Who doesn't like Carmel!!!

Indy isn't anywhere near where we thought we'd end up moving next, but after visiting a few times and researching the area we're super excited about starting this new phase in a new place.

Since we are officially moving to Carmel, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis and one of the best places to live in the country according to CNN, I thought I would compile a top 10 list of reasons to come visit us.

10. Largest Children's Museum in the World!!!
Bucket list item for anyone with kids, young or old

9. Indianapolis Museum of Art
Kept our kids in utter awe and silence for 3 hours

8. Monon Trail
Trail access from our sub-division

7. Monon Center
Outdoor water park, indoor water park, fitness center. A short walk from our front door.

6. Carmel Arts and Design District
Only if you like shopping, fine dining and a quaint home town main street.

5. Indianapolis Zoo
Hey, it's a Zoo. Seen one, seen'm all.

4. Indianapolis Colts!!!
Go #17 (get well soon) and #43!!!

3. Indianapolis 500 and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Because you just gotta say you've been there.

2. Downtown Indianapolis
Really, it's awe inspiring.

1. We've got a cozy house with room for guests!


So you see, really the only question you should be asking yourselves is, "When will we be traveling out to Indianapolis to visit?"

Mommy's little helper

She loves putting the silverware away!

you wanna buy?

You wanna buy our house? It's pretty cute and amazingly clean, seriously this house hasn't been this clean ever, not even for parties that we have hosted.

Aah, putting up our house for sale has been tough. We have loved living here for the past 3.5 years. However, the time has come for us to move due to a job transfer. We love our neighborhood and our neighbors, seriously couldn't ask for better neighbors!
We love our house; the open floor plan, the bedrooms are wonderful with huge walk in closets.


It has been a stressful few weeks, trying to accomplish everything on our realtor's to-do list, de-cluttering in a big way, major cleaning, etc....now that stuff is over, and I can relax again in my very clean house.

The weirdest moment of the last few days was when I saw the for-sale sign staked in our yard for the first time. It pulled on my heart --

We're excited for this new adventure; realistic that it might take some time and hopeful that we will find some place new that we will love.

Halloween 2010

A Clone Trooper/storm trooper, master Yoda and Princess Leia


As soon as J decided he wanted to be a clone trooper, I knew we had to have everyone be someone from Star Wars.
The clone trooper costume I bought. Princess Leia's costume, what we didn't already have I bought plus we had to make the belt
and Yoda is handmade except for the brown onesie underneath.

Halloween was on Sunday however, we just happened to be in Utah and in Utah they trick or treat on Saturday.
The kids enjoyed trick or treating with cousins around Nana's neighborhood and the rain storm that we encountered
made it that much more of an adventure.
On Halloween Sunday we flew back home and they showed a few neighbors their costumes!

Yeah for the day you get to dress up and pretend your somebody else!
I have to say my kids looked pretty cute all dressed up!

Happy

Cute quotes from my K-girl

Baby was fussing while being pushed around in the cart at the grocery store.
K looked right at him with that cute smile of hers and said
"Don't cry, Jesus loves you and wants you to be happy"

and one more from this past weekend

While trick or treating K would call the door bell the 'ding bell'

Yeah I have to remember these cute moments especially
when she's in the middle of one of her screaming moods
(aka: temper tantrums)

A Reason to Smile

This has been a difficult week for us, as I'm sure it has been for everyone. That's why, I thought I post something to smile about.

Baby in the Pumpkin

Here's how this became a tradition for our family. Halloween rolled around a couple of months after our first was born. Renee wanted to carve pumpkins for his first Halloween. So the camera came out and off to work we went. After cutting the top off and scooping out the guts, I grabbed the baby and said, hey Renee take of picture of this. Renee and the baby were less then thrilled at first, but warmed up to the idea after a few seconds.

So baby #2 comes along and after purchasing pumpkins I told Renee and I was going to put the girl inside one. She told me there was no way, the pumpkin was too small. Accepting the challenge I started carving. Unflinching cuteness resulted.

So yesterday...

There will always be a part of you in me....

Love has no end
Love you papa

Rainy Day

After months of dry weather, it decided to rain, hail and then some. This only lasted about 15 minutes, and then it was done. The puddles lasted about half an hour and they were gone. It is still very dry here.

But in the time we had with the rain and hail we got some pretty good pictures taken of the kids... enjoy.

French Lick???

About three weeks ago, our family's Physician Assistant ordered us to take a family vacation. We chose the weekend of fall break, because then there would be no soccer games or church activities to interfere.

For anyone not from the Tri-State area, the term French Lick may sound a bit strange. However, rest assured it is not some strange European spa treatment, it is and has been for many decades a vacation destination for the rich, famous, and/or redneck-ed. Don't ask me how they came up with the name for the place, no body we asked seemed to know.

Instead of staying in one of the 5 star resorts, we decided to holiday at the much more family friendly Big Splash Adventure. Basically, it is the largest something or other indoor water park in the world, country, county or something like that. Anyway, it's a really big indoor water park. 4 big slides, lazy river, kidy pool and water-playground and that kind of thing.

This was by far Jaxen's favorite slide, we affectionately called it "the toilet bowl". I'm sure it has a proper name. Basically, it starts out as a enclosed tube slide, until you get spit out into the bowl, then you go around and around until you get flushed out the bottom. And that last part is a real drop. It seems odd, yet a lot of fun. They have a slide like this at Holiday World, but this one is a little smaller and much faster.

All-in-all, it was a great place to stay, and we'll probably go back again. It was cheep and close, perfect for a weekend get away.

Since it is fall and the leaves are changing, we decided to take some family pictures. There's been a drought and the leaves aren't nearly as vibrant as they could otherwise be, so the picture style became a bit muted. However, they turned out pretty good, nun-the-less.

Matching

How often do boys get to match?

Blue Balloon

I Love these kids

Both my boys are sound a sleep!
As a side note this little monkey shirt that he is wearing, we purchased it in North Carolina when I was pregnant right after we found out we were going to have a little boy.
One of those little traditions we do!

Look who can sit up by himself!
He's wearing his first 'bike' shirt-'the tour da CUTE'
and that smile is so cute!

Game on! Anyone up for a game of checkers?

Rewind

Yeah I know, its has been awhile....
Wow! Since we have returned home from Utah
we have been just trying to stay a float and catch up on things.

I needed to rewind and go back to when we were in Utah and post these pictures

Most of our time in Utah was spent hanging out with my Dad
however, we did take a couple of afternoons here and there to get some fresh air & do some fun things too!

We all love this park and as a bonus its not that far from the folks

Seriously, Jump On It needs to franchise.
We need a place like this closer to home!
Trampolines everywhere

We love showing our kids where we met!



Other moments not to be forgotten but for some reason don't have pictures of,
apparently we were enjoying living in the moment and not taking pictures!

*Niece A's baptism with confirmation grandpa's bedside
*Nephew A receiving his Eagle Scout/Eagle Court of Honor by grandpa's bedside
*being upstairs while a High Council meeting took place downstairs so my dad could be in attendance
*Tom going mountain biking at Sundance with his nephew B
*Roasting Marshmallows with cousins
*Sleepovers
*Shopping

That's My Job

Rubbing my daddy's feet and back.....that's my job

giving horsey rides.....that's Nana's job

hanging out in papa's arm....baby's job

Scribing for papa about all of the experiences that he was able to participate in: a baptism confirmation, a high council meeting and an eagle court of honor all while in his hospital bed....my job

Loving his children and grandchildren without end.....papa's job

Wait a minute

Wait a minute....

When did I tell you could get bigger?
When did I tell you could eat so much food?
When did I tell you could out grow clothes so fast?
When did I tell you could outgrow Seasame Street and like superheros instead?
When did I tell you could do chores without my help?
When did I tell you could go to the 'BIG' School?
When did I tell you could turn 6 years old?

Please stop! Just stop!

I want you to be little!
To continue to be my snuggle bug!
To continue to be Best Friends with your sister!
To continue to want to be our big helper!
To continue to want hugs from me!

Your are growing up to fast....slow down.

Rolly Polly

It has started...He is on the move, no way to stop him now.

He's getting big way to fast!

Kindergarten

August 12th was J's first day of kindergarten!

The day went great-he woke up, got dressed, had breakfast,

received a father's blessing all before 7am.

Since we had a c

ouple of hours until drop off would occur

we went to our lo

cal library.

Where he proclaimed to everyone

that would listen that he was going

to school today!

Yeah just a tad bit excited!

After lunch, it was time to go to school.

Shoes and backpack on and we were off.

After a few pictures outside of the school.

It was time to head inside.

He found he's name on his locker placed his backpack inside and

walked into his classroom

said hi to his teacher,

found his seat and was set until

he saw a little girl sitting close by crying.

At that point he wasn't sure if he was ok or not

however, after some reassurance that he would be fine and have fun

and a promise from his teacher that he could feed the classroom fish

he was set.

The teachers aide started to tell some jokes to all of the students

that definitely captured J's attention.

His favorite joke was:

Why do cows have bells?

While he was at school, we kept busy going to Sams Club, doing the

dishes, laundry and of course having some ice cream from DQ!

When the time came, we walked down to the corner and waited for the bus to arrive.

He came off the bus all smiles.

He stated he had a great day.

He stated they went to the library which had 100 books and

read a book about a lion who went to the library.

I asked him what his favorite part of the day was,

he said snack time- he choose a Scooby-Doo snack out of his snack box

while the rest of the kids got fruit snacks.

(he have pounded it into his head that he only has snacks out of his snack

box, better safe then sorry with his peanut-tree nut allergy.)

He's loving school!

Are we still.....?

This past weekend we drove up to Brown County State Park.
Tom wanted to go try the Mountain Biking trails, so we tagged along.
He enjoyed the trails and wants to go back up there, soon!

I haven't gotten on my mountain bike since before I got pregnant,
I also figured it would be a good time to pull it out again and ride.
Fully enjoyed being outside in the woods!

The view from the top of the trail head. Very beautiful!

We stayed one night at the Abe Martin Lodge, where they have a indoor water park.

The kids had a blast!

While Tom was riding the kids & I played at the many playgrounds located in the state park, we had a picnic, went to the nature center, and drove though the small town of Nashville, IN

We also attended a birthday party for Smokey the Bear. My kids had no idea who Smokey the Bear was. K was scared to go stand next to Smokey for a picture however, she sure did enjoy his birthday cake.

Now for the title of this post 'Are we still...? While we were driving J kept asking if we were still in Indiana. We told him repeatedly that we were still Indiana and that we weren't going to leave the state. He didn't understand how we could drive for so long and still be in the same state, that or when we travel we must leave the state a lot.

French Lick

The last Saturday in July, we decided to take a day trip to French lick
We took an hour train ride and saw the county side of Indiana.

After the train ride, we went to Patoka Lake to play in the water and the sand....
The kids built a nice sand castle, playing in the small waves and splashing in the water.

We would love to go back to this lake and rent a party boat with some friends or family.