Video: Monkey See, Monkey Do

Hallie was being silly and screaming, and when I told her to stop, Sydnee started doing it!?!? I'm always amazed at how fast she learns! Monkey see, monkey do... need I say more!?



On another note, Sydnee is so close to getting on her hands and knees all by herself!! She's just reaching milestone after milestone which has been such a blessing! I think it's safe to say she's right on track now.

Engaged!

Last Tuesday was a big day for my side of the family. My brother, Justin proposed to his girlfriend Brittany on the same day of our move! They will be married in the Los Angeles temple in August. We are so excited to attend the wedding and we're excited to welcome Brittany into our family. While we are in LA for the wedding, it gives us an excuse to visit the coast and our good friends the Ostler's! So California, here we come! Congratulations to you both!

The Big Moving Day

Last Tuesday was a big day for our family. Before we knew it, our friends were helping us move into our beautiful (and big!) house, a day that we anticipated since being newlyweds! We rented a Uhaul and only had to make two trips to get all of our things to our new house, which isn't bad considering all the junk we've accumulated over time, especially since we've added two kids to our family :) I cleaned while the Elder's Quorum moved us, and two hours later, we were all moved in. Then it was time for the fun part.. UNPACKING!!!

Cam took off three days of work last week to help unpack and get us settled in, and I don't know what I would have done without him! He was such a great help, and I think he secretly enjoyed fixing/replacing/adding little things that needed to be done.

We have learned quickly that owning a home can add up and do damage fast to your savings account, but that's what we expected. In the one week of living in our house, we've had to: replace the kitchen faucet, fix three bedroom doors so they would shut all the way, buy three new toilet seats, drain our hot water heater hoping it would fix our hot water problem (it did, by the way), purchase towel racks for three bathrooms, the list goes on! Ah, the joys of owning a home. Thank goodness for our savings account! It has been so much fun though, putting everything in its place, decorating, replacing fixtures with newer and nicer ones, etc. Our house is definitely something we can be proud of.


We seem to live in a great neighborhood too. Within a day of moving in, we met four neighbors, one of which has two girls Hallie's age who lives right behind us (yay!), and two of our neighbors came baring gifts: lemon bars and chocolate chip cookies which Cameron is enjoying above! We seem to have great neighbors and we've received such a warm welcome! We also found out that there are many walking trails throughout our neighborhood that lead to two huge parks on the next street over. We're excited to check those out! I'm so glad the stress of moving is behind us and we can now enjoy the house and make it our own. I will add pictures of the house once I get it decorated, so visit our blog soon.

Hallie and Sydnee have adjusted so well to the move which has been a relief. Every time we leave the house to run an errand, Hallie freaks out almost in tears saying, "I want to go back to the "crib house", not my old house!" She calls our new house the crib house because before we bought it, it was staged with little girl toys in the fifth bedroom including a little pack n' play for a doll and every time we went to see the house, Hallie always went to that bedroom to play with the dolls and put them to bed in that crib.

When I asked Hallie the other day if she was happy about living here, she screamed, "YES, I love this house," and kissed Sydnee on the lips in pure joy. I just had to add that picture since I happened to have the camera in hand when she answered me!

Moments to remember:
Here are some cute moments that we will always remember and I thought you'd enjoy reading them too...

• The girls were at our friends' house during the move, and we picked them up late that night so they were already asleep. When we carried Hallie into the new house to sleep that night, she woke up when we put her in her new room and she asked, "Is this the crib house?" She was so excited.
• The next day while we were unpacking, I let Hallie go in the backyard to run around, and she was standing there just looking around for a minute as I explained to her where our yard boundaries were. After taking it all in, she looked at me and asked quietly," Mom, can I run all over the place?" After I told her yes, she circled the backyard for the next 20 minutes screaming at the top of her lungs... I think she was excited to have a big backyard, what do you think!?
• Hallie keeps saying, "I'm so excikted for this house," whenever we ask her about living here.
• Hallie's favorite thing has been watching Cam fix things and handing him tools as his little helper.
  

A Visit With the Dentist

Hallie had her first dentist visit before we moved! Amidst the moving chaos, we only got one picture (and because Cam took her to the dentist instead of me, hence the reason for no pictures!) but she did great! She was so excited when she came home with her bag of goodies. Cam said she kept her mouth open the whole time after the dentist let her touch all the tools before cleaning her teeth. Now, she brushes her teeth literally four-five times per day, but at least she's excited about keeping them clean! We were so proud of her!!

Moving pictures coming soon!

I know, you're all waiting for pictures of moving day, the house, etc. and they are coming soon!! We won't have internet again until Thursday so as soon as we are up and running again, I will post pictures of our move!! We close on the house today and Cam and I are staying up late to clean the new house and get it ready for moving into it tomorrow. We are so excited, and a little shocked since we just put ourselves thousands of dollars in debt, but hey, that's the exciting part right??

p.s. In between packing, I've still had time to run to the store to pick up TWILIGHT on DVD!!!! It's so fun to watch it on my own TV!!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Hallie: "Mom! That's a big neckle! I just have moles." After spotting a freckle on my neck.

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Sydnee got up on her hands and knees (with my help) the other day and Hallie came into the room right as she was taking the crawling stance and Hallie screamed in excitement, "Good job Syd! You're a horsey now!"

Some Much Needed Silliness

With all the chaos of packing and moving, we relaxed on Sunday and let the girls have some much needed play time which included Sydnee almost getting up on her hands and knees by herself, and Hallie trying on my nylons. If you notice, Sydnee is still in her pj's (I took the picture at dinner time!), and I'm sure Hallie hadn't brushed her teeth for the day yet, but welcome to our lives the past week and a half! It will get worse before it gets better I'm sure. The chaos has only begun!!

A Date with Mommy

Cameron and I decided to start taking Hallie on a date with one of us a couple times a month where she gets one on one time with each of us. We are constantly running around to Sydnee's appointments with physical therapists, doctors, etc. on a weekly basis and poor Hallie gets drug to all those things as well, so we thought this would really give her the quality time she needs.

This past weekend, it was Hallie's date with me, so I decided to take her to an indoor pool (yes, it took a lot of courage to go in public in a bathing suit again since having Sydnee, but since I've lost 15 pounds in the past two months, I figured I earned the right to be seen in a swimsuit right??)


She was so excited, that she wanted to "practice" swimming in the bathtub; so the day before, she got on her swimsuit and went for a swim in the bathtub. The next day, we left for the pool and the whole time Hallie kept asking where Syd was. I told her she was at home with Daddy and that it was Hallie's time with Mommy, and she said, "Oh, this is fun!" We had so much fun swimming around, and Hallie kept throwing rings into the pool for me to get which she thought was cool.