Greensburg updates

Tada!  I was kind of over the beaming orange glaring at my eyeballs whenever I looked at my blog haha.  Hopefully this is a little easier on everyone's eyes too!  Our family's new territory is littered with dead opossums, deer, raccoons and smells like skunks, dead or alive. After seeing one in its dead state, I decided I would never ever ever like to encounter an opossum while it's still alive. Holy scary animals!  My mom lives on the outskirts of town, so most of the roads I take are quiet and heavily wooded with LOTS of wildlife. 

Lyndi began kindergarten August 31st. I still can't believe it is time for one of my kids to be in school! The kindergarten teachers hosted a Popsicle party a few days before they began so they could look through the school and meet the teachers and classmates. I have been so worried about Lyndi making new friends because she gets so attached and kind of closed off sometimes that I didn't know how she would do in a completely new setting.  However, she found another little girl within a few minutes that is tall with brown hair just like her and their lockers are right next to each other! They walked around holding hands :) after her hour with the other kids she called Mia her best friend!  She told me a few weeks ago that people get mad whenever she doesn't play with them.  Such a hard life to be popular :)  I love this girl.  She is our sweetheart.  She has the biggest heart and the most thoughtful mind.  She is in the top 5 kids in her class for academics, and I get the chance to go in once a week to help out in her class, it's so fun to see her in action!  She comes home with homework and I keep waiting for it to be challenging for her.  I'm sure it'll come, just not for now! And I don't know how teachers do it!  There are a few kids in her class that drive me NUTS every time I'm in there!  So kudos to you teachers for sticking with it!  I very much appreciate you.

We are through our first trimester of our "4th pregnancy", we're through the transition of starting a new temporary life in Greensburg (although, since it's temporary, we are not going to fully adjust). Not that it's any easier saying goodbye to Tyler every time, but now we can start counting down seasons, months, weeks, days whatever to help it pass faster. It's starting to cool down outside and we are settling into a new routine. I also have a put a plug in for my rockstar kids. They have been quite the troopers with this rough transition, and can make the 4 hour drive without having to stop! And without crying! We have been able to see Tyler more than we originally thought. I'm sure that will change soon, but it's made it easier to adjust being able to see him almost every weekend!

Tyler just started his second to last rotation this week in West Virginia.  He is working at a VA hospital and is living with an older man who works there too.  I don't know much more than that yet.  His second board exam is coming up in a few weeks, and I'm not worried at all, since he passed his first one on top of 3 weeks of sleep deprivation from having a newborn in the house. :)  He amazes me.  He puts the work in and it definitely pays off!
  
Emerie is LOVING being the older sister at home while Lyndi is at school.  She is starting to write hew name and still very very much loves anything princess. She gets dressed in the morning with Lyndi and then around 10 am she changes into a dress haha. She has started winking at everyone.  It scrunches up her whole face and is quite cute.  She is our theatrical child.  VERY upset when she's upset, VERY happy when she's happy, VERY mad when she's mad.  But because of that, she's VERY snuggly when she wants to be and VERY helpful when she wants to be.

Levi is going to be walking soon!  Lyndi will probably always hold the record (9 months, 2 days), but he's going to give her a run for her money!  He stands on his own (if it's his idea, if WE try to make him stand, he immediately wants to sit down) for bits of time and travels down furniture like it's nobody's business!  His little personality is so sweet. He grins constantly and is starting to hide or run away from people when he doesn't want them to get him.  He has 2 little bottom teeth, which came through about a month ago, which put him 6 months ahead of the girls' schedule haha.  This kid can pack in food!  He is a bottomless pit, and eats almost everything I put in front of him.  Hence his rather large size.  He is 25 lbs. at 8.5 months. My arms are getting some serious muscle :)

I have been able to do a lot of projects the last few months that I haven't been able to do for the last few years.  I'm helping my mom make 6 giant demin quilts, we're about halfway through.  I made 4 rag rugs out of the leftover material my mom and I had.  I finally re-printed my cookbook, am working on re-printing Joy School stuff and printed pictures so I'm caught up to 2013.  I am going to work on my T-shirt quilts next.  My mom has a pretty kick-butt quilting frame that a guy from church designed for her, so I'm going to take advantage while I can!

My mom and I take turns cooking, which has been AMAZING.  To say the least.  I am not a fan of cooking every night.  I love to cook, but have increasingly less time and desire to spend lots of time in the kitchen.  We trade off weeks, and it's nice to have my mom's home cooking again!  Lyndi told me that she cooks a lot better than I do haha.  I'm not even offended, because it's true.

I was going to add pictures in here, but my computer is on its last leg and it takes FOREVER to load even one, so I'll have to do them another time.

Our 4th pregnancy

Well, summer is just about over and so is our time in Philly! I still cannot believe it.  We have lived here for THREE years!  It has FLOWN! I guess that's what happens when you're having fun :)

In comparison with last summer, we had a sort of boring one this year!  Haha, last year Lyndi and I spent a lot of time outside playing in our blowup pool while Emerie was napping, we went to playgroup every week, went to the beach several times, had lots of barbecues and were a lot more tan!

This summer we... packed haha.  Well, I spent a good amount of time sorting, organizing and most importantly throwing things out!! It feels SO GOOD to get rid of all the stuff we've collected just in the time we've been here.  Thanks to Tyler being EQ President and helping out with so many moves, we've "inherited" a lot of things!  All of our possessions fit into a 15' truck.  Also, we found out just how picky the thrift stores are about taking used things.  I ended up breaking a lot of our chairs and furniture apart because they would not accept it.  Which was fun, I'll admit, I tried some ninja skills out on our furniture :)

Among other things we did this summer though, we went to the beach on one of Tyler's weekends off, had 2 barbecues with friends, went to see fireworks, lit off some of our own, and went to the kids museum. Haha, that's literally all I can think of! I suppose there was a drastic difference in my free time during the day this summer though :) Levi's a pretty cute little time consumer.

Haha, I caught him in the middle of a sneeze, and I still laugh out loud when I see it.

This kid is such a cute chunky monkey!  He finally fit into the swings at the park just in time for nice weather!  He ended up falling asleep in it several times :)

Miss Emerie and her camera faces... haha.  Lyndi's much more composed.

Look at those handsome baby blues :) ...and the pink jumper :)

Emerie has just begun to really take after her big sister.  It drives Lyndi crazy to have Emerie mimic her, but it's so adorable!

That one time I forgot to turn the faucet off for the tub... Good thing she's taller than the tub!  She wanted more baths with that much water haha.

Somebody has a girlfriend already :)

Lyndi was so upset about moving away from the neighbor girls!  There were 3 that lived above us that LOVED our kids!  The oldest one babysat Levi all the time and when they found out we were moving, she insisted on babysitting every day until we left haha. 

This describes Emerie's personality so perfectly... :)

Check out that handsome dude all ready for church!

My beach babes :)

My other beach babes :)

This belongs on a magazine cover or something, such a cutie!

Lyndi loves the Perez's son Josh.  They were best buds for a few weeks while he was here visiting. 

I really am going to miss the beach!

My world right there :)

 

He had just started to notice the food we were eating

Our own little fireworks show before bedtime

Tyler and I went to Gettysburg for the day and stopped at the Turkey Hill ice cream factory on the way home, lots of free ice cream samples!  Totally worth going without kids haha.

He laid there for almost 5 minutes with Cy on his face, I guess he felt the need to support Iowa State :)

I woke up one morning to this, he was awake just hanging out talking to himself with his feet dangling

Passed out after his bottle

Our summer harvest, sadly that's about all we got, but they were worth it!

Our street is SO noisy!  But apparently that's all it takes for him to nap, so that became my only sanity the last few weeks of getting ready to move.

Our ward had a Pioneer Day breakfast, and this is what the girls wore, and believe me, they did their hair like that back in the 1800's ;)

Kids Museum

 

Haha, as soon as we got to the museum, Lyndi grabbed Josh's hand and they ran around everywhere holding hands :)  After a while, Josh ran to his dad and said "Dad, she's wearing me out!"  Haha, get used to it kid ;)

Goodbye Philly!

Our last minute at the house

This kid is now sitting up and borderline crawling! 

He rolls over when he's drinking his bottle and gets so upset that his milk doesn't come out

Kindergarten starts in 2 weeks!  So crazy!

We're not in Philly Kansas anymore :)  Steeler territory here we come!

First time eating solids :)  I have never waited this long to feed solids, but he has been amazing at it and seriously eats a ton!

One thing I miss about Philly, THE PARKS.  They are everywhere and are all amazing!  Greensburg needs to work on that :) 

See that swing back!?  Why would you put a chain on the back?  So safe and so comfortable... :(

Plowing through our days without daddy.

Sporting Phillies

Emerie has JUST taken a liking to Levi. Not that she didn't like him before now, but she's now old enough to play with him and pay attention to him.

The 20 year old couch saw it's last day!  Man, was that a solid piece of furniture, I will be buying our future furniture from them!

Scary or cute?  Haha. The weird things we find in Aunt Alyssa's stuff :)

This post is all over the place I'm realizing now... after re-reading it.  I don't care.  My brain has been all over the place for months now, and it's probably not going to get better until Tyler's done with school in may!

We recently moved in with my parents in Greensburg, PA (by Pittsburgh for those of you who are wondering where that is) for the duration of Tyler's LAST school year (I still can't believe I'm saying that!).  This is sort of stressful on everyone in some ways, and much less stressful in others. However, I made a countdown on my phone, and it just happens to be 40 weeks!  So this is considered our 4th pregnancy. Haha, GOTCHA with that blog title eh?!?  The first trimester no doubt will be full of sickness (physical and emotional) from Tyler being gone, the 2nd trimester will be long but probably a bit more comfortable once we get settled in, and the 3rd trimester, during which we will not see Tyler while he's in Montana, will be the longest and most painful.  All just like a regular pregnancy ;)  But after it's all over, we will get to take home a degree! 39 weeks exactly from today folks!

I haven't posted in a while! I keep thinking a lot has happened, but not really. But here a few things:

Levi is now 3.5 months old!  So crazy.  I keep thinking he's so tiny, but he's a tank and such a cutie!  People hold him and wonder how he's so heavy.  Our kids are just solidly built haha. He melts my heart with those blue eyes and red/brown/blonde/white hair. He has his dad written all over him!  Tyler has the same thing with his hair.

The following sequence of photos is from Emerie from the middle of April. If only I got paid to clean up after her, we would be living a rich life my friends!  This was occurring while I thought she was napping.  I got Levi down for a nap, then got her down for a nap then I laid down for a little bit.  I woke up, walked out of my room to see Emerie in the living room with a mess of hot coca mix. I followed the trail from the couch to the floor to the kitchen and found this: 

 In her defense, she DID feel bad about it, and she knew she was in trouble. I think the crying in this picture though came from her being unable to take her clothes off to take a bath due to the stickiness. 

The booster seat? At least an inch thick of cocoa.

 Do you have any idea how hard it is to sweep or even vacuum hot cocoa mix?  Very hard!  I tried sweeping, then I tried vacuuming, then I had to sweep after I vacuumed, then had to mop twice! It took me over an hour to clean this up.  This is about 8 cups of mix... Such a waste haha. Filled up almost our whole vacuum.  Now, even 2 months later I smell hot cocoa whenever I vacuum, not the worst thing!

Then she felt the crash from all the sugar.  Haha.  It scared me to death, I didn't know she had fallen asleep, she played in the tub for a while! I started to drain the water, but the noise from the drain woke her up. There was cocoa everywhere!  Up her nose, in her hair, in her ears, all over the place! 

 We had family here for Levi's blessing!  And little stinker Levi would not nap for anyone except my mom!  He literally spent hours sleeping on her in the 24 hours that she was here. 

 These 3... So much love!  We have one of each, a brunette, blonde and redhead :) 

Words cannot express the love this girl has for her brother.  Words can also not express how much I appreciate her help. She is training me to be a mom :)

We went to DC with the kids and met up with another family there to swap babysitting so we could go to the temple.  Such a fun weekend! 

 We are 0 for 2 with seeing the White House.  The first time Ty and I went, the road that goes past it was closed for construction, and this time it was all roped off and when we tried to get closer, the security guards approached us and told us we couldn't get any closer!  So this is the closest we could get haha.  Someday we'll get an up close pic!

 Emerie quite literally danced around the zoo with her hands in the air half the time. They had a blast! 

Lyndi graduated from Joy School, which has been so much fun the last 2 years!  I can't believe she's going to be in Kindergarten in 2 months!!

 What an awesome group :)  We managed to survive this year with so many things happening!  Between the 4 moms we had cancer, back surgery and 2 babies born! 

Lyndi's been learning to ride a bike this summer.

 Happy boy all ready for church :)

 She falls asleep in the oddest places :)  On the hard floor

 He found his toes a few weeks ago, he sat like this for about 10 minutes one morning haha.  He found his fingers the other day and kept punching himself in the eye with his fist and watching it come toward him!

 He thought there was milk in there haha.  Darn toy bottles.

Hehe, I snuck this one in, I think it's adorable!  Levi is probably a better weight to use than the one Tyler's holding in his right hand :)  Thanks to Shawn Palmer for the weights!

 Multi-tasking at it's finest :)

 We go to story time a lot.  It's twice a week for 2 different age groups, and since I have kids that fall into both categories, we go twice a week ;)  They do the EXACT same thing at both, but we go anyway because they love it!  They made flower stamps out of beets during this story time.

I have to make a shout-out to Tyler. He seriously amazes me.  He has SO much to balance on his plate right now, and he does it all without complaining and without fail.  He passed his board exam with flying colors 3 weeks after Levi was born!  I AM SO PROUD OF HIM!  He is in the middle of his second rotation right now and it has been so nice to have him come home at night and STAY home.  That hasn't happened yet in our married life!  He officially has less than a year of school and then we're entering the grown up world ;) 

Lyndi starts Kindergarten soon and is SO excited to move to grandma's house!  I can't tell you how many times she has told complete strangers at the store or the library or wherever we go that we are moving to grandma's house in the fall.  We will be living there for the last 9 month of Ty's schooling :(  It will be so nice to have help with the kids, but that means that Tyler will be living elsewhere.  To say I'm nervous for the next year is an understatement. But it will be an adventure!  For now we're just enjoying our last little bit of time in Philly.