Catching up

I was going to wait to write this post until we knew whether Farris got the job or not...but we were supposed to know this week, and by Friday we were a little nervous, so Farris sent an e-mail. I guess it's a good thing it was him and not me, in the state I'm in I would have said something like "Hello! Do you remember me? We're waiting here not very patiently while our WHOLE LIFE IS ON HOLD, so can you get a move on?" Pregnancy hormones can be rude, sorry. So Farris sent a calm e-mail and then he got a voice mail back, saying that the decision making had been delayed {insert my thoughts: "ummm, what in the world does that mean???} and that they hope to get an answer for everyone next week. Sure, no problem, we just need to turn in Farris' notice at BYU, find a house, sell a house, find a doctor and a hospital, and box up our house all before August 1st, which is when they would like the people who get the jobs to start. OK, sorry about the sarcasm, just letting out some frustrations. Back to our Newey Family motto: We're OK!
Now on to the good times. We left early, early, early on Monday the 27th for Rexburg. When we got there I dropped Farris off at the interview, and went to the Splash Park in town. So much fun! The kids had a blast. It's like a regular playground with slides but with water pouring and shooting all over. I also got to spend some time with my friend Leah (we were roomies at BYU-I when it was Ricks) and her kids. I haven't seen her for so long and it was great to see her sweetness again. She's also having a baby (a boy) in August, so we got to compare. I'd love to live near her! Then we picked Farris up, he dropped us at a hotel so I could take a nap (thank you!) and he went back for round 2. I have to say a little about this interview: Farris had to prepare a 7 minute presentation, study up on a case study so he could discuss it, write a paper, and then he had a regular interview, too. Whew! No wonder they are having a hard time making a decision, they have tooooo much information! Anyway, we had a picnic dinner at a park with Sam and Kolleen and then drove around the area looking for houses and areas we liked. The next day we met with a real estate agent and drove around some more. The kids were getting way bored of all the driving (but we found some beautiful communities, all that green grass and open space!), so we promised them Bear World the next day. Next to Rigby is kind of like a reserve with elk, deer, wolves, buffalo, and of course bears. After a drive through (we counted over thirty bears, they were beautiful! We even had a bear brush up against the van, the kids were squealing) they have a petting zoo (we got to pet deer, goats, a pig, and there were lots of geese, ducks and peacocks, too) and watch six bear cubs playing. The cubs were my favorite, they were completely adorable in their play. There is also about six little kiddie rides that the kids loved. I went on the little roller coaster, but we couldn't put the safety bar down all the way because my basketball shaped stomach got in the way, hee-hee. Then we headed to Grandma Child's house, only two hours away, nice. We spent the next day helping her in her beautiful yard. Well, Farris did, I was starting to feel the effects of too much traveling and not enough water and sleep. We had so much fun at Judy's, the kids love being there with her, and it was good to chat and get caught up on everything going on in the family. We even got to see Charitie perform with the rest of the youth in her stake in a dance, she did such a good job(they danced to Dream Big by Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band, I added it to my music on the blog). Friday was the highlight of the week, we went to the Twin Falls temple to see our nephew get his endowment. It's such an amazing thing to see the next generation growing up, and growing into such a good man. I love him and I'm so proud of what a great person he is. He's a wonderful example for all his younger cousins.
On Saturday we visited with Farris' grandma Larsen (one of my favorite people!) and then headed back to Utah for a family reunion. The next day was Sunday and Cindi and Scott were blessing their beautiful little girl Shailey. What an amazing family week we were having, from grandparents to temple endowments to baby blessings! I love having a family that we can enjoy in all seasons of life. The next day was the Forth of July. In our family the tradition is to meet in Huntsville, where my Dad grew up, and enjoy the small town celebration. I love Huntsville, it's in a valley with a reservoir and is one of the most gorgeous places on earth in my opinion. Farris and Scott ran the 10K, we had the town's pancake breakfast, watched the parade, and then lunched at my aunt's house. All the kids were running wild with their cousins and enjoying it. I love watching my kids enjoying time with their cousins, it brings back memories of playing with mine (me'n'Amy!). After awhile we decided to head back home, we were missing our own beds and needed to get back to our own routines.
On Tuesday we started our waiting game to hear from BYU-I and I went to a doctors appointment. The baby's kidneys were swollen in the first ultrasound, so they wanted to check them during the third trimester to make sure they went back to normal. Thankfully, they were fine and the baby is growing well (and she's still a girl, whew). But because of dehydration and a busy, crazy week my amniotic fluid is low, so I received some strict instructions to drink LOTS of water and take it a little easier (breaks with my feet up every couple of hours). All I need in this crazy time is to be on bed rest, so I'm following her instructions to the letter.
Now we're just back to the waiting game, I'm praying for patience, we're all praying for guidance, and we're enjoying the wonderful rainy weather mixed with heat so the kids can play on the slip-n-slide. I do love summertime!

For Sale...probably

Yes, we put a For Sale sign in our front yard this week. We've been thinking about it for awhile, waiting to see if a good job at BYU-Idaho came available. When Farris talked to them this spring, while we were in Rexburg for Sam's wedding, they were revamping the Advising department. Now they've got it figured out and Farris has applied. They've called him to discuss his application (apparently they were impressed that Farris has an 85% retention rate for students that are having academic problems, and wanted to know how he does it) and we'll be heading up for an interview the last week of June. We're excited about being in Idaho again and in a rural place with a little more stretching-out space. One of my girls in YW's visited Idaho and was so amazed: "There's so much air up there!" It made me laugh, but I do really miss having all that air.

That being said, I'm sad to leave here. I've said before that we have the coolest neighborhood, and we do. Besides my college apartments, I've never had neighbors so close, but they are all wonderful so I don't mind. We've had so many people tell us that they will miss our family, we were even told that they're putting us on the Prayer Roll not to get the job. We are going to miss this neighborhood, and the city, too. I like being close to a bigger city with shopping and entertainment and things, but being further out so it still feels smaller townish here. I like our school. We've made some great friends here that we will all miss. The boys are getting excited (we did tell them that if we got a bigger yard we could get a dog. Just a little bribe), but Felicity is still upset about leaving friends behind. And now my brother's family has bought a house just a half an hour from here, grrrr, I would love being that close to them.

The other thing is selling our house. The market here, like everywhere else, has dropped considerably since we bought this house. We're underwater, but how much we're not sure until someone buys the house and we hope that will be sooner rather than later. Our financial advisor thinks we're nuts: "You're selling a house for less than you owe, to move to a new job for less pay, and you're having a baby in 2 and a half months?" Well, when you put it that way... we're still not sure if what we're doing is right, but we do feel we need to try. And maybe he won't get the job, and then we'll take down our sign (unless some of our neighbors do it first--we've had threatenings) and throw a party. Right now we're just trying to figure things out. In March I thought we'd have this all figured out by the end of May, now I think it will be the beginning of July before we can answer people's questions. So for right now it's "yes, we're moving... probably."

shadow boxes

Among the many projects I have waiting for me (yup, many, many, many) is a shadow box I found at a yard sale a couple weeks ago. Bloggers have been talking about pinterest.com where people stick pictures of projects or ideas that they like so they can remember when they get around to the many, many, many projects they have waiting for them. So anyway, I went to look through shadow box ideas there (I didn't see them all--there was over 45,000. Whoa.) and here's some favs:From Martha Stewart

Really like this one, and I don't think it's just the prego hormones.

DIY and Crafts from etsy.com

from houseofhepworths.com
Love the idea of skeleton keys, but I'd have to find some first!

from lexisworks.tumblr.com
I really like the yellow bird one. And the bottles. And the stuff set on top.

From aperfectgray.com
I've been wanting some funky silverware art for my kitchen. I'd have to find some funky silverware, first, though.

From poppytalk.blogspot.com

This could be such a cool family project, perfect for a mother or mother in law gift.

from bystephanielynn.com
I'm a sucker for any project with books. If I ever have a library room, just give me a soft chair and some of these projects with a steady supply of books to read and I would "neglect my duties." ;)

OPtions, options. What will I do?...well, I've got plenty of projects to do before I can decide! Including baby, baby things and moving (maybe). More on that tomorrow.

Freezer meals

I just found this post...and I think it's brilliant...but I'm not sure I can do it. Have any of you tried something like this? Any tips or ideas or recipes that work well for this? I hate the hour long cooking time most dinners, that's when kids seem the most needy and I'm the most tired, which adds up to the most hollers per minute of the day.

http://aturtleslifeforme.blogspot.com/2011/06/freezer-meals-on-cheap.html

Playing with Wordle

From this post http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2011/06/do-you-wordle.html by A Girl And A Glue Gun, we found Wordle. Want to play with words? Here's one we made for Felicity:



Fun huh!

The last couple weeks

A lot has been happening, which I guess is what happens when school gets out and kids begin to go crazy with pent up energy...errr...I mean when kids are home all the time. This year, as most summers, I have A Plan. I've tried to keep it simple, knowing how Plans tend to fall by the wayside after a couple weeks, so basically I'm spending time in the morning trying to teach the kids the right way to do simple chores around the house and then have them spend time reading and doing other school-ish things to keep their minds from melding into the computer or tv over the summer. Felicity had a rough time with her multiplication tables this year in school (I did at her age, too, so I'm sympathetic), so we've challenged (yes, that means bribed) her to have them memorized by the time school starts in the fall. We made flash cards and she's working on it. Caleb is very science-y and I'm trying to find simple experiments we can do with him. Any ideas? We tried our hand at making sugar crystals, but they don't seem to be doing much, so we're going to have to do more research. I'd like Joseph to be a little more prepared for Kindergarten, so we're working on letters with him. Seth has been very involved with his cars and toy dinosaurs and Felicity's princess figurines. The last I saw he had the princesses lined up against the door with a line of toy cars pointed right at them. Yup, he's a boy. So far our Plan is going well, with a few disruptions that have been fun.
Last week my mom ans sister came from Idaho and we met them at my aunts house (well, actually In N Out, but then we went to her house) and had a fun time with cousins. On Saturday my other sister came up so we went yard selling, and then to the Utah Festival of Books. We got there for just the last hour, so we didn't get to meet Brandon Mull or any of the other authors, but we did meet Curious George, Madeline, and Tigger. So cute to see Joseph give Curious George fist bumps and then dash back for a huge hug around George's knees. They also had bounce houses and other inflatables, crafts--Felicity and Caleb made their own books, balloon animals and face painting. Next year we'll have to get there a little earlier, there was a lot we missed.

The biggest news this week has to do with our cats. Farris has had an on again, off again cold for awhile and finally went to the doctor to find out what was wrong. Luckily nothing serious, but he's allergic to cats. I put them on KSL, and within an hour we had a family call for them. They picked them up on Friday. We didn't want the kids to be mourning them for days, so I told them a few hours before the family came to get them. Felicity and Caleb were especially sad. Caleb cried at bedtime because the cats would always sleep on his bed, he loved it. I know how it feels to lose a pet, so I feel bad...but on the other hand, I'm relieved. I was getting worried about having two cats and five kids. They were really good with the litter box, only occasional accidents (yuck) but they both had long fur and it was everywhere, and I didn't want to be cleaning up after them and taking care of brand new baby and everything else. They've also be slowly destroying things around the house, knocking things off shelves and tables, poking holes in the curtains, ripping up rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. It was like having another two year old. I wasn't looking forward to cleaning out the litter box, potty training Seth and changing newborn diapers. I know, I know, it can be done and I'm a wimp about it, but I'm glad I won't have to. Joseph has already decided he is getting a dog and naming it Jack. Not sure where the name came from, but I'll let him name the dog before I'd let him name the baby sister.

We've also planted flowers, planted our garden (not too big this year), done other yard stuff, watched a hot air balloon (didn't get there early enough to ride in it =( ), had dentist appointments, played with friends, took off Joseph's bike's training wheels (that kid took off with no hesitation. It's the stopping that's still a problem), learned how to make beds, clean and wash counters, sweep, do a quick straighten of bedrooms, sort laundry, the correct way to fold clothes (!!!), and rinsing out dishes so we don't have food all over the kitchen sink and counter. Yes, we're still working an all that, and Joseph is doing better with his bike than with the broom. At his size, it's to be expected, though. I'd like to get them pretty efficient at all that so the house won't fall completely apart when the baby comes. I've been trying to do deep cleaning too, so I won't have to worry about it when I'm waddling too bad. Also, it's been wonderful weather outside, not too hot or too cool so we've been enjoying having a lawn. Awwww, love the grass.

All in all it's been a pretty good beginning of summer. What's going to happen the rest of the summer? I have no idea, we're taking it one day at a time for now!

Funny Joseph quote: He fell down and came to tell me about it, sobbing the whole time. Then he brightened and said "But I didn't sustain any serious damage!"

Mini-challenge: Gratitude list

I'm slipping behind on my wellness challenge...sick kids and all that have kept me from exercising as much as I should. At least that's my excuse. And the fact that my stomach is growing at an alarming rate, and my hips don't enjoy bending, jumping, moving, climbing, even laying down. But this is supposed to be a grumbling post, so I'm not going to think about that and here's my mini-challenge to complete today:
At the end of the day, write down ten things you are grateful for.
Which is really kind of daunting. Only ten things? Farris did this challenge today, too, but he did ten categories of things. So I think I'll be general in my list, and add my explanations. Because I always make my posts as wordy as possible. Sorry about that.

1. Family. Of course, of course. I'm thankful for Farris, that he works so hard and still comes home to play with the kids and help me and do things around the house. I'm thankful for my kids. They're still cuddly, they're growing and learning so much it's amazing, they make me laugh and remind me to slow down. My family and Farris' family: my best friends are my sisters and sisters in law, they are all fun to hang out with, they teach me things, inspire me, help me, laugh with me (and sometimes at me, but so do I), my parents and Farris' parents are amazing and fun and love my kids and are good sounding boards (all that wisdom!), my brothers and brothers in law, every one of them, would all come help with anything at anytime, they are all good, honest, hard working, loving fun guys. How amazing is that! My last grandparent passed about ten years ago, but I inherited some wonderful grandparents from Farris. His grandma Rachel is how I want to be for my future grandkids. She's gracious and beautiful, hardworking and loving and still has the guts to de-pants her grandson when he was wearing his baggy pants too low. My nieces and nephews? Only the smartest little (and big, too!) whips on the planet, and good for a dozen funny stories a week. It'll be wonderful to see them and all they accomplish in their lives. Then there's my extended family...how can I even begin! My aunts and uncles and cousins are incredible people. Love 'em. My Aunt Ellen is dripping with creativeness and talent for everything art and is my mom-on-call if I need one before mom or Judy can get here. There's more than ten blessings all just from family!

2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Don't even know how I would get through a day without it. Knowing that I can pray to Someone who knows everything about me and what I need to do, how I need to be, how I can become better, and He still loves me! Marvelous. Just tonight during scripture study Joseph asked what Repentance was. We explained, and then talked about how Jesus made it possible for us to repent, and how He wasn't forced to do it, He did it just because He loves us. It's amazing being reminded of that and seeing the kids understanding it.

3. Our home. It might not be the cleanest, it might occasionally (ok, more than that) have screaming and yelling and not sharing going on inside it, and it's definitely not going to be featured in the Parade of Homes, but it's more than just shelter to us.

4. The outside world. Growing up, we'd probably spend only about an hour inside all summer long, sleeping, eating, and playing outside. "What are men to rocks and hills?" That's my massacred quote from Jane Austin. Sure, Elizabeth was a little bitter when she said it, and I do appreciate the men in my life, but I love being outside.

5. Modern conveniences. No running water? No running hot water? Couldn't be a pioneer, sorry. Medicine, cars, phones, internet, pens that we don't have to pull off a chicken, I enjoy all these things.

6. America. Everyday there is something else I hear about on the news or where ever that makes me glad I live in this country. I know, there's craziness here, but at least our president was elected cleanly and he doesn't walk around with umbrellas during riots, ordering death to anyone who opposes him. Grateful for the freedoms and that people still care about the freedoms--no matter how pessimistic you feel sometimes about how people here don't care any more, really, they do. We do.

7. Our physical bodies. I hear scientists saying how our bodies aren't designed very well, the legs and the back and the organs fall apart and age. I complain about pain and how I'm getting old. But you know what? Our bodies are amazing. Every time this baby kicks inside me, I am reminded how truly awesome our bodies are. Combined with our minds and spirits, Heavenly Father has created the most wonderful things in the universe.

8. Friends and neighbors. We live in the coolest neighborhood. Before we even moved in we had two people at different times stop by to introduce themselves and see if we needed help. We have people watching out for our kids and we watch out for theirs. If a kid wanders, everyone drops what they are doing and looks. I love our friends here, and I love the friends from my past. I've known some great people, and none of them are famous, but they are the salt of the earth and give savor to my life.

9. Music and art and literature and the beautiful things people create. I know why science and math and geography are important, and I support them wholeheartedly. But I can't forget about what people create, where would we be without Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, O'Keeffe? Austin, Twain, Hugo, Lewis? Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Pachelbel, even Elvis and the Beatles? We need to create to remember and to share and to feel. I know, I'm getting touchy-feely now, but even President Uchtdorf says we need to create.

10. Sleep. Need I say more? Oh, one more word: goodnight!