Summer time

It sure took a long time for summer to arrive, but I'm so glad it finally did (mostly - some days are still weird weather). We've been having a lot of fun:

Watching more of our woodland creature friends from our kitchen window. They always come down from the hills when it rains. And you can tell Connor wasn't exactly quiet - they are looking right at us in every picture.



Visiting the Jeppsons'. Connor snatching M&Ms from Grandpa Gotberg's hand, who thought it was hilarious.



Playing in the backyard, which mostly involves water or throwing rocks from the flowerbeds into the grass for Brad to pick up when he mows.


Our first visitors came to our house - our friends Matt, Christine, and Braden from California! We visited the Union Pacific Railroad Station and the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. Connor really loves having friends to play with.








Connor's friend Hannah's 1 year birthday party in Herriman. She was so cute, she just licked her cake. It was a party and a high school reunion for Brad rolled into one.




These are 3 of Brad's best friends from his glory days - Justin, Bret (Hannah's dad), and Adam.

It's been a great summer so far. We are looking forward to more fun in the sun.

Tomorrow is the big day

Since we found out the house is officially ours, we've been cleaning, painting, and packing. Today we are finishing up packing and tomorrow we move in to Green. This is the most fun I've ever had moving. Normally I hate it, but this really isn't so bad (although we are both exhausted). I think it helps knowing we are moving to a more permanent location (so we won't have to do this again for a long long time), and we are really loving our new house. The more we are there and the more work we do on it, the more it becomes OUR house and the more we love it.

The mountains in Utah are gorgeous and the mountainous smell is delightful. We are looking forward to spending many nights picnicking in our backyard next to a fire pit (that we don't have yet). That may just be one of our first purchases.

We've been up to the house several times this week and I finally took some "present day" pictures. The pictures I showed before of a nicely groomed house are from when it was first put on the market to sell. Here is what some of the house presently looks like...

After much watering and fertilizing to get the grass to come back, the grass is still very scarce, but as you can see our pesky weeds are thriving. But not for long... weed and feed application is in a couple weeks. Mua-ha-ha.



Here's our one good patch of grass in the backyard. Everywhere else looks like the front yard. We are going to need a mower soon.

Here is what the rest of the front yard looks like - notice all the weeds and the random "wall" of trees growing at the front of our property. Not sure how we will get rid of those. You can see the 7-ft-tall rose bushes on the bottom right, but I'm up so high you can't tell they're that tall and really gnarly. They are.

Here is our view of the valley. It really sparkles at night.

While we were at the house last weekend painting, we were visited by some woodland creatures. These pheasants are beautiful and squawk in the small ravine/gully next to our house all the time. There are 3 in this picture. Can you see the one in the trees on the left?

We managed to get one room painted before we move in tomorrow (our bedroom). I plan to show a nice before and after in a couple weeks once we get all our new (to us) furniture in. But in the meantime, here are some other rooms not previously shown that are still green as can be.

Green formal living room.

Green enryway.


Green playroom upstairs (we had a sleep over last weekend so we could get some good work in all day Friday and Saturday).

One of the few rooms that isn't green - the office that I plan to make a formal dining room. The paper border is coming down for sure.

Lot's of work left to do, but the transformation will be awesome.

Here's Connor "helping" me pack this morning. He dragged and kicked this empty box all over our apartment for at least 20 minutes.

Happy Mother's Day

I just wanted to wish all you mothers out there a happy Mother's Day. I am grateful to my mom and my mother-in-law for all they do for me. They are wonderful mothers and now the best grandmothers, and they are perfect examples to me of motherhood.

Today I was thinking about how blessed I am to have so many friends and siblings who are also excellent sources of knowledge and examples to me of good mothers.

May God bless all the mother's in the world today. May our houses be clean, and our children be happy and well-behaved. But not likely. Because a mother's work never ends, even on Mother's Day. :)

It's official!! The house is ours!!!!

This post is a couple days late, but the last couple days have been busy. But good news!! We have a house now!! It finally closed and we found out on Thursday! We are so excited!!!!!

We will be living in Pleasant View, UT, and we are on a hill with a gorgeous view of the valley and the Great Salt Lake in the far distance. Now, mind you, the house doesn't quite look the way it does in the first picture (all these pictures are from online advertising the house for sale). It is a short sale and has been vacant for over 1 year so the grass is mostly weeds, the garden areas are mostly weeds, and the rose bushes at the side of the house resemble those surrounding Sleeping Beauty's castle under a spell. There is a lot of dust, dirt, and dead bugs inside too, but with some effort and a little elbow grease, we will have this place looking like new in no time! There are some repairs and updates to be done, including but not limited to PAINTING. Yep, first item on the agenda once the house is clean - get rid of all those green walls. That's probably next week or the week after. Stay tuned for some before-and-afters as I start decorating my very own house!!

Brad and I went up yesterday (Saturday) to clean all day (for about 6 hours) and change the locks on the house. I have to say, I've never enjoyed cleaning so much! Changing the locks was unsuccessful because we weren't given all the keys for the house at the sale, only the key that opens the back door. I guess the listing agent forgot she had them?? So we will do that Monday instead.

Now after much anticipation, here is what our new house looks like! We can't believe this is ours!



Family room - main floor.

Kitchen - main floor.


Living room - main floor.

Master bedroom - 2nd floor.

Attached master bathroom - 2nd floor.

One of the bedrooms - 2nd floor. (You can kinda see our view from that window, but I'll have to get a better picture.)

2nd Kitchen - basement.

View from our backyard (we don't have a fence).

We are the very last house on the street, so we don't have any neighbors immediately next to us. The next closest house is across the street in front of our house and across the street to the side of the house. Technically we are on the corner of 2 streets, but both streets dead end after our house, so it's kind of like a cul-de-sac. Nice for privacy and an unobstructed view!

Please come visit us! If you ever need a place to stay, I think we can find some room for you at our house!

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We had a great Easter this year. We spent Easter Sunday with Brad's family, but our festivities started earlier in the week.

On Saturday, I decided it would be fun to make colorful cupcakes for our Sunday school class and Brad's family for Easter. I did the cheater way using cake mixes, but it made the process so much less work and, therefore, much more enjoyable. I made rainbow cupcakes and topped them with my favorite rainbow chip frosting. I don't bake very often, but I may start doing things like this more. They were delicious.




It was also well past the time for Connor to get another hair cut. After the last one a few weeks ago, I've been putting it off and putting it off. I finally got up the courage to torture my child. Brad helped. Brad had to physically (and forcefully) hold Connor's head still while I went at him with the clippers. The poor kid was crying so hard, he was bright red and sweating. But we got the job done. I didn't take an "after" shot because I was rocking a sobbing child. Just look at the family Easter pic below if you want to see.


After church in the morning, we drove an hour to Brad's parents' house, took our family Easter pictures, did an Easter egg hunt in their backyard, and ate dinner with Brad's family (Brian & Brenda, Brandon & Jenn, and Cami; Jeppson grandparents; and Aunt Orma-Jean).

I tried for 2 hours to photoshop flowers into the dirt behind me. I suck at it. Maybe my sister-in-law Jenn (who's brilliant) can help me out. This is more real anyway right??

The Easter egg hunt with Connor was a blast. He really liked finding the eggs, but wanted to hold all he found in his hands instead of putting them in the basket. He loved the candy (what kid doesn't?) and loved all the things the Easter Bunny put in his basket this year - a ball, pop rocks, bubbles, water balloons, crayons, and a toy car. We opened everything and played with them that day, and we've been doing bubbles every day since then. He requests them by name (bubbo) and when asked what bubbles do, he says "pop pop." Love it.


Notice all the eggs in his hands... he had a hard time picking up new ones.



Even with all the talk of the Easter Bunny, gifts, treats, and festivities, I hope we all remember the real reason we have to celebrate Easter. Just under 2000 years ago, our Savior Jesus Christ atoned for our sins, was crucified on the cross, and was resurrected 3 days later (Easter Sunday). In doing so, he gave us all hope. Hope in one day returning to live with God, our Heavenly Father. To live in the presence of our Heavenly Father, we must be perfect. There are no exceptions. Because, being human, we are imperfect beings, we would never have any hope at all of making it there on our own. If we come unto him, and repent of and forsake our sins, after doing the very best we can he will mercifully take our sins upon him and make up the difference. We can become perfect through Jesus Christ.

Typically Christmas is more celebrated than Easter. But if there was no Easter (meaning if Christ had not chosen to go through the Atonement) there would be no Christmas. There would be no reason to celebrate his birth if he did not fulfill his life's mission and the purpose of his miraculous birth. I know Jesus Christ is who he said he was - the Savior of all mankind. I know he was resurrected and now he lives with a body of flesh and bone. He lives! If we come unto him, we can be perfected through him, be resurrected ourselves, and return one day to live with our Heavenly Father who loves us. Happy Easter everyone.

One week later

One week after all the craziness things aren't quite settled yet, but almost.

I got home from California last Thursday at 11 p.m. Friday morning 8 a.m. was the home inspection for Green House. We will have some work to do once we move in (including LOTS of yard work since the house has been vacant for a year), but fortunately the inspector didn't find any deal breakers. Hooray! We went ahead with everything, transferred some funds this week, and we are signing closing papers TOMORROW (Friday, April 22) at 3:30!!!

I know some of you are dying to see pictures, but I'm going to be mean and save them until we actually have the keys in our hands and it's officially OUR HOUSE. That should happen next week sometime. But here's a sneak preview:

This is the family room and kitchen. Notice the multi-green walls? And yes, that is green marble tile around the fireplace and green granite in the kitchen. This lady REALLY loved green.



Friday night, Brad and I went on a much needed (after 2 weeks apart) date. A sitter came at 6:30 p.m., dinner at Goodwood BBQ, minigolfing (I beat Brad by 1 stroke :)), and then strawberry-banana shakes from Burger Bar. Fun night.

Dad is also doing lots better. His scheduled checkup with the surgeon on Tuesday went great and the surgeon removed the wound-vacuum (the black sponge thing in his leg in the pictures from last post). YAY!!! That was a huge boost for Dad. He said it's really nice not to be hooked up to things anymore. (The hose from the sponge was attached to a bucket he had to carry around with him everywhere.) He is also getting stronger everyday. We are all so glad things are looking up.

This Sunday, which just so happens to be Easter Sunday, will be Connor's first Sunday in Nursery! He will be 18 months on Saturday. We have been sitting in nursery with him for the last couple weeks because he's only 17 months and he just can't handle our Sunday School classes anymore, so I'm hoping he will do ok. Our little boy is growing up so fast.

Also, some other exciting news that just came out in our families - my sister Ady and her husband Jono, as well as Brad's brother Brandon and his wife Jenn are both expecting their first babies!! Ady is due in October and Jenn is due in November. I can't wait to meet my new nephews/nieces and for Connor to have more cousins!!

It's so nice to have some good news in our family. It makes up a little for the last couple weeks. :)

And here's a cute picture of Connor from this week. He walked around half the day like this because he kept tugging at his diaper. I just love those baby buns.