Late Winters Greeting

so, this has been an unusually warm fall. I say warm, i mean its been 50s and even 60s sometimes. but that quickly ended. just as we were leaving for colorado for thanksgiving it was getting cold. 40s mostly with a few low 50s. we were rushing back to beat the storm coming home and beat it by meer hours. and it was a doozy. all day monday and tues it snowed. we got like 14 inches and its north dakota so the wind made some crazy drifts. but we made it through! it was light (but not warm) the rest of the week. mostly. now we are in the middle of another blizzard. but this one is more wind than snow. Justin worked from home because there were big enough drifts in front of his work truck there was no way he was getting out. but he did go out to help some poor truck who had plowed head strong into a drift coming up our street. good deed for the day! the kids and i have hunkered down to stay warm here in the house. glad i just bought a new space heater for rexs room.

in big news, we bought our first house!!!! i guess i cant even really say that yet, but we close on friday, so its so soon. the appraisal came back and no hiccups there. so we are ready to go! with it being so soon we have been packing like crazy yet trying to live in our current townhome. its more difficult than i thought. i want to pack it all room by room, but we stil use most of it! weird its like its our stuff or something. we are leaving the kids toys for last because i dont want to deal with that headache and tantrum. but everything else is going smoothly! i just packed everything off the walls and it somehow makes this place seem even colder. probably just a mental thing.

all 3 kids came down with a cold this week. perfect timing right? we move in 3 days and i have 3 sick kids who need all my attention and snuggles. sunday night rex woke up every half hour. all. night. long! i was much more understanding because i knew he was sick. but it was still rough. the whole next day i was awake purely on prayers and Gods pity that we had to go through that. the next night he did much better. still congested, but better. poor rylie had the bad night. she has been the most drippy from the nose region. she always has bad colds. but what makes it worse is she cant have her pacifier to comfort herself because then she cant breath! great time to ween her off of it? you would think, but its a comfort. and when your sick your not into trying new things... ugh. it is a struggle but we are working with it.

this last month was great. most of it was getting excited for thanksgiving. we were able to spend the whole week in colorado. the kids all did great going. we only stopped twice for gas and potty breaks. rex did great eating. i would pump then give it to him directly afterwords from a bottle. he did fine. on the way back he wasnt as okay with it. but we still made it back okay. he cried a little more, and we stopped 3 times. but we worked with it. still made good time. great for his first trip. i think we were just all vacationed out at that point.

the week was fun! filled with lots of food prep and family fun. we did another escape room. it was egyptian themed. unfortunately we "suffocated" due to lack of oxygen. we were trying to hard to open a box that apparently didnt need to be opened. but in our defense. we actually found the key to unlock the last door in the first room in the first 20 min and just didnt know it. it had not been put back in the treasure chest so we could have gotten out! but didnt know what it was for and forgot about it as we went through the other 2 rooms full of obstacles. we would have been super confused had we opened the treasure chest and the key wasnt inside. so either way we were destined to lose.... clearly we need to try again. ;) we always love those games.

justin and i went on a date to see fanastic beasts and where to find them. loved it. close enough to be in the harry potter world to let me geek out a little bit. little bit of romance, some magic and a few surprises. all in all it was really good. i liked it.

wed i made all my goodies. i made a pecan pie german chocolate bar to keep at home to eat. it was gone by sat morning. then i made 2 pecan pies. my favorite. there was a big family discussion on whether to put wheat in the homemade crusts my mom was making for it. long story short... there was wheat in the crust. but it ended up being just fine. still very delicious. I also made some apple cobbler for my family and it was devoured. i like making desserts. can you tell? haha

thanksgiving was fun! pretty mellow in the morning. we tried to get ryker and rylie to take a nap early. didnt really work but we tried. dinner around 3 ish. and then some fun talking and playing. poor ryker asked around 6 to go home and go to bed. he was so tired he just wanted to sleep. we endured through the pie eating contest. (the promise of pie perked him right up.) then went home. it was great. we got in  a lot of good games with the fam. mom and dad taught justin and i how to play bridge. it was interesting and i kinda sorta get it. but mostly still hate being the winning bid. im never super confident. haha. as part of justin and mines christmas my mom got us (and ethan and dad) a spot to go to a virtual shooting range. it was fun! had some good scenarios. with not worrying about bullets my trigger finger was a little sore after haha.

it was a great trip and we all had fun. now we are all ready for christmas! or trying to be. it makes me sad that i am not decorating because im packing. but i will decorate as i unpack in the new house! and i will make justin out up our tree. its out first christmas in out house! it is happening.

next time i will show pics of the new house!

rylie reading to rex while we wait for ryker to be done on the potty before bed

faces with dad. 

justin figuring out our makeshift 8th seat so all the kids could be in the front 

trying it out. i htink ryker missed being up front

so glad to finally be at grandmas house in front of the warm fire!

this is a weird blue monkey thing that auntie fae had in her room from high school. rylie found it and fell in love. maybe it was because it had some of fallyns essence. she dragged this thing all around the house all week. 

grandad bonding with rex

our first official logo! we want to put this on all the things we make. now we have it figured out!

preview to our christmas card. good lookin family on a summer day it seems. it was like 80 in colorado. what the heck!?!?! where is winter

playing at the park

rylie looks so sweet looking at justin. 

she has started this thing where she wants to carry all her toys and all she wants all at once. sometimes its hilarious to watch. in this photo she has 2 stuffed animals, her baby doll, a waterbottle, a tennisball, and she wanted the blanket. all while she is wearing 2 coats. ambitious. haha

family knockout. tradition!

ryker really wanted to be involved. grandad and dad helped. but he kept throwing it down like a slam dunk which they couldnt get him high enough for. so he never actually made a basket, but he did swish the net a lot! thanks for the help guys!

how the pie eating contest started. spoon for ryker, finger for rylie

rylie licking and ryker finally using his hands

rylie is getting better! 

notice my kids are the only ones with their clothes still on. haha my modest kiddos... they just dont like to be naked. from everyone else i hear thats not usally the problem with kids. 

finally! rylie went all in. and ryker getting the theme of the contest. haha. 

justin and i were corralling kids into the car to go home so we didnt participate, but i was in the gym while they did! go carlee/alicia/brandon!

go go go!

carlee rocks it. i dont know if she won or not but she was close

the happy couple with some great facial pudding. carlee looks annoyed, sorry carlee. i caught her just before she smiled. oops...

rylie holding 2 animals and a baby for bed. i was trying to keep her happy and let me brush her teeth

ethan learning car stuff. he changed his oil, checked his breaks. and maybe a few other things. but he is learning how to take care of his car. haha

rex enjoying grandmas swing

fun drive home. rylie finally got a little sleep

we are starting oatmeal! hasnt helped with sleep yet, but im hopeful

these are some outtakes from our christmas card photo shoot. getting 3 kids to smile and look at the camera is so impossible! it was insane trying to make it work

rylie wanted to help get rex to smile. bahahha. i still laugh so hard looking at this. 

joy school - G is for grinch

happy boy!

4 generation photo with rex. he even is smiling a little. haha

more traveling. i think they were watching our new movie finding dory for the road trip. 

happy thanksgiving aunt dani! gobble gobble!

raspberries for rex while we get ready for bath time!

ryker found this more interesting than reading our scriptures. so hard keeping a straight face

i also found out that rex is ticklish. let the fun begin!

we found some just dance videos on youtube and the kids love them! this is a favorite

he has turned into such a chatty cathy! i love it. 

when auntie beez came to visit a few months ago, she taught them to get excited for pizza and cookies (we were going to make them later) and now they say this almost everytime we get in the car in the evening. its hilarious. thanks auntie beez

the big Five Oh

not that that really means much. but according to my account this is my 50th blog. hurray! i have mostly been consistent! I think that should be cause for celebration. i will go make myself a mug cake when I am done writing this. If kids dont wake up first.

Well October was fun. not too crazy. aunt carlee came to visit for a weekend. it was fun to have her and we had a blast hanging out, dancing, and doing some halloweeny things. then of course halloween at the end of the month was always fun. just like every year, we didnt get any trick or treaters. but i learned. this time i bought good chocolate candy (just in case) but now it wont sit around forever. in fact i am sure that its all gone now. we dont have a problem eating that.... oops.

Shortly after justins parents left we got the news that his grandpa on his mothers side passed away. not unexpected, but still sad. justin was asked to be a pallbearer, so he and ryker road tripped to canada for the weekend to go. they had a great trip and it was a mellow weekend for us at home as well.

Rex is doing great. once carlee left we switched him to go to bed about 7 like the other kids. but now i dint get to sleep till 4. he is still pretty irregular but mostly gets up between midnight at 2, and then again around 4 or 5. so not awful. but hes okay. this last week though i think he was hitting a growth spurt because for 2 days he wanted to eat every hour and a half and wouldnt sleep longer than 15 min unless i was holding him. then the 3rd day he at least went back to eating normally. my poor body and milk supply was all haywire. it was crazy. not to mention i had little sleep so i was extra cranky and had a very short fuse. sorry ryker and rylie.... one morning i sat in the rocking chair while rex screamed in my arms. rylie was up with me and i just cried. rylie looked at me with the biggest puppy dog eyes as if asking if i was okay. it was sweet. but definitely a rough day. most of the time i only cry to myself. haha. but even that is waning.

anyways, rex! he is growing so fast. he is so big. he has 4 rolls on each thigh and i feel like his skin cant stretch anymore to fit all the beautiful boy inside. but he is such a sweetie. i sure love his smiles and he giggles every once in a while. post nap right after he eats or first thing in the morning he is all smiles and i love those times of day. im pretty sure he is close to 16 lbs. we will find out again in Dec how big he is. but my unofficial scale says he is definitely growing!

Rylie is doing okay. she has had a cold the last 2 weeks. first with a bad cough and now just the runny nose. she has been a little moody and loves to cuddle. i try as much as i can, but sometimes i need to be feeding rex or making dinner. i hate when she cries. its just so sad. we are working on sharing. rylie has started to scream when someone (namely ryker) tries to take things from her. now i understand why my dad is so sensitive to it. that gets old real fast. and we are trying to teach her its not okay to throw things when we are upset. oh the boundary phase. welcome rylie. she is starting to push all our buttons to the very limit. but she will get through it. ryker is doing much better, though he still pushes many buttons too. sometimes when rylie is particularly clingy, i will have just finished feeding rex and she climbs on my lap and tries to pull up my shirt. sorry love. this is all for rex now. you had your turn. she loses interest pretty quickly.

ryker is doing awesome. he is getting so big. the other week we discovered that he is big enough to reach the water fountains at church. when did that happen? so crazy! i have started to do a joyschool with some ladies in my ward who have kids of similar ages. its super fun. its mostly fun with a little lesson on one of the letters of the alphabet, a small craft and a snack. its been super fun and im glad he is being exposed. we are learning a lot. he does okay sharing with other peoples toys. but when we had it at our house he was not as good at sharing his own toys. but we are working on it. and it takes some practice.

justin and i are doing well. i cant remember if i said before, but justin got a new calling to be the ward executive secretary. he is so ecstatic to be out of primary. i know they miss him because he was so consistent, but he had been in their a while. so that brings a few more meetings, and i get to get the kids ready and to church by myself. its not awful, but definitely a handful.

we decided we are buying a house! we went and saw some, found one we loved and put in an offer. after a little back and forth and little to no negotiating from the sellers end we settled and agreed! yahoo!!! now the only problem is there are some things we want to bring up after the inspection. so hopefully they are willing to work with us a little more and be more flexible on price once we get them that info... heres hoping! we want the house so bad. its so cute, in the ward, has all of our must haves, right behind a great school! we are hoping and praying that we can get it. we feel really good about it.

its confusing to feel like its what we are supposed to be doing/where we are supposed to be yet have the sellers fight us so hard on everything. we are trying to make it a good deal for them too, but they just dont want to help us at all! but we are trying to do as much as we can! if its not meant to be then okay. but that brings a whole mess of other feelings. we felt like we were supposed to find a new job, but we couldnt even get interviews anywhere. we felt like we are supposed to move on and get a house, but why would it not go through. i dont know what to do if that is the case... so for now i will just be hopeful that we can still get it! have faith right?

road tripping with dad!

cuddles with carlee

ya reading time!

cute little chubby boy!

kisses from big sis

i think i have this same pic of all my kids in this towel. 

i think they were on their way home in this pic. 

love that smile

ryker and rylie made cows for joy school

rylie loves visitors and loves to make new cuddle buddies

painting pumpkins!

all our pumpkins. they look awesome!

this is a great pic of the pirate ship

at a ward conference I was able to run into my cousin McKay on her mission! So great. 

happy fall! we can finally wear this dress haha

we made spiders saying eeek! for the letter E and a few days before halloween. its super cute

looking smart

some pics from the graveside

happy halloween!

if you look closely you can see rylies hair sticking straight up because of all the balloons. so funny. also next door was the dancing room. i could hardly get her to leave. she loved it in there. spent the whole activity dancing. 

justin went as clark kent and i went as lois lane. simple, but great. he is my superman! (cheesy but adorable. dont judge me)

sometimes they do cuddle together

happy baby during bath time

these kids love to play and splash too. gotta get a few good baby bum pics for the future. 

its hard to see because i used too much powdered sugar, but i made a pumpkin roll with a spider web ont the back. it looked really cool! i ate all of that too.... with the candy. darn these holidays!

LOOK AT THIS CUTE FACE!!! im dying this is the cutest picture i have taken of him. i love it so much. its just perfect. 

chillin on rykers lap while he plays a game. at least he didnt shove him off. 

rylie likes to be under the play gym with him. they were laughing together for like 15 min. 

more at the graveside. sorry ryker you look a little sleep deprived

pretty flowers from all the deitrick kids. justin was the only one able to go, but this was sent from everyone. 

our fish for "F" day. the crafts really are super cute. 

rylie practicing her abc's

dancing with aunt carlee

ryker was singing one night and i caught him on the monitor. should be sleeping, but funny