Catching Up!

Here we are, almost to the end of January and I haven't posted anything since the 1st. Well, the beginning of the year is always busy, but this year we have decided to make ourselves a little bit busier. For the past 3 1/2 years Brad has been commuting 1 hour to work each day. We have toyed with the idea of moving closer to his work, but until now, it just didn't feel like the right thing. We've also looked into working closer to where we live, and that didn't seem to be the right thing either.

Two years ago we looked at a home in the town where Brad works. We liked it okay, but the price was a little high for the small town market. Well, a couple weeks before Christmas I went down to see Brad at work and he said, "Ya know, that house is still for sale" I thought that was a little crazy, but we decided to look at it again. Turns out that it had gone into foreclosure and the new investor/owners of the property knocked off $60,000 from when we looked at it before. Then, the day that we scheduled to look at it they had just dropped it another $20,000. Now we were feeling that it was a pretty sweet deal even in the small town market. So, of course, we offered them $20,000 less than that and they met us in the middle.

It is a beautiful brick house on a half-acre lot, with lots of trees, and best of all... it is only 1.1 miles from Brad's work. (I'll post some pics when we move in.) So, this month has meant packing, last minute home remodel jobs, and tying up loose ends here. We should be in our new home by Valentines Day, and then hopefully our current home will sell faster if we aren't in it. We closed, and got the keys last week, so Brad has been taking loads every day. Hopefully this way at the end we'll only have the big stuff. I like moving only an hour away as opposed to 14. It seems a little less stressful!

New Year Baby!

The best New Year's I ever had was the day Eric was born. At 10:30pm we were the first to show up at Payson Hospital to have a baby that day. It was oh, so exciting to be recognized around Utah County as the Payson New Year baby and mom since we made the front page of most of the small town papers. Best of all, it was the first day of my life as a stay at home mom. Best job in the world!

Eric has always been my baby, and even though he is the definitive middle child now I can't help but cuddle him regularly. Since about July, Eric has been planning his birthday. Mostly, he wanted it to be a "google head" birthday. I wasn't sure what we were going to do for this, but with so many months to prepare, we came up with a couple lame ideas that fit the bill.
First, squiggly candles on muffins for breakfast...

Then, Redi-whip, swirled on Pancakes for lunch (and in Eric's mouth)...

Then, the big effort, the cake...

We made all the swirls out of white almond bark and sprinkles. They were pretty easy to make, and the kids were crazy about them.

Then, the hats...

We lamed out on this a bit. I had intended to spend more time on this, but pipe cleaner and stocking caps worked out just fine. And they stayed on good even through the dance session, requested by Eric, that followed cake. Our latest family favorite song is "Electric Car" by They Might Be Giants.

I love how happy my kids are with the silly little things we do. We love just being together. And yes, Eric's favorite meal of the day is Breakfast, so we had breakfast, then another breakfast, and then a lunch (grilled cheese and tomato soup with alphabet noodles in it)What a great way to start the New Year! Can't wait for next year!