Thursday, June 3, 2010

Party Pics

So, a little after birthday party post. I had a bunch of fun stuff planned for the day. First, while he was at work we decorated the house and porch, and I made carrot cake. When he got home, we surprised him and had cake and presents. He loved the 2 terabyte external hard drive that I got him, and he was totally surprised and didn't suspect anything. I arranged like a week ahead of time, for my ex sis in law to watch the kids, and John and I went to Tucanos and then went to see 'How To Train Your Dragon" in 3D. I know some people may think that's dorky, but it was actually really good and nothing else in the theater sounded good, or it was rated R. Anyway, it was fun to get to go out alone on a date for once.

Porch all decorated (ignore the Christmas lights. haha)

Ready to open presents.

Yay, the external hard drive I wanted!

Hamming it up like a dork.

Attacking the cake.

He really did take a bite out of the corner. Haha! He was totally hamming it up the whole time. I took tons of pictures, too many to post here, and even though he acted like his birthday wasn't a big deal I could tell that he was totally soaking up all the attention. I swear men are just over sized little boys. :)

John's Birthday - Car Pics















Here are some pics of what I did to John's car. I had fun doing it, and even though he said he thought it was dorky/embarrassing, I could tell that he really did enjoy it and just didn't want to admit it.




John's 33 Today


Today is my husband's birthday. He turned 33. I have been torturing him the last few days about how he is getting so old. haha! Today is going to be so fun because he totally thinks I don't have anything planned. I started last night by getting a car marker, and writing all over his car windows. I put Happy Birthday, and Honk! It's My Birthday Today, Birthday Boy, and I Love You all over all the windows. Then I got a big bag of balloons and blew them up and filled his car with them. I hope he liked it. I haven't gotten to talk to him today, 'cause he's been in surgery (working) all day. I also have fun planned for tonight. I am SOO excited because he has NO idea!! I have overheard him tell several people that he didn't think we were doing anything and that as far as he knew I didn't have anything planned. That's right, as far as he knows. Hahaha! I have had a babysitter lined up for like a week, and we are going to dinner and a movie sans kids. I am super excited. 1 - because he has NO idea, and 2 - because we rarely, if ever, get a night out alone. I also bought him an external hard drive he has been wanting to get for a while. He tried to buy it a couple weeks ago while we were at the store and I had to be like NO! let's just wait a while longer and think about it! Ugh, so close!
Anyway, I also made carrot cake (which is cooling so I can decorate it) and I got Happy Birthday decorations to put up before he gets home. The kids are cleaning right now to get ready to decorate, since he gets off in a couple hours. I figured we will do cake and stuff with him when he gets off work, and then Jessica (my babysitter/ex sister in law) will get here in time for us to leave at 5. I am thinking of going to Tucanos and then hitting the movie theater that is nearby. I still plan on taking Hayden, since he thinks he needs a boob all the time, but I am hoping to just take him to dinner and then drop him off before the movie so he can go to bed. We'll see how that goes. He is hard to part with, for me not him. Haha!
I hope that he has a great birthday today. I have been working on it for a while. I love him so much and I am so glad that we are together. He makes me happy, and always has me laughing.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

I haven't forgotten to do part 2 of the Easter posting. I just haven't had time, since I will have to add a bunch of pictures. So I will get to it after this weekend is over.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Crazy Goings On

Man, things have been crazy around here! The kids had spring break this week. I only had 5 kids for the week (which doesn't sound like only, unless you have 7. ha!) because I sent Hailey and Tyler to their Grandma Sandy's house for the week. They have been gone since Tuesday. I have to say it is amazing how much quieter it is with the 2 of them gone, and with Tyler not here to be a jerk to his brothers. It has been nice, but I am ready for them to come back. They were supposed to come back tonight, but they will be back tomorrow some time. Dave called and asked if they could bring them back tomorrow. Jessica was supposed to bring them today when she came to sleep over and watch the kids while John and I are in class tomorrow morning, but she forgot that she had ACTs tomorrow. So now Chris is coming to watch the kids, and the kids will be home sometime tomorrow.

Also, while the kids have been off 3 of them have been sick. All week Brooklyn, Camren and Amelia have had fevers and been complaining of stomach pain. Not nausea, just their stomach hurts. Hopefully they will be feeling better by Monday. I guess it's lucky that Austin and Hayden didn't get sick too. I'm just glad that I didn't get sick. With school and all the kids, I just don't have time for it!

It is almost the end of the semester at school. Although I am excited that it is almost over - ok that my math class is almost over - I am going crazy from all the end of semester work that I have to do. Just this weekend I have to finish 4 math chapters, math final review, 3 page literature paper for humanities, and a 1500 word argumentative essay for english. On top of that I need to finish up my sociology class. It's enough to make me want to pull out my hair! I am just relieved that I am getting good grades! I have A's in everything except math, which I have a B in. I am ok with that. It is my worst subject, and lately it has gotten hard enough that I thought I might end up with a C. However I got my current grade today, and it was 88%, so almost an A. If I can do great on my chapter 9 quiz, and my final, I might be able to get an A after all! I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Also to do this weekend: Brooklyn's birthday. She will be 7 on Sunday! I can't even believe it! I am excited because Jacob and Natalie are coming down tomorrow, and they will be coming over Sunday. I haven't told Brooklyn because I thought it would be more fun as a surprise. We don't have a lot of money right now since John's work has cancelled him so many times recently. This week he only worked 2 days! Lame. They keep saying that they don't have enough cases. I told John that they should make all the scrub techs salaried, because it's not fair that they're not making their 40 hours because the surgery center is not getting enough surgeries scheduled. Grrr! It's so frustrating. John has still been looking at jobs back out in California, but I really don't want to move out there so I hope that something works out with his work soon!

The House Hunt Continues

We are going out to Lehi to look at a house tomorrow. We have been told that we can have the house we wanted in Bluffdale. We even negotiated the rent to $150 less than what they were asking. The problem is, they don't want to do a lease for more than 18 months. They are going out of state while the wife has some medial treatment and they don't know how long it will take, but it will be approximately that long. I really want to live out there and get to have a farm, but I don't like the idea of having to move again in a year or so. I couldn't do 18 months, because that would put us at December which is during the school year and right before Christmas. I really would love to have a house on an acre, and all the animals and garden that I could have there, but I don't know if it is going to work for us after all.

We did find another house that we like in Santaquin, but we are still waiting to see if they will come down on the rent. They are asking the same as the Bluffdale house, so we are hoping that they will come down also. It needs some work (paint, finish fencing the back yard) but the owner is willing to provide all the materials if we do the work. He has even agreed to drop $800 off the deposit. Now we just have to see if we can get him to take $150 off the rent. If so, we are going to take it. They are willing to do a 3 year lease, which is what we really want, and the house is perfect for us. It is about 5000 sq. ft. with 8 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. It has a great layout and is on a 1/2 an acre. It's also just around the corner from the freeway entrance. We met one of the neighbors when he came home and we went to ask how the neighborhood/ward/neighbors were. He said all were great, and that he had grown up in Santaquin (he was about my and John's age). I hope that we figure something out soon.

We still haven't even gotten our landlord to give us a straight answer on the house we're in. Every time we ask him if he's going to renew our lease, or sell the house, or what, he just says we'll talk about it more when the time comes. Hello! This is the time! We have 7 kids, and we can't wait around 'til our lease is over to start looking for a house. We need to get something lined up now. I told John that we will just assume that we are moving, and find another house. In the meantime, John called him and said that we had found another house (we always have the Bluffdale house if we don't find anything else) and that we need to know by Monday if we are going to be able to stay here or not. I think that finally got it through his head that we were serious and need to know now, and he said he would get back to us Monday. I am just so tired of living in limbo. Even if he says we could stay, if the Santaquin house owner agrees to what we want I think we will move anyway. If we do get our lease renewed here, it wouldn't be for another 3 years because he really wants to get rid of the house. We wouldn't get more than a year. So I think it would be better to move now, if we find a house we can move into for 3 years, than stay here for another year and then still have to move. So now we get to continue playing the wait and see game.

We did get another house in Spanish Fork that was really nice and they said they would do 3 years, but I think that would be a last choice, just because the yard was so small. It was like .18 acres. That's like the size of my parent's yard in California! Tiny! But it was a really nice house, in a brand new neighborhood, so if it came down to it, it would be an ok choice. It is about the same distance to John's work as we were when we lived in American Fork. We have been looking in a 30 minute radius around John's work and school, so we won't have awful commutes to either one.

Ugh. That's enough of that! More next week when we figure out what's going on.

Monday, April 5, 2010

House Hunting

So today we went and looked at a couple houses. The first one was in Orem, about 10 minutes away from where we live now. I was hopeful, but the house was HIDEOUS! It seriously needed to be gutted and have a do over. It was disappointing because I have been hopeful that we would find something nearby where we live now.

However, at the next house . . . .

I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was just about everything I wanted in a house, plus a lot of stuff I have dreamed about having but never hoped to actually find. It is about 20 min. north of here (Bluffdale, near Salt Lake) and it is a little bit of country - in the city. It was love at first sight. It is 4200 sq. feet and 7 bedrooms (which is what we have now), but the best part . . . . . . wait for it . . . IT IS ON OVER AN ACRE!!! WITH ANIMAL RIGHTS!!!

Oh. My. Heck.

Be still my heart, I am in love. Everyone who knows me knows how much I long for a house with property. It is my dream to have a house where I can have cows, chickens, a huge garden, maybe a turkey or two? My husband? Not so much.

*Sidenote: In fact we have a running joke about the chickens. I have been begging to get chickens for the last month, but John keeps saying no because we don't know where we'll be living. So during the day I will randomly text him "CHICKENS!!!" and then he responds with "NO CHICKENS!", and Amelia (4) and I whisper and plot and threaten to bring some home while he's at work. Then one day it was funnier because we learned how to send voice messages to each other. So I sent him a voice message yelling "CHICKENS!!!!" while he was in Wal-Mart. People were probably like, what the heck? Then of course he sent one back to me, "NO CHICKENS!" LOL

Anyway, so what makes this house so great? It has everything I want, but it is 5 minutes from Bangerter and the freeway, and civilization. It already has a chicken coop and a detached garage converted into a barn. I could live in the country without my husband actually having to be in the country. Win win! Now I just have to hope that he agrees. We are supposed to go see a couple more houses between tomorrow and Saturday, but honestly if it were up to me I wouldn't even bother. The only reason we are going to look is because it is a little more expensive than the house we are in now, so he wants to see what else is out there. Of course, I have picked every house we have lived in. So here's to hoping that we continue with that tradition!

*Another side note: On the way home Tyler (11) asked me if we moved there, if he could have a farmer outfit. I was like, what's a farmer outfit. He was like, you know. Overalls, a blue shirt and a hat. LOL! He cracks me up.