Great Grandma Ivie Comes to Visit

Earlier this month my grandma called and asked if she could come visit for a week. I said of course. Ryan, my uncle, and his family were going to Disneyland and she was going to hitch a ride down with them. I didn't know if she would actually come but she came. She has always loved to travel. Grandpa and her were always going places. Now that Grandpa is up in heaven she still likes to get out of the house and visit. I told Grandma not to expect much since I had to work during the day. She was up for it and even brought her and Lucy a puzzle to work on. 

One night the girls went on an outing to Charming Charlies at Town Square. I knew Grandma would love that place. She said it was like taking an alcoholic to a liquor store. She found herself a couple of necklaces. Then before we got out the door she had found a few more. She even had me go back later and pick up one she didn't get that night. She cracks me up. She is wearing one of her new necklaces below while holding Duncan.  

Lucy loved having Grandma here to entertain her during the day. They painted nails and even tried on wigs together.  On Tuesday I dropped Grandma off at the dollar store while I took Lucy to preschool. When I came into the store to get her, she was in line eating a Butterfinger. She had been telling me all weekend that she is allergic to sugar and it makes her cough. Again, she cracks me up. 

Also on Tuesday, Quincy calls me while I am working and says that Grandma wants to go to Celine Dion. I guess I had been busy working so she called him to see if we could get tickets for her show that night. Grandma had been talking to a friend that morning and told her she had to go see Celine while she was in town. She would always go to shows with Grandpa when they were in Vegas and she said he would of wanted her to go. I thought we were just going to go to DI that night or go get ice cream but Grandma was determined to go. We still don't have a reliable babysitter on this side of town so we didn't know who would watch the kids. Luckily, the Barney family said they would watch the two older kids. So that night we hit the strip with Grandma and Duncan. We were trying to hurry and didn't get a good picture. 

Duncan was a good man through the show. He did scream a few times when she sang really loud but I it just blended in. Maybe he was singing along. 

Grandma can get some wild hairs but we are so glad she got this wild hair to come visit us. She can also be somewhat of a difficult visitor but she wasn't at all. We had such a great visit and memories were made for sure! 

Summer of 2013

These pictures are from last summer. They have been on my phone and I keep saying I am going to blog them. Today is the day.  I thought I was going to do a blog at the end of the summer to wrap up our fun but instead I had lots of other things to think about at the end of summer. 

I am sad because some of these pictures are blurry but I just love them anyway. 

Quincy had tickets to the 51's game from work. It was fireworks night so we took the kids. They did pretty well to sit through the game. One lady in front of us gave us their extra pair of sunglasses that they passed out that night. The kids were all over those. Another lady behind us kept saying how good they were to sit there. She ended up being one of the player's girlfriends. She said Jensen deserved a signed baseball from her boyfriend. So after the game she took Jensen and I down to the dugout for a signed ball.  Jensen thought that was pretty cool and even slept with the ball that night. The fireworks didn't disappoint either children. 

Since I don't have work over the summer we decided to get a summer pass to the children's museum. We tried to go once a week. It was perfect since I was pregnant. I would just sit down in the nice air conditioned building while the kids played. Jensen's favorite spot is the car where you can change the tire on a car. Lucy loves the art area or the wind tunnel. They both love the new water room. The Kanets also had a pass and would join us often. The new museum is way fun and hopefully we will use our pass here soon before it runs out for the year. 

Our Tuesdays for the summer were taken up with dance and t-ball classes at the Hollywood Rec Center. Lucy would go first and then Jensen would have his class. Lucy loved her teacher and we loved watching her try to skip across the room, dance with their fairy wands and doing plies in the mirror. Jensen was pure entertainment in his t-ball class. I just wanted to bring popcorn and sit on the bleachers and laugh. He had the most patient teacher ever! Mrs. T. He was the typical 5 year old that would chase the ball wherever it was hit or he would have his glove on his head when a ball was hit his way. He did love running the bases and even got pretty good at hitting the ball off the tee. They even let Lucy in her tutu hit sometimes. This picture below is my favorite but of course it is blurry. These two can be the best of friends when they want to be.

Grandma Cindy sent a book to the kids about a girl who makes forts out of boxes. Lucy ate this book right up and wanted every box in the house to become a new castle or ship. Little did we know that we would be needing these boxes for our move. 

Our last summer adventure to share was to the park for a little splash pad. We got to meet two capybaras at the park that night. A lady had these two huge rats for pets. She let the kids pet them. I stayed a good distance back and took pictures. She said she lets them run around her house like dogs and they even sleep on her bed with her. I was glad the kids didn't ask to have one. They reminded me of those nasty rats on Princess Bride (Thanks Di for that reference!).

Top of Las Vegas

In January, to get to the top of the stratosphere was free for locals. Every time we pass it the kids always shout out Stratosphere (or sometimes they call it the Eiffel Tower) but we knew we better take them to the top. We decided it was more fun with friends so we asked the Kanets to join us. We went right when it opened on a Saturday morning to beat the rush. It was wonderful Las Vegas weather so the day was perfect!

The kids were not afraid to look over the edge. I however stood back with Duncan. The kids loved pointing out all the cars and buildings they saw below. 

The Walker Crew

The Kanets 

We went to the very top and waited with the kids while Mike and Marian went on the big shot. Quincy and I had done this on a date before we were married. I remembered trying to be all brave when he told me we were going on that ride. I did go but I still remember that I couldn't even scream because it took the wind right out of me.  So when Marian and Mike asked if we wanted to go I was glad to say been there, done that, don't need to do it again. 

 It isn't too easy to plan outings with a three month old that eats every three hours but Duncan loved the outing. He just hung there taking it all in. He even fell asleep and I didn't even know. Too much fun for him I guess. 

One last family picture of our fun outing. 

Walkers Get a New House

Right after we unloaded the car from Fish Lake, Quincy checked his email to see if there were any new houses posted on the MLS. He hadn't been able to do this because there was little reception at Fish Lake. This had been an hourly thing for Quincy to check for the last couple of months. Finding a house in the Las Vegas area had been challenging to say the least. We had been looking since April seriously and had gotten close a couple of times. Once we thought we found our dream house. The pantry was enough to make any woman sign the house papers. But we lost out of course due to a cash offer. So when Quincy checked he said there was a new listing we both sat down to look at it. It looked pretty good, actually really good. I saw the white kitchen and told him to put in an offer that night knowing that we probably wouldn't even be considered. We called our realtor, he quickly got the paperwork to us, and we submitted the offer within an hour or two of returning from Fish Lake.

The next morning we got the dreaded email that they had accepted another offer. We were disappointed but kind of used to it by this time. Later that afternoon I was taking to Quincy that maybe we should reconsider a house that we felt was over priced but we were getting desperate. A little bit later I got a call from Quincy. I thought he was going to tell me something about the house we were considering but no, he said that he had just got a call from our realtor. The first offer had been retracted and so they were going to accept our offer under the condition that we come see it in an hour and if we really wanted it. I hadn't even showered for the day but I loaded the kids up quickly and we went to see the house in person.

When we got there it was a little weird to have the homeowner here with her two kids. So we felt weird opening cupboards and closets but Quincy and I both knew it was a great house and would work wonderfully for our family. It was even in the area that we really had been looking at just 7 minutes from Quincy's work, close to parks and splash pads, and great schools for the kids. That night the owners accepted our offer. We were still worried to even say that it was happening and jinx it. We didn't want to tell anyone until the loan went through and everything was approved. We were even nervous to pack up boxes but me starting school in a few weeks I knew I had to start.

The best thing about putting in an offer in this house was that it was a traditional sale. All of the other houses we had been considering were short sales and we knew they would take up to 6 months to go through. The owners wanted us to close by August 30th which was just a month away from when we signed the papers. We got all of our loan stuff in a day or two after the offer was accepted but still waited to get the big approval. They said that everything was looking good but we were still nervous to spread the word just in case. But since everything was going so quickly they moved up our closing date to August 20th.  So that means by the time we put the offer in and closed it was just three short weeks. See why I said our life was a blur the past month or so? Finally a week before we were to move I told Quincy that we have to post something on Facebook or no one would even know we were gone.

On August 19th Quincy and I went and signed our lives away signing papers for about an hour. I can't believe how many times we had to sign our name. That night we meet our realtor and the home owners for the walk through. Everything looked great with the house. Our realtor handed us the keys earlier than normal because it hadn't been recorded yet but he was going out of town. We went to Taco Bell to celebrate (we had kids with us) then we went back to the house with just us four to really walk around and see the house opening all the cupboards and closets that we wanted to.

Moving day came really fast especially with me starting back to work that same week. Marian (the bestest friend and neighbor that won't be replaced here in Henderson) watched the kids a lot that week. Dianna and Kevin (the bestest sister-in-law and brother-in-law) took the kids for two nights while Quincy and I packed up the house and moved. The night before the move we were so worried that no one would show up I think I hardly slept. But we were blessed with service from lots of ward members. I really wanted to cry when I started seeing them show up hauling out all of our stuff into the rented U-Haul. These are the great men that helped out. Brother Pickett (first one there and got to work so quickly), Brother Chauncey and his son-in-law Tyler (they carried down all the heavy stuff from upstairs), Brother Moulton (He was the first one to see my craft closet but got his dolly loaded up and got to work), Brother Mills (I caught him saying that we had so much stuff in such a little house), Brother Olson and his sons Jesse and Ethan (he went the extra mile and came to our new house and unloaded there), Brother Lukow and Jordan (the best home teachers ever, Delon also came to the new house to unload), Brother Longo (he packed our uhaul perfectly!), Brother Isle and his two foreign exchange students, Brother Kanet (that's weird calling him that. Mike also went the extra mile and came to our new house and hauled the kids trampoline in the back of his truck) and Brother Kofford (Who really saved the day when the uhaul was full he went and got his trailer and loaded up the extra stuff in his truck and trailer. He also came to our new house and unloaded the uhaul.)

We got the uhaul loaded in three hours. With almost everything from our small town house. Kevin brought the kids back and Mike quickly volunteered Marian to watch the kids while we unloaded, which helped tremendously). Kevin, Shelbi, Lucas, Greg and Kobester were our unloading crew along with the other brethren that had followed us. While we were driving we got a call from Home Depot saying they were going to deliver our new fridge within an hour. We had just unloaded the small trailer and they pulled up. Perfect timing. The unloaded only lasted an hour or so. Quincy and I were both amazed at how well everything had turned out. We feel super blessed with all the service that was given to our family to help us move.

We also have to say thank you to Marian, Julie Chauncey, and Shelley Barney. They were cleaning fairies and went and cleaned our townhouse. I had kept thinking I would get over there but it just wasn't happening with work and unpacking here.

The following weekend my mom and dad came down to help us get settled. This was also a huge help. Dad had loaded my Grandma Knudsen's piano that had been sitting in their shed for years and they had also made a special trip to Ikea for me for bookshelves for the kids loft loaded in their truck. The four of us unloaded the piano and got it into the house. Yes, Dad with his bad back and me pregnant but we got it in the house unharmed and us too. They really helped us out over the weekend.  Dad put together the Ikea bookshelves. He also went and helped us load and unload a washer and dryer from a craigslist purchase I had made. I didn't know that they were upstairs in the sellers house. We got them set up and they are working perfectly!

Mom helped me organize the toy room and craft area which was a huge undertaking. It was so great to have them here. I was really sad that they were leaving but knew we had worn them both out.

So if you are still with me. Here are the pictures of our house. I have only hung a couple of things, this takes me awhile. I would also like to paint some of the rooms but I am going to wait until this baby comes out. Kids need new beds and we need some furniture. Of course I want it all now but Quincy reminds me a little bit at a time.

Our entry way ... So glad we are seeing less and less boxes in this house.

Living room/Formal Dining room. Right now just a big open space.

The kitchen. My favorite room in the house. It is just what I would of picked if I would of had the choice of cabinets and counter tops.

 

Family Room

 

 

Guest room. The I Love Lucy room has returned. Who wants to come visit?

Laundry room. Love it being inside and not in my garage.

Now for the upstairs. My craft space. Wahoo!

 

Kids loft. These are the wonderful Ikea bookcases.

 

 

Already loved and used by the kiddos.

 

 

Lucy's Room. She hasn't had her own room since she was born. She is still getting used to sleeping by herself.

 

 

Jensen's room. He has a baseball bed waiting for him. Just needs a new mattress. Marian and I found it on one of our morning walks out on the curb.

 

 

My office for now but will be the baby's room.

 

 

Kids bathroom.

 

 

 

Master Bedroom.

 

Master Bathroom

 

 

The kids favorite spot. Our backyard with grass! Quincy had to buy an electric lawn mower this past weekend and mowed it for the first time. The kids are playing out there more and more. Mommy smiles every time they go out there.

 

 

The only picture that I have of the outside for now. This is the first Sunday we went to church. The kids got packets of Jello. Not sure if this is how they welcome all new kids or why they got these.

 

 

Moving is rough! I found Lucy like this one afternoon after unpacking. She is in her closet surrounded by her stuffed animals. We hope we don't have to do it again for a very long time.