Wyatt Levi

6lbs 15oz

20in

"Start Spreading the News....." NY here we come!!!

Well actually more like Jersey, but Chris is working in NY on Freedom Towers, how awesome!!! After less than a year back in MI we are moving on. Yes, yet another summer spent packing and preparing to move, ugh! Although this time a little different with only a few weeks left till baby arrives and Chris being in Jersey for the last 2mos and returning home every other weekend or so to fix up our "fixer upper" its been well lets just say a long couple months and we can not wait to be in same house again. We've found a great house in a great neighborhood (or so Chris tells me, I haven't actually seen either in person and well we all know what pictures can leave out, lol!). We hope to be all moved in within next 2 weeks which will give me hopefully a little time to unpack and maybe wash an outfit or two for the baby and maybe even put up a bed for it. Oh and by the way with the move and the need to eliminate unnecessary items to move we did find out that our baby is a boy. So yay!! We are looking forward to yet another new exciting adventure in our story of life in New Jersey with our soon to be family of 6, oh and Bear and Moses of course. Sorry no pics but its taken months just to get this much updated on here.
I keep thinking life will slow down and I'll be able to do all these things, but ya know for some reason it just never seems to go that way.... Oh well wouldn't change it! Ahh east coast here we come!!!

April Showers??!!

When I hear that phrase these are not the kind of showers that come to mind. Nonetheless this is what arrived for our "april showers" today.... Well at least we can have fun with it;-)! I must admit having grown up in Michigan all my life I never remeber being able to make a "snowbunny". By late afternoon it had all melted away. Maybe by June we'll have 60's!?!

December

What a month.... Our sprawling 9ft christmas tree we had in Vegas, no matter how hard I tried, just would not fit in our short Michigan ceiling. As Christmas drew near there was no way to get a different tree so I thought "Christmas without a christmas tree, I just can't see it" so we improvised. Or as some thought went a little "holiday crazy", and this was the result.

This was one extreme art project for the kids for school. And of course for weeks later I was explaining to Gabi that we don't color on all the walls....and certainly not with a Sharpie on whatever wall you want. Oh well we were gonna paint anyway. The tree was completely washable markers. I appreciated the kids even made their own presents at the bottom, whew save me the trouble of shopping. We left it up till, I'm ashamed to say just about 2weeks ago when we replaced it with this, which we got free from craigslist. Although we did opt to pay a company to delivery it, and based on the troubles they had we sure are glad we did.








Christmas also brought a couple more additions. First Zachary received a reply to his letter to Santa, which he had requested 14 golden labs- yes real puppies- However Santa being the rational guy he is subtly broke it to Zachary that he thought it best to just go with one. And sent in his reply letter this certificate to go get his puppy from a local rescue center.





This was the day we brought him home, which was also Gabi's 2nd birthday.
He was about 9 1/2 weeks. So cute....but boy did I forget what having a puppy was like, yikes. Although it is Zacharys puppy, there is still some mom duties in caring for it. After the first night he cried all night in Zachary's room we decided to try putting Zac's bed on the floor so the puppy wouldn't feel alone. So to this day Zachary still sleeps with his mattress on the floor and his bed above his head, but Moses doesn't cry anymore and climbs right to the foot of his bed and sleeps through most nights.

The other addition well was a little more shocking then the puppy stage. We found out 2 days before we were to pick up Moses that we were pregnant! Wow, was I a little in denial. Which is why I had decided not to broadcast our news till I was certain. And well today at 12 weeks I got my confimation.... Oh how beautiful life is! As it is now we are due towards the end of August. I've decided to not find out for certain what the gender is this time, well right now anyway. I'm so excited I have been waiting to put this baby countdown widget on my blog since the first time I saw it on someone elses 2yrs ago, and now I finally can. As soon as I figure out how.

The end result of our "wall tree"!

Zachary & his lil puppy

Gabi cookin up in her kitchen... looks yummy! Not sure what Moses is doing....I think Bear is wondering the same thing.

The Move

So its been a while so where do I start!! Our trip out wow amazing...stopped to see Adam and Amanda in Provo which was so awesome to see them again. After that we stopped in Salt Lake and all I could think was WOW!!!! Wow it was beautiful! Wow the spirit! Wow! We can not wait to go back (preferably during the day without the dog)

Here's Zac and Alyssa by the temple. It was the best picture we could get given the hour. And why is it when you're planning to go on a trip (this time more than a trip really, anyway) and your totally excited but you just can't seem to leave on time, I mean really what is up with that! It was close to 10 I think by the time we got there. After leaving there we drove about 3 more hours stopped at a rest area just inside of Wyoming, I think, and napped there till about 4 am then started off again. This time I got to drive-yee haw! We stopped in another rest area in WY, had a giant statue of Abraham Lincoln's head-? weird. And it was freezing and raining, mind you we're still dressed for Vegas crazy maybe but it was August people. So here we are all brushing our teeth with bottled water with our heads sticking out the door-ew! But seriously not flip flop weather! So after that we kept on till we reached our house, we were to afraid to get out again, we arrived the following day about 9am.

And the second I walked in I thought oh no! Didn't care how awful packing was or how grueling the drive was, nope I said "get back in the car we're going back to Vegas". We didn't of course. Having not slept or showered in 2 1/2 days we were dirty and tired. So I realize we were crazy having purchased a house and never seen it, but hey we were desperate and figured this our best choice. But ya know how they say "a picture says a thousand words" well there was about a million and a half this one left out! The first day we got there immediately after showering we went to work. Home Depot here we come, ugh!

But on the upside we had the most unprecedented amount of support to unload our truck from members of our new ward. OH MY GOSH!!! There must have been 25+ people. We had babysitters to watch after our kids, people brought their kids to help and wives and all the guys and they just walked up and started unloading. Okay maybe over used this post but WOW!! That was amazing. I don't think I even met most of them that day. And neighbors poured out support with bringing veggies and fruits out for the whole crew and then cookies and bread from my wonderful sisters-gosh I love you ladies! We still have tons to unpack and though we have a basement and a shed I still can not get my truck into that 2 car garage-lol! Our neighborhood is great. Quiet, lots of kids, oh and yay sidewalks.

Oh yes I began homeschooling. Hmm do I love it. Don't know yet. Its only December, heehee. Most days go by I don't threaten my kids with public school, which they now have no desire to go back to yet. Homeschooling will be a treat as the weather continues to get colder and we won't have to go out in it, unless of course its to play in it:-). And homeschooling has given us the privledge of maintaing our Vegas time-unintentional but Chris works from midday to morning and its easier to just stay up late and sleep in. Chris started his new job in Oct and seems to like it okay. His hours are not the best but hey its a job-with benefits. I love being close to my mom and sister again and don't know how I would have gotten through those first couple weeks without them but I am terribly homesick for my girls in Vegas. To all you wonderful ladies that helped make such a profound difference in my life -Thank You and I miss you all! I'll send out more photos soon. It just started snowing the 1st of Dec and has been on and off since. Not much is sticking around yet but enough to get the kids all gitty about winter:)

Final Birthday Farewell

With our upcoming move we had a combined birthday party for the kids to bid farewell to their friends with one last hoorah! It was a great turn out with lots of fun in the sun; and lots of kids!
Apparently Alyssa didn't appreciate the serenades of her friends as they all sung "happy birthday".

...but aww isn't that cake cute!

Our lil Angel dog

Oh what a sad day it was....Got home after a fun filled evening with cub scouts to find our little dog Angel, who is 11 1/2, not looking so well. Didn't think to much of it she probably just ate too much of the kids scraps, nothing new for our dogs. Heck they've eaten everything from chocolate Slim Fast and Metabolife to designer shoes and gowns so why would cookies and chips create any issues- one would ask? But sadly only 6hrs after I got home that evening Angel's life was over. We still have no idea what caused her sudden death and poor Bear who lost his hearing over a year ago isn't really that aware of what goes on around him. It is funny though we had to remember to feed him since Angels passing, she was always the one telling us it was time to eat. We will miss our sweet Angel dog, having had her since she was 7weeks old she & Bear became part of our family just a couple months after Chris and I were married. Well I think we've had our fill of losses recently & of course the impending loss of Chris's job next month, hopefully we won't have to endure anymore for a while:-)