silly Lulli

This is how Lullaby fell asleep the other day. The kids and I are all in the same room, so I watch them falling asleep. It's cute most of the time, and helps them to behave. This particular day, I watched, in amazement, as she fell asleep in the splits. Silly girl. :)

In other news, the house is coming along well. The floor is almost finished and very few last touches need to be done... We are thinking move in will be Thursday??? So excited!!

waiting...

Well, I FINALLY figured out how to upload pictures onto Dale and Vanessa's computer without completely losing them afterward. I am so attached to my own computer, I have forgotten how to use others... Oh well, hopefully this will be a very temporary problem and we will be able to move into our house SOON. We have been playing and fighting with cousins (mostly Lullaby has been fighting over Linnaea's baby dolls) and coloring with chalk and having lunch picnics, and talking about missing Daddy, and even going to the Lego Store to entertain the kiddies. They are restless and excited about this new house we keep talking about, but never moving into. :)  Paul and his brother Dale, and his parents have been HARD at work in our house getting the new floors in and fixing all the things that needed to be fixed before we can move in. Tomorrow, they are taking their first day off since we got here. Paul and Dale have come home with injuries from the tiles flipping up and slashing their legs and everyone has come home exhausted at the end of each day.  Meanwhile, Hawken got sick (throwing up, diarrea, fever, you name it), then Matix did, and now we are waiting to see if Lulli gets it. They are NOT happy campers when they are sick. Poor things. And they want their dad, and he has been gone from before they wake up until after they are alseep.  We did venture down there to the house to see the progress one of the first days, when Hawken was still recovering, hence the blankie and no pants... Apparently, Hawk feels better when he wears less clothing...  I don't know what the projected finish date is, but it is highly anticipated! Sweet Vanessa and Dale are letting us crash here while we wait and we are so thankful! Anyway, here is the playroom floor going in:

Here is the nasty pile of old carpet in the living room. This is Matix's nasty face:

This will be Matix's room. We have decided to have the boys be in their own rooms for a while until they get better about sharing and having good behavior at night.

And this is the giant Penske truck in our driveway... GIANT. Paul and I have decided we have too much crap. Really, this is too much stuff. Anyway, here it is. :)

Now, the kids are asleep and everyone else is gone, working or playing or something... But I am alone and bored to death. Leave me a comment to keep me entertained. :)

here!

We are here! The boys did well on the drive, but they were ready to be done by the end.  About 5 miles away from Dale and Vanessa's house, Hawk announced, "Ahh! I'm full!" He wasn't eating, so I asked what he was full of, and he said exhaustedly, "Driving!"  Too funny. Lulli was hard to please on the trip, but we made it.  The night in the hotel was hilarious. Lullaby was so excited to sleep in the bed with me, she was kissing me and patting my cheeks. It was cute, but I was too tired for it. Eventually everyone fell asleep, but I had to sleep at the foot of the bed... But now, we're here!  Well, the kids and I are in Spring Texas with Vanessa and her kids. Lee and Stacy are at our house in Houston laying our new floor (thanks!!!) and Paul and Dale are in Georgia packing up the storage unit and driving our stuff back here... Dale and Vanessa are so sweet to let us stay here with them for another day or so, while our house gets liveable. Thanks guys! For now, we will be having fun playing with cousins.  Hooray!

packing

Our own personal Mr. Poppins and Mr. Poppins Jr. were hard at work again and miraculously fit all our things into one trailer. Really, the amount of things we had should not have fit in there... But I'm sure glad it did. After this move, we have officially moved out of Paul's parents house, with all our STUFF. I still have some childhood things in Wisconsin, but other than that, we are on our own.

Lullaby and Hawken were especially excited about Grandma and Grandpa tossing in the bouncy horse for them to use in Houston. So fun! Can you tell they love this thing?

And with that, I am caught up! I can hardly believe it! We are on our way in the morning to Houston.  It will take us a couple days, but we are excited! More updates to come probably later this week, until then, think happy traveling thoughts for us! :)

friends!

My friend Whitni, from years and years ago, came over to visit. She was so sweet to make the looooong drive to Buckeye.  Her two little girls, Ayden and Avalon were so cute. I had only ever seen Ayden when she was a tiny baby.

Avalon and Lullaby are about the same age and went back and forth being friends and then enemies. They were excited about the exact same toys at the exact same times, of course. Ayden played very nicely with the boys, although the boys were especially wild that day.

It was so nice to catch up with an old friend. Hopefully next time we are in Arizona we can do it again, with the hubbies. :) Thanks for coming guys!

temple trip

Paul and I got to go to the temple one evening. It really is so nice having free babysitting! :)  We went to "our" temple, the one we were married in almost 7 years ago. It holds such good memories for us and we were happy we could sneak away for a little while to enjoy it.

Plus, check out that belly! That's 27 weeks of baby #4 right there! 

the park

Going to the park around 6 am is fairly normal these days. The kids aren't used to the time change still and wake up the second any light peeks into their window.  We have been trying to get out of the house or watch quiet cartoons in the mornings so we don't wake everyone up. The good thing about going to the park so early is that it isn't very hot yet. Perfect weather for playing.

watermelon

The boys have practically lived in only their underpants for the past week. They only get dressed to go to the park.  It is pretty hot and they love getting back to their Dominican and Floridian heritage. :) Watermelon has been in high demand too. All of us have eaten our weight in it. Yum! I love watermelon in the summer.  Having sticky sweet hands and cheeks is very summery feeling.

fun

The boys have been loving running through the sprinklers with this crazy hot weather they have here in Arizona. Lullaby was interested in it a little, until Matix sprayed her in the face... Then she just liked to watch the boys from a distance.

Of course, I have no idea where their swim suits are and so they get to play in underpants only, which they think is super funny.

Good-bye Utah and Arches!

Hugs and loves to Paul's Grandma and Grandpa Berg for being the sweetest people ever. They let us stay with them for MONTHS for free.  I don't know how we would have made it without them. Seriously, they are lifesavers! We love you guys and miss you terribly!

On our way, there were lots of snacks and movies and snuggling baby dolls.

And a little of this. I love those sleepy baby faces.

We stopped at Arches National Park just after the kids got up from their naps. First we went to this big sand slide area. Paul had been dreaming about sliding down this hill for a while and although it was really slow, the boys had fun.  Lulli stayed with me and dumped sand on my shoes.  Kina had to go back to the car because the sand was too hot for her feet.

Hawken and Matix thought crushing up the little sand clods was amazing. I remember doing this as a kid too.  Something cool about turning a "rock" into sand.

Lulli picked some flowers while we waited for the boys to be done on the hill. It was SO hot.

Then we went for a short hike back to see "Skyline Arch".  It was gorgeous and the perfect length hike for our kids. I think round trip it was about a half mile. 

And we even set up a family picture. I love it.

The stop ended up being a LOT long than we had planned, but it was worth it. We didn't get into Phoenix until almost midnight, but the kids did pretty well.  Now we are planning on leaving here (Arizona) in the morning and I have another week of pictures to still catch up on...