Jayme's Shower

For those of you who don't know, my little sister Jayme is getting married!! We had a bridal shower for her last week, and it turned out AMAZING! I helped a little with the invitations but all of the credit goes to Tammy Hogge for the incredible way it turned out! We had it at Kim Lowry's house, and when I walked in the day of it was completely transformed. Jayme's fiance Cody is a farm boy from Idaho so naturally we played up the theme, The Farmer Takes A Wife. She spend so much time on it and it really paid off. Here are the results:

Tammy's husband matt painted the barn-- it took up her entire wall!

Woman of the day- Tammy! She didn't want me to take a picture and I'm sure she'll kill me for posting this one, but here it is. Love you Tam! :)

More helpers- Allie and Linda Shriver

Lemonade in real cups...or jars

She brought in a hay bale and saddle and everything

So many little details!

Tons of amazing "down home" food

The cupcakes to take home after looked like sun flowers and even had M&Ms painted to look like ladybugs!

Thanks to all who came it was way fun, and CONGRATS JAYME!!!

Mini Tour

We have moved into our new place! It's nice not to commute into town anymore, or be between 2 houses. We're not all the way moved in, but we're working on that a little at a time. We've been slowly collecting furniture and things from people we know (thank you!!!) and garage sales to fill the unfurnished home we are renting. So for right now I'll show just pictures of the upstairs, where we live and where its organized :).
Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a big living room, and downstairs is a big open area that reminds me of a studio apartment, with laundry and a bathroom. It's definitely an older home but I'm not complaining because of all the space we have.

Don't you just love all the red carpet? Kidding....

Recognize the couch, Grandpa and Grandma?!

So thats the living area, with Ethan eating breakfast in the background.

Chase- 3.5 months and happy as can be! He's such a smiling kid, and laughs every time his big brother comes around.

Intently eating cereal

Sorry I got distracted by some cute kids in the middle of the tour... to continue:
Here's the kitchen, very old stove (all the printing on the dials are worn off so you can't read the temperatures) but the fridge and dishwasher are new.

The deck out back-- and we got a grill for free on Craigslist just because the push igniter doesn't work!

A crib we got a smoking deal for at a garage sale, and Mom Rindy bought the bedding-- thanks you guys!!
Close-up of the quilt.

Which way is up?

So it is kind of creepy, but sometimes when Chase is sleeping I can't tell if he is on his front or his back! So, in these pictures, is he laying on his stomach or on his back?

Smelling Party

While Eric was at work today Ethan and I decided to have a smelling party :) My aunt Jenn sells Scentsy Products ( www.scentsy.com/jennstastny) and I am thinking about maybe selling it as well, so she dropped off all her samples the other day. I wasn't sure he entirely understood the concept of smelling things, so I wanted to test it out. At first he would put them up to his mouth, and when it told him he had to use his nose he stuck it all the way in. After a while though, he got the hang of it and when I would hold one up to him he would take a deep breath and then say "Mmmm!".

So far my favorite scents:
Grapefruit Blossom
Autumn Sunset
Coconut Citrus Parfait
Pomegranite Orange (Apparently I'm a big citrus fan)
Camu Camu

Least favorite:
Falling Leaves
Clean Breeze- smells like very strong laundry detergent
Simply Irresistible- Not so irresistable...
Wasabi Ginger- Seriously? Smells good in food, but as a candle?

Meanwhile Chase sleeps on peacefully....


In other good news we found a place to live! We are renting a house from an LDS family on upper O'Malley in Anchorage, and it happens to be available August 1st, the day our house-sitting is up! It's a lot closer to our families and it cuts Eric's commute down from 50 minutes to 12. Yay!

Back in Business

So we're here, settled, and now we have internet! Hopefully I can get back to a more regular blog posting schedule. Things in Alaska are great, if a little cold. It's been rainy this week, but I hear it's nothing compared to what Rexburg is like!
Well Eric is still training at his job at the hospital so he's working during the days for about another 3 weeks before he changes to the night shift. I'm not looking forward to that. He's loving his work though, and gaining a lot of good experience in the medical field. He works as an Anesthesia Technician in the O.R., so he gets to see lots of surgeries everyday. He says it gives him a better idea of what he does and does NOT want to do as a doctor.
We are still house-sitting in Wasilla for another month and a half while we are looking for a place to house-sit or rent in Anchorage. Eric hasn't minded the commute, it's a really pretty drive.

The boys have transitioned pretty well, it's nice to be settled into a place for a little while. It makes me really excited for the day when we have a house of our own!
Chase is still growing, he's 13 lb 7 oz now! I know I write about his weight a lot, but the kid has almost doubled his weight in 2 months, its crazy! He is so much fun though and has started smiling a lot more and reacting to what's going on around him. He still sleeps a lot too, which is nice for us, and he sleeps for a good 7-8 hour chunk at night, which is nice!
Ethan is a two year old, with him the louder the better. He thinks its hilarious when things bang or make loud noises, and has this hysterical laugh which is contagious. He's been really bad about sleeping because we've been traveling so much, or even spending days in Anchorage- when I need the car I have to drive Eric into work at 5:30- so it's thrown him off a little and he doesn't take naps as easy. Yesterday he wouldn't go to sleep even though he was so tired, I let him cry in his crib for an hour before I went and got him. Any suggestions?

Well I still haven't been good about taking lots of pictures but here are a few:
Eric's brother Jason brought the 4-wheeler up to our house, and Ethan had a blast riding it! He kept calling it a truck and didn't want to get off :)


We told him to smile in both pictures, and of course we got the cheesy grin. Oh and we lost his glasses for a little while, but we've since found them.

A few days ago Ethan woke up from his nap after only 20 minutes and wouldn't go back to sleep so I laid him on the couch. He fell asleep there, then woke up after another half hour, sat up, and then fell back asleep in this funny pose. Looks comfortable, right?


Chase smiling at Ethan- he loves to watch his brother!

Chase's smiles, caught on camera!

Such a happy kid :)

Still here :)

Ok we are still here, we are in Wasilla and are getting settled into the house we are house-sitting at for 2 months-- but don't have internet at for another 2 weeks. So I'll update again then when I do have it. Our camera was packed during the move anyway so no pictures to post, I'll have to get it out and start snapping some so I can post them when the internet is up and running. Come back next week and this'll be a little more interesting :)

We made it!!

We are finally all here, safe and sound, in Anchorage. Eric left Friday evening and got here Monday afternoon driving, and even with a wrong turn made it in pretty good time. The kids (its still weird that that is plural) and I flew up yesterday and had a pretty uneventful flight, thank goodness. I think the hardest part was getting through security initially, I had Chase in the carseat which was sitting in the stroller, and not only did I have to take Ethan and my shoes off, I had to take Chase out of both stroller and seat, fold them up and put them on the conveyer belt while trying to make sure Ethan didn't run away or push the stroller into anyone. Then I got to repeat that wonderful process in reverse after going through. Then they took Ethan's sippy cups and had to screen them to make sure I wasn't bringing liquid explosives on the plane. Luckily the guy behind me saw my distress at all the juggling and helped me lift the stroller on and off the conveyer which helped considerably. But after we made it through that experience, Ethan was content to push a sleeping Chase around the airport in his stroller, and we also found a play area in both airports for him to get some energy out. On the first flight to Seattle he actually fell asleep (which is surprising because he usually only falls asleep if he's in his bed) and slept for the majority of it, and on the second flight to Anchorage I kept putting DVDs in the travel DVD player (thanks again Amy and Steve!!) and feeding him fruit snacks and other munchies. Chase just slept pretty much the whole time and was amazing, it was great! I even got to watch most of the in-flight movie! I had been so worried to fly alone with 2 kids, but it went really well and I'm so happy to be here and done moving/traveling!