Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Gold Medals

Ethan and Ashley both finished reading 20 books to earn a gold medal through the Summer Reading Program here in Nevada. They were both really excited to finish.


And Sam continues to wear the backpack whenever he is awake.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Pictures


Sam wearing the backpack he found in the toys.


Sam has been pulling out all my pots and pans to play with them.



The kids discovered the dryer one day and had a hayday.

Starting out

Well after months of thinking I should start one of these, especially now that we are living so far away from so much family, I have finally sat down and start to write one. My family (the Millers) has a family website that we keep in touch with each other on so this will mostly be viewed by Jordon's family and our friends.
We have moved to Las Vegas and have now lived here for over a month. A few people have asked me if the kids are liking it here and I just say that I haven't heard any complaints. They love having the pools here and would live in them if we let them.
The temperature has been getting up to about 110 during the day, but the last few weeks we have had thunder and rainstorms move through that have helped cool it off a little so that has been nice.
Today I got online and found the information that we will need to get Ethan registered for school. He will be attending Bozarth Elementary School. It is a new school still being built just up the street from us. He was excited to find out that his mascot is the Aviators.
While I was in the shower this morning, Ethan also decided to get out a bunch of toys from one of the kids' totes so the living room has been scattered with toys all day. Among those toys was a small backpack that Sam wanted to wear. I put it on him and he wore it all morning until it was time for nap. I think he might have a hard time this Fall when Ethan and hopefully Ashley (if I can find a preschool for her) go to school. Ethan will be in 1st grade and is so excited to be able to eat lunch at school.
Ashley has been living in nightgowns still for the most part. We bought her a few summer dresses so she could wear those instead of the nightgowns, but she usually only changes into them if we are going somewhere. If not she will stay in here nightgown all day or get dressed for a few hours to then change back into the nightgown.
Before we moved we had Sam sleeping on a twin bed at night and he did excellent doing it. When we took that bed down to move we started putting him in his playpen to sleep at night. He has been sleeping in it down here as well because we put the bunkbeds together and the twin bed he was sleeping in is now on top. We don't have a futon mattress for the bottom of the bunk so I haven't put him down there either. Somehow though, the little stinker has learned how to climb out of his playpen. We find him every morning knocking on the door or with the door locked (he has learned how to do that too). I pulled the twin mattress down from the top bunk last night to try to get him to sleep on it on the bottom bed. He struggled for a little bit but then fell asleep with Ethan on the bed next to him. At 1 in the morning he was awake crying at the door. I got up and put him in the playpen and he went back to sleep. I would like to have him sleeping in a regular bed so we can put away the playpen, but I don't know that he will just go to sleep or if it will continue to be a nightly struggle with him. I guess time will tell.
Jordon is still enjoying his job as much as I can tell. We are hoping that the review he is supposed to have next week will bring with it a raise since we moved out here on less than we wanted because of the promised review and possible raise. This past week he has been working on building a deck with his brother-in-law after work each night. It sounds like it is coming along well and hopefully they will be able to finish it this week or next week.
I have been at home with the kids for now. If Jordon doesn't get a raise then I will soon be reentering the workforce. I have been trying to find some other families in our new ward that want to swap babysitting with us so that if we want to go out we won't be spending a fortune just on babysitting.
Hopefully I will be able to continue with this to keep everyone informed of our doings and the kids' craziness while we are so far away. I will try to get on every few days to update, but I'm not promising anything!