January & February...

Since we currently don't have a yard we go to the nearby park a lot.

While exploring our new area we found this place which was pretty cool.

And even explored a cave there. 

Our first week of homeschool we made our own volcano to erupt.

We found the local Children's museum and bought a year membership. The kids LOVE it!

Daddy had his 35th birthday.

Daddy helped the kids make a volcano model with papermache.

We had our first and really only snow here. Unfortunately that means drought for this area this year since the snow melt is used for farm crops.

We went to a fun event at the fairgrounds that was to help kids explore outdoor activities. They got to fish for a real fish to take home. 

Just some homeschool activities. Oaklee wants to participate but really just wants to do her own thing.

McCoy really has enjoyed most of the school activities I have found for him. We are keeping school fairly lowkey with only about an hour a day 3 to 4 days a week. He knows how to read and gets the concept of math so we just work on those skills more and then have been working on a few unit studies.

We play lots of legos!

Grandma and grandpa (Brenley's parents) came to visit for a night and we celebrated Grandma's birthday.

We went and toured the police station with the local homeschool group. McCoy loved it!

We had to make a quick trip to Medford and stopped at the Temple real quick.

Brenley and kids spent two weeks at Brenley's parents house so she could help them while her dad had surgery. We tried to do a bit of homeschool but Mac had a bad attitude about it. So I had to come up with some super fun ways to learn. He ended up loving this one.

We did lots of pretend camping before bed everynight at Grandma and grandpa's.

We got to visit our old neighborhood and surprise our best buddies when they got off the school bus.

At our other grandma and grandpas house (Bryce's parents) the kids found these sombreros and loved them. 

Grandma and Grandpa have an annual grandkid valentine party. The kids had a blast!

Mac loved reading his BOB books to Grandpa. These two have quite the relationship!

The kids wanted to learn about the bones in our body so we traced their bodies and I gave them a picture of a skeleton and they copied it. 

They had a huge snow and ice storm while at Brenley's parents house.

We made snow cream. It was pretty good although I put way too much sugar in it and I don't like ice cream.

A few weeks before we left to my parents house our downstairs neighbor let us know she wasn't very happy with how much noise we were making. She works nights and sleeps during the day. I had a really bad attitude about it and was very frustrated because I didn't feel like we were being disrespectful or rude and I had even tried to help her out by taking her garbage can and recycling can to the road and back to the apartment on garbage day. After I got over myself the kids and I made her a loaf of hot bread and took it to her. She seemed shock and didn't say anything but "Oh, thanks." A couple of weeks after that while I was gone to my parents house Bryce texted me this picture. Grateful that I chose kindness, instead of resentment.

The kids found some straws and made straw boats and wanted to race them in the tub. All of it their idea. 

We played mexican railroad a lot since we were mostly homebound because of the weather. McCoy catches on to games very quickly.

Oak had a little stomach but and fever while we were at my parents house. Thankfully it only lasted about 24 hours and no one else got it. But poor thing just looked miserable.

Our cute snowman.

We got a new niece/cousin. Bryce's brother and his wife had their first baby. She had a bit of a rough start but is doing awesome now.

Mac pretty much adores his grandpa dick and loves to listen to his police stories. He even got to try on his old sheriff jacket.

After four attempts we finally were able to get to the Lego movie. 

Visited daddy at work on Valentines day and brought donuts for his staff.

My very sorry attempt and making a heart braid in Oak's hair. She loved it and that's all that matters right?!

We watched Toy Story 3 one day and the next day Mac asked for a tortilla. It was so cute and funny!

We had to head to our old house since the new owners would be closing on the house and we needed to get the rest of our stuff. We stayed at Bryce's parents house and one night after putting the kids to bed we headed up in their new bonus room and watched a chick flick on their amazing down couch. Once you sit down on that couch you never want to get up. 

Oaklee finally got to meet her new cousin baby Elisabeth. She is pretty obsessed with babies. We wouldn't let her hold her yet since daddy had a bit of a cold and we didn't want to pass anything to her.

Late night game of connect 4 with grandma. 

Bittersweet to say goodbye to our first house. We miss it a lot and hope to find something that we love again soon.

Brenley's parents helped us get the rest of our stuff moved and while they were staying with us we went and explored the big lake. 

Oaklee has been obsessed with doing my hair. It hurts a lot but she is getting better. She has even figured out how to put ponytails in. 

We have been obsessed with watching the bald eagle cam. The kids always want to check on the eagles and their baby.

For a month and a half Mac asked everyday if his lego magazine came. It finally came and he was so excited!

It was a beautiful day and we had to come home from the park to start dinner but there was still daylight left and I wanted to enjoy it while we could. The kids didn't want to go on a walk so I enticed them with a scavenger hunt. They loved it!

Mac's really cute drawing of the eagles and the nest with the baby and the bad egg that  never hatched.

Life has been good and busy. We have made so many new friends and we have been very impressed with how friendly and inclusive everyone has been here. 

The move and the first week here...

I am not sure if I mentioned that we made a big move. Bryce has purchased a partnership in a CPA firm in a town about 4 hours south of where we lived before. We are temporarily living in a small apartment until we can get our house sold and buy or build a new house. This big change and move came after a lot of fasting a prayer, A LOT! It was really hard to move away from our amazing neighbors and our family. Thankfully though it isn't so far away that we can't come and visit often.

 

With house showings, Christmas and Mac's birthday getting ready to move was a bit more overwhelming than I had anticipated. Because it was so overwhelming I tried to just shrug it off as no big deal. Then we started packing and I realized we had way more stuff to pack than I had originally thought. The tricky part was the fact that we were moving to a smaller place, an apartment, and so we couldn't take everything with us. Then was the part of not knowing how much we would be able to fit in the horse trailer we were borrowing from Bryce's brother. 

Brenley's mom was a total rockstar and is pretty much the Queen of Get-er-done! She packed up our entire kitchen and cleaned it from top to bottom. 

Thankfully the weather and roads were amazing driving over the mountain which was another huge concern of ours. And we got here to K Falls with no problem. Brenley's parents, who helped us move, helped us unload and her mom helped unpack quiet a bit. The place is much smaller so trying to find places for everything has been a bit difficult. But over all we really like the apartment. We are upstairs and the kids are already tired of me telling them to stop running and rough housing and yelling because we don't want to disturb the neighbors.

Oak trying calamari (octopus) and loving it! YUCK!

We went out to eat quite a bit the first couple of days since we weren't settled in enough to make anything in our kitchen.

Oaklee had a big girl bed waiting here for her. She had still been sleeping in her converted crib at our house.

The days have been sunny and the afternoons have been in the mid 40s. Totally winter weather I can handle.

We found a park close to our house and we have gone to it a couple of times already.

Everyone at Bryce's firm has been dying to meet us so we went and saw daddy at work. When we walked in the receptionist was beside herself with excitement to meet us and even had made little treats for the kids. I think her and I will become good friends since we have kids the same age. 

I took Oaklee out on a date to see Frozen on New Years Eve, where it felt like they had the AC on in the theater and really thought we were going to freeze. But we loved the movie.

We didn't do anything for New Years Eve and were in bed by 9pm and then we were woken up at midnight with the noise of fireworks. We were able to watch quite the firework show out our bedroom window. Then I had trouble going back to sleep for a few more hours.

Oaklee woke up on New Years Day all out of sorts and crying. Then a few meltdowns later we were able to get out the door on and adventure. When we left the house we had no clue where we were going to but decided to go south of K Falls since we hadn't been that direction yet. About 30 miles out of town we came across the sign for Lava Beds National Monument and decided that sounded really fun. Especially since next week we plan on doing a unit study on volcanoes for homeschool.

After driving on what felt like the longest road in the middle of nowhere we finally made it to the ranger station. And it did not disappoint! They pointed us to an awesome cave that the kids could go into and Mac was in heaven, Oak kept on saying she was scared and didn't like it but never showed it. It was pretty cool. And we plan on going back during the summer to explore a few more of the caves there. 

The sunsets here have been pretty cool. This was taken through my bedroom window.

And I think Oak's New Years Day meltdowns were due to her getting sick because at the end of the day after putting her in bed she ended up with a 103.3 temp and had she pretty much kept us up all night. Hopefully that is all she gets! I have seen the horror stories all over blogs and facebook of the nasty stomach virus.

We also went to our new Ward this last Sunday. And it was great! Everyone was so friendly and they were so excited to get a family who would be long term. I seriously could hardly walk through the hallways without someone stopping and introducing themselves.

We so far have enjoyed it here. I think what we love the most is how close we are to Bryce's work. He can be home in ten minutes instead of 30 to 40 minutes. He will be able to come home for lunch sometimes if he wants to. I love that idea!