Our moving experience

Well, the move went good and we're finally mostly settled. We got here last Saturday and unloaded the truck, and we've been unpacking since. Thank heavens our new place has a garage. We have so much stuff out there that I don't know what we'd do without having it! The kids have adjusted well. However, about 2 days after we got here, we were in the apartment doing stuff and Parker said, "I wanna go home. Let's go home Mommy." I told him that this is our new home and he said, "Oh. Okay." So I think he understands now. But he still asks to go to his cousin Porter's house every once in a while. We just got the Internet hooked up, so I'm putting some pictures of the moving truck and stuff.

Parker inside the truck before we started loading.

Heather, Maddie, Parker, & Grandma Lewis

Ben, Maddie, Parker, & I in the back of our truck after it was loaded.


Parker helping Daddy "drive" the truck.

Cousin Cole holding Maddie before we left.

Last Sunday in Oregon

Our last Sunday here was great. The weather was gorgious (unlike the last few days which had been sweltering hot!), and we had a good time with the family one last time before we move. We spent most of the day outside with the kids, just relaxing and having fun. We have LOVED it here in Oregon. It is so pretty here (just like Pennsylvania!), the weather is usually mild all year round which is nice, and we have so much family here. Parker and Porter are such good buds (Parker asks for Porter at least twice a day), and I've been so blessed to get to know Ben's side of the family. I would never have gotten to know them so well if we hadn't moved here. But at last we must move on, and Idaho is a good place to move on to. It's at least comforting to know that we will still have some family there. We got a few pictures of the family, so here they are.

Cousin Clara (7), Madisyn (7 mo), cousin Taya (4 1/2), Aunt Camille, and cousin Porter (2)

Maddie and Daddy

Chillin on the hammock: Maddie, Daddy, and Park-boo

They looked so relaxed that I decided to join them too!

Cousin Hailey (6 1/2 mo) and Madisyn (7 mo)

Madisyn the future baseball player

We are close to being completely packed, and all of our stuff is crammed into the front room just waiting for the moving truck. We still have tomorrow which we'll do last minute things, then we load the truck up on Thursday, we drive all day Friday, get there really late Friday night, and move all our stuff in on Saturday. Wish us luck!

Since Ben's been home

So I haven't put a post on since Ben got home on April 30th, after being gone to Idaho for just over three weeks. I know, I'm horrible. Things have been very busy since he's been back, and we've finally gotten things all set up in Idaho for our move. Even though he was there for a while, we've still had to set up some things long distance which has been a challenge. Thank heavens for helpful family members, the Internet, scanners, and fax machines!! We'll be living in a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment that has a garage attached (nice!) which we will probably end up using to store all of our stuff. We have both of our bikes, a bike for Parker, a double bike trailer, a double jogging stroller, and a single jogging stroller which will go in there amoungt many boxes of storage stuff too. So we were glad to find a place with a garage that we can enter in to right from our apartment. We're moving not this weekend, but the next (yikes!).

I'll give a brief summary of some of the things that have been going on since I last posted. The weekend right after Ben got home, we traveled up to Bellingham, WA to visit Ben's oldest sister, Julie, and her family. They have a gorgious house that they built last summer, and Parker had tons of fun playing with his cousins, running all over their house, playing with lots of "new" toys, and playing outside where they have lots of property.

Here's a picture of cousin Chloe (3 1/2), Madisyn (6 1/2 mo), and cousin Gavin (5).

Madisyn has finally gotten to eat a few other things besides baby food, and this is one of them. I put some sliced up pear in one of those mesh eating bags, and she loved sucking away at it.

For Mother's Day, all of the family members here in Portland came over to Grandpa & Grandma's house. Paul grilled on the Evo grill, which we love using since we feed lots of people (we had 15 adults and 11 grandkids over).

Grandma and Madisyn on Mother's day

Parker & cousin Porter playing together. The two of them love playing together, although they fight like typical two year olds too.

Just today we went and got Parker's hair cut professionally for the first time (he's had a million haircuts, but just by me). We took him to a place that does just kids hair, and they have different kinds of "chairs" for the kids to sit in. Parker picked the jet. So here he is getting his hair cut!

Doesn't he look like he really wants to be there?

Here's what Parker's hair looks like after the cut. Doesn't he look like such a big boy?!

And here's just a cute picture of Maddie.

Piggies

Ever since I've had Madisyn, I just couldn't wait until her hair was long enough to put in pig tails. I was lucky Madisyn was born with a lot of hair and that she kept a good amount of it, because now I can put tiny pig tails in! So I'm having lots of fun giving her pig tails, and I've even painted her toes nails already! Boys are fun, but girls sure are too in a lot of different ways!!

1st time in pig tails

Ready for church!

Fun around the house

Ben is still in Idaho (and will be untill the 30th) and he wanted some recent pictures and videos of the kids, so here they are. Has everyone heard that we're moving to Idaho Falls? We have a tenative date of May 16h, but at this point it could still change a week either direction.

We got these little bug bubble blowers, so this is Parker using one of them. They actually work pretty good and he really likes them.

Parker loves to go outside and does so dozens of times a day (we have a fenced in backyard that he can't escape from-I'm going to miss that!!). This particular time I told him he had to get some shoes on if he wanted to go outside. Well he found some, they just weren't his. :-)

This is Madisyn eating her first baby food (besides cereal). Squash... yum.

Jumpy jumpy Maddy!

This is the cutest thing ever, and I finally managed to sneak it onto video without Parker noticing. Occassionally he will put "dolly" to sleep, and he sings her to sleep. It is so precious! So here he is singing a lullaby to dolly.

Another video of Maddy jumping. She's just so happy in it that I decided to put it on.

Family Pictures

We finally went and got family pictures taken at the end of March. We haven't gotten a professional family picture done since Parker was 6 months old and we haven't gotten any of Madisyn, so we were definitely due for some. I was really excited to get them back and they turned out so good! The pictures on here aren't the best of quality since they're scanned, but they're all right.

Playin in the rain

Yesterday after it stopped raining, Parker wanted to go out and play in the puddles. So we got on his froggy boots and headed out. He had quite the fun time splashing and jumping in the puddles (although by the time I remembered the camera, most of the water was gone, but oh well). Madisyn was also out there with us, all bundled up in a jacket, and she's really starting to like being outside too.

Yahoo! Puddles!

Say "Cheese!"

Video of Parker playing in the puddles