Our new home....

It is our new home, but we are not moving.... at least not yet. We made sort of a sad, but happy decision this summer. We felt it was finaly time to sell our first home. Our little duplex we bought in Pocatello in 1999 was a sweet rental for us since we moved out in 2003. We've debated every year whether or not we should sell it. We finally felt this year was right. The market in Pocatello had remained fairly strong, and we felt like there was opportunity to find a good deal here in Boise. We ended up selling the home in August and rolled the equity over into this home. It took us a while to find something we liked, something we thought would work for us in the future. The home has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. The best part about the home is that it has an unfinished basement. We have really missed the wonderful breakthrough builders have discovered in East Idaho called basements. For some reason builders don't build many houses in Boise with basements.

We closed on the house just over a week ago and had renters move in the same day we closed (I love Cragslist). We plan on renting it out for at least a year and then go from there.

I like that the locataion of this home would cut my commute time in half every day. We also like the grade schools in the area it is located. So someday this may be our new home, but for now I hope it is a good investment (anything seems to be better than the stock market this week...)

Who Knew: Kindergarten can be stressful!

So I signed up to go with Britt on her 1st field trip. We were walking to the fire station and I thought Nate would love it too, so he came along. It ended up being the coldest morning we've had in a long time with a light rain. Nathan walked about 1 block before he started complaining about his legs hurting. So I carried him nearly 1 mile to the fire station. After a fun visit where we learned STOP-DROP-ROLL and Don't hide-Go outside, the kids got to take turns sitting in the drivers seat of the fire truck. As we were about to leave Nate said he needed to go potty so I quickly found a bathroom and told Britt to stay with her class and we would catch up soon. Well Nate heard me say we were going back to the school so he refused to use the potty at the fire station because now he wants to wait and go at Britt's school. He was pretty cranky at this point and I tried to force him to go at the station--but I was not successful. So we are walking back to school in the cold rain and Nathan made it about 2 blocks before he starts to squirm (I'm still carrying him on my back) and he says "Mommy, I need to go potty. Can I pee on those rocks?" I knew that traveling in a long line of kindergartners that we could not sneak in a quick wilderness potty break. So I'm trying to distract him by talking about other things when suddenly I hear Britt screaming. I turned around and she was face down on the road. While walking with her hands in her jacket pockets she tripped on a rock and couldn't get her arms out to catch herself. She scraped her little nose pretty bad and kept screaming at me to "Get the rock out of my NOSE!" Well, there were no rocks in her nose but it did start to bleed. So now Nate is screaming at me "Mom...Mommy...MOMMY I gotta go Potty!!!" and Britt is crying hysterically that she has a rock in her left nostril and we still had to walk another 5 blocks before I could really help either one of them. Once on the school grounds Nate,who is now riding on my shoulders because Britt needed to hold my hand, is really REALLY squirming and starting to panic that he is not going to make it to a bathroom. So now I'm REALLY, REALLY starting to panic that he is not going to make it to the bathroom either and that he is going to pee down my back and I'm wearing a new shirt! Needless to say, once the teacher opened the door to the classroom, I think I mowed down a few kids to get to the bathroom ASAP. After Nate went potty, and I cleaned up Britt's nose, I felt like I had really earned my honorary fire fighter badge today. Because it was only 11:oo a.m. and I have already put out 2 fairly serious fires!

This one's for you, Mom!

Pre-cooked. Isn't it beautiful?

Thanks Britt for taking this pretty picture of Mommy!
Post-baking. It smells as good as it looks! No more "veggie tray" assignments for me next Thanksgiving!!!
This beautiful pie and my kids had ice cream instead!

I am really growing up. As a teenager my Mom always wanted me to do 2 things for her. 1.) Wear a nice dress to church with high heels. 2.) Learn to cook. Lucky for me, she is a VERY patient mother! Dressing up on Sunday came alot faster than developing my cooking skills. I have been a late bloomer in the kitchen, but recently I have been cooking up a storm. Today I made my 1st ever --all homemade apple pie. And I have to say it was delicious!!! I made my crust a little too thick and my apples were sliced a little too thin but other than that it was perfect. Brittanie took pictures of me as proof that I really am becoming quite the little homemaker! (Plus, I know my Mom needs to see visual evidence. I bet she will want my recipe for pie crust once she sees this bad boy!)

Are we Mormons...or What!

Scott and I have felt strongly that it was time to seriously focus on getting our food storage. So this summer Scott has created spread sheets and gone to the cannery several times buying food in bulk and calculating how much we need. This weekend we checked out a canning machine to use at home. So we started Friday night thinking it was going to take us all weekend to get everything canned. It turned out that we were more efficient than we thought and finished our work before 8:30p.m. on Friday night. I was allowed"mini" breaks to take some funny pictures to show how much fun it is to be a Mormon. ( Maybe the surprised look on my face is from inhaling too much powdered milk--but after 4 hours of canning I was glad we were both still smiling!) The next challenge in finding space to store all this food!!!

How old are we? Oh yeah, 31 going on 13!

This weekend was designated long ago as "SNEL-COE". Translation=date night/game night with (Snelders-Briscoes). We started this grand tradition when we lived in Pocatello and got together to play games or go camping on the weekends. Then we moved to Idaho Falls but have kept "Snel-Coe" alive. Cory and Leslie always make us laugh until we cry! They are so fun to hang out with. We fueled up at Wingers and then it was GAME TIME. The Briscoes have a Wii and introduced us to the Wii Olympics that last time we got together in December. Leslie and Scott have been planning their "trampoline" rematch for months. Leslie was victorious beating Scott by 5 tenths of a point!! They both are very competitive and there will be more Wii trampoline competitions in the future. We played guitar hero (mostly Nat and Leslie), Olympics and some game with funny rabbits that burp and fart alot! So like a bunch of 13 year old kids we stayed up playing video games and overdosing on Candy until 1:00 a.m.!! It was SO much fun! Thanks Cory and Leslie for such a FUN weekend! We hope to host the next Wii Olympic on our home court in Boise, so start practicing!

Computer Savy...I am Not!

I just have to say that I spent the last 2 hours messing around with the background and fonts on my blog!! My husband is so sweet to stay up late and hold my hand and help me when I don't know which button to push next. They say you learn something new everyday and today I learned how to cut and paste by using the cntrl+C! Soo Excited! I am easy to please! I also need to give credit to my other blog mentor , my sister in law Julie, for giving me the "dummy" lessons over the phone of how to change a background! I'm so computer illiterate that I need 2 tutors! It took a few weeks to get the look I wanted but now I love it!

Britt's 1st day of Kindergarten

Today was Britt's first day of kindergarten. She has been counting down for the last 2 weeks! We started her education off right with a surprise breakfast of her 2 favorite foods--chocolate milk and chocolate doughnuts!! She met her teacher last Friday and we both love Miss John already! Britt insisted we bring her teacher something special on the 1st day of school, so she brought her a rose. This teacher has taught at Star Elementary for 17 years, so Britt is in excellent hands. We got to go into Britt's class today and say the pledge of allegence and listen to a story. Mrs John read the story "The kissing hand" and almost had me in tears before it was time to say good bye!! Soon it was time for us to go and as we walked away from the school Nathan kept asking where Britt was. He was a little lost this morning without her. For now we are all happy that kindergarten is only half-day! (P.S. Doesn't she look cute! My favorite part of the day was dressing her from head to toe in her new school clothes! SO much fun!!!!)

Brittanie Melting Mommy's Heart

Guess who loves primary.....

Oh What a Busy July...

So, we've been a a little busy in July and are behind a little on our posts. We've been busy swimming, visiting family, playing at the lake, and selling our first home in Pocatello during the last month. Work has been also been a little bit crazy lately with a lot of new projects keeping me hopping at Albertsons. Here are some of the highlights of the last few weeks...

Are you two twins?

Brittanie loving the yellow slide

Superstar!

Daddy looking for an enima

Mommy and Nathan in the tube

Mommy surfing the wake for the first time

Daddy not surfing the wake for the first time

The big race at Roaring Springs. Daddy's weight helped him waste the kids

Cuzn's loving the parade candy in Preston

Saddlebrook Neighborhood 4th of July Parade

Our neighborhood has a 4th of July parade for kids every year. With all of our family traveling this year, we actually got to stay home this year and attend our local events. We jazzed up Brittanie's Jeep and Nathan's 4-Wheeler for the parade. Here is a little snippit of the exciting event (watch out for Natalie trying to sneak by around the photographer).

We had the opportunity to have all our parents here sometime around the 4th of July. Nathan and Brittanie were excited to have so many grandparents around. We were even so lucky to have two dogs visit our home. As most of you know, we are not animal people. We had one of the dogs leave a little treat in our back yard, and unfortunately, Brittanie was the first to find it. She stepped in the fresh treat, reached down to grab whatever squishy thing was between her toes, and then let out death scream once she realized what it was. Tramatized, we rushed her to the hose, washed of the doodie, and took her straight to the bathtub. Still whimpering, she melted dad's heart when she said, "and that's why we will never have pets, right?"

We all hope you had a wonderful 4th!