Top 5 - February 2016

Payton Millie - 3 Years 8 Months

1 - Payton has SUCH a good memory.  A year ago Tyler took her to Disney on Ice and Payton was so excited the whole time to see Elsa and Anna.  She kept asking Tyler when they were going to come out.  They never did and to say she was devastated is an understatement.  Tyler told her that they couldn't come that night because they were sick.  Lol.  So this year they have Frozen on Ice and Tyler told Payton they were going to go again.  Payton responded by asking "Are Elsa and Anna going to be sick or will they be there this time?"  Are you kidding?  Not only was it a year ago but she was 2 then!  How does she remember that?

2 - The past month Payton has made a decision to test out the waters of defiance.  She has always been a very obedient girl (I got really lucky with her being my first and am in a rude awakening with the rest of my kids).  Although the past month it is like she has flipped a switch.  Maybe it is all the moving we have been doing and maybe it is just a phase (I really really hope so), but she says NO to everything.  I swear I hear the phrase "Mommy I want to make a bad choice right now" at least 20 times a day.  It is definitely testing my patience.

3 - Every time we get in the car to go somewhere Payton has her hands full of about 5 or more toys that she wants to bring with her.  It is such a process to get her down to just 2.  I feel like my car is a breeding zone for toys.

4 - Payton is so sweet.  Cooper was crying the other night while I was making dinner and after only a few minutes she went over to him and started singing him a song she made up on the spot about how she loves him and why he shouldn't cry anymore.  She kept hugging him and giving him kisses.  It melted my heart.  

5 - Everything turns into a pretend character that she plays pretend with.  Her chore in our house is to put the silverware away from the dishwasher and she used about 10 different knives/forks/spoons and had a whole conversation with them and was playing some sort of princess scenario with them.  Everything these days is princess.  I can't wait for Cooper to throw some less girly things in the mix at our house.

Cooper Seth - 10 Months

1- We finally found Cooper's ticklish spot.  If you tickle him right on his lower tummy around his sides he starts giggling like crazy and squirming.  

2 -  He loves his thumb a little too much.  A few months ago I remember whenever I would bring him into his room from nap time or bed time the thumb would automatically go in his mouth.  That doesn't happen anymore because it is ALWAYS in his mouth.  Even in between shoving food into his mouth.  It is going to be a serious problem when he gets older...but right now I don't care because it is so dang cute.

3 - He has become a MOMMA's boy for sure.  Whenever I am not home and Tyler is watching the kids Tyler says that he is so happy and crawls around and plays, but the second I get home and he hears my voice he starts crying and crawls over to my feet for me to pick him up.  

4 - His two new skills that he is really proud of is clapping and pointing.  Sometimes I have no idea what he is pointing at but he will sit there and point and babble to himself.  

5 - He still wears 3-6 month shoes and his feet don't seem to be growing anytime soon. 

Our Process Buying a New Construction Home

If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that we bought a fixer upper almost 3 years ago.  We put a lot of love into it and it was such a cool experience, but we tried to do it too fast and it honestly just wore us out.  All of our extra time and money was spent working on a project on our house.  We learned a lot and loved the experience, but we soon realized we didn't want to ever buy a fixer upper again (at least not one that we would live in).  

So after moving for Tyler's job relocation and renting a basement apartment for a year and a half we finally found a location that we loved and knew we would be in for 5-10 years.  We went the new construction route because it was the complete opposite of a fixer upper.  We apparently only go for the two extremes.

So now being a little over two weeks from our expected close date we have learned a lot from this experience.  There are pros and cons, but for us we would choose this process again in an instant.

Pro #1: For starters, when you build your own home it's yours. No one else has lived in it.  You don't have to spend the first few days deep cleaning it because it is brand spanking new.  After moving 6 times in the last 6 years that is definitely something that I will not miss.

Pro #2: You get to choose all of the colors, finishes, light fixtures, where to put the lights, where to put the outlets (that one surprised me), countertops, cabinets, etc.  Going to the design center meeting to choose everything was really overwhelming, but super fun.  Luckily Tyler and I have very similar taste.  The hard part is that you only see a small sample and it is hard to envision the final product and I was constantly second guessing my choices.  Now that we are seeing it come all together I am so happy about our choices.  We get it to look exactly how we want it to without having to do any of the work.

Pro #3: Before they drywalled our house we were able to go around and take pictures of where all the plumbing ran and where the major electrical wires are and other things that will be helpful later on if there are issues.  When you buy a home that is already built you don't have the opportunity to do that.

Pro #4: We have the entire basement to finish and we even get to create our own floorpan (mostly).  We are really excited to use our hands and creativity to make it our own space.  We actually have already planned out the whole floorpan.  It might take us a while to finish it though.  This time we plan to take our time and not overdo ourselves like we did with our last house.

So there are definitely cons that we have experienced with this new construction home.

Con #1: It is really hard to gauge the final cost of the home before you put an offer and sign the contract.  We couldn't go in and meet with the design team until a few weeks after the contract was signed.  That made Tyler and I really uneasy because we had to put a deposit down in order to reserve the lot that we wanted.  We were able to have the seller put something in the contract saying that if we weren't able to afford all the upgrades that we wanted we could back out after the design meeting without losing our earnest money.  

The approach we took at the design center was to make a list of all the MUST HAVES, a list of all the WANT TO HAVE, and then a list of IT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE.  When we first went through the design center we combined all 3 lists and chose it all.  Then after seeing the price we chiseled down the list to fit our budget.  Luckily all of our must haves made the cut.  But man do they mark up all the upgrades.  There are a few things that were on our must have list that we didn't get but we decided to just have them put in the standard and then we will purchase it on our own for a third of the cost (like pendant lights and the chandelier in the kitchen).

Con #2: When you build a new home, you won't lock in your interest rate until it's almost complete.  That means the interest rate (and consequently your payment amount) could change from what the estimate was when you sign the contract.

Con #3: There are definitely things that go wrong in the construction process.  There were several scares for our house, but all the kinks were worked out in the end and we are loving our house.  We can't wait to move in.

Here are some progress pictures:  

Kitchen - we are waiting on the backsplash, appliances, the faucet for the sink, door handle for the pantry and the pendant lights over the island (which will be changed out anyway because they are hideous).

This is the view from the family room into the kitchen and dining room (that chandelier will be gone as well)

We chose a different countertop for the bathrooms mainly because the quartz in the kitchen was so dang pricey and we didn't need it in the bathrooms.  This is a granite countertop.

We want to tile the master bath/shower up to the ceiling but they charged more than double so we figured we would get this cheaper/easy to clean eco-stone surround and then install the tile later ourselves and save lots of money.  That way we can afford some of the more important upgrades like these beautiful kitchen countertops and all the flooring.  

Top 5 - January 2016

Payton Millie

3 Years 7 Months

1 - Payton gave up naps when she turned 2.  It was a few weeks of hit or miss napping, but within a month she gave them up completely.  The past 2 months Payton has been sick 3 times and has spent a lot of the past two months like the picture above (which NEVER happens).  She also takes a good 2-3 hour nap every day.  It breaks my heart to see her so sick.

2 - She started primary this month as a sunbeam and after her first day her teacher told me that she volunteered to give a prayer in sharing time and do a lesson for the next week even though her class obviously wasn't assigned.  Haha....that's my daughter.  

3 - Payton absolutely LOVES the snow.  Last year it only snowed twice and hardly stuck, so this year she is in heaven.  She spends more time eating the snow then playing in it.  I actually had to tell her 3 times not to eat the snow off the bottom of her shoes.  Crazy girl.

4 - Whenever Cooper starts crying Payton all on her own starts singing him a song and he immediately stops crying.  It is the cutest thing.

5 - I probably sound like a horrible mom but Payton has absolutely NO pain tolerance.  She full on cries every time I brush her hair and every time she falls down.  It has been trying my patience the past few weeks because she has been full on sick and if she full on cries when I brush her hair you can only imagine her when she is in a lot of pain and feeling miserable.   

Cooper Seth

9 Months

1 - We officially have a crawler.  And he is so proud of himself.  I forgot how tiring it is to have a mobile baby.  I am really glad he didn't start crawling at 6 months like Payton did.

2 - Whenever someone laughs and Cooper is in the room he does this little fake laugh right after.  It is my favorite.

3 - We thought that he finally slept through the night but apparently he was just teasing us.  I feel like we have a newborn again (for about a month now).  I am really hoping it is the fact that he has been sick and he is in a new room.  

4 - Whenever I start walking Cooper down to his room for his nap he immediately puts his little thumb in his mouth and snuggles up to my chest.  I seriously love it.  Payton never snuggled as a baby so I am enjoying it while it lasts.

5 - If I am feeding Cooper something with a spoon he insists on grabbing the spoon and feeding himself.  If I take it away from him he FREAKS.

White Christmas

This year Christmas was magical.  It was snowy and white and absolutely wonderful.  Christmas with kids is so much better than Christmas as a kid.  I love how excited Payton gets about the little things. And I really love being able to start some fun traditions with my own family.  

This year we spent Christmas at my parents house.  We moved out of our little apartment at the end of November and we have just about 3 weeks left here at my parents until our house is done.  

We always take the train down to see the temple lights and it is so much fun.

Tyler's work Christmas parties are always so much fun.  They always go over the top.  This year was so much better than last year.  The theme was Casino Royale.  They had tons of blackjack and roulette and poker tables set up to play all night.  Tyler and I turned our $1000 into $10,000 by the end of the night.  Too bad it wasn't real money.  But it did get us over 100 raffle tickets to win a tv and getaway somewhere fun.  Too bad we didn't win.  

We had so much snow this Christmas.  Payton is deathly afraid of water but she sure loves the snow.  Ty and Payton made lemonade Snow cones.

In line to see Santa

A local dance company put on a production of Nutcracker close to our house and I took Payton.  She loved it so much I think we will make it a tradition for the girls every year.  On the way home she told me that when Cooper gets older and can walk and dance she wants him to be her prince to dance with her.  

All growing up we usually see a movie on Christmas day after everything quiets down but this year we decided to do it Christmas Eve morning in our pajamas.  It was really fun and hardly anybody in the theatre.

In the afternoon we went to go sledding and Payton surprisingly fell asleep BEFORE we went not after being all tired out.  But she had a blast.

Christmas Eve Jammies

We got a ton of pictures more like this..

I realized I didn't get a ton of pictures Christmas day except of Cooper...

He would have been happy with just wrapping paper

And of course we woke up to this Christmas morning...

A White Christmas

6 Moves in 6 Years

We are at it again.  It has become an annual thing around here.  We bought a new home and plan to stay put for a while.  We have been renting the past year to be able to find a place that we really like that will last us a long time.  

We bought a new construction home and it is such a different experience than our Layton fixer-upper.  After all the sweat equity we put into that home it is really nice to be able to choose what we want our new home to look like without any work on our part.  I love it.  Right now it is completely framed, plumbed, the electricity is done, the roof is on, windows framed and the HVAC is done.  Soon they will start drywalling.  I probably drive by it once a day.

These pictures were taken before the framing and roof was done.

And these were taken yesterday..

Top 5 - November 2015

Payton Millie

3 Years 5 Months

1 - Payton has been asking me a lot of questions about Heavenly Father and heaven.  It is really fun to teach her what I believe and share my testimony with her.  We were driving to preschool one day and she said "Mommy I think Heavenly Father is magic because he knows how to turn the sky on and off."  I would have to agree with her.

2 - Payton LOVES to jump.  She throws all of the pillows off our couch and runs on the couch and jumps off onto the pillows.  Since we are moving we have boxes stacked up high in almost every room.  She has been climbing up to the top and jumping off onto a beanbag for hours on end.  It's been great entertainment for her while we are busy packing.  

3 - Payton has made it her job to entertain Cooper and I love it.  She loves to be silly and make him laugh.  Nothing is better then watching them interact with each other.

4 - She has always been amazing at bedtime and going to bed quickly without our help, but she is definitely pushing her limits lately.  She probably comes out 10 times once we have put her to bed asking for water, another hug and kiss, saying she has a scratch and needs a bandaid, has to go to the bathroom, etc.  

5 - She has learned to write her name and is getting really good at it.  The only letter she needs help with is the "y".

Cooper Seth

7 Months

1 - Cooper is mobile now.  He isn't quite crawling but he army crawls on his elbows and stomach.  He can manage to get anywhere.  Perfect timing while we are packing...

2 - Cooper has cut his first tooth and he loves to chew on EVERYTHING.

3 - He loves to play with anything that isn't one of his toys.  His sisters toys, bowls, hangers, boxes, empty plastic water bottles, even trash.  But the second I put one of his toys in front of him (even a new one he hasn't seen in a while) he doesn't touch it.  

4 - He loves to sleep all cuddled up in a blanket.  He wraps it all the way around him while he is napping.  

5 - We have discovered that he does not sleep well unless he is in his own crib.  We had a couple of nights away from home this month and he woke up 3-4 times when usually he sleeps through the night.  When he is in his crib though he sleeps so well!

Beautiful Fall

Fall time in Utah is my favorite time of year.  Pumpkin Picking, Cornbellys, Gardner Village, Painting Pumpkins, Pumpkin Baking, Trick or treating with the kiddos, and making memories with my family.  It was a fun-filled fall this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One week before Halloween Payton got really sick.  Poor girl hasn't ever been this sick.  She went trick or treating for only 15 minutes and we had to carry her the whole time.  It was so sad.  On day 10 she still wasn't getting better and kept saying "WHAT?!?" after almost everything I said.  So I took her in and she had an ear infection.  Then Cooper got sick. Then me. Then Tyler.  It was a fun 3 weeks.  

I am so glad that we all got sick before thanksgiving and Christmas though.  So hopefully we will all stay healthy until then.