We Have a House!

I just found out... we have a house! (pictures and more news to come)

Girls Night!

What do the girls do when the boys go to a father and sons camp out? That is the question I asked myself last night around 7PM after Braden and Spencer headed out to the Mogollon Rim. Last time the guys did this, Jade was tiny, so we didn't really do anything different. Usually Jade goes to bed at 7, but it just didn't seem right to make her go to bed on such a rare night when it was just her and I at home. Besides, she knew her brother was having loads of fun with Dad. I asked Jade what we should do and her eyes got all bright and she said, "We should have a celebration of our own fun!" (At this point she jumped, with excitement, her awkward, uncoordinated, 2-year-old jump). "We should put beautiful flowers in every room of the whole house." Then she went to each room and said, "Flowers in here, flowers in here"... and so on. It seemed like a good idea, but I didn't know if it would work in application. So I suggested we should watch a girl movie with popcorn and paint nails. When I went to our DVD shelf, though all the girl movies were things like Pride and Prejudice which would totally bore Jade (at least until she is old enough to understand the amazing plot, characters, and agonizing romantic struggle). So off we went to Blockbuster and Jade had no problems choosing something girly. I took her to the kid section and she chose, "My Little Ponies: Princess Promenade". I normally gag at things like this, but it was her night and after reading the back I could see no quarrel with it's morals. So we watched the movie which featured the most pink and purple our TV has ever had to display. It wasn't horrible, though and I had fun watching Jade enjoying it so much. I painted her nails and after they dried I put her to bed. It was a late but fun girls night!

Keep Hoping

This just in: apparently we will be closing escrow in about two weeks. I know this sounds negative, but at this point I'm waiting for something to go wrong. I feel so blessed at even the prospect of what is happening right now. About a year ago if you would have asked me about getting a house we could live in forever, I would have told you that it was an impossible dream. It's still hard for me to believe. With God anything is possible and I can give Him all the credit for this blessing as well as so many other blessings we have had. Now we just go through the steps and keep hoping.

Hot Lava

More volcanoes! Hooray! Braden didn't have preschool yesterday, so I tried to think of something enriching that he and Jade could do. I'm not real savvy on projects, so I went with the ol' original science fair volcano project. I made some dough out of flour salt and water and then we built them up. It took a lot longer to bake it than I thought and the kids were very eager. "Are our volcanoes done yet? They're taking forever." Three hours later, they were ready to paint. Braden and Jade did such a good job on the painting. They were really careful to make it just how they wanted it. Oh, we also made little dinosaurs to add to the drama of the erupting volcanoes. We let them dry over night so Daddy could participate and got to work on them right after breakfast. We used baking soda and peroxide as the lava. The kids were so delighted when they saw it gushing out. Jadelynn's produced more lava than Braden's and she began to be concerned about her little dinosaur. She said something like, "Save my dinosaury from the hot lava!" By the end, both volcanoes were a soggy mess and their paint was beginning to come off, but I suppose it was worth a day of crafting for a few exciting moments of hot lava.

A House of the Lord

I've had a lot to think about lately. If you've read my last several posts, you'll know that a lot of my thoughts have revolved around finding and buying a house. Well, we've found one and now we wait. Along with this waiting comes the involuntary spinning of hamster wheels in the room of my brain labeled "Decorating Ideas". I don't know if maybe I have an overdeveloped lobe associated with this type of planning or what, but even though I'm trying not to get my hopes up until everything is said and done, I already have the downstairs of the house pretty well mapped out... OK, ACUTELY mapped out; I know the type of flower I'd like in the vase that will be on the imaginary side table which I'll know when I see. I won't bore you with the details of these plans... in reality they will take a year or more to accomplish to their exact design (since I don't furnish on credit), the main purpose of today's blog is to talk about something far more important. I was lounging around all weekend watching TV (not really, I was actively watching General Conference) and my day dreams of my future house were redirected down a less traveled, but far better path... the one which will take my family and I were we want to be. Elder Gary E Stevenson, a general leader in the church spoke about how we can make our homes a house of the Lord. He took us on a virtual tour of our houses and asked us to view our own home through the eyes of spirituality. I liked the questions he asked and thought I'd include them. They really made me think of how I want our house to be.
Imagine you are opening the door of your home:
What do you see and how do you feel?
Is there love, peace, and is your home a refuge from the world?
Is it clean and orderly?
Can uplifting images be seen including appropriate pictures of the temple and the Savior?
Is your bedroom a place for personal prayer?
Is the kitchen a place to eat wholesome food together and converse?
Are the scriptures available?
Do you have a personal gospel study space?
Is the music and entertainment you hear offensive to the Spirit?
And lastly are the conversations you hear uplifting and without contention?
Basically our homes are of equal spiritual importance to the temple.
He pointed out that we all might need a little home improvement, but that he hoped we didn't need an extreme home makeover. He also reminded me that when we put these things as a priority, we are building a spiritual mansion that cannot be corrupted by moths or storms or weather.

I thought about this virtual tour and the areas that I need to improve. So now as I'm planning our new house, I try to think of how I can make it a house of the Lord.

3 Faces of Bacon

I want to thank everyone's comments of support and excitement and good advice regarding the house. You guys are the best! I'm so excited about the house, but I also realize that if it doesn't work out as we plan, there are so many opportunities out there right now. Now on a completely different and embarrassingly random note, I want to blog today about bacon. For some reason, I was thinking about bacon and it's role in my life. It's an enemy, friend and comedian all wrapped into one and I can't imagine my life without it. OK, so that may be a little bit dramatic, but let me explain. I enjoy bacon probably about once a quarter or less (I prefer the turkey variety). If I eat it any more than that it becomes unappealing to me, but at this schedule it is like a special treat. Well, I was cooking some up this morning and I was reminded of how horrible that stuff is to prepare. I was simply trying to turn it over so it would cook evenly and it was violently spitting hot oil towards me. I feared for the skin on my hands and arms. I decided to make an attempt to protect myself after feeling several tiny but painful burns, so I put on an oven mitt. Feeling confident in my new armor, I turned the bacon over only to have it fling a bunch of oil on my eye. Yeah, so much for the oven mitt. Luckily, I have cat-like reflexes and my eye was closed so it just got my eyelid and the top of my cheekbone. No permanent damage done (don't worry, Celestia), but this is why bacon is my enemy. After I ate the bacon, it kept me full all morning long and I had no cravings for snacks. In this way, bacon is my friend. And now, I'd like to introduce bacon as the comedian it is. On Facebook, there are these buttons you can put on a bulletin board and I absolutely die laughing about the ones featuring bacon. Since it would be impossible to explain, I will provide pictures below. I just realized this is probably the most pointless blog post I've ever written, but hopefully you were amused by the 3 faces of bacon.

Freaking Out

I'm good now. After much deliberation, we are going with our original offer. Hopefully all will work out and we won't have to make real estate decisions for quite awhile. Sorry about the previous post... I was freaking out.

I Think My Head Might Explode

Ahhhh. So my last post is already out dated. Our original offer has been approved but with contingencies and the other offer is asking for our best and highest offer to compete with the other seven offers. Hopefully the original one will let us decide tomorrow so we can wait and see how the yesterday's offer plays out. We have the potential to get the one we want or lose them both. And they are so different that they are very hard to compare. I don't know which one I prefer for our family. I think my head might explode.

Update

I haven't written a blog in awhile. I've also been bad on my Photo blog. What's wrong with me? My life right now has been very full. I'm pretty blessed to have so many good things to do. Lately I've been contemplating kindergarten for Braden. It's fun to think about him going to school. I know it's registration time right now, so I'm busily getting his vaccination records together (since I was irresponsible and forgot his little book at every appointment). It is difficult for me to register him when I don't know where we will be living. He's also under age, and so I have to rely on him being taken as an exception. If he starts next year it won't be so bad. I just feel like he's probably ready for the curriculum now, so hopefully they'll take him this year.
Yesterday brought an unexpected change in our quest for a house. We still haven't heard from the bank about the house we've made an offer on. Then Tuesday night, Spencer saw a new house on the market over in an established and great neighborhood in Gilbert. It looked in decent shape and it was in the middle of our price range. So, yesterday Brian took us all to have a look. It is great! There are things I don't love about it, but is big enough for us to stay there for a long time and it's location is spectacular. It's right across the street from Houston Elementary school which is a public school I would be comfortable with. We decided that it would be a better investment with more potential than the house over here that we had put an offer on. Better still, it's bank owned instead of being a short sale equaling faster decision time. We slipped an offer in right as they were not accepting any more. So, ours in 1 of 8 offers on that house. We'll just have to see what goes down. If ours is accepted, we'll cancel our other offer. If not, we'll just keep waiting on it. I hardly can say which one I'd like the most. It's a difficult decision all things considered. I guess I'm kind of leaving part of the decision to divine guidance. I prayed that the house on Houston would work out if it would be the best one for our family.
Lately has also been enjoyable socially. I've gotten a chance to watch and participate in a couple band practices for G33K Empire, a band that several of my friends are in. It's been cool to watch them progress. They've got great chemistry and awesome songs and once they get the balance just right, they'll be amazing musically.
I've been pretty good with being active thanks to my sister-in-law, Diana. She is training to instruct Body Flow at the gym and has provided the opportunity to for me to be part of her practice class. Body Flow is basically a mix of Yoga, Pilates, and Tai Chi, and it is a good muscle toning work out. Now if I keep up with running, this will probably be a good combination of losing fat while gaining muscle strength. As far as eating well, I've been doing OK. I have to admit, our home teachers came over with a plate of perfectly soft chocolate chip cookies and I partook of two of them. I was surprised that they made me feel a little gross. Perhaps my body is getting used to this sugar separation.
On a more important note, I've been really blessed by the gospel in my life lately. We've been trying much harder to read scriptures as a family and the kids hardly ever let us forget now. Our favorite way to do this is to get the kids ready for bed and then let them snuggle with us in our bed while we turn on the audio (on LDS.org) for the chapter we are on. It's been working alright, but I think we might just start reading aloud instead of listening to the audio. Jade is very wiggly and it's difficult to hear. Braden is very inquisitive about the big words found in the scriptures and I think it would be better for him if we could stop and explain things. Sometimes I feel like it's not doing any good, but I suppose if for nothing else, it's instilling a good habit. This weekend is General Conference, a time when the general leaders of the church will deliver inspiring words to uplift and buoy us up in these troubled times. I look forward to it will much eagerness and I hope my children will be able to glean something from the messages as well. If you are interested in watching it, the local showings are on TV channel 6 (cable) or 61 Saturday and Sunday starting at 9:00AM and then also at 1:00PM. For people out of state check lds.org for ways to see it.
So life has been busy but good. Hopefully I'll have news about a house next time. Until then, enjoy this update.