Reminiscing Tag

I was tagged by my friend Aundrea and thought this was fun, so here we go: 20 Years Ago: I was 7 years old and lived in Farmington, Utah. One of my best friend's name was Whitney Lacy and I had another friend named Lindsay - whose last name I've forgotten. Another important person in my life? My elementary school crush, Jeff Williams. My parents had just built a new house and we didn't have a fence between our house and our neighbor's house and I remember the "mom" at the neighbor's house used to sun bathe topless. Ah, the things you remember from your childhood... 10 Years Ago: I was a junior in high school and was just running for student body president. I spent all of my time either on the golf course, in the gym playing basketball, or hanging out with my friends. We had some good times. For prom that year I remember having the best tan of my life, and maybe the last tan of my life. 5 Years Ago: Ryan and I had just bought our house and I was 7 months pregnant with Brayden. We were loving Oregon and "being on our own" but I was hating the people who told me that Oregon summers are so mild that you don't need air conditioning. Obviously they had never been 9 months pregnant in August. 3 Years Ago: Landon-man had just joined our family and I began thinking that my family was shaping up how I'd always planned it - all boys! We spent a lot of time that summer outdoors and took the boys on lots of camping and hiking trips. Later that fall we bought a minivan, doing something that I swore I would NEVER do, actually drive one of those. Not only did I buy and drive, but I loved it! 1 Year Ago: Charlotte's arrival put a hault to a family of white-boys and I have been grateful ever since. Ryan was traveling constantly and with no family around it was just me and the kids. She saved my life! With 2 busy (and occasionally naughty) toddlers, Charlotte's fun, bubbly disposition made the days pass by quicker. I felt like I experienced a lot of personal growth, learning to do a lot on my own and do it well. I also discovered the wonderful world of blogging and have loved making contact with people I maybe wouldn't have otherwise kept in touch with or re-connected with. This year so far has been, in all, the hardest year of recent times. Not necessarily in the obvious ways, but this last year has brought me to a lot of soul searching and time on my knees. Not only have I experienced growth in personal areas, but Ryan and I spent a lot of time deciding the right direction for our family, and we are confident and thrilled to be moving in the direction we are going. Yesterday I got my house back on the market and cleaned my window screens. I sorted through more closets and put things into my "ship" and "store" piles. I also watched a movie last night called "A Long Engagement" (French foreign film with English subtitles, and the edited version I might add) which was one of the best movies I've seen in a while. A very complex and smart movie and one I would recommend to anyone! Today someone is coming to look at my house, and if I'm really really lucky or blessed, or a combination of both, maybe they'll buy my house. Tomorrow Brayden and I are starting French lessons. We are starting a little late as far as a timeline is concerned, but I figure something is better than nothing. I'm hoping to at least be able to say "hello," "Do you speak English," and other phrases I have mentioned in past posts. (Ok, so I already know how to say "hello" but you catch my drift...) In the next year I hope to be a seasoned European traveler and be on my way to becoming totally fluent in French and maybe have learned some Dutch in there too! I hope life will be fun and exciting, but at the same time mellow and chill. 

For Sale...again

We found out yesterday that the sale of our house is not going through. The buyers weren't able to get the financing they were planning on. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. But, there is only one thing to do - get back on the horse, the work-horse that is, and try to get my house sold in the next 3 weeks. We are re-listing our house with a new agent and hoping to gain some momentum.

So, in the spirit of getting my house back on the market, I have been cleaning like a mad-woman trying to make things presentable again. We had a very busy morning and when I finally sat down to eat lunch, Brayden was the only one still awake and sat down at the table to talk with me. The following conversation ensued:

Brayden: I’m going to be a cowboy when I grow up.

Me: Ooh – that sounds fun.

Brayden: What are you going to be when you are a grown-up?

Me: I am a grown-up and I’m a mom!

Brayden: THAT'S IT?! You’re not someone who does anything or works?

Needless to say I was dying, laughing so hard. So, here's a little shout-out to you stay-at-home moms who don't do anything or work. Happy Friday!

Going "Under the Knife"

So much has happened in our little world here since my last post that I hardly know how to catch up, so I'm not going to. Rather I will just begin with a clean slate and start with what happened today!

When Charlotte was born she had a small, dime-sized scar on her forehead, that wasn't really a scar, but something called a nevus sabaceus. It was explained to me as an overproduction of the oil glands in that particular area causing the skin to raise. It's not a big deal now, but as she gets older it has the potential to grow warts and ooze (every girl's dream, right?) So, although she is the youngest member of my family, today she earned the elite privilege of becoming the first person in our family to have plastic surgery. They had to put her under an anesthetic and she did so well. Before the actual anesthetic was given they gave her a little something that made her very loopy. It was hilarious. She was acting like a drunk - a very happy drunk I must say. She kept trying to walk and her legs would buckle and then she'd look at us with a huge sloppy grin like she didn't have a care in the world.

I should have taken a really good "before" picture, but I didn't, so this is the best I have

Test run

We took a little vacation this last weekend, part test run for trips to come and part just to have fun! Seeing as though summer hasn't come yet here (it's cloudy and 52 degrees today) we decided to check out the new Great Wolf resort near Seattle. Outside of visiting family, we don't really take many family vacations and haven't done one since Charlotte was born. Seeing as though we plan on vacationing quite a bit the next couple of years, a test run seemed appropriate on our home turf. I took my camera with lofty ideas of getting some great pictures, but I was in the water the whole time so no pictures got taken.

The resort is basically a huge lodge attached to a 60,000 sq.ft. indoor water park. The accommodations were great and we had such a blast. After some initial water hesitation by Landon and Charlotte, the kids really enjoyed themselves and Landon even ended up going down the huge "adult" water slides. I would definitely recommend it with these 2 notes:

1. Go during the week if you can. It was so much less busy Friday than Saturday. We left Saturday late afternoon and it was crazy-packed. I think it's less expensive during the week too.

2. If possible, have a 1-to-1 ratio with your kids. As much fun as Charlotte had, she really held the boys back in their ability to do "big kid things" since one of us always had to be her and usually the boys wanted to go different directions. If your kids are older and can watch themselves, this wouldn't matter much. However, in my situation, it would have been awesome to have "Grandma/Nana" there to play with Charlotte while we took the boys around.

Overall, the "having fun" portion of our trip definitely succeeded. As far as a test run for our future European adventures? I think we are in for some interesting times ahead. Between here and Seattle and back we had 2 emergency "#2" stops (for the kids of course...), we lost Landon and had to contact security (which, as bad as this is going to sound, is pretty standard on any outing with that kid), and sleep was minimal. I guess as long as I can learn, "Where is your closest bathroom - this is an emergency!" and "Can you help me find my small child?" in many different European languages we'll be in good shape. Europe here we come, 4 weeks and counting...

SOLD!

Assuming that everything works out on the Buyer's end....
Hip-hip-hooray!!!

Stress Reliever

I have been massively stressed out lately. I don't ever remember a time in my life where I had so many things going on at one time, so many BIG things. I have never been a high-stress person and in fact I remember after graduating from college saying that I was so low stress that I was able to graduate from college without ever stressing out. My attitude towards stress has always been that if you focus on the fact that you are stressed out, then you are wasting lots of energy that you could put towards working on the things that are stressing you out. It has come to my attention that all of these comments and previous notions were said and developed before I ever had the chance to experience REAL stress . I'm thinking that the bulk of the stress is coming from trying to sell the house, but it is compounded by the fact that our move is getting closer and I really need to be focusing on sorting our stuff, not constantly cleaning the house. Add the bureaucratic processes I am dealing with just to get our paperwork together to get us to Belgium, a busy church calling, and 3 small children and it's just overload!

So, after feeling all of these things last night and this morning I decided I needed a breather and nothing is a better stress reliever for me than baking. Here is a great recipe for the best brownies on earth. They are baking right now, and I'm already feeling better. In my opinion, if baking (and eating!) these can't bring a little stress reliever, nothing will. Enjoy!

Heavenly Hash Brownies

Brownie:
4 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. melted butter
1/3 c. cocoa powder
1 1/2 c. chopped pecans (optional)

1 - 7oz. jar marshmallow creme

Icing:
1/2 c. melted butter
3 Tbsp. cocoa
1/3 c. milk
1 t. vanilla

Mix eggs and vanilla. Add sugar and flour. Beat well. Mix melted butter and cocoa. Add to flour mixture. Add pecans. Bake @ 350 for 25-30 minutes. DO NOT COOL. Place mounds of marshmallow creme on warm cake and spread evenly. Cool, then spread with well-beaten icing.

The Wedding Report - Again!

Over this past weekend my sister Natalie got married! She is my only sister and we are so close, so I think it had a bit of special significance for me. Everything was gorgeous and beautiful, especially Natalie! She looked like a Disney Princess, it was amazing. It has been great to have all of these big family events the last couple of months so that we could get to see so much of our families before our exodus. Along with the wedding we celebrated my little nephew's baby blessing and my mom's birthday - both of which I don't have any pictures of. Saturday night we went out to the new Indiana Jones movie, and I officially give it my stamp of approval, despite a little cheesiness (I won't go into details for those of you who haven't seen it!)

The picture-taking was a bit sporadic over the weekend, but we ended up getting some fun pictures overall!

Happy 1st Birthday Charlotte!

Charlotte is a joy in my life! It has been so much fun to see her grow and develop this last year. Her personality is such a little mix of Brayden and Landon, with her own little added bit of feisty.

I was thinking today as I was watching her play how blessed I feel to be her mom. When I first found out that I was having a girl, I didn't quite know how I felt about it. I had always thought of myself as a "boy mom" and had absolutely no idea what I would do with a girl.

The first time I held her all of my concerned feelings left and were replaced with this incredible bond that I don't even know how to describe. I immediately felt like I had my own little best friend. Charlotte is a bright spot in my day everyday and I am so thankful for her. We had a very fun birthday day today enjoying sunshine, cake, and presents! HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE - I LOVE YOU!

The Wedding Report

Ryan, Charlotte, and I just returned from a great weekend in Salt Lake & Logan for Ryan's brother's wedding. The time-table was so quick and I knew we would have a demanding schedule, so we left the boys here with some friends while we went. The wedding was so nice, and always, humor followed us and we ended up having some very funny experiences. I'll share a couple.

All of the sisters and sisters-in-law were wearing matching outfits for the reception. Not really thinking when I packed my suitcase, the only dressy outfit I packed was the outfit for the reception with the thought that I would just wear that all day. When my sister-in-law Andrea picked us up from the airport she told me that no one was wearing their outfits all day, and so I ended up borrowing a dress of hers to wear for the actual ceremony. When we got to the temple I noticed that someone else in the wedding party was wearing the exact same dress. Only difference? She was 9 months pregnant! So, not only was I wearing the same dress as someone else, but now it also looked like I shopped at Motherhood Maternity for my everyday wear. It became the point of all jokes for the rest of the morning that my sister-in-law set me up and my twin was officially dubbed my "BFF."

After the wedding we went to the CopperMill where their wedding luncheon was. At this point, I was starving! I had eaten a bowl of cereal 6 hours earlier that definitely was not tiding me over and my stomach was getting a little queasy. The luncheon was buffet-style and I ended up eating a lot. As we were walking to the car after the luncheon my stomach was not agreeing with me very well. Everyone went back to Ryan's grandma's house to hang out for the couple of hours before the reception and once we got there my stomach had decided that everything I had just eaten an hour before had to be flushed. With the house being full of people, I was a little distressed as to what I should do (there are only 2 bathrooms in the house) and Ryan told me that if I used the bathroom in the basement, he would stay close by and run interference for me making sure no one tried to use that bathroom. Well, my stomach did what it needed to do and when I went to flush I all heard was "Clunk, clunk." You know, the sound of the toilet NOT flushing. I immediately called for Ryan to "Come in here, QUICK!" He did a various many things with the toilet trying to get it working again all the while saying, "Oh my gosh, Lisa" over and over again. All I could do was laugh. Thankfully, Ryan got the toilet working again and we were on our way.

Along with our funny experiences we had so much fun seeing family - especially family that we only keep in touch with over the blogosphere! Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip:

Lions & Tigers & Gas Prices - OH MY!

You know gas prices are getting bad when you wait in line at Costco for 25 minutes for gas at $3.53. I have noticed the steady incline in gas prices, but I have to say it's getting a little ridiculous. I dropped Brayden off at preschool this morning and on the way home noticed that gas was $3.70 at most stations I passed. Knowing I had to drive by Costco anyway, I thought I would just fill up there. When I pulled in, there were 10 gas lanes, each with 6-7 cars waiting. I guess everyone else noticed the $3.70 elsewhere too! All of this expensive gas led me to reminisce on the "good ol' days" when I could fill my car up for $15. Even two years ago when we bought my current car I could fill it up for less than $40. Today I spent $60! I'm not even going to talk about our soaring utility bills. So, there's my little rant for today. If you see me walking down the street pushing my jogging stroller, miles from home hauling groceries or some other item, don't ask questions, just know that I decided $60 was too much to be paying at the pump and I wanted to delay the painful process of doing so again as long as possible.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANDON!

Today is Landon's 3rd birthday - I can't believe it! When Brayden was 3 he was so old and mature and responsible (or something close to that) and Landon is just so....not. Landon is my party guy, my funny man, my wild card. If he does a handful of things I ask him to do all in one day, it's a good, amazing day. Landon is just such his own person and I love that. I love his independence and free spirit. I've said this before, but he is seriously one of the funniest people I have ever met. I could post everyday with something funny that he has said or done.

Landon had a fun birthday today starting with a trip to build-a-bear this morning. He picked out a cute dog, dressed him in football clothing, and named him "Danny Doggy." Landon's little dream of owning a doll stroller even came true and "Danny" now has a new ride. Landon pushed his little stroller all over the mall and as weird as it is to get a 3 year old boy a doll stroller, Landon loves it and admittedly, Landon makes doll strollers look good. :) We had a little family party tonight full of pizza, chocolate cake, and lots of great presents from grandparents.

I am posting a couple of videos of Landon that I have taken the last 2 days (I apologize in advance for the quality...they got grainy when I shrunk the file size.) This first video is of the boys swinging in the backyard yesterday. I was floored when I looked out the window and saw Landon pumping himself! In this video clip I asked him where he learned to do that and he said, "Brayden learned to me how, so now I know how!" I'm glad his English is so good. :)

So you can all feel a part of our celebrations, here we are singing to Landon tonight and him blowing out his candles on his cake. Green is his favorite color in case you couldn't tell!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANDON!

What a weekend!!

All the stress has been set aside and we have been partying at our house! Wednesday night I flew to Utah with Charlotte for my sister Natalie's graduation from BYU. It was SO MUCH FUN! Ryan took a couple of days off work and stayed home with the boys and had "guy time." Ryan drove preschool carpool, got the boys hair cut, went to the gym, did extensive yard work, played at the park, continued the selling of our garage goods on craigslist, and even managed to have the house more sparkling clean than I've probably ever seen it. I love my family and it was so fun to play last week. Along with graduation festivities, we ate lots of food and helped Natalie with final wedding details. Also, it was so fun for Charlotte to play with her cousin Addie (they were like little best friends by the time we left) and I enjoyed spending more time getting to know Natalie's fiance David. I took a million pictures, here are some of the best:

It's all coming now....

I knew that today would come. I didn't know when, but somehow I knew that eventually it would hit me. The enormity of the situation we're getting ourselves into, that is. I spent all day Monday and Tuesday morning getting our house ready to go on the market. Yesterday it was official - sign and everything - and we had a broker open house to get some momentum going on the house. Today, I had a consultant from a moving company come through the house to estimate the cubic meters that we are shipping and the weight of the items that we plan to store. That alone was pretty close to enough to send me into a tail-spin, just realizing the ridiculous amount of work that we have ahead of us. I can't imagine if we were actually moving ourselves! Once the moving guy left I spent the rest of my morning selling things to people on craigslist. The upside is that our garage now contains a few less items, and the downside? There are only (what feels like) 1.2 million more items to go. Once the kids got down for naps I should have definitely spent my time doing something productive, but instead got consumed with researching belgian schools, french-language learning materials, and the rockin' new stroller I'm going to need. All of these items only represent 1/100th of the details going through my mind right now. I can hardly put a respectable meal on the table these days I am so preoccupied (speaking of which, we are having pot-stickers and veggie burgers for dinner. What a combo, right? It's all just to fulfill another thing to do: clean out the chest freezer!) I am so excited for this move, but can I just close my eyes for a moment and be immediately transported or something?

So, to try and end this post in a less stressed-out fashion, here are some pictures from last weekend. We had such a great long weekend! Ryan turned 30 on Friday (which should have been a post all by itself....sorry Ryan!), Ryan's sister Andrea came to visit us from Wednesday to Saturday, and I spent Saturday and Sunday in Seattle with my mom doing a little girls weekend and shopping for my sister's upcoming wedding. Ryan and Andrea took the kids to the beach on Saturday and supposedly there are some pics for that somewhere, but for now, Ryan's birthday pictures will have to do!

Reading through his birthday books - all about Europe of course!! :)

Ryan and Andrea - if you notice the string around Ryan's neck, he is actually wearing a transformer's hat. No 30th birthday is complete without transformer's hats...at least that's what Brayden thought!

Drum roll please...

There has been a lot of movin' and shakin' going on at our house lately, which has definitely led to my blog-neglect. Most everything going on has been fairly minimal, except for one thing:
WE ARE MOVING TO BELGIUM!!! Ryan has accepted a position with PwC in Brussels, Belgium starting in July and really, we could not be more thrilled. We feel so good about this move and we just can't wait to see what Europe has in store for us. We will definitely miss our friends and callings and Oregon in general, but we can't wait for this adventure. We will be there for 2 years and then will come back into the US firm wherever there is a need, which is also a source of excitement to us.

The least exciting thing about this whole process is dealing with our stuff. We will be shipping over only clothes, some toys, books, etc., but plan to buy everything else there, which leaves a lot to be sold or stored. Anyone need a house? or a car? two cars actually....or a TV? or bedroom furniture? or a bike? or a stroller? got a couple of those too.... you name it, we will probably be selling it in the next couple of months. After all, we have an entire house to liquidate. :) Thanks for being part of our lives up to this point and we look forward to sharing this next adventure as well!

Welcome to the Family!

In the last few weeks my extended family has grown by 2 people! I thought I would take the opportunity to say WELCOME!

Here is Roderic Wells Lewis III (officially dubbed "little Roddy") He is my newest nephew and came 4 weeks early at a whopping 6lb 2oz. Isn't he beautiful?! ALMOST makes me want another baby. Please note and don't forget to emphasize the ALMOST. :)

This is my sister Natalie and the man in her life - her new fiance, David Main. We got to meet David for the first time this weekend (disgraceful I know!) and are so excited to welcome him into the family. He and my sister were so ridiculously starry-eyed. It was very cute and exciting to see her so happy!

Boys will be boys...thankfully

It's been a very busy little while at my house. Between my new calling, trying to get a little spring cleaning in, and just keeping up with the daily stuff, I've hardly had a moment to sit down at the computer.

Sometimes when I get into these "busy" modes, I start to feel bad that my kids aren't getting all of the attention that I think they need. But, to be honest, I always feel a lot of "mom" guilt for all sorts of things. You name the parenting area and I've probably felt inadequate in that area at one time or another in the last 4 years. One of the areas that I always feel bad about is the fact that my boys don't have acre upon acre to roam around on. Many times I have said that I wished we lived "back-in-the-day" and all worked the family farm together complete with climbing trees, fishing at the ol' fishin' hole, and discovering all sorts of little animals in the woods. I think my boys would love that life. Or even those wonderful childhood heros - Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn - what a great boy life! :) So, as silly as this sounds, those kinds of ideas cross my mind often, wondering if their little minds are being stunted by living in suburbia. Well, Brayden pretty much squelched any of those thoughts the other day when I walked into the backyard and found him like this:

Yup, there he is, hanging out in our dinky pine tree.

He was so happy and so proud of himself that he had climbed the tree and I was probably even more happy! The whole situation just warmed my heart. It definitely made me feel better to know that thankfully, boys will be boys, acreage or not.

Never a dull moment...

It's been another wildly exciting day at my house.

This morning I had a couple of meetings at the church and when I got home the house was silent. Completely silent. You may think that is a good thing, but when there is silence at my house there is always trouble and it's usually big. I came into the kitchen and Ryan was sitting at the table working on his lesson for his primary class and he told me that Charlotte was napping and the boys were playing in the playroom. So nicely in fact, that they were totally quiet. Our home teachers showed up a couple of minutes later and when we called for the boys they didn't come. I immediately knew that they were not playing nicely, but were probably making trouble...and I was right. Somehow the boys had gotten their Costco-sized bottle of vitamins out of the medicine cabinet (NO IDEA how this happened) and were eating them in the playroom. We figured by what was left in the bottle that they ate anywhere from 15-20 each (keep in mind we give them half a vitamin each night). Brayden said he had eaten "About ten," but I'm sure he was underestimating because he didn't want to get in trouble. Ryan immediately called poison control and they told us to make sure the boys drank lots and lots of water to try and flush out their systems. What they didn't mention was HOW the vitamins would flush out of their systems, and I'll tell you the answer is not urine. It's something else, and it's explosive.

After having stomach pains all afternoon both boys seem to be doing better tonight. We officially threw away the rest of the vitamins and don't plan on buying any more. My feelings on the day basically come down to this: when the 7th day was set aside as a "day of rest" I'm not sure that families with young boys were taken into account.