This one is about my mom

Dear Mom,

Last night Tim and I were driving home from visiting his wonderful mother and we were listening to the Zig Ziglar CDs that you gave Tim for his long drive to work. Zig was talking about a man who admired his boss, and he was helping them man understand the qualities that one should possess before they are admired. With each quality he discussed, I tried to think of a person I know that I could admire because of their acquisition of these traits. It wasn't hard for me to think of someone who has them all.

Humor: I know that you try to laugh at yourself, even when you may not want to. It's one of the things that makes you so easy to be around.

Honesty: I've never known you to tell a lie. (Although I do remember you "changing your mind" a few times when I was a kid:)

Friendliness: There is a reason you can never leave the grocery store without a stranger or the checkout girl telling you their life story.

Confidence: Confident and bold and brave. You always seem to know that you are perfectly capable.

Integrity: You know your values and you live them, you don't just pretend.

Persistence: Setting goals and really working on them is a trait that anyone could learn from you.

Humility: I remember the way you always let us play with the kids that some other parents may have shied away from. That really taught me a lot about being humble and recognizing that we are all children of God. And I always had a friend.

Hard Worker: I think this is one thing I admire the most about you. When you see something that needs to be done, you do it. I wish I could learn to just work without talking about it, and putting it off, and then feeling guilty about not doing it sooner, and then rushing through it. I've never known you to be a consistent procrastinator like myself.

Positive Mental Attitude: I never woke up a single morning to a grumpy mom. I've always loved the way you try to set the mood in your house first thing by being outwardly happy. Your positive mental attitude has carried the weight for some very sad kids so many times.

Compassionate: I see the way you visit and pray for the women around you. No one could doubt that you genuinely care about the well-being of everyone you come in contact with.

Faithful: Your testimony in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the cornerstone of my own testimony for a long time. Your trust in the Lord and his love of all of us is inspiring to me.

Dependable: There have been a million times that I have called and asked you to drop everything and help me. I've taken advantage of your dependability because I always know that you will come through for me.

Loving: I really believe that I have the most loving mother.

Enthusiastic: You have an excitement for life that is contagious.

Patient: I was an annoying kid. Thank you for not letting me know that until I was an adult.

Good Listener: I always had an ear when I got home from school. You know I love to talk. I love that you are always willing to listen.

Character: You are a person of Character. You are trustworthy and fun and all the things listed here and more.

I think my own children will be pretty blessed if I can emulate even half the characteristics that seem to come so easily for you.

I love you,

Crystal

It's been one of those weeks

Have you ever had one of those weeks when things seem to happen exactly the way you could only hope? I hope you have. And I would know exactly how you feel because this has been of those weeks. They followed the weeks of negotiating the worth of the place we lived, lots of stress and prayers, and packing way more than we expected (is that how moving always is? You find all these places to hide stuff that you use once a year and you take a load to DI several times a year so you figure you won't have that must stuff but then you find those hiding places and BAM, you're headed back to Walmart for the fourth time for more large Tupperware containers to hold it and writing ridiculously long sentences about it?).

So here is a list of reasons that this has been a week that has made me so thankful to the wonderful people around me and to the good Lord in Heaven.

I have really cute kids. This one in particular thought that the money in the Easter eggs was way less cool than throwing them across the yard and watching the pennies fly out. He has also multiplied his vocabulary since we moved in with my parents.

I've taken regular showers and eaten some delicious meals and gone on some great walks and had a friend to talk to every day because of this lady.

I got really spoiled on my BIRTHDAY! 26 is the new 19, right?

Got a massage one day, and glitter toes the next with this best friend.

The weather is so nice all of a sudden!

Ate at one of my favorite places in the world, the Idle Isle Cafe. It makes me so nostalgic. Can't we all just be 15-year-old waitresses in our small home towns forever? Would anyone judge me if I worked there a couple of days a week, even though I'm a college grad with two kids, just because I miss it? This is not a rhetorical question.

  

I've also caught up with a friend I've been missing and my little boy finally learned how to hug when he saw how adorable her daughter is. I've done crafts and lots of organizing. I've had some late night conversations with my dad. Also with my relatively new sis-in-law and she's pretty dang cool. I've eaten too much dessert. I've gone on dates! With a hot guy!

I don't deserve all these blessings, but trust me, I'll take them with a thankful heart.

I know, I know, a post with no pictures is no post at all

Change of plans! Again! So, the house we were planning on renting, the one up on the hill with a great deck and views, across the street from a park with swings... that house sold the day before we were supposed to move in. Back up plan! We are now renting my parent's fabulous basement and seriously, this is much better.

So far we have enjoyed the benefits of built-in babysitters, homemade meals made by someone who knows how to cook, a heat blanket on the bed! I mean, come on. It doesn't get better. Plus I have really enjoyed being back in my home town and Tim even admitted that it's growing on him. Music to my ears.

Mason has really had the best time of it. He loves the big house and loves the big yard even more. We cannot keep that kid indoors. He is learning a few new words everyday now, all of a sudden. The adorableness of Mason is never ending.

So, if you happen to know where my parents live, stop by and say hi! And if you happen to see a great deal on the perfect house in the perfect location (you know the one, right?) then let us know.

Things change, quickly

We've had our house for sale, off and on, for about a year. In that time approximately 1.4 million strangers have wandered through and taken a peak in our closets. Not a single one of them made an offer on these fabulous digs until two weeks ago. It was about three days after we finally decided to let a realtor (and close friend, as in next door!) list our house. Then VwaLa! SOLD.

It's kinda going to be sad to leave this place where I had my first two babies. Mostly because we love our neighbors. Side note: There were over 70 children in our ward Mason's age and under when he turned one. There were three girls due the same week as me with Brielle. That is a LOT of kids. They would have had a lot of friends here and we had a lot of friends here.

We are also leaving behind quite the labor of love. We're talking, we requested that the builder put linoleum floors in the kitchen and entry so we could tile them ourselves. The list of home improvements made by yours truly and her husband (mostly her husband) is as follows.

• Tile the kitchen and entry
• Finish the basement. Yuck. (Family room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a laundry room)
• Paint the kitchen
• Landscape the yard (sprinklers, curbing, two trees, ya know, the whole bit)
• Window sills and window moulding throughout the house.
• Wainscoting in the guest room/nursery
• RV Pad
• Shelves and paint in the garage
• Wainscoting in the bedroom
• Plant a peach tree and a garden
• Plant three more trees
• Wainscoting in the great room

And various other odds and ends. Projects! Yay!

But we never planned on staying here, we kinda get bored. Now we need to decide where we are headed.

Buy? The house we were looking at (all the houses we have been interested in, really) is under contract.

Build? Maybe. Too bad that lot we fell in love with is also under contract.
Rent? Please no! Not for too long anyway.
Purchase a motor home and vagabond our way around the country for a bit? Maybe. Probably not.

We actually will be renting for at least a little while. We close at the end of the month (fingers crossed) and then we're moving to Perry, UT. Here...

Which means summer at the Brigham Pool! HOLLA!

Baby girl is oh so cute

I think she is probably (not probably) the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. I may be partial, but it's true.