Pictures

He loves soft things and my sister Rachel has a giant caterpillar which was no exception.

To the side he made his bed all by himself and was all ready for me when I came to get him up!

 First dentist visit and he's rocking the dentist's glasses.

Watermelon? Yes, please!!! Condie Campout, Diamond Fork Canyon, UT. Daniel Edlund in background.

Frigid water cannot quench his desire to splash. Condie Campout with Rachel Edlund.

 Conquering butterflies at mall play area

 Wait...who is this? 

Kingsley Park swings

 Happiness is quality time with Dad, and a balloon to go with it!

Picking "flowers" for Mommy.

Helping out around the house. Sweeping is Gideon's favorite!

We've Moved!

I'm back!  It's been a bit since my last post, so let me fill you in on some of the in-between. In April, Trevor graduated from BYU with his bachelor's in IT. Chelsea, his sister, also graduated that day so they chose to walk together.

Although Gideon was super proud of his father and aunt, he was more interested in the game room.

The next week, we left Utah to become Idahoans. Trevor has landed a fabulous job working for Hewlett-Packard (aka HP, a computer/printer/etc company) up in Boise, ID. 

The short version of the next 3 months is that we were house-tenders until our house was finished being built and then we closed and moved. The longer version goes like this: We found a house that we loved that was bigger, cheaper, and in a better school district than any other house we had looked at...by a lot. We were super excited. The only catch was that it wasn't built yet, so we'd have to wait for it to be completed. This left us with a couple months with no where to stay!  So we started looking and looking. Most apartments wanted a 6 month minimum lease, but we found this lady on craigslist that did "house-tending". Basically you stay at a home that's on the market and you maintain it, prep it for showings, stage it, etc and get reduced rent in return.  Well, this turned from being a fabulous find to chaos. 

Within the first week of having moved in, the owners of the home became disenchanted with the idea of house-tenders and the house-tending lady informed us that it was our job to impress them so they would let us stay. Their home has been on the market for over a year so they were mostly just sick of the house not selling. The house tending lady also wanted us to buy a TON of new furniture and do-dads to stage the house. This was annoying to us because we sent her pics of all our furniture so she could ok us to stay in the house. Her excuse was she never actually opened the pics anyway and it was our fault. Alas. 

That first week we told the home-tending lady AND the owners that the kitchen sink was leaking and I put a bucket under to catch the frequent drips. They gave us the "ok we'll come fix it" but never came. Anyway, within the first month, we come down to the kitchen for breakfast and find a puddle on the kitchen floor in front of the sink. We mopped it up, but hardwood floor isn't forgiving of these things so they had extensive water damage. While this wasn't our fault, nonetheless, the disenchanted home owners really didn't like us after this point. It is my belief that this is the reason they kicked us out 3 days before we closed on our home. Eek!  Not only that, we didn't find out we had to be out on Tuesday until Saturday. 

So Saturday they tell us we have to be out by Tuesday (despite closing Friday) but that we can leave our stuff in the garage until we close and move into our house. Then Monday morning after Trevor's at work, I get a call. Just kidding! We CAN'T leave our stuff in the garage and have to be completely out by tomorrow. Double eek! This lead to having 3 different addresses in one week. Luckily we got a lot of help from our ward, the missionaries, and neighbors to make it possible. Ironically, closing itself went crazy smooth. I always heard that was the hardest part!

So now we live in a beautiful home that we OWN. This house-tending mess has made me hugely grateful for the blessing of owning our home. It's so convenient to not answer to crazy people. We now have internet (which we didn't in the home tending place, which is my excuse for not writing for at least 3 of the months). Anyway, now our lives our blissfully happy living in our own little piece of paradise!

Merry Christmas and Happy 1st Birthday Gideon!

The holiday season always fills my heart with gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for!  It's a season to remember Jesus Christ, his birth, and his life. His selflessness and compassion for others. His generous heart and sacrifices for others. After Christmas we celebrated the gift of another life, as Gideon had his first birthday on the 28th. What a blessing it is to have him in our lives!  How fortunate we are that the Lord trusts us with the care of his little one. How glad we are that he is in good health and spirits. And then to round off the season with the New Year, the opportunity to look back on the year and see all the blessings we've been given and to reflect on the future and make goals. For me, the New Year is also a religious holiday, because it is only with the Atonement that we are given the opportunity to repent, change, and become better. It is one of the gifts we give our Lord to be the best we can be and the New Year encourages us to take advantage of that. May we all be a little better this next year than we were the last!

Gideon had a lot of fun with his birthday cupcake, although he wasn't sure about the candle. He has gotten very good at opening presents over the past week and was excited to rip open his presents. Even the card envelopes got opened like they were gift wrapped!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 We had some fun times this Thanksgiving Holiday. It was nice to have a break for Trevor since he's been working so hard. On the left there, they're spending some time reading together one morning. On the left you can see that it started to get chilly. We've wrapped Gideon up with layer upon layer to keep him warm.

 We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my mother's parents house. This particular picture is of Trevor helping Gideon sample the pumpkin pie, which is one of Trevor's favorite foods, especially during the holidays.

At the end of the night, we dabbled in the Black Friday (Black Thursday? Black Thanksgiving?) shopping and were able to get some much needed things for the house to put under our Christmas tree (which we probably won't put up until a week or two before Christmas since our little fellow is so curious about everything he shouldn't touch).
 We have so much to be grateful for. The Lord has been very generous with us in giving us lots of loving family and friends and each other. I hope you all had a great holiday season!

We have ourselves a Reader!

Gideon loves books. He loves flipping the pages while I read, he flipping the pages alone, he loves turning them over in his hands. He loves books we sing to, like "6 Little Ducks" and "the More We Get Together" and he loves the board books that are easier to turn pages. He also loves repetition. He can bring me one book and just keep reading it over and over until I can't stand to read it anymore. Ah, the joys of discovering the world of reading!

Happy Birthday, Cowboys!

                       

Today we had a surprise birthday party for Trevor and my younger brother, Matthew. I think Chelsea was the only one who remembered to take pictures, but we kidnapped the birthday boys and took them to Cabelas where we had them change into cowboy apparel and played a tag/mafia-ish game around the store using dart guns and rubber band guns. We also filled out a fun questionnaire about things we saw around  the storeThen we sampled their fudge and headed to my parents for a game of Steal the Flag with marshmallow guns, had some target practice (Matt was the winner of our tournament) and had BBQ sandwiches for lunch. Then we had cake and ice cream. Chelsea made this amazing peanut butter cup cake for Trevor!  She's pretty much an amazing baker.
               
                                         

Pictures, yeah!

 Ahh, pictures. I love pictures. They mean I don't have to write as much :)

We fed the ducks a couple of weeks ago. There were sooo many. They were fearless in coming right up to us if they knew we had food for them. Gideon was captivated by them. One of his favorite books is "6 little ducks". I don't think he connected the two, but it was cut nonetheless.

We Sharpied a pumpkin for Gideon's first jack-o-lantern. It's about all he had the patience for and made a fun FHE.

 Gideon is still a huge fan of being outside. Autumn leaves are one of his favorite things outside and grass is right behind leaves.

Below you can see our Halloween costumes. The thing on my head is the mailbox and I'm holding shovel and pail. Then Trevor is Steve and Gideon is Blue.  It was a blast.