Saying Goodbye

Well we have officially moved! We had some fun parties saying goodbye to friends {above is a pic of a small get together of my childhood friends Ashleigh and Heather, below are my fun Herriman friends who threw me a Farewell Brunch}. It was hard to say goodbye to our friends and family! We will miss our life in Utah.

Since moving out of our home on December 21, we have spent time in Sandy with my Grandparents and then in Payson with Ben's family. We had a great time, I will have to get some pics and more commentary up about that soon! We left for CA on December 23 and have been there up until yesterday when we left for Miami for our cruise we are set to leave on in an hour! Thanks Mom for watching the kids!

We had a really fun time with our families this Christmas, it was a great way to send us off to our new adventure. We went sledding in Utah and we played games and told stories in California. I don't want to ruin the surprise for when my sister Katie gets famous and can tell this story on Jay Leno, but it is hilarious and is one we can't forget! She had purchased a swimming suit at K-Mart a few years ago and then had second thoughts so she went to return it. The customer service agent asked her if she had worn the swimming suit and she said no. Then the lady proceeded to sniff the crotch of the swimming suit just to make sure! Katie just stood there, floored, wondering if she really just saw what she thought she saw. We laugh so hard every time she tells that story! Good times.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year from us!

General Update

We need to get some pics of our Santa adventures for the season. Laine had a breakfast with Santa for her preschool and then we also saw him / were fondled by him at the Annual Riley Family Christmas party. Santa officially gives Gabe the Heebes.

Laine was an Angel in the Pageant, it was adorable and we are just kicking ourselves for forgetting a camera! She was quite distracting, every few minutes during the program she would say {very loudly}, "I'm not a pirate, I'm an Angel." Then she would point to Jackson, who was a shepherd, and say "He's a pirate!" It was hilarious and everyone got a kick out of it. It reminded me of something that was on my friend Ashleigh's blog a few weeks ago,

"Last week Addison's primary lesson was about the 4 books we have: The Book of Mormon, The Bible, The Great Price and The Black Pearl."

I think it's possible we've been watching a bit too much Pirates of the Caribbean lately.

In other news, we have decided to rent the house out and are really feeling much better about it. Toward the end there we were practically giving the house away. We have decided to take advantage this time that we won't have a house payment or another house to worry about. It is a great rental market and we have had a ton of interest so far.

Today someone came to see the house. There was a woman and she came with her sister and brother-in-law. I had specifically said on the ad NO SMOKING and NO PETS, so I was very surprised when I answered the door and their dog ran right on into the house. I politely showed them the house, thinking, "NEXT!" and then Laine came and said, "The doggy went pee pee!" They didn't hear it since they were downstairs by that time, where I went to join them. We were making small-talk about our plans and their plans when she asked me what our dog's name was. I was totally confused, what the heck was she talking about? I told her it was not our dog and she it wasn't her dog either. We had a good laugh about the misunderstanding and we are obviously feeling much better about her renting the house!

Chicken Suit

Wow, okay, we sure had a strong response to that last post. I guess if it makes everyone uncomfortable I will consider taking it down. Since this is our family journal and the kids will see it some day when they are of age, I will think of their interests too. Perhaps they don't want to see evidence of the days when we all jumped in the tub and had a good time. I can see how people would think the pics were creepy now, but at the time we had missed Ben so much and it was so cute to see how much he had missed the kids. He was just supposed to be giving them a bath and when I went in 20 minutes later to see that he had missed them so much while he was gone that he couldn't stand to not be with them doing whatever they were doing, it was just cute, {and way funny}. Sorry to those I offended and for those who thought it was TMI.

In other news, this may be a little reminscent of the post a few months ago when I dressed Laine in her Sunday dress Saturday nights for early Church. Long story short, she is now wearing her Halloween costume, the chicken suit, as jammies. Again it was MY brilliant idea. The girl has SERIOUS blankie issues and will not sleep with them. She also won't wear socks. She wakes up as cold as ice! So I thought it would be great to put her in this really warm suit, and now at night we call socks "chicken socks" and she is really excited to wear them to bed. I also like the feeling of getting my $'s worth out of the costume since it has now been worn many times. It is a win-win for everyone.

Not sure this is appropriate...

It started out like this....

And then went to this...

Then I of course jumped in and then there wasn't anyone to take the picture.

Needless to say our Dad is home FINALLY! We are busy and stressed but trying not to take life to seriously. We move next week! It has come so fast! We almost had our house sold but then the buyer's home sale fell through. Boo. We are happy and healthy and have so much to be thankful for though, and we just want to enjoy the holiday season and focus on the more important things! Cheers to our friends and family, we love you so much!

Did I mention?

I can't remember if I have mentioned that with all that is going on in my crazy life that my 3 month old computer is COMPLETELY broken. I have been going to the library, and borrowed a friend's computer. But usually the time I have allotted to me only gets me to my emails and posting new ads for the house. Last time we came, Gabe had nasty diarrea and was making it known, it was so embarrasing! He kept farting and he stunk so bad and he was running around pulling all the books of the shelf. I finally corralled him under my desk, I had lot's to get done! Laine tried to be good, I got her a stack of books but she did want to ask a million questions and do the "I need to go peepee now Mommy!" routine. It is maddening not having a computer at a time like this!

So here is a little funny story, that pretty much sums up my life right now as well as illustrates how retarted I am. Since we are pretty much not having Christmas this year, I just wanted to do a little something special. I went and bought some wreaths to put around my lights next to my garage. However, we put custom lights on the house when we moved in, and they are HUGE. I couldn't afford the size of wreath that you normally would buy, but bought the biggest, best one I could and was sure that I could "make it fit!" I got home and tried in vain to get it over the light while on my tippy-toes. I was in too much of a hurry to get it on and see how beautiful it looked, and simply didn't have time to go get a ladder. So I took a quick glance around the garage and found my prized car cleaning kit inside a bucket. I dumped everything out and overturned the bucket, I knew I could make it work if I was just a little taller! I was stretch and reaching and trying to get this wreath over the light when WHAM!! I burst through the bucket and hit the ground. It is a rather jarring experience when you are looking up skyward. I looked around to see if anyone saw and then kicked the bucket inside the garage.

*Update* I forgot to mention that the next day I sawed the wreaths in half so they would fit, I will post a picture when I have a computer.

The next day I took the kids out and we were gone until way late. Laine had fallen asleep in the car, so I grabbed Gabe and started to take him inside and as I turned and glanced at the car I thought to myself that I didn't pull in far enough. I tried the button just to see and the garage started going down so I thought that I had been wrong. Then it went up again, and I then I knew that I had been right all along. After I got Gabe in bed, I went out to move the car inside. But I couldn't do what any other 'normal' person would do, oh no. Heaven forbid I waste $.20 in gas turning on my car when I can just push it inside myself, which is what I did. My car is really heavy by the way, and it was after midnight by this point. My driveway has a very, tiny incline too, so the car immediatly started rolling back a bit, and I had to get my weight behind it. I did manage to move it a few inches, and was very proud of my industrisiousness. Then I walked around back to make sure I was in far enough and noticed that there were atleast 2 feet of room, I didn't even need to pull the car in. But then, why, do you ask, did the garage not close? That DANG bucket somehow got in front of it! Sorry for the misspellings, no time to proofread my time is up at the library!

Thanks!

Why do I feel like the Widow Jenkins with Ben out of town? I just wanted to say a big thanks to whoever shoveled my driveway! Not that you read my blog Mystery Person, but I had to do something to tell you I really appreciated it! Maybe you didn't even know Ben was out of town, and you also probably didn't know that I don't own a shovel, both of which make it really hard to get the job done. Which made it all the more sweet when I arrived home last night to the mountains of snow on my grass instead of on the drive! Thanks again!