Our Place

We found our place! It's in between Hard and Rock.

I know, I know... cheesy.   I couldn't resist. My little attempt at adding humor to a tough situation :)

We are still looking for a place to call home. We put an offer on a place, but it was just not a good idea. It was a stretch for our budget and had a lot of costly issues including needing a new roof, and garage door, and all the appliances. We kept going back and looking closer and each time discovered more issues that were going to cost more money. But it had such potential, was a good location compared to anything else we had found in this area so far, and a much better size, so we just hoped we could make it work and do a lot of repairs ourselves and fix things up in time. We were getting more nervous about going into this house, and then we found marijuana growing in the backyard. :-P It is legal to smoke in Washington, but not legal to grow your own, and marijuana has traditionally been a gateway drug. We learned that meth use is pretty prevalent in this city, and that even someone smoking meth 2 or 3 times could leave a dangerous level of residue in a home. (And it's highly addictive - chances are if someone does it once they will do it again.) The home was bank owned and the husband of the last owner died before it went into foreclosure. We read an article stating that bank owned foreclosures in this price range were highly likely to be meth houses, and especially if they had a lot of trash in the yard and this and that and the other thing that perfectly described this house. Google street view from a couple of years ago confirmed crazy amounts of trash. And there was that little laid out patch of marijuana with supports for it to grow on testifying to previous drug abuse on the property!

The five leafed clover we found growing in the backyard.

 --I would be very surprised if the house did not test positive for meth, but at that point I was just kicking myself that we'd missed that patch of marijuana and half the other issues in that first walk through and ever even put in an offer on that property! Well, we were very lucky we had a change of heart when we did and were able to cancel the inspections we'd scheduled and back out of the offer with our earnest money. We both feel good about our decision to back out and move on. But now my hope that a home was so close in our reach is gone and the weary search continues! I hope that Heavenly Father has a plan for us. Sometimes I just feel he is leaving all this up to us to figure out, and I would much rather just be handed a step by step instruction! Yeah, I'm glad he lets us make our own decisions. I am just so tired! I don't even feel excited about getting into a house right this minute because I am so tired and it just sounds like a lot of work. But I know part of that is just the result of me staying up too late 2 nights in a row. I always feel better in the morning. I'm trying to carry on and count my blessings. I know there are people out there going through much worse than I. This experience is a perfect illustration of how one person's choices can effect so many more people than they imagine. I am so grateful for the gospel that has kept me free from so many worse troubles & addictions, and for my family and their great examples and loving support. So I am trying really hard not to feel completely overwhelmed and discouraged. I am really ready to be done searching for a place to live and just live in it! --- figure out the other things that we need to in our lives, and give more attention to the amazing little girls entrusted to our care who we've been much too snappy to lately.

Prayers are welcome!

As Promised

A few words from our little princess - from her actual birthday. Poor sick little girl doesn't have much of a voice today, but as you can see she can talk it up when she does!



We met the cutest little 4 year old boy dressed in a superman shirt with attached cape at McDonald's that afternoon and he and Sierra hit it off! His name was Darius and I got a big kick out of his confidence and mannerisms. He told us he was going to be a big brother, and he was going to have a little sister, and his "Mommy was pregnant," and "the baby was in her tummy already!" Later his mom showed up to meet him and his grandma and I found out he'd been saying that for months, but his mom had actually barely gotten pregnant and told him about it the day before, and he was just determined it would be a little sister. He's probably right. Anyway he was super sweet to my little girl, he even did protect her from a rougher boy in the play place. They were fast friends, and they hugged in parting. Sierra loves being with other kids her age and it's so nice when they play so well!

Hope you enjoyed the video. I actually did condense it from the original. I couldn't help but film her going on and on, it was her birthday so I was feeling nostalgic, and you could tell she was enjoying the attention!. Sierra is such a joy to our family! We love you, baby girl!

Sierra is 3!

Sierra turned 3 so we decided it was time she got her first bike!

Just kidding!

This belongs to her Uncle Blaine who dropped by to wish her a happy birthday.

We had a little party in the backyard with a few friends and a big bouncy house. I asked Sierra what kind of cake she wanted (to decide on a theme) and she said all sorts of colors on it. So when I called our friend from church to schedule the bouncy and found out what was available we decided to go with butterflies. We made some simple plans and bought a few things and sent out an invite.

Then Lily told Sierra it was going to be a butterfly birthday and Sierra's reaction was (shouting): "No! I'm having a mermaid birfday!" There was a little back and forth ("Butterfly." "MERMAID!") before I could get Lily to drop it - so that made me a little nervous, but we just didn't bring the theme up again and figured you couldn't really go wrong with a bouncy house! She was so excited by that surprise she didn't bring up mermaid parties again at all and had a great day! 

The bouncy house itself was the main decoration, but I had the girls color some butterflies to keep them busy during the week and turned it into a banner at the last minute. Lily made this awesome homemade sign with a snake saying Happy Birthday, Sierra! Just because. The snake wasn't for S, Just a snake :)

Grandma Elsie helped out a ton blowing up balloons and so much more!

Sierra is so lucky to have such wonderful Grandmas!

Here's the birthday girl in her butterfly dress from her Grandma Kathy!

We had 2 planned activities besides bouncing. A necklace with some butterfly buttons I found at Walmart and colorful beads, and this simple paper butterfly:   It was all about the lollipop :)

The cute birthday friends!

Sierra was not too sure about the candle blowing wish making thing, but she got them out after a few tries. She told me later that she didn't make a wish though which is a shame - I know exactly what she should have wished for! ;-)

Excited to open presents!

& Showing her gratitude with hugs :) 

One very happy little birthday girl!

Lily with one of her two best friends from school Chloe, and her little sister Emma who is Sierra's friend.

Sierra & her friend Vienna playing with toys.

Sierra is such a sweetheart and makes us smile and laugh every day - even days when life is hard and we don't feel like laughing! She is such a joy to our family! She is smart and strong willed with her own quirky cute sense of humor, and she loves other kids and her family! She loves going to her nursery class at church. She loves popcorn and cheese and fruit and candy whenever she can get it! She always wants to help with a cooking or cleaning or any kind of project, and do as much as she can of it herself! She loves shows and playing on Starfall.com, but she also loves to be outdoors and active and laughing and having fun with her sister. The floodgates have opened and she can be just as talkative as her older sister! It is so fun to listen to her when she starts to go on and on (I will try to post a video soon). We are so glad to be your parents Sierra! We love you so much, Baby Girl!

My cute kids in the bouncy house:

Easter 2015

Well, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny did end up visiting the same weekend! Lily has had Mike yank out 4 of her wiggly teeth now...when she just couldn't wait any longer and it got to be too much for us too! Most times Mike tied string or floss around her tooth and around a pencil so he could hold it, but just yesterday she had one that just had to get out right as we should have been heading out the door for school. It would just not keep the string on, so he gripped it with a baby wash rag and pulled it out by hand. By the way if you need to get blood stains out of something - use hydrogen peroxide. Just learned that tip from a friend last year & it works awesome! - & hasn't taken the dyed color out of anything I've tried so far either. Can't believe I didn't know about it sooner. I blame cleaning product marketing. The simplest cheapest things usually work best. But back to my Easter blog! :)

Easter Sunday was a nice day overall. We really missed our family in California and especially hunting eggs with all the cousins, but on the plus side: less competition - Lily finally got the golden egg! :) And she liked the Book of Mormon and the scripture bag I made her. I made Sierra a little purse too with just the fun lining material. I asked Sierra to hold up her favorite thing she got in her Easter basket, and this is what she held up:

We watched general conference in the morning had a nice ham lunch, and I made our favorite homemade rolls, and then we took some family photos and let the girls hunt their eggs. Lily got the golden egg, and immediately shared some of the money inside with her little sister, and then started taking eggs out of her own basket and re-hiding them so Sierra would get more because she didn't think she had as many - even though they were pretty close to the same amount full! :) Love my sweet girl! We blew some bubbles for them afterwards and both girls were so excited jumping around trying to catch them it made us think back to when Mike and I were nursery leaders at church when Lily was Sierra's age! I got a bit sentimental - seeing my tall girl playing that way and knowing it won't last much longer - my babies are growing too fast!

The weather held out for us to have a nice spring day in the backyard and then the next day it snowed! But it warmed up again just in time for my birthday and we are enjoying 70 degree weather now. It's really beautiful right now with all the spring flowers coming up through the neighborhood. We've been barbecuing on the back patio because we just can't wait for summer. Still haven't found our little home of our own yet, and we cannot wait to be done hunting and get on with living!!! I'm not gonna lie - this has been one of the most stressful times in my life, and I've not been enduring it too well. But I'm trying to count my blessings and my family is at the top! Enjoy the photos!

 

This is the scripture bag I made Lily. I tried to pick something that would be fun and that made me think of Lily and that would go with a lot of things & I gave it a cross body strap because I knew Lily would like that better than a short handle. I really like how it turned out. Might have to make myself a purse like this :)

I gave it a little room to grow because we just got her a starter Book of Mormon and I know how she like to stick extra things in her bags. There's a little zipper pocket on the back for that too. Here she is modeling it:

Just threw this in there because you can see Lily's missing teeth so well! :D This was just after the girls had been so patient to take a gazillion family pictures, and right before we said: "Let's hunt Easter eggs!" That turned her frown upside down.

The Egg Hunt

 You think she was excited about that gold egg!?

This one makes me smile. Love her little ladylike saunter with the basket over her shoulder.

 My girls make me smile

 Mmmm candy!

 This girl! :)

 Checking out the spoils!

 My no longer nursery Baby!

Family Photos

 Sometimes the blurry ones are just too cute not to share :)

Sierra was trying to be princess like and copying Lily.

 Lily's got this curtsy thing down!

 I love my girls so much!