My silly boy

Me: "Who you talking to?"
Riley (with no hesitation): "Gamma."



Taking care of the baby doll today.






Chocolate chip cookie face.



Relaxing with dad after work.


Riley follows Luke around everywhere, from the moment he walks in the door after work, until bedtime.




Lately he likes to point at things asking, "This?" I'll tell him what it is and he'll point and ask about something else.

He is also very polite saying, "Thank you, Mama." if I give him anything. And if I don't respond quick enough he'll say "Welcome." for me.

We have a mouse...

Oh wait, no we don't. We have a 4 year old that woke up before mom and tried to find her own breakfast.

When I woke up this morning Bailee came and told me her tummy hurts. I told her she probably needs some breakfast to make it happy. She responded with, "Yeah, but we don't eat butter."

So I'm thinking, no, we don't eat butter for breakfast, so where did that come from?

Just in case, I check the fridge to see if she got into the butter. I had 2 cubes in sight that I had ready for baking cookies later today and they were untouched, so I figured she was just looking in the fridge for something and noticed it.

HOWEVER, when I was looking for more butter this evening to make Alfredo sauce, I lifted the little lid on the door of the fridge to see if I had any in there, and found the above shown half-mutilated cube of butter.

Bailee and I had a little talk once I found it. And I seriously had a hard time not gagging while looking at it.

Here are some better photos for you to enjoy...

Eating French bread.








"Cheese!"

It must not be.

The snow has not melted today, therefore we must not be in Utah anymore.

However, I did pass my glucose test, which is good cause to celebrate! I was 132 and if I had been over 135 I would have had to take the 3 hour test.

I am getting some pictures hung today and we're going to play card games tonight after kids go to bed. Should be fun!

We're trying to figure out a few places for things (like the computer desk) and some odds & ends, then I'll do a walk through tour for you.

Heard from Riley today as both kids are playing, "Bailee Boy! Bailee Boy!"

I feel like I'm in Utah...

Except not really. I'm missing all my Utah friends and family. :(

But the weather has been acting like home. Yesterday was really nice and we played in the backyard, and today it snows. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

These photos kinda show what the yard looks like. It is pretty good sized.

Haircut time for Ry boy. Without Ster here every 2 weeks getting his hair cut, when we'd also do Riley's, it got a little long. I should have spiked it for the photo so you could really see the length, but I didn't think of that till now.


He really had a hard time with me cutting it this time. But it got done. At least mostly. It for sure isn't perfect.


Bailee wanted a pic too.



I was making Carrot with Snow Pea soup, and as I was sautéing the onions and garlic, Bailee asked if that was the snow. :)

I call Riley, Ry Boy, all the time and yesterday I heard him calling out, "Daddy Boy! Daddy Boy!".

I was debating on whether or not to share these pictures, and decided I would...





This is a sample of the nastiness we were moving into. And imagine that level of grossness everywhere (specifically all floors and the kitchen.) I'm sure you can see why I was super hesitant to want to live here. (But knew I didn't have any options and we couldn't stay where we were at in the mobile homes.) With about 8 men living here with no women and no care for the upkeep of the house, that explains the mess. Anyway, we spent our Valentine's Day cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Luke spent 3 hours on the tub alone.






This place is really clean and nice now. I do like it. :)

Saturdays

Last Saturday and today, Luke worked early, then we played racquetball, then we went swimming in Dickinson (an hour and 15 min away), and then got some dinner. It's a fitness center that we go swimming at and it has a huge pool, small lazy river, children's playground in the shallows, 2 big slides, hot tub and a separate pool for laps and diving. We also went to Walmart today. Pretty much it's an awesome way to spend the day. Way better than unpacking. :) And actually unpacking isn't all that bad, it is just difficult with 2 young kids "helping" or playing fine "until somebody gets hurt". Lately they have been playing by chasing each other around and then catching each other/wrestling/Bailee getting squished by Riley on the floor. So I'm sure you can guess how well that goes. Anyway, back to swimming, Bailee has been using a little life jacket and is loving "swimming". She can actually doggy paddle ok with it on. She even went down the big grown-up slide three times, although she looked like a drowned rat at the end each time. But she'll get the hang of it. At first Riley was nervous about the whole experience, but now is loving it too. And I think it has been a great activity to get us out of the house, doing something fun and wearing us out. Luke did some awesome jumps and dives off the diving board. These pics are some that Mary caught last week. Every day since last Saturday, Bailee has been asking about going swimming again, which is why we decided to come again so soon. Although I'm sure she'll now want to go every Saturday. Heck, I probably will too. :)

We moved... again

Do I sound like my sister or what? House hopping and walking into the unknown. ;)

When we moved up here the mobile home wasn't quite ready for us. We had to wait a few days till the propane got hooked up and they got stairs. We partially moved in before this was ready because we needed to empty the truck. We stayed at Mary's & Russ'. I started unpacking things once we got heat, until I saw a notice on the counter about formaldehyde exposure because of the products that were used to make the home. At that point we did what we could to clear the air, but we still didn't feel comfortable living there, especially because I am pregnant, Bailee already has respiratory issues and it is hard to ventilate the place when it is freezing outside. (Oh, and we are paranoid. Wait, I mean cautious. :)) The problem is that there are not a whole lot of options for housing up here. We ordered a test to check the levels for us, but it would take a little while to get the results. So we lived with Mary and Russell for a couple of weeks. They took great care of us, letting us crash in the girls' room and feeding us. However, the kids are sort of falling apart at this point being away from their stuff and a good routine.

Then we talked with Mary about living in one of the houses in town that they were housing drivers in. Thankfully it was already in the works to have all drivers moved out to the mobile homes and they were ok with us living there. Their manager, Tom, got right on it moving the guys out and getting it cleared out.

Tuesday I had to repack the mobile home, then we reloaded a moving truck and then unpacked the truck. I was exhausted. I was also a little concerned moving in because it was SO dirty, but after our marathon cleaning day Wednesday it is so much better! (As in, I'll now let the kids take their shoes off inside the house.)

So while we traded new and clean, for old and dirty, we feel like this is a better place for our family to live. Oh and they replaced the super old and falling apart stove with a brand new stove as well as replacing the dishwasher! Firsts for us to have new appliances to use. :)



The first night we stayed there after moving in, it snowed a little bit. I kept saying it would be ok to snow as long as we get settled first. :) No more snow since then though, which really I am ok with.



We are right in Watford City now, rather than 10-15 min outside of it. We drove to Williston today for my OB appt and discovered we are now only 50 min away rather than an hour. :) Also, my new OB seems nice. She is ok with me trying for a VBAC again and she doesn't care whether or not I have have an epidural. Although I haven't decided for myself what I want to do. This baby has worn me out already. I did my glucose test today too. Really hoping and praying I pass it.

I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of details, but at least here is an update for you!

Hello all!

It has been pretty chilly here lately, in the low teens plus wind chill, during the day. But we're staying warm inside. Here's some cute faces that wanted to say hello.

Walk

We went for a walk down the road this afternoon. It is beautiful here. We only needed a light jacket to keep warm. All the frost from yesterday has melted off. Aubrey, that is definitely the thing you have here. Space. Wide open spaces. You could move up here and enjoy it with us... :)

ND

Well it's time to start blogging again, don't'cha think?

By the way, this is long. :)

Just before Christmas last year, Luke headed to Watford City, North Dakota to work as HR Manager for RW Trucking. He came home for a week around Christmas. Then January 2nd he headed back out. The kids and I stayed home to work on selling our car (which we still need to sell...), getting our home listed to rent (which we still need tenants...) and to get packed up.

That was a hard hard 3 weeks that he was gone. Busy busy busy. I still was getting morning sickness some mornings and it was hard to get much done while taking care of the kids all the time. Plus I just felt a little overwhelmed trying to figure things out on my own. Half of the time that Luke was gone he didn't have a cell phone because Sprint messed it up, so I'd have to call Mary anytime I wanted to talk to him. Plus you just don't get great reception up here. Luckily Lacey hung out with me a lot if evenings so I wasn't always alone.

Luke was going to drive home Tues, Jan 24, to help finish packing and move us up to ND to be with him. However, Monday night around 11:00 PM he walks in the door. I was beyond shocked and so glad he was home. He was missed very badly by both me and the kids. Bailee woke up a little later and I told her I had something to show her. Then Luke came around the corner. When she saw him she started crying and went to him for a hug.

It was a whirlwind of activity at that point trying to get everything ready to go by the end of the week. We bought a suburban and had to get a few things fixed on it. We hung out with Lacey and Jordan for a night. Went out to dinner with Jared and Stephanie and their little Eli. We made a visit to Great Grandma Wilkey which was really nice. My mom watched the kids while we worked. And with a lot of help from family and friends and ward members, we finished late Saturday night, Jan 28th. My house hasn't been this clean in a long time. :)

We went to Magna for the night, and the next morning visited with Stew & Maggie & baby Calvin, Grandma Red, Jodi & Zoe, Sterling and my parents. Luke's dad, Richard, came up Sunday to drive the moving truck for us.

We headed out at 1:30 PM Sunday, January 29th. We took a 17' truck and barely fit everything that we were taking, minus the couch. (We left 2 storage rooms full of non essentials in Orem, so we wouldn't be as crowded in our smaller place.). We were about half an hour down the road when Bailee asked if we were there yet. Haha I wish!

We stopped fairly often to fill up with gas, take bathroom breaks and stretch our legs out. At one stop Bailee and Luke saw a coyote and she was pretty excited about that. The kids did pretty well. Bailee really did awesome because we just popped movie after movie into the DVD player. :) Riley is still rear facing and couldn't see, so he wasn't as easily entertained.

We decided to split our 900 mile trip into 2 days. We stopped for the night in Casper, WY. It was pretty late, but we hadn't stopped for dinner so Luke and Richard went and picked up food from Wendy's. We ate, Richard went to his room and we tried to get settled and go to bed. The kids weren't interested in sleeping so it took a while before we went to sleep. Shortly after the kids went to sleep I woke up with an upset stomach. I thought it was just due to being pregnant, but it was different. I hung out in the bathroom because I felt like throwing up. I was hoping to get it over with so I could feel better and go to bed. I did throw up and Luke came to make sure I was ok. Unfortunately that did not make me better. I then had extreme abdominal pain and my back was on fire. I had no idea what the deal was and Luke was super worried that it had something to do with the baby because I had a lot of back labor with Riley. I was just hurting and didn't know what it was. Finally everything I ate ran through my system and the pain went away. I didn't get much sleep because I had to get up a couple more times in the night, but by morning I was fine, besides being tired. Luckily no one else got food poisoning too.

We are SO grateful for Richard being willing to drive the moving truck all the way there for us. Especially with me getting sick, it was a huge blessing. Plus I don't think he minded visiting his daughter and grandkids and seeing their home up here.

At about 8:30 or 9 we got up and had breakfast. The kids enjoyed it and had fun with the experience. We hit the road again that morning with plans to make it the rest of the way by the end of the day. I tried to sleep as much as I could because I was exhausted. The kids did well again. By the end of the trip Riley was hungry and would stick his cute chubby little hand over the edge of his carseat and ask, "More crackers?" "More please." He was pretty cute.

Bailee kept asking if we were in North Dakota yet and we were finally able to tell her, Yes!

We got to Luke's sister, Mary's, house and were all so happy to get out of the car! The electricity and propane weren't hooked up on our trailer so we've stayed at Mary's and Russ's house. The trailer is new and really nice. On Tuesday we moved all of our stuff from the truck to the trailer. Once the furnace started running it warmed up the house and it smelled like all the new building materials and was pretty powerful, so we've been airing it out for a few days quite a bit and hope to be able to move in soon.

I had my first OB appointment here at a new office on Thursday. I didn't actually meet with my doctor because it was my first visit in, but I thought it was interesting that they wanted me to sign a consent saying I agree to have a repeat c-section with this baby since I had a C with Bailee. Um, did they miss the part where I birthed a 10 lb Riley after my C with Bailee? Needless to say, I did not sign the consent and I will discuss it with my doctor when I go back in 2 weeks. I also will do my glucose test then too. Hoping for good results!

We live down a big hill from Mary's house, so we walk it to go down to the trailer and start to get things unpacked. It's good exercise, which is nice. We've got the beds set up and we've got the shelving set up in our storage room. I was able to get half of the kitchen unpacked today. This has been the most organized move that I have ever made thanks to my cousin Bethany's blog post and advice. Not everything is unpacked, but each of the boxes are in the right room and I know what's inside them. :). I'm sure there will be some things that are misplaced because right at the end, everything went in a box, labeled or not. But it has been really nice so far.

The kids have had a lot of fun with their cousins and have crashed hard at night because they get so worn out. Bailee doesn't take a nap everyday anymore, so she really sleeps hard on those nights.

We played some racquetball this morning and the kids had a blast playing in the gym with balls and frisbees. It was chilly today and everything had a thick layer of ice crystals on it.

All in all we are doing well. I am sure I have missed a bunch of things from this whole adventure, but I'll add them in as I think of them. Also, I typed this on my iPhone, so please forgive me for any (I'm sure many) typos, or weird words that got thrown in here. And I don't know how or if I can customize anything, so I think all the photos will be at the end.

Well, it is tomorrow now and I have to get up early to get ready and drive an hour to church. Goodnight!