A new place to call home

Hello from south Provo. I am still alive, though tired. The girls are still adjusting to the new place and sleep has been in short supply some nights. I love our new apartment, it's three bedrooms with two bathrooms, and on the first floor. That's a big improvement for us, where as we've always lived on the third floor. I don't have to lug my huge stroller or groceries up the stairs anymore. The other things I most enjoy about it are the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, a kitchen table, and the extra room Ben calls his office. I figured after 3 years of living without the above mentioned amenities, I could spoil myself and have them. In Wymount, we had a card table, no dishwasher, and coin-op laundry. Which is fine and all if you don't have kids, but lacking them became painfully obvious once I had to take kids with me to the laundry facility, and doing dishes took 45 minutes while Evelyn was screaming for attention. And Ben can lock himself in his office to study and the girls still have free rein over the rest of the place. The only drawbacks I've found so far is the bad TV signal (no cable), and the train being only 8 blocks away or so. I don't know why they have to blow a train whistle five times in the middle of the night, hopefully I get used to it soon.

This THANK YOU goes out to both sets of parents, who let us eat their food, take over the house, make messes, and helped us move our mountain of stuff. I really like having the piano, the only thing about it is Evelyn won't ever let me finish playing a song before she turns the page to find another one. So I'm not the only one enjoying it. Evelyn and Jilly were both spoiled this summer, and we enjoyed living with family and seeing everyone. I don't know how we will ever return the favor. We love you!

T - 2 days to limbo

Already, our stay in Washington is coming to an end. We leave Tuesday to begin moving back to Utah. I'm excited and sad at the same time. Excited to have our own space again, to finalize potty-training with Evelyn, and sleep train Jillian. Both have been very hard to do here. Evelyn finally decided yesterday it was okay to use her potty. She has impeccable timing - any training we accomplish right before we move will more than likely be lost. Oh well. It's always kind of sad leaving a place you call home, and I will miss the help with the girls. They will miss having aunts and an uncle to play with and Grandma and Grandpa as well. Evelyn almost always greets everyone as they walk in the door from working by yelling their name happily and running up and giving their legs a hug. It's so cute, and will be missed.

I apologize for not posting for almost three weeks - I've been trying to finish projects up I started this summer, and with two kids running around, it takes time. We had fun having Nicole, Kaden and Jaren come to spend a few days with us around Brock's wedding, and were both reminded why we don't want to have twins, ever. 2 toddlers and 2 babies all together in the same house were sometimes more than our sanity wanted to handle, but it was still fun. Our neighbor Randy has horses and he periodically brings them by the house to ride, which the kids love, and even Ben got in on the action one day.

It seems that this summer, brown and pink are the colors to have at your wedding. So I was inspired one day to make this dress. My mom has a plethora of scrap fabric laying around, so it looks like a little prairie dress. Evelyn loves wearing dresses, she is already such a girl. When I have her try on dresses, she wants to stand in front of a big mirror and model.

Jillian is crawling all over the house these days, and really starting to show an impish personality. She is really feisty, and Evelyn is so laid back. If there is a fight to be had over toys, Jilly will usually start hitting first. Evelyn almost always finishes the skirmish, unfortunately. Jilly already wants to walk so bad, you could hold her hands and help her walk all day and she would be fine. The little scrunch-face she's making in the far picture is her newest, "I'm happy," signal. She does it all the time, sometimes with her tongue sticking out. She also crawls around making growling noises. We've dubbed it the "dinosaur baby."

Ben says that when country people/farmers want to have fun, they seek out the nearest natural disaster to look at. I think this is partly true. For example, we headed over to the river bluffs to look at this weekend's fire out on Rattlesnake mountain. It burnt the entire east face of the mountain, totaling 67,000 acres. Part of it was on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, but no worries, there were no mushroom clouds to be reported.

Sorry this is so long, but I probably won't be posting again for a couple of weeks. When you hear from me again, I'll be moving in and unpacking (hopefully). Enjoy the last little bit of summer!

Boating and Llamas

We went boating last week at the Columbia River while there wasn't a whole lot of work to do, and it was a lot of fun! I wanted to get out on the boat more this summer, but it's been so busy here. Jilly and I spent a lot of time on the shore, mostly because there wasn't a life jacket small enough to fit Jilly. Evelyn went on the boat a couple of times, but didn't want to try tubing. Her favorite thing was walking on the shore of the river. There was also a really nice playground.

Jilly enjoyed just being outside and trying to crawl and reach stuff she thought she could eat.

Ben in the boat with my dad. Ben even got to drive.

Heather, my sister, and Ben tubing.

Evelyn trying to take a nap in the flat tube on the shore. Needless to say, it didn't make her fall asleep.

It was nice to have a mini-vacation last week!

Heather and Ryan had their llamas out yesterday, working with them to get ready for fair in a couple of weeks. Evelyn thought they were pretty cool, and her favorite thing to do is feed them alfalfa pellets.

This one is called Lyon, and he's the tamest of the two. The other one is called Grey. I think Lyon's kind of pretty, and he doesn't spit, thankfully.

After Evelyn got to take a ride, that's all she wanted to do. I've actually become a fan of llamas this summer - I'd rather have a llama versus cats or dogs. They're actually really easy to take care of. Evelyn's going to miss all these animals when we leave!

Now for the pictures

Ryan and Ben are gone right now (no 'Command & Conquer' on Sundays!!) so I have access to the computer. Jilly learned to crawl this last week, which she is so happy about. Now she can get right next to Evelyn and play with her, and Evelyn doesn't seem to mind it too much. She also cut her first bottom tooth on about Wednesday. But she does not like anyone trying to pry her mouth open for anything. So no pictures of cute baby teeth. She's turning into a better eater, and loves macaroni and cheese, just like mommy and sister. (I've always loved mac 'n' cheese). Here she crawled over to the block bucket and decided to eat a Lego man.

I used to be able to pull out some of my scrapbooking stuff and do it on the floor while she played a couple feet away. No longer will that be possible.

Evelyn loves having little people to play with, and any little kid she sees on the computer is promptly named "tayden?" It's been fun to have little cousins and second cousins come to visit and play. Cousin Kaden came last weekend, and they decided they could be friends and share the trike.

The spontaneous laughing started happening the next day. Apparently I missed something funny.

Here are the Gibbons girls (most of them, with a few additions!) at Kari's reception.

5 Seconds of Fame

A funny thing happened yesterday. I was interviewed to get a sound bite for a local news story! Really, it's not that exciting, although it was funny to see myself on the 11 o'clock news for, really, about 5 seconds. I had no makeup, no earrings, and hadn't even got my shower for the day yet. And I was in my lounge clothes, gray t-shirt and pink crops. As soon as the reporter packed her stuff up in the car, Ben comes out from his hiding place where he's been watching the whole thing and takes a picture of the reporter and her car. So ridiculous. And he just laughed and laughed. I didn't do bad on the broadcast, like stammer or say "uhhh" too many times, which was good. Just wanted to share one of the weirder things that's happened this summer.


Last week was Kari's wedding, and I must say, I really enjoyed the nearly three days of family get-togethers, and Ben enjoyed not really having to work any of those days either. Everyone did a great job with the wedding, the food was delicious, and everything (and everyone) looked great. It was a lot of fun seeing family I haven't seen in at least two years or longer, and look forward to it again in about 10 days at Brock's wedding. Today we went boating, and tomorrow is the 24th of July celebration, and a bridal shower on Saturday, and then Nicole will be here..........will it ever end? Let me just say the summer is FLYING by, and in a few short weeks we'll be back in Utah....where does all the time go?

I have tons and tons of pics to post, but due to a certain computer game called 'Command & Conquer' (curse you EA Games!!! :) taking over the computer I store my pictures on, I am unable to bring them to this screen. So please standby!

Cinderella Birthday

Today Evelyn turned TWO! I really can't believe two years have passed since she was born in 110 degree heat in Utah. And she had her birthday today with plenty of warm weather as well.

Grandma and Grandpa Cluff traveled from Emmett, Idaho to come celebrate her birthday and brought lots of Cinderella paraphernalia with them. (Chuck had a business trip in Orlando last month and they made a trip to Walt Disney World.) So Evelyn got a cool Cinderella dress and 'glass' slippers, which we thought we might get her to wear to church, but she didn't.

She thought her cake was pretty cool with a rubber Cinderella doll on it, but she really just wanted to poke holes in the frosting. Until we got the candles on. Then she wanted to blow out candles forever. She doesn't blow very hard either, as this picture can attest.

She loves opening presents, what kid doesn't? She got a pink train conductor's set from Uncle Dan and Elke, and she's wearing the hat and handkerchief in this picture. It also came with one of those cool wooden train whistles, but she hasn't quite figured out what to do with it yet.

She got quite a few books from the family, especially one about potty-training (maybe it will motivate her!)

She still isn't too talented with a fork and spoon, so spent most of her cake time sucking ice cream and frosting off her fingers.

I love my Levelyn and her cute, curly curls, the way she's learning to talk, and her little sense of humor. I love how she still likes to snuggle, sing primary songs, and help little Jilly learn to play with toys. I love her wild, crazy laugh and the way she protests Ben and I's arriving home after a date (she'll throw something when we walk in the door, then run away, and then come running back for hugs). Jilly is most excited by Evelyn, and my world wouldn't be the same without her!

July 7, 2007

A Hot Week

 It has been a scorcher of a week here in Washington, over 100 degrees for a few days. So we broke out the kiddie pool and tried to convince the girls that it was fun. We were partly successful, mostly with Evelyn. Jilly thinks all water should be bath temperature if you actually have to sit in it. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince Evelyn that going down the slide into the water was cool. I always wanted to do that when the little kiddie pools were out in the yard growing up. I guess I'm living out a little childhood dream. :) We made it over to the big pool at Grandpa Gibbons' house today, and all Evelyn wants to do is play fetch, throwing toys into the pool and watch other people retrieve them. Second cousin Carter and Evelyn team up on this trick and have a blast.

Since Mom and Dad chopped the trees in half this winter, we don't have the long afternoon shadows to protect from the sun. So we had to bust out the canopy, along with the camp chairs. This was the really hot day, 105 or something like that.

Jilly did the flamingo dance in the pool, as I dubbed it, because she stands there with only one foot in and won't put the other into the water.

Evelyn thought she would be cool like mom and sit in the camp chair, dripping the whole time. I couldn't, or wouldn't, I should say, sit in the chair after that.

Evelyn playing hair dresser with Aunt Heather's hair. Heather started dumping water on Evelyn's head first, so Evelyn got her back, sort of.



Happy Fireworks Day (be-lated)

Or 4th of July, Independence Day, or the Great American BBQ day. That's what Ben calls it. What is more American (or tastier) than grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, eating patriotically designed desserts, and watching fireworks blast overhead? Ben told me on his mission Independence Day was one of the holidays he missed the most. He was actually just across the border, in Mexico, watching fireworks shoot off in El Paso, Texas. I think the best part of the day is food and family, and watching fireworks together. We went down to the Columbia River to watch "The River of Fire." It was 22 minutes long, and FREE.
You can see the fireworks barge just to the right of the tree. It wasn't too hot this night, and there weren't too many mosquitoes. We got there early, and got a good spot. This view is looking to our left.
This view is to our right, and you can see lots more people trying to crowd in for a good spot on the grass.
Our spot was on a hill with quite the incline, Evelyn thought it was a fun time to start at the top of the hill, and run at full speed into my back. I got smarter and started turning to actually catch her instead of body slamming.
Evelyn thought the fireworks were cool for about the first 10 minutes, and then tried to run away after that. Jilly wasn't scared about the noise, which I had been nervous about, and actually watched them for most of the time.
All in all, it was a pretty fun evening. Hopefully everyone else enjoyed theirs!