Ohio

Well we have been here for a month now. Steve's work paid for our first month at the Residence Inn and then we were on our own on finding a place. Our last day was on Easter so we had to move to the Comfort Inn (a much more affordable place) until we close on our house. We have about 3 weeks. I really miss the 2 bedrooms and kitchen/living area. We have been here 1 night in our studio type of hotel room and it is hard.

Well for Easter we did it small this year, knowing we would have to be packed up and out of our hotel that same morning, there wasn't a lot of time. We knew we would have no fridge for a few hours, since check out time and check in time leave a gap (so hard with kids and nap time and EVERYTHING was closed for Easter Sunday) . We decided to decorate the plastic eggs so we wouldn't have to deal with eggs going bad. We got a whole bunch of stickers and stuck them on the plastic eggs. Then we left them out and the Easter Bunny came and filled them with candy/toys and hid them around our hotel room. I would show you pictures, but we took them on Steve's phone and he is at work. We also got the kids pictures taken in their Easter outfits, but I haven't gotten them out of the car yet. So... look for them soon.

Here is a picture of our new house that we should (hopefully) close on in a few weeks. There have been way more problems closing then we have anticipated. Most of them coming from still owning our home in Arizona, but we think everything is figured out now.

Well Paige is just bouncing off the walls these days. She loves to climb and get on top of everything. She can get up on our couch at the hotel and has discovered the pleasure of indoor playgrounds. She will climb all through the tunnels and go down the slides. Parker will help her if she gets lost and can't figure out how to get down.

She also loves to go to time out with Parker, which is funny because Parker is usually in time out because he was being mean to Paige. Don't you just love Parker's face!

Parker has had a hard time not going to preschool these days. He has more spare time and he has discovered the love for photography. I will find him with my phone all the time taking pictures of us, his toys, and furniture. Here are some of his pictures he took.

Oh and have I mentioned how much it rains here! It is crazy. They say it is their rainy season and I believe it. I think we have gotten 12 inches in the past month. April showers brings May flowers right? Well that just means lots of hot chocolate for us. This week we are suppose to have 1 day that wont rain.

On the move

We moved out of our house and are looking to buy our next house in Ohio. We have put in a couple of offers, but nothing has taken yet. I forget how much I don't like the house buying process. Sure it is fun to look at houses, but the whole thing about putting in an offer and waiting to see if it is accepted is stressful.

Paige turned one a couple weeks ago and so we got together with some family and had a small party for her. It was hard because her birthday was the day after we moved out of our house, but I did get her cake done. She loves her stroller that she got. She pushes it everywhere. She has also learned that she loves riding on merry-go-rounds. If she sees one she will point to it and grunt. If we don't go to it she will try to get to it on her own. She weighs 19 pounds 15 ounces- 49% and she is 50% for her height, and 74% for her head. Parker helped me design Paige's cake and even helped me make it. He was so proud of it.

Goodbyes

We have been busy these past few weeks. We are moving to Dayton, Ohio in a couple of weeks. We had to find someone to rent our house before we could move. It was very surprising how quickly we rented our house. Our renters are moving in next week and we are going to move in with my parents for a couple of weeks before we make the big move. During those couple of weeks, Steve and I will be going out to Dayton to look at houses and get to know the area better. We get to leave our kiddos with my family for our trip. We have already found a house that we like. Steve saw it, I have only seen pictures, and we put an offer on it. We should find out in a couple of days if we got it.


On a sad note, we had to get rid of our dog Cesar. We will be staying in corporate housing when we first move out to Ohio and driving with Cesar, staying in hotels, living in temporary housing all would be HUGE headache. And we don't even think we can have him in the temporary housing. So we put up an ad to see if we could find him a loving family that would take really good care of him. Well this ad was also answered quickly. 15 minutes later we found someone who would be perfect for Cesar. He went home with them tonight and we are very sad and tears were shed for him. Poor Parker doesn't even know yet that his dog is gone. We didn't know how to break it to him. We will miss him, but we know he will be with a great family who will take really good care of him, probably better care than we would have even given him.

Our Christmas, a little late

For Christmas we got to go to my parents' house and celebrate with them. Parker and Paige are very loved by all of his family and it showed in the gifts that they received. Parker was loving every minute of it. We had so much fun hanging out with them and this was my brother's last Christmas before he goes on his mission. He is going to Anchorage, Alaska. He leaves February 9th.  

After Christmas Parker, Paige and I went on a trip to Utah with my mom and brother. It was Parker and Paige's first real experience with snow. All Parker wanted to do was to build a snow man, but it was too cold and the snow wouldn't stick together. All he could do was make a snow angle. He was not happy with his snow angle because when he got up from making it he had to step in it and it made it "all messy". 

 We have flagstone in our back yard and our dog, Cesar, likes to dig in between the flagstone. It doesn't look very pretty when he does that. So one week when my father in law was down here, he decided to take on a project of putting cement in between the flagstone. Well it was a pretty big project and he got most of it done, but I had to finish up putting some of the cement in. Luckily my brother helped me finish it up. It was too hard to try to do it by myself with two kids who really cant help much. Well here is the finished project.

 Paige found my drink while we were waiting at a tire store getting new tires put on my car. She was very sneaky. Good thing she can't drink out of a straw yet.

I had to add this video of Paige. She started walking the day before she turned 10 months old, so we are counting it as 9 months old... it counts right? Well a couple of weeks ago she was playing in our closet of toys downstairs and I turn around and she came out like this. It is Parker's sword. By the time my father in law got out his phone and started filming her she had been doing this for a couple of minutes. Enjoy!

Forgot some more pictures.

I forgot to add these pictures that we had taken a few weeks ago. Paige is 8 months old in these and Parker is 3 years old.

Overload of pictures

We have been crazy busy with things. First we went up to Steve's parents' house for Thanksgiving. Then we flew to Florida to go to Disneyworld and Universal Studios with my family. Steve had to go to Orlando for work so he didn't get to the parks with us, but he got to hang out with us at the hotel. So that is why he is not in any of the pictures. Then we went straight to Williams, AZ to go on the Polar Express train ride with some of Steve's family. Enjoy the pictures.

Here we are at a deer farm in Willams. You actually got to feed the deer and walk around by them. They would just come right up to you and want you to feed them.

Here is Parker when he was about to see Santa. Santa gave all the kids a bell.



Here is Parker, his cousin Emma and his Granddad when the train pulled up.

By my parents' hotel in Orlando there was a McDonalds that said that it had the biggest playplace in the world. So of course we had to go see it. It was a lot like Chuck E Cheeses. They did have a big play ground, but there was a lot of video game/ticket games.

We went and did some miniature golf too.

This is from Jaws.

Paige LOVED Barney.

Harry Potter World. It was the reason my family wanted to go. It was impressive.








This was Parker's favorite ride. It was at Universal Studios. It was in Dr. Seuss land. You rode the ride and these fish on the side spit water at you. We got pretty wet.

Parker also loved the merry go round. We rode it a lot too.







Parker loved to see the princesses, but he was so shy.

Parker hit his head and it was the biggest goose egg I have ever seen so I thought I would just put a picture up of it. Ouch! He was a tough little guy. I really think it looks like an egg.