Our New House

Well, the apartment we had lined up didn't exactly prove to be what we were hoping for. More on that story later. But in a whirlwind of a morning we were able to find another place and we got all moved in today. Well, we got the truck unloaded, but we still have a lot more moving to do. And so without further ado...the picture tour:

This is the boys' room, looking out from the bathroom. The open door is the walk in closet-fabulous! Koyle's crib will be against the wall you can't see. The bunk bed takes up a large part of the room, but Matthew loves it!

 Each room has its own bathroom.This is the boys' bathroom.

 So, I waited FOREVER for all these pictures to load and then realized I didn't rotate some of them, but it is late and I am very tired and I am not waiting for them to reload. So just tilt your head on this one. This is standing in the hallway right outside the boys' room looking into the 2nd bathroom. This one has a door in the hallway, and a door connecting to the 2nd bedroom, which will serve as our office. I have no pictures because Koyle is asleep in there right now, but it looks like the other bedrooms.

 Again, rotate. This is the front door. I will get some outside pictures tomorrow when it is not dark.

 This is standing at the front door, looking into the family room. Loving the open space!

 This is the dining room. That door you see opens up to the patio/backyard. Yep folks, I have a little (albeit very little) patch of grass. It is fenced in so the kids can go play in safety!

 This is my kitchen. Check it out folks. I LOVE IT. There is a pantry closet as well, across from the refrigerator that you can't really see.

 This is the bathroom in our bedroom. Not only do I have a cabinet above every toilet to put things in, I actually have a bathroom counter...hip hip hooray!

 This is standing in the kitchen looking into the laundry room. And that door opens to...

my garage!!! Who could ask for anything more? We are very happy with our new place.

So these pictures are out of order because blogger is retarded, but this is our bedroom. And below is our closet.

Matthew is loving the "toy box" he is either throwing all the toys out, or sitting in the box playing with them in there. Things are a little crazy and we will be glad when we are all settled in. Updates of our trip and other happenings will come once that day arrives. Right now we have spent an hour trying to get Koyle to sleep and he is still crying...so I gotta go!

Matthew's Funnies

• Yesterday we were outside playing and Zeke saw a squirrel and started chasing it. A few minutes later Matthew saw a squirrel. He then proceeded to tell us about it:" I have a funny squirrel, and it is round, circle like this-(holding his hands to make his fingers in the shape of a circle). He has one diamond on his bum. And whoosh whoosh whoosh, lots of sprinklers around on his head. And, bushes on his ears, and bushes on his pants! That's my funny squirrel."
• "I just want to belax and eat some food and watch a cartoon." Matthew says this every morning when he wakes up, and periodically throughout the day if he is a little tired or grumpy.
• Matthew: I can have a gumball mom?  Me: No, you've had enough gumballs. Matthew: Okay, thanks mom! Just one more gumball.
• "Koyle is a bowling pin. I'm gonna knock him over."
• "Last Day" Matthew is always refering to things we did in the past as last day.
• "I'm gonna join this party!" or "Do you wanna join my party?" 
• Matthew loves to pretend that the swing set is his rocket. But if you sit inside the bottom then it is his train shop. He has a bunch of little balls in there and they are the batteries that he is using to fix the train.
• One morning Matthew started playing angry birds on his bed. He would stand on the toy box, hang on to the headboard and lean back, the launch himself over the bed and knock over the birds. Then he wanted me to be the bird that he launched into and knocked over. 
• Matthew loves to use his train tracks as skiis and he will walk on them through the kitchen. One day was especially entertaining. He had found a little American Flag and somebody had to be the flagger for him. He would ski for a second and then crash into the water and yell, "I'm down, I'm down, wave the flag." We would then have to wave the flag while he scooted himself along the floor on his stomach (swam) to get his ski's in the water. Then he would climb back on top of them and the whole process would start over again.    

Stimpson Reunion

The Stimpson Reunion is always the highlight of my summer. The week leading up to it this year was a little crazy but like always, we were ready to go on time. The day before Matthew had found Grandpa's hat and wore it around saying that he was Woody and I was Buzz. That night as Matthew was following my dad around helping he decided that the hat was dirty and needed washed off. Grandpa found him hosing off the hat and told Matthew not to wash the hat and to go inside. Matthew's little heart was broken because he just thought the hat was dirty and needed washed. It was pretty cute. So we went out and made ammends with Grandpa and he literally wore a hole in his pajamas following Grandpa around.

The drive up was pretty eventful. The trailer blew a tire before we were even out of town. They put the spare on but didn't want to head up the mountain without another spare. Problem was it was after 6 and all the tire stores were closed already. After some deliberation, the women folk and kids sat at the Burger King & Chevron while the guys ran to Wal*Mart and Costco to look for tires. They ended up having to go all the way back to Jones' to get what they needed so it was 9 before we left town. After a luncky encounter in Fairfield, we got ice and almost left Zeke behind. Finally we rolled into camp at midnight. On the drive I looked back one time to find the boys holding hands. I love little moments like that.

One of the cousins brought some horses up and let the kids ride them around. Matthew learned how to make some sweet horse noises from his cousin Maddi. 

I was able to round up some baby food jars and we let all the kids make their own glowstick jar. They had a lot of fun, even if they didn't turn out perfectly.

Every year the guys will go out paintballing one morning. They convinced all the women folk to come along and "watch" this year. 

Also of note was the rain. It rained almost every day we were up there. The one nice day we were able to tube and kayak down the river to the swimming hole which was fun, although a little chilly. None of the Vegas people were able to make it which was a little weird. Christopher also taught us a new way to play Mafia called Werewolf. It was really fun. We even got my dad to play and he liked the game!

Christmas in July

 Just as we were getting ready to go over to the Jones' for Sunday dinner Matthew caught his toe on the door and nearly ripped off his toenail. He was quite distraught so Grandma fixed him all up. That ice pack was not falling off.

For Christmas we gave Jay a camping trip with all of his kids home. So over the 4th of July we headed up to Cascade for our weekend of fun. Koyle of course loved the water, as did Matthew.

 We just walked down to look at the water the first night and the boys ended up swimming. We didn't have swim diapers on and I have seen water logged diapers before but this diaper won the grand prize. It was so huge that Matthew couldn't walk in it anymore.

 Koyle has discovered driving and he gets so excited when you put him behind the wheel. I remember when Matthew did the same thing, and he still loves to drive the car. Whenever we were on the boat Koyle had to be sitting on Grandpa's lap helping to drive.

 We tried to get Matthew to surf but the water was just a bit too cold, and the weather wasn't that warm either. Maybe next year.

It was so much fun to see all the babies and to spend some time together. Once we move to Texas the family is going to be quite spread out: Utah, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, and Idaho. 5 kids, 5 states.

Picturepalooza: June

Well, things have gotten a little hectic around here and I am just now getting around to blogging (even though I really should be researching health insurance plans in Texas). June has been full of lots of fun:
My sister came in town for 2 weeks so that her little girl could do swimming lessons with aunt Lindy and aunt Carissa. It was a lot of fun having them stay; unfortunately this is the only picture I got: We went to the Dairy Days parade which is always a good time. Matthew calls it the chocolate milk parade, because they hand out milk.We went with Kimi & Michael, Rachel & Paisley, Brent & Janelle and Trooper, Jamie, and Lindy.
Grandma and Lindy thought this was pretty funny:One day Lindy was watching Matthew for me and when I got back she was dangling the fishing pole in front of him and he was chasing it around, and he looked like this:We went to the Jones reunion up at Sage Hen which was a lot of fun. The weather was beautiful, and aside from the puke fest that was going on...all went well.One day we did canoe races and swimming races. My team lost, but we sure tried hard. And of course Justin won the swimming race.

The boys have absolutely LOVED working out in the yard with Grandma and Grandpa. We are sure going to miss them, and the yard!


Grandpa is always so good to let Matthew help him with whatever he is doing, and he always takes the time to teach him things. Kimi came up and stayed in Idaho for 2 weeks. We did lots of projects and let the kids play. One day we took the boys to the splash park. Koyle liked it the most and outlasted both of the other boys. I think he would have stayed there all night if we had let him.