Fridge Advice?

The house we are renting doesn’t have a fridge, and we have never had to have our own before. We need to get one now, so do you have any suggestions? Any we should steer clear of? Know of any great deals? I like the idea of having the freezer on the bottom since we don’t access it as often. Although then it’s easy access to the ice cream for the kids. Hmmm. I’m thinking of checking out Craig’s list first to see what’s there.

We’re moving in a Week, and got a House Today!

Over the last several weeks we have been looking for a new house in Orange County. We had two different offers in on rentals, and long story short, neither one worked out. We have been working with a great agent and she set up some places to see again this week. On Tuesday, I farmed out the kids and brought Sabrina with me to check them out. Rob and I saw one that we really liked and put in an offer, again. We just got word that the place is ours! We are so excited and relieved. It will be a short commute for Rob and it’s right around the corner from the elementary school and two nice parks. We had already set the movers to come next Friday, so now we know where to tell them to take our stuff! The outside isn’t all that impressive, but inside there is lots of space and the yard is a good size for what is available in the area. I don’t have any official poll, but I thought it would be fun to hear your guesses on the year this house was built. It has a definite style and I’m wondering how close you can guess just by looking…

Some bad news and some good news

These last two weeks have been rough. As you may know, I am now a computer addict along with my husband. And our whole world has been turned upside down because our laptop crashed. Luckily we had a backup hard drive, and after many attempts, Rob was able to save most everything we need onto it. But in the mean time we are using this ancient computer that can’t even handle any word programs. This is why I have been a bit anti-social on the blog scene. If all I get for Christmas is the laptop up and running again, I’ll be happy.

In other news, we have found a new house in “OC.” We are really excited about it because it is right across the street from a great park, a ten minute drive to work, and walking distance to school. Nothing has been signed, but the owner seems to be set on letting us move in around New Years. Rob has been making the two hour commute and working long hours, so both of us are exhausted, and most of our conversations have been over the phone. Even today, Saturday, he had to put in a full days work. Ugh! I’m hoping that this is an end of the year crunch and that it won’t always be this demanding. I also have a really funny story about our crazy van and the alarm. I’m too tired to write it all out now, and still not really ready to laugh about it, but if I forget to post about it remind me later!

A Good Article for this Time of Year

I just read mom’s latest article and it has a lot of good information. Many of you live in places where it gets very cold in winter, and all of us rely heavily on electricity. Here are some things to do if you lose yours.

She makes a reference in the article to when we were living in North Carolina and an ice storm knocked out our power for four days.
Our yard looked a lot like this picture, and we used our gas stove for cooking and heating the house kitchen. It was a bit miserable, but also makes for fun stories.

Like getting Hunter and Emma out of their beds and bringing them into our bed with us in the middle of the night. We started to hear the crash of trees falling all around us, followed by flashes of blue light from the wires they took down with them, and couldn’t leave the kids in their room, even if they were sleeping through it.

And having a family come over to take showers at our house by candle light (yes, I know it should have been by glow stick light) because their well wouldn’t run without electricity.

And having ice cream for breakfast, and chicken nuggets for dinner. I was most surprised at how nicely the chicken nuggets turned out by cooking them in a frying pan! I have some great pictures of the huge pine trees that fell literally right next to the house, one taking out our fence, and one breaking it’s top off when it hit our roof. Unfortunately, that was before the digital camera, so I can’t share them…

By the way, Utah clan: Has there been any talk of exchanging names for Christmas? If so, we want in!

Cinderella Dressed in Yella

So the kids have been coming home from school singing the same schoolyard songs I used to sing. They have especially picked up on the jumprope song:

“Cinderella dressed in yella, Went upstairs to kiss a fella, Made a mistake and kissed a snake, How many doctors did it take? One, Two, Three….”

One I taught them that they think is funny: You need two or more people and stand in a circle. Everyone puts their right hand, palm up, on top of their neighbor’s left hand; and their left hand, palm up, under their neighbor’s right hand hand. As you sing the song you take your right hand and clap your neighbor to the left. You want to go as fast as you can because when the song ends, the last person clapped is out of the circle and you play until there is just one winner. The song goes: “Down by the banks of the Hanky Panky, Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to banky, Saying hip, hop, hippity hop, East side, West side, Kerrr-plop.”

I guess these don’t mean much without the tunes, but what are some your favorite childhood rhymes?

Hannah Turns Two!

Hannah turned two years old yesterday! She is such a pretty little girl, and she had a lot of fun. Although, she hasn’t really caught on to what a birthday means, she will now say “two” or “ten” and hold up two fingers when you ask how old she is. I made her a princess cake. I just couldn’t resist because I made a Cinderella for Emma last year and it wasn’t that much work for the wow factor it gives. Hannah loved her “si-sess” cake even though it had a real weird dense consistency because of our funky oven. I think birthday cakes are more about looks than taste anyways! Hunter an Emma each picked out a toy they thought Hannah would like. Emma picked a mini doll house and Hunter picked a driving toy. She was really excited about both gifts. There was also a purple tutu from Sabrina and a mini build-a-bear monkey with a sparkly pink fairy outfit. That was perfect for her because it comes with a little pillow you put inside the monkey to bring it to life. It even has stickers and a birth certificate. (Anyone who needs a fun Christmas gift idea, this is it. I found it at Target and there are also several little outfits to choose from.) Thanks Nana and Papa for the pretty Thanksgiving themed dress! Thanks Auntie Erica, Uncle Jed and cousins for the teddy bear puzzle and fun matching game card! Thanks Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Dan for the two board books!

We all love our little Hannah for her sunny personality and her loving nature. If anyone ever says “ouch” or “oh no”, she always asks, “you ok?” And if you answer yes, she says, “Good!”