best cousin Kiersta. The girls all played for awhile and then came and ate their happy meals. Then they played some more and then they came to open presents (Daphne got an adorable Tinkerbell stationary kit and a Tinkerbell beach ball and some Littlest Pet Shops-lucky girl). Then they played some more and then they came and we sang Daph Happy Birthday (yes, in front of a room full of strangers who were all staring at us- I have no shame when it comes to my kids :) and she pretended to blow out a candle. It was such a fun little party.

Later that day we had a birthday dinner of her choice (chicken noodle soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, grapefruit and lemonade. I know- what is wrong with my child that she would choose that as her birthday dinner??) and then we decorated for her My Little Pony party. The extent of that was tying up some balloons and hanging up a birthday banner (you'll see the amazing outcome later on ;). Then everyone came and Daphne was so excited. She wispered in my ear so politely that she would like to please open presents first. I let her, of course. She received from Andy and I and her siblings a bathrobe, a Leapster2, Fairytopia (a barbie movie), a Rapunzel barbie, a kitty Webkinz, and her very own water bottle (all the kids always want to use mine from the gym, so I am slowly getting them each their own for birthdays) She also received a bunch of clothes (boring!) and from her Grandma and Papa Jerman she received a Baby Alive doll which has been a huge hit ever since, and which has also peed on my floor about 3 times now. She got money from her Great Grandma Marge (that she wants to buy a pillow pet with) and a big My Little Pony from her Great Grandma Darlene. She also received many cards from other grandparents, and aunts and uncles. Everyone was so thoughtful and she was so grateful. Her other grandma wasn't able to make it to her party, but we're going over there Sunday, and I know Daphne will be thrilled with her gift which is a dress-up wedding dress. I can't wait to see her open it, I know she'll love it. Now here are a million pictures of her family party.

She's a little out of it in this one...

I seem to lose all organazational (is that a word?) abilities whenever Andy goes out of town, so here is me lighting matches as fast as I can because we were out of birthday candles.

Oh my goodness, I love this girl

I told you my party decorating abilities were amazing!

Happy Happy Birthday Daphne, you are the sweetest 4 year old I know and we all love and adore you so much!