to the shop and back again... hopefully...

This Post was going to be dedicated to the joys of owning a van, a real actual van with 7 seats, power windows,CD player, rear air (not to be confused with flatulence... sorry I couldn't help myself).
Cameron found a "great Deal" in Austin on a Kia Sodona 2005, It cost almost half as much as what we could find at the other places we looked so on Saturday we went for it. Cameron test drove it and it seemed to be running well. so we bought it. The kids were thrilled, I mean THRILLED they were more excited about this van then they were about moving into a house with a garage... and believe me that was exciting!
about half way home the dreaded check engine light came on... and it starts...
we'll take it in on Monday we thought, We being ME and the three kids of course as Cameron would be spending the say at the hospital going through orientation.
The kids begged us to dive it to church the next day, so despite our better judgement we did, What's 3 extra miles on a check engine light going to do anyways... 2 and a 4th miles later the engine died and we rolled to a stop, Cameron tried to restart the car to no avail so he got out in his white shirt and tie and started pushing the van with his entire family in 105 degree heat... I know what you're thinking, "Why didn't you get out and help?" and I would have but someone had to steer and we didn't trust Katelyn to get it where we needed to go. plus I was wearing heels. Thankfully our plight attracted attention and before lone we had two other guys huffing and puffing behind the car as I steered it to the nearest parking lot which also happened to be a Cadillac dealership. Which happened to be closed Sundays.

Katelyn went into super panic mode and was sure we were going to be stranded in our green van forever. the boys slept peacefully in the back... gotta love 1 o'clock church.... after 40 minutes of making phone calls and trying to figure out what to do we decided to walk the rest of the way to church. and get a ride home with someone there and then take care of the van when the dealership opened in the morning. It promised to be a long, hot tiresome walk but fortunately before we even got passed the dealership someone stopped and offered us a ride, what a blessing!

to make a long story shorter, it's Monday now the car has been towed to a mechanic, who it turns out has never worked on a Kia Sodona before but fortunately he can plug the van into a nifty little machine that will diagnose the problem so we know what's wrong with it, but before we get it fixed we are waiting to hear back from the guys we bought the van from to see if they want to fix it themselves, they are of course "out" and will call me when they "get back" I'm sure they have a "you bought it, you fix it" policy but we will see. so I'm just here sitting by the phone waiting for their phone call so I can tell the guys at the shop to go ahead... or not.

whose house is this anyway?

we signed the papers to close on our house today at 9am and as we drove over to do a walk through with Cherri our realtor we noticed a huge moving truck sitting in the driveway and the seller came out to greet us all in a fluster wondering if we were flexible on the moving in time, We said we could work with him how much time did he need? He thought he could be done about 5:30pm, Then Cherri asked if we could do a quick walk through, he went inside to check with his wife and came back asking if we could come back in an hour because his family was still sleeping.Still sleeping? at 10am when the house was suppose to be ready to move in at 9am? We didn't say that of course, we just agreed and came back at 11:30am.

The house was a mess, they are most of the way moved out but there are still things in each room needing to be packed and then the house has to be cleaned, he had some relatives there to help with the move but they were all standing around staring at us as we walked through OUR house. anyways to say the least it's been frustrating, we thought we could move in this morning after closing and we had the missionaries lined up to help us unload the truck at lunch time and now I don't think they will even be out of there until late tonight, and they need to have the placed cleaned and the carpets will be wet until morning so we will be staying another night in a hotel. I think it will all work out fine in the end, it's just frustrating.

I wish they would have called to let us know they were running behind. It would have been nice to know before we got all of our help lined up. anyways that's what's happening in our life, it was a good drive, the kids were good, we invested in a portable DVD player and the kids were captivated, except Grant who wanted to be the driver and was very put out each time we bucked him into his car seat.
we are all ready to be settled, I'm pretty sure my kids think we are going to live in a new hotel every night for the rest of our lives, this is our 4th one in 4 days. they love it.

Doctor Smith

It's official, Cameron is a Doctor. I am so proud of him. He has worked hard and done well in school, there have been countless times when I have thought that it's a good thing he's the one in school and not me, if it were me the entire household would be in complete chaos with each approaching exam. With Cameron I had to keep reminding myself that he is in school and we can't play all day with him. on occasion I would ask him when his next exam was and he would shrug and say, "oh tomorrow morning at 8" seriously... if that were me, everyone and their mother would know when all my tests were based on my level of stress and beastliness. Thankfully he is so smart, and calm about everything, and I lOVE that about him. Now don't get the wrong idea, this is not to say that he didn't study or that I didn't spend countless nights putting the kids to bed on my own, I'm just saying that he is amazing and because of him over all we have loved the student life and will look back with fondness at this time period. I could go on and on talking about how incredible my husband is but I wont... this time...

The kids were.... well... kids during the graduation. Grant was the easiest, he was content to play with Grandma Net, then he noticed Grandma Louise sitting down the row and hustled over to her lap to promptly fall asleep, and he slept the entire time. Grandpa Bob tried to keep the other two entertained by folding origami boxes, cranes and bow ties for them, they were thrilled, but it was a two hour ceremony and my kids can't play with anything without loud sound effects so I tried to encourage them to just hold the "paper toys" and that's just not very fun. they attacked the diaper bag and scarfed down three granola bars each and were still asking for more before it was all said and done.

It was fun to have so much family come for his graduation,

From left to right, Bill (Cameron's Dad), Louise (Cameron's mom), Katelyn, Amy (my sister, poking her head over Dallin) Dallin, Cameron, Becky (my tall sister who doesn't need to poke her head over anyone because she is generally a few inches taller then everyone else), Grant, me, Lynette, (my mom), Bob, (my dad).

Cameron's cousin Jenny and her Husband Blake and Cameron's Uncle Bruce and Aunt Jean where there also, they had to leave before we could get a picture with them.
If you didn't get invited and wanted to come, I am so so sorry! we had a crazy couple of weeks leading up to graduation so the awesome graduation party never got planned, or at least didn't get planned far enough to be carried out.

as we were driving I was talking to the kids about how daddy is a doctor now. I explained how he is all done learning about being a doctor and now he is a doctor. Katelyn was impressed, Dallin thought about it for a while and then piped up, "I want to be a Dragon!" so I said, "well, then you better start studying."

Thanks for all the love and support.

Soon to be our House

I know you have all been dying to see pictures of the house we are buying, and here it is in all it's full housey glory. We are excited to leave the apartment style living behind and have a back yard with a fence and a front yard with a sidewalk, talk to me in a few weeks when I realize that I haven't taken care of a yard in.... hum.... forever and I might be singing a different tune, but for now we are excited.

Front ViewBackyard

it's 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1600 square feet, it has beautiful roses, and it's own mailbox. apparently Temple TX is big on cluster, mailboxes like an apartment complex. Truthfully it wasn't a major selling point but hey its something.

It's near one of the best schools in Temple, and 2 miles away from Scott and White Hospital where Cameron will be living. We thought it would be nice to be close so he would feel welcome to visit us every once in a while.

I completely forgot to take picture of the inside while we were walking through it so we did a drive by shot the morning after we made an offer, we were heading to the airport so we didn't have time for much else. but I've downloaded some pictures from the Internet, or I should clarify, Cameron downloaded some pictures from the Internet, I've never actually done that before, so I'm not even going to pretend that I know how it's done so don't ask me.

This is the kitchen, obviously, they will be leaving the fridge and a play set in the backyard, very exciting!



Dining room or I guess it would be classified as the eat in kitchen... I think.

living room, the bright door leads to the back yard and the red room in the back is the master bedroom, we are planning to take out the carpet in this room and put in wood flooring to match the kitchen, I'm really excited about that.

cute huh? we'll take pictures when we move in with our furniture, or what we bring of it, we will need a table and couches... so if you happen to know anyone......

plus I would really like to replace the kids beds and dresser but it's not totally necessary so more then likely it wont happen.

Things are getting kinda hairy

Katelyn, loves having her hair done, the more elaborate the better, she's willing to sit for hours and hours as I find creative ways to do her hair, and she loves everything I create.... ok so the truth is, she hates it. ok "hates" is a strong word, she has a strong dislike for it. In fact she runs away screaming if I so much as glance her way with a hair brush in my hand, she really really really doesn't like having her hair brushed, but least you think that I am an insensitive mom who takes no consideration for the thoughts and feelings of my 4 year old, it's only the actual brushing out that she hates, um, "dislikes" once that is over with I can play with her hair as much as I please.... as long as there is a movie playing and I finish before the movie becomes uninteresting. and since there is no way that I would let my daughter out of the house without her hair at least brushed, I don't think I am ruining our relationship forever by trying out cute styles. hopefully we don't both end up in counseling because of this train of thought.

so here are some pictures of some of her cutest, and um, most "creative" hair styles.

Naples Open house

Cameron's brother Jordan got married to Jenny on April 25th in Utah and we had an open house for him in Naples on May 1st. It was a beautiful day and I think everyone had a great time. We are so excited to have another sister/aunt join the family.

Jenny with the girls. Lauren, Kathryn, Baby Hannah, Emily and Katelyn. They were all excited for "Princess aunt Jenny."

Thanks to Louise there was plenty of great food. Grant had so much fun eating to his hearts content, he was a complete mess by the end of the night.

Cameron loves to play with the kids, he and Katelyn had a great time goofing off together.

Katelyn loves Jenny and was thrilled when Jenny offered to let her wear the veal.

Dallin seems to be very attached to Jenny, anytime Jenny left the room he would come find me and ask where she went. When she went to change her clothes Dallin asked about her and I told him she was changing, he said, "I want to watch Jenny change!" I said, "I don't think Jenny is quite ready to have 3 year old watch her get dressed" to which he exclaimed, "but mommy I want to." I was insistent and in the end he was content to wait and sit on her lap as she opened gifts.

Cupcakes for Dinner?!?!?

With inspiration from one of my best friends/old roommates Heidi we decided to make April Fools day a little more memorable. I planned a dinner of meatloaf and cornbread with pudding for dessert. The kids were excited to play a "trick" on daddy as we were preparing the food. they watched me prepare the whole thing and were especially excited to when we set the table and the saw the "cupcakes."

Even though they had helped me make the meatloaf and watched me color the mashed potatoes blue, They couldn't believe that Mommy was actually letting them have cupcakes for dinner.

When Cameron got home he was a bit surprised too, but quickly became skeptical when the kids yelled happy April fools day.

They couldn't wait to get everyone seated to try out these cupcakes and that's when the fun ended. Katelyn licked the blue "frosting" and said "mommy, these taste kinda yucky" Dallin looked up with confusion and said, "these taste like... like... tatoes?" and they refused to take another bite. Dallin's favorite food is patatoes but the disappointment that the cupcakes weren't cupcakes at all was too great. and the meal went unappreciated as is often the case. I would just like to reinforce that the kids helped me make dinner, this should not have been a surprise.

Grant didn't care what it was suppose to be, he loved them, ate them, and wanted more.

Everyone loved dessert of course.

celebrating a rainy day

When Summer weather starts settling in by mid February we celebrate the cool days, especially if they involve rain or at the very least, sprinkling. Last week we encountered one such day and the kids begged me to take them out with the umbrellas. by the time we got out there it had stopped raining but the kids insisted on running around with their umbrellas just long enough to snap a few pictures, and then we realized we were too cold to have fun and we went back upstairs for a warm bath.

Grant was especially cold, He was the one that made me realize that perhaps it was too cold for shorts and sandals.

Katelyn refuses to take a cute picture, any cute picture This one is completely unintentional on her part.


Dallin is very serious as he heads down stairs with his umbrella

A visit from Grandma Net

My mom came to celebrate Match day with us and stayed for the weekend. we don't get to see her much so we kept her pretty busy.

Friday we went to the temple, (Thank you Carrie for babysitting!)

Saturday we spent at the zoo.

and Sunday was of course church, Katelyn was in an especially uncooperative mood.