Halloween 2013

I love holidays with my family. Young children make any holiday more fun. I love the excitement and anticipation radiating from my two little girls. This year my Eliza was a wild kitty, and Miriam was a princess Pirate. They loved their tutu costumes. There was much dancing to behold at our place. 

We continued our tradition of decorating pumpkins. They were so thrilled.

They enjoyed the trunk or treat--kind of. They definitely liked getting candy, but some of the trunks were a little scary to them.

On Halloween night we did a family party with themed food, Halloween games, and A LOT of sugar. 

I loved making cookies with the girls. We made monster cookies and put candy eyeballs in the center of each one. Both girls really loved this. Miriam called them "eyes balls." It was cuter than you are imagining. :)

Happy be-lated Halloween!

I love my sweet girls. As I was quickly typing this post they are setting up their own nativity scene using their variety of baby dolls. They have been whispering the whole time so that they don't wake up baby Jesus. :)

Injury

A week or two after we moved, little Miriam pulled an extra headboard (that is solid wood and really heavy) down on her left food. We thought for sure it was broken. It was about 8:00 at night and we didn't have the new insurance set up yet. So we had to contact our old BYU insurance and find a place that would accept that one.

We finally made it in to an urgent care. They did some x-rays on her foot and it turns out that there was only some seriously bruising. So much so that Miriam didn't walk for a week or two. Eventually she started limping short distances. Now she seems completely normal. It was pretty rough there for a little while.  I am so, so grateful for two healthy children. Having a medical problem is scary.

Moving to Arizona

Well, we moved to Arizona. It was quite the life event for us, and kept us very busy and stressed out for a month or two. I am so glad it is done. When we were in the midst of our forever long to-do list, John and I would wish that we could just skip to when we are settled in our apartment. And guess what! We are there! Yes!!!

Something that was nice but made it very tricky was that the company that John works for paid a moving company to move us. So we had to itemize all of our stuff, figure out what we could live without for a week, and get rid of the stuff they were not willing to move.  This doesn't sound that difficult, but when you factor in buying a new car, flying down to find a place to live, and trying to finish a PhD, it got a little crazy.

But the moving day finally arrived. It was so weird to see these guys pack up all of our stuff while we just allowed to supervise them. They were very fast and efficient. Also, they were pretty astounded at the number of home canned jars we had. They wrapped all of the jars individually. It was pretty great.

The next couple days we spent cleaning. The kids did so well! John had to work on dissertation revisions so I called in the cavalry to help with the cleaning--my mom. She is a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to cleaning, so needless to say, my apartment has never been so clean.

We packed up the most prized frozen food from our chest freezer in the cooler that we bought and set off.

Also, we had to stop by BYU before we left because it turns out that John still had some forms to get figured out. But we ran into Cosmo and had to get a photo.

But first we had so say goodbye to our neighbors. We said so many goodbyes that last week or two. Needless to say I got really tired of being so weepy and emotional. Mainly we are just so blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives.

I love Ellie styling that day. Tunic with maxi skirt and socks with sandals.  She knows how to make a statement. Goodbye our little apartment!

After one long drive, a really horrible nights sleep, and another long drive, we arrived at our new home. The kids did really well on the drive. My grandma had packed us a travel bag with a sticker game for the kids and a LOT of treats. It helped a lot.

A couple days later our stuff arrived. It was kind of an ordeal to unpack and organize everything.

There was a lot of this going on.

But eventually we got all organized. See how much progress we have made on putting the house together! :)

This is a photo of John on the second day of his new job. He is settling into his job and has done a lot of training during the last month and a half.

The girls and I are getting settled in too. We sure miss everyone in Utah, but know that for now, this is where we are supposed to be. 

From my journal: We took a big step by buying a second car. We spent almost all of our savings. (Grandma and Grandpa lent us some money until we got paid 2 days ago, Nov 1.) It was kind of miraculous. We knew what car we wanted to buy but didn't think that there was any way we could get it for our price range. We wanted a 2010 Toyota Corolla, for less than $12,500. We found one that was a trade in for a small dealership. It had a few more miles on it (49,000), but it was everything that we wished for: white, tinted windows, light interior, no problems at all. And we got it for $11,600. It was exactly what we were looking for at a price we were hoping for. Amazing! We felt so blessed! 

The next day we flew for less than 24 hrs to Phoenix to find a place to live. We were taken around by a real estate agent even though we were just renting. We saw a ton of places, but kind of narrowed it down to four places. We were pretty torn on where to live, and were pretty stressed out about it, until the next day when on the flight home I was seated (even though John had an empty seat beside him) by a couple that lives in Ahwatukee. We got talking, and I found out that they live in the area that we were looking at and were LDS - Kiel and Sherry Berry. I asked their opinion of where would be best to live and they said that they would pick this apartment because it was in their ward. :) They told me about their ward and how a lot of people that live here work at Honeywell. They told me about how there were a lot of young families that live in the ward and that the area is really nice. They like it so much here that they would rather have a smaller house in this area than to move out to Gilbert where they could get more house for their dollar. They even gave me advice on what gym has the best child care. It was a miracle for me!!! I had been so stressed out, not knowing anyone and not knowing the best place for us, and these people came in and were able to give us some really good direction. I am so grateful for that tender mercy in my life!!! And I have to say that so far we are really happy with where we chose to live and our ward. It really was a miracle!

The next day (Friday, Oct.4) the movers came. That was a weird crazy day for me. It didn't go too bad though, and my mom had the kids. I think the movers were pretty overwhelmed though at the number of home canned goods we had. After the movers left, we cleaned the apartment that weekend while listening to General Conference. While my mom and I were doing that, John finished up the edits on his dissertation. On Sunday we finished up cleaning. Then we stopped by Matt and Julie's house where they showed us the video they had made for us. We stopped by the Pearson's house to say goodbye and to give them back a quilt. Then we headed up to Ogden to get ready for a big family photo and dinner at Kayla's house. It was a really nice, but emotional day for me. I really cried during the movie from the Guinn's and when I said goodbye to Patti and she cried. Whew, it was emotional. 

The next day I hung out in Ogden while John went to campus to finish up some things. I rode Frontrunner down and we had dinner with John's advisor, Dr. Webb and his wife. It was really yummy and nice, but funny because it was in kind of a bar.

The next day we left Ogden, checked out of our apartment, and went to BYU. There was some complications on getting some things signed, so we had to hang out for a while. Although since we had to hang out for a while we ran into Cosmo and got our photo with him. Then we drove to Arizona! Crazy!!! 

It was a nice drive for the most part. Grandma had packed a ton of yummy treats for the kids and a sticker game. She is so nice to us! We went a little farther than halfway and spent the night at a little hotel in Marble Canyon. We had a rough night's sleep that night. We started trying to sleep at 9:30 and tried to stop sleeping at 8:00, but it still didn't seem like enough sleep.

The next day we drove down here and checked into our apartment. The next few days seemed kind of busy trying to get our apartment set up. We are still not all the way there, but it is pretty close. Our apartment was filled with boxes when the movers unloaded the stuff.

We are really starting to settle in to living in Arizona. We have definitely been enjoying the nice weather. However, it still being warm is starting to mess with us now that it is the Christmas season. The coldest place we have been is church. They keep the church freezing!

Our ward is really nice. People have been really nice and welcoming. Our ward is bigger and older than our last, so it is kind of fun being one of the young couples again. We have had a couple of playdates and even met some friends at the park. I feel super blessed that people have been so nice to us. We even did a date swap night with a family so we went out for a date one weekend.

We stayed pretty busy at first trying to set up our apartment, but the more we get settled in the more relaxed it seems. We have gotten in our routines, which both John and I love. I go to the gym (YMCA) in the morning and try to do one other fun activities with the girls during the day. John goes to work, where he is doing a lot of training, and then the gym in the evening.

I am so glad that the girls are making some friends. We are also trying to be better at writing letters to people. My Grandma Lucas and Ellie have been writing buddies since we moved here.