PAGET FOR PREZ

The family got the best present ever - campaign shirts for Jared's 2012 Presidential Bid!!!  Thanks Florida Pagets!!!!  See, he writes him name in on his ballot every presidential year since he's pretty sure he's better than whatever candidates there are anyway.  But 2012 is the first year he'll actually be legally allowed to "run" since he's old and stuff.

Don't you love the mirror effect there, the duplicate smiles?  And see that belt around his middle?  That's the "Jared" belt Anna and Danny got him for Christmas a few years ago, and the new Mr. T belt buckle he got this morning from the Florida folk!

Show your support, get your Paget for President 2012 shirt today!!!

Awesomeness explained.

Fine. Y'all aren't interested in the fact that there are crazed murderers roaming our neighborhood. You just want happy fuzzy posts. Fine. But we don't have to be happy about it. Here's what happened while we were off having a way-cooler life than YOU:

Halloween. Fun party at the church. Candy was consumed. Solei threw up all over mommy that night. Mommy has now earned her mommy degree.

Living in the Middle Of Nowhere has a few perks, involving an adorable parade of kids down Main Street, trick or treating all the businesses. This time we ate less candy.

Pascal came to visit us. Because we are that awesome. Forster was thrilled.

Then we went to Atlanta to SELL OUR HOUSE. *cue choir of angels and gasps of shock and awe* While we were there we hung out with these people and ate sushi. Did you? Didn't think so. Chalk another point in the Us=Awesome column.

We had a sleepover with these friends. Words cannot express how much cooler they are than your friends. They can cook, entertain, play fiddle and somehow we left their house with enough clothing to fit Forster until he is 2 years old. Yup, we know how to pick the awesome friends.

And we hung out with Nana. She totally rocks the name Nana better than your Nana.

Created world-class art with Nana too.

Headed to Colorado to hang out with my family for Thanksgiving. Can your mom pull off this ensemble? No? Yea, my mom is just that awesome.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner. Did you? Oh, you did? Well, you get one point then. But we're still leading.

Then I got a surprise party since I lived 30 whole years. They served sushi and friends. We definately got some fabulous cool points there.

Oh yeah, and then went to see New Moon. It was Jared's idea. Yeah, he heckled most of the movie, but was your husband willing to brave an angry theater of Twi-hards?

Then we came home and got a Christmas tree. Okay, you probably did that too, so another point for you.

It snowed approximately 1 inch and we freaked out. Jared had to shovel.

Solei wanted to play outside, but even though these was virtually no snow out there, I still made her wear her entire snow get-up.

Forster continued to beyond adorable and easy-going. I have no idea hwere this baby got his temperment, but I totally dig it.

Last thing I did today was spend WAY too much time on Picnik.com messing around with this picture. Yes, I'm aware it looks like photoshop threw up on it.

Now you are all informed on why were too busy being awesome to post. You're welcome.

Men with Guns

On our way home from Chicago we ran across two men climbing out of their truck and heading into a field. They were looking to shoot something. This is called hunting.

This is all fine and good. We all know people who "go out" hunting and I really don't have an issue with them doing so. Usually people talk of trips where they travel out into the middle of nowhere to hunt, camping by the river and waking up at the crack of dawn to take something down.

My problem with these two particular hunters was this: They were getting out of their truck to go hunting just two blocks from my home. This may not be a big city, but I know how far a rifle bullet can go and I'm pretty sure a poorly aimed round could rip right through my wall.

So, dear hunters, please stay away from my home...

Forster

Turning 3

This week was eventful. Three years ago, our firstborn daughter was brought into this world. Looking back, I don't know what I would have done without her.

We had a wonderful birthday party planned and executed by her amazing mommy.

Solei REALLY loved the suprize visit from her cousin. It was AWESOME.We also went to Chicago for the weekend to celebrate the aforementioned Mommy's 21st birthday (again). We went to eat at a Chicago Hot Dog legend called Portillos. We took a picture of ourseleves to capture the moment. It ended up catching the moment perfectly.

This perfect moment inspired me to capture 60 seconds in the life of our Daughter. This is totally unscripted, unrehearsed, unplanned and our very first take. This is just 60 seconds of Solei being Solei. - Note that this does not include her putting greasy handprints on the window or exiting the booth by climbing over the seat and jumping out of the booth next to us. -

We love this little girl like nothing else!

Twisted FHE

Last week, our Family Home Evening was beyond awesome. First off, the new Nursery manual is FANTASTIC and the lessons and activities are so blasted easy and quick, perfect for a almost-3-year-old-going-on-24. We did the 3rd lesson on prayer (Solei is really good at asking for blessings, but not so quick with THANKING Him for our blessings:) and the opening activity was just perfect. You should try it - I just colored some pictures of things we should ask for or be thankful for (food, home, family, scriptures, car) and she had to chose what bag to put them in - the We Ask Thee bag or the We Thank Thee bag (there were some repeats, like food and such). It went over so well!

Then for our activity, we dug out the Twister game we got for our wedding, put stickers on Solei's right hand and foot so she'd know the difference between left and right, and played Twister. She loved it!

photo dump

I still have no idea how to bring y'all up to speed, so instead I'm posting a crapload of pictures that might tell something about our lives now.

Here's Jared and I meeting Forster for the first time:

The boys in our family:

He's got the "seriously??" look down pat:

He's kinda sweet. I think he looks like my side of the family.


This is what he looks like most of the time:

This was high-larious. The dudes just hanging out.

His first sink-bath with dad - he was quite kind and trusting for most of it. I love the look he's giving dad - "Um, I trust you - for now."

Afterwards he didn't cry (like he does at every bath now), he just clung to daddy, all confuddled.

All him:

Solei has been pretty dang good with him. he doesn't interact much, but that never bothers her, she can carry on both sides of a conversation anyway :)

Baby boy hacks

Size comparison of feet - a 2 year old, a week old, and a way too old. He's put on weight and as of his doctor's appointment last week he was up to 7 lbs., but MAN is he still so super tiny!

One interesting thing we've found about having a boy is that he does NOT like having a soilded diaper, for even a second. This is bothersome because he howls the second he's dirty until we fix it. Man, Solei could sit in her own filth for hours... that was nice ;) But something we've also noticed is that no brand of diapers will stop him wetting himself and it seeping up his diaper and around to cover his entire back. Gah. LOTS of pajama changes. We finally remembered something someone mentioned once at a baby shower that has been working about 80% of the time - we put about 3 cotton balls around the waistband of his diaper and it stops the free-flow and we don't have to change the whole outfit, just the diaper.

Any of you have any more tricks for baby boys we should know about?!

New kid

So have you heard? We had a kid. I'd blog about it, but there's just too much to say, so instead I'm going to be lazy and leave you with a link to my fabulous sister-in-law Jane's blog with pictures. I started getting contractions around 10pm on Sunday (the 16th) night, we went to bed and by 1:30am I couldn't sleep through them anymore, so we packed up, headed to the hospital by 2am, and had a baby by 5:12am Monday morning. Apparently I'm pretty good at making human beings. Our ward has been beyond amazing in helping us out, and the care we got at the small area hospital was fantastic. He sleeps pretty consistently in 3 hour stretches at night and passes out right after eating, so we're not as sleep deprived as anticipated. We feel very blessed. Now we want visitors. GOBS of them, come up and see us!!

Toot!

I'm not tooting my own horn here because it's was actually Jared's idea, but I submitted his latest brilliant parenting move over at Parent Hacks and they used it! Parent Hacks is chock full of brilliant and simple solutions to weird parenting issues and I'm a big fan. Go over and check out the idea I sent in that was actually Jared's idea but they used my name so I feel cool :)

Wisconsinites...

It's official. We are Wisconsinites (or whatever we call ourselves). We have a permanent residence with a real street address and I now own a snow-blower.

We've been working to find a suitable place to live and the only thing we could find was a split level deal that someone had built and had been trying to sell for the last three years. Well, the realtor called us the other day and told us he had a nice ranch with a fourth room in the basement just a few doors down the street. We signed the paperwork on friday (after a brief tour) and now we have the perfect house. Now, how to pay for it while we sell our house in ATL... If ANYONE wants to buy a house, please buy mine.

Since we have a yard (that actually overlooks a farm no less) we must care for the yard by mowing and clearing snow. So, I turned to my old friend Craigslist, who didn't let me down. Saturday morning we went to a farm (a real dairy farm) and bought a self-propelled mower for a mere $25. The nice people even gave our Daughter a nice little tour of the place. The mower is going to be perfect.

Our Back Yard

Daughter pets a 3 day old calf

Then She rides the tractor

And checking out the chickens

That afternoon we purchased a real life snowblower. Seriously. We found one on the craigslist. Something that I never thought that I would ever own. I am official now. Now we just have to wait a few weeks for snow so I can break the thing in.

Work has been going well. The more I learn, the more terrified I am. I just keep finding things that are either broken or that need to be totally re-done before we can take over control of things at the end of the year. I am enjoying work and i work with a lot of nice people.

SO - we got callings. Reva was called to be the primary chorister. It's a calling that she has dreaded forever. Now she has it. She went to primary today to check it out and freaked out a little.

I was also given a calling. After a one month break, I was called to be the ward mission leader - again. This is the third time I've had the calling. Hopefully the third time's the charm. I think I need to write a book. Our ward has not had a new convert since 2006. Our full-time missionaries were removed from the ward a few months ago. This will be fun.

In other seemingly random news, there is a gentleman who has been in the area forever who is from Puerto Rico and a member of our ward. He was recently married to a nice woman who moved here from NYC. It just so happened that she is from Brazil. SO, we had a good old time chatting after church (we were the only people left in the building except for the clerk and bishopric member doing tithing deposits). We were all a little more relieved that we had some kindred spirits.

That's all for now.

Road trip!

The stars aligned this weekend, and we got to visit a whole lotta people we love - Nana and Papa, the Hachtmans and the Smiths (plus Lyndel :). The drive to Iowa City to visit Jared's sister's family is only 3 hours from our new town, so we took a 3-day weekend to have a blast with them. The drive was lovely - we didn't realize how beautiful this part of the country is. Or how smelly. Jared is convinced there are entire farms out here dedicated to stink. Stink Farms, he calls them. Regardless, we persevered and got to Iowa City Friday night and passed out. The next day, we hit the town - it's a really cool place! Although perhaps our tiny town makes everything else look cosmopolitan...

Saturday night Nan gave us adults a REAL treat and offered to watch the girls while we went out and watched the new Harry Potter movie. We all gave it as many thumbs up as possible, and the girls REALLY enjoyed their girls night in :) Nana barely survived, and we're especially grateful to her for the night out!

Sunday we went to church and rested. There was a brief period where all 3 girls were asleep... it was magical...

The girls loved all the Nana attention!

That afternoon we took a quick jaunt to the Mormon Handcart Park.

As we walked up to this sign, Solei cried out - "The Book of Mormon!" We couldn't understand, until she reached up and showed the word "Mormon" to Elisabeth and explained that word meant "Book of Mormon." Dang, they didn't even teach her that word on Sesame Street... she's way to observant. We'd tried to explain about the pioneers and such before we got there, and at one point on our walk, she walked up to a man and told him "My ancestors walked across the plains!" Wow.

Also, the night before, the girls had watched some princess-y Disney movie and when they found a stone bench, they took turns laying down and having the other one kiss them to "wake" them up.

Then Monday, we had a super treat and got to go to Nauvoo and see the sealing of one of our favorite families - the Smiths!

It was an incredible experience and we are so grateful we got to witness it - AND see our fabulous friends again.
Especially exciting was that Solei got so see Sierra again - she talked about it non-stop on the way there. We were lucky enough to get this adorable picture:

I especially liked that THIS was what it took to get that adorable picture :)

One very sweet moment was when Solei and Sierra were playing on the steps of the temple, and Solei told Sierra "You were sealed to your mommy and daddy in the temple today!"

I can't believe the things she actually picks up on... Anywho, we're so grateful that it all worked out and we got to play with all the peeps we love. We need more excuses!