One of those days!

Have you ever gotten out of bed and thought now why the heck did I do that! Today is one of those days I should have just stayed asleep. My head is a pounding my house is in need of more cleaning and I have a 3 year old that is not helping with any of those things. It seems the past week has been spent cleaning the same mess over and over and over. How am I ever suppose to get around to the other messes if I am always cleaning the same one? I would just work harder but if I work more then I am I end up with a stupid pain in my side that doubles me over(I guess I should go figure out what is causing this but that is just another phone call to make). We are trying to teach Baylee to clean her own mess and she is pretty good about cleaning up one or two things and then she calls it quits. As a mother I have to ask does teaching children to clean ever get any easier? I love being a mom and being home all day it is wonderful not to miss out on any of the wonderful moments with Baylee, but the same old of cleaning gets to me. How many times can I pick up the same pair of shoes before I completely loose my mind? Now I am not alone in all of this. I have a wonderful husband who gets up goes to work comes home and helps me clean, runs errands and then heads back to work and is gone until after midnight without complaining one bit. It is just one of those days.

On a more positive note, a new year is here and new adventures await our family. We are excited to be starting the new year in our new home. So far we have made many new friends and are looking forward to making more. Our ward has sucked us right in and gotten us busy. I have been called to the position of Second Counselor in the Relief Society. This calling has me scared but also excited. What a great way to get to know all the ladies in the ward and build a love for my ward family! It has been good for me but I still am a little lost and trying to figure everything out. Jon has been called as the second Counselor in the Sunday School. I am not sure what all the entails but I am sure he will be great at it. Baylee is starting sunbeams on Sunday, not really sure how that is going to go over with her. We tried letting her know that she will be a sunbeam and she started pouting and saying NO! I am sure she will adjust with time if they can just keep her from standing up and dancing to the music!!!

Just randomness

The girls love to dress up and thanks to Danielle we had a few new costumes!
The stairs in the new house has been great entertainment. Baylee has over come her fear of stairs very fast and discovers new ways to come down them all the time. Her favorite way is on her tummy feet first racing daddy! They were trying going down on their backs. Notice they are dress up in their princess dresses.
I love when we put Baylee's hair in curlers and end up with tight curls all over the place. She just looks so cute I always have to take a picture.
This is just a random picture I had taken of London and Baylee. It just goes to show that friends come in all sizes!

Halloween

The tick or treating crew!





Baylee has really been into Tinker Bell these last couple of months and she just loved her costume. After I put her costume on her I thought it need a little more to it so I put makeup on her. Jon told me I was starting something that I would later regret and I just shrugged it off but I now regret it. Every day since she has asked for makeup. But look how cute of a fairy princess she makes!!!

We were officially in our new ward on Halloween so I figured I better attend the ward Trunk or Treat party. It was so much fun seeing all the little kids run around in their costumes. Baylee loved going to all the cars and seeing the decorations and she was so polite and said Thank you everytime someone gave her candy. That was the only trick or treating she got to do and it was just the right amount of candy. I didn't gain too much weight eating it!!

Baylee's Birthday

Wow I am behind! Well October 1st we celebrate Baylee's 3rd birthday! We did not do a party this year but choose to have it just be our little family. The day started out with her gift. She got candy land because mommy was tired of playing Dora all the time. Baylee loves to play games and will play them for hours. While Daddy was at work Baylee and I played Candy Man(this is what she calls candy land). When Daddy got home he had a big surprise for Baylee! He had gone and gotten her Balloons. She was in heaven! These Balloons where so good that they were still floating on the ceiling when we moved almost a month later! We went to Baylee's favorite restaurant for dinner which just happens to be Applebee's. Hmm wonder why that would be her favorite? After dinner we came home to a cake and that was the day. We had more gifts and cupcakes later in the week with her cousins.

Snow Day!!!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow! That is the song that has been sung at out home since July and it finally happened. With all this snow and Daddy home from work today we took advantage of the time to take Baylee out for some much awaited fun! She has woken up everyday since mid july and has said "Snows coming". In the above picture we are trying to catch the snow flakes with our tonges.

Baylee wanted to be a big helper and help Daddy shovel the walk. When she first saw our neighbors shoveling the walk she was upset because she didn't want them to touch her snow!

This is the beggining of our snowman. It took us a very long time and a lot of work to get it to be this big. We later figured out what we were doing wrong.

The neighbor girl came over and helped us finish off the snowman.

So we figured out that the snow was too dry earlier we needed to melt just a little bit so it would pack. Once we figured this out Daddy and Baylee headed out to build a bigger snowman in the back yard.

Then it was so easy they decided a family of snowmen would be great!!!

Lots to be Thankful for

Since today is Thanksgiving I figured I would write a post about the many things I am thankful for. As I look at my life there are so many different things to be thankful for. I am thankful for my dear parents that raised me with love and the gospel. They gave me every opportunity to grow and develop talents. I am so very thankful for the gospel in my life and how on an everyday basis it is there to help me. With out the gospel it would be hard for me to find thanks in some of the things in my life. I would not have the knowledge of an eternal family. If I did not have this knowledge I wouldn't be able to be thankful for my two angel daughters. They are a joy in my life. To know that I will get to raise them and spend eternity with them is a great blessing in my life. I am thankful for the many trials I have had to go through to get children. These trials are what brought me to the point in my life that I was ready to accept my sweet Baylee into our home as if I had given birth to her. She is such a blessing in our life's. She keeps us smiling and having fun. She has a sweet spirit that our home would be missing if she never joined our family. I am thankful for my wonderful husband that has stood by and loved me through it all. He has always been there to comfort me when I am down,& make me laugh when I didn't see anything in life to laugh about. He has had the faith when I lacked it, and would tell me to just have faith it will work out. He is always out working hard for our family even as I type this on Thanksgiving he got up early and went to work. I have such a wonderful support group around me that includes family and those who are not blood related but might as well be. I am who I am because of the love of the savior and those around me. So thank you to all of you in my life!

New House!

This is Baylee's bathroom before we painted it. We wanted to add some fun color to our new home and figured Baylee's bathroom was the perfect place to start. It is the only room in the house that we could decide on a color.



This is the After we painted picture. I love the color. I know it seems like a lot of green but it is fun!!!

Baylee loves her Bathroom she helped us pick out all the accessories to go in it and she even helped with the color!! From here on out the pics are of the rest of the house that we are still working on getting organized and put together. Don't mind the mess. We will be adding color and I will add pics as we do.
Master Bedroom.
Baylee's bedroom. We are going to paint one wall in her room purple. I made curtains for her windows in our other house and I have to make some adjustments to them so they will fit this window.
This is the most unorganized room in the house but it will be better next week so Danielle's kids have a place to sleep. We call this the office. It has all the computer stuff plus my craft stuff. When a sweet baby joins our family it will call this room home. These are the 3 bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs.
This is a view of the front room from the stairs. This is one of my favorite rooms. I love to sit and play my piano in the morning with the sun shining in on me. The boxes you see hold all of the pictures we have not decieded where to hang them.
My kitchen. I can never seem to keep the counter cleaned off because every box I empty seems to have some little thing I have no idea where to put so it goes on the counter until I can find it a home. if you look at the cupboard on the left you will see the color samples we are thinking about for this room. I have always dreamed of a yellow kitchen!!!
This Bedroom is the Spare bedroom/ play room, Danielle like to think of this room as hers. I am not sure if we will paint this room or not. It is always a mess right now because Baylee and Grace like to play in there.

There is one more room in the house I didn't have a pic of yet and that is the family room. it is just off of the kitchen. We are loving the house and are enjoying making it ours.

Finally!

Moving day is finally here. Tomorrow we load the truck and unload it in our new home. I love the fact that when I say our home it truly is ours. My monthly payment will no longer be going in someone else' s pocket instead it will be going toward something I will own in the end. We have been so busy around here packing. Baylee has done really well but has had her bad days. She loves to help box everything up and label all the boxes. At times I think she really gets what is going on but then on her bad days I wonder how much she really gets. Today we had to go run some errands and where headed home when Baylee started throwing a fit because she didn't want to go to her house she wanted to go to her new house. She was so upset when we pulled into the drive way. I wish she had a better understanding of time then she would know that tomorrow is the day!!!!! I hope that I am ready for this move. I feel ready but it all seemed too easy! As long as the rain stays away I think all will go smoothly tomorrow. Any way I am just super excited to finally been done packing and can't wait to decorate and organize my new home!

The Best Friend a Girl Could Have!

So today I said good bye to one of the best friends a girl could have! Claudia has been a part of my life for almost 4 years but it is hard to remember her not in my life. She came into my life at a time that I really needed a friend like her. I met her shortly after my dear sweet daughters passed away. I never wanted to leave my house. It was too much effort to visit with people and paste the smile on my face. Jon kept pushing me to get out and have fun but I kept refusing until one day he came home and told me we were going to float the river with the Cook family and there was nothing I could say about it. This was the first time I met Claudia. From that day on I have not looked back at that dark place in my life and felt the despair I had felt. Claudia seem to radiate happiness and I had so much fun and truly smiled when around her. I am so going to miss her. Utah is lucky to have Claudia. I am so thankful for the past three years and look forward to seeing Claudia when ever we get to Utah or her to Boise. There have been so many fun times, like giggling in the bathroom at the movies so hard that I thought I would end up on the floor, or just playing cards, or just talking. Baylee is going to miss her as well. She loves her Claudia, RC and Aidan. Not a day goes by that she doesn't mention one of them. So Cook family I say "Have fun, remember the Svedin's always and you better come visit!!!!"

We Got It!!!

We got the house!! I am so excited and nervous at the same time! This is a big step for us to buy a house and finally settle down. I can't wait to have a home of my own. I have started getting things packed up around here and I think Baylee is feeling a little misplaced. She has been very clingy the last couple of days. When I show her a picture of the house she gets all excited and starts squealing "my house". I know she is just as excited because we will be by her cousin Grace but I don't think she really understands what is going on. I am not sure our exact date of moving because we are not sure when we are closing. We know that we will be closing by the 25th but it could happen before that. We are planning on being moved by Halloween. Any way if you stop by my house anytime soon don't expect it to be in any sort of order! Boxes every where!!!!!!!!!

Wow!!!!

Wow it has been a long time since I last posted. So much has been going on but not many pictures taken. Maybe that is why I haven't posted yet. Where oh where to start.... We got home from our Oregon vacation and I was feeling very unsettled about life. One day I asked Jon what he wanted to do with our time together and he said "I don't know. What do you want to do?" I said "let's go buy a house today" I was only joking but as I got thinking about it I realized how much I really wanted to go and do that. So after talking to Jon and thinking on it we decided to start looking. The house prices where so great in Nampa that we decided to look in that area. Within days of looking on the internet we found some we wanted to look at. Unfortunately they were all under contract, but there was another one in the neighborhood that had just come down in price so we went to look at it and loved it. We put and offer down on it and now are waiting. It is a short sale and could take awhile. We did hear back from the bank with a counter offer but we countered that offer and so are waiting again. We are hoping to be in our new home before the end of Oct.

During all this crazy house stuff we found time to go to my little brothers wedding. Kortney married a sweet girl named Cally. Baylee was a flower girl and I was one of the bridesmaids. It was a wonderful weekend filled with lots of family. Baylee loves her new Aunt Cally and can't seem to get enough of her. She was so cute in her dress.



We went to Utah a few weekends later for my cousins wedding and had a fun time with the Jensen family. They always provide us with lots of entertainment and a great place to sleep. Steph looked wonderful at her wedding and we enjoyed being a part of it.

This has been our many different adventures away from home. We are in the beginning of an adventure here at home right now. We are potty training Baylee and it is going great!!! I just was wanting to get Baylee to try to wear panties and the first day I tried she fought me so hard I thought this is not going to work. I had given up but the next morning I got an idea to hide the panties in her pull up. I got them on her but a few mins. later she realized that she had on panties and pulled them off and yelled at me about not wanting panties. I tried one more time. I knew if I could just get her to wear them for a little bit she would like them and she would be more willing to go potty in the toilet because she can't stand wet panties. The second time around it worked. She left them on and eventually took the pull up off so she was just in panties!!!. we still have a fight about the panties on occasion but I think that is just her trying to have some power in this power struggle. The first day she wore panties we only had 2 accidents!! I was surprised. I was prepared for a bunch more. The second day we had 2 and then the third day we only had 1. But the 4th day we had a bit of a set back and she rebelled against the potty so we had about 4 accidents. Still not bad. We are hoping to get to a point where it is not a fight to get her to go and she will just go. I know this will take time but I am looking forward to it. It has been an exhausting few days. I am excited for this big step for Baylee but am torn because it means my baby is going to be a big girl. I wont have a baby any more. She never lets me call her baby any more she always informs me that her name is Baylee NOT baby!!!

Oregon Trip: Everything Else!

This was our home away from home. It was nice to have a place big enough for all of us to sleep and hang out.

These are the view from the light house
We went out to the light house because I always wanted to go up in one. Well come to find out Baylee couldn't go up the stairs because she is too short. Grandma was willing to stay outside with her but the wind was blowing and is was so cold and I had forgotten to bring Baylee's jacket. They only let like 2 or 3 up at a time and we didn't want to make Grandma and Baylee stay out in the cold that long so we left but there was a museum that we could take a virtual tour. Jon and I will have to go back without Baylee and take a tour but we will make sure it is also Whale migrating time.
Baylee calls this a doggy and she is giving it a kiss. It was a statue in the museum at the light house.
There wasn't just wild ocean life! There was wild humans we had to cage in.


Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids that went on the trip!

Oregon Trip: Hike

Jon and I wanted to take a 1.5 mile hike to some falls, when we asked if anyone wanted to join us David and Grace were the only ones willing. So we headed out. The parking lot for the trail head was under constuction so we parked on the side of the road and headed in. It was 3 adults and 2 two year olds, and one single stroller.


We are still hiking into the falls and this is how the girls are acting can you imagine what the hike out would have been like if we had not had a stroller!



We made it to the falls thanks to Jon pushing the girls in the stroller. They had so much fun because he is such a crazy driver. We had to cross this bridge to get to the falls and it scared me to do so. The bridge is high off the ground over the river and very long. I thought it looked good and sturdy and then I took a step and it starts swinging side to side. I couldn't walk fast enough to get to the other side. It was a beautiful hike and the girls did alot better then I thought.