Four down and none to go!

I can't believe it, my final test results were posted tonight; I PASSED! I am now officially a CPA (well at least as far as the school and testing goes). I still need actual experience as an auditor, either with an accounting firm or the IRS, to be a licensed CPA but the hard part (school and tests) is complete.

Thanks again for all your patience and support.

Love you all!

Baby Carson

Thought ya'll would like to see a picture of the little guy...we'll get more pictures up shortly! More details on our other blog...

Three down and one to go

Just a quick post to let you know that I found out late last night that I passed the third test in the CPA series of tests. Three down and one to go! I should hear next week whether or not I passed the fourth test. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything.

Thanks again for all you support.

Jana's baby

In case you haven't heard, Jana's baby is about to greet the world. She called me about an hour and a half ago to tell me she is on the way to the hospital. I'm sure we will all hear once the blessed event happens.

i forgot to say

I talked to Mom on Friday and while doing so realized that I hadn't told her when I was having this baby which means, besides maybe Jana, no one else knows either.  The day is set for Wednesday December 1.  So 2 1/2 more weeks to go unless she decides to come early which is highly unlikely.  We are super excited to see you all in like 5 weeks-Noah has been asking almost everyday if he can play marbles with Grandpa and he has been "calling" Harvey on his phone and having quite lengthy conversations with him.  So there you go.

Eric took this tonight...on Tuesday I will be 37 weeks.  Sheesh!

Our busy weekend

Yesterday we raked leaves. All seven of us raked for about 5 hours and we raked up most of the leaves in our yard, but not all. It was very tiring, but the kids got to enjoy the massive pile we built when we called it quits for the day. They had fun, and they deserved that. They worked hard (most of the time).

Today was our primary sacrament program. It went really well. I was so nervous about it, but the spirit really filled in and helped the kids. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming to watch. I know it meant a lot to the kids. I'm so glad that is over with. Now we just have to prepare one song for Christmas and it's going to be "Away in a Manger." I'm glad about that because they know the words already. We are going to teach them one of the old versions from the old orange primary song book. It should be fun.

presents!

Jason and I were trying to get a little Christmas shopping done this weekend and it was more difficult to come up with ideas for cousin presents than I thought it would be...esp with our limited budget. (Did we agree to cap the presents at $5 or $10?) Anyhow, I thought maybe whoever has our kids might like a few easy ideas. If you don't use them, great. If you do, great.


Addie- princess dress-up shoes, any kid-friendly craft thing, hair bows/headbands


Macie- toy cell phone, baby doll, slippers (she LOVES shoes)


Baby Hair- football?? haha, I don't have any idea


I hope that helps. And, just so you know, Addie has Harvey and she really likes to pick out presents. I will try to steer her a certain direction, but if Harvey ends up with something totally obscure, I hope that's ok. (She chose a squishy black lizard for one of her friend's birthday presents. It was pretty funny.)

I hope y'all are enjoying your weekend!

No more diapers for Harvey!

Most of you know that we started potty training Harvey last Friday. I'm delighted to report that he's doing very well! Heather did the "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" method, which Jana said worked well for Addie. He was not completely trained that day, but he made good progress by being able to pee when he sat on the toilet, something he hadn't be able to figure out before then. He's had several accidents since, but after stressing too much about it, we realized that obviously that's just part of the process and not to worry about it.

When he was home with Heather on Tuesday, on two occasions he even realized he needed to go to the bathroom without being asked. Other than that, we are still prompting him to go at certain times, like when he wakes up in the morning or from a nap, and before dinner and bed. He's doing great, and can do it all himself, although with a little help during hand-washing. He's only pooped three times since Friday, and two of those were in the toilet, so that seems to be going well too.

He loves being a big boy and wearing underpants, and we love not changing diapers. Hurray for new found independence!

It's All Done!

Here are some pictures of the kitchen. They finished it today. The flooring guys have to come back and put a reducer between the kitchen and the hall, but that is the only thing left to do.


I know the appliances don't match, but that was extra money we didn't want to spend.
I'm just glad that it's done. Yea.

for Mom

Mom, here are my girls in their Sunday dresses today. Recognize them? They've worn them before but never on the same day. Several people made my laugh by asking if I had made them! :) And even though you made these dresses a long time ago, you received many *new* compliments on your handiwork! Sorry the pictures aren't better, they wouldn't hold still for us and we forgot to turn on the flash. They sure look cute, though!

Halloween pictures

So Alexis was "autumn", Merrit and Jaxson were ninjas, Makayla was a wind fairy and Chelsea was a midnight fairy. We had lots of fun, but I'm glad it's over now.

lies lies lies!

How do you teach a three year old the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie? It's been a frustrating problem.

House update

Here is how the niche looks with the granite in it (and me too).


Here are the two colors in the kitchen. You'll notice that we put granite on the half wall too. The upper cabinets are supposed to be here this Thursday and hopefully will be installed on Friday. Then the back splash will be done on Monday. They still have to install the new front door too, then the renovations will be finished. I'm so ready to move back upstairs.

great pictures

I stumbled across these today and laughed out loud, esp when I saw Hillary. Thought I should remind you how cool we all are! The second one is saved on my computer as "We Hate School."

Maybe we could do a repeat after the baby blessings? Right there on the floor of the gym? :)

discussion

I love the holiday season! I love Halloween (what are your kids all being?) and Thanksgiving (esp. this year because I don't have to make a thing!) and Christmas. Yay! I love having our house smell like cinnamon.

So...Kari and I spoke yesterday and I guess I should clarify what I was hoping to do on our "family day" over Christmas. Here it is...NOTHING. I just wanted to hang around, play a bunch of board games, maybe really do a craft this year?, eat some good food, and enjoy seeing you all. I know we'll be spending time Sunday after church together (is that when we want to do the gift exchange/white elephants?) but because Mom and Dad have late church, I figured we wouldn't all get to be together for long. I simply wanted one more day to all spend together. Kari and I discussed Wed. as being optimal as her in-laws will be gone by then, if that works for everyone. And because we'll just be at the house, if you can only take off the afternoon from work, that would probably work too. I was just hoping for one "whatever" type of day.

Jason and I won't be getting in until Saturday (we're not sure if it will be morning or night, depends on if we feel up to driving through the night) so I hope "family day" will work out. If not, I'm sure we'll still be able to see everyone. We will be leaving on Thursday.

And is everyone ok with wearing white/black/red to church on Sunday for pictures?

Summer 2010 Pictures

Here's the post you've all been waiting for! Our summer in pictures. I ended up just putting them all in one slideshow, because some of the "events" were only two or three pictures and I didn't feel needed their own. Remember you can make the slideshow full screen by clicking the little box with arrows that appears in the corner after you start the slideshow. Enjoy!



I'll put up another post with pictures from Harvey's birthday soon.

Christmas List

Hillary and I picked names for Christmas at Harvey's party last night (Kurt swears he'll post pictures soon). Here's the list. Person on the left is the giver, person on the right is receiver.

Alexis - Addie
Merrit - Macie
Makayla - Chelsea
Chelsea - Baby Peterson
Jaxson - Merrit
Harvey - Noah
Addie - Harvey
Macie - Jaxson
Baby Hair - Alexis
Noah - Baby Hair
Baby Peterson - Makayla

Does this work for everyone? Hillary insisted on her kids picking their siblings' names if they were drawn. We did draw the line at them picking their own names.

family monsters

Noah has started drawing things that really resemble other things-it is really fun to watch his imagination.  He started drawing monsters on Sunday, but now he says they are people he knows although they are pretty much the same drawings as the monsters.  He draws almost everyone in the family, but the ones he draws the most are Kurt, Heather, Grandma, Grandpa, Jim, Eric and me, and himself.  Today he drew these three treasures.  He told me the names before he drew them, so this is his interpretation of what you look like.  And don't feel bad, we pretty much all look the same in his eyes.

yummy fall recipe

We had this delicious soup for dinner last night. The hardest part is cutting up the butternut squash (does anyone have a trick that I don't know of?). Very creamy and very fallish and very very very good.

YUMMY BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

6 tbsp chopped onion
4 tbsp margarine
6 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash
3 cups water
4 cubes chicken bouillon (or 4 tsp)
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese (we used low-fat)

1. In a large saucepan, saute onions in margarine until tender.

2. Add squash, water, bouillon, marjoram, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Bring to boil; cook 20 minutes or until squash is tender.

3. Puree squash, broth, and cream cheese in a blender or food processor in batches until smooth. Return to saucepan and heat through. Do not allow to boil.

Baby goats pictures

Here are the baby goats.