BUSY...BUSY...BUSY

I decided that I better hurry and update the blog today before life gets really crazy. I am doing a craft show tomorrow night for Snapbandz and also one all day Friday and Saturday. We have also found a little house in Williston to move into and will be moving next weekend. I also have a craft show on the 29th, the weekend of November 5th and 6th and the following weekend. Looks like I will be keeping really busy!
The lady we are renting from is in our ward and is so sweet. Her son is working on the house right now and is putting on new siding and installing new windows. Ivan is planning to go help him out in the evenings and Saturday so they can get it done quickly. I would like to go in and paint a few things and will probably be doing that next week. We went and looked at the house last night. It is just a little old house but will work great for us for now. There are two little attic bedrooms seperated by a little walk in closet upstairs that we will use for the kids. Emma found a little hide out in her room and is sooooo excited. She thinks she needs a new pink blanket for her new room but I'm not sure why. The house also has a single detached garage and a little shed. There is a great garden spot, lots of trees and a whole lot of grass! The little house sits on a corner lot that is an entire acre. We are very excited to be moving to town where we can be closer to friends and more capable of fulfilling our church callings. Of course I will post lots of pictures once we get settled. The best news ever is that we will have CLEAN water! We feel very blessed to have found this home and are looking forward to yet another adventure! And because I can't seem to have a post without a picture...here are a couple of silly Miss Emma. She is really into posing these days. :)

Messy Boy

Levi has really long arms and tries to get ahold of EVERYTHING! When I was feeding him lunch the other day he kept rubbing his eyes and nose and had food everywhere. He also does raspberries while I feed him and splatters food all over me also! He is much more of a handful than Emma ever was...but we will still keep him! :)

Bismark Get Away

This past weekend we headed to Bismark for Stake Conference. A lot of people complain that they have to drive four hours for stake conference but we looked at it as an excuse for a much needed getaway! We drove down on Saturday and checked into our hotel. Ivan has a program through work where we can get a pretty good deal on a hotel room. We decided to get two rooms in case somebody in our ward was not able to find one. Kelli and her husband Jeff ended up taking our extra room. It was fun to have some friends right there to hang out with. Ivan ended up watching the kids while Kelli and I ran and did a little shopping. I was happy that she has a Sam's Club Card so I could buy a big box of diapers. I am really missing Costco! After shopping we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. The wait was forever and we ended up being late to the adult session. We really enjoyed what we were able to be there for though.
After conference we headed back to the hotel for some swimming. The hotel we stayed at had a fun indoor water park. Emma was sooooo excited! Ivan took her swimming and I watched from the sidelines with Levi and Kelli's baby Reece.


It was an easy babysitting gig...I had them both to sleep in their carseats in about 3 minutes! Kelli's husband didn't get there until late that night so it was good that she could take her other two little kids swimming without having to watch Reece. Our friend Chris also came to our hotel to swim with his two little kids. His wife Shawna is our wards Young Women's President and they had a youth activity that night that she had to attend. We also missed our friend Mandy and her kids that night. She was going to hang out with us but ended up getting really sick and spent the night in her hotel room. The water park was really crowded and out of control but I think all the kids had a blast!


On Sunday we went to conference. We got there an hour early to get a good seat. We saved a couple benches so that we could all sit by eachother. The missionaries from our ward and Brother Evian from our ward also ended up sitting by us. We put all the kids on the back row between Jeff and Kelli and Shawna and Chris. They had lots of coloring books and stickers to keep them entertained and they were really good. Levi slept through most of it so it was nice to be able to just sit and listen for a change. Elder Paul Sybrowsky of the seventy and his sweet wife Lynne spoke to us. They have had some great experiences in their lives. The stake center sits on the same property as the Bismark Temple. Our stake president asked all the primary children to stand and told them to go touch the temple after the meeting and ask their parents why he would have them touch the temple. So we went and touched the temple afterwards and took a few pictures. The little boy in the pictures is Emma's buddy Reddik. He is Kelli's little boy. The little girl in the one picture is his little sister Lexy.





Next we had some lunch and then went to an amazing pumpkin patch. I thought we were all just going to look at some pumpkins. When we got there we were shocked! They had castles made out of hay bales, a corn maze, pumpkin cannon and launch, tons of photo op spots, playgrounds made out of pipes and hay bales and piles and piles of pumpkins. They also had a ballet company that was performing. Emma loved that! The kids had a blast! The weather was perfect and it was fun to get outside and spend some time together. Mandy and her kids were there with us as well as Chris and Shawna and their two kids. Amanda and Justin and their two kids also joined us.











Ivan decided to take the scenic route home. I wasn't thrilled about adding an hour to our drive but it was really beautiful and we enjoyed ourselves. We even found some "mountains!"

MORE PICTURES!

I know, I know...I take A LOT of pictures! I really enjoy it though and you can never really have too many. Right? My friend Emily sent me another outfit for Emma in return for some pictures of her in it for advertising. She looked so cute and grown up! Emily's shop is www.sewdivineboutique1.etsy.com She also sent Emma an adorable Christmas dress and a tie to match for Levi. I will get some pictures of those shortly. They are fabulous!



I have also been meaning to take some more pictures of Levi at six months. Well, he is now 7 months but at least I got it done right? We took Levi for his six month appointment last week. He weighs 22.5 pounds now! He is 28 inches long and is off the charts! I think they must have measured him wrong at his last appointment when they said he was in the 50th percentile for height. His weight for height was the
80th percentile. This was surprising to me because he is soooo heavy...but I guess he is really tall too! The pediatrician we found is marvelous. They actually do immunizations right there in the office. What a relief! I was so impressed with her! She is kind of crazy and over the top...but I think it was a good thing. She spent a lot of time with me going over our family history. Levi was being cranky so she had the receptionist take him out front and entertain him. They were really good about making sure we were taken care of while there. We spent nearly 3 hours at the office that day! She has some major concerns. She actually did an EKG on Emma and I right there at the office and has Levi scheduled as well. The results looked fine on those but she would like to do some gene testing. She is worried that our family may have Long QT Syndrome. You can google it if you would like to know what it is! :) The blood test costs $3600 so we will wait to see if our insurance will cover it. Everything she explained with Long QT sounds familiar. I think mostly our family history gives cause for concern. Joey passed away unexplained and at such a young age. My aunt Connie was also young when she passed without explanation. My Grandpa's mother died when he was an infant as well as my Grandpa's Grandpa when he was a young man. Maybe we will get some answers. Anyway...that is enough about that. Let's focus some more on Levi. I took these great pictures of him today. He is the cutest little guy and is so smiley!





And just because she is so dang cute, here are some pictures of my friend Kelly's little girl that I took a couple days ago.

Missionary Birthday Party

Today was Elder Hardwick's birthday. He is one of our missionaries. It is so different having a set of missionaries assigned to our ward. We see them every Sunday and they are at all the different activities. Our friend Tonya threw Elder Hardwick a surprise party at her house. It was so fun! Elder Hardwick and Elder Garrard are both great guys! They are so funny and outgoing. We had a bbq outside in the awesome weather and just visited. We are making so many great friends in our ward and are loving it. There are people from all over the place in our ward. It is fun to just sit and talk about where we are from. Tonya and her husband Todd are from Louisiana and I could listen to them talk all day. Todd is a riot! We had a great time and it is always good just to get out of the house! Emma is making lots of little friends too. She loves Tonya's little girl Allie who is a year older than her. We are loving North Dakota....who would have thought?





Here's a picture of the awesome cake that Tonya made...this was her first homemade cake ever! She did a great job...it was delicious!

The kids love both the missionaries...they are so fun!