Tuesday, September 23, 2014

4350 Iris Court


 We spent two good years here and loved every day of it.  In this house.... Ashlyn went from a baby to a toddler to a little girl. She learned how to climb stairs, how to ride her scooter, how to use the potty, started sleeping in a big girl bed, and became a big sister.  Mike started his company in the basement. We called it his "industrial office."  He became a green thumb and brought this yard from drab to fab.  The tenets before let the grass die and neglected everything else. Mike really turned this place around.  He became Clark Griswald and decorated the heck out of it for Christmas.  He nearly broke his neck while trying to put lights on the second story of the roof. I heard a big thud and ran outside to find him hanging from the top roof and the ladder about ready to fall off as well. I told him he had to stop.  After all, they are just Christmas lights that are only up for a month. He scared the daylights out of me! In this house I found out I was pregnant for the second time with another sweet little girl.  Mike and I brought Kendall here from the hospital.  I learned how to be a mother of two.  I started a lash extension business that kept me really busy. So busy that Christmas Eve was wrapping Christmas presents and didn't have enough wrapping paper.  I also never got around to send Christmas cards to our friends and family.  Even though I loved making money, it wasn't worth the sacrifices I was making in the home.  So I sent all of my clients away and decided to focus 100% on being a mom, wife and homemaker and leave the stress of making the money to Mike.  I will never forget the first week summer we moved into this house we sat on the porch and felt like we were living the American Dream.  Even though we were renting, it just felt so nice to be in a house. The chapter we spent in this house and created so many wonderful memories and I am so grateful we were able to call this place home.



Here are the pictures we posted on Craigslist.  It rented out within a few hours.  


























Kendall's 1st Birthday!!!


Well that sure went fast! We celebrated Kendall's birthday by going to Jumpstreet and then having cake and ice cream at the house.  She devoured the cake like it there was no tomorrow and loved having "help" opening her presents with her big sister.

We love you Kendall June!!!




















Cancun, Mexico 

Mike and I took a trip to Cancun and had a wonderful time. Just us. No kids. 8 days.  It was awesome and just looking at these pictures makes me want to go back.  All we did was lay at the beach, eat, lay at the pool, eat some more, and enjoy the warm weather and no responsibilities.  A yearly trip like this is such good therapy for a marriage. We will definitely go again.
















Easter

To celebrate Easter this year we went to an Easter egg hunt that a local nursery put on with all of the cousins.  It was really fun for the girls. Ashlyn got a ton of eggs and ate even more candy.  

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Love these little bunnies.  Ashlyn put her ears on herself.   Kendall learned how to put them on later that day and she looked like a real Easter bunny with her two new front teeth.  

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Nothing more important in life than family.  I am so grateful everyday that the Lord has given me these people to go through life with.  I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have a wonderful husband and two beautiful, spunky and sassy little angels.  Everything I love in life is because of Jesus Christ.  Because of Him, my family can be together forever, no matter what. 

Mike's Golden Birthday

Mike turned 28 on the 28th of March this year.  I told him we needed to do something big this year, because it was his Golden Birthday and he gave me a blank stare.  He had no idea what a Golden Birthday was. We usually keep things pretty low key for our birthdays: shopping, dinner and a movie.  A quality night, if you ask me, but this year we needed to have more of a memorable celebration. So for his birthday Mike went golfing, had to wait until the actual day of his birthday to open his gifts, and we invited a bunch of our friends to eat at Mt. Fuji with us.

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From left to right: Logan Ward, Greg Swapp, Zach Almeida, Us, Sara Almeida, Darlene Swapp, Lexy Ward.  (Everyone but Zach went to BYU-I.  We forgive you, Zach.)

This was such a fun group.  We decided to have the girls on one side and the guys on the other for chatting purposes.  After dinner the girls hopped in one car and the guys in another and we classed it up at Dairy Queen for dessert.  I haven't laughed that much in a long time.  I would say the Golden Year Birthday night was a success.  

St. Patrick's Day

These girls are Irish so they just have to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.
Mike tells me I basically am a grown girl still enjoying dresses up her baby dolls.  I would have to agree with him.  Not many things I love more than dressing these girls up and taking their pictures.  

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My heart just might burst. 


Kendall at 10 &11 Months

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This is one happy baby.  She always has a wide, open mouth smile and has a very loud, happy yell.  We just laugh at her all the time.


What she is up to...

At 10 months she got four teeth. First the bottom two poked through and then the top two followed the next week.  

She is DONE with baby food! None of that mushed up stuff. She wants the real deal. 

She started crawling! She follows her big sis around everywhere and loves opening drawers and discovering their contents. 

She pulls up on everything.  We love going to get her in the morning because she always has a huge smile and is standing up waiting for us.  

Words: Momma (She crawls around saying momma all the time, and I love it.), Dadda, Siss, Jesus.