Visit from Michael, Mallory and kids

Michael and Mallory had some big changes in their lives in September. Michael accepted a job at Jackson Laboratories in Bar Harbor, Maine. So, after living in Livermore, California for a little over 3 years, they made the move to Maine. We are sad they will live so far away from us, but we know this job is the perfect opportunity for Michael's career and Mallory will have a chance to live in the same area where she grew up. We are looking forward to visiting them in such a beautiful place. 

We were excited to have Michael, Mallory, Madie and Finn come and visit us in October on their way to Maine. They arrived on Oct 1, which happened to be Mal's birthday and they stayed until Oct 10 - we loved 10 glorious days of having them with us! Before they came to our house, they made a quick trip to Utah to visit Mal's siblings who live there and also got to visit Grandma Clark and some of my family.

While they were visiting us, we still had some construction projects going on, but they patiently lived through it with us - and even helped us (Thanks, Michael!) 

We did take some time to have fun also. 

Madie and Nana played with the pretend food.

Nana got to play with Finn.

Madie and Brodi played dress-ups:

 Brodi was going for the leotard over the pajamas look, tied with a polka dot ribbon. Nice.

Madie loved this outfit and it looked so cute on her - she did not want her picture taken and was trying to hide from me behind the piano. Gotcha, Madie!

They even let Papa, Hannah and BJ play (and Finn, even though he didn't get a hat):

Madie was able to go to Aunt Tiff's pre-school for 2 days while she was here. Brodi goes there too, so at least she sort of knew somebody. Brodi and Madie are just now starting to get to know each other. On the 2nd day of pre-school, Mal, Madie and I and Shannon, Brodi and Hannah went with Tiffany's pre-school class to the pumpkin patch. 

Here is Madie - such a cute picture.

 Brodi and Hannah picking a pumpkin....

 Cute picture of sweet Hannah....I tried to get a picture of Brodi by the pumpkins, but she wouldn't let me.

 The girls decorated their pumpkins with Halloween stickers.

 Then we went on a hayride. I don't know how I missed getting a picture of Tiffany. She was busy keeping track of a bunch of little pre-schoolers! But, thanks for letting us tag along, Tiff.

 We went to a petting zoo.

And played in the playhouses.

 Mal and Madie posed for this cute picture.

 Here is Papa with Madie and Finn.

And Nana and Papa with Madie and Finn.

 We enjoyed General Conference all weekend and then had everybody over for dinner Sunday afternoon.

 We finally got to celebrate Mal's birthday with a BBQ and a delicious ice cream cake that Shannon made. Mal had a lot of help blowing out her candles!

 Here are 8 of the 10 grandkids. We sure missed Claire and Ethan and wish they could have been here too! (Notice how Finn is standing in thin air? Pretty tricky, Michael!)

 Brodi and Madie played us some songs on the piano. Well, they pounded some songs on the piano!

 On Monday, we went to the train park in Scottsdale. Mal stayed home with Finn because their car was going to be picked up at our house and be shipped to Maine, so she had to stay and wait for the transport service. We missed them.. We also missed Papa and Tyler, who were working. We had a picnic lunch - it was a pretty warm day, but very pleasant if you were in the shade.

We all rode the train - some of us twice.

 The cousins all had fun playing together.

 

 

 And we had lots of bonding time.

 Sam was in heaven when he was riding the train! He loves trains so much!

On Tuesday, we only had the morning to do something together because Michael & family were leaving in the afternoon for Maine. So, we chose something close by - feeding ducks at the park. We had everybody this time except for Tyler, who was working. Tiffany was watching her neighbor's twin girls, so we had a couple extra kids with us, but they fit right in. Here is Madie feeding the ducks.

 More duck food, please.....

 The kids feeding the ducks.

 Hannah and Sam 

 Sadie 

Look at this happy little Finn-Man! I LOVE his dimples!

 Nana and Madie

 We sure are going to miss these guys! It was so much fun having them visit and we hope they will come back soon and often. Thanks for the visit, Michael, Mallory, Madie and Finn!

We love you and wish you much happiness and success in your new adventure!

After we got home from taking them to the airport, the house was so quiet and when I saw this sitting on the dining room table, tears came to my eyes. This is the basket Madie carried around while she was here as she played the part of Belle in Beauty and the Beast. It's her favorite movie and she acts out the whole movie. This basket was what Belle carried her books in. 

Oh, Madie, I miss you!

Movin' On

We started moving from our house the end of August. We had lived in that house for a little over 8 years and believe it or not, that is the longest we have ever lived in a house during our married life! I really thought it would be more emotionally difficult, but it really wasn't. I'm thankful for all the great memories of the house, but the loans on it were too much and were creating stress we didn't need, so we decided to downsize. I must admit, I will miss all the space (2500 square feet) we had in that house, as we now search to create storage possibilities at our new house. I will also miss the 3 car garage and Bryan will miss the huge tree in the front yard. It shaded his parking space in the driveway. Personally, I thought the tree was too big and needed to be trimmed, but Bryan loved it. A big THANK YOU to BJ and Tyler for helping us move!

We were able to sell our house to Terry and Kathy Shine, Brodi's birth grandparents. We're glad they can enjoy the home and we know we'll be able to go back and visit whenever we want to. Maybe that's why it wasn't so sad selling it. 

The house we moved into is one that we bought in 2004 and have rented out ever since. Having renters in the house for 8 years made it necessary for us to do some updating, so when our renters moved out the end of September, the work began. We painted the ceilings, walls, baseboards, doors, closets and still need to paint the outside, but that will have to wait a bit. We tore out all of the carpeting and Bryan installed laminate flooring in the whole house except for bathrooms and laundry room. We added cupboards, replaced the kitchen counter top and appliances, added a pantry, extended our patio area, and added storage in the garage. I will upload before and after pictures in a future post - there are a couple of things that still need to be done before I have the after pics

Here is a picture of our new home and we are quite enjoying it here. We moved into the same ward as BJ and Tyler and their families, which is fun for us and I hope fun for them as well. We take turns sitting by their families at church each week. 

We are looking forward to staying put in this house for many years. Our goal is to have it paid off in a couple of years and then we can start thinking about our future plans (retirement, mission, etc.) For now, we're happy to be settled in our house!

Boxes, Boxes EVERYWHERE!

 We are moving out of our house in a couple of weeks and I've been packing up! Our renters are moving out of the house we're going to move into today, so next week we'll be busy painting and getting it ready for us to move into. Sooooo, I've been busy the last couple of weeks packing up - so I don't have to worry about it next week. Everything, except the things that need to hang up, is out of the closets and the only cupboards that have anything in them are the kitchen pantry, a couple of cupboards with dishes in them and our bathroom cupboards. I'm pretty well ready to go. I've been cleaning as I go along, so the move should go pretty smoothly. We are planning on taking the boxes over room by room and then we'll have a moving day with helpers coming to move all the big stuff. Here is my office: 

 These 6 boxes are the books that go on my bookshelves. The other 2 have my colored paper in them.

 The yellow bedroom - one pile for the new guest room and 1 pile for storage. We will have one less bedroom and a lot less storage space in our new place, so we need to be creative with storage space.

 Here is the bedroom affectionately known as 'Michael's room" - even though he only lived here for a couple of months! It's all packed up and the closet is empty except for all the food storage boxes in the closet.

 The family room - it looks so strange without pictures on the walls.

 Kitchen area....

 Dining Room area....all of the cabinets are empty, I'm planning to hand carry some of the breakable items.

 and the Living Room.....I'm sad to leave this house - it is such a nice floor plan, but it will be very nice to have half the mortgage payment when we move to the other house.

 As we were taking things out of the playhouse, I just had to take a picture of this. These are the grand kids assignments when they play in the playhouse. I noticed they're all supposed to Listen! And Claire and Ethan are the watch guards - they haven't been doing a very good job since they haven't been to the playhouse for almost 2 years! Maybe we wouldn't have had the bee problem if they had been on the job! I'm sad the grand kids won't have a playhouse anymore, but we'll have to create another play place for them.

 This is the fireplace for the playhouse. We drew a fireplace on some paper and attached it to some cardboard. Isn't it adorable? I want to keep it just because it's so cute! Maybe we can use it in our new family room! (just kidding)

 We had our last Sunday dinner at this house last week. Sadie sat down at the kids table, posed like this and said, "This is how we sit at school". It was so adorable, I had to take a picture of it. And it really is how they sit at school while they're waiting for their teacher to begin class.

 Lexi got dish duty after our dinner. Thank you, Lexi!

 Then we played a little Grand Slam and Creepy Crawlers. We missed BJ, Shannon and family, who were home with sick kids. Brodi's birth grandparents are buying our home though, so BJ's kids will be back at this house very often for visits! Maybe we can sneak in a visit or two as well.

We have made such wonderful memories in this house. I will miss it, but we'll make many more memories at our new house. Posts of our new house will come once we get settled.

Honey, anyone?

For a few months now, we've noticed bees going underneath the playhouse. It's been too hot to do much about it and the kids haven't been playing out there anyway - due to the heat. Bryan sprayed a few times, but the problem hasn't been going away. Since we're getting ready to move, we needed to take care of this problem. 

The play house was very heavy, so Bryan hooked a rope around the roof of the playhouse, tied it to the back of our car and pulled the playhouse up with the car. When he pulled it up, this is what we saw.........

 The bees had been very busy creating this amazing honeycomb. It was very interesting to look at. Of course, we couldn't get too close, and had to zoom in to get this picture, but it is amazing. Bryan was going to try to remove it himself until he saw how large it was. He actually got stung once when he was spraying them. We called in an expert and it only cost $95 for him to remove it. Well worth the money, I'd say!

There are still bees hanging around looking for their hive, but it is all gone!

Sam, Sam, the Lego Man!

That's my new name for Sam. He loves legos and trains. So, what could be better than a lego train? This is a train he built out of the legos we have here at our house - no instructions, no kits - just a bucket full of legos. Very creative!

 Brodi made her own lego creation! She loves to make designs out of hers legos.

 And Hannah wanted her picture taken too! She is totally able to walk, but she won't do it just yet. She stands up in the middle of the floor and will stand for a very long time, but just won't take steps - unless of course, she thinks nobody is watching. I love that big smile!

Cucumber tree

Have you ever seen a cucumber tree? Well, neither had we - until this year. Our cucumber vine grew right up into our Ficus tree and the cucumbers were actually hanging down from the tree. It looked so funny!

Here are a couple of our very large cucumbers. I put a spoon next to them so you could see the size.

They actually taste good too. This was the only thing we were successful with in our garden this year.

Baby Finnegan's Blessing Day

Another reason for our trip to California (and Yosemite) was to attend Finn's baby blessing. He was blessed  by his dad on August 5 in Livermore. He slept through the blessing and all the way through the meeting, but when they got him out of his car seat for pictures, he was ready to eat!

 Michael found a hat for Finn that matches his hat. They looked so handsome together.

 Finn wore the same blessing outfit that his daddy wore almost 28 years ago. I'm so glad Michael has a son, who was able to use it!

 Cute little Finnegan Arthur! We're so happy he's in our family. 

 Michael treated us to his homemade pasta. Below is a picture of him preparing the pasta.

 My job was to take the pasta after he cut it and hang it on this bamboo stick in the kitchen for it to dry.

 And here is the finished product. Michael is a fabulous cook and he enjoys it too! 

 Madie's 3rd Birthday wasn't until Aug 20, but since both sets of her grandparents were in town, they celebrated it on Aug 5. She wanted a huge pink cake and she got it. Those are strawberries being used as the candle holders - what a great idea, Marilou! 

I love the look on her face after the candles were blown out! She's so cute.

 We gave her this dress for her birthday and a little doll that looks like Finn. She calls the doll Finn, too. Grandma Conner gave her the flip flops, which she loved!

 Madie likes to pretend the whole movie of Beauty and the Beast. When she wears this yellow dress, she is Belle. She acts out random scenes from the movie and it's hilarious.

 Madie loved playing with Papa's iPad. 

We loved visiting Michael and Mallory and their cute kids.