Goodbye Walker, Hello Walker

As a memory of sorts, here's a picture tour of our first house.

Our first house: on Walker Way, Maricopa, AZ

April 2010-July 2013

Family Room

Kitchen/Dining

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Loft

 Carrie's Room

Kids Bathroom

Brigette's Room

 Laundry Room (upstairs!)

 Master Bathroom

Master Bathroom

Guest Bedroom/Sewing Room

Downstairs Bathroom

Living Room

 Living Room view from upstairs

Backyard

Backyard

As for what we've been up to since we moved... Lots of work unpacking, and lots of fun with the girls as usual!

Carrie and I got to go play with our friends at the Sea Life Aquarium and then play on the carousel afterwards!

The girls are loving having the big park so close to home!

Brigette is especially enjoying the swings!

And her latest trick... WALKING!!! Pretty much when we moved out of our house on Walker Way, she decided to start walking! Go figure! ;) She's stinking adorable at it of course! Especially since she's so tiny!

Of course, I swear I had more pictures of her standing and walking around on her own, but it turns out most of them are videos (duh), and those take FOREVER to load on here so I'm not going to post one. Maybe another day :)

Start Where You Are

There was a Conference talk this last April that mentioned "starting where you are". I think it was Elder Uchtdorf... Anyways, the point being that rather than continuing to worry about the past, just start where you are, and go forward.

So I'm starting where I am. Particularly, with regards to blogging. It's been a semi-lame thing to worry over, but I've loved this blog for so many years and done a pretty gosh-darn good job keeping it up. Both for family far away to read, and for a family journal. So as I got behind toward the end of last year, I felt almost guilty for it. Somehow, I could never find the time to catch up, so I just wouldn't blog at all. And then I'd be even MORE behind... And so on and so on, since last October...

So where am I?

Life is good. Since November, I've participated in three weight loss competitions among friends and lost 25 pounds. Up until a couple months ago, I was working out daily, and feeling in fantastic shape. Summer brought some laziness, but overall, I'm still doing great. I love staying home with my girlies.

Justin is awesome. I love him so much. He starts a new career in a couple of weeks doing insurance sales and I hope and pray that he'll succeed even above and beyond his goals. He takes such good care of our little family. I'm not excited for the long hours he'll be pulling, but hopefully soon we can sneak a date night in our schedules.

Carrie is 4 1/2 and will be starting Pre-K in a couple weeks. She has the biggest vocabulary I've ever seen in a four year old, and she LOVES being a little mommy to her sister. She loves to play and sing and use her imagination. She is very independent and is just plain growing up too fast!

Brigette just turned one, has two cute little teeth, and is starting to wobble-walk a bit. She's a momma's girl through and through, and 99.99% of the time, I absolutely love it! She has so much spunk and knows what she wants, when she wants it. ;) Her sweet little spirit brings so much happiness to our home.

Speaking of our home, we just sold our first house in Maricopa. For now (not quite sure exactly how long), we've moved in with my parents in Mesa. Justin and I cut our closet space in half, the girls are sharing a room for the first time, and the four of us are sharing a bathroom... But we have a roof over our heads. And we're so grateful.

Our families have been so loving and supportive as we've gone through, and continue to go through quite a decision-making roller coaster. We feel like Heavenly Father has sure been testing our willingness to be obedient. It's been rough, but I hope we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. We've put a lot of thought, prayer, fasting, and trust in Heavenly Father lately and I know it will pay off eventually.

So, where am I?... I'm right here. And I'm good.

Her Favorite Letter

Every week in preschool, Carrie's class focuses on a different letter. Last week was B, this week was C. Take a look at her in-class worksheet and tell me if you can see which is her favorite letter? ;)

The B worksheet she just scribbled all over and didn't trace the letters. The C worksheet is nicely colored and each C is traced perfectly. She LOVES the letter C, because it's "just for her". If you look closely, you can even see that she wrote the rest of her name above the big C she traced in the middle of the page. I love to see the new things she is learning in preschool! And I love practicing with her at home!

Once we got all ready this morning, I made a comment on how cute we all were, so of course Carrie said, "I'll go get the camera!"

Don't you love how even when she's this close, Carrie still wants to hold Brigee's hand?

I know these next three pictures look almost identical, but there are little differences in the faces she's making, and I love them all so much I couldn't decide which one(s) to cut out! So you get them all!! Plus, her hair is in a perfect little wave today. It's too cute!

Mommy's Little Helpers

First a little update on my sewing room disaster. It's still a disaster... I'm very slowly starting to get it all organized so I can put it back. It's amazing how much stuff can fit in that one tiny bedroom! And this doesn't include the queen sized bed and the 6'x2' sewing table! It's really making my home feel stressful. :(

 Luckily, I have some amazing super-helpers. Carrie's newest job around the house is to unload the silverware while I do the rest of the dishwasher. (And uggh, do you see all the junk on the counters? It's driving me nuts, but I feel like I can't ever catch up!)

She's still working on separating big forks from little forks, but most of the time she gets it right :)

She's very happy to help and she's very proud of herself (don't mind her orphan ponytail)

Sometimes it's a long job though and you just have to take a break to play the drums with some spoons on an upside down bowl ;)

Brigette's super-helper job tonight was holding my grocery list while we shopped. Thanks sweetie :)

And though I don't have a picture, Justin is a super-helper too, as usual. He does his own job every day and then comes home and helps me do mine. What a great catch!

Naps Make Everything Better

We played at the park with friends this morning for a very long time. Carrie had a blast climbing slides with Jake.

 So proud they made it to the top!

Carrie decided she wanted to try sliding down the ramp/stairs. I'm pretty sure it was not very comfortable ;)

She was playing happily the whole time we were there, but when it was time to go... All heck broke loose. Carrie did NOT want to leave. And she showed me by throwing a fit and running from me when I tried to go get her off the playground... I had even given her a 5 minute and 1 minute warnings that we would be leaving... It didn't matter. These kinds of things are becoming more frequent and are driving me nuts! I don't know how to get her to listen... The woe of every parent right?...

By the time we finally got to the van and she was still whining and fighting me, I quickly decided today would be a nap day. NO choice... And look at the amazing result of both girls taking a long afternoon nap: HAPPINESS!!

Luckily, these cute faces remind me that they're still so little and I can be more patient as I try to teach and help them grow and learn. :)

It's Workout Season!

My mom is in town helping Marissa with her new baby and we're enjoying having her around. On Sunday night, Carrie slept over at Marissa's house with my mom in the guest room. It was a fun little adventure. :)

Then Tuesday we went chicken crazy and made several freezer meals for each of us. It makes me hungry just remembering all the yummy, healthy recipes :)

Lately I've been starting to do my Jillian Michaels' workout DVD again. All I can say is WHEW!! It's hard stuff! What's hit me the most so far is how sore my abs are. I sneeze, and I groan in pain... It's that awesome. Hopefully I keep it up, so I can slim it down!

And speaking of working out, Justin started doing college basketball scrimmages last weekend! Let basketball reffing season begin! I sometimes feel like a single parent in the winter since he's so busy with games, but I have to remind myself it's worth it. It's something Justin loves to do and especially as he continues to move up, he loves it more, and he's making more money (always a plus)! I'm pretty sure it's still a goal of his to get to Division One someday.

Although as of late, he has a new dream. Becoming an immigration lawyer... We have a friend who does this and any time he posts something about his job, Justin feels even more like that's something he'd like to do. We've talked a little about it int he past, but never really did anything about it. This time, we're doing something. Justin is registered to take the LSAT in a couple months. I'm a little nervous, mostly because it's a big change and commitment, but I'm also excited because Justin is excited.

We'll have to wait and see what his LSAT scores look like and where he can get accepted to Law School, but it looks like we'll possibly be starting some new adventures around here in the near future!

Girls and Guys Night Out & Conference

Happy Conference weekend! As usual, during the Saturday Priesthood session, the girls in our family all go out together. This time, we got to go get Brigette's ears pierced too! I can't believe I had the self-restraint to wait until girls night! She was old enough to have gotten them done over 2 weeks ago!

Carrie enjoyed wandering Claire's playing with Halloween things

 All the girls just waiting while the tech got things ready

Happy happy girlie! She'll be crying in a minute, but it'll be over quick and she'll look DANG cute! (Though it's hard to imagine her looking any cuter than she does in this pic!)

Brigette's staring down the ear-piercing girl

Drawing the dots

DONE! And mommy had a bottle ready to go!

Her ears are so teeny! And now they're sparkly too! ;)

And one last picture of Carrie being goofy with Halloween hats

You saw the picture of me giving Brigette a bottle right afterward... She did NOT want it. So sadly, she cried longer than any baby we've ever taken to get their ears pierced. She kept going for several minutes until I found a lounge area in the middle of the mall where I could sit, cover-up, and nurse her. After a few minutes of snacking, she was all smiles. Cute little stinker ;)

We spent Conference Sunday playing with cousins. Here's Charlie and Brigette (10 weeks apart). 

Anytime we all gather, my parents house ends up looking like a parking lot! (And we're actually still missing a couple cars from this picture). Good thing they live at the end of a cul-de-sac so we all have room to park!

This afternoon I gave Brigette a little tummy time and basically for the first time, she didn't scream and bury her face in the ground! She actually held her head up for a minute! 

She's growing up so fast!

And as always, Conference was amazing! Especially the new announcement about missionaries! Girls can serve at age 19 and boys at age 18 (as long as they've graduated high school). That means my youngest brother Jake can leave about 6 months sooner than he thought! He's been waiting his whole life to go on his mission and he's so excited to get started! It's crazy to imagine that he could be leaving as soon as 8 months from now!!