New Lant Residence

Ever since we moved I feel like we have been looking at homes for sale in our area and trying to do all our research.  We have talked with several builders and walked through several model homes trying to figure out exactly what we want.  We saw a house with a floor plan we fell in love with and started to move forward to seeing what it would take to build the home.  We continued to look at other homes but not loving them as much as the other house. We kept a very watchful eye on sites like Zillow to see all the homes for sale in our area.  

The house we love could be built in the neighborhood that connects to the one we live in now.  Just a few blocks away!  Which was awesome because we love our area and everything that comes with it. We love Lucy's school district, our ward and the proximity to the highway and JJ's work.   The one thing we never loved were the lots available to build the home on.  We kept going back and forth between lots and never loved any of them.  Meanwhile there was this house.  We walked through it back in September.  It is the floor plan we love and since we were thinking about building we wanted to go through it to see some of the finishes. In September we weren't in a position to buy and not long after we looked at it the house sold.  The house actually sold twice and contracts fell through twice due to the buyers.  Everything just seemed to be playing in our favor.  Timing for us was everything! We know that homes in this neighborhood don't stay on the market for long! We are so excited to move in to the house.  We will all enjoy more space to be able to spread out.  It is on a cold-e-sac with one of the biggest lots in the neighborhood.  It is so fun and exciting to have bought our first home. I am sure it will be a learning process for us as well as we discover all of our new responsibilities. We have already learned so much coming just this far. We close in March and couldn't be more excited.

Story Time

We have really enjoyed going to storey time together this month.  I am so glad they switched a few things this month.  In the past you have had to sign up for story time and they only had a certain number of slots available, and it wasn't every week.  For January and February they are doing it every week and with no registration.  It makes it much easier on my part, less planning and we can just decide on Tuesday morning if we want to go.  They always have such fun books and crafts for the kids each week.  We went every week and learned about snow and snowmen, the post office,  being a president (the week of the inauguration) and then quiet and loud.  We have fun at story time and then always enjoy playing with the trains and picking out new movies, books and books with CDs to listen to when we drive in the car. Lucy will request certain books and we always try to find them.  Most of the books are for her since she has to do so much reading each night as part of her homework, thank goodness for the library!

 

Lately

Lucy was off school for Martin Luther King day and we ran a few errands together that morning.  We made a stop at Trader Joe's.  The kids love to go there because they have the little shopping carts there.  We had fun doing a little shopping there and then stopped at a local thrift store.  They were having 1/2 off for the holiday and we scored a few good deals.  After we were done there we headed over to have lunch with my parents.  It was fun to visit with them for a little bit and worked out nice since we were out in their direction that day.  Lucy and I worked on her 100 th day of school poster together that afternoon while watching the presidential inauguration.

 Thursday night I went out with a fiend from high school.  She lives in our neighborhood and also sells Mary Kay.  She invited me to go be her model that night and it was a fun evening.  We had a nice dinner there, did facials and then she did my make up.  It was fun to visit with her and get out of the house that night.  I wish I had tons of money because I would love to buy their skin care products.

Friday night JJ and I went out to celebrate my friend Maureen's 30th birthday.  We took the kids over to my parents house and had dinner with them.  The party wasn't until later and I like to eat an early dinner, so it worked out good to eat before going. The kids were excited to spend time with them while we were gone and it was nice to be able to go without them.  We had a nice time at the party visiting with everyone that was there and of course seeing Maureen.  It has been a while since we have gotten together so it was nice to catch up with her.  Hopefully we can get together again soon and be able to visit more. 

 Saturday's are always busy at our house.  JJ works in the morning and I take the kids with me to the gym.  I have really started to enjoy the Saturday class and it is a nice break in the morning to take the the kids over there.  That afternoon JJ helped a family move into our neighborhood.  It is nice to be getting more ward members in our neighborhood.  They moved in right behind us, we can see the back of their house from our back door and literally just walk over to their house from ours.  I made a huge dinner that afternoon and we were able to share some with their family since they had just moved in.  After dinner we headed over to a community activity.  They had a family activity that ran all weekend called "Cabin Fever Daze" and it was a total flop.  They advertisement sounded really fun and seemed like they had lots of fun activities planned.  We are hoping since it was a beautiful day that it was busier before we got there.  They were doing ice sculpture demos, snow shoeing obstacle course and had crafts for the kids.  By time we got there they had outdoor ice skating, which was on some weird plastic and not even on real ice and then they had a fire performer.  It was horrible and the fire dancers were really weird.  It was sad because there was probably only like 20 people there and we left after being there about 30 minutes.  We left and headed to walk around Target and then stopped at the grocery store for a treat to have when we got home.

 The kids love this book "how things work" and ask to read it all the time.  Garrett loves to get it off the shelf and just look at it.  It has several pages of things like a toilet, airplane, escalators, water slides and several simple machines.  There are flaps and simple explanations on how these things work .  The kids love it and will now often tell me random things about how the toilet flushes and how the crane lifts things in the air.  They are so curious and love to figure out how things work and I am so glad I got this book for them for Christmas.

100th Day Of School

Today was the 100th day of school.  Lucy was so excited about all the fun things they were going to do at school.  Each student made a poster with 100 things on it to bring to school.  Lucy knew exactly how she wanted her poster to look.  I helped her work on it Monday afternoon gluing all the hearts into place.  Then Tuesday morning we discovered that we should have used hot glue.  While Lucy was at school this week I pulled all the hearts off and used hot glue to reattach them.  I should have used it in the first place but wanted Lucy to be more involved.  Last night she was so excited she was worried she wouldn't be able to sleep.  She had so much fun telling me all about her fun day when she got home from school. They combined with the other classes to do fun things in each room.  I just love kindergarten and all the fun things they get to do.

A Bigger Gap

Sunday night the gap in Lucy's mouth got a little bigger.  She lost her second tooth, the lower one right next to the other one she already lost.  It did not come out as easy as the first one.  It ended up being a really sad experience for her but it literally was hanging on by a thread.  I had to just reach in and pull it out.  There was lots of tears and crying, thank goodness for black and white photos so you can't see the splotches on her face. Her gums were so swollen and tender and it had been bothering her for a while.  She was glad to finally have it out.  Since it has come out she has been able to eat so much better and her mouth doesn't hurt anymore.  Thank goodness.  After the traumatic event that was I am hoping she doesn't get another loose tooth for a while.

 

I was a dental assistant for a few years before having Lucy.  She asked me once during this whole process of loosing those teeth lots of questions about her teeth.  There was one question and I told her I didn't know.  She said but aren't you a dentist.  I laughed and told her no I use to be a dental assistant and they was a long time ago.  She said oh I told my friends you were a dentist. 

 

Since she lost her tooth on a Sunday and the tooth fairy didn't have any dollar bills I told JJ that maybe the tooth fairy cold just explain that they don't come pick up teeth on Sunday since we don't work on Sunday.  JJ said no I am sure the tooth fairy can just borrow a dollar from her piggy bank, she will never know.  Then just put it back and she will never know it was gone.  I told him that I hope the tooth fairy didn't do that because I was sure Lucy would count all her dollars in the morning and would notice one was missing.  Well I wasn't sure exactly what happened as I went to sleep.  I did wake up in the morning and Lucy first thing waved a dollar bill in my face and said look what the tooth fairy brought me.  She then said but it is the weirdest thing, I am missing a dollar out of my piggy bank! I said oh really! JJ said yeah it is strange but I told her to let me know exactly what was missing and I will give her the money so it is all there.  I was just happy to know that I knew Lucy and I knew that something like a missing dollar would not slide past her. 

Zoo

Saturday afternoon we headed to the zoo as a family.  The weather was nice but was suppose to cool down that afternoon and start to rain.  As soon as JJ got home from work we headed down.  The kids were so excited to go to the zoo and run around, especially being inside and off school for so many days that week.  They needed some physical activity and walking around the zoo was perfect.

We started off with riding the train, we rode a couple of stops and then got off since we wanted to spend most of the time seeing the animals inside the houses. Most of the houses were over on that side of the zoo.

 

 

It was nice to walk around inside the houses.  We saw the monkeys and then headed over to the bird house.  They had so many fun birds inside and the kids really enjoyed seeing them.  There were some birds that looked like lots of the birds on the movie "Rio".  We then walked around the reptile house for a short while. 

As we finished looking at the animals it started to rain.  The train only ran until 3 and with the rain we decided to head home.  We finished the last couple of stops on the train which was perfect since it took us back to the front of the zoo.  It was a nice trip to the zoo seeing animals we don't normally see.

 

 

 

Sick

Lucy came home from school the other day with this from Art class.  She made it for Garrett, it is a roller coaster.  I thought it was pretty cute.

Tuesday Lucy got off the bus and something was wrong.  She was really quiet and just not herself.  I asked her several times if she was okay and if everything went okay at school.  She said yes and it was nothing.  We walking in the door and she went straight to the couch and fell asleep.  She came home from school on Monday with a note that she went to the nurse with a stomach ache but was fine to finish school.  I just thought maybe she was tired.  She slept for about 15 minutes and then woke up and told me she had a stomach ache.  She just laid on the couch for a little while and watched TV.  I got her to drink some sprite and I think that just did her in, she started to throw up.  She said her stomach hurt while she was at school but since she went to the nurse the day before she couldn't go again.  I felt sorry for her since she had to go to gym class and run around while not feeling well.  I can also understand that at that age you would be sending kids to the nurse all the time. 

She only threw up a couple of times and went to bed early that night.  She was fine the next morning and ready to eat.  We kept her home from school, which she was sad about.  She stood outside in the backyard to watch the bus come to her bus stop.  She watched all the kids get on and was sad she wasn't with them.

 

We spent the day hanging out at home running an errand.  The weather was nice so the kids played outside to get some fresh air.  I spent the day cleaning the house really well hoping the rest of us would stay healthy. 

Thursday she was better and ready to go back to school.  JJ and I took Garrett with us and we headed to the gym together.  After the gym we did some grocery shopping and just as we were about to wrap up our shopping Lucy's school called and she had a fever.  We finished our shopping quickly and headed over to the school to pick her up.  She was sad to be home again but happy we were all home together.  We gave her some medicine and after lunch she seemed fine.  JJ took her to the library to check out some fun books.  We hung out together and played a new game we got with some Christmas money. It ended up being a nice relaxing day.

School policy is you can not return to school until you are fever free for 24 hours.  So Lucy was hope with us again on Friday. We only had to give her medicine right when we picked her up and I felt that she probably would have been totally fine to go to school on Friday.  She was so bored with us at home, but we understand the rule and it was fine.  I took the kids to run a few errand with me and we then went to the park.  It was a beautiful day in the 60s and we enjoyed getting out and using up some energy.

 

 

I am glad that so far no one else has gotten sick and we were able to enjoy some time with Lucy.  Having sick kids is always hard.  It is hard to see them sick and it is also so much work to keep up with constant cleaning to keep the rest of the family healthy.  She no longer has perfect attendance and has lots of school work to catch up on.  I am just happy to see her healthy again.

Moving Up

Sunday Garrett and Lucy moved up Primary classes at church.  Garrett moved up from Nursery to join Lucy in Primary.  He is so excited to be a Sunbeam.  It is fun for them to walk together into Primary and Lucy is so good to help him find his seat and make sure he is all settled before joining her class.  She sits right behind his class, which sometimes is a little hard for Garrett.  He wants to turn around and tell her things and give her hugs.  I am sure as he gets more use to being in Primary and learn what is expected he will improve.

Lucy is now a Valiant 7, I can't believe she has grown so fast.  I can remember her first day of Sunbeams and it doesn't seem like it was that long ago.  She enjoys her new teachers and thinks it is fun to now have Garrett with her in Primary.   She is always quick to report how things went when we get in the car after church.

Lucy and Garrett were really good during church and were extra helpful to me while JJ was gone.  Lucy especially really stepped up and made sure to help me when I needed it.  I am glad she is such a big helper.  It was nice to have morning church and be able to come home and relax during the afternoon.  My little brother picked JJ up from the airport Sunday afternoon and it was nice to be able to have him home for dinner that night.  We had fun spending time together that evening before starting another busy week.

While JJ was in Spokane we kept busy doing some fun things together.  We missed him a lot and it is always hard for me to be a single parent as he is away.  I was proud of myself for keeping things together and holding down the fort without having any major break downs.  Thursday night we made pizza and enjoyed a movie together.  Friday we got up and got things ready for Lucy to head to school.  It was a lot of work to get her out the door and on the bus all by myself.  I really appreciate all the help from JJ each morning.  Garrett and I spent the day together working on a little project together.  We went to the store and got these file boxes to reorganize our special papers. I have had them in binders, with the papers in sheet protectors.  I have seen several boxes like these on Pinterest and other sites and thought they were such a great idea. I made a file for each school year and a couple other files I wanted to have, like medical papers and church.   I made one for each of the kids and one for me and JJ.   It was fun to look through all the papers and fun little projects the kids have done that I have wanted to save.  JJ wrote me lots of letter when we were first dating and it was fun to look back through them.  It was also fun to see all the cute cards we have given each other over the years. I am happy with how they turned out and it will be so nice to add to them over the years.  

 

 

Friday night we went over to my parents house to spend time with them and have dinner.  My sister Courtney was leaving on Saturday to head back to BYU so it was good to see her one last time before she left.  It was so fun to see her over the holiday break and be able to do some fun things together.  It was nice to be able to spend the evening with family and have dinner together.  I was thankful for something fun to do that night to get us out of the house.

 

Saturday we kept busy with going to the gym in the morning and cleaning the house.  In the afternoon I took the kids to see a movie.  We saw "Rise of the Guardians", which was okay.  The kids enjoyed it and looked forward to going to the movie theater all day.  We made dinner and went to bed early that night, which was great since I had to work on my Sunday school lesson for church the next day. Church was switching to 9 AM and I was thankful to head to bed early to be able to get up and out the door on time the next day.  I was exhausted Saturday evening and was so thankful that JJ would be home on Sunday.  I think we were all in bed by 8:30, it was a long and lonely day!

Granny

Earlier this month I made a trip to Spokane, Washington. A few days prior, my sweet Grandmother, Elaine Lant, passed away at the age of 92. Her health had recently turned and we expected that she wouldn't be with us too much longer. She was born in 1920 in Southern Indiana and married her high school sweet heart, Norman Edward Lant, after he returned home from WWII. They moved around the country with my Granddad's work and had three sons, the second being my father. They finally settled in Northern Montana while my dad was in high school. As a kid I fondly remember visiting this white haired woman who expected my best manors or I would have heard other wise. She was the epitome of an old-fashioned lady, the men around her knew that she not only expected to be treated as a lady but very well deserved it too. I will forever cherish her influence on my life through those wonderful encounters as well as through the example of my father. I last saw here in 2010 when my family went to Spokane to celebrate her 90th birthday. This trip for her funeral was an emotional one, not only would I be missing her, but it would also stir up difficult feelings about my visit to Spokane in 2006 for my father's funeral. With all the emotions that came with it, it was a true celebration of her beautiful life and how much she impacted the lives of those she knew. As funerals can often do, it brought together many family members that I had not seen in too long of time. While there, we stayed up late each night visiting and determined that we, as a family, wanted to be closer. I know that's what Granny always wanted. I am grateful to have been able to go to be with my extended family and am so very grateful for my loving wife and children who were not able to come but supported me all the way.

Granny at her 90th Birthday Party in 2010

 

 

Dad, Granny, and I at my wedding reception in 2004

 

 

My cousin Michelle, her daughter Sarah and I at the Denver Airport. They were on their way back to Texas from Washington as I was on my way there. We had about 10 minutes to chat before their flight left. I had not seen her since my Granddad's funeral in 1987.

 

 

Uncle Mike and Uncle Jef at the service

 

 

Aunt Mary and my sister Rachel

 

 

My cousin Laura and I

 

My brother Nate, his third son Maxwell, and my cousin Laura

 

 

My nephews Lucas and Andrew

 

Ben (cousin), Me, Laura (cousin), Rachel (sister), Sam (cousin), and Nate (brother)

 

 

The cousins with Uncle Mike and Uncle Jef

 

Uncle Mike, Aunt Mary, Aunt Eileen, and Uncle Jef

 

The Sullenger's (Kash, Cara, Hudson, and Roxie). Friends from optometry school that live in Spokane

 

A Gap

Lucy has had to hear about so many friends and family loosing teeth.  One time when I told her someone lost a tooth she started to cry and tell me it just wasn't fair that she hadn't lost any! She is much older then most of the kids losing teeth and so it really just doesn't seem fair to her.  We were sitting down to have lunch a little over a week ago (12-28-2012) and Lucy told me her tooth hurt.  I wasn't sure if she was just thinking something was wrong or if there really was.  I asked her to show me which ones hurt and she said her 2 bottom teeth.  I felt them and sure enough her 2 bottom teeth were loose! She was so excited and got tears in her eyes.  Sweet Lucy, her day had finally come! I told her to start wiggling them so they would get more and more loose.  She did just that.  She always had her hands in her mouth giving those teeth a nice wiggle. She would spend lots of time looking in the bathroom mirror while she wiggled it.  

That night we read the Tooth Fairy book that the kids got for Christmas.  It is a really cute book about a girl who looses her tooth.  She writes a couple of notes back and forth with the tooth fairy.  Lucy thought it would be fun to write a couple of notes to the tooth fairy letting her know her tooth was loose.  It was fun for her to get excited about this fun step in life.

 She wasn't being very aggressive since it hurt to really push on them.  One tooth was really loose and I was sure it would come out any day.  I helped her give it a good wiggle a couple times and she didn't really care for our help since we were to aggressive.  She didn't like that it was bleeding a little.   She saw on America's Funniest Home Videos some kids who tied string to their teeth and pulled it out like that.  She wanted to do that.  We tried it a couple times and it was really tricky since the tooth was so small.  JJ even bribed her with a couple dollars to just pull it out.  Finally one night we just said, it has to come out! It was hanging by a thread.  We tried the sting again and it was tricky, you would get it tied really good on the tooth and it would be hard to try to attach it to a door handle.  Finally when we had it really good around the tooth JJ just yanked it out when she wasn't paying attention.  Her tooth came right out! (on 1-2-13)  She was so excited! She was happy that she would be able to go to school the next day and tell all her friends she lost a tooth.  What a fun way to end her winter break.  She was able to go to school and be the first name in the month of January on the poster they have in the classroom.  She also thinks it is fun to put her straw through the little gap in her teeth. Now just onto the other tooth.

 

Christmas Card

I had such a nice time going to the mailbox each day during the Christmas season and getting Christmas cards in the mail.  It was fun to see every one's cute families and read great letters about what is going on in their lives.  We are so thankful to all our friends that we have been able to keep in touch with.  I loved thinking about each of them and the friendships that we have.  I am sad the Christmas card season is over, our mail is back to boring.  Full of bills and ads! Feel free to send us mail even if it isn't Christmas.

Winter Break

 After all the Christmas activities were over we spent lots of time just relaxing at home.  We didn't have anything going on and we just enjoyed hanging out together and the kids had a fun time playing with all their new toys.  It was nice to be able to spend time together and also nice to catch up on little things that were put off during the holidays.  We did do lots of fun little things together.  I had bought these Styrofoam cones and spray painted them green.  We used toothpicks and put spice drops on the end to make them look like Christmas trees.  We didn't get around to doing them until after Christmas but the kids still thought they were lots of fun. 

 

 

 

 

They turned out really good.  Other then my spray paint eating away at the Styrofoam! The kids loved it and I am glad we took the time to do it.

 We went to Chuck E Cheese together as a family.  I bought a ton of tokens with a coupon we had.  We gave the kids just a few tokens so we can go back several more times.  We had fun playing some games together and getting out of the house.  They love going there!

  

 We went to the library a couple of times to get some fun movies to watch together as a family and also some books to read.  It was fun to pick out a couple of movies to watch with Lucy in the afternoon while Garrett took a nap.  It was fun to cuddle up with her and drink hot chocolate and watch movies. 

 JJ worked pretty much all of Lucy's break.  He worked 1/2 day on Christmas Eve and had off on Christmas day.  He also got off on New Years day, but other then that it was normal/long days for him at work.  He was anxious to get out on his new bike! He took it out one Saturday afternoon while Garrett was napping and had a nice ride.  He was so excited and had a blast.  Other then getting a flat tire pretty far back in the trail it was a good ride.  He had to walk his bike all the way back to the car.  He has since ordered himself several more tire tubes and a little bag to keep them on his bike with a small pump.  Lesson learned!

Lucy loves to listen to her music.  She would sometimes get bored during the afternoons when I had things that needed to be done.  JJ gave her some headphones one afternoon so she could listen to her music on the ipod.  He ipod was dead and needed to be charged so she laid on the living room floor listening to her music and singing along.  It was pretty cute! 

Lucy loves the little bad she got from my parents for Christmas.  She had fun coloring it just the way she wanted.  She loves to pack it full of stuff and carry it around and take it places.

New years Eve we got a little bit of snow and it was so fun! It is the most snow we have gotten all year.  I took the kids with me to the gym that morning and I was amazed at how it snowed the whole time I was in there and was still coming back when we left.  We drove carefully home and stopped by the library to get some movies to watch that night together.  The kids were so excited to get out and play in the snow.  I was wishing we had some sleds.  After lunch I decided to head to the store and buy some sleds.  We were so excited to bring them home and go sledding down the hill in the back of our house.   

 

 I have so many fun memories sledding for hours on snow days when I was growing up and it was fun to let the kids do the same.  It was so fun to hear how excited they were to run around and go down the hill together.  I went down with them a few times and we had such a fun time.   While Garrett was napping Lucy spent lots of time just out there sledding and walking around. 

We didn't do anything special for New Years this year.  By time JJ got home and we ate dinner it was pretty late to go anywhere.  We played the game "clue" together as a family and watched a little bit of a movie and had a glass of sparkling cider.  We were crazy and went to bed about 11 PM (late for us!).  I know that being boring and not heading to a fancy party might just be the stage we are in with smaller children.  I would also add that we had a fantastic time together just relaxing at home!

New Years Day we enjoyed more time together as a family.  In the afternoon we headed to an indoor swimming pool by our house.  They had it open free to the public during the afternoon.  It was a good time to go see what it was like.  I got the times messed up and we only had about 40 minutes to swim.  It was pretty busy since it was free day but it wasn't to bad.  After about swimming for 20 minutes the fire alarm went off and we all had to get out of the pool and go outside.  Some people just grabbed their stuff and headed outside in the cold (it was like 26 degrees that day).  They said we could change if we did it fast and that is just what we did.  We heard someone pulled the alarm, which was a bummer because we didn't get to swim very long.  We will have to go back because we had fun the short amount of time we were there.

Lucy went back to school on Thursday and she was more then ready to go back and see her friends and teacher.  We had a nice break with her home and I know Garrett really enjoyed playing with her every day.  We were glad to be able to relax and spend time together as a family! 2012 was a big year for our family, full of lots of ups and downs.  We are excited to welcome 2013 and hope it brings some fun adventures!