We're Moved In!

So we are FINALLY moved into our new house! We will be sending out an email privately with our new address and phone number, but here is a link if you want to see a virtual tour of the house. We love it and are so happy to own our own home at last!

In the pictures, you will see 2 red walls in the family room, they are now pale orange. And one of the upstairs bedrooms is 2 tone brown, it's now brown and pink striped on the bottom. The "Princess Room". We left Timothy's tan and dark blue.

We hit a true milestone today. I was cleaning up the kitchen and Timothy wanted to go outside and play in the back yard. I started to say "When I get done", but then realized that they can go out by themselves! It's a completely fenced yard with locked gates on both sides! So they went out and I could watch them from the kitchen window. It was a glorious moment.

We are anxious to show off our new place to any of you that want to come visit, boxes and all at the moment!

Here's the link: http://www.circlepix.com/tour.htm?id=699155&mls_tour=1

Let us know what you think!

Help!

Ok, I am enlisting the help of those of you who read our blog. As you all know, kids say the cutest things and I really want to record those great one liners to show them later. One friend of mine marks those posts as "(name of child)-ism". I'm looking for a clever way like that to use in my blog. I'm relying on your creativity, since I can't come up with anything on my own! Thanks!!

Best of Friends, really!

This picture is from last spring, but it kind of wraps up their relationship. They are usually the best of friends, but also know how to push each others buttons as only siblings can. It started out with Timothy being the one to pick on Kassie until she screamed. For example, Ben tried to teach Timothy about the expression "getting someone's goat", mainly because he was telling him to stop trying to get Kassie's! A little while later Timothy comes back and says "Daddy, I knock over Kassie's goat!" His version has since become a family favorite!

BUT, times have changed and little sister has now learned how to fight back. Her main point of attack? Timothy's love (and need for) order and logic. Here's their conversation on the way to pick up Ben from the bus the other night.

T: It's dark outside.
K: No, it's light.
T: (with immense patience) Kassie, do you see the stars?
K: Yes
T: That means it's DARK.
K: No, it's sun-shiney.
T: Mama, is it dark?
M: Yes.
T: TELL Kassie!
M: Kassie, it's dark.
K: No, it's sun-shiney.

No matter how hard I tried to explain to Timothy that the more he argued with her, the worse it would get, he insisted on trying to set her straight. And of course she'll disagree with him just to be the pesky little sister and he rises to the bait every time. Interestingly, I remember having these same kind of battles with my younger brother and we are really close now. Maybe there's hope for my two after all!

Holders?!

I am constantly reminding Kassie to take smaller bites. Mostly so she won't choke, but also because she makes a huge mess when she takes big bites. So today as she was eating Spaghetti-O's:

K: Watch this big bite, Mama!
M: Wow, what a big bite! Make sure you chew that really well.
K: (around her mouthful of food) Don't worry Mama, I put some in my holders.
M: In your what?
K: My holders, see?

She then proceeds to show me that she has tucked spaghetti-o's into each cheek. Useful and adorable!
Her "holders" were about all you could see of her when we bundled up to go play in the snow!

It really happened!!

Things that I have done before owning a house:
-been married for 8 1/2 years
-had 2 children
-graduated from college
-taught school for 3 years
-moved 6 times in my adult life
-lived with my in-laws....twice....for a total of 10 months
-watched my husband graduate....twice.....with a total of 2 undergrad majors and 1 minor, 1 law degree and an MBA


BUT it is all over now!! We are under contract for our first home and if all goes well will be closing on it on the 25th of February! Yay!!!!

While Dad's Away...

Ben (as has been mentioned) is working A LOT these days. He loves his job, but being the newest guy there, he has to work the longest hours. So most nights he doesn't make it home in time for dinner with us. With his parents being gone this week, it's been just me and the kids.

Now, I love cooking. But when it's just me and 2 pretty picky eaters cooking becomes more of a chore than fun. That was the dilemma that faced me last night. As I was looking through the refrigerator and cupboards, I remembered the bag of left over pancakes sitting in the freezer. And the bacon I just bought....and eggs......"Hey kids! Who wants breakfast for dinner?" Hoorays and excitement all around! I LOVE breakfast food. I would rather go out for breakfast than for dinner. Sadly I married a man with very little use for breakfast. And he told me very early in our marriage that his absolute least favorite meal is breakfast for dinner.

So while we missed him last night, I had 2 very happy children and we all enjoyed our dinner (a rarity these days!). May as well make the most of things you can't change, right?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We didn't manage to get Christmas cards out in time this year, maybe we'll make it for New Year's! Our family has been so blessed this year in so many ways and while I haven't been able to keep with our blog like I've wanted to, I did want to share some of our highlights. Goal for 2009: Clean the pictures off my camera more often and do more posts with pictures of our cute kids!

• Top of the list was Ben's graduation from law school in May. He finished his 4 year program with a law and MBA degree and we are so proud of his accomplishments!
• Sadly, we had little time to enjoy him being done with school because he jumped right into studying for the bar exam. He studied 6 days a week, as well as being the course administrator for the evening class.
• On the bright side, the kids and I took a 3 week trip to MT to let him study. It was our first trip driving to MT alone and the kids were outstanding. We spent a week with each set of grandparents and had a great time. We were all ready to get home and while Ben got a lot of good study time in, we agreed that it was way too long to be apart as a family.
• August saw us leaving our wonderful friends in the married student housing complex that we called home for 4 years and our kids entire lifetimes. We miss the people and community there, although many of our friends also found themselves in new homes this year.
• Ben started working full time at the law firm where he was hired and loves it. He says law school is like a pie eating contest where the winner gets......more pie! There are days he can't believe that he worked that hard in school in order to now work even harder. His firm is small, but growing rapidly and has had their best year ever. But we won't argue with the regular pay check!
  
• September and October were busy with Kassie's 2nd and Timothy's 4th birthdays. Kassie had a Mickey Mouse birthday, while Timothy stretched Mom's cake making abilities by requesting Lightening McQueen (look for pictures in upcoming "catch up" posts). The day after Kassie's birthday, we received the fabulous news that Ben passed the bar!
• In November we headed to MT to see my brother and his family for Thanksgiving. My mom joined us there and we had a great time with all of them. Kassie was completely enthralled with her new cousin, Kenna, and treated her like a baby doll.
  
• And now here we are in December. Ben's sister, Kate, returned home from her mission in Hawaii just in time for Christmas. Poor girl! Snow and ice were a real shock after 18 months in paradise! More posts will be coming on Christmas soon.

We hope 2009 brings many blessings for you and your families, wherever you may be. We have 2 years now before we're back to being tied to a school schedule and we hope to take advantage of it by traveling at off times and see as many of you as possible. We love keeping up with your blogs and hearing all the stories of your families.

All our love,
Ben, Kat and kids