A Post At Last!

Alright, so finally here are some pictures of our trip to San Diego for Daniel and Melanie's wedding. The trip was great! We got to visit the ocean and see sea otters and I just have always loved the ocean in general. Thanksgiving was really fun at Melanie's parents house. The wedding and reception was amazing.

Unfortunately, my home is not presentable enough at this time to post pictures of it, but I am in the process of unpacking more and organizing/cleaning and hanging things on the walls. So just be patient and I'm sure I will get pictures up of our home SOON!! I am very excited to start decorating it and painting the walls. We are leaving Friday to visit friends and family for Christmas so I think next week I will have ample time to post since I won't have to worry about unpacking.

At our home Kaylee is getting over a sinus infection and Jared an ear infection, so things have been busy here! (and which also meant a 4 hour doctor visit on Monday....on the joys!)

Jonah at school is having a pajama day today and they will read Polar Express and have hot chocolate! I thought that was a really cute idea and I'm glad the teacher is letting them have a little fun. The kids are adjusting pretty well to their new school and teachers.

Oh, I was called to teach the CTR-8 class in Primary. I thought I'd still be in Junior Primary so I could "spy" on James, Jonah, and Kaylee (a soon to be sunbeam!!!) but in this ward they put CTR-8 in Sr. Primary so I won't get to spend as much time with the kids. Oh, well. I've never taught primary before so we will have to see how this goes. Alright...on to the photos!





James and Kaylee at the ocean.





Matt and kids at the beach.




A picture of us at the temple for the wedding.



Jonah and Kaylee are tired.



Jared is so tired!!




The bride and groom: Melanie and Daniel



Waiting for Daniel and Melanie to come out of the temple.



James dancing at the reception. He had a BLAST!!!



James took this picture in the airport. He did a great job!

It's Been Awhile...

I know, I haven't written anything in a few weeks, but really I have been busy! We moved into our new home and a week later we were in San Diego for Daniel's (Matt's brother) wedding. Let me tell you that San Diego is beautiful and warm! James and I didn't want to come home...:) I will post some pictures of our new home and our Thanksgiving/wedding/San Diego trip tomorrow hopefully!

We will get in our new home soon!

After a very hectic week, we will be closing on our house today at 3:20 in Kansas! We left our duplex a week ago in Illinois and have been homeless ever since. We've swam in the hotel pool twice which was fun. Also, the hotel has free breakfast so we all enjoy that.

The first thing I did Saturday morning was get a library card! I know some of you wouldn't think that would be a critical thing to get but for me it is! They have a shelf here called Hot Picks for books that are new that are not ever put on hold unlike other copies of the same book the library has. Matt checked it out and found me Inkdeath!!!! I am halfway through it. I was very excited because at our Coal City library I was #200 on the list! Now I will have to check that shelf often to find Brisingr. I will be around 200 on this waiting list for that book as well, so I could get lucky again. We checked some other kid books out that the kids have been reading and a few movies that they let you check out for free. Libraries sure have come a long way since I was a child! It's kinda funny that my library in my hometown is still the same, though-old fashioned!

The children started school on Monday. Matt has been taking James and I take Jonah at 12:30 to kindergarten. He is half day now and is not sure about staying home in the mornings and not eating lunch in the cafeteria. Other than that, they really like their new school. James' class got a week off doing homework so James could "get used to the school" as his teacher told the class. I'm sure they are happy about that!

The ward here seems really nice, but I did really miss my ward in Morris on Sunday nevertheless. I will be glad to fit in eventually and make new friends here.

Also, Kansas is really beautiful. We saw it last month when all the town fountains were going on, but they've shut them off now. I can't wait to see all the seasons here. I have heard it doesn't snow much here so the kids might not like that.

I will post pictures of the new house when we move in and I get the internet set up!

Starved Rock

We took the kids with Grandpa and Grandma Burk to Starved Rock this past Saturday. It was really beautiful as you can see from the pictures.

Halloween 2008

Here are some pictures of the kids with their friends for Halloween!

Happy Birthday Kaylee!

Kaylee turned 3 on October 21st! I can't believe she has gotten so big! We celebrated it early because Matt was gone that week working. I haven't posted in a long time so I will have to catch up a little bit!





Kaylee wanted a pink birthday so she got a pink cake!



I took this picture a few days ago. She is looking very grown up!




I couldn't help putting this old picture in this post. This is Kaylee at 1 year. She was a cute little baby girl as well...:) She sure has grown!



Jonah and James enjoyed eating cake and ice cream as well.




These next two pictures are from the Tot Trot in Morris a few weeks ago. James, Jonah, and Kaylee all ran in the race and had a lot of fun!

Our Home in Kansas

So here is a picture of the home we are buying in Olathe, Kansas. I can't put any other ones on yet because it's off the market and I can't find any other pictures! I will take some pictures myself when we move in. We want to repaint the outside of the house. It needs repainting anyways. It's peeling in some areas. I think I would love it if we painted it yellow. It has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths and an additional bathroom, a family room, an office, and 2 more bedrooms downstairs in the almost finished basement. We are very grateful we found a large home that fit our budget that can grow with us as our family grows.

Also, I am very excited that the chapel we will be going to is around 5 miles from our home! There are about 3 chapels and 9 wards within a 10 minute drive of our home! I just can't imagine that right now because members are sparce here where we live in Illinois.

I will be very sad to leave the friends we have made here, but I am excited to get settled in. These past 2 weeks with Matt being gone and me with the kids has been really hard especially since I've had to deal with the mortgage company, the moving company, our two realtors, etc. I am just really really glad it was only for a few weeks and not for a few months like how we were thinking it would be in this market!

I will post some family pictures later. We had Kaylee's 3rd birthday on Tuesday and some other fun things we've done lately that I just haven't had time to post!

Our home is Sold!

So we signed to paperwork yesterday to make our home under-contract. This is all pretty exciting! The buyer wants to close before November 7th, so Matt and I are flying to Kansas City tomorrow to look at homes. We need to pick one out quickly! However, that's easier said than done. Kansas City is less expensive than where we are and I am amazed that we can actually afford to buy a single family home there! We have a lot of choices this time! I think right now I have written down 36 properties to look at, so I think I need to shrink it down some. I can't wait to look at houses. That is one of my favorite things to do!

It's Official! and other stuff

As of yesterday, our home is currently on the market! Now I just have to keep cleaning up every 5 minutes when the boys get home from school to keep it looking decent.





Also, yesterday I nearly dropped Jared on the ground! We're trying to potty train Kaylee so she had on underwear yesterday. I was looking up stuff on the internet for our mortgage while holding Jared sitting on my lap. Kaylee comes up and tells me she needs new underwear. She doesn't look wet so I try feeling for where she is wet. That was a mistake. She wasn't wet. So with one hand dirty I mistakingly though Jonah was on my lap for some odd reason and was trying to get him to stand up so I could take care of Kaylee. I didn't realize it was Jared until he was nearly falling out of my lap! I had to gently keep him from falling flat on the ground. I felt so bad that I had nearly dropped him because I thought he could walk. Lucky for me he is a pretty solid kid right now and he can hold his head up so I don't think I did any damage to him. He was pretty upset and it took a little bit to calm him down. I can't believe how forgiving babies are, though. A few minutes later he was back to grinning at me after I had hurt him.

Thank You Mr. Clean!

I have been trying to get our house ready for the market so I thought it a good idea to get the crayon and pen marks off the walls. Seriously, why do kids have to draw on the walls?!? I got out the trusty Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and was amazed as usual at it's thoroughness! I have to admit it did tend to take a little paint off the walls with it, but I didn't think it was that noticeable.

I hate to think what the eraser is made out of, though. Lately I have been a little bit health conscious and have been making my own window cleaner and wall cleaner. I also talked Matt into buying natural toothpaste and shampoo and soap because, well, do you know how bad those things are for you? I hadn't realized it before until the dentist told me all my kids had canker sores in their mouths and he thinks a natural toothpaste would help without all the sodium lauryl sulfate. Well, that stuff is in shampoo and body wash, etc and it is caustic. I guess not too badly since the FDA approves it, but I am beginning to believe the FDA aren't the good guys anymore.

Everyone here has a cold, even Jared. It makes packing up the clutter really difficult because I have to stop every 10 minutes or so and hold Jared so he's not screaming all day. He's usually so good so I know something isn't right with him when he cries this easily. I will be happy when he feels better again!

Kansas Here We Come!

So here's the story on our transfer to Kansas...and before some of you shoot me for not telling you in person I will see you tonight at the Primary Party so you can yell at me there... :)

The company wants him to start in October and have laid to rest any relocation fears that Matt and I have been worrying about.

Oh, for those of you who don't know, Matt is being promoted in the company he works for-Oldcastle. You can check out myoldcastle.com to see what they sell and where you can buy their stuff. Matt works in the Safety area.

We will be moving to the Kansas City area and I'm thinking that Overland Park looks like a pretty neat place to live. However, I am afraid that after living in our little town of 2,000 people (even my neighbor whose older son I teach piano to was in storytime with Kaylee...it is a small town!) that we will be a bit overwhelmed with a town around 100,000! We don't have a chain store closer than 25 minutes away so this will be interesting.

(Kelli, please don't release me yet..I like primary!) Oh, speaking on that, the kids and I will be here until our house sells, so even if Matt leaves in a few weeks I will be here..alone..with 4 kids and a dog...trying to keep the house clean in case someone wants to view it....I can just picture how much fun I will have especially as all the holidays start coming...

Goodbye Cookie

We finally returned our terrier dog Cookie to the place we adopted him from. It was just not working out. He would bark all the time unless he was loose in the house. And if he was loose in the house how he wanted to be he'd run around and find toys and chew them up. When we thought he was resting behind the sofa he was really eating a hole in our carpet that we will need to get replaced. When he was outside he'd bark at anything and everything all day to the point our neighbors called us to tell them he was too loud! He barked at 4 in the morning if he didn't want to sleep anymore and wanted to play. All in all, he was a high maintenance dog and at this stage in our lives we couldn't give him the attention he needed. He was so hyper the kids were getting tired of playing with him so they decided they'd quit playing with him all together, which didn't help him out either. And finally, Cookie likes to chew anything...including our Golden Retriever's legs! I'm serious...our other dog spent probably a month limping around due to the gnawing on her legs. So we just had to give our little dog back. He was so cute and sweet sometimes that it was really hard. You can see from the pictures he's a really cute dog!




Cookie when we first brought him home in March.




Kaylee really loved Cookie. We took him to a t-ball game and he was great! All the little t-ball
players petted him. He craved attention!



A shot of our two dogs when they were not fighting with each other. Occasionally they got along great!

Goodbye Cookie..Matt and I will miss you even though you were such a handful! I hope you get adopted to a nice family and have plenty of room to run around!

Summer Fun

This summer I did not blog at all so here is a catch up of things we did. We didn't do as much as what I would have liked to do with Jared being born and everything, but we did manage to squeeze in a few things.




Here are the boys after a t-ball game. Kaylee really wanted to play as well!



This was in Indiana for the 4th of July at Grandma's house.



Kaylee got buried by her Uncles at Lake Michigan.





This is a picture of my Mom and my brother Travis with James and Jared. They came to visit this summer.




Isn't he a cute baby? He is so HAPPY it is unbelievable! He's not even 3 months yet and he has such a grin!





Jared in his church clothes...




This is a picture of my family at a park in Morris.




My Dad got a good picture of Kaylee.



Here's a picture of me and Jared. I look kinda tired!

This was taken at Six Flags when we went there in August. James and Jonah love Scooby Doo!

Another picture at Six Flags

This is kind of funny. I put nice, clean water into the swimming pool and next thing I know it is all dirty! I ask Jonah and Kaylee what they were doing and the happily exclaim they are making Chocolate Milk!!! Then they proceed to show me how they dig up dirt in the backyard and swish it around the pool...at least they were having fun (and they had a fun time when they each took a bath as well!)

This was from one of our trips to a city pool.