new house remodel

I think we are suckers for punishment.

When we saw this house we loved almost everything about it. But I hated the kitchen. I didn't just not like it - it was awful as far as I was concerned. The colors were bad, the layout was ok, but all the little details were just not good. Spencer was in love with the lot so he was happy to tell me we could change the kitchen.

I wouldn't say he forgot he told me that but he was a little surprised when we moved in that I told him we were going to do it right after Christmas. Hey, at least I waited until our family left! I wanted to do it so we could officially get settled.

Our new granite (White Ice) was installed the first weekend of January. I LOVE it. I loved it when I picked it, and now I see why it is the most expensive in the showroom I went to. We had decided to take about 18 inches of this wall out (between the living room and kitchen)...

to open up the kitchen a little more. When they started demolition of the wall they realized there were plumbing pipes running there, so we were delayed for a few days getting those moved. Then the header needed more support so that was another day or two. Then, they painted the cabinets white (swiss coffee) and suddenly we realized our baseboards and trim and moldings were OFF WHITE! They almost looked yellow. So we had to add in painting that white also. The new backsplash went in, which I didn't anticipate the look of. I wasn't sure but now I really like it. Finally they painted the walls, which look amazing in Worldly Gray. Our new cooktop is awesome, the new handles are gorgeous, and it has all come together and it looks awesome.

I love that the house is essentially done now and there are very few things I dislike about it. In fact, the house keeps growing on me. We really are happy here and even though we have SO MUCH square footage it doesn't feel massive because it is laid out well, and I never feel like I live in a palace.

Here are some before and afters... WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!

 ^^Notice the arch here, but how it is gone in the after pictures.

Notice the bigger opening...

So happy!

(Here are some in-process pictures. SO MUCH PAINT DUST EVERYWHERE.)

a rough christmas

I need to remember this. Partly because we have sickness EVERY SINGLE CHRISTMAS. And I am determined to break that!

The Sunday before Christmas we had the Sears' over for dinner. It was great, they are awesome, lots of fun, etc. That night Tyler had a headache. His head was "heavy." Gave him Ibuprofen and sent him to bed. The next morning he was sick. The flu! Lots of aches. Emma got it Wednesday. Sorta different symptoms but I think the flu. Inside most of the week.

We had friends over Christmas night. That night - 11:52 pm - Tanner starts barfing. When does it end? Will I get it? (I ALWAYS get it.) I feel like we are ticking time bombs, either for the flu, or for the barfing, or both.

Well, sure enough, Sadie got it Saturday, right after Tyson and Kristina and family had arrived. The next day she had a raging fever so I stayed home from church with her. It is over a week later and I feel like she still isn't herself.

Oh New Year's Eve DAY Spencer and I got the stomach flu. At the same time. While the Smith's were still here visiting. Kristina helped take care of our kids and we felt awful for about 24 hours. The Smith's went home and I got strep throat. So now I am on antibiotics.

For the first time ever, I was sorta excited for school to start back up just so we could get back to normal. We did almost nothing fun over Christmas, because we couldn't, and because there isn't a whole lot to do, and really, it was good to get back into our pattern.

Other than that, Christmas was fun and we got some fun presents that finally fit in a big house with a big yard (trampoline, play kitchen, doll house, etc.).

Now my kitchen is under construction and that isn't fun but I am excited for the result.

How long till spring??

Some sick pictures...

primary program

One more thing I need to write about because I just can't forget it!

The primary program was last Sunday. Spencer flew home for the weekend; it was Sadie's birthday, HIS birthday, and the primary program. Tanner, months ago, told me he was too scared and wasn't going to do it. But I don't know what changed his mind...he was amazing!

Tanner sat on the front row but because he is so little I could only see the top of his head when he was sitting. I loved how he would stand up for a song, get the biggest smile on his face, and wave. Every.single.time. He would even whisper/yell "Sadie!!" to get her attention, and then they would wave to each other. He sang every single word. He said his part perfectly, with a big smile. It was pure entertainment, and I just loved it. His primary class got to sing a song all their own ("My Life is a Gift") and I just want to remember how Tanner held the last note longer than anyone else by about 2 seconds. It was purely precious and my heart was exploding.

Tyler played it cool up there on the top row with those big kids. His part was perfect, he sang all the songs, and we loved smiling at each other the whole time.

Emma. This was her second to last primary program, and that makes me sad. She is a natural. She can sing and she loves it. She sang in a quartet (2 boys and 2 girls) and did such a wonderful job. She was the tallest girl up there and I was so proud of her. She had two speaking parts, and talked about how one of her ancestors (Aurelia Spencer Rogers) started the Primary.

Such pride on this day. Best Sunday of the year!

moving away

I just need this documented. I need to put my feelings down. I also need to remind myself how I was feeling in this moment, when I look back and read this in the future.

In 10 days we will fly out of CA for Northwest Arkansas. Bentonville. Home of Wal-Mart. The variety of emotions is sometimes overwhelming. But so many little pieces, little details have come together so that there is no denying we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.

I thought we were here forever. I love my house. I love what we have done to it. I loved dreaming and planning how we would expand it in two years to fit our growing children a little bit better. I have always dreamed of my home being a gathering place where my kids want to bring friends, where people can come and visit us. I started to worry in recent years that it isn't that, and maybe would never be that. We feel crowded and while you don't need space for your kids to have fun, it sure is helpful.

Months ago (maybe even years), I started to get frustrated with where we live. Friends have said we "live in Sodom" (don't we all?) and I was feeling it. But Spencer's job was here and we planned to be here. He was going for Partner. That was what we felt we should do.

A friend talked to me at my brother's wedding reception about this place she had just been to called Bentonville, Arkansas. I had heard of it, because of Walmart. I was intrigued and heard a lot about it. I think that conversation was meant to happen, because when a job opportunity presented itself - in Bentonville - just three weeks later, I was ready to listen. Ready to listen, maybe, but not sure about uprooting my family. But definitely open to listening.

The more Spencer found out, the more he invested his time and questions into this job, the more we felt the pull like we needed to go. We started making improvements to our house in case we needed to sell it. And if we didn't end up going, we were making improvements to our house. :) But deep down, we both just knew. And he didn't even have a job offer yet. He hadn't even interviewed yet.

He flew out there. And he loved it. He loved the people. He loved the lifestyle. He loved the idea of raising our family somewhere with actual family values. He liked the slower pace of life. This isn't really just about a job, it is about being where we think is the BEST place for our kids, for our family.

By the time the job offer came in, we were ready. We took two days to "consider it," even though we didn't need to. My heart hurt because I am leaving Macie here. It still does a little bit. I worried about moving the kids. About starting over. About my kids making new friends, going through the HARD part where they have to ride a bus and be new and break into those groups. But those concerns have almost disappeared. It will be hard for a while, and I know they will struggle with those things, but I also know they will love it.

We bought a great a house, and spent more than I imagined we would, but it will be what I always envisioned. It is on almost 2 acres of land, has a ton of space (5400 square feet), Spencer will be home for dinner most nights (!!!), and my kids will get to grow up with other good, Christian people. We will have room for visitors!

We sold our house. Really fast. For about $40,000 over asking price. Another way I know this is what we should be doing. The "hard" isn't as hard as it could be, and the easy is coming in loads. I will miss my friends, my cute little house, my dear wonderful neighbors, and living NEXT TO the church. But we are trading it in for what we hope will be better for all of us in the long run.

Our house staged and ready for the market...

And here are some pictures of our new house in Arkansas.

So here we go! The packers come in one week and we will be there soon after, and hopefully will be in just in time for a crazy Thanksgiving. We are so blessed, and so excited. And so sad at the same time.

a big weekend

Macie's 6th birthday fell on a Saturday. She died on a Saturday, so this was the first we got to celebrate in that ever-so-slightly-more-real way.

We weren't here for her birthday. That tore me up inside for a while beforehand, but we didn't really have any other options. We had to go then to Arkansas to look for a house. It was our only weekend to go, and I had such guilt about it. I still do a little bit.

Spencer's last day at work was the 23rd and we were flying out the 24th so we planned to go to the cemetery that night and do cupcakes and balloons. I don't quite know where my head has been lately but I am not usually so spacey...I totally forgot that the cemetery closes at 4:30 (sometimes that is really inconvenient for me) and because we had piano lessons, everything was suddenly messed up. Luckily we could change lesson times, but as a result we had no time to get balloons. My favorite little tradition wasn't going to work. And on the year when we could all have our own balloon! Grrr. I hate when I am dumb.

Did I mention our house had JUST gone on the market? I was getting 2-3 phone calls a day from people wanting to see it, and keeping it clean was already getting crazy.

I made cupcakes and frosted them pink, so we could still do that part at least. And off we went. I thought a lot about how there is no earthly way to describe the pain when you know your full-term baby inside of you is not alive anymore, how I had always said things like "I could never do something that hard." We all say that, yet we are all somehow able to do it when we need to. Because we don't have a choice. I didn't do as much reflecting this year as I normally do, mostly because I feel like a frazzled person, but I did think a lot about how lucky I feel and how far I have come in 6 years. Having a child on the other side is a very hopeful thing. I don't know if I could have said that the first few months - pretty sure I couldn't have - but I am glad I came to that point relatively quickly.

At the cemetery the kids ran around and we ate our cupcakes and talked about the day we buried her (actually, that was 6 years ago TODAY - October 30). That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do publicly, and I will never forget the foggy, sad, and empty feelings I had. At the same time I have never in my life felt so much love and support. Again, I can't describe it.

We stayed a while but had to get home (they were closing!) and then run some last minute errands before our trip.

Macie's actual birthday was special for me from afar. My sweet mom was here watching the kids, and THEY did the balloons. I loved getting pictures of my kids carrying on this tradition that will be a part of our family forever. I guess Sadie liked her balloon so much and didn't want to let it go. I think this is something that is meaningful for my kids - it is fun to watch them float until they are out of eyesight, with us symbolically sending Macie the only thing that can "reach" her where she is.

6 is a great age. She would be in kindergarten this year. She and Tanner would probably be best friends. (Let's face it - everyone wants to be Tanner's best friend.) I think she would be another little mommy to Sadie - and let me tell you, I sure could use that right now. Instead, she is a mature adult who is busy on the other side.

I can't wait to plant a "Macie tree" in our new backyard in Arkansas, a spot where we can think about her and gather to send her her birthday balloons every year. We are leaving a HUGE part of ourselves here in California, but that part is just temporal. I am certain I will be able to feel her wherever we go.

The BIG Apple (Part 2)

The city. Wow. I have been there a few times before, but not with kids. Little people to be responsible for in a sea of humanity and chaos. It's not my favorite type of place to be in, but we were there, so we plunged in and did it for two whole days!

Spencer still claims it wasn't worth it, but he got a ton of Hilton honors points years ago when he was in a Florida hotel for work and his floor was littered with drunk high school girls who kept him up all night. After complaining several times they gave him the points to appease him. Those points got us our hotel...
Anyway...we pulled in to our Doubletree hotel Wednesday night around 5 pm. And whaddayaknow, our room wasn't ready and wouldn't be for about an hour. The concierge unloaded our things, and while we waited in the lobby they brought us cookies and water. By the time we got settled in our room it was almost 7:00; under other circumstances we would have gone into the city to have dinner but with 4 kids and one being a baby/toddler who was never ever getting a nap, we opted to find some food quickly and then go to bed. There was this little carry-out restaurant, VB3, and while it wasn't fast it was GOOD. And cheap! We had enough leftovers for dinner the next night! We also thought the room we were getting was a suite...but it was just a big room. So yeah...we spent 5 nights in hotels on our trip and just got used to having 6 in a crowded room. Awesome.

We had bought food at Walmart to keep in the mini fridge so we could eat breakfast in our room. By the time we headed out for the city the next morning it was almost 9 a.m. and the subway was insanely packed with people. We had our stroller and I'm pretty sure everyone hated us. It was hot and crowded. And that subway smell - not my favorite. But we made it! We emerged from the subway right by the Empire State Building, albeit about an hour later than we were hoping to.

Yes it was crowded. Yes it was expensive. But it was so worth it! The views are incredible! It was nice to get my bearings a little bit since you surely can't do that from the ground.

And...Sadie's face is pretty much priceless if you ask me.

After that we headed back to the subway and took it to W Central Park. I was just so glad it was cloudy this day. We ate lunch and then rented bikes for two hours (near Tavern on the Green). We rode the entire perimeter of the park, and that was cool and really fun, but we missed out on a lot of the super cool stuff on the interior of the park, because parking a bunch of bikes and locking them up, and taking kids out, etc... was just a time waster. But we did get out for a while near a pond on the north end. We were pretty wasted by then after a huge hill. I remember Spencer making lots of work calls any free chance he could get. (People back at home were starting to find out he had given his notice.)

I took the big kids to see Belvedere Castle (meh) while Sadie slept in the Burley - she did get a 30 minute nap this day, thank goodness!

We returned the bikes and walked over to Bow Bridge (famous), got to see a new NBC show being filmed (even recognized the actress!)

...and then decided to walk over to the temple. We take any chance we can get to show our kids different temples. We walked around and used the restroom even. :)

By this time it was getting late but we figured we were close to Times Square so we should go explore there and maybe get dinner. However, I am pretty sure we scarred our oldest. There were some very inappropriate people out at Times Square, and Emma burst into tears a few times. I wish I could erase those images from her mind (and mine!).

We ducked into the M&M store, bought a few trinkets, then had to head back through "Sodom." We made it to the subway, went back to NJ to our hotel, warmed up our dinner from the night before, bathed the kids, and all collapsed into bed.

The next day was even more ambitious. We had a reservation time at the Statue of Liberty for 9 a.m. so we took the shuttle to the ferry point (NJ side). The kids and Spencer got the headsets and I stayed with an incredibly grumpy Sadie while they went up to the pedestal.

It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day. Pretty much perfect. The kids did their Junior Ranger stuff (how cool! A badge from the statue of liberty!)

and we went over to Ellis Island. That would have been neat if there weren't a million people, and if our kids weren't bored. We did go visit the family history center there and ran into some sisters! They are in the Morristown mission. We looked up "Wirthlin" and found out that Spencer's grandpa and great-grandpa both came through Ellis Island. We got on the boat to Battery Park. Once there we walked up to the WTC site, past Trinity Church (gorgeous!)

It was busy there but I imagine it always is. Very somber. The kids were tired and so Spencer took Emma into the 911 Museum - I told them to take an hour. The other 3 and I played with squirrels and birds and just hung out. It was nice to relax and sit for a while. Spencer and Emma came out and looked very saddened. But he did say it was incredibly well done. Someday (for me).

The last thing I really wanted to do was walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. So we headed that way. Sadie was an absolute mess so I held her the whole way. I think most people walk the other way because of the views but we were modifying. And it was still pretty awesome.

Our plan was to eat at Grimaldi's. It was 4:00 on a Friday afternoon, yet the line was out the door and down the block a bit. While we stood there and wondered what to do, a worker from the pizza place next door tried to goad us in. It didn't take much, and in a minute we were seated in Juliana's. OH MY WORD. Best decision ever. We ordered the margherita pizza with pepperoni, and I think it was the quietest meal I have ever had with my family.

Sadie ate almost two pieces herself, and the rest of us declared that it was the best pizza we had ever had. We found out that the people who had started Grimaldi's had also (later) opened Juliana's, so I think we got a good deal and didn't even have to wait. We also ordered a cannoli (meh) and the brookie bridge (YUM). Our total bill, after tip, was $50, and that was probably the best decision we made our whole trip.

We walked to the subway, made a few mistakes down there, made our way back to NJ again, and pretty much collapsed into bed once again.

Our flight was the next day at 2:30 (Saturday) but we had no idea about traffic from the city to Newark so we decided to go to the Natural History Museum for an hour or two. It was raining. The kids wanted to see a few things from "Night at the Museum" but by far the coolest was "DumDum."

We walked around but it is HUGE and overwhelming, so we didn't get to see all we wanted to. We stopped at Shake Shack (it was pretty good, but not as good as I hoped) and headed for the airport. There was no traffic, and the airport was almost entirely empty.

We were super early. As we sat in Terminal B, waiting to board our aircraft, I saw something on Fox News about a possible Ebola patient on a plane at Terminal B. I was thrilled to get on that airplane!

We flew home through Minneapolis again, and then to SFO. Sadie didn't sleep at all, though it was 10 pm to her body we we got home. Sweet Tanner colored on the plane until he was tired, then closed his eyes and went to sleep. I got to wrestle with a stinker toddler while she kicked the chair in front of us again and again and rubbed her eyes and whined. Spencer got to listen to a lot of General Conference. I was so glad when we landed.

This trip was SO FUN. I loved almost every single thing about it. Even though we had 6 people in a hotel room, Sadie was crazy, and it was expensive I would do it again in a heartbeat. My kids love nothing more than looking back at pictures of things we have done together, even (and especially) when they don't remember. The kids had independent study schoolwork that I never had to get on their case about, and it was all done and wasn't even too hard. We did so many incredible things together in those 10 days, and got to experience a new part of the country, and I am so glad we enjoyed this together.