July

A lot of things have been happening for us these past few months! (I do not blog on my Ipad because it is ridiculous to blog on there). 

Basically our house is fantastic. We really like it and are settled in. Oliver is looking into remodeling the "bunk room", which we priced out as being not too expensive. Basically we would like to take out all of the built in stuff and make it an empty room.

We're also hoping that there is dry wall behind all of the wood covering the walls. The big idea is to turn this into a play room for the kids that I will be watching at home starting in December.

So that brings on a whole new story...

Yep, we're having a baby. Due November 18th.

Tomorrow we find out if it's a boy or a girl (most likely a girl although Oliver is convinced it's twins all of a sudden; no, I'm not enormous or anything he's just weird).

The plan is for me to stay home with this beautiful little person and watch other children at home. I'm really pumped for this idea. I have my policy book all written and a lot of other forms done and ready to go. I put an ad on craigslist and have gotten a lot of replies (unfortunately most of them are not reading the part about not taking kids until December). But I"m still hopeful that by the time I do stay home I'll have some sort of income from these other friends.

Pregnancy? Hmmmm...yeah it's been really easy. I've been super lucky and am therefore convinced I will have a crabby baby. We'll have to see. No morning sickness at all. I had the stomach flu and it took a while longer to get back to normal but that's all. I'm super hungry and have to go to the bathroom all the time. I did crave pickles a lot but that has died off in the last few weeks. My lower back hurts all the time but I work on my feet 10 hours a day, four days a week. I'm officially halfway done as of today and am so beyond excited to finally know if we're having a boy or a girl. No more debating then :D

I have been feeling baby moving around more in the past few weeks but definitely feel that I have to be paying attention to actually notice the movements. Unfortunately, Oliver has missed the few days so far that he would've been able to feel something.

Homeowner!

We have found a great house for a great price in Neenah! The final offer goes to the sellers tonight/tomorrow which is us saying yes to their counter offer! We're very excited and I for one can not wait until move in day. There are four bedrooms and two full bathrooms and its a two story with one room over the garage that is halfway upstairs (somehow this classifies the house as one and a half story). It's very open concept downstairs and I really just love it.

2012

Well, friends, 2012 is almost over. We've been blessed greatly this year and I have had the grand opportunity of getting to know my in-laws a lot better. It's definitely had downsides to living with the in-laws but I can say that I feel like I know them a lot better. And working the farmer's market with Amanda turned out to be a great bonding experience with her also. (I sure am ready to move though ;))

2012 In a Nut Shell

January-Settled in. Oliver got his job back at Appleton Steel. I worked at Little Angel Child Care for my 7 week internship. Callings in the YM and YW.

February-Still working hard. Enjoying Wisconsin! Finished internship and therefore all homework ;) Quit Walgreens :D

March

April-I officially graduated from BYU-Idaho with a Bachelor's in Child Development

June-Trip to Wisconsin Dells with my family for the annual Dells Run. Three year anniversary. Day trip to Six Flags! Rode the new X-flight coaster and every other roller coaster a few times. It was a great day to go.

July-I got an ipad for my birthday! So worth it. Noah's Ark in the Dells with the Clares. That was a great day (on the Fourth of July).

August-

September-Paid off Oliver's student loans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think Brittany and Ethan got engaged sometime around here. Also started a new job at Play and Grow Learning Center as a three-year-old teacher.

October-Carved the sweetest pumpkin ever.

November-Being thankful. Picked up Oscar.

December-Excellent Christmas. Started looking at houses!!!

So our year was not all that exciting. Honestly we've been working our butts off to pay off our student loans and save for a house. This has meant restricting our budget a bit (although we got a break for Christmas because Oliver worked on a house with his Dad and that paid for Christmas). We finally got to start looking at houses! We're working with a great mortgage lady and the relator seemed pretty nice when we looked this past Friday. I have already found the perfect house in the perfect location and Oliver likes it too but since we've only seen three houses we're going to check out some other ones in the area first before moving forward with that one. I would be okay with not looking but it's probably the better idea. If we find a house, etc, then we should be moving in March and more than half of my student loans will be paid off. So living with the in-laws has been bitter sweet. We have been able to save so much by living here and it has been a great experience getting to know everyone even better but I am so looking forward to moving on and being able to have my own house in just 3 months! I'm really looking forward to using all of my stuff again and two Christmases worth of presents that I haven't been able to really open because I can't use them yet. It's going to be a big year!

Christmas

Christmas was excellent this year. Oliver got some awesome legos from me that he was not expecting. He built me some beautiful furniture that I now have to sand and stain. He made matching bedside tables and shelves for our movies. 

Thankfully, next year we will have our own house and will be adjusting our Christmas schedule so that we can spend more time at my parent's house etc. I do have a lot of Grandparents that we went to and my parents were there but it was kind of lame Christmas morning when we had to leave their house right away after presents to get back to the Clares. It would have been nice to linger. Next year we'll probably just stick to going to my parents and Oliver's parents and visiting everyone else some other time. We'll see what happens. :D

Halloween

As always, we carved a great pumpkin this year (by we I mean Oliver did).

Yes, we took it from Pinterest. But it still looked fantastic!

Oscar

The week before Thanksgiving Oliver was going hunting at his friend Randall's parents land. Since they had to be up early they spent the night over there and Sarah (Randall's wife) and I went over for dinner. So Randall's parents own a big piece of land with woods and a barn full of cows...and a lot of cats...and therefore kittens. And then I took one home with me....

 

 Alex really enjoys Oscar. He likes being able to carry one of the cats around.

His name is Oscar. And I will seriously not be getting another animal until one of our three kicks the bucket. Anyway, he is super fun and full of energy. He and Mikey had become the best of friends for a little while and then Mikey got some eye infection (which is better now) and now hates the world and specifically playful Osacr. Oscar is a little trouble maker and usually gets kicked out of our room at night because he will not sleep. He really likes to play with my hair an dandy ones feet (is hazardous while walking).

Luckily, his claws and manhood will be gone this coming Friday! We're all very excited.

Little Brother

I had a great summer spending time with my brother outside, etc. he loves to come to my house and asks me a lot if he can come over. And he does come over a lot. He turned four in November and is very into Legos. Very specifically dinosaur Legos. He did get all the big "dinosaur city" Lego sets for Christmas that he wanted. But don't ask if you can take the Legos apart to build them again. Every
time I do it's a definite no. I also started working at a different child care center in September. At this new place I work four days a week for 10 hours a day. Therefore every Friday I spend the whole day with Alex. This does mean that he usually gets stuck running errands with me but we do have lots of fun together!