Back to our Road trip....Nebraska Stop

I wanted to keep on documenting our trip even though it was so long ago now. There is just so much to it, I didn't want to lump sum everything into one blog when they all deserved some extra details.
Anyways our next stop on our long trip was Omaha, Nebraska. Which I happen to have family there too! My cousin Bethany is living there with her husband and 2 (now 3 kids) It was fun seeing her,(it had been 14 years!) also meeting her husband and kids. The kids all had a great time too!
here are pictures of this leg of the journey....

I'll take your word for it!!

The scenery changed dramatically! And the smell did too!!

My cousin Bethany, who is 9 months pregnant and her baby was so kind to wait to go into labor until AFTER our visit!! I really appreciate that because it was such a fun visit!! Thanks for waiting baby!! :-)

Meeting the new Cousins, they got along great and hit it off instantly! Well with all these cool toys to break the ice it was no problem!!

Girls can be Handy Manny too!

Then out for a little fresh air and play time at the park in her backyard. Literally it was steps away! So nice!!

Going for a walk with the gang, including a 9 month pregnant mommy!

They were so kind to feed us dinner, the kids loved eating at a table their size with their new cousins :-)

the Corn on the cob was a sure hit!

The boys got the case of the giggles after dinner!!

together with all of our kids for one last picture before we say goodbye and she goes to deliver her next child!! :-) So glad that worked out for a visit, it was soo fun seeing you and visiting! Hope our paths cross again soon!

Pictures of our Home Sweet Home

The girls giving "jack" a hug.

Mom taking pictures for me while I blog. She is very proud of all her creations! :-)

Ryan's room

A Shoe cubby by the garage door....love this thing! Mom's great idea was to have a basket of socks there too. What a great idea!!! I'm always telling them to go get socks!

Joe very comfortable in his Half way done media room. His big screen has yet to be purchased.

A closet perfect for food storage and emergency prepardness stuff. Now I can finally get started and serious about it!!

Another closet for all my "extra" toys, that I like to rotate or hide from the kids.

The "guest" bedroom downstairs.

The office/craft room, still a work in progress as well. Stuff that Joe and I have to sort through, so it will be there awhile! haha

ANother cool wrap around-under the stairs closet, we turned it into a "secret hide out/construction zone" It isn't finished so he can really bang on the walls in there!

One view of the basement, the "family room area"

Another view of the basement, the girls tea party/baby doll section.

Look at the video below to see their excitment of their reaction.

Super Mom to the Rescue!!

So my mom is AMAZING, most of you know that. But really she is!
She flew back to Nauvoo from Phoenix to help her poor pathetic morning sick daughter put her house together. And Put her house together she did!!

We literally had boxes piled up in our front room, that were filled with "un-essentials" like decorations, books for the book shelf etc that we walked by for a month. Plastic was still on the floor and no pictures on the walls. Oh and the basement was the after math of a bomb of toy disaster mess that I didn't even want to tackle so i just chose not to go down there instead.

When she got here Joe asked "if she had liked what we had done with the place?" as a joke, because everything was just as she had left it! hahaha

My day is consumed with getting Ryan ready and off to school, then mothering, playing with and refereeing the twins til lunch, then feeding us all lunch getting them ready for the school bus, then after the school bus comes I go take a nap! After nap IF I have energy I can get something done, sometimes it's cooking dinner if it's not a left over night, or trying to put something away, but instead of boxes its usually laundry or dishes. So then it's time to get the kids home from school and it's again playing with, mothering, and refereeing them til bedtime. Then once they finally get all in bed I crash into my bed to and we start it all over again in the morning. :-)

So not only did she finish unpacking the rest of the annoying boxes that were sitting here, but she organized every room and nook and cranny in this place! I may have to call her to find out where stuff is, but hey, it's not in a box anymore! haha She even helped me hang some pictures AND decorate for Halloween!! Pictures will be up shortly!

My house now looks and feels more like our HOME!!!

Thank you mom! You are the best!!!

I love you!!

Now we feel more like having company and visitors!! :-)

The Blunier Bed and Breakfast is now open for reservations

we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone- i mean Andy ;-)

things I don't want to forget

I haven't done an update on the kids individually in awhile and wanted to do that before I forget all these cute/funny things they are doing these days.

Ryan: Loves kindergarten, Lego's, playing with "Jacob" our neighbor who is the same age, his new house and his new room. We finally got him trained again to sleep by himself and not need anyone in his room to fall asleep. After a month long of "communal sleeping" we had to start back at square one. He loves to be silly and make us laugh, and has been nice enough to let sisters play Lego's with him now too. He refuses to eat occasionally and at times will eat non-stop. All i hear from him is "I'm hungry!"

Kaylee- Likes to dress her self these days and she has copied her older brother and has started the tradition again of wearing cowboy boots to school, with pants, shorts or a dress everyday. Which makes it easier for the teacher to tell them apart I'm sure! She loves everyone and runs up to them and gives them a hug, about tackling them. She at times can't keep her hands off others which can be a problem at school and at the dinner table. But she is fun loving girl and makes us laugh a lot too. She makes the funniest/craziest faces when she talks that makes us laugh the most. She does this thing with her lips, squishing them up to one side when she asks you a question....I guess you just got to see it to believe it.

Renee-She is also dressing herself and also 99% potty trained. She has been in panties for over a week now with only a handful of accidents. Kaylee is still struggling a bit with that :( we have some good days then lazy days! She loves to dress "princessy" and play princesses all the time. She wears a blue head band everyday....just like "Cinderella" (because she is Cinderella, and Kaylee is Snow white) fyi :) She is very good at being a peacemaker one minute then an instigator the next. She won't complain like Kaylee will about bread being broken or a cup not having a matching lid, or offer to trade with Kaylee if that happens. But also she will run up to someone and just push them or squeeze them out of nowhere. But overall she is a sweetie and loves to be with mommy. She also makes us laugh with her songs and dances she likes to preform for us.

They all love to help mommy cook, and I love it when It's just one at a time helping me. 3 is hard to manage "cooking" a meal.

Karen-I've been enjoying the small town life, although I miss my friends back home and being driving distance from my family. My mom is here right now so that is great, but not having her around the corner takes some getting used to. I love having the school minutes from my house, really everything I need is minutes, the town isn't that big! I especially love driving by and seeing the temple almost daily as well. They have a farmers market that comes to town, (at the end of my street really) and usually it's one or 2 farmers bringing all of their crops, which isn't a ton to choose from but what you go home with is SUPER good! I've loved everything except we weren't fans of the butternut squash....we will stick to sweet potatoes here! I've been taking a lot of naps, when the girls go to school. Feeling sick and tired during the first trimester for sure!

Joe-Loves his job. He comes home saying he had a good day everyday and had interesting stories to share about his day. He likes the people he works with and really enjoys being in the hospital. We were definitely lead to the right job and the right place! He also got a calling in church....he is the "Varsity Coach" which is essentially Scouts and helping with the young men. I think its a great calling for him right now and think he is really going to like it.

Expecting

So if you haven't heard already, we have found out that we are expecting.

We only know that I'm pregnant, we don't know yet if it's just one or more yet.

I will go to the doctor on Monday for my ultrasound to get an official due date and find out the million dollar question of "how many" are there this time.

So stay tuned for the results on Monday!

But as far as I know I'm due April 19th and am about 10 weeks currently.

(and already showing!) yikes!

Ryan has been praying for a baby brother for about 6 months now, so maybe this is an answer to a child's prayer.

Road trip and Hotel life pics

all packed up and ready to go. Having to drive both cars made it nice to fit everything we needed and to split up the kids! We usually had a girl car and a boy car, but would alternate with every possible combination of kids you can imagine, even all in one and none in the other. To give either of us a break!! The kids did fairly well. of course you had your tiffs and struggles and whines, being buckled for 5 days in a row isn't fun for any age.



Ryan made his own movie theatre


The power of suggestion!!


It worked!!!



The view was beautiful...for the first few days!

Hotel life was fun, sort of, ok not really. It was challenging getting a routine established for bedtime routine, but after having to do it for a month, we ended up figuring something out.

late night oatmeal snack. We at ate a lot of oatmeal during our homeless time.

All sleeping in the same room was not something i wanted to get used to,

and glad it has come to an end!

Continental breakfast were nice and convientent, but got old fast (for me at least) but not for the kids. They loved it!

Here's a few vidoes of how we entertained ourselves while cooped up in one room.

Ladies and Gentleman......Renee!!!

Ladies and Gentleman....Kayleebug!!

Ryan learned this trick along the way too!

Denver Stop

We were passing through Denver and made a pit stop at my brother's Steven and MaeLyn's.
It was nice for the kids to meet their cousins and for us to meet each others kids in person. Everyone got along great. They were kind enough to have lunch for us, so we ate and played and had a good time.
Here are some pictures of our fun time.

Steven showing Renee how to pet the kitty.And how to pet the Nee-Nee

Hannah giving everyone rides around the house.

Weeeee!!!

The wagon was a sure hit!

Enjoying the fresh air and outdoors.

Waving good-bye!! Hopefully we will see you again soon!

This is the girls singing a little mermaid song right when we left their house.