A Whole Year

I realized today, that we have been in this home for a whole year now.

We moved in on February 9, 2015. It's crazy how time flies.

We have really loved this home. It has been so wonderful to have our own house and yard. We've made quite a few repairs, and had some exciting adventures.

When we first moved into the house, it was in pretty good shape. The yard hadn't been worked on in a while, but we saw a lot of potential. The roof leaked around the chimney, and there were a couple of frightening paint jobs. The water ran at a boiling temperature for five minutes, and then went cold, and chunks of dry wall had been removed and then amateurishly placed back in without being completed.

I was so excited to start working on things.

Fast forward a year.

We fixed the water problem almost immediately. It turned out that the plastic tube that went into the brand new water heater was only about a foot and a half long. The water went cold so quickly because it was only sucking hot water off the top. The plumber inserted a longer tube...and it was fixed!

Our yard after we first finished raking it.

We did a lot of yard work, and planted a pretty successful garden. We grew peas, onions, lettuce, and cherry tomatoes. I planted corn too, but I planted it too late, so it never reached its full potential. We had a really good pie cherry and apple crop. We've cleaned out the two sheds, and filled one with fire wood from trees that we've had to remove and limbs we've had to cut off.

Kevin helped me pick the cherries

We've repainted two rooms, a bathroom and a bedroom. We've filled in most holes with plaster, and cleaned the carpets. We paid someone to fix the leak on the roof, and it seems to be holding pretty well.

Newly painted bathroom

Newly painted bedroom

Kevin has grown three or four inches, and Arkhon has matured into a wonderful dog. They are best friends, and love to play together.

This was taken before we purchased a lawn mower. The grass was beautiful!

Dakota died in our home, and we buried her ashes in the backyard.

Our beautiful old girl

We lost two fish, and decided not to have anymore of those for a while. Our snake has also grown a great deal.

We've hosted some birthday parties and have had three of Grig's siblings live with us. We've had some pretty amazing fun moments with his sister and some pretty scary moments as her health plummeted and she had to fly back to Virginia. We were sad to see her leave, and hope that she has a successful surgery soon.

Argent and Grig's mother making a snowman with Kevin

We've really enjoyed having Kevin's uncles here, and we have learned a lot from both of them. Kevin especially loves playing with them and is always excited to see them. In the morning, if they sleep in late, he goes downstairs and wakes them up by saying, "It's morning time!"

Uncle Allopex

Uncle Havelock

We've had a great snowfall this year, and found out that our front yard has a pretty good sled run. We've made snowmen and a wigwam using branches found in our yard. I'm hoping it snows some more so it will look like an igloo.

We've now had every holiday in this home, and it's been so fun to decorate for those! We had a great turnout for trick-or-treaters, and I really love our neighborhood. We've made friends with most of our neighbors, and simply adore them. (Many of them either have children or dogs, and if Kevin isn't friends with their kids, Arkhon is friends with their dogs.)

You can't really tell from this picture, but these two love each other!

I love this place. In the past year, it has evolved from a house into a home. It is a place where I feel comfortable and safe. We want it to be a home, a temple, and a haven for anyone who enters.

I think we're making pretty good progress toward that goal, and I'm excited to see what the next year brings!

Moving Rooms, Haircuts, and Garter Snakes

We've been trying to make a big change in our home.

We decided that it's time for Kevin to move to his own bedroom.

Due to this, over the last couple of days we haven't gotten much sleep. The first night, I was just going to stay in there until he fell asleep, but he stood on his bed with his arms stretched toward the door grasping at the air. I finally figured out that he wanted his dad.

So, we have slept on his bedroom floor the last two nights to help him get used to sleeping in there. He's been doing pretty well. He fought it pretty hard the first night, but during his nap yesterday he went right to sleep in his own bedroom.

When nighttime came, he wasn't too sure about it again, but as soon as our pseudo-bed was made on the floor he settled down and went to sleep. He slept most of the night on his own, but at about 3:30 a.m., he put himself between the two of us. It was pretty cold, so I didn't make him go back in his own bed. It's hard to find a happy medium with the temperature in our house.

We don't have air-conditioning, so at night we leave all the windows open and use a window fan. However, this can make it pretty cold in the bedroom. It's hard to want to turn it off though, because then it's too warm during the daytime.

Grig and I are okay, but Kevin hates blankets and always kicks them off.

It's a work-in-progress.

Yesterday, I also gave Grig and Kevin haircuts. I had been intending to cut their hair before our trip to Virginia, but then I realized his grandma would want to see his curly hair. She was grateful I waited to cut it.

Here's Kevin's before and after pictures:

It turned out quite well.

Here's the back:

He has a lot of hair.

For family home evening, we went swimming in the river last night. Well, swimming is perhaps the wrong term. Wading is probably more like it. At one point, we were walking upstream and it was getting thigh-high. It was pretty hard going for a while, but a lot of fun.

It was also pretty cold. It was fairly warm outside, so the water felt pretty good.

Grig also managed to catch a garter snake, so that was awesome! We were climbing over a tree, and Grig spotted it. He quickly jumped over the fallen trunk, and snagged the end of it. It was a pretty good sized one. We hadn't brought the camera with us, but it looked a lot like this one, with big spots on its body.

Its head seemed flatter than the ones in Idaho, but maybe that's because it was sleeping under a log.

Who knows?

We're finally getting back to the normal schedule. It's nice to be home.

Finding Balance

Over the past few weeks, I've been learning to be a stay-at-home mom.  For the most part, I love it!  However, it has been a new experience, and at times a very difficult one.  I've found that the most difficult part is not staying busy.  The most difficult part is finding the balance between caring for Kevin and getting chores done.

Some days, I'll be busy all day and I'll accomplish a ton!  I'll do the dishes, make meals, clean the whole house, organize boxes, made desert, serve others, do my scripture study, work on video editing, and feel really good about how I spent my time! However, I have a very grumpy baby because he didn't get the time and attention he needed.  He'll have spent the day crawling after me and seeking my attention, which I give him in short spurts, but evidently not sufficient.

Other days, I feel like I get nothing done.  Those days, I'll spend too long working on videos, reading, or Kevin and I will be watching Arturo Trejo on youtube together.  Those days I don't feel very good about how I spent my time, and I look at my house at the end of the day and wish I had done more around the house.

Then, other days, I'll spend nearly the entire day just spending time with Kevin.  We'll play with toys in his room, go outside and sit on the grass, and take two hour naps together.  On those days, I don't feel bad about how I spent my time, but I still look at my house and wish it was cleaner.

I am working on finding the balance between doing my stuff, doing homemaker/wife stuff, and taking care of Kevin.  After thinking about this difficulty for a while, I came to the conclusion that the most important thing that I can do with my time is to spend time with Kevin.  As he gets older, he can 'help' me with the household chores, and while he is taking naps now, I can get a lot done.  However, I only have a short amount of time to spend with Kevin before he grows up and leaves our home.  I want him to know that he is more important than anything else.

As I've been working on showing him that, I find that I still have time to get things done.  Kevin is unusual.  Most eight month baby are still learning to crawl.  I've even seen a few who are still working on rolling over.  However, Kevin is working on walking.  He'll now just stand in one place with nothing supporting him for a couple minutes or more.  He is very quick and can get into everything, but he also does quite well at entertaining himself.  When he is in his bedroom playing with toys, I can get a lot done, and when he wants me, he just comes crawling down the hall saying, "Aaa?  Aaa?"  That means he wants attention.  Then, we spend time together.

Grig right now is working at very early hours in the morning, and so I can get a lot of video editing, scripture reading, and blogging done before Kevin wakes up.  After that, our time together is precious.  I need to make the most of it and do my best to be a first class mom.