Hooray! We just signed papers putting our house under contract. I was beginning to wonder if it would sell before my parents left. We should be closing on the 24th, so that gives us 2 weeks (since we will be in CA this week). Even though we were hoping for more, this is definitely a relief! Just found a cool website that is a zoo cam so you can watch different animals. http://nationalzoo.si.edu You can watch an octopus, panda, tiger, etc.... I will have to let the kids watch it. It was pretty neat. California and Six Flags here we come!

Well no mission call for my parents this week, but we did have a little bit of good news. We had a cash offer on our house. Not as much as we were hoping for, but at least we wont lose money on the sale. We should know more for sure after the holiday. Thank goodness it was a better offer than all of the previous crappy ones!
It was our last day in the Robins Park ward. Kind of crazy.... we've been in this ward since Isabel was born. The primary sang to Isabel and the farewell song she picked was popcorn popping! They were excited that she LET them sing to her :) My shy little girl! My going away present was only having 8 kids in nursery! It was nice. I made them little felt reverence mice and we put them in their pockets (or socks for the girls) and went on a reverence walk. They did so good walking through the halls cause they didn't want to scare their mice! When the parents came to get them I was impressed to know that the kids' older siblings still had their reverence mice at home :) That tells you we have been in nursery for awhile now! (2 years) I do like teaching and Brady likes snack time :)
We took the kids to feed the ducks last Sunday and Ben cracked me up. I didn't get any pictures, but I'm pretty sure he will do it again so I will get some next time. Brady taught him that if you hold your hand out the ducks/geese will come eat out of your hand. He did good while Brady was there next to him, but then he went on his own. He was chasing the ducks with his hand out saying,"ducks eat it, hand, eat it ducks" over and over. He was getting frustrated cause all of the ducks were running/flying away. "Oh no ducks,...fly" is what he kept saying. Finally he gave up, dropped the bread and said," fine, chase!" and he held both arms open and started chasing the ducks! It was hilarious. Everyone at Layton Park stopped feeding the ducks to watch him chase the ducks. That kid keeps me on my toes that's for sure :)
Isabel has been getting bored lately so with Holly's recommendation we started the book 'Teach your Kid to Read in 100 Lessons'. Isabel loves it. It only takes 15min a day. The first day we did it we learned the sound 'm'. Isabel put together that she could spell mom and then dad. Ever since then she has been writing mom and dad on everything! She will be reading in no time. For the past couple of months she has been asking me why she didn't know how to read yet and why hadn't I taught her yet! Sometimes she has a little attitude :) I hear that comes with being 4!
Enough posting for now! Going to try and keep this updated so mom and dad have something to read to keep them updated when they are gone! Hopefully I can figure out how to post pictures on the actual post.....hmmm... think I just figured it out, now just need to download pictures! Hopefully I can add them later :)

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Pictures

I just added the pictures on the bottom.... I need to figure out how to make them smaller. Those are 2 of my favorie pictures of the kids. Isabel is a big help in the kitchen and I love how Ben looks up at me.... i'll see if I can get better at posting pictures where I want them..... (that picture was before the haircut!)

February

Life for Isabel these days revolves around holidays, and it's actually fun to try and figure out what to do to make the day special for her (and ben). For Valentines day we made heart shaped b-bque chicken pizzas with breadsticks. Since it was snowing and Brady had to plow, he made us pink waffles the next morning. Even though it's the end of the month, she still walks around saying Valentines Day is fun. (Her favorite holiday still has to be Halloween...everything still revolves around when Halloween is coming again!) Ben is walking everywhere, unless he needs to get there fast, then he resorts to crawling! He and Isabel are actually starting to have fun playing together. I have a feeling that trouble is coming!

January

I dont know about this blogging thing. I'm not that good at it. I can't decide if I want to be better at it or not! :) For an update, Christmas was really fun this year. Kids really make the difference! Isabels' favorite thing was to open stuff....didn't matter if it was hers or not, and Ben was just kind-of caught up in it all. Next year will be really fun! Ben went sledding for the first time at the beginning of this month and Isabel ate a lot of snow! Ben got his first haircut today. I tried to do it with scissors, but I failed miserably. Brady ended up using the clippers on a #4. Ben is still as cute as ever. Well, that's all for now!

Remodel updates.....

So, thanks to Dad, Mom, Jen and Chris (and the in-laws for watching the kids) the house is progressing nicely. We are almost all tiled, and the paint should be done tomorrow. The cabinets should be installed on Saturday thanks to Nick and Brady! My front room reminds me of cinnamon and sugar.... it's so nice. The tile and the chocolate brown color on the wall is great! There is still a lot to do, but my house is coming together!
When I figure out how to post a picture, I will post some so you can see the progress!
We made it out to buy pumpkins. That's had to be the hardest thing so far..... trying to keep things sort of normal for Isabel......we're trying though..
Ben got his first tooth this week!!!! On the bottom. He loves his food. At least a cup of oatmeal with bananas daily :)