Our Family:: August 2012

August- another busy month. Here it is in pictures:

Silly Monkeys

Doing the dishes- I've been feeling really sick with this pregnancy- I don't really cook right now- we eat a lot of cereal and pizza (I'm loving pizza these days). My mother in-law will ask what I want to eat and I say anything that I don't have to make myself. The kids have been great helpers with clean-up. My house is never quite all the way clean right now, but we're keeping up with the essentials!

Beach Days! We love going to the beach with our ward friends.

Sam and Avery

Morgan, Alexis, and Ava

Eli, Seth, and Evan

At the Irvine Zoo with Kir and kids

That's a lot of little kids!

Feeding the goats- I had to stay a few steps away- the animal smell was way too much for my pregnant nose!

Despite Kir's best efforts in showing Evan how to feed the goats, he would not let them eat out of his hand- he kept dropping the pellets into the goat's mouth.

Anytime I take a picture of Sam, he squats down and says, "cheese!"

Morgan and Jake

Before the Move:

Morgan had her two best friends over- Bita and Nicole- they both gave her "best friend" necklaces and pillows. Morgan will miss these girls- she's made some good friends in SoCal.

The Move

Kids were taken to Grandma's so Nate and I could focus on the move. We took pictures because the kids didn't want to "miss out".

Here's our stuff on the driveway. They showed up with a huge moving van, but we were the 6th family to be loaded on that van. Nate was certain they weren't going to fit all our stuff. So, it waited on the driveway until the van driver realized that he wasn't going to fit all our stuff and asked us what we can live without. Our response: The patio furniture, books, etc. His response: We already packed the books and they (his supervisors) get really mad at me if I send furniture to the wearhouse to be shipped. We chose a few boxes to get shipped. He said we needed to choose more. We ended up not getting our clothes and other essentials on the truck with a promise they'd be shipped a week later. It was a little bit of a nightmare.

Shipping Nate's truck

Almost empty- ladies from church came and helped clean- it was awesome! I now have two favorite cleaning products: Barkeepers Best Friend (gets soap scum off- my kitchen sink has never been whiter) and Mrs. Meyers all-purpose cleaner- it smells so good- even the movers commented on how nice the house smelled!

After the truck drove away and Nate and I finished all the little things (including leaving 6 bags of trash at our neighbors (we'll miss them- such good neighbors!)), we went to Outback to eat and then off to Grandma's.

Fun at Grandma's- she always has a fun project to do- this time: making animals/snowmen out of vegetables from her garden. Also, baking soda art and chocolate covered pretzel sticks. (We were running short on clothes so Eli is wearing my shirt)

One last swim with Ben and Kir- they came up on a very busy Saturday to see us before we moved. Thanks!

Kir teaching Evan to swim- he's been so scared to do it, but she got him swimming (doggy-paddling) before we moved from SoCal!

Sam just climbed in with all his clothes on- he loves the water!

Evan, our budding photographer, and his pictures:

The other side of the move: Nate left with the 3 older kids on Monday morning. They drove all day and stayed in Oregon that night and drove the rest of the way Tuesday. I flew with Sam (it just made sense with how he travels- and he flies free- and with how yucky I've been feeling). Nate's mom dropped us off at the airport. Sam only slept about 15 mintues so I entertained him the rest of the time. He was good, but it took a lot of entertaining! Nate picked us up from the airport on his way up from Cali. We stayed in a hotel in Bellevue until our stuff arrived (2 days later). Our good friends, the Sears, watched the kids all day Thursday while the movers unloaded our stuff. It was a little crazy because 1/4 of the stuff wasn't here yet so we weren't sure if everything made it.