My little girl is 5!

I really can’t believe Carly is 5. Where has the time gone??!  Carly has been looking forward to this day since her birthday last year, seriously!  When it finally got here she didn’t know what to do with herself, she couldn’t believe it! We went to storytime in the morning and then I let her pick out anywhere she wanted to go for a fun lunch, she picked Sonic… and she only wanted a big thing of tots of which she only ate 5 and then was done. Haha. Then we had some friends come over for dinner and dessert to celebrate at night. This year Carly wanted a rainbow party again.  I made a rainbow cake after an idea I saw on Pinterest, but all the ones I saw on Pinterest were huge so  I made really small layers so the cake didn’t turn out ginormous. 

Yes, at this point I was a little afraid how it would turn out, but frosting can work wonders.  I just filled all those gaping holes with frosting…

Can’t forget the llama piñata.  Carly really didn’t want to break it apart.

One of my favorite things about celebrating my kids’ birthdays is decorating at night when they’re asleep and seeing their reaction when they wake up.  I love me some good party décor.

Carly is such a smart, polite, loving, friendly little girl.  We love her so much and are so grateful to have our little rainbow girl in our family!

8 week check in

Carly started preschool 3 weeks ago and has been loving it.  She goes to a Methodist church just a few minutes away from us.  It is way nice and I feel blessed that we found a option for her to go to preschool here in Arkansas. She is starting to learn all her southernisms like  “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” and “five minutes peace” etc. I  love that Pastor Dan comes into the class every Wednesday and teaches the kids out of the bible!  It was pretty hard for me to let her go, as I know it is with every parent.  It’s especially hard having people teach her things that are different than what I teach her… nothing extreme but up until now I have taught her all she knows and it’s a hard thing to give her up to someone else to teach her.  I do love getting some alone time with Holland during the day though!

8 week impressions of Arkansas:

-There are so many mosquitos here…I am kind of surprised I don’t have West Nile Virus yet (not lyme disease, I swear I know the difference:)) . Every time I go outside to run/play with kids/take out the trash I spray myself with bug spray. I mowed the lawn last week in pants and even after spraying myself I got THIRTY mosquito bites on the backs of my legs. I couldn’t sleep that night because I itched like crazy.  I decided that’s what hell is probably like - having mosquitos bites that never stop itching! The crazy thing is that I usually don’t feel them on me, they are stealth creatures.  And forget about wearing flip flops outside if you’re going to stay out longer than 2 minutes because you’ll get bitten all over your feet and somehow on the soles of your feet.  We are paranoid about getting any in the house because they bite us in our sleep.  Casey slept with his leg out of the covers one night and woke up with bites all over his leg. Now we pump the AC at night so we can sleep with all our blankets on at night, haha. Whenever we see one flying around we stop all we’re doing, hunt it down and DESTROY it!  One night Casey and I were watching TV and we just busted up laughing because we were sitting there scratching ourselves like dogs because we had so many bites on us! I have come to grips with the fact that I will look like I have chicken pox until it finally freezes here (if it ever does?) and the mosquitos die off.

- Continuing on with the nasty creature rant… COCKROACHES!  For reals I had never seen one in my life that wasn’t behind a glass wall at the zoo.  One night I walked in late into our room and the lights were off because Casey goes to sleep early and I turned on my lamp and a huge nasty cockroach ran under our dresser.  I screamed so loud and I could not sleep that night because I felt so many phantom bugs crawling on me and biting me. The next day I tried to find it to give me peace of mind but it couldn’t find it.  Please don’t tell me it’s building a nest somewhere.

-Now cute creature rave.  We have a lot of cute little lizards and frogs that live in our yard.  I love them because I like to think that they are eating all the mosquitos, but in reality they are probably just getting bitten to death like everyone else.  Whenever I mow the lawn I get scared that I might run over one.  Once I weed whacked a lizard on accident, it blended in with the grass, and it died (obviously), I cried for about 20 minutes. 

- I still have a hard time understanding people here. 

- I can’t wait for cooler weather

- I love Bluebell ice cream

- I miss having friends close

Even though I may complain a lot about bugs I promise I really do like it here.  It is really different than the Midwest and West which has been a hard adjustment for me but the South has a lot of charm. It is so beautiful here along the Mississippi River, and people here are so warm and kind. I am really glad that I’ll get a glimpse into Southern life during the year we’re here. 

Holland is 2!

In a few hours we are headed to Little Rock, Arkansas to stay the night and then tomorrow morning we’re flying to Utah for my little brother’s wedding!  I am so excited to go on a little vacation back to Utah and especially have time with Casey!  He has been working a lot here in Arkansas and I feel like I never see him.  He leaves for work at 5:30 and then gets home at 5:30 and then goes to sleep early so we are already in need of some good Utah fun and food. 

Because of all of this going on we celebrated Holland’s birthday last night.  We don’t know very many people yet so the missionaries and a family from our branch came over to celebrate and eat!

Holland is definitely her own little person, Here’s some fun facts about our Holly Bug:

- Her favorite color is blue, and I know this because she wants everything blue.  I ask her what she wants for breakfast and she’ll say “blue cereal”, she definitely doesn’t usually get what she wants but she sure loves the color blue.

-She is still extremely attached to her blankie

-She’s already picky about what she wears, super frustrating!

-She is a daddy’s girl, she never wants her mama to put her to bed and she frequently asks throughout the day where daddy is.

-She is an awesome eater and will eat anything, which is very nice because Carly still hates to eat!

-Loves to ride her cozy coupe around and take her blankie for a ride.  My parents gave her a trailer for her cozy coupe for her birthday and she loves it!

-Loves babies. She always has to go to sleep with a baby.

-Carly and Holland are still learning how to play with each other.  Sometimes they play and it’s so adorable, but they sure know how to push each other’s buttons.

-Loves to wave and say hi to people, but doesn’t like it if anyone other than mom or dad tries to give her attention.

-Happy Birthday Holly Bug, we love you so much!

Hello Memphis!

The movers came to pack up all our stuff on Thursday then on Friday they loaded everything up.  Side note: It was really nice to have people pack up all our stuff, but after unpacking it this past week I am peeved at the way they packed it.  We had people pack our stuff and move it a year ago and they packed everything so nice, but this time boys who looked like they were 18 packed our stuff and a few things made me really mad.  We had all of our bedding packed on top of our cleaning supplies… FOR REALS!  We had some Clorox spray bleach that leaked out onto all of the bedding and burned holes through everything.  Who on Earth packs cleaning supplies with bedding?!?! Also a bunch of our baking stuff was pretty much just dumped into a box and a bottle of lecithin leaked out onto everything.  Lecithin is impossible to get off anything so I had to throw out a bunch of stuff. 

After our stuff got packed up we stayed at our good friends’ house in Cleveland until Monday when we flew out to Memphis (the first day our stuff could arrive).  We were given a 7 day window for when our stuff would get to Memphis.  When we moved to Cleveland from Utah the mover also gave us a 7 day window as well but got our stuff to Cleveland in 2 days, so we were planning on it taking about 2 days to get to Memphis.  Once we were in Memphis on Monday we didn’t hear anything from the driver so we assumed it would be a few days to arrive so we stayed in a hotel for 3 nights and then we started getting antsy because our cars arrived on Wednesday but still no word on our stuff.  On Wednesday I found the driver’s phone number and called and asked when he’d be to Memphis.  He told me he hadn’t even left Cleveland yet and he wasn’t planning on leaving until Thursday so he’d get to Memphis on Friday! I was so mad.  I was sick of being in a new place and not having my stuff! Casey’s cousins who live about 25 minutes away from us in Southaven, MS graciously let us stay with them so we wouldn’t have to spend any more money on hotels. Then on Thursday night we got a call from the driver again saying he still hadn’t left Cleveland because his son just had a baby so now we wouldn’t get our stuff until Saturday!  Anyway, it doesn’t seem like a big deal looking back on it now but it was then. I hated the thought of Casey having a week off of work to move and unpack stuff but we didn’t have our stuff to unpack and it didn’t feel like a vacation, I felt like precious vacation time was being wasted! We did go sightsee and do fun things but I was stressed out!

We moved in on Saturday went to our new branch for the first time on Sunday and then Casey started work on Monday.

Random First thoughts of Memphis

- We love our nice new house we’re renting, I especially love the ice maker we have in the freezer, it has been used so much already.

-I love people’s accents here and how all the kids are respectful to their elders and call them mam and sir.  People notice all the time that I don’t have a Southern accent.

-There are tons of bugs in Memphis.  I took the girls out on a walk and came back with 10 mosquito bites (not exaggerating).  It has also been extremely hot (except for this weekend) so we pretty much stay inside and play.  I keep telling myself the weather here will be amazing come Fall/Winter!

-It’s fun living in a small town (Marion, AR). Everything here runs slower and more laid back.  People are friendly and helpful.

-I’m excited to experience living in a branch.  I have already decided that everyone needs a chance to see how the church is run in a branch.  Although it’s small everyone helps out and doesn’t complain. The first person we met in the branch was a nice man with a big bushy beard and a ponytail.  Come to find out he’s the 2nd counselor in our branch!  Welcome to Arkansas! 75% of our branch is related in some way.

-Sales tax is ridiculous here!  It’s 9.75%!!!!!!!!!!!!

-It blows my mind that to go to the closest Target I start out in Arkansas drive through Tennessee and then end up in Mississippi. My Target route:

-Grass here is weird, but there are so many beautiful plants here.  I am in heaven.  Some people in our neighborhood  have palm trees in their yards.  My favorite tree/flower/plant that I have discovered here is the Crepe Myrtle.  It is all over the place and so beautiful.

We are excited to explore Memphis for the next year!

Bye Cleveland

We’ve had a really busy past 2 months.  We had visitors come to Cleveland, and then we packed up and moved to Memphis.  I have been so tired, emotionally and physically and I finally feel like I can write about all the fun stuff we did during June and July!

In June we headed to Utah for a week for a Green family vacation.  We spent a lot of time hanging out with family and eating good food. 

Holland met Uncle Jacob for the first time (he’s getting married in less than 2 weeks!)

Ate Café Rio a few too many times, if that’s possible?

Went to Seven Peaks Salt Lake with cousins

Carly got to hang out with one of her favorite cousins of all, Lissy

Went on a fun scavenger hunt of Kaysville, Utah

Carly got to hang out with more favorite cousins, Sadie and Taylor

Ate ginormous shaved ice with Grandma Kathie (Carly was asleep)

Played the piano with Grandma Kathie (Carly was still asleep)

Got the girls’ pictures taken

And then daddy picked us up at the airport after the worst flight of my life.  I won’t go into details, but Holland was overtired and wouldn’t sit in her stroller or go to sleep so she ran around the airport like a crazy child and then she screamed a lot on the plane. I vow to never fly without Casey again.

We’ll be out to Utah again in a week and half for Jacob’s wedding!

The week after we got back from Utah Ann and Katie came from Wisconsin to come visit!!! Ann is Carly’s “Wisconsin Grandma.”  We hadn’t seen Ann and Katie for a really long time and they were so kind of drive from WI to Cleveland to come visit! We went shopping, went to the Zoo, saw the sites in Kirtland, and Ann and Katie took Carly and Holland shopping for fun clothes.  Ann spoils our kids so much and they love her so much.

Carly was not happy in this picture because Ann and Katie were leaving :(

Holland’s favorite book that Ann and Katie brought.

A few days after Ann and Katie came my sister Brooke and her family drove out to Cleveland from Utah to visit us and keep me company while Casey was gone at scout camp.  We went to the beach, did lame-o fireworks on the Fourth (apparently Ohio has one of the strictest firework laws in the US and you can only buy smoke bombs), went to Kirtland, did tons of shopping, ate lots of donuts, and played.  Brooke and Brad and their fam were so kind to drive the 24 hours to come visit.  We love having people come visit us and being able to show them around the area.  Brooke and Brad were even awesome sports when on their drive home their car broke down and they ended up having to buy a new car to get home! 

                     

Then Casey came home from scout camp 2 days after Brooke and Brad left.  It had felt like he’d been some forever and it was so good to see him!

Then we had our favorite elders, Elders Kay and Hyde over one last time before we moved.

Then 2 days later people came and packed up our stuff and we stayed with the Payne’s for a few days before we flew out to Memphis (see next post)!