Easter, the ocean, ect.

So life is still going strong. Crazy as ever. I thought that I would share some pics with you all. The first week we were here these two items joined the family. Brand spanking new and I love them !! Oh and before we left we bought a beautiful bed set. Patrick put the bed together and it is beautiful. I can't wait until we move so that I can unwrap the rest of the set. It will be like christmas.

We had a wonderful easter despite the bad start. I searched online for a free Easter egg hunt in the city, found one at 10:00 am. Perfect, I thought. Not to early, we will be fine. We headed out, maybe a few minutes late, headed in the right direction. Followed the directions to the letter but there was no community center to be seen. Did some searching again on my phone, looked up the Community Center itself and finally made it there. But we were too late, they had already had the egg hunt. The girls were very disapointed, tears even !! So again, got out the trusty phone and luckily found a local christian church that was hosting some Easter festivities that included a free hot dog lunch, bouncy house, train rides, face painting, and of course a huge easter egg hunt. Halleluiah I said. We headed over there in plenty of time and the kids had a wonderful time. They didn't want to leave. Here are some pictures from the event.

Bouncy House 

 Noah had this painted on his hand. He is obsessed with Mickey and especially Mickey Mouse. I can't wait to take him to disneyland in a few weeks.

Noah didn't quite know what to do at the egg hunt. But Patrick showed him that there was candy inside the eggs and to pick them up and then put them in his basket. He caught on real quick. Until he decided he had enough eggs and just wanted the candy inside !!

Katelyn and Maddie really did well, going as fast as they could to gather up the eggs.

Last Saturday Patrick and I had the opportunity to leave the kids behind with Grandma and drive down to Santa Monica. I just love the beach and it was killing me to be so close to the beach and not drive down and see it. The drive was beautiful, fruit trees, green hills, ect. It took about and hour and forty five minutes to get to where the pier and beach are. Well worth the drive, it is beautiful there. The weather was a little chilly but nothing to bad. We lucked out and found a great parking spot right by the water. We walked along the beach towards the pier and took some pictures along the way. Here are a few. Oh yeah, when we first got there it was so windy but thankfully it died down a little while later. After we walked around the beach and then the pier, we walked down Santa Monica Blvd. to get some dinner. The street performers are amazing and so fun to watch. We ate at this Chinese, Thai restraunt and it was so good. Overall a wonderful, amazing, kid free night.

Well I need to wrap it up now. Was hoping to share Easter Sunday with you but that will have to wait until next time. And I am almost done with the next Project Life week. Something is going on with my laptop and my printer. They are not communicating very well and no joke it takes an hour( I timed it) to print anything. Patrick is convinced its the printer and has to call Epson about it. Oh man, don't get me started about my printer frustrations. Another reason that I can't wait to move so that I can have my desktop back and get back to normal scrapbooking functions again. Also to unpack my scrapbook stuff. So stay tuned for a week of project life coming soon.

Lake Isabella and a few extras

The day before Patrick started work we wanted to do something all together, something fun. Not really knowing the area at all we decided to drive up to Lake Isabella. The lake is huge !! Much bigger than the lake we go waverunning on at home. Here is a picture of the drive up the canyon. Much different landscape than at home.

It was colder up there in the mountains of course, and windy. Very windy. So it made it even colder. Not very conducive to swimming or even wading in the water. So we got out of the car and about three minutes later we all got back in the car. See photo below. The kids were really cold.

Oh well. The drive was very pretty and we got to eat at this very cute little diner up in the town near the lake. It was called the Cowgirl Cafe. Maddie was so excited to eat there because she is so into the whole cowgirl theme. She even had her cowgirl boots on !! She wears them all day every day. See photo.  And of course on the wrong feet.

After seeing the lake we drove back down the canyon and found a little hiking trail that went down to the river. Noah was so cute, we wanted to hold someone's hand the whole hike. Grandma was the first. See photo.

 

Here are a few photos from our hike. 

The next day Patrick went off to start his new job. Here are a few pictures from the official send off from the driveway. As you will see Noah was beyond upset. The second picture is so funny, look for him on the ground crying. After we came inside from saying goodbye to daddy Maddie just sat on the couch with her arms folded for a while. A little while later i hear this from her. "Mommy, I am not happy at all. " I asked her why. Cause daddy had to go to work. Katelyn quickly follows with her remarks about being unhappy as well. I tell the girls that I am not happy about it either and gave them a speech about how daddys have to go to work so that we can have a house to live in, food to eat. But they didn't want to hear it !! So funny. 

Well that is all I have to time to share right now. Until next time. Everyone Take care now.

Checking In

Hello everyone.

It has been quite the busiest last few weeks, with the house this and thats, moving, changing schools, changing states, but through it all it has been amazing. We are loving California, the weather is amazing. The bugs on the other hand are not !! They are everywhere, and big too !!

California lesson #1 - Do not leave any type of food out on the grass for any amount of time, not even for a second. I learned that ants do not make for tasty pizza toppings !! 

We had a HUGE spider living in the backyard under a crack in the house. Patrick caught him and threw him over the fence. We are hoping he does not come back. Oh yeah, did I mention the Fred the frog. Here is a picture.

It was the first morning that we were here I get abruptly woken up by Patrick. He drags me down the hall and points to something hiding in the corner by my mothers room. It was a frog !! He must have made his way in the day before while we had the door open all day. I named him Fred and he lived for a little while in our tub and then the kids put him in the kiddie pool. They loved it, kept begging me to keep him. But Patrick and the kids took him across the street to the field and let him loose.

Back to the pre move. Katelyn and Maddie were great helpers with packing and helping load the truck. At one point they wanted me to tape them up and put them in the truck !! I was very tempted to make their wishes come true. See below.

Noah is obsessed with cars, trucks, and trains. He was beyond excited when Patrick pulled up in the Uhaul truck. He spent all day out there the Thursday we were packing the truck. He was in heaven, with his daddy by his side.

 We said goodbye to my dad the day that we left and it brought tears to my eyes. We will miss grandpa tickles, hikes with grandpa, times at the lake, chases around the house, and trips to wheeler farm. My mom drove down with us and is still here right now.

 

On the way down Noah got a chance to ride in the Uhaul truck and boy was he ever happy. 

The kids love the tub in the master bath. It is huge and they can all fit in in. The first night we were here they all got in and took a bath together, splashing, and even sliding into the tub, using the tub itself as a slide. So much fun.

The weather when we got here was wonderful. It was warm enough that we put swim suits on and let the kids play in the water while we moved the rest of the boxes in.
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I just have to say that they weren't lying about it being SUNNY CALIFORNIA.  I had my camera set for cloudy Utah weather and took some pics of the kids that day without even checking them. They were all way overexposed and horrible. Lesson learned and adjusted now!! See below.

 We took my mom over to see the house, at least the outside of it and the yard. We got a picture of us all in the front, again hadn't figured out about the settings yet for the camera !! This picture is so funny, Maddie has her tongue sticking out, Katelyn is un happy about the fact that she has to stand out in the "SUN", and Noah is making a fish face !! How's that for a family photo. But i love it, all of us in front of our very first home. Can't wait to move in.

That is all i have time for right now. I have more to share. We took a family drive up to Lake Isabella the day before Patrick started work. So I will share that tomorrow. Also need to start working on my Project Life album as well, so behind. I am waiting for some ink for my printer. Might have to make a Costco order.

Until next time.

Our own little piece of California

Sometimes things have a way of working themselves out. That is exactly what happened to us with our house experience. In the end we got exactly what we wanted which is wonderful. Below is a picture of our very own little piece of California. Our very first home. I am so excited and can't wait to move in, to paint, to decorate. 30 - 45 days to close on the house. We are moving on Saturday into the rental until we can close on the house.

Sorry it's so dark. No time for photoshop. 

Here are a few snapshots from our trip down to California. 

This is our circle. 

Palm trees. Much different than here.

Noah very much enjoyed the huge backyard. It is on a quarter acre lot and the backyard is huge compared to all the other houses we saw. That was the selling point for this house. The house itself is on the smaller side but the backyard makes up for it. We plan to put a swing set in the backyard, a good sized garden, some citrus trees. The builders are putting in grass and sprinklers for us, part of the house incentives. Oh and the house is brand new !! I love it.

Another shot of the backyard. Noah was in heaven. It was a huge sandbox.

A new found favorite park. There is a flowing stream right through the park that the kids can play in. I can see us spending alot of time there.

A swim in the cold hotel pool. Daddy is acting as the whale again. 

A shot from the front door of the house we really wanted. Since the loan process took a little longer than expected( didn't know there were different rules in California- loan guy did not tell us this) we didn't get our offer in in time. The bank took another offer the day before we could get ours in. This was a great home. The room to the right was to be a great scrapbook room. Oh well. 

Our view driving home was gorgeous. Right outside the city are these beautiful, green, rolling hills. It was amazing. There freeway was lined with citrus trees, nut trees, ect. There was even some farms that we can visit and go pick our own oranges, and other things. I am looking forward to that. Well that is it for now. I must go pack some more boxes. I will probably do an update next week when we are down in California.

House Drama

Well I just wanted to check in with everyone and let you all know that I am still here. The weekend went well, found a house, came home, had MAJOR loan drama, got that sorted out, then after all that found out that the house that we wanted is no longer available. Since we had the loan drama and delay they took someone elses offer, we could have paid more for the house, had no backyard landscaping, or had them build us on in 60 days. So now we are at a horrible point of not knowing where we are going to live, not being able to find a rental for just a few months, and possibly not having a U HAUL truck available from the company that he is going to be working for. So I will not be scrapbooking any time soon. We have to figure out a whole lot of stuff, pack up the house, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

I promise to be back sometime with lots of project life posts. I don't know when. Take care everyone.

A project life week preview

I was working on week 11 here and there but just ran out of time to completely finish it before leaving this weekend. But I just wanted to give you a little sneak peak, actually a big sneak peak. There are pictures(although not cropped and straight out of the camera to save time), bad lighting and all, and no description. I will go into detail next week and also will finish the week off. I have a few extras that I need to do.

So have a wonderful weekend everyone. We leave tomorrow morning for California to go and buy us a house !! Wish us luck and I will share pictures of our weekends adventure next week.

Week 11 Side 1

Week 11 Side 2

P.S. Katelyn and Maddie are on this cowgirl kick. They wear their cowgirl hats, cowgirl shirts, and their boots around all day. Riding their stick horses, lasso's in hand(a robe tie), most of the time rounding up the cattle and wild horses. It is has been so fun to watch them this past week. Here is a picture of Katelyn in her hat and wearing her cowgirl shirt. I still need to get one of her and Maddie on their horses.

Scrapbook Expo Weekend

This weekend was the semi-annual Scrapbook Expo. This is one of those events that you look forward to all year. Two days of all day scrapbooking, shopping for scrapbook supplies at amazing prices, a girls weekend, and two days of no kids. So basically it is heaven. I had a wonderful time, even brought the girls over for a few hours and they loved it !! I did lots of shopping. Lots of scrapbooking. Lots of girl chatting.

Here is a few layouts that I did over the weekend. This is an Ali Edwards scraplift that I just loved and wanted to do  myself. I did put my little twist on it and might add something in the bottom right corner but just haven't found the right thing now. And I now realize I have to add the date on there.

Here is the other layout I did over the weekend. It is one of Noah's pictures from a photo shoot we did a while ago.

I also got a lot of work done on my project life book, will be working on that this week. We will see how that goes.

P.S. Does anyone know an easy way of straitening out a photo in photoshop. I guess I will have to do some googleing later  !! Thanks for looking.