so long summer

the days go by so slow but the months go by too fast! here are just some of the happenings.....

Travis graduated from Kindergarten! I thought it was so funny that they had a graduation ceremony, but cute too. Travis was so proud and we were too!

The babies turned one! We survived the first year...barely. 

I was at a store or something and a lady looked at me, smiled and said, "honey, I had twins and don't worry it gets better....when they're about three." I went home and cried.

Cody is still working on sleeping through the night. 

He loves to get into everything!! 

And apparently loves dogs, as long as they aren't real and stay three feet away from him.

Amy loves to be the center of attention. 

She makes more noise then the three boys combined!

We are still working on her hair and have made some progress, thanks to pinterest!

I've learned that putting away groceries, cleaning anything, unloading the dishwasher, or cooking dinner is nearly impossible with the two of them awake. I'm constantly reminded of a quote that hung in my mom's laundry room...."Cleaning your house while your children are in it is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing."

Cody great achievement so far this year was learning how to put olives on his fingers. And yes, he figured it out all on his own.

At the beginning of the summer we made a teeter totter. Amy is the one that actually uses it the most but it does get used everyday!

I guess the biggest change this year was our house. We sold it! And in 17 days too! We found a rental house...just three days before we had to be out of our house too. Stressful does not even begin to explain how the last few month have been. We are building a house in the town Joe grew up in and is teaching at. It's only about 15 minutes away and that's where Travis has also been attending school.

This is the house that Joe grew up in. His mom still lives there.

We tore it down (don't worry we moved Joe's mom out first) and are going to build our new house with a mother-in-law's addition in back for Joe's mom. 

The property is just under an acre and a half and is going to be quite the change for me having grown up in L.A. I thought that we were going to grass everything, then Joe said he wanted to leave the "back pasture" so that we could get a pig, cow, goats or other animals. I was in shock for quite some time. The town has a population of about 3,200 and majority are farmers. There are NO stop lights and the nearest grocery store is a 15 minute drive away on the highway. I've never lived that far from a store in my life! We haven't started the building process just yet. We're hoping in the next few weeks we'll start.     

Joe and I LOVE old beater trucks and Joe said that if we're going to live in Burtucky (that's what I like to call it) we'll need a truck. The boys have named her Brown Betty, yes we name our cars...we already have large Marg and Gina.

Tyler started pre-school this year. I tried to get him into the same one as Travis but had no luck. So we are doing a co-op with 4 other kids in the ward. He so happy that he can talk "school stuff" with Travis now.

Travis started first grade but is bigger then most second graders. He loves school and is learning so fast.

I thought this picture was funny because of Tyler. He cracks me up! 

hopefully next time I post it will be construction pictures of our new place!