The Last Day of July!?!

I can't believe that this summer is flying by!! We only have 3 weeks left until school starts! I'm not sure whether I should jump for joy or be sad that I'm going to be left at home. Ellie is so excited to go school shopping and Maddie asks almost everyday when she gets to go back to school. (I guess I'm pretty boring) Ethan is just as excited, although Preschool isn't quite as frequent as "Big School". Not only does school start in a little over 3 weeks, that means our baby will be here soon too! WOW! Then that means that Halloween is here and Thanksgiving. Amy will be having her baby and then blink it's Christmas! OK OK I have to stop or it will be summer again before I turn around!

Funny Ethan

So Ethan says some pretty funny things and yesterday we were over at my mom's house and he found some big beetle things on her driveway. He was so excited! (A boy thing I guess) He sat there for at least a half an hour examining them. He ran over to Alan and made him look at them too. Then he was describing them to us. "And look at those huge Hannah Montana's (antenna)" OK Yes he is definitely a boy and Yes he definitely has 2 older sisters.

10 weeks left!!

I'm down to counting the weeks on my hands. Only 10 weeks left of this pregnancy. Unfortunately 10 weeks is still a LONG TIME!! The kids have to still go back to school. I sure can't wait for it to be over. My kids are so excited to see "the baby". Lately they love to have me lay down and put their hands on my tummy and feel it kick. Ethan one day asked where it's cheek was because he wanted to kiss it. They talk to her constantly, Ellie always says "Hello in there!" and Maddie and Ethan always tell her that they love her. I hope they love her just as much after she's born and crying. We went to Wal-mart the other day and Ellie found a blankie that the baby just "has to have!" and Ethan found some binkies. He was so funny because he was so particular over which one she would want. I hope he's right because I couldn't get out of the store without them. I think I would have had to buy the whole baby section if I hadn't made him get in the cart so we could leave.
With India still in limbo we haven't wanted to rearrange the house yet to accommodate this baby so for now we've just cleared out a closet for her clothes. I guess she'll just have to sleep in a cradle in my room for now. If India falls through though, we will move Ellie and Maddie downstairs and give their room to "baby".

Ellie's Baptism

Wow! What a busy past 2 weeks we've had. It started with Maddie's birthday on the 24th. We had her friends over and blew up our waterslide. That is an all day deal in it's self. After the party, the neighborhood kids came over to play on it while it was still up. Needless to say her birthday party didn't just go from 1-3 like it said on the invitation, it finally ended around 7:00 that night when we unplugged the slide.

Then, on the 27th we flew to LA for our anniversary to see wicked (see our other posts).

Then, on July 3rd Ellie had her 8th birthday party at the Lion House. What a fun, special birthday party! All the kids dressed up in their Sunday dresses. At the party, they learned about Brigham Young and toured the Lion House. They also got to eat ribbon sandwiches and Lemonade. We then pulled taffy like the pioneers and played a few pioneer games. At the end of the party, Ellie got to pick a porcelin doll from the shelf to keep.

On the 4th we cleaned our house and got ready for the 5th (Ellie's Baptism). Alan painted our deck and got the yard ready, while the kids and I cleaned the inside of our house. We also had some fun. We went to the movie Wall-e and went to the Holladay City firework show. Our fun neighbors across the street shuffled us all down there in their fun car "The Runt". They had it all decorated with flags and balloons etc.

On the 5th we had Ellie's baptism at 9:30 a.m. Thank you to all of you who traveled to our house to be with her on her special day! She said to me in the dressing room after she had been baptized, "Can you believe how many people are here!...And their all here for ME!!" What a special feeling! After her baptism we all came back to our house and once again blew up the waterslide.

All in all we've had a busy life this past month, but I wouldn't trade the memories for anything.

India

So anyone who has heard, Alan has put his name in with E&Y to move to India for a year and train the Indians in Accounting. We've been waiting to hear whether or not his name would be picked. We still aren't sure when we'd go, but it's looking more and more likely that we will. I'm thinking it's more of a question of when they will send us not if. We could leave as soon as January 2009, or it may not be until July 2009. We'll just have to keep waiting to see. Needless to say, I've been searching the internet to see anything I can find out about India. We'd be located in Bangalore, which is in the Southern tip. The most informing clip I've found so far is a link from You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVL_GcyT7dI I'm not sure if it has made me too excited or not.

I actually am really excited. I think it's going to be a great experience for our family. Our kids were less than thrilled when Alan announced that we might go. Ellie's reaction was to break down into tears and because she did, so did Maddie. Then Alan to try and ease there concerns tried to lookup some pictures on the internet of Bangalore. He found a picture of some kids riding on an elephant and all of the sudden Ellie is fine about moving there. (She is an animal LOVER!!) Then, he found a clip from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where they are all sitting around a table eating and now Ethan is convinced that we are going to have to eat Snake surprise, Big Beetles and Chilled Monkey Brains. I just hope they have Diet Coke :)

Our "WICKED" weekend

Alan and I went to LA this past weekend to see the musical "Wicked" We left our kids at home with Grandma and Grandpa. We had a blast! and I'm sure the kids did too. (Ethan told us to go back because he still wanted to sleep and Grandmas.) While we were there we stayed in The Renaissance Marriott in Hollywood. We didn't realize it when we booked it, but it was right in the middle of everything. If anyone is planning on going, I highly recommend staying there! We didn't get a car, just walked to everything! Kodak Theatre, Mann's Chinese Theatre, and Hollywood Blvd are all right outside the doors to this hotel!

The musical was wonderful! When we got home our kids wanted to know what it was about so Alan started telling it to them and today all they have wanted to do is watch "The Wizard of Oz"

Also while we were there we dicided to take a tour of the Celebrity Homes. We saw where the live and tried a little stocking, ha ha! Of course I forgot to pack our camera so we took some pictures on our phone. I'll have to upload them as soon as I can get them transferred from there.

Ah Haa

OK so I'm not that smart. You just have to click on the add image thingy. Ellie is so excited that she is going to be getting baptized. Yes, I can't believe she is going to be 8 next week!! We went and got her baptism pictures taken the other day and she acted so old. It was so fun to shop with her! She definately had an opinion on the dress that she liked and which ones she didn't. Of course she got my taste, and the one that she loved the best was the most expensive, but you only get baptized once. (Hopefully)