Love is in the Air

This year marked the 4th Valentine's Day that Andrew and I have celebrated together!  We had a nice, mostly quiet day.  Eve and I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast for Andrew before I headed to work.  Yummy!  Even if they were from a tube...

Andrew did me a HUGE favor for Valentine's Day...I had decided not to do anything for the people at work (we're not in middle school anymore...) but got to work only to find that they had given me flowers and candy.  Shoot.  I made it until about noon...then the guilt became to much to bear and I called Andrew.  He was so sweet!  He and Eve went out to the store and bought lots of candy, drove all the way down to my office, and even came in to meet everyone and help me pass it out.  Of course, Eve was a big hit!  I just enjoyed the rare pleasure of spending a little time with Andrew and Eve during the day!

When I got home from work that evening, Andrew had some beautiful flowers waiting!  And he'd made a delicious dinner!  What a treat!

And for dessert?  Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting!  Every time we go to Costco, I drool over it and I finally got to have some!

We played games, Sorry, I think, while we ate our dinner.  Andrew had cub scouts that night, so Eve and I had a quiet evening. 

My valentine!

Eve loves the flowers Andrew got for us.  She watches me smell them and ties to do the same. 

It comes out as her kissing the flowers.  Adorable!

Oh, and here's a picture from Valentine's Eve :)  Eve loves to look at pictures of family and point to each person so we can say their name.  Seriously, she LOVES this!  What a sweet girl. 

 And also on Valentine's Eve, we got some cute video of Eve's new favorite word and, more importantly, food. Roll! I made some cresent rolls on Sunday and Eve has been devouring them! She knows where I keep them on the counter, so she stands under them, pointing up, saying "roll, roll!". How can you refuse that? So she ate a lot of them....

Shades and Slides

Eve's discovered a fascination with eye wear!  And since Andrew's sunglasses cost less than my real glasses, she gets to experiment with those...

"Do I look cool, Mom?"

I had Monday off of work (gotta love working in sales!) so we had a very productive day.  Andrew and Eve went to the doctor and got medicine for their ear infections, we ran lots of moving/house buying related errands (loan document signing, fridge shopping, etc.) and still had time at the end of the day for a jaunt to the park!

We decided to try a park we've never been to before because we saw that it had a playground for Eve.  So we pulled the jogging stroller out, buckled Eve in, and set out!

It was a little further away than we thought, but we made it!



Eve went to town on the slides.  The section of the park we were in had 3 and she tried each one multiple times.

"Again, Daddy!"



Her hands were pretty chilly by this point (and her cute nose!) so they didn't last long on the swings.  And with a long walk home, we knew we had to get going.



We had a blast at the park, though!  Soon we'll have a house with a yard and playing outside will be right at our fingertips!  2 1/2 weeks!

Random Pictures of Cuteness

In going through my pictures today, I realized I have several cute pictures of Eve that didnt' quite fit in any post...so they have become a post in and of themselves!  :)

Precursor to reading on the toilet...

Cute in her pjs, ready for bed!

Apparently she's more interested in the camera case than in smiling for the camera!

Chillin'...



Mommy and Eve!



The cuddlest puppy and baby ever!



And just this morning...





House Hunting

For those who haven't yet heard, we are moving back to Texas in three weeks!

We received an offer in mid-January from the team I worked on in San Antonio to come back.  We thought it was something we had some time to consider, but came to found out that the wanted me back immediately.  We had a few very concentrated days of thinking, praying, and decision making!  We decided that this is a good opportunity for us and agreed to take it. 

The job is in Dallas now, so at the end of February we'll once again to loading up and moving on!  This will be our 4th move in 2 1/2 years.  But this time, it's permanent enough that we're buying a house!

Once we made our decision, we planned a quick house hunting trip to see what we could find.  We desperately wanted to move back to the same ward that we lived in Richardson so we started searching online and engaged the help of a realtor from that ward.  A foolproof plan, right?

Wrong.  We couldn't find anything in the ward!  We found pictures of one online that looked perfect for us.  But the realtor went to take a look at it for us and....it was not desirable.  :(  Boo!  Then we found one we LOVED!  And, you guessed it, after being on the market for 200+ days, it went under contract the afternoon before we arrived in Texas and could go see it.  How did we find out?  By the home inspector that was in the house when we showed up for our showing!  Double boo!

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  We went down to Texas on Wednesday, 1/25, and our trip didn't get off to the best start.  Eve did ok on the plane, but things just went downhill from there.  We got in around 11pm that night and went to pick up our rental car.  An hour later....!  They only had ONE size of car seat and it was way too small for Eve.  And it took 45 minutes to get it installed in the car.  Eve's knees were in her chest every time she was in the seat.  Poor girl. 

So we finally got over to our hotel after midnight only to find that the crib we had called ahead for was NOT in the room and, sorry, but housekeeping was gone for the day and no one could get us a crib.  Are you kidding me?!  So Eve and I slept in one bed and Andrew in the other.  It was not a restful night...both Eve and I tend to move around a lot.

We were scheduled to meet our realtor early the next morning, so we were up bright and early.  That was the discouraging morning when we realized that all the houses we had picked out online as our top 3 - 4 would not work for us.  And our favorite had been taken the day before.  We ended our search early that day.  In poor spirits.

We headed up to stay with my Grandma for the remaining 3 days we had there. 

It was so nice of them to put us up!

And Eve enjoyed playing with some new toys!

That night we knew we had to do some serious re-evaluating of our plans.  We only had a few homes left on our list to see on Friday - and none of them we'd ever really been very intersted in.  Do we decided it was time to expand our search to Garland, even though it wasn't in the ward we wanted. 

We came up with about 12 more houses that fit every criteria we had, just weren't in the ward, and sent them to the realtor to schedule showings.  We had a busy Friday!  By the end of the day, we had really only one house that we both liked and it was decision time.  Did we like it enough to give up living in the ward with all our friends?  It may sound silly, but it was not an easy decision - that's how much we wanted to go back to that ward!

But at the end of the day, we both felt good about it:

The ward meets in the same builing as our ward, so we attended there in the morning on Sunday and decided that this is the place for us right now, even if it's not what we originally wanted.  I guess Heavenly Father has other plans for us!

We came home on Sunday night and made an offer on the house on Monday.  We negotiated back and forth a couple of time with the sellers, finally landed on a price, and are now moving forward in the process, set to close and move in on February 28th!  I start work in Dallas on March 1st.

Crazy...

Side note: it wasn't all work and no play on our house hunting trip :)  We had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa Bradley!  Eve got to eat more french fries when we went out one night for dinner at Braums...yum!   

I took more pictures of the house, but wasn't sure about posting too many before we actually close.  More to come!

Happy Chinese Pie Year?

For those of you who missed it (and I hope no one did!), Monday, January 23rd, was two important holidays: Chinese New Year AND National Pie Day!

We celebrated in style!  We made sweet and sour chicken for dinner - why didn't I take any pictures?!  I thought I had!  It was so yummy!  The perfect way to welcome the year of the dragon!

Then we had chocolate cream pie for pie day!  We've been so busy, so stressed, so...well, just watch for the next post to explain more about that...anyway, I went super simple on the pie.  Just a store bought oreo crust, instant pudding, and cool whip.  But it was delicious!  And still a pie!  Even if it wasn't homemade....

Hmmmm...there seems to be some pie left on my plate...



Waste not, want not!



Eve enjoyed her pie down to the very last lick.  Then her clothes went in the wash.  :)



Happy New Year and Pie Day!  

Ring in the New Year!

We had a perfect New Year this year - quiet and calm.  After hamburgers with Andrew's parents, we went back to their house, hung out, and were in bed by 10.  We were exhausted from all our vacationing!  ;)

After Church on Sunday, Grandpa let Eve help him on the computer.

While the rest of the family engaged in a fiesty round of skip-bo.

"I've never seen a kitchen this big, Mommy!  I don't even know where to begin!"

Starting a new year, the third one Eve's lived in, wears you out!  Good thing we have a puppy to snuggle with!

On Monday, we drove up to Salt Lake to meet Katie and Danny and their family for lunch at CPK!  I haven't seen Katie since our wedding - 2 1/2 years! - so it was so much fun to get to spend even a little time with them.  It wasn't quite the same as I remembered, since all of us spent most of the time catering to children, but still we had a blast! 

And the best part is, Katie and Danny just moved back to Utah, so we should be able to see them more often now!

Claire, Sophie, Johnny, and Eve!

Oh, and Katie's expecting their fourth!  Yay!  Another boy!

Oh, and I got my hair cut while we were in Utah, as you can see....

It was so nice and warm outside, that when we parted ways after lunch, we just walked around a bit outside.  Loving the sunshine!

We still had another day and a half left on our 2 week vacation, although by this point, the reality of leaving friends and family to go back to Michigan was starting to set in and I didn't want to go! 

Eve was unconcerned and passed the time with her new favorite toy - the tupperware bowl I got for Christmas.  Enjoy it while you can, Eve, because when we get back home, it's mine!

We probably ate out WAY too much in Utah, but it has so many of our favorite restaurants (yes, we did also make it to Cafe Rio once, not picured) that we feel the need to eat at each of them every time we're in town!

That being said, Andrew's parents treated us to J-Dogs (is that how you spell it?) while we were there.  Despite our years at BYU, we'd never eaten there before.

It was yummy!

While the men-folk watched sports, Eve got some quality play time in with Grandma! 

And on Tuesday, Jan 3rd, our last full day in Provo, we went to Stans with Kelly and Reagan (recently returned from a trip to see Lance's family) for one last visit! 

Reagan even earned a tiny taste of vanilla ice cream from someone's shake.  Eve ate a lot of ice cream.

Our last outting in Provo?  The BYU Bookstore, of course!  Can't not stop there!

We were lucky that we were able to stay for a whole week in Utah!  It gave Eve time to re-remember everyone and get really comfortable! 

Thanks for an AWESOME vacation - we truly did not want to leave!

Fun Times in Utah!

After Laura and Danny's wedding, we had almost another week in Utah to spend lots of time with friends and family!

Eve got to go play with Reagan at her house before Aunt Kelly and Uncle Lance left to go to visit his family.  Reagan was really nice to share her fun toys!

When Aunt Lisa wasn't at work, Eve got to play with her too!  She let Eve jump on her face - what a good aunt :)

High five!

One afternoon, Andrew, Eve, and I went out to lunch with Marinda - chinese food!  Yum!  With cream cheese wontons like no other place we've found makes them.  I'm getting hungry just thinking about them....

Then Eve and I went over to Marinda's to spend the afternoon.  Eve got to riffle through a whole new stack of DVDs!  While Eve took a nap, Marina and I watched "The Proposal" - hilarious!  It's nice to catch a chick flick every now and again....

This was New Years Eve, I suppose I should mention (when we went to see Marinda).  That evening, we went for dinner to JCW's with Andrew's parents.  Eve enjoyed the fries and fry sauce.  Why do restaurants outside of Utah not have fry sauce.  It's just ketchup and mayo, people.  How hard is it?!