Baby Gabe

This toddler keeps me on my toes. Here are some misc. pictures of him just being Gabe.

The other night he INSISTED on sleeping in the baby crib instead of his own.

Shaving cream or toothpaste? I can't even remember.

Guess who did this? The culprit is no where to be found!

One of my other kids did Gabe's hair.

I love it when my kids are sleeping.  Look at that face!!! It gives me a chance to prepare for him wake up.

We love our baby Gabe!

Living by family

 Since we are living in the West- we also happen to be closer to family.  Three hours from Athena and Ben in Portland, and 4 hours from Mark and Malinda in Boise.  Athena and Ben came and helped us unpack.  It was so fun to have them come! We celebrated Nayeli's birthday while they were here. Athena made a super cute cake!  

Emma was here, and so the kids slept out in the shed.  They froze.

Athena blogged about her trip- so I just copied and pasted this next part from her blog to  mine.  Why reinvent the wheel? 

 -

That evening after Ben got home from work, we packed up the car and drove to see my sister Emily and her family in Hermiston, Oregon. They just moved there from Florida since my brother-in-law Darren will be working as a nurse anesthetist. Anyway, I had told Emily that we would come and help unpack, move boxes, etc. It was a 4 hour drive so we got there late Friday night, chatted for a bit, then went to bed.

Saturday morning Nayeli was so excited to meet her cousins. She LOVES other kids and she especially loved Gabe. They are only 6 weeks apart.

 

Paul, Gabe and Nayeli. I can't get over Gabe's cheesy grin. So cute.

That afternoon we had lunch and then did a small party for Nayeli. She had requested a rainbow cake so my nephew Paul helped me make one I had seen on Pinterest. She loved it, mostly because it had "num-nums" aka Skittles on the top.

The inside of the cake. I was so pleased with how it turned out.

Isn't she the cutest? Ben had me make sure she was wearing this shirt to go with her rainbow cake. She's also got a thing for rainbows right now.

We had a great weekend hanging out and helping Emily and Darren. Actually Ben helped and I laid on the couch. Being 37 weeks pregnant made me pretty useless, but we still had a great time talking and enjoying each other. Besides, Emily and Darren are great hosts and it was so fun to see them since they've been living far away for so long. However our fun was short lived as we left early Sunday morning to be back for our 1 o'clock ward.-  Athena's Blog

Thanks  Athena and Ben for coming! It was so good to hang out!

When we moved in...

Like I said- moving is hard, so when our truck didn't show up, and we had HUGE complications with our cars getting transported out here- I was a little discouraged.  I've moved before- so I knew to expect complications- so I wasn't too distraught.  We had to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights in Hemiston while we waited for our moving van.  It ended up being a good thing because it gave us a couple of days to clean the house we were renting. - Here are some e-mails I sent my family while staying in the hotel.
March 23, 2014
  I am in Hermiston at a hotel and should be moving in today!  I feel a little bit out of place here.  I think  30% of the people are Hispanic.    If Naples was a 10 and Rigby was a 7, Hermiston is a 6. So it's not too bad,  but not great either.  All the neighbors houses can see in our back yard and I can see in all their yards- they are all close- I almost feel like its in the city. They left the house ok but didn't dust anything so the baseboards and windows and walls are all disgusting. We're going to go over this morning and clean before the moving truck gets there. They had too big German Shepherds in the house and yard so the yard is pretty torn up.  They had the carpets cleaned but there was still a dog hair everywhere so Darren rented a Rug Doctor and went over it all again. Maybe it's a good thing we didn't get the truck on Saturday because we have done a lot of cleaning to get the house ready. Darren started work Friday and actually got called in. He went in this morning 6 for his first full day. Derek and Emma have been fun to have a long. Yesterday for church I don't think any of us had a full church outfit.  Derek brought Jareds church pants and so when he put them on they came to his knees. He refused to take them off though. Emma came up with a great idea and told him to just wear his jeans over them. That worked great and we had a good time. I am excited to move in and think even though I feel uncomfortable and out of place right now I will end up really liking it here. Plus it's always very reassuring when you know you are where Heavenly father wants you to be. Love you all!
 March 24, 2014
 Hey everyone! 
Today went much better!  Darren started his first full day of work. It went great for him.  The 6 kids and i checked out of our hotel and came to the house to clean.  I felt much better after getting the house and yard cleaned up a little bit. I clean up dog poo in the yard for half an hour. After I was done Paul asked when we could get a dog. I told him it was the wrong time to ask. Lol  Darren got off work about 1 and the moving truck got here about 2. The missionaries came at 3 and a bunch of guys from the elders quarm came at 5. I can't tell you guys how nice it is to move from 1400 square feet to 2400 square feet!  And have a fenced yard! We met a neighbor family from the ward that lives 3 doors down.  He's an orthopedic surgeon and they said they really liked the neighborhood. So maybe I jumped the gun on saying it was ghetto- lol. I guess it's a ok neighborhood- pretty much like our Rigby neighborhood.  Anyways it feels great to be laying in my bed and not in a hotel room or someone elses house. I really think we're going to like it here actually I already really like it here. :-)
 
Here are some pictures of the backyard when we moved in. It was pretty torn up- we have done a lot to it and I'll post pictures soon.  I don't know why I didn't take any of the front yard- but I'll post some tomorrow.

Happily Overwhelmed

Where have I been? Happily Overwhelmed.  Seriously- moving is a lot of work and takes a long time to get your feet under you again.  I haven't even gotten mine yet.  I have unpacked- but I don't have everything hung up on the walls yet. There is always something- moving, school, vacation, summer- running a half marathon- (yes I did that!).  Anyways I have been so busy- I have put blogging on the back burner.  But I am ready to bring it to the front burner again.

So lets go back to moving here. Here are some pictures of the kids first day of school.  They all really liked their schools.  Paul even likes Middle School.

Here is Darren on one of his first days- with his boss, Russell.  They have become great friends and I am really good friends with his wife- so we love to hang out with their family.

Having a husband with a job might just be one of the best things in the world.  I feel sooo happy everyday that he goes to work.   After after 11 years of school it feels ...AMAZING!!

Because I'm Happy

It's been 6 weeks since we moved to Hermiston.  You may wonder how I'm doing and I have to say I am doing great, in fact, amazing. I have never been so happy in well... my whole life!   Our life is so good right now.  It's amazing what a good job can do for your happiness. I feel like we are finally a normal family and it feels incredible.  I love having a house to live in- even if we are just renting for now.  I love that Darren goes to work, comes home and doesn't have to study. And on Saturdays, guess what? He can hang out with us because he doesn't have tests.  Darren even got a whole week of paid vacation all of last week!
You know that song that's popular right now- Because I 'm Happy- That's how I feel everyday now.  I lay in bed every night feeling like my heart is going to burst with happiness and gratitude. I don't need a big house or fancy cars.  I don't feel like it takes much- just a comfy, safe house for my healthy kids, a bit of earth for a garden, a good job for my husband, and life is grand. 

The Joys of Moving

Warning: If you have emotional scars from moving, the following blog may be hard to read.  You may just want to read an article about unicorns and rainbows.  Some things are best to be left forgotten. Like moving memories. 

Moving is hard.  There is no getting around it.  No matter how many times you have done it- or how well you plan ahead, something is bound to not go right. We have moved 8 times in the 15 years we have been married.  The one thing I have learned is to plan on things going wrong- it's just part of the territory.  Not fun. It was no different when we moved from Florida to Hermiston. 
We were given a moving budget with Darren's new job.  We figured if we packed the truck ourselves we could have the cars transported and then we could fly to Utah.  Get our cars, and then drive up to Hermiston.
My mom came to Florida to help- and Darren and I had been getting ready for months. The day we got back from our cruise we were packing like crazy. We used an ABF and packed the truck ourselves.  I was so proud of myself when we only used 21 feet!  Quite different when I had moved to Tennessee from Rigby we used 2 trucks! So we have sold 60% of our belongings since we lived in Tennessee. That's right, I have sold 60% of all my cool things.  That's 8 yard sales  and what moving into a 1400 square foot townhouse will do to you.  Things went smoothly until our cars were supposed to be picked up to be transported to Utah the day we flew out.  I'm not going to go into all the gory details- but honestly it was a nightmare and they truck driver picked our cars up 4 days late.  That's right, not 4 hours late- 4 DAYS late.   It messed up our entire schedule, plus I got into a fight with the people moving into our unit because our cars were parked in the driveway of our townhouse that we were renting! They wanted to get in early and remodel and were mad my cars were there.   Hello, I paid rent their till the 15th so I can park my cars in the driveways if I darn well please!!  I was constantly on the phone with the HOA making sure our cars didn't get towed before the transportation company showed up.  And also on the phone with our neighbors who were kind enough to be shuffling our cars around so they wouldn't get towed.  And constantly calling the transportation company- who I would NEVER use again.  Thankfully my mom let us take her van up to Boise and Hermiston because Darren had to start work before our cars arrived in Utah.  My parents were sooo kind to drive both of our cars up to Boise, and then my dad brought Darren's car to Hermiston and drove back his van.  It was like a crazy car switcharoo!
Oh, and to top it off, I called ABF a couple of days before they were supposed to deliver our stuff  to our house in Hermiston and low and behold- our truck of stuff hadn't even left the port in Naples!!! What??!!! I about lost all control!!   Come to find out I needed to Pre-pay before they would ship it out! Well, That would have been nice to know a week ago!! I had specifically asked them numerous time about payment- and every time they said "you pay when it arrives at the destination."  Which is how it has worked when we used ABF previous times.  I have never had to prepay!  Anyways, I was livid.  So I had to reschedule the whole weekend of events to move in- the Elders Quorum and instead of moving in on Friday, we moved in on Monday. 
And we had to get a hotel, but what is another night in a hotel when you have been living out of suitcases for a month? It ended up being ok since the house needed a really good deep cleaning.  Darren cleaned the carpets on Saturday.  And Monday the kids and I wiped baseboards and cabinets.  And vacuumed.  The people before us had 2 big German Shepherds, and frequently watched other dogs and cats.  Even though they got the carpets professionally cleaned, there was still dog hair everywhere!! And the wall are all pretty dirty.  The whole house needs to be painted.  That's a blog for another day.  But in the end we made it and ended up with our cars here safe and sound.

All in All we are so happy to be here. 

Darren started work the day he got here.  He stayed in our house on a crash pad with a blanket.  When I got here we stayed in a hotel a couple of nights till our stuff got here.  Darren is loving his job.  It is exactly what he wanted.  

Well, now we are here and so happy.  I will post pictures of our house tomorrow:)