Project Life Week 12

Here's another week finished. This week was awesome. It was a life changer to say the least. And also an answer to a prayer. You see Patrick received a job offer late Monday night of that week. So here it is.

I have been trying really hard to save us some money by using coupons and searching online sites for great deals. I usually go out on Mondays to do my shopping because the ads come out on Sunday. The picture is some of the stuff I was able to get for pennies on the dollar.

The next picture or journaling is Patrick's job offer. Instead of doing a screen shot of the email I just copy and pasted the info that I wanted to make sure I included. Simply amazing. The email came in late Monday night while Patrick was still at work and I was chatting with him over IM. We were both very excited about the job offer, where it was, and the paycheck.

The next picture is of the next morning after we told the girls that we would be moving and that Daddy got a new job. We were all so excited that we had an impropto pillow fight. I think the girls were more excited about the fact that we will be real close to disneyland than anything else. That is all they cared about. Every time that they would mention moving when daddy gets a new job they just wanted to be near disneyland, actually Maddie requested being right across the street from disneyland, just like the hotel we stayed at !! I kept telling them that we would not be living in a hotel !

I also included the mortgage guys card that I contacted on Tuesday to get that going. Because Patrick started work less than thirty days later.

Here is the other side.

We spent lots of time online looking at houses. We also planned a trip for the next weekend to go down to find a house. Our first home !!

The next picture is of Jimmer Fredette and the BYU cougars. I am not a BYU fan but I loved watching this kid play basketball, he has an amazing shot. They played in the sweet sixteen game but lost in overtime. So sad.

This week was when Noah started saying some real words. It was a real breakthrough and we look forward to having him say more words in the future.

The next picture is of Patrick's new toy, or should I say the family's new toy. They were having a closeout on the old Ipad's when the new ones came out and so we bought one, only after hunting around the city for one. That weekend was also the Scrapbook Expo. One of the years funnest events in my book !! Two days of no kids, shopping, and cropping. What else do you need !

No extras this week. It was busy. No time for extra events. Hope you enjoyed it. Now I have to pack again. Move #2 is coming soon !! Take care everyone.

Project Life Week 11

I took a little road trip this past weekend and took my mother back to her house. We miss you grandma. Or should I say gamma (that is what Maddie calls her). We also attended for a short time a charity crop that we had signed up for months and months ago and it was so fun. It really turned out to be a great weekend despite all the driving. The getaway was exactly what I needed to recharge my batteries and get ready to pack up the house and move into our new home next week. We should be closing next Monday the 16th. So excited.

Anyways I finished up some of my project life weeks and have one to show you all. Now this is the one that I gave you a sneak peak on earlier. But it is all done now and I added two extra pages for the week. Here is side 1

 The first picture is of the kids saying goodbye to daddy as he was off to Wyoming to go and do his second interview.

Since the weather has been nice the kids have ventured outside and Katelyn rediscovered an old bone that she calls her dinosaur bone !!

The little picture and then the next picture were from Patrick's trip to Wyoming.

The next picture is of Katelyn and her worm. This girl loves bugs, and she is not afraid to pick them up, play with them, ect. She loves it !! Maddie on the other hand would not touch it.

Here is the first side of the extra page. Paul and Tona, I hope you don't mind this being posted.

This is some pictures that my inlaws sent to us from Greece. They are serving an LDS mission on the Island of Cyprus, Greece.  I used one of Ali Edwards long journalers and resized it to a 6x12 page. I printed the journaling on it and then printed the pictures to go on top, like a hybrid page.

Here is the second extra page.

This is an iphone picture that Patrick took while out in Wyoming for his job interview. They took them out to a job site at 3:30 in the morning so that they could experience what it was like. I asked Patrick to write about his experience that day and added it to the bottom of the photo. I think it turned out great.

Here is side 2

The first photo is of Katelyn's dance recital. Her class was through the community center, she had so much fun and I hope they have some of the same kinds of programs here in California. She is the tiny dancer on the very far right of the picture.

The next picture is of Katelyn's cereal bowl the morning on St. Patrick's day. The night before I had put some green food coloring in the milk and turned it green. The girls were so excited to find green milk in the fridge and came running in to tell me that we had a leprechaun come and change our milk green !! So fun. And of course they had to have lucky charms on St. Patrick's day !! The little picture is of Katelyn all decked out in her green right before school.

The next picture is of a drawing that Maddie did for me. She brought it to me that day and said that she had drawn it for the scrapbook, so in it went for the Picture of the day. So cute huh !! It is of Rudolph.

The next picture is of the first blooming flowers in our yard. I just love to see blooming flowers because that means that spring is coming and warmer weather.

That is it for Week 11 and I have one more thing to share with you today. Before I left for the weekend I was busy making two scrapbook layouts for the California State Fair. I have been entering in the Utah StateFair(and done really well) the past three years and thought that it would be fun to enter into the California State Fair as well. We shall see how this year goes and maybe I'll enter next year as well. It is kind of a pain because I had to mail my entrees in to the fair. I'm not sure it is going to worth it but we shall see. I think they turned out really cute, especially the first one. Here they are. Click on the picture to make it larger. What do you think ?

Here is the second one

It is late and I need to go to bed now. Thanks for looking. Take care now.

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.