Mady turned two!

Mady's birthday was a good one. I had been very busy cleaning and unpacking up till then so i did most of her birthday stuff the morning of. It was a lady bug party and it was really cute if i do say so myself. I got most of the stuff for it in Idaho Falls before i drove here. Including her gifts. I wanted to nurture her big sister side for later use so i got her a Cinderella baby doll, a graco baby furniture set, and a little bag of baby accessories that has bottles and play lotions and all that. I think i did pretty good. On all the decorations and gifts i spent 50$. Less than a pack of diapers haha. We had 20 people there including us. Which is pretty darn good for being here less than a week :) It was fun and everyone loved my cupcakes so i was happy. Mady went from this to this so fast.... how?





Sorry they are sideways...
So here is a little bit about our fine little two year old.
*She loves looking pretty, whether it be with jewelery, accessories, or "makeup".
*She may not make sense most of the time but she loves to talk, talk, talk, and talk some more.
*she loves her dollies. She feeds them, rocks them, shushes them, burps them, and throws them. hahaha
*Mady loves to eat although her frame may not show it. Takes after mother in that she also loves sweets.
*Mady loves Disney especially Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Sadly we don't have TV anymore so she can't really watch it.
* Mady loves to Help me in whatever i do. She is a total copy cat. When i clean, she has to. She follows me around by holding onto my pants. when we eat together she will take a bite when i do and if i take a drink so does she. Quite silly
*Mady loves more than anything to be outside. She loves the park and the swings and slides. She loves swimming the most. She has figured out that it is water and decides to call it gink. Which is drink. She loves going to the pool whether it be my tub or an actual pool.
*Mady is fearless except for when it comes to loud noises. Like thunder. One night on the way home from town. There was a thunder and lightening storm. At first Mady was loving it. Saying wow and oh! with us and saying how cool it was. Later when i noticed she was quiet i looked back. Mady had her head in her hands. We were wondering if she felt sick or something. Well she didn't think the lightening was so cgoooool anymore so she thought if she couldn't see it it would go away. I made the mistake of taking her shaking little hand and had to hold it the 15 min to home. Very uncomfortable from front seat to back but she was just too pathetic and precious.
*Mady loves music and loves to sing and dance like no other.
*Mady loves our new place, the bugs, the puppies (horses in our backyard) and the oooo ooo (the train that passes about every 10 min)
*Mady loves to kiss. Give kisses to us or her babies. Sometimes i worry about her kissing and the future :)
*Last but not least about our little Mady. Mady has quite the temper. If any of you have watched her, when she doesn't get her way she finds stuff to throw at you, screams at you, and hits you as much as she can. She is also really good at the looks of anger, whining (which she also does really well), Ignoring, rolling eyes, and all those teenage looks.

Well that's a little about Mady. There is too much to her to write down. She is quite the character. I love her so much and cannot believe she is 2 already. Where has the time gone? She is such a big girl and still so little. Love you Madylena. Happy birthday.
Here are some pics. I was pretty proud of myself. I made the cupcakes, did the decorations, and made Mady's dress and ladybug barrettes.

birthdays, driving, unpacking, and oddities...

Well where to begin... We had a pretty fun time in Utah. More sickness yet again this time. John couldn't handle lagoon. That means no theme parks in the future... goodbye Disneyland dreams. Then we went to the water park and I got fried to say the least. I thought i had heat exhaustion and i probably did but i also got strep throat on top of that. I have never had strep throat before that. So after a couple days of a fever of 103 i decided it was not heat exhaustion haha. After the fun weekend with the Reid's i headed home. By the way that was the first time i ever drove to and back the condo!! congrats to me i survived driving in salt lake! It made the 10 hour drive to scottsbluff seem like no problem, I could handle anything. (by the way I'm typing this blog post in my bed from my new mac laptop, I love it so much!!!!) :) hehe Anyways. The weeks at home were packed full of family, shopping, packing, weddings, and parties! It was fun and crazy busy. Here are some pics from Ethan's bday party... thrown mostly by me :)










Then after the Bday party was Carlan and Ashlee's Wedding. It was really cute and old fashioned. I really loved sharing their special day with them. Here are some pics from that.












Then there was a week of fun and sun then the next Saturday I had two more weddings to attend. Then i had to say goodbye to my family. I wouldn't have cried at all if it weren't for my dang mom crying :) Love you all!!! so far that is the only thing I miss, just like I thought I would. My wonderful awesome family!
The drive wasn't too bad. My legs went numb a lot and my whole body hurt like crazy, but Mady did better than i expected. We left at about eight. I had to give her some smarties starting at about 10. We stopped for lunch and gas at noon. Got back in the car and Mady slept for about 3 hours. Then it was a few more hours of smarties, singing songs, handing back toys, and then we stopped for dinner and got here an hour later. The house was crazy hot and a total disaster. I had three days of crazy sweating, unpacking, and cleaning. I worked my butt off, but not literally because for some reason i gained weight during that time. The worst part was we didn't have hot water so i couldn't take a bath or shower. I literally dripped sweat for days... haha sorry I'll stop now. The house is coming along and soon I will post pics of our house all put together. I had every room but one done after the three days and that is still the only room not done haha... we are waiting for someone to come pick up their couches so I can clean and unpack. The bugs here are awefull!!!!! I'm just barely starting to not be so paranoid about seeing bugs out of the corner of my eye. We sprayed like crazy inside and out. I have also had to vacuum and pick up probably hundreds of dead bugs.... gross. I'm not a country girl, but go figure, I'm living in it. My next post will be Mady's Birthday party. Then i will post about the oddities of Nebraska. And then i will post pics of the house. And maybe talk about Johns new job somewhere in there haha. For now i'm off to bed. G'Nite YALL

Finding our new place...

First off I'd like to apologize to Brandon for taking so dang long to get this pics up here! :) sorry :) Well here we go. We dropped Mady off at my parents Saturday at about 10 and headed out. It was a long 10 hour drive we got there at about 10 or so, so it was already dark. I think it gets darker earlier there even though there is no time change. Anyways, this little Podunk town had some crazy stuff going on that weekend so we spent another hour trying to find a hotel/motel that wasn't totally booked. We found one and spent the night. It was OK but definitely not my first choice. The next morning we got up and decided to go to both the 9:00 ward and the 1:00 ward to see if by chance we would like one or the other more. First we had to stop by sonic and grab breakfast and break the sabbath.... good thing we went to 6 hours of church haha. The wards were both really awesome! We had so many people coming and talking to us and getting to know us. Everyone was so kind in helping us trying to find a place to live. We had many dinner offers and sadly couldn't take them up on them on this little trip of ours. It was funny to see the wards fighting over us because they are so starved for people.... kind of liked it, I'm not gonna lie. Anyways, between the wards we checked out a couples home who were going to move to be closer to his mom before she dies. It was OK but waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy old... If you know me, old houses and I don't mix very well. Plus Johns two biggest allergies are mold and dust, and old houses are packed full of them. After the second ward we at with the bishop of that ward and his family. They were so awesome we loved them! They took us out after dinner and showed us scottsbluff, gering, and most importantly where to stay away from. Then we checked into the Hampton and slept. Monday we woke up and saw lots of houses we didn't like or were smaller than our apartment and almost twice the price. Not gonna lie i was getting really bummed out. Then we called a number that we found out was put down wrong so nobody had been able to call on them. Just our luck. We went and looked at it. It was pretty awesome. Quite old but not too bad. It was 1200/ month which is a ton! but for that area and the size we wanted it was pretty darn normal. The thing i loved and worried about with this house was the backyard was backed up against a park/tennis courts/ and a big water park. Would have been very convenient but the fence was a tiny baseball type fence (I can't remember for the life of me what that kind of fence is called!) I'd be worried about all the people there this summer and never letting Mady alone for a second! especially with any creeps visiting the park. Anyways we liked it but decided to keep looking. We had one more lead. A family in the ward had bought some farm land and were thinking of renting out the house to us. Only problem..... it was 1/2 hour away and only 2 bedrooms! Although fate have it. On our way back we saw one of the houses i thought was cute for sale and they saw that for once someone was there. It was there neighbors but they didn't really know them. We drove up and they asked if they thought of renting it? She said she had never thought of it but we could come look at it. Lets just say i was excited. Then after i saw the house i was ecstatic!!! It was perfect. We waited all day for her to talk to her husband. I was a nervous wreck. Then they finally called and we had it!! It is expensive... 1100 a month but well worth it i hope. It is brand new. Huge yard and unfinished basement. They had wanted to sell it but with the flooding of the river and many recent houses of for sale there is no way they could. lucky for us. The basement is flooded right now even though the house is a mile away from the river. The groundwater is spreading crazy fast but by the time we move in around July 13 it should all be gone. The house is located in farm country. Very open and about 10 min away from town. Haha we live on a dirt road... But the house is lovely. It has three bedrooms, Two family rooms. 2 and 1/2 baths. a huge kitchen with a eating area and a dining room. The master is huge with a huge huge huge closet. A wonderful garden tub and we have some lovely horses living behind us .... haha :) i hope it will serve us well. Here are some pics of our new place.... feel free to come visit us whenever. I know for a fact being in the country and john traveling so much i will get very lonely. Next blog post i will tell you of the first thing i noticed about silly Nebraska til then you have to wait in suspense :) hehe
Night y'all, enjoy the pics.