A Joke By Gwen

Our trip out to Oklahoma was pretty uneventful. We got to stop and say goodbye to a lot of family, and the girls were so good during the trip. I had to post this picture that we took during the trip because it's pretty much one of the few times that the girls can stand to be this close to one another. They're so cute!!

Gwen has really been into telling jokes for almost a year now. She absolutley loves jokes and riddles. This one really cracked me up because it's one she came up with on her own. Soon after we got here, we hooked up our small tv in our bedroom-and it was the only one we had hooked up for a while. So Robbie connected our playstation 2 to our tv so we could watch movies, which was great cause I could put in a movie for the girls while we were upstairs and they could watch it while I unpacked and organized-without any interruptions. One afternoon I put in Megamind (Gwen and Grace love that movie), and as all Dreamworks movies start off, it had the boy fishing off of the moon, and there were stars in the background (since Megamind starts off in outerspace).

The girls had just been talking about the previews and when Grace saw the boy fishing off of the moon, she asked out loud "What is that boy fishing for?" To which Gwen replied, "Well Gracie, he's fishing for starfish. Get it? Star-fish? Hahahahahaha." I laughed so hard at that. Gwen really has a way of making us laugh at things, and I love it that she came up with this reply all on her own, instantly after Grace asked her question. Best joke I've heard in a really long time!!

Easter-Finally

Easter this year was spent with Robbie's parents. I don't have a cd port on my laptop, so I don't have all the photos from Easter but here are a few. We went down on Friday after getting our stuff from my parents house loaded onto a U Haul. It was really hard to say goodbye to my family and the place we had lived for almost 2 years. We had a lot of good times there, but we were excited to start out on our new adventure.

We were all looking forward to spending some more time with Robbie's parents before we moved too. When we got there on Friday, Rob and his dad unloaded the U Haul, and he, his dad, and even I helped start loading the big moving truck. We returned the U Haul, ate dinner, and loaded some more stuff onto the main truck. It was a long day, but mostly for Rob.

Saturday we woke up to our last winter snow storm. After Rob's mom went to work, and some people from Rob's parents ward showed up to help Robbie load the main truck, the girls and I went to a friends house to get out of the way. We finally made it there after almost going off the road 3 times, and the girls got to dye and decorate easter eggs and go on a easter egg hunt while at our friends. Just about the time we were done there Robbie had finished loading the moving truck, so the girls and I went and picked him up and we went out and did things as a family.

After Rob's mom got home that night from work we ate dinner quickly and then the fun began. The girls were excited to dye easter eggs again, and had a lot of fun doing it. We had to cook an extra set of eggs because they were having so much fun (and they kept dropping the eggs and cracking them).

Gwen trying to pull of a pirate smile

Sweet Gracie having a blast

Georgia had so much fun-so much!!

After we were done with dying eggs the girls had a bath and I put the girls hair in curlers. Georgia even allowed me to put her hair in curlers-I was so excited!!

The next morning the girls climbed onto our bed and anxiously asked about every 5 seconds whether or not they could go searching for their Easter baskets (the Easter bunny hides the baskets instead of eggs, a tradition the Easter bunny did with my family growing up to prevent missing hard boiled eggs rotting and stinking everything up). They couldn't wait for mommy and daddy and grandma to be ready!

After some searching, they each found their baskets. I can't remember where all of them were hidden, but I think Georgia's was hidden in plain sight in the hallway, Grace's was hidden on a kitchen chair, and Gwen's was hidden on the computer desk chair-out of sight. They had so much fun going through their baskets!

Gwen going through her basket

Grace going through her basket

Georgia going through her basket

After church we took a lot of pictures. We took some at church and some at Robbie's Nana's house, trying to get some good Easter pictures. Here are the results:


Gwen

Grace

Georgia

My three silly, sweet little girls

Gwen at church

Grace at church

Georgia at church

The girls twirling "like ballerinas mommy" at church...can you see the ringlets in Grace's hair? The curlers I have for Gwen and Grace curl their hair into ringlets-love it!!

Our family. We had a wonderful Easter dinner later that night and just relaxed and did some last minute packing, because we were leaving early the next morning. We had a great Easter with Rob's parents, and it was hard to leave them as well. We sure miss all of our family and are so grateful that we had those wonderful 2 years to spend with them.

Quick Update

I figured while the girls finish watching their cartoon before lunch, I'd update real quick. We are finally getting everything unpacked. I will post pictures of the house, but please keep in mind that the none of the rooms are decorated yet or finished in a way that I would like. As we finish rooms up I will probably post pictures again, but for now things are very bare.

We made it through our first storm that came with a tornado warning (which pretty much means that a tornado could form at any time so be prepared to run for safety). It was pretty scary, especially for the girls as it came with a massivly severe thunderstorm. The lightning was flashing about every 5 to 10 seconds, the rain was like nothing I've ever seen-it came down so hard and so quick that even if there were a tornado, I don't think we would have heard it over the sound of the rain. We also had hail towards the end of the storm. We have about half of what we need for our 72 hour kits, so that will be something we will be working on in the next two months or so before the fall tornado season hits.

Having our own place is...well, an adventure. We are just renting our house, but it comes with more challenges than I remember. Two days after we moved in we had water leaking out from underneath the walls in the kitchen...eventually found out it was the dishwasher. They came to fix it, but we don't think it was really fixed as we are still having a little bit of leaking around our pantry wall. We also have mold growing inside of our pantry wall thanks to all the water leaking and our pantry not having any sort of ventilation. And not to mention all the bugs and spiders-geez!! I can't even count all the bugs and spiders we have seen/killed since moving in. So, there will probably be some major rennovation in our kitchen to fix the pantry wall and find out what on the dishwasher is leaking, and Robbie has talked about hiring a professional exterminator because he's already done an at home spray and we're still finding them everywhere!

Despite all that, it is soooo much fun to unpack (seriously) and rediscover things that we have had packed up for the last two years. It has been fun to find places for everything, use everything, and just have a home again. The girls love all the space we have, and we have a fenced in back yard which is sooo nice when the weather is good-I can let the girls go outside to play without worrying about cars or running in the street.

To add to all the adventures (and a future post) Georgia fell on Tuesday and hit her head on a kitchen chair, which split a nice sized gash into her forehead, which resulted in a trip to the ER. She's doing just fine now-doesn't even notice it, but instead of stitches they glued it back together (they said it's the same as if they had given her stitches). She is turning out to be our accident prone child, so we'll have to keep a close eye on her.

I will try to post about everything-including easter-as soon as I can (hopefully this weekend) and put photos up.

We're Here

We have now been in Oklahoma for about 2 1/2 weeks...hip hip hooray!! After a few problems we managed to find a house to rent that is pretty perfectly sized for us and that we all love so far (minus the some water leaks that we had). Our ward is HUGE (350+ people) which is something we are not used to, but the girls are loving all the new friends that they are making (both Gwen and Grace have primary classes that have about 8-10 kids in them, and the nursery is huge). We are starting to make new friends and reconnect with old friends and learning to pay attention to the weather and news (it's tornado season!!). We're just happy to be starting on a new journey in our lives and we feel so blessed for this opportunity and excited to see where it goes from here!! More posts to come (as soon as we finish unpacking-hahahahaha-and get the desktop set up)!!

Oklahoma

We are going to be residents of Oklahoma!! Robbie got a job for a national company that has an office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We've actually had the offer for about a month now, but now the official paperwork has been signed, we are getting an ABF moving trailer (we pack the truck, they drive it) delivered to Rob's parents this Thursday, and we are also getting a U-Haul this Thursday to move what few things we have here at my parents down to Rob's parents to be packed in the moving truck. We're spending Easter in Rutland, and will be starting our moving journey early Monday morning to a town on the outskirts of Tulsa!! We are really excited and grateful for this job opportunity. We will have to rent instead of buy a house, as the job will only last for about 2 years and then we will be transfered somewhere else in the US, but we are so excited to use all of our stuff again!! The girls are excited to move, but only because Gwen is excited for kindergarten, and Grace is excited because we promised her we would find a preschool for her because she so badly wants to go to school. Georgia doesn't care...she doesn't even realize what's going on. We are also sad because this has been our home for the last 20 months and we're going to miss all our friends and especially our families. It's been so nice to be around both my parents and Rob's parents after living away from them for 4 years, and to be close to our siblings and extended families. It will be hard to leave everything but we know without a doubt that this is what the Lord has had in mind for us since we moved here. There has been a reason and a lesson that's been learned from everything that's happened in the last 20 months (including the almost 8 months that we lived apart as Robbie worked in New Hampshire). We feel so blessed to have had the trials and the joy that we have had living here in Vermont, and we are looking forward to all we are going to experience and learn in Oklahoma (and I've had this song stuck in my head since we started considering and praying about this job...)!!

"Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain

And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet

When the wind comes right behind the rain.

Oklahoma, Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I

Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk

Makin' lazy circles in the sky.

We know we belong to the land

And the land we belong to is grand!!

And when we say

Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!

We're only sayin'

You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!

Oklahoma O.K."

Sesame Street Live-Elmo's Green Thumb

Last Tuesday we took the girls to see their first live show-Sesame Street Live presents Elmo's Green thumb. The girls were super excited to go see it and kept asking when they were going to go see Elmo for about a week after we told them we were going. Before we left I thought I'd take a few pictures...they didn't turn out too good because they were jumping around they were so excited and I'm so glad they were.

I was silly and didn't realize that I could bring my camera with and take some pictures of the show, so these are all from the internet, but they're all pictures of what we saw. We had pretty decent seats, and the girls were so excited when all the characters came out and sang and danced and talked about the alphabet. After that the show got started and they did lots of neat songs and dances to go along with the story line of Elmo needing to find a new place to plant his Sunflower friend Sunny. This is after they shrunk-they were using flowers as umbrellas to protect themselves from the water that Big Bird was sprinkling on his garden. Don't know if this is right after they shrunk, or right before they get tall again, but the girls liked watching them shrink and grow.

There were a lot of fun songs that the girls danced along to, including Rosita's Cha Cha and the Bettle Bug Trash Rap, and it was so fun to watch their faces light up and see huge smiles and hear so much laughter and giggling. It was defiantely worth the price, and I'm so glad we took them. We will definately take them to something like this again.

Great Grandpa And Grandma Sessions

A little over a month ago my Grandpa and Grandma Sessions came out to visit from Utah. The girls were so excited!! Georgia had a bit of a hard time at first but after a couple of minutes she was playing with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma just like her sisters. During the week they did puzzles together, played games, wrestled with Great Grandpa, colored and did stickers (including decorating Great Grandpa's face with stickers), read books (Gracie's favorite thing to do with Great Grandma) and so many other things!! Every morning the girls would wake up and ask to see Great Grandpa and Grandma, and couldn't wait to spend time with them. It was a wonderful, fun filled week, and we're so grateful that they had the chance to come out and visit with all of us. The girls loved having them around, and we can't wait for an opportunity to go and visit them!!