We’re Alive!!! And we Moved!

Hello!  Where did the summer go? Sorry we’ve been gone for so long….

Remember how I said we were selling our house and moving to Nebraska?  Well, we did officially sell our house as of today-ish wahoooo! and we did move, but not to Nebraska.  We moved to Royal Oaks, California for a job that we’re excited about.  Omaha may very well also be in our future, but we’re happy to be back in Cali for now.  We live just a little under 3 hours from my parent’s casa.  Perfection! I haven’t lived less than a two day’s drive (and sometimes a two day flight from Brazil or China) from home since before I left for BYU.

Here’s a little recap of late:

• Jordan started working at Classic Farms in Watsonville/Salinas area mid September.  He likes it and it comes with getting to live in a little house on a hill, which I like.  More on said little hill house later! Perks of being around his cousins are also a huge plus!
• I went to Utah with the babycakes and my angel mother to pack up our house.
• During that trip the following went down-
• Both my car and my mom’s cars died.  Hers with transmission probs and mine with a mysterious battery issue that took way too many people to solve. 
• We walked a lot of places, including to local stores to dumpster dive for boxes.  We walked home piled in boxes and looked like Hobos.
• Had a hugely successful impromptu yard sale, ridding us of a lot of stuff I loved/semi-liked/didn’t need.  Remember my crazy couch? Gone!  My awesome convection oven and stove?  Bon Voyage! It’s amazing how I hang onto things with a death grip until someone gives me money for them.
• I found sewage backed up in the beautiful new bathroom J put in the basement.  Perfect timing.
• Spent most of my nights digging/cleaning poop out of said bathroom.
• Funded the plumber’s holiday bonus by having them clear our sewage line all the way to the street.  The new owners shouldn’t have a problem until the millennium. 
• Enjoyed a little bit of the garden we planted!
• Said goodbye to a lot of dear friends…come visit us soon!
• Jordan and his cousin Josh came and loaded up a moving truck and took all of our stuff back to CA.
• Was surprised almost daily during the last week by sweet little notes and surprises from my Young Women from church.  I will miss those girlies so much!
• Got a ticket my last night in town and threatened that my car could be impounded for expired tags.  I honestly had no idea and have barely driven the little car since we got our truck. I DON’T cry in front of cops..and I did.
• Drove to St. George where I hit road block after road block to get the car re-registered/inspected and back to California…Columbus Day, really?  I just wanted to get the heck out of the state and felt like it had something against me!  So I ditched the car and flew home from there with the babycakes.
• We moved our stuff into our new little house! Happy day!
• I got to nest for two days…
• …Then, two discs decided to completely go out in my back and I was down for the count.  After hardly being able to walk and not being able to pick up Amelia-Jayne at all, I went to the Doc and he’s fixing me all up.  Heavenly Father has funny ways of getting us to slow down when we won’t.

That’s where we are now!  I’m glad the last three weeks in particular are over and we are done with months of our limbo.  And now, thanks to Jordan’s help, my chiropractor and Nani and Papi taking the babycakes (again, soooo nice to be close to family) I am on the road back to a house of sanity!  And seeing that I’m pretty much useless doing anything else right now, I can finally update this thing. Thanks for bearing with me on this somewhat downer of a post…happier things to follow as well as pics when I can upload them!

Our House…

is a very, very, very fine house.
With two cats in the yard,
Life used to be so hard.
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you. La la la la la!

We’re moving!!!!  We made it to a whole year in one place and decided we needed to move again.  Haha…Just Kidding.  We were blessed with a really good job opportunity in Omaha, Nebraska and knew it was time to finish off some of our projects and list this baby.

Here she is in a sweet virtual tour….

http://www.pixeet.com/pano/V67E5MGD

and this is her listing:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/330-W-250-S_Vernal_UT_84078_M27585-62100

I have to say I did not like my house when we moved in.  It was old (ala 1947), had weeds for landscaping, I had barely seen it before we bought it (in fact I hadn’t seen it at all before we made an offer) and it had been sitting empty after a foreclosure for two years. However, I was sold when Jordan told me that we were a block south of the temple and you could see it from my kitchen window.  Done.  Then my awesome husband got a hold of it, fixed it right up and we added a baby, some flowers and a whole lotta love.  Now it’s our bright cheerful spot and I’m in love with our first little Bethlehem.   

Here are some of the things we’ve done:

• Jordan took a load bearing wall out that separated two rooms without a common hallway.  We retextured, painted and had carpet put in and now those two awkward rooms are a second family room!
• New paint throughout 90% of the home.
• Lots of new carpet
• J put in a second bathroom
• Improved old drywall in many rooms
• New porch banister
• Veggie Garden!
• Dug a well
• Revived the grass, planted a little bit of new sod, and put in new flower beds (my project of choice)
• Furnishing and decorating it since we moved in with one bed and one table to our names
• Plus all the other little miscellaneous items that come with fixing up a fixer upper

There’s things we would have liked to do had we lived there longer, but someone else can enjoy doing a couple things just how they want to. So, take a looksie and let us know if you know of anyone looking for a cute little house in a great neighborhood!

11 Months!

With all of the craziness going on in our lives (job changes, house remodeling, crazy callings and interstate moving)  I hadn’t even thought about her little monthly photo shoot until a couple of hours before we left for our California road trip!  Ahhhh!  So, with every clean item of clothing packed, a 5 minute glam-baby shoot in her favorite pink fur coat sounded pretty dang good.

-Babycakes is a little snuggle bug!  We always thought she was a cuddle baby- just too busy to stop and cuddle for longer than a half second.  I didn’t know this until last month, but every time J has picked her up from her crib he’s been teaching her how to give the best hugs.  She even pats your back and makes little “hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm” sighs into your shoulder.  It’s pretty much the best thing to wake up to every morning.  Go J Daddy!

-She’s conquered going up and down stairs now.

-She loves the Olympics and claps right on queue.

-Amelia-Jayne has discovered the bathroom.  Fishing in the porcelain throne and going through rolls of TP in seconds is a full time job for her.

     

-J’s only been speaking to her in Spanish this summer, since we want her to grow up with both languages.  She’s been responding to both languages, but my favorite is when her cousin, Andrew, goes around saying “mija, mija, come here!”

-She chews with 5 teeth now!

-She’s constantly “singing.”

-Still no stranger danger with this girl!  She loves everybody who catches her eye.  She might shrug into us and pretend to be shy for 3 seconds, then completely warms up and laughs at every one.

-Babycakes has a signature move- her “Dr. Evil” finger in the mouth move.  She whips it out when she meets people or gets caught doing something she’s not supposed to be.

-Although she’s been able to get off the couch and chairs for months, if we tell her to “stay here”- she’ll stay!  It’s been quite the little miracle trick, especially this month.

Can’t believe she’s turning one this month! 

H-Town Reunions

 

Okay, so this is totally slacker of me, but I’ve got to catch up somehow…so, I’m combining the many pics from three Hastings/Stout reunions this past year in one. 

#1) The first one was WAY back in February when J’s brother, Taylor, came back from his Marine deployment.  It was fun and Jordan and I sponsored a game night where we celebrated every holiday that Taylor missed while he was gone for fun.  We called it “Around the Year in 80 Seconds.” We celebrated the New Year with a “ball drop,”  V-day with a Photo Booth of Love, pinching contests, Easter egg hunts, fireworks, trick-or-treating and many more.

Taylor got to meet all of the newbie kids (including his own sweet girl), Amelia loved her uncles and balloons, she also met all the cows, piggies and chickens, and Jordan made Beef Jerky with his cousin.

 

#2) The second little reunion with all the sibs was to help build a beautiful new deck for Roma Ann.  It so happened that most of the family was in H-town to celebrate Aunt Angelyn’s 80th Birthday, so it was perfect timing. 

We had fun with those things plus went on a date to Brian Reagan, got super sick, had pictures taken by the amazing Susie, spent some time at the splash pad and showed off Amelia’s aerial tricks…

 

(photo: adelaide photography)

#3)  The most recent Hurricane trip was for the giant Stout reunion with around 400 relatives there.  It was in honor of J’s deceased Grandmother’s 100th birthday.  It was a blast with tons of gabbing, food, fun and the best part…a MUD RUN!

 

        

     

 

A Country Kind of Fourth…

Since fireworks were out of the question because of all of the crazy fires this year, we decided to do a couple of baby-friendly things.

First we went to the Vernal’s 4th Parade.  Amelia-Jayne wasn’t digging the sun and the noise, so I took her the back way and just walked by all of the entries waiting to go.  With all of the rig trucks and companies advertising, it was more of a diesel truck parade, but she did dig the Uettes.

 

 

Later on that night, we decided to go to a Rodeo in Neola, a town that makes Vernal look like a thriving Metropolis! It was so much fun and we loved soaking in all the patriotic feel-goods. 

On the way back, we even caught some great fireworks (at a park where it was legal to do them) with Babycakes fast asleep in the back. It was a great day to be thankful for our awesome country we live in and the people who made it that way.

 

10 Months!

 

Our Babycakes:

-Is a master Cruiser.

-She has her own cell phone to play with, but still prefers ours. ;) She can find even the most carefully hidden cell phones and remotes anywhere!

-Likes to take Mommy or Daddy’s hands and go for a “walk.”  I’m pretty sure she’ll be walking by herself sometime this month!

-Loves to chuck her bottle…off of her high chair, out of the crib and out of her car seat. 

-Kisses.  A lot.  She kisses herself in the mirror, kisses us, her dolly (she loves to drag plush toys around with her now), and just learned how to blow kisses.

-Has 3 teeth and enough hair to curl on top of her head.

-Went without Mommy for a whole 4 days so I could go to Girl’s Camp.  She was great for Grandma Hastings (thank-you so much for watching her!)  but has since been very sad (and vocal) every time I’m more than 3 feet away.  Any tips?

-Loves to play Hide-and-seek and Chase.

-This was her first time wearing big girl jeans (sniff, sniff)…She’s growing up!!!

-Can climb all the way up our very steep stairs all by herself.  She did this for the first time during her pictures for this blog, and was basically trying anything to escape the photo shoot altogether.  Haha…She temporarily channeled Jordan for this shoot and high tailed her usually camera loving face right out of there!