Moved, Etc.

We moved!  And it was a cake walk compared to last year's hard (horrific, terrible, emotionally draining) move.  Thanks to my mom and cousin Mitch who helped to make it easy breezy... and to a great moving company.  David and everyone else worked their butts off while I managed to not pass out or vomit from pregnancy-induced blah.  We love our new house so much and are grateful to be here.

So, the move explains a huge gap in time since I've posted anything... oh and I am pregnant and mothering two wild and crazy and amazing kiddos.  But after I wrote about HG's birthday we went to her well check and I actually laughed when Dr. Miller told me that Hannah was "long and lean" which doesn't exactly describe ANYONE in our family, so I hope the genes she acquired stick with her because her steady diet of cookies, chips and meat isn't really a model diet!  She is in the 75th percentile for height and like the 40th percentile for weight!  Too funny.

Blaine finished up with five weeks of camp.  He did a week of rock climbing, sports camp, two weeks of nature camp, and one week of soccer camp.  He will actually return next week for one more round of soccer, but then he's done and we have Kindergarten to look forward to.  Oh, and he is confident enough to join a soccer TEAM this fall which we are all very excited about.  Because of where his birthday falls he will be on a team with 6 year olds, which is fine except most of these kids have already played in this same league for three years together.  I had to sign this crazy paperwork promising that Blaine knows the rules to the game and is a team player and on and on.  I have confidence in his athletic ability... so I figure we will deal with those details later :)  His coaches at soccer camp claim he is "really good" and is "quite aggressive on the field" which apparently doesn't come until later for some kids so I'm praying this puts him at an advantage and he has a great coach that will help and encourage and support him in his first year of soccer.  If he has a great experience, we will be on the road to victory!

I am coming up on 15 weeks with this pregnancy and though the debilitating nausea has subsided, I still feel pretty sick most days and am completely exhausted by lunch.  Blaine wants a boy baby and Hannah wants a girl baby so they are constantly arguing about who will get what they want.  Tonight Blaine had a new tactic:

Blaine (in his sweetest voice): Hannah, don't you want a baby brother?
HG: No, a baby girl.
Blaine: But Hannah, you'll still love it if it's a baby boy?  Right? You should love it either way.  It will be a sweet baby boy.  I'm sure you'll love him.
HG: No, I won't.
Blaine: But Hannah, it's just the right thing to do.  And then you don't have to share your room.
HG: (She is still pondering what her answer should be.  She is clearly torn.)

Then later Blaine decided that it IS going to be a girl and declared that what is most important is that he is right about what it is, so he is deciding now that it is a girl.

Wow! For God's sake... I just need a freakin' ultrasound to stop the madness!

And I saved the best for last.  Pictures!

well check

HG on her "Footer"

Cousin Mitch!

GG and Mitchell

HG with one of her many faces on.

View from our back porch.

Walking to our neighborhood pool from our house.

In a hammock below our deck.

holding hands.  a rare sighting.

hard at work on home depot project.

faces painted on the 4th of july.

waiting at the doctor's office after HG's bee sting
got infected.  she was a champ.

HG: Soooo cool.

Driving out to Eldorado Canyon State Park.

A beautiful hike to end our 4-day weekend!

Come... And Gone

HELLO!  :)  We're here... but have no fear I'll be gone again soon.  Infrequent posts are the product of pure exhaustion and me knocked out on the couch after 14+ hours with the kids each day.  About every third day I think, "Oh, this would be a great blog post" and then I look at the couch, back at my computer, back at the couch and the back of my eyelids are the next thing I see! ;)

So many things have come and gone since I last posted.  Hmmmm...

Blaine had his last day of preschool at the end of May.  The first is his mugshot, I mean picture, from his first day of preschool back in August and the second is of Mister on his last few days of preschool.

I joke about the mugshot picture but I think these pictures speak louder than any words I could write.  We were in such a different place back in August and I give all the glory to God for where Mister is today.  And with tears of joy I want to hug and kiss and thank everyone that God put in our lives to help our family this last year.  B will head to Kindergarten at Meridian Elementary this fall (which is funny because I went to a Meridian Elementary) where he will rock the academic world!

Mister's first day of summer camp has come and gone also.  He did a week of climbing camp last week and he loved it.  This week he is in a sports camp where he will learn fundamental baseball, soccer and basketball skills.  Not to mention they get to eat at the school cafeteria everyday.  Today he ate a plate of spaghetti, bread sticks, and a sandwich in one sitting!  Ali, one of his (therapist) friends was there for a couple hours today and said he did amazing.  She said he didn't really pay attention to what the coaches were saying but then when it came time to perform he knew exactly what to do, naturally.  Like, "Fools, watch how this is done.. and I didn't even listen!"  Ali said it was pretty comical.  While I would love for him to sit patiently and stare at his coach with listening ears, that's not how my Mister operates.  I'm just happy he enjoyed himself today. The camp is 6.5 hours long so when I picked him up he said, "Mama, that  was a long day!"

Speaking of the cafeteria... Mister is back on gluten!  Hallelujah!  We decided to give it another try after a few failed attempts last year and now that he is on a stable dosage of medication we felt it was time.  He has woken up a few times at night but nothing that keeps him up.  I hear him cry out but then he puts himself back to sleep right away.  He's been having a great time eating gluten again and I was thankful that he could eat whatever he wanted at camp today.  Jokingly, David said that we could start contributing to our 401K again now that we don't have to buy GF foods anymore.  Amen to that!

There are a few things coming... but they aren't gone yet... like this move we're making in a few weeks.  I've been packing for several weeks now but I know it's still going to be crazy busy when the day comes.  Luckily my mom, mover-cleaner-helper-extraordinaire, and my cousin Mitchell, kid-sitter extraordinaire, are coming to help for a week during the move.  We found a great house just several miles from our current house where we will live for a few years until we see what's next for us.  I'm super excited to be in the new house - it's smaller, newer, and is an all around better house.  Now if I could just snap my fingers and have the entire move completed, that would be great!

In other (really important) news, the Lyon family will be growing come 2014.  We're pregnant with little Lyon numero tres (due January 7th) and I couldn't be sicker!  Oh my... partly the reason that I am asleep by 8:30 pm every night.  The kids are especially excited.  My favorite (though sometimes cruel) lines have been:

From Blaine:
Mama, how does a head THAT big come out of you?
Mama, it hurts to be pregnant and have a baby doesn't it?  But then it's all worth it when you get to see your beautiful baby.
Mama, please do not have another girl baby.  They are only cute when they are small, then they turn into Hannah.
Mama, does the baby like singing?  (And then he proceeds to sing to the baby.)

From Hannah Grace:
Is the baby coming yet?
Mama, can you have the baby girl and Daddy can have the baby boy?
Is the baby here?
Does the baby like to swim?
Awww, I love the baby.
Is the baby coming?
Is is Christmas yet? (We told them the baby would be here around Christmastime.)

Speaking of Hannah Grace.  She is coming and going all the time.  She's got the spunky personality (and major attitude) of a teenager, loves all things PINK and will be turning three in just four more days.  (wow)  We've been planning her party for a while now and nearly every detail has changed except that she wants a Dora, Dora the Explorer party.  So, Dora it is.  She invited her "Baby Peyton" (the kids' second cousin) and our friend Ali (mentioned above) and her daughter Hayley, whom HG calls "Miss Hayley" though they are the same age.  It's pretty funny.  She keeps asking me why Willem (William) and Siri can't be at her party... but doesn't get the whole thousand+ miles away ordeal :)  I told her they would celebrate with us in spirit.

My sweet, totally sassy, girl is growing up.

  

And she almost always wears a smile! :)

Fast Forward

Hello, my name is Jessica and sometimes I post random information here at this blog about our family but I've been a bad blogger lately.  Because of the length of time that has past I've decided to just fast forward through all the junk that has happened and get to the fun and happy stuff.

Just kidding, you know me better than that!  I've got to write about some of the "junk!"  The moving company continues to cause us problems and stress.  David had to help them move our items into the house (on Sunday the 1st) for almost 9 hours because they sent two small men (one who was on his first day of the job) to move all of our stuff in.  They damaged nearly all of our good furniture and many irreplaceable items (you know, the stuff from Pottery Barn, Ashley Furniture, our TempurPedic box spring, the Dyson vacuum, handmade decorative glass crosses, etc...) yet none of our cheap stuff.  The claims department is asking us to provide color pictures of the items, the boxes they came in, original sales receipts, weight of item, etc... for everything damaged and nothing can be emailed in - it has to be typed or handwritten and color copies of the photos have to be sent in.  What a mess. We're trying to get our credit card company to help dispute/recover the $3000 in overage charges and seek justice for the horrible customer service problems we've had.  The saga continues.

Another, more important, challenge we have faced is that the therapy that Blaine had started to receive this last week ended up not being covered by our insurance company.  For almost three months we've been working through the details of this and several weeks ago it was confirmed on two different occasions that these particular therapy benefits would be covered but when it came down to getting pre-authorization, benefits were denied.  Our next steps are complicated and expensive but we're not going to stop at anything to get Blaine what he needs.  So even though insurance has denied these benefits now, we're not going to stop pushing.

Okay, now the fun stuff!

My mom (aka: GG) came and helped me get the house totally unpacked and put together last week.  She was an indispensable, calm and loving presence and just a huge help as we moved and settled in.  She came in before our actual move date to help with the kids and on moving day basically took the childcare reigns while we dealt with the BS that was our move.  Then we tag-teamed and managed to get every box unpacked by Wednesday.  By Friday the whole house was completely set up.  GG was on a mission and she accomplished.  We don't know what we would've done without her.  Thanks for your help, Mom. 

Walking into the kitchen from dining room.

Mister in the backyard

Out the front door

Mister getting the mail.  He loves doing this.



We got to bring our washer and dryer!  Me=Happy

Sister being silly in the main level bathroom.

Kitchen

Front room

Upstairs "Reading room"

Kids' bath

Hanny's room (we had to put her crib back together because she
fell out of big girl bed every night.)  Big girl bed is coming next...

Our unfurnished bedroom (getting new furniture soon.)

Toy room! :)

Mister's room.

Basement (we like to call it the "Guest Quarters" :)

A random little room I'm calling the "Office."  I'll keep bills
in here... Out of sight, out of mind? :)

Basement bathroom

Guest Quarters

This was after another "I'm not tired!  I'm not sleeping!" day.
Yes, this is in the dining room.

Sister in the TV room.

She likes getting dressed by herself now.  Those are actually shorts.

We went to the Denver Zoo with GG.  Mister liked the Carousel.

Aunt Ann sent Hanny this skirt (she made it.) 
Hanny calls it her "Annie."

Loving it!

TV room

TV room from the kitchen

Kitchen from the TV room

Dining room

Today we went on our first family hike at Chautauqua Park.  What a beautiful place we've moved to!  Hannah rode on D's back and Blaine hiked like a superstar.  We were out there exploring for nearly three hours today and Blaine ran most of it.  He wants to summit the Flatirons... maybe another day :)

HG using the "Knockers"

We also went to a new church today.  Yesterday while I was running errands I saw this bumper sticker (below) on several cars (minus the "flatirons community church") and wondered what it was.  I had a hunch that it was the Flatirons, but had no idea what it meant.  I thought maybe these people just liked hiking or something.  Saturday night I spent some time looking for a church for us to go to and came across this very logo... discovering that it was Flatirons Community Church.  The church is less than six miles from our house and was just what we needed.  When we walked in it reminded us a little bit of Gateway, (people dressed very casually, coffee and food available, even the signage and vibe was similar but with a special Colorado feel) and after checking the kids into their respective rooms (which, by the way, they have a smaller, quieter room with one on one care for kids just like Mister!) we headed to the auditorium.  The band looked young but as soon as they began playing we were excited.  And the best part... The God Moment... The this-is-where-you-belong-right-now moment...  The first song they played was our wedding song: Rascall Flatts' "Bless the Broken Road."  I looked at David within two seconds of the song starting and started crying.  What a special song for us and what an awesome way for God to show us that He is with us.  The service was great and we look forward to many more Sunday's at FCC.

David is enjoying his job very much and went on his first mountain climbing adventure on Wednesday.  He is in hog-heaven here in Colorado - he can't stop talking about how perfect the weather is, how he loves the views and the opportunity for adventure.  I would have to agree :) 

Tomorrow will begin my first full week here in Colorado as a stay-at-home mom.  (That should read: Pray for me!) Ha!