NO TRAINING WHEELS!!! AND NO STRIPES!!!

WE FINALLY FIXED RILEY'S BIKE TODAY, AND HE'S BEEN BEGGING US TO TAKE THE TRAINING WHEELS OFF SO WE DID. IT'S LIKE THIS KID HAS FOUND NEW FREEDOM! HE JUST SOARS ON THIS BIKE, AND LOVES TO CHALLENGE A RACE WITH ANY OTHER KID (OR ADULT) WHO HAPPENS TO BE OUT ON THEIR BIKE TOO :)

AND NO STRIPES! WE PAINTED THE ZEBRA STRIPES ON OUR HOUSE AND IT LOOKS SOOOOOOOOO MUCH BETTER (SEE PICTURE IN PAST POST). THE FUNNY THING IS, THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE NOW FINALLY TELLING US HOW AWFUL THEY THOUGHT IT LOOKED, NOW THAT IT'S FIXED :)

WHEN SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO, SHE STICKS OUT HER TONGUE. CHECK OUT THAT HUGE BELLY!

BEN AND RILEY HAD A GREAT TIME HAVING SOME MAN BONDING ON THE TRACTOR. YOU COULD TELL RILEY FELT PRETTY COOL BEING IN THEIR, AND YOU COULD TELL BEN FELT PRETTY AWESOME OPERATING THIS BIG MANLY TRACTOR :)

A WONDERFUL WEEKEND

Riley turned 4 yesterday! This year he's old enough to really understand the concept of a birthday party, so we had a big party for him and invited a bunch of family and friends to play with us on a big waterslide. It was such a blast...I think everyone had a really good time and it was so fun to see everyone having fun! The waterslide is huge and fast and the best part was watching people pick their wedgies at the bottom :)

Riley seems to really enjoy wearing water accessories, even when they are not necessary. We got him a blow up pool for his birthday so my mom bought him a bunch of pool toys including these goggles, which he enjoys very much and is wearing at this very moment while I'm typing this blog, even though we are just hanging out in our living room.

These are our buddies Brian and Jackson. They had fun too! But at the very end of the party, somehow Jackson (who is Riley's age) fell and broke his leg. He is such a cute little guy and we feel so bad that this happened to him, but he is such a trooper and is doing okay. Luckily the hospital is really close so he was able to get some help quickly.

Riley and his uncle Sam (my brother), getting ready to race down. Sam is the best uncle ever, and always gives Riley little toys and treats. He plays with Riley and is such a sweetie :)

Riley and his cousin Kortely (that's Jackson behind them) running up the hill ready for another round!

When Riley was opening his presents, he was acting kind of antsy and sort of just pulling things out of bags and dropping them on the ground like he was in a hurry and couldn't focus. I realized after watching him dance around a little that he had to go to the bathroom REALLY bad but just didn't want to tell us because then he'd have to take time out from all the fun! This kid got a HAUL this year!

I love how little boys latch onto the idea of Superheros. And Spiderman is one that just never seems to go away through the generations. Well, I guess a Spiderman phase is a rite of passage for lots of boys :) Us parents are just along for the ride! I can't believe I didn't get a picture of his Spiderman cake.Malia has an impressive string of drool! Another wonderful part of the weekend was my mom visiting us for a few days. We were originally planning on driving up to Idaho to see her, but the more we thought about how hard that would be with Malia, we thought it would be better for my mom to come here. And we are so glad she did! We had fun and Riley really cozied up to her. He has changed so much just in the last few months. He's become more open to talking with adults and he's much more cooperative. He's always loved being with my Mom, but it usually takes a whole day for him to warm up. This time, it didn't take any time at all! I can't believe I didn't get any pics of Riley and my mom because they had so much fun together.
It was hard to see my Mom leave! I wished she lived closer, but I think I'll go visit her in a couple months. We had a great time going to movies, going to a nursery to get some plants and trees for our yard, and going out to eat. But I wish we had more time because I would have loved to go on a long walk with her.

And I can't forget to mention that Ben took Riley camping Friday night at his family's cabin. His Mom and Dad's ward was having a party so there were lots of people around. It's such a fun place to go! I'm glad they got to go :)

SAFETY FIRST!!!

It is nice to know that Riley puts safety first by wearing his life jacket during any and all water activities, such as "swimming in the basket" as he calls it. He even insists on wearing his life jacket when he runs through the sprinklers :) He sat in this rubbermaid bin for about four hours the other day. He even ate his lunch and a popsicle in there!

I'm pretty sure she could win a baby contest. At the parade in Spanish Fork yesterday a float went by with all the baby contest winners, and you should have seen how jealous those babies got when they saw Malia.

Okay, enough of bragging about my kids. I know, everyone thinks their kids are the most wonderful and the cutest of all the kids...but it's good we think that about our kids since we are their biggest support and cheerleader in this life. By the way, to all my friends and relatives...I think your kids are cute too :)

As for what's going on in our lives, well the biggest thing on our minds is how to get our backyard in. This involves sprinkling system, fence, sod, etc but we are not sure in what order and where to start! Life is busy but great right now, and we are enjoying living in our house and appreciating being all settled in.

UPDATE

Well, just a quick update (sorry, no pictures since I am using the computer at work). We are back in our house, and it is officially ours!!! We found a way to close the loan, but the rate is not as good. Oh well, that's life. We are still waiting for out townhome to close; hopefully that will happen this week (yah, like I haven't heard that one before.) Apparently, our former next door neighbors in the townhomes who "sold" their townhome several weeks before us are in the same bind. They moved out in such a hurry per the request of their buyers, and now the whole process is held up for them as well and their loan hasn't closed yet either! This whole thing is so ri-dang-diculous. What a mess for all involved. But there is always a silver lining. Staying in a crappy motel for three days has made us appreciate our new house even more than we already did. But I miss my old neighbors (yah, that's you Tanya, Liz, Shellie among others!) and I miss my old gate! I was looking at a picture of Riley standing in front our our old gate, and I got a twinge of nostalgia knowing that I will never prop that gate open again for Riley to play on the playground. Poor kid misses his little friends! I REALLY need to hook him up with his buddies soon. But we are all enjoying our new home, and Riley especially loves the sprinklers that come on at wierd times of the day since we haven't figured out how to operate our own sprinkler system :) A big thanks to all our thoughtful friends and family who have helped us out so much lately, whether it be tending, offering us a place to stay, helping us move, or giving Ben and Riley rides to Sanpete since we only have one car still. I think we are finally getting on our feet again and life is starting to normalize! This process has been such an adventure!

OH.....MY.....GOSH

I seriously don't even no where to begin! Selling our townhome has been such a nightmare. It STILL hasn't closed, and the original contract was for a June 22nd closing. It keeps getting pushed out because the buyer's lender is VERY inefficient. I won't name names, but there are things that have happened that justify a call to the Better Business Beureau. Then there's the appraiser that they hired to come appraise our home a few weeks ago. He came out and appraised our home for much less than it is worth, causing us to have to adjust our contract and sell our townhome for even less than an amount that was already ridiculously low. On top of that, this appraiser listed our townhome as a condo instead of a townhome, and when the underwriters asked him to fix it, he refused for two weeks until yesterday when someone from the lender ran over to pay him $100 in cash, and then he fixed his own mistake. This guy will definately be reported to the BBB because he is a crook. Our real estate agent sais this whole thing is the craziest situation he's ever seen. Keep in mind we are waiting for our townhome to close before we can close on our new house.

Now here's the worst part.....last Friday we got what we thought was wonderful news. Salisbury homes was going to let us move into our home before we closed IF we gave them $5000 in earnest money, in addition to the $2000 we have already given. We thought "Great!!! We can do that. The 5K will just go towards the down payment, and we will get to move in, so hey lets go!"

So we moved in Friday night. Thank you so much to our neighbors who pitched in at the last minute....we couldn't have done it without them!!! So we spent Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night in our new home. It was great but it still felt wierd because we still feel unsure about our townhome closing since the buyers lender keeps stringing us along. But still, it felt good to be in our new home. SO, I get home from work Monday morning at 7am and was looking forward to getting some sleep before the kids wake up. I had slept about two hours when there was a loud knock at the door, then the doorbell ringing. I threw on some clothes thinking it was the Dish network installer coming early. I answer the door, and it's a guy from Salisbury telling us we actually were not supposed to move in yet and the person who told us we could wasn't authorized to do that and "How much time do you need to get out before we lock it up?" Needless to say the tears began flowing, and after he left I had a complete meltdown....luckily the kids were asleep. I about passed out from hyperventilating. I used to think when I heard of people hyperventilating "Why don't they just get a grip and stop breathing so fast." Well, I can say from experience that it is very difficult to calm down when you are hyperventilating, and your body sort of takes over. This has only happened once before to me, and it is scary. I finally got on the phone with Ben, and he just about called the ambulance (thank GOODNESS he didn't! That would be so embarassing.) Well, Ben came home and we gathered up a few days of things, sort of like we would if we were going on a vacation. It was the wierdest feeling, getting asked to leave. It was sad, humiliating, frustrating, and we are so completely ticked off that the townhome sale has dragged on because if it hadn't, none of this would ever have happened.

Riley is staying with his grandparents for a few days while we figure this out, and this is good because I wouldn't know what to do with him all day in a motel room. It would be nuts! We couldn't go back to our townhome even though we still own it because there is NOTHING there! Anyways, once we finally close on both loans, we can move in and we are hoping that will happen within the next few days or early next week. It should have happened way before now, and the whole thing has been a nightmare and has felt so out of our control. It's frustrating when you are relying on people who you feel like you can't trust (the buyers lender and that jerk appraiser).
BUT, we will get through this and hopefully be laughing about it in a few weeks. In the meantime we are shell shocked and have no faith in the real estate business!!! But we love our agent. He is not on our hitlist :)

I couldn't do a post without pictures, so here are a couple. The one of Malia and I was taken this morning. One good thing about this is that in our motel there is plenty of time to play with Malia! I just REALLY miss Riley and feel bad that he is not with us.
Me and Malia just chilling on our "vacation"!!!

It's always interesting to see what Riley is wearing when he comes home from his friend Maggie's house. He loved this costume, and insisted he sleep in it. I found sequins all over his sheets the next morning.

These two! They are so funny. It's heartbreaking that they don't live right next to eachother anymore, and all the other sweet kids in the townhomes. When things settle down, I'm going to make sure Riley gets to see his friends at the townhomes.

Again, Riley dressed up with his friend Maggie. I can't wait to embarass him with these pictures when he is a teenager :)

Eight Weeks of Joy!!!

HAPPY BABY! (She is giving us the peace sign. I always thought she seemed like a hippie)

MAD BABY!

AMUSED BABY (WHEN I TALK TO HER IN AN ANIMATED WAY, OR MAKE FACES AT HER, THIS IS THE LOOK I GET. IT'S THE SAME LOOK RILEY GAVE ME)

MALIA WAS BORN EIGHT WEEKS AGO TODAY, AND WE HAVE ALREADY HAD SO MUCH FUN HAVING HER IN OUR LIVES. SHE IS SUCH A FUNNY LITTLE GIRL...DEFINATELY THE SEARCH FOR FOOD DOMINATES HER THOUGHTS! ONCE IN A WHILE SHE'LL FORGET SHE WANTS FOOD AND SHE SMILE OR COO, BUT THEN SHE QUICKLY REMEMBERS THAT SHE'S HUNGRY AND GETS BACK TO THE BUSINESS OF LETTING US KNOW SHE'S HUNGRY BY SMACKING HER LIPS OR ATTACKING OUR FACE WHEN WE KISS HER CHEEK. WE LOVE HER SO MUCH AND GET SUCH A KICK OUT OF HER PERSONALITY!

AND HOW CAN WE NOT MENTION RILEY??? HIS FRIEND MAGGIE PLASTERED BAND AIDS ON EVERY "OWIE" HE HAS ACCUMULATED IN THE PAST MONTH. THEY WEREN'T BLEEDING, BUT AS RILEY PUTS IT "BUT THEY MIGHT BLEED."

Riley, Malia, and Friends

A smile!!! Not a big one, but still to get a picture of a smile is cool.

Our beautiful girl in her blessing dress. I love this dress! For one, it is cute. And secondly, she can wear it for other things besides her blessing. She was a very good girl during her blessing :)

These two cuties are 12 days apart. For all the pictures we took, they alternated on who was having a meltdown. I have to say that our friends baby Kaylie's cry is too cute. Ben and I couldn't help laughing because she has such a unique little way of busting out into a full blown wail. We think they will be really good friends, but for these pictures they were just stressing eachother out :)

Riley and his buddy Evan, who loaned Riley his extra jacket that night because it was raining outside. We had a fun dinner at our friends house (Ben and Laura). Riley loves playing with friends! Only problem is he expects all his friends to borrow him toys for him to take home, and when it doesn't work out it sort of shocks Riley and he throws a fit (he is used to borrowing toys back and forth with his neighbor Maggie).

Maggie, Riley, and cousing Kortley. Just chillin with a movie, some stuffed animals, and a drink. The life of a kid.....I'm jealous!

So this is Maggie, and the child who Riley plays with nearly every day! They are SO cute together (I have overheard them talking of marriage). As you can see, Maggie likes to pose. Ben took them both fishing last week. They didn't catch anything, but that's not the point :)
As I mentioned, she is a poser. We have about ten more pictures like this and in all of them she is doing some amazing pose. I also love Riley in this picture because you can see a little wet spot in the front of his pants. This happens a lot with Riley, and even at this point he will deny that he needs to go to the bathroom.

My new babysitter!!! How much should I pay a three year old?

Ben put Riley too bed and never came out, so I went in to check and found them snuggled like this and both asleep. Riley looks huge to me in this picture!