It all started a year ago...

Today is my niece Bailey's birthday. She is 1 today. And it was a year ago today that I was here haphazardly looking for a place for us to live. John had just received his job offer and was lined up to start on May 1st. As soon as we found that out I hopped in the car with Ainsley and headed to Boise to get everything lined up for our move. I found our apartment a year ago yesterday, spent the day after running around trying to work out insurance because I was pregnant and we were a little worried about coverage. While I was doing all of that Kortney was in the hospital having Bailey. What a week that was. It seems crazy that for almost a year now John and I have been "normal" adults and not students. Our whole marriage we had been looking forward to being done with school, and now it's been almost a year. And I have to admit, life without school is a lot more pleasant.

I didn't have any pictures of our actual apartment so I just stuck in a couple of my favorites from our apartment days. The second picture is one of my favorites because there is one of me in almost exactly the same pose at about the same age. I guess you have to find some way to occupy your time when going to the bathroom.

Sneaky Sleeper!

Ainsley hasn't tried to take an afternoon nap for a while now. Today, however, while I was making dinner and dealing with a grumpy Owen I assumed Ainsley was quietly playing in her room because I hadn't heard from her in a while. After I got dinner made and Owen settled I started looking for Ainsley. I started calling her name through the house and even started getting a little nervous. I rushed into my bedroom and found her asleep in my bed dressed in full Snow White attire. She was taking her nap at 6:00 at night! Notice that all of her babies and stuffed animals are neatly placed beside her so that they could get their rest as well. We'll see how bedtime goes tonight.

Easter Sunday

It seems like we did a lot more for Easter this year than we usually do. Maybe it's just because Ainsley is a little older now and she can actually participate more in things. Saturday night we got all of our eggs dyed (I only have 5 that still need eaten!) . The Easter bunny came and stuffed the kids baskets full of way to much candy. He then hid Owen's next to the TV and Ainsley's underneath the kitchen table. Are we the only family who the Easter bunny does that for? Owen got Peter Pan in his basket, mostly because what do you give a kid that can't eat, and this way Owen finally has something that Ains wants to use instead of the other way around.

The highlight of Owen's morning was playing with his cellophane wrap, and Ainsley's was getting all of her candy along with her Wendy action figure. The highlight of John and I's morning was when Ainsley asked to eat some "toots" (she was referring to peeps). The highlight of my Easter was listening to John try to figure out why we weren't supposed to eat pork on Easter Sunday. He was claiming that we eat ham on Easter because you shouldn't eat pork. It took him a while to realize how ridiculous he sounded.

Easter Egg Hunts!

This morning we got up and walked to the christian center that is just next to our neighborhood for their Easter egg hunt. It was kind of cool because there was a lot of carnival stuff there too. Ains got to jump around in the inflatables and get her picture taken with the easter bunny. I'm still not sure if she noticed or what traumatized when one of the easter bunnies took off their head for a breather. We also got to attend a motivational presentation in their auditorium. At least we had a moment about what Easter is all about. Ains got into the dancing. They sang "I get low and he lifts me up," and ains would do the up and down actions with them. I threw in a picture of the dancers just for fun. Then we headed outside for the 2-3 year old hunt. Ains was so funny because when they said go she took off running and didn't pick up any eggs. I guess she thought it was a foot race or something. John had to run out and help her so that we could get some candy (yes I mean we). She ended up doing pretty well.



After our first egg hunt I got a call from my sister and one of her friends was doing a little Easter egg hunt for a few kids and invited Ainsley to come. So we headed over there and Ains got to hunt for eggs that weren't just spread out all over the lawn. She seemed to have fun, John I think was a little more into it than she was. Afterwards the kids got to play soccer for a while and the adults got to make italian sodas. We're totally into italian sodas now. I guess as far as Easter festivities goes...so far so good. I was a little worried ains would be disappointed because all week she has been talking about going "trick or treating" for Easter. She was going to dress up as a tiger. I can only imagine the looks we would have gotten going door to door with our tiger and her Easter basket today. What fun! And there are more festivities to come!

Easter Pics

Yesterday I attempted to get some pictures of the kids in their easter outfits...things didn't go so well. It was one of those days where Ains and I weren't getting along so well and getting the pictures just turned into a chore.




As you can see I got a lot of candid photos, and not many framable portraits.

The Swing Set!

We finally got our swing set. We learned that they are hard to come by, unless you were wanting to buy one of the $500 + wood swing sets. Those were in great supply. We had been waiting for a swing set to come into Walmart for quite a while now, none were coming in. I can't figure out how no Walmarts in the whole valley had a cheap swing set in stock. I was then told about one on sale at toys r us. John went in on Monday because it was in Sunday's add. They didn't have any in stock either! Why would you advertise something and then not have any of it. I even looked on craigslist (my new best friend) with no luck. Thankfully toys r us got one in on Wednesday. They just got one mind you, but I called right when they opened and got it reserved. John, with the help of Ains, spent last night and the night before getting it set up. There is also a teeter totter that goes on the other side but we're not sure if we're going to put that on yet. So... swing set finally up and we are now all happy. Now we just have to get the trampoline this week (we are borrowing an old one from my sister until she has a yard). We will go from having an incredibly boring yard to the best one on earth.

How Craigslist Saved the Blinds

The process of replacing our blinds began when we moved into this house. The whole house had the old 1"metal blinds, except for our bedroom and Ainsley's bedroom, which were blindless. We purchased our first 2 sets of blinds from Home Depot. The feeling in the house during the installation was something like *%##*@&!. Enough said. When we were ready to replace the rest of the blinds we were told about a place called justblinds.com. We carefully measured all of our windows and sent in our order. We were very excited because the blinds were the same price as the ones at home depot, but we didn't have to take off the length. Taking off the length had contributed to the previous #*&%# feelings so we felt we were a step ahead this time. When the blinds arrived I made John start installing immediately because I was excited to get rid of our old broken blinds. He had his brothers drill this time so things should have gone smoothly. John began installing the far right blind in the above picture. After some harsh words he finally had the mounts in and we were ready just to pop the blinds in place. They didn't fit. I immediately started cursing justblinds.com. Then we started looking at the measurements we had written down. Justblinds was not to blame, it was us. We were the big morons. #*%&$%*% like feelings were really bad now. How could we measure 3 windows wrong. We went through the rest of our list and we had managed to measure the rest of the house right, just not the 3 living room windows. We wrote down the width measurement 1 inch too big on all three.
So how did craigslist save us you ask. Well, after talking to just blinds they sent us a replacement order at half off. It was cheaper just to order new blinds than cut down the old ones. So we got all 3 additional blinds for $57. At this point we were happy we had only made a $57 mistake and not a $120 mistake. After talking to some people and after selling our old desk on craigslist I decided to list the blinds and see what would happen. People will buy anything right? Even if the blinds were cut to a very precise measurement. Well today I got a call and someone that lives just around the corner is on his way to buy our extra blinds for $50. Awesome!!!
I installed the last 3 blinds this afternoon. Actually John had already installed the hardware. I just had to pop in the blinds and put on the valance. Now the house is completely done. No more blinds to install. They look great. And best of all, our huge, moronic mistake only cost us $7!