December in Dakota

I will just start by telling you all that december was crazy and intense and between projects and the house and holidays we have been running round like headless chickens for weeks. we are just now starting to get back into a normal routine and we are almost 2 weeks into January. speaking of, its 2017 already? how did that happen? i was just getting used to writing 2016. i have already messed up the date at least 5 times. oops... oh well. anyways... i need to break up december into multiple posts. so sorry you dont get all the juicy details on our life just yet. but they will all be pretty heavy in the picture and video department so dont you even worry.

Lets start with the obvious. WE BOUGHT THE HOUSE!!!!! after all the painful waiting for any information and the slow as a glacier sellers we finally got things figured out and accepted and approved and all the other millions of things that had to happen to buy a house. we have officially signed our names like 20 times and took our awesome record of being in no debt and flushed it down the drain into a mortgage. but we are so happy about it! it is still a little surreal. i can really call our living space a house and our home. its beautiful. even from when we first walked through it i could feel it that this was our house. and im so happy things worked out. we have been actively getting it livable the Deitrick way since getting the keys. first order of business was switching locks out. We got in a week earlier than anticipated. we closed the 9th of Dec and moved everything the 10th. we had tons of help moving things. thanks everyone!!! I got our babysitter and came over to the house early to watch the kids in one of the rooms downstairs. Upstairs I made something special for everyone who helped (cookies and hot chocolate. it was -11 degrees outside. yay north dakota!) as well as i helped direct people once they started bringing things in. mostly i kept thinking how much crap we have! holy cow. how did we ever get so much stuff. also i kept looking at boxes and wondering what was inside them. i know i only packed it a week ago, but i feel like i had all the necessities. oh well we figured it out, and i did indeed find things i forgot about but did need.

we spent the next week or so moving in and setting up and getting to know our new place. because we were in so early i did put up the christmas tree for a little decor, and also because we had no blinds or curtains on our front window so a little something to block the view made me feel better. i love how we have set things up. we have a nice living room upstairs that stays mostly clean. it has the toy box with little toys upstairs to play with, but it can all be thrown in at the end of the day. downstairs we have our big play room with the TV. that room i dont care as much if it gets picked up. sometimes it goes a whole week before i put things away. and thats only because i need to vacuum. trying to clean a whole house by myself now is a lot of work. i need more than just an hour and a half of nap time to complete it all. cant wait till the kids start helping! mostly they just want to play with the vacuum so that i cant actually vacuum. darn...

we bought new appliances for my kitchen on black friday so we had those delivered a week after we moved in. we got a 4 piece kitchen set. big fridge with french doors and a pull our freezer on the bottom. im in love and smile everytime i get something out of it. its a win. a nice flat top stove and stainless steel microwave. Then a new dishwasher thats clean and has all the prongs on the racks! this is a big deal to me because the dishwasher in our townhome was literally falling apart everytime i ran it. as much as i love putting rust all over my plates and such, i wasnt a fan. not to mention i had to keep dwindling what i put in because i didnt have enough spoked to keep everything standing up! i was a little frusterated. not to mention when we got into the house the 30+ year old dishwasher was even worse than the townhome!!!! it was horrid. then a week after we got here i noticed it wasnt draining at all. awesome... so even though we bought all new appliances we were not going to put the dishwasher in till we remodeled the kitchen so we warrantied that sucker and got a little money back.

anyways! to make a long story longer when they came to deliver the appliances they told us they couldnt install the dishwasher (apparently a licensed plumber has to. thanks for the update.) we said we would install the microwave because thats plenty easy and didnt want to pay the 15$ instalation fee. totally not worth it. they took away our old tiny fridge (scuffing the linoleum. thanks guys) and gave us our new big one. but said their truck wasnt big enough so they laid it on its side. so dont turn in on for 12 hrs. then wait 12 hrs for it to get to temperature. so you cant use it for a day but we are taking your current fridge and freezer. (we ended up putting food in coolers outside because it was cold enough if not colder than our freezer haha.) then they went to put in the new stove but for some reason the old plug was not deep enough? justin had to go out and get a new plug to install into the wall and plug it in. we turn the breaker back on and the display doenst light up. the burners work, but the oven doesnt. great... so at the end of the day, 4 new appliances! half of 1 is working. i was a little frustrated and minorly emotional about it. dont judge.

things have worked out since then. now the fridge, range, and dishwasher are all new and working great. we are waiting to install the microwave till we renovate. we have started many other things. the main water shut off valve was severely corroded so we replaced that. it was still dripping water so we tried 3 times to solder it with no luck and we were running out of pipe to cut into! so we bought some push valves. i only severely burned myself once! while trying to unsolder a joint it dripped on me and i will have a nice trophy scar of our first house/big project. its a doozy.

we have since started and almost completed moving the laundry room downstairs. we have just a few more wires to run and clean up then it is ready for appliances! its okay using the ones that came with the house, but they are tiny and front loading which i hate. i want my washer back... i feel it cleans better. but we are close!

with the cold weather we are trying to endure. we had a major snow storm after thanksgiving. then some big wind with a smaller storm (still making it blizzard white out conditions) a few days later. we had another storm over christmas with 12-18 inches. then another 6 inches a day or 2 after we got back, and we are projected another storm coming monday. as if we dont have enough snow. literally mountains of it everywhere. and in the evenings you see bulldozers everywhere trying to shove snow places where people wont drive. i feel like we finally get a little control then another dump hits. well this is a bad winter like they have been predicting since we moved here 2 years ago. it has killed the batteries in both our cars. i tried to go to the store the other day only to have both cars not start. the van needs a new battery. but the truck is having some electrical issues like it did in the fall. we are still working on figuring it out. with the van we jumped it and let it run for a while. then i drove it around for half an hour then stopped at walmart (for 5 min or less) got in my car and it still wouldnt start.... i had to flag someone down to borrow their engine so i could jump my car real fast. in case you were wondering. it is customary in ND to leave your car running while you are in the store so that it will start and you can still get home. i did not know this... this morning we went shopping and we left it running. (we brought the spare key to lock it of course) but that thought never crossed my mind. oh the joys of living up north. anyways! i think thats most of it on house stuff. definitely have to do a separate post for christmas and rylies birthday. but enjoy! we will keep you updated on how the renovations go.

cute little bath time. last time in the townhome. 

day we bought the house, we brought a small load over and ate pizza on the floor. loved it. 

draining all our bottled water! now we can get some better jugs to save in. 

one of the first rounds of stuff in the house. mostly its our little dining area (WITH A HARD SURFACE FLOOR!!! NO MORE CRUMB AND CRAP IN THE CARPET) and the kitchen overlooking the backyard we cant play in because the snow is as high as my toddlers. 

first morning in the house

my smiley boy!

yay christmas in our front room!

first demo project, taking all the shelving out of the will be new laundry room

ir was very satisfying to break it apart. 

our big downstairs room. i can literally shove all the toys in the closets and it looks clean. i love it. 

deciding where all the plumbing, piping, wiring, and venting will go before we dive into changing everything. 

dad had to remove the pantry and move the water line for the fridge before they new fridge came in. 

attempt number 2 at fixing the water valve?

soldering some joints before putting them in line. real safe i know. holding crazy hot copper pipe and trying to take a pic. 

these ones made me nervous. the old owner made compression attachments that were awful and sketchy so we basically replaced them. but a blow torch in a small cramped area that is highly flammable made me nervous. justin did great though. and his solder joints look way better. 

doesnt that look pretty? this is my burn bubbled up the next day. now it is all red and scary and scabbed over. but healing!

look at how much my family has changed in the last few years. love it. 

relaxing after a long day

justin showing his parents something. mostly i just think its funny that he is up on the counter but still too tall so crouching. 

curtains and blinds! a little bit of privacy!

one of rykers fine pictures

this was one stop when we were driving home from christmas. everyone out of their seats enjoying some wiggle time. rex pretending he is big enough for rykers seat. 

came home to a snow filled drive way. we ended up borrowing a snowblower and clearing it that night after kids went to bed. mostly because we were getting the new (fixed) oven the next day at like 8 am! not a relaxing evening after a long drive that we were expecting. 

shoveling a walkway to get me and the kids inside then he took loads in just to get it out of the car. 

plowing at like 11 at night. so much snow!

rylie rocking her princess dress and fireman boots. 

this archway in the basement. i hate it. it served no purpose. so we tore it out! because its our house and we can do whatever we want! while tearing it out we found out if really was once a door. surprise!

taking the doorway apart. 

so much more room!

she sat here lifting up her legs like this for like 10 min. it was hilarious. 

we like movies... can you tell? (finally unpacking them)

starting drainage for laundry sink and bathroom sink on the other side. 

copper tubing is all in and no leaks!

more plumbing in the bathroom

rylies 2 year apt. she is 87% for height and 50% for weight. happy healthy lean tall girl! we love her

i know its a terrible pic, but mostly im focusing on the curtain. its for right next to our door. we bought the fabric and i sewed it to fit. im so happy with the color and how it turned out!

for christmas grandma reed gave her some bows and she loves them! wants them part of her outfit everyday. which is making me try harder and she is much more stylish. im thrilled she will let me put stuff in her hair finally. and keep it there

the box for the dishwasher. they loved to play in it. perfect size to ship off to grandparents! haha

my new dishwasher!!!! it actually cleans without giving my family tetanus!

wearing dads hat

sure love her

officially homeowners!!!!

here is what the house looks like not covered in snow. pretty cute right? i love it!

rex at his 4 month apt. they said he was 96% i think? though they didnt specify for height or weight so i dont know what that means. but he is 19 lbs 5 oz in this pic. big boy!

but so happy!

the quick happy birhtday to fallyn on her mission!

playing on our stairs. she and ryker did this in the cabin we went to for christmas and they thought it was the funniest thing. 

a new fave book we got for christmas. its the pout pout fish! its actually adorable and they love to read it every night. 

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