Back in the Saddle Again

Ah, life. It sure throws some doozies at you doesn't it?

Reed and I made a monumentous decision this week. We gave our notice here at our apartment. Luckily it works out that with our security deposit as our last months rent, we are here until the end of June. 6 weeks from now.

Where are you going?               Does Reed have a job?

The answer to both of those questions: No idea where we're going, and no Reed doesn't have a job yet. For some reason it just feels right putting our total faith in Heavenly Father in this situation. We know He is aware of us, and we know He has a plan for our family. So ready or not, let's toast a nice glass of water to this adventure we call life!

***And in other news, Reed officially graduates this Sunday. Stay tuned for pictures of that!***

Birthdays and Such

Wow. I know. It's been awhile since I updated but we've had a lot going on so we have a lot to update here.  First of all, I became an older and wiser lady. :) Luckily, I still love birthdays and my age is just a number. 32 is looking pretty good on me if I do say so myself. HA!! I had a great birthday, Reed and the girls got me flowers and chocolates and made me a card and later Reed surprised me with 2 new books!! What more could a girl ask for?! My birthday only became greater because the following 2 days after my birthday I got to hear the heartbeat and see the special little person we're adding to our family in November. 

Majorly majorly adorable. Even better that we all got to go and see the ultrasound including the girls. They both thought seeing the baby was exciting although I'm sure Bronwyn didn't connect the picture on the screen as something inside of me. Aftyn has been excited for a long time already and I think it became more real for her when she saw the baby's picture. Reed couldn't wipe the smile off of his face. :) He's such a good dad.

Reed's parents came into town on the 11th of May with Reed's aunt and we've been enjoying having them here and showing them our town for the last few days. On Saturday we went to Old Sturbridge Village which is about 20-ish minutes away. Such a neat place to go and learn about what an 1800's village would have looked like, how the things in the village would have worked, how the people looked and what their work and play looked like. We spent about 4 hours there and could very easily go back for another 4. TONS of walking around which was great exercise and our girls loved the wagon ride with the horses and all of the space to run and walk and look at things. We all loved the baby sheep(!) which were only a few days old. They also had majorly stinky pigs and lots of cows and goats and horses. My in-laws watched the girls for us that night while Reed and I had our first date of the year. It was so much fun to go out without our girls. What a treat!
Mothers day was great. My ward had a 2 hour meeting where all the women got to meet together while all the men and young men filled in for all the callings, and we were so spoiled with yummy lunch and dessert. It wouldn't have been possible without lots of work from the relief society presidency and the young women's presidency. They did an awesome job!!  Reed got me more beautiful roses and surprised his mom and aunt with roses and chocolates as well. :) And my mother in law supplied us with all the fixings for a yummy roast with potatoes and carrots and all we had to do was stick it in the crockpot and oh boy was it the best mothers day meal! What a fun day, and it ended in a cemetery finding ancestors for my mother in law and her sister. Nothing like a little genealogy work.
 Only a few days later, our little Bronwyn had her 2nd birthday. She had a grin from morning until evening because someone was always saying to her "Is today your birthday?" to which she would answer with a grin "Yes!".  We sure love her. Aftyn was such a sweet sweet sister and was so excited for Bronwyn's birthday. She picked out gummy worms and dictated her own card for Bronwyn.

I love this shirt. This is the shirt Aftyn wore to the hospital 2 years ago to meet baby Bronwyn. :( My baby got so big!

Her favorite present: An art center. She spent the rest of the night coloring and erasing her chalk drawings.

Bronwyn insisted on throwing away each little torn piece of paper as she ripped it off this present

Grandma and Grandpa Bishop gave Bronwyn this cute dress.

We had a fantastic night and Bronwyn loved her birthday so so much. Aftyn is very VERY excited for her own birthday in a few days and we're actually planning on celebrating it 2 days early so we can celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa Bishop.  Thanks to them and Aunt Eileen for making Bronwynnie's special day so much fun!

All Righty Folks, We Have A Winner!

After a very unbiased "pull a name out of the hat" winner choice this morning, we have a winner!!

And the winner is . . . . . . . . .  . .
                                                      Grandma Whiting!  :)

Since you will be moving back home in a few weeks, we'll just have your prize waiting for you there. Thanks for all who participated in our giveaway and thanks to all who make this blog fun to write and who inspire me to keep writing. Love you all!

                Your Prize!  A whole tupperware full of Clark's colors in M&M's!  Woohoo!!!  :)

At The Present Time ...... and a Giveaway!!

Now that I've finally caught up on the past month or so of our lives, it's time I wrote a bit about our present state of affairs. You've probably seen on Facebook, Reed has his last class in 3 days.  Panic is beginning to set in because when school stops, a job needs to be starting very soon after. Reed and I have felt peaceful this whole semester, that a job would find its way to us and everything would be okay. But now we're being faced with the reality of school loan funds coming to an end and real funds needing to find their way into our bank accounts, quickly! I just have to keep reminding myself that it will all be okay. And it will. I just need to start each day with a deep breath, a prayer to help me through and lots and lots of faith. We'll be fine.

In other exciting news, our family is slowly but surely reading the Book of Mormon together. We read one page a night, and just finished 2nd Nephi tonight! :) To celebrate I made the most delicious banana cupcakes. I am deeply deeply in love. Oh yummy!

And also, this is post #501. Meaning that my last post was number #500. Whoa. It only took about 6 years, but go me! As a means of celebrating, my sister gave me the great idea of doing a giveaway. Except I don't know what the heck I could give away. Any ideas? Also, if you want in on the giveaway, leave me a comment below and in a few days when I decide what the heck to giveaway, I will announce a winner!! How exciting! :)

Our Long Ago Trip to New Hampshire .... and a late night romp to Maine

Random lighthouse by a random park.  Pretty!

Playing at the park was the highlight of our day!

Even though we froze our toes, we loved having this big park all to ourselves

The beach! Yes, I am wearing Aftyn's glasses and looking totally silly. And cold.

Reed wanted this picture taken. He loves the beach. And wanted proof for posterity.

Our motel room had 2 separate rooms! Woot!! One queen size bed in each and the kids room had a door! And each room had its own tv. And it had a workout room and a pool. We thought that motel was cool.

And the next morning we woke up to a big snow storm to drive home in.

Okay, so we took a little trip to Seabrook, New Hampshire as a present to Reed for his birthday. Except we had to put it off for a few weeks due to scheduling issues on our part. It was only a little over an hour away and we got to see different parts of New Hampshire and Massachusetts than we had seen before. We found a McDonalds there that surely must have sewer problems because the bathrooms were unbearably stinky but incredibly clean. Odd. 
    We spent a good part of the day driving around, checking things out. We found a park, 2 lighthouses, we had dinner at a yummy seafood restaurant for Reed where people repeatedly told us how well our girls behaved. We decided as an encore to drive over to Maine and get some hot cocoa and then head back to our motel and put our sleepy girls to bed. We had already utilized the motels pool earlier and had had so much fun swimming all together. I helped myself to the exercise room later and had a very relaxing run to end a fantastic day. 
     And in the morning, we woke up to a huge snow storm that luckily didn't impede our getting back home so Reed could go to his class later that afternoon. All in all, a quick fun trip. I'm so glad we took it, it was a nice way to relax as a family before the girls and I flew off to Utah and Idaho for our almost 3 week long trip that I just blogged about.

Our Week in T.F.

Okay,  on with the final details of our trip! I have to make sure I get this posted because summer is coming and I already feel a  few posts behind. So, the girls and I spent a fun week at my sister Alyson's house in Twin Falls. They played outside so much and had a blast with their cousins. They rode bikes, colored with sidewalk chalk (mostly Bronwyn), had an easter egg hunt and just slept really well because they played so hard. Here's my proof!

One of the few times they all sat down and watched a movie together.

They had an awesome collection of costumes. Aftyn the little lamb here. This was her favorite costume. She didn't want to take it off. ;)

Bronwyn the clown. Hi-la-rious!

We had such a fun fun week. Thanks for everything Alyson and family! Great memories. :)

So Many Pictures and I Need to Catch Up!

My amazingly strong Grandma managed to live a full life until the amazing age of 95 and only a few weeks after becoming a great great grandma, she passed away. She will be so missed. I am so happy that my girls and I were able to make it to the funeral and experienced seeing all my cousins and their kids and to feel the spirit of love that was present throughout the entire process. I know my Grandma was proud of her posterity and awed at the sheer size.

My brother Jon and his awesome wife AJ put us up, along with a whole lot of my siblings, for the weekend. We had a lot of fun and were so grateful for their hospitality. We couldn't have been there without them!

My brother Curtis was a kid favorite, reading lots of books to anyone who wanted

That Monday, my sister Alyson and her awesome family drove us to their house in Twin Falls, where we were then picked up by Reed's awesome brother and sister-in-law who saw us the rest of the way to my in-laws house in Nampa for a whole week! There was lots of playing, shopping, get-togethers and overall enjoyment of the outdoors while we were there. :) We had such a fun fun week!! We even managed to swing by our old ward and spent 3 very enjoyable church hours feeling right at home.  Thanks to Mom and Dad Bishop and all our family and friends there that made it such an enjoyable week!

Playing at the playground with friends

Same playground. Super tall slide!

Grandma's house - Bronwyn LOVED the swing!

Have to play marbles at Grandma's house

Another favorite place, the sandbox

Bronwyn just liked dumping sand all over her pants

Easter egg hunt

Bronwyn was a VERY good egg collector, and she proved this many egg hunts over

Okay, this is it for this post, but be aware there is at least one more post to come!! ;)