Vote Dustin!

Here is the conversation my girls had in the car today:

Josey: I was born in America!
Maddy: We were ALL born in America Josey.
Josey: Even daddy?!?!
Maddy: Of course!
Pause........
Maddy: Otherwise he could never run for President!

Just thought we should announce his campaign, since apparently he is going to be running for President.

Happy Belated Birthday!

Last Friday was Josey's 7th birthday! Unfortunately it was also the last crunch day before everyone came to help move us on Saturday. So her birthday was a little disjointed but I think she had a good day none the less.

She started off the day with a surprise waiting for her when she went downstairs. Her new bicycle! She was SO excited. I am a little embarrassed to admit this but she JUST learned how to ride a two wheeler without training wheels. But now she is a riding fool! She wakes me up almost every morning to ask me if she can go outside and ride her bike. However, the last bicycle that we bought her was when she was 4.....so it is a little small for her. This new one is blue (her favorite color) and fits her great!


She also had this cute new outfit to wear on her birthday. She always insists on wearing a dress on her birthday and I found this cute and cool one at Target and immediately thought of her. Then I saw the sandals and KNEW she would love them. And I didn't even make her brush her hair.

We ended up spending a lot of the day packing and such but we did take her out for lunch and then took a break and took her to see the new Harry Potter movie that she has been so excited for. We had a great time. When we got back home she opened her presents and then we had dinner and cake and ice cream. I hope she felt like she had a good birthday?

I know that when she caught these her birthday was complete. My little budding entomologist. Those are real beetles......yuck! Thanks for your creepy genes grandma Beth. She definitely doesn't get her love for bugs from Dustin or me.

We love you so much Josey and are so glad that you are in our family. You are such an easy child and you make me feel like a good parent because you are naturally so obedient and kind. I love your little quirky ways and your perfect balance between girlie girl and tomboy. Happy Birthday Josey Posey!

Out with Old, In with the New

All right....we are officially out of the old house, FINALLY. You know when you think you are all done packing and moving and then you realize that you still have like 10 more trucks loads of CRAP! We were officially supposed to be out of the house yesterday so for the last three days we have just been focusing on the getting all our stuff out and getting it cleaned up. Consequently, the new house (which I would much rather spend my time in) has just exploded exponentially with stuff everywhere! Dustin went back last night and cleared out the last little load and I thought FINALLY we are done.....then I remembered that I had forgotten something. I had forgotten to pack up all our photo albums and mementos from one of the closets. I kept telling myself that I was going to bring a box and make Dustin clear it out because it was going to be heavy but then kept forgetting. So I woke up this morning thinking that I could finally just focus on our new house and realized that I had to go back to the old house ONE MORE TIME. But we are now officially out. HALLELUJAH!

Craziest thing about moving from the old house is that NO ONE wants to go back. Not one of my kids even wants to go into the house anymore. Dustin and I were commenting how neither of us really have nostalgic feelings about the house or any sadness whatsoever about leaving. I drove up the other day and expected Lilly to ask to go home or something and she started crying saying that she wanted to go to the other house....the new one! SO WEIRD! Josey even said as we were walking out of the house last night for the last time, "Let's get out of this dump." OH MY GOODNESS! It was hardly a dump and we did have some really good memories in that house. The only conclusion I can come to is that we just moved down the street. Every other move we have ever made, we are leaving friends, schools, wards, familiarity. This move we got to keep all that, we just got to move to a much better home. So I guess that is the difference?

I really thought that we would have a rough couple of nights sleeping in the house as well. I thought for sure that Lilly would wake up and not know where she was and be really upset. Other than her wetting the bed every night we have been here (we have been really trying to transition out of pull-ups) she has been fine. She woke up the first night and mosied into our bedroom really calm to tell me she wet the bed. No scariness involved! She didn't even get lost coming into our bedroom. I seriously think we were meant to live in this house. I remember when we were looking at it I could just see my kids growing up in this house. This was before we were even sure we were going to buy it! I really think that this house was meant for us and I am so thankful to be in it.

When I find my camera I will be sure to post some more pictures of the house since many of you have been asking! Yeah for only having to take care of ONE house!

I H-A-T-E moving....seriously hate.....hate.....hate. And 95 degree weather with no air conditioning doesn't help the situation. Pray for us.

Putting down roots....finally.

So it has really happened. We are finally, after almost 11 years of marriage, putting down some permanent roots. We officially closed on our new house this afternoon! Before anyone gets too excited, we still don't have the keys. We won't get those for probably another 48 hours, BUT we own a home. And it's this one!

We are so excited and I have to keep telling myself that we will get through this week and we will get it all done. I honestly can't believe it has finally happened. We have talked about this for so long and even got really close to buying before in Vegas (let me tell you we are thanking our lucky stars everyday we didn't do that one!) and now we are finally home owners. It seems that everything finally came together for us just at the right time. I think we are the oldest first time buyers ever but I don't care.....we own a home!

And after living in rentals for 10 years I think the thing I am looking forward to the most is painting a wall. Seriously I might have to paint all of them a different color just to get it out of my system. No more white walls for us! (and maybe a dog? huh Dustin?)

The Frog Walk

So last night Dustin went on his weekly walkabout. He likes to go for a walk by himself to clear his head for the week. He was gone for about 5 minutes when he came in the house with a wicked look on his face. He had caught one HUGE frog. He immediately ran upstairs to tell the girls. Lilly was already asleep but Maddy and Josey were in HEAVEN! Check that sucker out!They put it in a tupperware and Daddy let them take a walk with him down to the frog pond to let it go, even though they were supposed to be in bed. They felt QUITE special.

Then right as they were headed down to the pond. they ran back in the house to show me ANOTHER frog they caught. This one was bright green, but the picture came out blurry, sorry.
They walked down to the pond and let the frogs go and came back with..... a snail. I didn't take a picture of that one but Josey was very very excited!

why....why.....why?

Alright I have a beef. So I have been taking my girls to the pool just about everyday this summer because of Maddy's swim team practice. At about 12:45 I head into the dressing room with my three little girls to disrobe into our bathing suits and head out to the pool for swim lessons.

Well apparently at 12:45 is when all the older ladies are also disrobing FROM their bathing suits into their clothes after their swim. Here is my beef. WOMEN.....this isn't your bedroom! WHY do you insist on walking around the dressing room COMPLETELY naked? Why? It is seriously one of the most shocking sights when you walk in and BAM there is an old naked lady body and you try and turn away and BAM there is another. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! You can't escape it in that dressing room. And they are chit chatting, standing together......naked. Why? PUT SOME CLOTHES ON QUICKLY! There is no need to scar the children....or myself frankly for that matter.

When I change in a dressing room my main concern is to get my clothes off and on in a timely manner so I am not flashing everyone. I don't know about you but that is the goal. Apparently after 50 that goal goes out the window. I guess you turn into a nudist. I applaud you all for being THAT comfortable with your body but really all of US are not that comfortable with your body. COVER UP!

It isn't that I have a problem with older, imperfect, chubby bodies....let's face it I have one of those. I just don't want to see yours! I see mine everyday in the mirror and I don't make you look at it!

Okay that is my beef. The End.

Alberston's

So I made a quick stop at Albertsons today before the doubles ran out....even though I think there are more for next week. But this is what I was able to get for........29 CENTS! Woo hoo!
TRANSACTION #1:
2 Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta--- $2.00
3Ball Park Franks---(Buy 1 get 2 free) $4.29
Total: $6.29

2 $1/1 Ronzoni--- -$2.00
1 $1/2 Ball Park Franks--- -$1.00
3 Albertsons double--- -$3.00
TOTAL OOP: $.29

TRANSACTION #2:
2 Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta--- $2.00
Newspaper--- $2.00

2 $1/1 Ronzoni--- -$2.00
2 Albertsons Doubles--- -$2.00
Total OOP: $0.00

I haven't been doing a lot of shopping lately because I just haven't had much time this summer. But I love it when you can get a good deal like this. I can't pass it up!

4th of July weekend

We had a really fun weekend last weekend. I didn't take a ton of pictures unfortunately but we had a good time none the less! On Friday we decided to go find some yummy fruit to pick. We headed out to Sauvie Island because I had never been out there and they have tons of farms. While the island itself was beautiful it was SOOOO hot and not the best day to be outside picking fruit. But we picked some delicious raspberries and blueberries. I got this one picture and then my camera died.
Then on Saturday we started the day off with a pancake breakfast and bike parade at the church but I didn't have any new batteries for my camera from the day before, so I didn't get any pictures.

Afterwards we headed over to the beach for the day. We had a lot of fun! I was actually warm enough for the girls to run around in their bathing suits, SHOCKER! Can't you tell how much fun we had from this picture.....he looks so happy.

Later that night we set off our fireworks and then got treated to all the neighbors fireworks as well. We don't even have to go anywhere to see good fireworks because literally there are multiple people that buy lots of the big mortar fireworks and they explode right above our neighborhood. It is kinda nice given the ages of the kids because we don't have to brave any traffic or SUPER late nights!

Hope everyone else had a great 4th!

summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime

Here is how we have literally spent almost every day so far this summer:

Yeah for the pool.....for the most part.

The girls cracks me up...

So the other day I finally heard the words, "I'm bored". They came out of my nine year olds mouth and considering it is almost a full month that we have been into summer I think that is pretty good! So I tried suggesting some things she could do that did not involve the tv or computer. I suggested she write a story. This is something that she has always loved doing. She liked that idea and ran off excited. She came back to me a few minutes later and asked, "What do you think I should write about?" I thought for a while and all I could think of was how much she loves the rat. So I suggested a story about a magical rat. She then said, "Well I actually already know what I am going to write about I just don't know WHO it should be about." I asked her what it was going to be about and she said, "It is going to be about a girl that goes around the world teaching about the true meaning of friendship.".......okay. So I said, "Sounds good! Go for it!" I guess she figured out who it was going to be about because here is the first little bit of her story that she wrote yesterday.


In the dark mists of the night a young girl longed for her mother. Therefore she was dead. She had died trying to save her. She left her at a terrible time, World War I was going on and she was left alone. The girls name is Rose.

Roselyn James Lopes was 6 and a half years old.


I think that there is a little Harry Potter influence going on here but you can't deny the girl is creative and she cracks me up. She titled the story The Friendship Ring. I can't wait to hear what she comes up with next.