We Bought a HOUSE!!!

After months of working out financing, researching on the internet, looking at many, MANY houses, stressing out and patiently waiting, we FINALLY found a HOUSE!!!!  We are so excited!  We closed on Thursday the 16th and got our keys on Monday.  The house is a little bit of a fixer upper and needs some TLC, but it is going to be so great when we're done and its OURS!!!

Right now I am a little bit overwhelmed with everything we have to do, especially since I'm starting school again in less that a week (sob), but I just have to take it one step at a time.  A couple of nights ago I slept so horrible because I just kept thinking about everything we have to do to get moved in. :/ We are repainting and getting new carpet for the whole house, which is going to make a world of difference!  The guy left it SO dirty, so the first couple of days I spent cleaning it, and now we're prepping for paint.  Once paint and carpet are done we will start moving in.  We are also having the humongous tree taken out of the backyard on Monday (you can see it in this picture).  I know you're probably thinking, why would we take out such a beautiful tree?  Well its not a good tree, it has these huge roots that go above the ground that are overpowering everything, and even put a crack in the foundation!  Its a junky tree and its gotta go.  We're mostly going to focus on the inside this year and then next year when it warms up we'll start tackling the yard.  

The house is in Springville and is 2100-ish sq ft.  It has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, plus 2 more rooms downstairs that could technically be bedrooms but they don't have closets.  I have a lot of fun ideas that I can't wait to get started on! :)  I'll post some before and after pics once we get some things done.  I'm excited to see how everything comes together!

Family Update

Man, summer is just flying right on by!  I can't believe that it is already August!  We have had a fun summer, although it has felt short between me being in school, our 10 day trip to Colorado, Malea breaking her leg, etc. But with these last few weeks left I'm trying to pack it full of all the last minute fun before it starts to cool down.

Here is a little update about what has been going on:

Malea

This is very late, especially since she is starting pre-school again in like 3 weeks, but I couldn't help but post these cute pics from her last week of pre-school back in May.  Teacher Lynda is so awesome and we are so excited for Malea to go to pre-school for another year (and then Kindergarten....I can't even fathom that yet.....).  For the end of school they got to do a fun little water day.  We took her teacher a potted plant (that Malea painted) and a gift card as a thank you for a great year. 

Malea got her walking cast on the 31st, which has been sooo much better!  She can get around on her own now and doesn't depend on us to do everything for her.  We've actually been able to go to 7 peaks a couple of times, go to the park, etc.  The trick is trying to keep her cast free of sand, grass, bark, etc. ;)  

She just seems so grown up lately.  She is very talkative and asks A LOT of questions, the most common one being "why?"  I try to be patient with it though and explain things the best I can, because I figure that she will learn the most that way.  Sometimes her questions will be real doozy's, like the other day when she asked how the stars and planets were made (?).  She also has a very vivid imagination, which is great but is also the source of a lot of fears.  She has been having trouble sleeping lately, probably with no help from having a big bulky cast on her leg, so hopefully that will improve when she gets it off in a couple of weeks. One of the cutest things she has started doing lately is singing along to things, like movies, tv shows, etc.  We have the movie "Lion King" in the DVD player right now in our van and she loves singing along.  She will even tell you to stop singing if you try to sing too. :)  She has also started showing interest in learning her letters, which has been fun especially since that will be the main focus of pre-school this year.  She has even started practicing writing some of the letters on her magnadoodle.   

Isaac

Isaac is just as busy as ever!  He sure keeps us on our toes but he is so much fun. I can't believe he's going to be 2 in a month! He has really been progressing with his speech and has become a lot more communicative in the last couple of months.  Its hard to remember all the words he says, but here's a few that I could think of: Mama, Dada, Mommy, Daddy, hot, uh-uh, oww, uh-oh, this, that, what's this, what's that, and he does a lot of animal sounds.  He understands most of what we say though, which is good.  He also knows where most of his body parts are and will point to them ("Where's your head? belly? feet? etc").  I got him on video the other day "talking", which is basically just saying "dee doo doo dee doo doo" over and over but trying to sound like a big boy.  I will try and post it if I can figure it out. :)  He has also started doing the cutest thing, which I have been trying to get on video but to no avail, where he will show you something like a toy or a stuffed animal and then tilt his head to the side and say "awww"....oh my gosh its the cutest thing!  I hope I can get catch it on video soon.  He is very in to "Cars" cars, trains, tractors, etc.  If we are driving in the car and you hear him start to scream/squeal, it means that he sees either some kind of farm animal or a truck, train, tractor, etc.  He is still a crazy climber, and never ceases to amaze me when we are at a playground with his amazing balance and coordination.  I'm starting to wonder if he should be a gymnast someday!

I love this boy's smile!

 

Hanging out at Gma Vicki's (with his wild curls pre-haircut)

  

Silly kids

Us

Well we have been spending a lot of our crazy summer on the house hunt, which has been fun, exciting, stressful, frustrating, all wrapped in to one big ball of fun!  I think we have finally found the winner, and (if everything goes according to plan) we will be closing on August 18th (yay!). The house is in Springville, less than 5 minutes from my mom and probably only 10 minutes to the nearest Cafe Rio (what else do you need? ;)).  There are still a couple of things we are waiting to hear back on with the sellers, but its looking pretty good!  The house we want is a little bit of a fixer-upper, but we don't even care because we are just excited to have something of our own.  I will do a whole separate post about the house once everything is finalized. :)

For the 4th of July we went to the Grand Parade in Provo in the morning (which was important not to miss since we were out of town for the Art City Days parade back in June).  After the parade we went over to my mom's to swim and to eat food, and we made the traditional American flag cake.  Then we took the kids that night to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks from the MTC field.  We decided that we probably won't be doing that again any time soon, because not only was it hard to keep track of the kids (mostly Isaac) in that big crowded field while we waited, but the traffic getting home was absolutely horrendous!

I love this picture of Isaac (I wish it wasn't blurry though :/)

 Keith chasing around Isaac who didn't want to stay put (as usual)

  That's it for now from the Walker clan!

Twinkle Toes

Malea did the cutest little dance class this summer through Provo City's The Center called Twinkle Toes (I am way behind on blogging so this happened before she broke her leg).  The class was every Tues-Thurs for 45 minutes and only went for about 6 weeks.  I mostly wanted her to do the class to see if she liked it, and then I might put her in one that is longer term starting in the fall.  She has such a little dancer's body and I really think she has a knack for it.  She did like it, but like always, she is a little slow to warm up to things.  She was so excited, especially after we went and bought her a couple of little dance outfits, but when it came down to actually going she was apprehensive.  The class was also right after nap time (4pm) which meant she was a little moody from sleeping, so that didn't help!

 

This picture cracks me up!

Well at the end of the 6 weeks they had a very informal little recital for all the parents.  As soon as I brought up the fact that she was going to have to perform in front of everyone, of course she instantly said she didn't want to do it (she did the same thing when she had to read the theme during sharing time in Primary, which meant I had to do it, haha).  Its actually kind of funny, because a certain someone (me) did the same exact thing to my mom when I was about her age when it came time for a dance recital.  And, like my mom, I resorted to all the same methods of getting her to do it (threatening, bribing, etc).  She said she didn't want everyone looking at her (I don't really blame her, I have some pretty mad stage fright myself).  After some convincing she did end up going up on stage, but she stood there as still as a statue while ALL the other girls in the class participated in the dance.  It was kind of embarrassing but what do you do?!  At least she looked really cute, haha!  Any ideas out there on how to help her get past her stage fright? 

 

Swimming Lessons

 After we got back from Intensives in Colorado, my kids started swimming lessons.  Malea did the class on her own and I did a mommy-and-me class with Isaac.  Malea absolutely loved it, but surprisingly Isaac hated it at first!  The whole first week he would just cry the whole time when I got him in the water.  Swimming lessons were M-Th for 2 weeks, and for the first week I could hardly get him in the water.  By the second week he did better though.:)  I kind of think he was traumatized a little bit by the pond incident we had a couple of months ago.

Most of the pictures are of Isaac crying :/

My little stubborn cutie :)

I'm just glad we got swimming lessons out of the way in June considering Malea ended up breaking her leg in July!

Colorado Trip

 As part of my graduate program, I am required to go to Colorado once a year for a summer intensive residency for a week.  I couldn't bear the thought of being away from my babies for a whole week, so I made asked Keith to take off work so that we could all go down together and make a trip out of it. I was in classes from 8am to 4pm everyday, so he was a trooper and watched the kids. :) We were planning on staying in a hotel but then a friend of Keith's that he used to work with at Nu Skin graciously opened her home to us for a whole week (thanks again so much Fallon & Brice!).  It not only saved us a butt load of money but they have two kids close in age to our kids that they could play with, as well as a yard.  It definitely made the week much easier!

This was on the drive down, because of all the fires the sunset looked pretty cool (this picture doesn't give it justice)

 The first day was registration and then we had to come back later for a mandatory Orientation dinner.  We took a few photos while exploring campus.

Malea and me in front of the Counselor Ed department

The kids were such little troopers on the trip and did a lot of their napping in the car 

Here is a pic of Malea and their little girl Claire, they were good little buddies the whole week we were there 

There's not a whole heck of a lot to do in Alamosa, Colorado, but they do have some really cool sand dunes that we went to a couple of times.  Keith took the kids once by himself and they played in the water, and then we went again another time all together.  The weird/cool thing about the sand dunes is that there is water that runs through them in the morning and then by the afternoon the water stops so its dry again.

Malea & Isaac playing in the wet sand :)

Mmmm sand boogers :P

 

Me in front of the Adams State sign

Malea and Claire playing outside....we sure miss them already!  I'm sad I didn't get a picture of their cute little boy

Intensives was a great experience. The first day I had to take the MAT exam that I had been studying for for about the last 6 weeks.  Thankfully I passed with a high enough score for the program requirement, so that was a relief.  In the morning each day I had a Pre-Practicum class, which was where we practiced counseling techniques with our classmates.  The first day the professor walked in with two boxes of tissues and said "you guys are going to need these".  Boy was he right!  This was definitely the toughest part of the week because we had to be graded on certain techniques. He compared the week to boot camp and said that he would start out by "tearing us down" and then by the end of the week he would build us back up.  I had to grow a thicker skin that week, but I am so glad I did because I learned so much. After lunch we had our growth group, which was basically just group therapy for us as students (this was my favorite). It was a really great experience.  I learned so much about myself and feel like I became a better version of myself.

After Intensives were over we stayed for an extra couple of days and went up to the Denver area to visit some family.  We stayed with Keith's aunt and uncle, and it was so great to see them!  They had never even seen Isaac before so that was great.  Their poor dog Scout took a lot of Isaac's abuse but he knew who to hang around when there was food involved :)

We got to go visit Keith's grandma who is in a nursing home there.  She is legally blind now and her health is deteriorating so I'm glad we took the extra couple of days to go see family. 

We also stopped by to visit Keith's grandpa....it was so good to see him too and listen to his great stories

Keith's sister Jenn also lives in the area so we were able to go see them as well.  The kids had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.

We ended up driving home on Father's Day, so poor Keith didn't get much of a celebration.  Malea did decorate a card though and I snuck off Saturday night to get him the new "Sherlock Holmes" movie :)

We had a great experience in Colorado!  We ended up being gone for about 10 days, which was the longest trip we had ever taken with the kids.  They did so well though, and didn't start to burn out until the day before we left.  We were sure happy to get home!