Our First House

 We bought a townhouse in Logan in 2011. We lived there for a year and a half, then rented it out while we were in NY. Curtis has always wanted an investment property, so our plan was to test out if we liked it or not by having a single unit we rented out for a few years. We figured at the end of Curtis' graduate school we could either sell it or keep it.  Luckily though, while we've been throwing away money on rent for two years, our tenants have been helping to pay down our mortgage and now we have a decent chunk of equity to show for it.

Our plan was to rent for awhile to figure out where we wanted to buy a house in Utah.As soon as we found out we were having twins, our plan to stay in Bountiful in the rented townhouse went right out the window.We like it in here, but it's pretty squishy and there's no way on the planet we could fit twins in the house without moving all of our third bedroom full of stuff to a storage unit or my parent's house to store. 

We've had our Logan townhouse on the market for a few months now.  We got an offer on it about a week ago. They wanted to pay cash and close quickly. We counter-offered, they counter-offered and we accepted their offer. Today is bittersweet. I am thrilled to pieces that we sold our townhouse in Logan "officially" (they closed on it this morning), but part of me is a little sad to be giving away keys to a place that will always hold a little bit of a special place in my heart. This is the house where we lived before we had kids, where we planned out so many of our hopes and dreams with schooling, work and family, where we found out we were finally expecting Kaden after years of waiting, the place where Curtis threw me a rockin' surprise birthday party, and on and on... I am excited to start looking for our next home, but I think part of me will always love this little townhouse and cherish the time we spent there.

Kaden is Two and a Half

Kaden recently went to his two and a half year checkup in mid February 2015 and I wanted to update about some of the things he likes/does right now. He is 37 inches tall (almost 80th percentile for height) and weighs 32 lbs (40th percentile for weight). He is such a silly boy with so much personality. 

Some Kaden fun facts at this age:

• He is very much a two year old. He is still a very picky eater and will hardly touch anything that resembles a bread product (bread, bagels, rice, rolls, etc...) or a vegetable.  (I trick him and puree a lot of stuff into our meals, muahaha!)
• Sometimes Kaden is really sweet and polite, other times throwing massive tantrums on the floor for very random reasons.
• Kaden is developing quite the little imagination. Several times a day he'll switch what we all are. "Mommy you are a monkey and Kaden is a fish."
• He always talks in third person. We've tried to correct it, but he doesn't care. Plus, it's kind of cute, so we don't correct it too much...
• Any word that should begin with "S" always begins with D instead: he rides his dooter, he eats "Dittles", he is a "dary" monster, the kids ride on "dool" bus, etc... It's pretty funny.
• We say, "Kaden we'll make you a deal" a lot when we're trying to get him to do things like eat his food or get ready to go somewhere. His response if he doesn't like it is always, "That is not a deal AT ALL!"

• He loves having multiple bowls and cups at most meals, even if the stuff could all fit in one bowl or plate. Good thing our landlord finally decided to buy us a new dishwasher after many months of not having one that worked, aka hand washing all of the many dishes many times a day.

Some of his favorite things right now are:

• Playing instruments- he uses my kitchen funnels as his "flute" and he usually has a kazoo in his mouth.  He loves going to our weekly music class that I lead on Fridays at the church because he gets to sing/dance.  (Well on days that he decides he feels like participating that is.)
• Kaden loves to play "bakery" behind his rocking chair in his room. He makes ice cream for Curtis & I every night before bedtime prayers. 
• Curtis' Hans and Franz impressions. This obsession with Hans and Franz began a few months ago with a local commercial from Volkswagon South Towne.  "A double down payment waiting for you... A double down payment from Volkswagon South Towne." Kaden thought that commercial was hysterically funny and would ask us to sing it all the time.  The song/voices were with Hans and Franz, so we pulled up a YouTube clip of the SNL skit of Hans and Franz and Kaden has loved it and requested it daily ever since.  We use it as a reward for eating all of his dinner that Daddy will do Hans and Franz. 
• Sword fights, or sticks in general. He usually finds many everywhere we go and has to carry them around and gets very frustrated when he can't bring them home in the car or into the house.

• Daniel Tiger- He loves the PBS show, he got a stuffed Daniel Tiger that sings songs from us for Valentines Day.  He takes it everywhere and likes to talk to his Daniel. 

• Tumbling- We go to a tumbling class once a week in Farmington with Ryker, my friend Alli White's little boy. Kaden loves doing the balance beam, rings, and bar and loves trying new things with Miss Missy his teacher. He really looks forward to it every week. (These pictures are pretty awful since they were taken with my crappy camera phone, but at least it captures the memory.)

 Ryker, Kaden and Elle

• Trying to make us laugh. He loves to make really silly faces and say silly things and then have us say, "Kaden you are so funny." 

• Climbing, playing, running. He is all boy. 

• Riding his bike and his "dooter" (scooter) with the kids in the neighborhood. He is getting faster every day and loves it.

Kaden has been potty training. He's filled up 3 Potty Charts so far.  He gets a sticker every time he goes on the potty and 2 "Dittles" (skittles).  He has earned a new puzzle, a fort/movie/popcorn/treat night with Mom and Dad and his latest prize "Big Boy Underwear." Unfortunately as soon as we put him into real underwear he decided he didn't like going on the potty anymore and requested to be back in diapers.   I put him back in diapers for a week and he still doesn't seem that interested in going potty anymore. Sigh... I guess we'll keep trying another time.

Kaden had been in the "toddler bed" conversion of his crib (aka a crib with only 3 sides), but we finally moved him to his "big boy bed."  We want him to have a few months to adjust to it before we stick the babies in "his crib" and he's sad. We took him to Lowe's a few weeks ago and let him help us pick what color we painted the bed.  He wanted a green bed.  I painted it, Curtis put it together and voila! The new big boy bedroom with a new dresser for Kaden. 

Making silly faces for us to laugh at

This boy is such a fun and challenging (at times) little boy with a big personality. At the end of the day though, we just adore him and wouldn't change anything about him.

Twin Gender Reveal

Curtis and I went to our gender ultrasound for the twins on February 2 (Groundhog's Day.) I really wanted 1 boy and 1 girl, just to make sure I had one of each gender since I'm not sure if my body will cooperate enough with the endometriosis for another pregnancy or not. Plus I really felt like for twins that is the perfect scenario because then they can still sort of have their own identity and be their own person more easily than if they were the same gender. Plus I'm a girly girl and just wanted one girl, since I already have my one boy. My heart of hearts was really praying for one girl.

The ultrasound tech couldn't get Baby A to cooperate for the longest time so we had to come back. Baby B was definitely not shy and was clearly a boy. Once she got Baby A to uncross its legs, we found out it was a boy as well. I started to cry and immediately said, "Check again to make sure." I was devastated to think that I still won't have a girl. I felt so guilty being sad about 2 more boys, but I really wanted one of them to be a girl. I cried for the majority of the day we found out. We called to tell our parents and I sobbed through both phone conversations. I decided not to tell anyone else until later in the week when I could be more excited about the news. I think I'm very overwhelmed since Kaden has been such a handful for me so much of the time, I'm honestly scared that I won't be able to handle 3 boys and won't know what to do with them. Plus I'm so girly. I know nothing about sports. I was sad to think of feeling left out of my own little family when they get older and want to spend family time together wrestling and playing football in the backyard and what not.

Obviously time has eased my sadness a bit. I've prayed a lot for reassurance that this is what is supposed to happen and prayed for comfort to not feel sad about 2 more boys. I've received a lot of comfort and have gradually gotten more excited as the days have gone by. I think it'll be really fun for Kaden to have two brothers. He wants to name them "Two Bears." Ha ha! Good thing he has no say in the matter, huh?

We didn't do anything fancy this time around, like a dinner party, like we did for Kaden to reveal the gender of our twins.  We wanted to tell Kaden before we told anyone else. For weeks leading up to our ultrasound we'd say, "Do you want brothers or sisters or both?" He always said, "Sisters." We bought some stuffed sports balls- football, basketball, soccer ball and sports party hats at the dollar store and two balloons that said, "It's a Boy." We gave Kaden the present and told him that he could share the balls with his brothers. I don't think he comprehended at all what we were saying. The thing that kills me about this whole event is how fun I thought it would be to buy silly string... just watch the video to see how fun Kaden thought it actually was.

This was my announcement on social media: