No Longer M.I.A.

I knew it had been awhile since I last blogged, but one month? Wow. Guess I'm having too much fun living to blog about my life. :-) Or something like that. We have entered the realm of 4-day trips these past few months. Yes, we had 4-day trips before, but not every.single.week. For 4 days each week, we are Nathan-less. Oh boy. I figured I would do a readers digest version of what we have been up to for the past month or so for ya'll. Some of these were when Nathan was home, some were not.

TOP 10 EVENTS OF THE PAST MONTH IN THE HALL HOUSEHOLD:

10.GOT MY CAR BACK--Yes, we are a 2-car household once again. Hallelujah! Nathan's parents went down to Utah for a visit. The flights back didn't look good, seeing as how it was Conference weekend (not good for standby people), so they drove my car up here. YAY! I have my "other baby" back!

9. I organized my pantry!! Dear friend Kim came over while Nathan was away and helped me organize what was a horrible mess. I had bought one of the "shelf reliance" can organizers, and hoped it would help with that task. I thought it was so great that I went to CostCo the following Saturday and bought two more. And a garden hose. And a new swimsuit for myself (LOVE it!!). And some clothes for Preston....and Nathan.....it was a pricey CostCo trip....

8. Easter! We hosted a huge Easter bash at our new place. We had our family, our friends...and even one of our friend's family! We cooked a ham and just told everybody to bring something to contribute to lunch. We did a huge Easter egg hunt for the kids. It would have been slightly more eventful if our yard was, er, more exciting? Like, with more to it than just grass and a play structure. We're working on that one though. Slowly. Oh, and since I am envious of my friends-of-little-girls who get to buy new Easter outfits for their little ladies, I was not wanting to be left out. So, my little guys got some snazzy new outfits. Unfortunately, Tanner peed on his before we got pics, so we just barely snapped these last week.








7. Finally finished our bedroom! Well, mostly finished, but close enough. Pictures hung, the vaulted ceiling's shelf is adorned with foliage, and we picked out a new bedding set on clearance at Fred Meyer, which is great. Sorry, no pictures (yet). I'll get some next time our bedroom is pretty and cleaned. :-)

6. Had a banana bread making day with Tanner. Well, more like an afternoon. It was a mess, but it was fun, and the bread turned out great. I need to do more of these types of things with Tanner, since he really enjoyed it. I will add that to my never ending list of things I am going to get around to doing....one of these days....







5. Went on a 9 1/2 mile walk with my friend Kim. And where did we walk to? Why, to my in laws house? Don't you all wish YOU lived walking distance from YOUR in laws? (fyi-I totally love living by mine, and I wouldn't trade it for anything). We are attempting to train for a half marathon, and are starting by walking a lot. Some weeks we do better than others. Anyway, this particular Saturday, we put each of our two kids in our double joggers and walked on down. For the walk back, I left Preston at Grandma's (he was sleeping and he does not like walks), so I only had 40 pounds of kid to push. Poor Kim, she had 60 pounds of kid to push, and it was all uphill. It was a blast though, and we got some amazing exercise.

4. Nathan got our fence and our sprinkler system fixed! We now have a fully fenced backyard, and a working sprinkler system. Hence, we also have some grass that is greening up nicely. Along with these advancements in our outdoor life, we are now the proud owners of our own lawnmower. I think this is rather exciting for Nathan, who, strangely enough, enjoys mowing the lawn. I am not complaining about this though.





3. Still potty training.....kind of. He was doing really well, and then just kind of stopped and got off that bandwagon. We're slowly picking it up again though. I dont think it has occured to him though, that he could actually try pooping in the toilet. Any sage wisdom ya'll have on that one would be mightily appreciated.

2. We got an up close and personal look at Lourdes Hospital--or more specifically, their EMERGENCY ROOM back in mid-April. Tanner had a little incident on our (Brand new carpeted) stairs, which involved a)lots of blood and b)lots of crying--both Tanner and myself. He fell on them, and his bottom tooth ended up going through the gums underneath his bottom lip. As if it weren't traumatic enough on its own, Nathan was gone on a 4 day trip, and this occured on day 2 of the trip. I ended up calling my friend Kim (yes, the one who walked 9 miles with me. I would have called my dear friend Amy, but she was teaching music lessons. She is probably thanking her lucky stars that she was by-passed on this particular occassion). Anyway, it ended up with Tanner not NEEDING stitches for healing purposes, but getting them anyway, since they doc was afraid he'd play with the hole with his tongue. I will spare you the whole long story--unless someone actually wants to hear it--and just say it was a horribly traumatic event, and I am glad it is past us. I would be okay never visiting the ER again!







1. And finally, where has all my time gone to? To couponing! If I liked it before, I am seriously obsessed now. If you don't believe me, ask Nathan. I am having such a ball finding different couponing blogs, internet coupons, and best of all, my two good friends here are getting sucked into it--as is half my ward--so I'm in good company. I say this almost daily, but I'll say it again. I love it here! We're never moving! Or at least not for a long, long, long time!


FYI--I am hoping to get some more pictures up tonight, so that I can fill you in (especially my mom) in on updated photos. Check back either tonight or tomorrow!