It's Official

We're Moving! Ah! Some of you may have heard of this already, but I know this may come as a shock to many of you, especially my neighbors, who I've been afraid to tell. That was the hardest part of the decision, leaving behind all the wonderful people we've gotten to know. We've loved living in this neighborhood, and couldn't have asked for better friends and neighbors. We know we're not moving far, and will still be able to get together, but the early morning walks and last minute get-togethers just won't work out like they used. So i'm a bit sad.
But like I said, we aren't moving far. Just 11 minutes away, actually, we timed it. :) We are moving from Draper, to South Jordan. We are moving to Daybreak, for those of you who have heard of it. This decision happened very quickly, our heads are still spinning a bit from it, to tell you the truth. The day before Mother's day out of the blue Tom suggested going out to look at houses. We'd seen a billboard for houses on the way to Kirty's earlier that week, and decided to start there. We went out to Daybreak thinking, this is too far west from the freeway, we couldn't live out here.. then we got there.. and fell in love!

It's so beautiful out there! The houses are all modeled after the older Utah homes in Sugarhouse and Harvard/Yale areas of SLC (which I've been trying to talk Tom into moving to for years, lol). And we love the way they have planned out this community, they put a lot of thought into it, if you guys want to know more about what I am talking about, you should definitely visit their website. We love all the green park areas they have throughout the homes, it feels so open. And Tom loves the lake we can almost see from our house. They have tons of walking trails, and the elementary school and community swimming pool are just blocks from our house.

We also love our new house, it is a brand new house, no one has ever lived in before. (This will be the first brand new home I've ever lived in.) Someone else had it built, and for some reason the sale fell through. The house has a lot of great upgrades, including all the flooring and the cabinets. It has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths, with a living room, kitchen and powder room on the main floor. All the bedrooms, laundry room, 2 bathrooms (including a REAL master bath for me!! woohoo) and a large family room/loft upstairs. There's also an unfinished basement to grow into.

It looks like we will be closing between the 14th and 20th of June, and will probably be in our new house by July 1st. We have decided that, for now, we're going to keep our current home and rent it out, wish us luck! We still think we might be nuts, but we decided that with the interest rates as low as they are, the houses market being so good for buyers and Ains being old enough and no new babe on the way yet, it was a good time to make the move. Well, I thought you all might wanna know about our new craziness! And here's a couple more pictures of the house.

More Loft Photos


Yay for Laundry Rooms!


Cute Windows going up the Stairs


Awesome Linen Closet

Family Time

Friday morning my cousin Natalie (Janell's little sister) got hitched down in Manti. :) It was really nice to see some of my family I don't get to see very often. Ainsley enjoyed spending time with her Mumford cousins (2nd cousins?) from Vegas.

(Kyle, Ainsley, Jacqueline, Brooklyn, Zachary)


We walked up to the temple, Brooklyn insisted on pushing the stroller.. she made it most of the way.. there was a steep hill!


Ains got to meet her 'cousin' Claire (what do you call the children of cousins??), the 2 youngest granddaughters in the family. Claire lives in Cali, she's 6 months old and, as you can, see has tons more hair than Ains. It was so cute to see them playing together, I hope we get to see her again soon.


After the wedding we conned the Mumfords into driving up to SLC and spending the rest of the weekend with us. The only time they get up here is when people get married, so we have to take advantage of it. :)

We took them out and showed them our new house. (this is the view from our porch)


The kids fed the ducks on the lake, where our new neighborhood 'EastLake' gets its name.


And Lavinia and I just sat back and enjoyed the nice summer day.

Early Birthday Party

Well the SLC Christensen's, joined their Vegas counterparts this weekend so Tom could do some work, and Ainsley could spend some time with the family she doesn't get to see very often.

One of the more fun things we got to do was to enjoy the pool in the backyard of Tom's parents house. All the boy cousins went swimming while Ains was asleep and Ella wasn't here yet, so the girl cousins went out for some girl swim time.

chillin' on the raft


bathing beauties!


Whee! Awesome pool toy borrowed from cousin Jake!


Later that night, since we aren't going to be here again until after her birthday, and it's only a few weeks away, we had some cake and ice cream to celebrate Ainsley's 1st birthday with our friends and family that could make it. It was so weird to think of celebrating her birthday, I'm still in denial that she's really gonna be one. So much has happened this last year, my life has changed so much. I love my little Ainsley and was so happy that so many people wanted to celebrate the birth of my beautiful little girl. Thanks everyone! It was great!

Grandma Stewart gave Ainsley her first dollar bill to start her off a piggy bank :)


Ella tried to kiss her, but was unsuccessful.
Jake launched a sneak attack and got a hug in.


Check out the awesome cake she had! Her 12 yr old uncle Scott made it, he's quite the little chef, and is always offering to make me pancakes.. yummm.. Ainsley doesn't seem quite sure what to make of it in this picture :)


And here's what Ains looks like when you tell her she can't reach out and grab a handful of frosting. Well, it's her party.. she can cry if she wants to, lol.


The Mumfords brought some awesome presents, one of which was a great beach ball that Ains was crazy about from the beginning. She's a big fan of all kind of balls, and of course the bigger the better :)



Ains definitely enjoyed her cake. Thanks Scott!!! Yummmm

Fun on Wheels

Ains has been having a blast lately. I had to share this video of my daughter, going 'vroom vroom' on this car toy at her friend Zack's grandma's house. I wasn't sure she'd even stay on for very long, but not only did she stay on, she went to town! She sure cracks us up :)


Ainsley has also been having fun playing with Hallee lately, now that she can move around and interact better, they have been spending a lot of time enjoying each other's company. I'm sure Hallee just thinks she's a big doll that moves around and makes noise, but Ainsley adores her and they keep each other happy and busy for long stretches so their mommies can chat. :)
The other day, while their mommies were chatting and not really paying attention, we looked up to see Hallee pushing Ainsley who was pushing the stroller around and around the island in my kitchen. It was the funniest thing!

What we did on M Day

Well, I had a great Mother's Day weekend :) I decided that it's definitely a weekend long thing. ;) Friday at 5, my work-a-holic hubby came up from working downstairs and asked what I wanted for dinner. We ended up at our favorite restaurant, Tepanyaki, a Japanese steakhouse and sushi bar. Ainsley was quite enthralled with our chef, and spent the whole time watching him intently. After a tasty dinner, we walked across the way to Coldstone and indulged in some of my favorite high calorie frozen cow's milk. :)

Here's some pictures of us walking around after dinner.
It was cold, and I'd forgotten a baby hat, so we improvised. We kept cracking up at how our little pink Eskimo looked all bundled up.


Saturday mornings at our house mean breakfast out, it's my favorite time of week. It was especially nice this Saturday because Ainsley let me sleep in! However, this week I let Tom off the hook since I was still pretty full from our tasty dinner the night before, so instead we had an early at this yummy sandwich place called Granato's. It started as an Italian foods importer, so all the ingredients are amazing. And the best part of this sandwich place, is it's location. The newest branch is very luckily placed in Tai Pan! For those of you not in Utah, Tai Pan is a great wholesale home decor warehouse, where you can get amazingly cute stuff for generally reasonable prices. My one real wish for mother's day was for Tom to walk around stores with me, that he would normally refuse to enter. :) So we spent the first part of the day walking around Tai Pan, we were then going to head to Ikea, when we both realized it was nap time for our little Ains. Dang Responsibility. So we headed back home, put Ains down, then her mama, hehe. I love naps,.. sigh.. silly kids who fight them so hard.. they will definitely change their minds when they get older. Well, after she woke up, Tom talked me into going for a drive, and we walked around a cute neighborhood and had a lot of fun. Next stop, Costco! We picked out stuff for dinner the next day, and wandered a little bit. At this point Ains was being pretty fussy, and we realized she must be so sick of being drug all over town, stuck in car seats, and strollers and car seats, and that it was very close to her bed time by now. I was kind of sad, because I really wanted to go to Ikea with Tom, it was the probably the place I'd wanted to go to the most. Kirty had offered to watch Ainsley earlier in the week, so we decided to try her, and silly lady jumped at the chance. So we dropped her off, and ran off, free of all responsibility to Ikea. The pictures below are proof of some of the silliness we got into.

After Ikea, we decided to watch a movie at home, instead of going to a theater, we were pretty tired, having walked all over the place all day. I figured we should go pick up the babes before we got anymore tired, so I called up Kirty to tell her I was on my way.. and then she proceeded to team up with Tom.. and they both talked me into leaving Ains there over night, since we were planning on going over there in the morning anyway. I haven't left her overnight.. really, ever. I went to New York when she was 2 months old, and left her with Tom and my mom. And since then she's never been away from me for the night. It was really hard to let go, and trust that she'd be okay. But she was fine. Kirty said she woke up at 7, along with her 2 cute kids and she fed her a banana, and she played with her kids just fine. She even went back to bed from 8-9, and Ainsley played with Hallee while Dan fixed breakfast for everyone. We had planned to go to church with them since they have 11am chuch, and I wanted to sleep in on mother's day :)
but I woke up at 7am as well, and had Tom on the road by 9:00. She was still playing happily when we got there.

After church, Kirty and I sequestered ourselves up in her bedroom with all our crafty supplies, and scrapbooked and watched movies all day. The guys brought up pizza for lunch, and totally impressed us with their cooking skills, fixing bbq salmon, steak and grilled pineapple for us for dinner, and watched the kids the whole time! We finally headed back home around 10pm. It was a really nice day. Thanks Tom! You are the best husband and father, thanks for making my first mother's day so special. :)

(be sure to check out Tom's sweet socks)

Mother's Day

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!
I'd like to wish a great day to all women out there.. all mother's and future mother's, and those that mother the people around them. Women are amazing creatures, and I am honored to be both woman and a mother. It was so nice to have my first official mother's day. Last year I was about a month away from giving birth, it blows my mind to think of all that's happened since then, and how my life has changed.
I was really excited about this mother's day, as it was my first, and I suppose looking for some validation of who i am and what i do.. I have a message board I like to post on, and in starting a light topic of curiosity in to what people were expecting and doing for Mothers day it started this long controversy, some women saying that Mother's day has become too commercialized and that it's a mean holiday because it makes people who aren't mother's feel bad, and that we shouldn't expect presents because we have the miracle of life, and should be happy enough with that. And of course lots of people expressed many differing passionate opinions, and a discussion ensued.
I do feel for the women who wish so hard to be mother's and haven't yet had that opportunity, I understand the pain of an empty mother's day. And i think those women should be celebrated on Mother's day as well, as future mothers, and as nurturers to children and other people around them. But I do know, as a woman who wanted so badly to be a mother, and had a hard time getting there.. that when it does happen, you will LOVE the holiday :) and want your role as a mother to be shouted from the roof tops,.. so as sad as it is now.. try not to get it abolished too soon, you'll want it eventually. ;)
I love being a mother, it's so cliche, but it truly is the most rewarding, thankless, exhilarating, exhausting, wonderful, stressful, amazing thing I have ever done. It seems that days can go by, and you look around and wonder what you've accomplished. The house is a mess, dinner is no masterpiece, there are piles of laundry and dishes to do, and long to-do lists still to be done.. and yet you're so tired.. I'm sure Tom comes home some day and thinks I just napped all day, lol..... I laugh about that, but it is something I've been sensitive about lately, I don't think he knows what I do with my days, and I try to explain that just Ainsley making it through the day means I was working, lol.. I enjoy my days for the most part, and she is such a happy baby, I feel like I got very lucky. She is such a silly, beautiful, happy girl.. and I love spending time with her.. but I would still like my efforts and energy acknowledged. So, I, for one, am very grateful for mother's day. It's so nice that we can take a moment to honor the women that helped raise the rest of us...
Speaking of.. I'd like to say a big THANKS to my mom, who always makes me feel loved and welcomed, like no one else can. Thanks for all the hard work you did and all you put up with while I was growing up, and all the help and advice you give as I embark on this new adventure of raising children of my own. I love you so much, and miss you more than I can say. Know you are loved and admired and needed... and you always will be. Like that song I sent you says.. "you are an answer and a blessing and a gift".. Thanks for being my mom.
Sorry for the novel, anyone bored enough to visit my blog. :) Check out the next post for my typical fun pictures and light dialog, lol. Thanks for listening.

Bloglines

this is a quick post to let those that are less Blog-obsessed then me, about one of my favorite things. I only found out about this at a get together with some friends and was so happy to find out. :) http://www.bloglines.com/ This website rocks! You can put in all the blogs you like to go to, and it tells you when they are updated. It's got a list of all the blogs you enter on the side, and when someone updates it bolds their blog name, and lets you know how many posts they have that are new. It will even let you see their post on it's website, all the words and the pictures. It doesn't show the background or any fancy decorations they've done, which can be good if it takes a long time to load for you. I LOVE this website, I have quite a few blogs I like to check out, and some of them don't update very often, so instead of spending my time always going to check and being disappointed that there's nothing new, I just log into Bloglines and see where I should go, and I'm usually one of the first to see the new post. :)
Sorry for the mini infomercial here, I just thought other people might want to know, I mean.. it is one of Time's 50 coolest websites :) If you want more details or have any questions, feel free to ask :)
ENJOY!

Tagged by the Vin-Ster

25 years ago I...
1) was living in Albuquerque.
2) lived in an apartment complex shaped like a big U
3) had a 2 year old brother (sorry, I can't really remember that far back)

20 years ago I...
1) was living in Orem, UT
2) ran away from home taking all my money in a little santa bag my mom made, and I only got 3 blocks away before I turned around and came home
3) my youngest sister just turned one

10 years ago I..
1) I was living in Amarillo Texas, going to college and living out on my own
2) I met my future husband
3) survived my parents divorce

5 years ago I..
1) graduated from college
2) got married
3) bought a house (it was a big year)

1 year ago I... (not exactly one year, but w/in the calendar year)
1) i had my first baby!
2) worked with my sister Candice for the first and last time, lol
3) saw my nephew Gavin for the first time

So far, this year I have...
1) encouraged blogging and forum posting, ensnaring many friends and family ;)
2) driven to vegas or the cabin way too many times (but how is that different from any other year)
3) booked my first cruise! (woohoo, can't wait for October!)

This Week I…
1) went to 2 birthday parties, a 24 yr old and 5 yr old
2) celebrated my baby sisters 21st birthday
3) watched a ton of my favorite shows finally back from the writers strike!

Yesterday I...
1) went to a birthday party (24 yr old)
2) walked around my neighborhood for half an hour (my new daily goal)
3) stayed home all day so Ains could get the naps she needs

Today I....
1) slept in, Ains was a total doll, and after her 7am feeding, she went back to sleep until 10!
2) went to a birthday party (5 yr old)
3) ate waffles! Saturday breakfast out is my favorite of our family traditions :)