Happy Birthday to Oliver!

A very cute little guy turned 1 this past weekend. . .

This was our VERY impromptu session! (I am still working myself up for his official 1 year old photo session. . .)

My little stinker of a 1 year old, is the cutest thing ever, but also the most active! It was hard catching him still for more than a couple seconds. But I’m glad we got some keepers on his actual birthday

The next pictures of Oliver and I were taken by none other than my 4 year old, Caleb! I was pleasantly surprised by a handful of images! Here are my favorites!

I love this little boy!  A year ago my heart grew 3 sizes bigger to allow room for yet another incredible baby boy who changed my life and expanded my understanding of Heavenly Father’s incredibly capacity to love ALL of us. Baby Oliver, you are loved more than you will ever know! He makes me smile each day and I LOVE being his mommy! Happy Birthday Oliver!

Our New Home

I thought it was about time I shared with you all a bit of what our new home looks like. We are so excited to be in this home and couldn’t feel more blessed for the way everything worked out. The wait of 5 months to hear back about this short sale was long, but looking back now we are grateful we stuck it out and hung in there. We felt very guided by the Lord and now that we are in our new ward, we know why. There are amazing people surrounding us and we couldn’t have chosen a better area for our kids to grow up in. We have already received more cookie plates and welcoming gestures from our neighbors than I ever expected. What wonderful people we are surrounded by!

A HUGE shout-out goes to my amazing Aunt, Pam Pettingill, who was our realtor during this long process. She was amazing to work with and very diligent about representing us correctly, negotiating as much as possible to get what we wanted, and ALWAYS kept us updated on where our papers and progress were at. Seriously if you are looking for a hard-working great realtor, let me know and I will get you in contact with her.

Ok, so as much as I want to post pictures of what our house looks like NOW with our furniture, new paint color, etc. in, I just haven’t found the motivation to photograph it like that yet. I guess that means you’ll have to actually COME to our house to see it for yourselves!   

Here are the pictures of the house I took back in August . . . wow that was a long time ago! It had been sitting around vacant since April, so it was very dusty and dirty – especially our high maintenance floors! But at least you’ll get a basic understanding of what it looks like.

The first picture shows the front door and our entry way leading into our family room. The big thing you see to the right would be our “pony” staircase going downstairs to our huge un-finished basement. At first we thought it was a huge eye-sore to the house and we talked seriously about ripping it out and remodeling it. BUT I’m glad we are waiting. . . we have lots of options and I’ve actually found it to be less annoying to live with than I originally thought. So eventually we’ll probably change it (even if just to have railing instead of that weird half wall), but for now we don’t mind it and are just grateful it opens up our room quite a bit to what the original floor plan was with this type of home.

Our kitchen and dining room are separated, but still feel all connected. We haven’t really used our dining room as much as we thought, since our kitchen island is BIGGER than a regular kitchen table . . . but at least we have a couple options as to where we eat.

This was probably the house’s BIGGEST selling point when we first saw this house. . . and this kitchen was very poorly photographed online  - which was to our benefit since it stuck around longer waiting for us. We love our 5 burner stove top, humongous island w secondary sink (my personal fav!), and beautiful cabinetry (oh yes and it LOOKS like a double oven, but is actually a microwave above the oven, which is kind of cool!). The original owners who built the home were both Chefs thus why there is a ginormous kitchen. . . so I feel slight pressure to start cooking more since I have absolutely no excuse why not to cook in my kitchen. You will be proud to know that I have been making valiant efforts

Probably the thing we also love the most is our Master Suite. Seriously this place is bigger than some of the honeymoon suites at hotels! We feel completely spoiled in this room! More than anything I just appreciate having our own room WITHOUT Oliver in there with us! 11 months sleeping with mom and dad was way too long for all of us! I enjoy hanging out in my bedroom for my own needed quiet time.

After our clothes being in full chaos for MONTHS, I could not have been more giddy to have a huge closet. Embarrassingly enough we fill it quite nicely. . . but some of the stuff is just spread out because we can and the tops of the shelves I use to store baby clothes for my boys.

Yes a closet within a closet. The original house plan had this as another bedroom, but they had it custom made to a huge closet instead. I figured I could use it as a room for our next child since it’s big enough.

John personally loves this tub more than anything else in the house. It is the perfect two person tub as well.

The only thing we weren’t sure about initially was the small yard. We will need to rebuild the deck that is sloping in the middle, add some grass, but we think we can make it a fun place for our kids to play in! We’re just grateful to have a yard!

And who cares that we have a smaller piece of land? We have this AMAZING view every single day! I may be in love with this view each day just as much as my kitchen, master suite, and garage. This view speaks to my soul and I can’t wait for summer nights when we can just hang out on the back porch under the stars.

Well how did you like your tour? Believe me when I say it’s even better in person! and especially with our newly painted walls in the front room! We would love our family and friends to come visit! Thanks to those of you who have been excited for us and supported us through our move. We feel very blessed and grateful!

Reflections on 2011 . . .

Another year has come and gone, and January is always the perfect time to reflect on all of the wonderful blessings and experiences we had and how we learned and have grown from all of them.

This year we had some Big Changes happen:

*First we started off the new year by expanding our family from 3 to 4! The birth of Oliver at the end of January definitely was the best thing that happened this past year!

*Shortly thereafter, in February, the first of my Grandparents, Papa Craft, passed away of Pancreatic Cancer. We were grateful that he had the chance to meet Oliver before he died, and that we were able to spend time with him here in Utah during his last couple months.

*My awesome brother, Spencer, returned from his mission to Colorado Springs, Colorado! That was an exciting time for our family!

*John got called to be the Elder’s Quorum President after serving for a year and a half as 1st counselor. He really grew a lot in that calling, even though it didn’t last long due to some other changes happening. . .

*John got approached by a Head-Hunter to apply for a job that offered to pay more than we currently were getting. John applied and got hired at Venafi on the Support Team (even though he is currently doing a lot of programming), and with fond memories left what was formally known as PGP (but recently acquired by Symantec) that he had worked at for approximately 6 years. He is extremely happy in this new company, Venafi, and so we are grateful for the decision he made to accept the position they offered to us.

*Literally a week or two after getting the job, John and I made the quick decision to move into the basement of my parents, rent out our condo at Cambria, and save up for a house! We really appreciate the sacrifice and willingness of my family in letting us come. They have been awesome and there are many blessings and memories that have come from making that change.

*Starting in June, I became a dedicated RUNNER! Thanks to my brother, Spencer, and his enthusiasm to run with me during those first very tough weeks, I slowly overcame my mental block of hating to run, strengthened my body and endurance, and actually learned that running is very therapeutic and can be enjoyed! It took me a good couple months to overcome the hurtle of running a mile straight without walking, but I did it! I’ve already run a 10k (not a formal race, just a nice long Saturday morning run), and am actually looking forward to training for a marathon for this coming September with my family! That definitely was something I never thought I’d WANT to do!

*In August, we felt inspired (or anxious) to start looking for homes, and see what our options were out there. We hadn’t planned on looking that early in the game since we knew we needed to save more money, but it was a good thing we listened to the spirit instead! The first day we looked and looked though many homes, but it wasn’t until we got to the last house of the evening, that we found it. It couldn’t have felt like more of a perfect fit! After more searching the next day, and lots of prayers, we decided to put our offer in on this dream house of ours! Fortunately we jumped on it, because within a week there were 4 back up offers behind ours! The timing for us to find it could not have been more perfect or inspired.

*In September, Caleb started Preschool for the first time! He was very excited by it and has been loving it! I am learning to be a little more structured through it, and realize that it’s good Preschool is just twice a week now as I adjust to driving and picking him up on time.

*Caleb turned 4 and I threw my first ever BIG Birthday party! It was a full blown Super Hero Party for Caleb and all of his little friends. I did a lot of planning and prep work for it, and I think it turned out to be a success! I also decorated my first ever cake (with the assistance of my Aunt Amanda) with fondant.

*We did a lot of waiting and waiting and WAITING for this short sale home! It really was an emotional rollercoaster each week while waiting. We thought it would go through by the end of October. . . .oh how wrong we were! But again, we know that the Lord IS mindful of us, some things just have to happen in His timeframe because he knows that it was worth the patience that we learned and the money we saved by it extending almost 2 and a 1/2 months longer than expected.

*Oliver changed CONSTANTLY during the year, and we have loved every stage of it! Smiling, giggling, turning over, sitting up, sleeping through the night!, eating solids, crawling, talking, standing up, crawling up stairs, climbing, walking, crawling down the stairs, etc. just to name a few changes!  It just keeps getting better and better!

*December brought along its usual busyness: John’s birthday, my birthday, our 5 Year Anniversary, and Christmas. All of which were wonderful (minus the awful stomach flu bug we all got which post-poned Christmas by one day).

*On our 5 year Anniversary, we officially got accepted for our HOUSE! This dream home of ours that we waited since August for finally went through. We couldn’t have asked for better news for our 5 year Anniversary.

WOW! Crazy, Awesome, Busy, Wonderful Year right? We can’t believe all of the changes that occurred during that year, but we feel ever so blessed!

We are most grateful to be a family, be together, and for the love that we have for one another. At the end of the day, that is the thing we are most grateful for: Each other and being together!

Thank you to all our family and friends for your love and impact that you have on our life! We love you all! May 2012 be the best one yet for all of you!