A home at last!!!

So we have a home... we think.
After waiting for almost 3 months to hear back about the short-sale home we put a bid on shortly after moving here, our offer was finally accepted by the bank last Friday. We had the home inspection yesterday and are anxiously awaiting all the final things, including financing and closing, not to mention signing our lives away...

We are so excited!!! We had finally given up and were going to start looking at new homes when we got back from Christmas break, but then the call came and things are finally looking up.

I won't post pictures until it is all final and we know for sure we are moving in, because really it still seems surreal. But we'll find out soon ! Woo hoo!!!

These Boys are Trouble

One of our favorite things about living here in Washington is being so close to friends and family. We have been able to spend a lot of time with the Dietz family which has been wonderful. Collin and Lil' Martin are about a month apart and boy are they trouble (just like their dads). It is so fun to see these two crazy and cute boys. What fun little guys.

Ravioli Magnifico!

Well Adam signed me up to make raviolis for our ward Christmas party and so I figured it was about time to practice what my Grandma taught me. It was a fun little adventure and Collin loved helping. It was so fun having a little helper. We had some Christmas music going and decided it would be a new beginning of December tradition.
The raviolis turned out pretty good for my first time, but of course plenty of room for improvement. I sure wish I could have called Grandma with all my questions, but I know she would have been proud. I am so grateful that she took the time to teach me how to make some special Italian dishes. I will always cherish those memories and hopefully make some more yummy Italian cooking memories with my children.

He even helped me turn the crank on the pasta maker, with a little help of course.I love this picture. He was so interested. That sweet little boy.

YUMMY!!! Now if only I could send you all some in the mail. Wouldn't that be a pleasant surprise :)

Get 'em started early

Sometimes I think we have too much fun with this little guy. Ok, maybe that's impossible.

As many of you know, I am an avid soccer player, so I figured that I better get Collin started early if he is going to be an International superstar. We've got a few fundamentals to work on, but we'll get him into league play in 6 months or so.

Washingtonians

We are now in Washington. It's fun starting a new adventure. Here is a picture from the balcony of our apartment on a nice foggy morning.

So now that we are in a bigger apartment we have room for our table and all four chairs! Collin can sit at the table now and he figured out that he can get his feet up when he gets bored. The joys of growing up.


Now that we are here, we are close to my best friend growing up and his wife. This is all of us at a Mariners' game.


We bought a piano from our neighbors right when we left. Collin loves to help mommy play.


He also decided that he owns our glider chair. He loves to climb up on it and read his books.

Finally, here he is at our ward's Halloween party dressed up as an elephant. We were amazed that he kept the hood on and didn't try to yank the trunk off.

We are excited to be here and we are having fun getting to know the area. My job is good and we are working on getting a house. Jenn will have to write more later.

Walking just makes him crazier

So Collin is officially walking! Woo hoo! that's what we thought at first, but man, this kid is crazy. We thought he got into everything before, but we were sure surprised. Although he makes our life more hectic, we can't imagine life without this sweet, crazy, fun little guy. He is so cute walking all over. He loves to go outside and today he walked down the sidewalk all by himself (with us close behind of course, please we aren't that careless). Our little boy is growing up. He is now a "toddler" and I finally understand why they use that term. See for yourself how adorable his toddle is...

Life continues on

Hey y'all. So it must seem that we have disappeared. I have to admit I just haven't been in a blogging mood. Sometimes it really takes thinking and planning to blog and considering that while Collin's awake I have to keep an eye on him and while he's sleeping I just want to relax and recuperate, I just never find time to blog. But I know I should fill everyone in on what is going on in our lives. SO... We are doing wonderful. Adam is furiously working on his thesis and hoping to turn in a final draft next Monday the 17th. He will then defend it on the 31st and we will head up to Washington around the 5th. If however, things don't work out how we planned, which is usually the case since life is full of surprises. Our plans will be pushed back two weeks, not a biggie, I just have to keep reminding myself to be patient and know that whatever happens is for the best, since the Lord is in charge, not me. Thank goodness.

So Collin and I are enjoying the summer. We like to go to the pool and enjoy long walks to the Temple. I have picked up gardening and I love it. I am growing tomatoes, yellow squash, bell peppers, and honeydew melon. We have been able to eat tomatoes and yellow squash so far and it is such a delight. It has been so fun to watch these plants grow from seeds.

We were able to go to Arizona in May with our good friends the Dietzs. We had so much fun. We can't wait to live closer to them and watch our little guys grow up together.

Collin turned one!

We can't believe that our little monkey is one year old now. He is not walking yet, but he crawls really fast now and walks a little bit while holding onto furniture. He's a lot of fun and I'm sure Jenn will write more about him later. So, here are some video clips from his birthday. I think maybe he's going to be a dancer.

Dancing Baby

This little guy is so much fun!



Since Collin learned to crawl two weeks ago he is even more fun. I know you're asking yourself how is that possible, but it is. He is constantly adventuring and wondering around the house getting into trouble. He is also standing, with support, and sitting back down with ease. We didn't know if he would ever really crawl, but now he is so fast. He may even walk close to his birthday. He also loves music, especially country, ok not yet but I'm working on it, but he likes all music. Dancing is one of his new favorites, we call it dancing but it's more like bouncing. If a toy plays music he will push the button, wait for the song to end and then push it again. This continues over and over, so lets just say we have way too many little kid songs memorized. He is so entertaining and still as happy as ever.

Collin crawls!...Really this time!

While we were in Arizona visiting Jenn's family Collin started to crawl for real instead of doing his army crawl/scoot sort of thing. We are excited and he is much more mobile now. People always say that's a bad thing, but I love it. We can put him down now and walk away and he doesn't freak out because he knows he can follow us. And its really stinkin cute too. Oh and he doesn't always need the plastic bowling pin in his mouth to crawl, just in this video. He's also started doing it with a stuffed soccer ball recently. I tried to get that on video, but he stopped as soon as I got the camera out.

Goodbye Provo, Hello Bremerton

So some of you may be thinking Bremerton? Where is that? Well to answer that question, it is in western Washington, right across the Puget Sound from Seattle. Your next thought may be why Bremerton? Well... very exciting news for our family...Adam got a job! Woohoo! We thought there was a good chance of staying in our little basement apartment in Provo forever, hey we could probably fit 5 kids in a 500 sq ft. apartment right...WRONG. Contrary to what we thought, we will be leaving Provo.

Adam will be working for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, yup the Navy. So cool. The funniest part of the whole thing is he didn't even apply there. Lucky us. I think the Lord really wants us to go there, because it just worked out way too easy. It turns out my Uncle who works for the Navy actually passed around Adam's resume and it got picked up by the Puget Sound Naval base, they liked what they saw, called him up, and within a few weeks flew him out there to interview. The interview went so well that within a week they gave Adam a job offer. What a wonderful blessing, especially in this unstable economic time. Well we felt pretty good about going to WA, especially since nothing else was looking very promising. So we accepted the offer and will be moving out there at the beginning of September.

Bremerton is 1 1/2 hours from where Adam grew up so he is really excited. He loves WA and is looking forward to raising our family there. As for me, after getting over the initial dissapointment of not going to sunny Arizona and living near my family, I am so slowly getting stoked! When I'm especially longing for AZ, I just look at houses in the Bremerton area and I immediately get excited. I can't believe in the near future, hopefully, we'll have a house of our own! woohoo, and we won't even have to water the lawn, that is one of the first things Adam said while trying to encourage me about Washington.

The area we'll be living in is beautiful and it will be quite the adventure. We will sure miss Provo and the BYU atmosphere, but we're ready to enter the "real" world. It has been such a wonderful beginning to our life together and we have made many memories and friends. We will miss our little basement apartment that we'll have lived in for 4 years! We can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us in Bremerton WA. If anyone wants to come visit, we'll be there soon!

For any of you that have never been to WA this is some of the beautiful scenery of Bremerton. I mean beautiful if you like water, mountains, and green trees that is. jk...

Adam may be working on Submarines just like this one. Let's just say the little boy in Adam is coming out, thinking about working with submarines and aircraft carriers gets him pretty excited. What's up with men and big machines/vehicles? I guess I just don't get it. But I do have to admit it sounds pretty cool. Hopefully he will love his job and hopefully we will all love Bremerton.

Collin crawls! .... well, sorta

So just a few days ago Collin started moving forward on his own. He's been pushing himself around in circles for a while, but he could not push himself forward. Now he twists and half army crawls with his arms, but only when he really wants to get to something. We've trained him so he know that if he can get to our hands we will pick him up. So here he is scooting his way to tummy time freedom. Notice how happy he is at the end!

How is he this cute???

So we have taken random pictures of Collin here and there and it never ceases to amaze us how stinking cute he is. Just see for yourself...





Look at those eyes big bright eyes.


Collin Loves playing in the sink. He especially loves brushing his teeth with his very own brush.


Helping mommy with the laundry


I couldn't resist a good bath tub shot. He absolutely loves bath time. He would stay in it all day if he could splashing the water all over the place.

Fun at the park

The weather here is just fabulous. We are loving the sun. Collin and I went to the park twice today. Once with some other moms from the ward and then with some good friends the Purcellas and Adam. Collin loves being outside no matter what we do. I think we have found a new favorite spot. Although Collin has definitely had a few rough weeks, he is still such a sweet adorable little guy and we just love him. It is so fun to be a family. Adam and I feel so blessed for all the wonderful blessings God give us everyday, especially the gospel, each other, Collin, and all of our wonderful family.

Put another song on, Collin

So we made a discovery recently that Collin loves the stereo. Here is a little story in pictures that shows what I'm talking about.

Collin sits himself in front of the stereo and starts pulling out CDs. (Actually we put him there because he can't move on his own yet.)

He checks them out and picks one he wants to listen to.

Collin puts the CD in the stereo and pushes the play button.

He says, "Hey Dad, don't bug me, I'm listening to music!"

Then he goes back to enjoying his song.

I hope you enjoyed that little story. We're loving our little guy. He is so fun and has such a personality. He's a little sick right now and its sad, but other than that he's doing good. We just want him to start crawling. He's being a little booger and he doesn't even try, but he's 8 months old now and it's about time.

Sorry Everyone

So Jenn started this blog and it was really her thing, but apparently she doesn't like to write in it anymore. I will have to get on her about that. But until then I will continue to do my job as the tech guy and upload pictures and videos, because thats what I'm good at. I'm a boring writer, but at least I can do media. Anyways, here is out latest video of our little munchkin. Enjoy!!!