Fun with Nana and the Job search

Just to give the update to all who care, we found out a little over a month ago that the firm that Garrett has worked for over the past two years who we were sure would hire him, is not going to be able to due to the current economic situation. We were immediately thrown into a panic and the job search began at full speed. We have applied for jobs all over the west, and then last week during Garrett's spring break he flew out to WA state to interview and make contacts with some firms there. He focused his search on the Tri-Cities area. The trip went well, but we still know nothing for sure. We are just praying every second that something will work out and soon. The Lord has always delivered us and we have no doubt that he will again, but the waiting and not knowing is killing me.

On the plus side, my mom came out to help with the kids while Garrett was gone last week since I am pregnant and have lower amounts of energy and patience than usual. The kids were so excited to have Nana here that they didn't miss Daddy too much. We had a lot of fun.

Rylynn loved doing the baby pony dance show with Nana (it's from the my little pony movie) and playing with her new foam stuff she got for her birthday. It is the coolest stuff. It is like playdough, but it doesn't make a big mess and it never dries out.

The last day that Nana was here the kids were begging us to go swimming since they always associate Nana with swimming because she has a swimming pool. So we called around and found this really fun community rec center in Strongsville that had a kids pool with a big pirate ship and lots of slides. The kids loved it. The water was really warm and it was a zero entry pool which my kids love.

They also had a basketball hoop and water basketballs which Carter was obsessed with. He wanted Nana to lift him up to shoot the balls in the hoop the whole time. Then whenever he went down the slides he had to take the balls with him.

We had a tough time pulling the kids away from the pool but we bribed them with Wendy's on the way home so they finally agreed.


The other update that I have to post about is Carter's new big boy bed. We had talked for awhile about getting Carter out of his crib and into a bed, but we really didn't want to spend a ton of money on a new bed right before we move, so Garrett decided that he really wanted to make Carter a toddler bed. He bought all the wood and with help from our friend who can make anything they drew up the plans and put it together. Our friend also has every tool imaginable which made it much cheaper than it would have been. Thanks for all your help Bryan! The bed turned out so cute and Carter absolutely loves it! He always says, "Daddy make new bed!" The kids also loved "helping" Garrett put the rails on to complete the bed. Carter and Rylynn used their pretend tools and worked on it the whole time alongside Daddy. Carter loved to say, "Mama, we're fixing new bed!" Garrett did a great job! We are going to paint it white eventually, but he finished it just before he went out of town, so for now it is unfinished.

Four on the 4th!

Rylynn's golden birthday was this past Wednesday. We still can't believe that our baby is four years old. It seems like just yesterday when I was pregnant with her and we were so excited to meet our little baby girl for the first time. She is so grown up now and such a wonderful little leader in our family. She is a great big sister to Carter and she is already so in love with this new baby in mama's tummy. The true test of her love came this week also when we found out that we are having a boy! She cried for a minute but after we reassured her that it would still be a tiny baby that she could hold and kiss and put to sleep(she is most excited for this part for some reason), she was okay with it. She also thought it was really funny when we told her that Carter would have to learn to share his Thomas trains with the new baby boy.

Anyway, she had a great birthday this year. We started a new tradition, which is actually taken from my family, that the birthday boy or girl gets to pick any junk cereal they want for their birthday. She was really excited about this and she chose Cinnamon Toast Crunch. She had two bowls for breakfast the first day we got it. We also went to Red Robin on her birthday for her free hamburger dinner. Ben and Molly and Babo Reagan(that's what my kids call her)joined us too. We had a great time. Daddy also came home from school and surprised Rylynn with a very sweet birthday card and some of her favorite candy. She is a huge daddy's girl!

Then on Friday we had Rylynn's Pony Party with some of her friends from preschool and primary.

She has been talking about her pony party for three months now and was very excited for the big day. She came with me to the party store and picked out all the decorations for the party as well as the pony pinata.

I am by no means a cake decorator, but this year Rylynn begged for a Pony cake so I promised that I would try my best. I looked online but didn't love any of the ideas, so I came up with the idea of making a rainbow by cutting part of the top round cake and standing it up on it's side. I gave in and bought a piping kit for the frosting too which ended up being a lot of fun to use. I think it turned out really cute. Most importantly, Rylynn was thrilled about it.

We started out the party with a little pony lunch. We had magical fruit wands with pink pony fruit dip and butterfly and flower PBJ's.

We also had cupcakes for a pass the pony game that we played.

It is basically a cake walk without the walking. The girls sat in a circle and passed the pony while the music played then whoever ended up with it when the music stopped got to choose a cupcake. This game was a big hit.

However, I think the highlight of the day was the pony pinata.

All the kids got to take a turn and then Rylynn's friend Meghan gave the crushing blow to send the candy flying. They all scrambled to get the loot.

Clearly this was Carter's favorite part of the party! Notice that he is eating two suckers and a chocolate at the same time.

Rylynn's friends gave her wonderful presents.

I loved how the girls all helped with the unwrapping and were so excited for the birthday girl to open their present.

After the Pinata we had cake and ice cream. Rylynn was so excited to blow out her candles this year as you can tell in the video.

After cake and ice cream we had a little dance party with balloons while we waited for the parents to come. Rylynn was so excited to play with her presents after her friends left. She was entertained all day with them. She was also full of energy thanks to the huge amounts of sugar she had eaten!

Some things I want to remember about Rylynn at this age are that she changes her clothes 10+ times a day, she still says "bemember" instead of "remember" and "of" instead of "if". She also tells me almost everyday that she doesn't want to grow big, she wants to stay little forever! She is 35 pounds and 3 feet 5 inches tall. She loves playing house and princess and she loves being with her family. She also loves painting, coloring, and she can now write her name by herself. She loves wearing dresses most of all and would wear summer clothes everyday if I would let her. She sings most of the day, some real songs, some she's made up. She also love being in primary. She has such amazing faith and she always reminds me that I should pray if I lose something. I also have to share a story that just melts my heart: About a month ago I noticed that it had gotten quiet in Rylynn's room while she was playing by herself so I peeked in to see what was up. I saw her kneeling down in her room saying a prayer. When she heard me come in she looked up kind of embarrassed and said, "I was just saying a prayer and asking Heavenly Father when Jesus is going to come back to the earth because I want to see Him again." I told her that I wanted to see Him again too and that she would see him again someday. I will always remember how pure and perfect her faith is at this age. She is such a good example to me. We love our little Rylynnies, munchie, baby deer, Ms. Munch, Rylynners, Ya Ya (Carter's name for her)! Happy Birthday darling girl!

It's that time of year again!

NONE= the amount of willpower I have when it comes to these babies! I walked into the grocery store today very set on sticking to my "list" when I was greeted by some sweet young girls waving these babies and I just couldn't resist. So I brought them home and swore I would eat only a couple before I had a sensible lunch.

Half a sleeve later....I finally ate something healthy, but after dinner guess what was for dessert? If this baby comes out smelling slightly of mint I will not be surprised. So much for not gaining a thousand pounds this pregnancy. All I know is they are worth it!

Happy girl scout cookie season everyone!

Fort Fun!

We are officially sick of Winter in our house! The kids have been good sports about it though and staying busy, despite their serious Vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sunlight exposure! Their latest distraction is playing with every single toy in their rooms as you can see.

When that gets boring, they usually end up tearing the couch apart and jumping on it, until I tell them to stop. Then they always make a fort out of the misplaced couch cushions.

This is the result.

Rylynn has obviously been cooped up too long!

After their attempts, they decided to call in the expert fort builder, Daddy.

The result was pretty cool!
Darn that stinkin' groundhog!

Preschool Days

I just realized that I get pictures from Rylynn's teacher each week of an activity they do in preschool and I have never posted one. This is Rylynn's teacher Suzanne and the class during "meeting time". Rylynn loves her preschool!

This one is from a couple weeks ago of Rylynn doing an art project with her friends Keira and Emma

This was their first time using clay. She loved it but got her clothes filthy!

Oh Happy Day!

We have officially arrived as parents! Our daughter actually asked to do the dishes for us!




Last night after dinner I started washing the dishes and Rylynn just pulled up a chair right next to me and said she was going to do the dishes tonight. I had already rinsed most of the dishes so she had the pans to do and she loved it! She scrubbed forever and got them sparkling clean! I have to admit that I didn't think she could get them all clean by herself but she actually did a great job! I love that she had to wear my apron too. I'm feeling better about having a third kid now that I don't have to worry about the dishes anymore:)

Happy Hearts Day

Valentine's Day has been going on for weeks at our house! The main reason for that is because my husband hates Valentine's Day because he feels that it is dumb that the commercial world has to pick an arbitrary day to express your love to your loved ones when you should actually be doing it every day. Before you get the idea that he isn't romantic, let me explain that I actually love this about him. It just means that I get showered with gifts and flowers at random times unexpectedly. Ironically, the only day of the year I know I won't get anything from him is on Valentine's Day!

The festivities began a couple of weekends ago when we went out and had a "Valentine's Day" dinner at Maggiano's with Ben and Molly. We had so much fun with them and the food was AMAZING! We of course ate family style so we could get more of anything we wanted, plus it comes with the added bonus of lots of yummy leftovers! Then about a week later he surprised me with a gift card to a maternity store that I like since he knew I had NO summer maternity clothes because I have never had a summer baby.

Then a few days ago, he brought these home as a surprise!

I have to admit though that since I have become a mom, Valentine's Day has mostly become about the kids. My Grandma Allred surprised the kids and sent them each a Valentine Card in the mail a couple weeks ago and gave them each a few dollars to spend. They are always excited to receive mail of any kind but they especially like the kind with money:)

Notice how Carter has his money in his hand. He is keeping close track of it! The kids were so excited about this little surprise from Great Nana and we went to Target a few days ago to spend their money. Rylynn bought a Cinderella polly pocket doll to add to her collection and Carter bought a new Thomas train to add to his. They were thrilled! Thank you so much Grandma!

Then this Wednesday it was Rylynn's Valentine's party at school. I signed up to bring in some heart cookies for a special treat.

Rylynn was so excited to help me make them.

Carter just wanted to eat them. They both ate about five before I realized they hadn't even eaten lunch yet! Needless to say they didn't eat much lunch.

Rylynn's class has been learning about mail for the last couple weeks so they were so excited to make these giant envelopes to keep all their valentine's in from their friends. The only sad thing was that Rylynn was so excited about taking the cookies that we had made that she totally forgot to hand out her valentines to her friends. When I picked her up I noticed they were still in her backpack so I told her teacher and she felt really bad, but they said she could pass them out next week. Oh well.

They also made homemade valentines at school to send home to their families so we got this beauty in the mail a couple days ago.

This morning, we all got up and I made everyone a special French toast breakfast and then we gave the kids some little valentines gifts.

Rylynn named her little pony stuffed animal "pinkypie" and Carter calls his frog "froggy" very original I know. The other thing that Carter says about his froggy is "church" because he is wearing a tie. He loves pointing out church clothes in pictures or when people are wearing them. He is so funny. He always follows "church" up by saying "snack" because for him they go hand in hand. Snack time is definitely the highlight of nursery for him! They also got candy necklaces/bracelets and Rylynn got a new princess nightgown and Carter got a Bob the Builder movie. They were pretty happy campers. I asked Rylynn what her favorite thing about all of Valentine's Day was and she said without hesitation "the Cookies!" So we made another batch tonight. Hey what can I say, I'm pregnant:)

Hats, Cleaning, and FHE

Carter has been a little obsessed with his baseball hat lately. Garrett felt very strongly about getting Carter a Seattle Mariners hat for Christmas this year, so we found a baby one to match Daddy's. At first Carter would only leave it on for a minute or so, but this week he has been all about his hat. Since Carter was wearing his hat Rylynn of course had to wear her hat too.

I love how the hat makes his little ears poke out like elf ears! He loves that there is a beesball(baseball) and a stah(star) on his hat.

Hers is NOT a baseball hat, it is a pink princess hat, of course!

The kids thought it was so cool when they wore their hats just like Daddy. Doesn't Rylynn's hat go so well with her outfit? She wants to wear her ballet leotard everyday lately!


Rylynn has been on a cleaning spree lately which is just fine with me. She always wants to help me wash the dishes and her favorite thing to do is to wipe off the table. It usually turns into scrubbing the walls and the cupboards too. I have to say Rylynn is a little me and this just proves it even further. I have always loved cleaning and organizing (I know it's weird). Rylynn gets so excited after we clean her room and loves having everything in it's exact place. One time her friend came over right after she had cleaned her room and her friend came out of her room looking very sad and said that Rylynn wouldn't let her play with anything. I went in to check on the situation and saw Rylynn standing very protectively in front of her book shelf with all her toys. I asked her what the problem was and she said she didn't want to play with anything because it would mess up her room. After reassuring her that we would clean it all up again after her friend left, she reluctantly stepped aside and let her friend grab some toys. She is so funny! I remember doing the same thing in my room when I was little only I was protecting my stuff from my messy little sister (who has since become very neat).


We have talked about taking the kids to Chuck E Cheese's for awhile but we have never gotten around to it, so finally on Monday we decided to take the kids for FHE. The kids loved it, but I have to say, that place is a little more ghetto than I remembered it being. First of all the food was way overpriced and gross, but the real disappointment was that there was no ball pit!! That was the best part when I was a kid! To add to it, we got our cup of tokens and decided to play a couple of games while we were waiting for our mediocre food to arrive. Garrett set the cup down on the ground for a minute to take off Rylynn's shoes so she could climb through the tubes. Next thing we know some kid stole our entire cup. We had seriously been there for 2 minutes and used two tokens before we got ripped off! We went and explained it to the guy in the front and he gave us the look like, "yeah that happens all the time here!" but luckily he gave us more tokens. Since I didn't feel comfortable putting anything down unattended after that, I didn't get to take many pictures. Carter's favorite things were the tunnels and slides and the basketball game. Rylynn loved the tunnels too and just running around mostly. She also liked the water gun racing game. It was a fun family memory and the kids have been asking to go back ever since. Another complaint I have is against the cheap toys that you get with your tickets! They were so lame. Why did I used to think those were the coolest things ever when I was a kid? I guess your tastes change a bit as you get older. Oh well, the kids didn't seem to mind that their toys fell apart the next day.

Bring on Number 3!

Yes it is true, my clothes are tight and I feel really fat, but it is because I am pregnant! I am due around August 10th and we are so excited to have another baby in our family. Rylynn is convinced it is a girl and I fear what her reaction will be if it turns out to be a boy, but we will cross that bridge in a couple of weeks. I am 14 weeks and feeling great. We had a little scare at the beginning of this pregnancy similar to Carter's but we are feeling good that everything is fine now. All we have to do now is figure out in which state I will be giving birth to this child and if we will be employed at that time. No pressure honey:)

Freezing February

I got an email from my grandma in St. George yesterday saying that it is now officially sweater weather there now as it is in the mid sixties everyday. Well that may be how February is in some places of this country, but here in OH this is what February means to us. SNOW, SNOW, and more SNOW!

We have been just dumped with snow here the last couple of weeks, which has been fun and also a little bit of a pain. It has been fun because the snow is very pretty and the kids LOVE to eat snow so they are in heaven.

We have been promising them that we would take them sledding and playing out in the snow for the last couple of days, so tonight after dinner we all bundled up and went out to play!


It was getting dark so we were worried that we would freeze, but it was actually okay. Luckily the sledding hill is right across the street so we knew if the kids lost it we could just run home. However, I did learn rather quickly that it is very difficult to run in snow that is up to my thigh! Rylynn tried to tromp through it herself but she lost two boots in the process so we ended up just carrying her most of the way. The kids loved the sledding!

Our next door neighbors built some really cool snow forts and a snow tunnel on Saturday before the second big storm hit so we decided to check those out too.
The tunnel was a big hit! After it got dark the kids were ready for a hot bubble bath and some hot chocolate.

These two pictures represent what we do all morning long these days.

I split my time between talking with Rylynn's princess dolls and playing Thomas or "slides" with Carter. Sometimes Carter will come in and play dolls with us for a little while. My favorite is that he calls Rylynn's Nephi figurine "Ne-pie". I make him say it like 10 times.

Carter calls the tracks slides. He can't get enough of his trains. We seriously need to invest in a train table.