January 2020

January came quickly for us.  With a house in St. George under contract we began planning for the move.  We knew that this month would be spent prepping our house, starting to pack, and getting ready to list the house for sale.  In between all of that here's what our January looked like...

We kicked off the New Year with a buffet, games, and we even made it until midnight for a quick celebration!

 Addie was really excited to have an interview with her dad to get her Temple recommend. We are also excited to be studying the Book of Mormon this year. 

Playing around...

 Enjoying some pizza...

Endured some sickness...

Tess' fish, Carla, unfortunately died.  She was so sad.  

 More volunteering in Tess' class...

 Fixed some things to prepare for the changes that a move would bring...

Took some time to play at Kangaroo Zoo...

 Enjoyed some snuggle time...

We just love hearing her sing "Popcorn Popping"...

Addie was so excited to begin temple work.  She made a goal to attend the temple every week until we moved.  It was such an amazing experience to witness Addie doing such an important work. 

 This girl definitely keeps us on our toes...

Addie even recruited some of her friends to attend the temple with her.  And of course we had to stop for ice cream after...

Addie had a Winter Concert with COPA where she performed a Hairspray mashup with her class...

 We love visiting with Grandma Ruth.  She is such a sweet, happy, loving person and we enjoy being around her.  

 Finding joy in the little things...

After a month's worth of work and packing, our last house prep was to have the carpets cleaned.  We put our house on the market the next day and got bombarded with showings.  We were thrilled with the huge response but did not expect things to move so quickly.  

One of Addie's school projects was to create a book report float on Romeo and Juliet.  It turned out so cute...

Playtime at the museum...

 Lil cutie...

As January ended a new chapter was beginning for our family.  Within 4 days we had received an offer on our house.  I had been praying that the family who needed this home/ward/neighborhood would find our home.  On a day when the schools closed down because of a snow storm and Devin decided to work from home because of it, a guy showed up on our doorstep asking if he could come in to see the house.  He said he had flown in from out of town and was leaving again in just a couple of hours.  Had Devin not been home, I never would have let him in.  We walked him through the house and began talking with him.  Turns out he lived in California just a town away from where we lived.  His family was even in the ward that we were moved to when the boundaries changed. They were switched too with the boundary change so we never actually met.  We found out his wife's name was Colette and they also had 4 kids.  He flew home and they put an offer on the house that night. Because they knew that our house in St. George wouldn't be finished until the end of March they agreed to close on March 30.  Although we had initially hoped to let the girls finish out the school year we decided that with how everything was falling into place that we would have faith that this is how it was all supposed to work out and that we should just move at the end of March.  We have had lots of emotions, stress, conversations, plans, changed plans, and ups and downs.  We have felt both excitement and sadness. Ready and not ready.  But now it was all becoming very real and so our moving preparations began..  

December 2019

We prepared ourselves for a busy December and this year we tried to minimize as much as we could and focus on the really important things.  There were some bumps (literally and figuratively) but we had a wonderful month with lots of memories.

To start, Coco contracted Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease.  Poor thing.  And then she passed it on to me, which was fun.  

Coco has become quite the copy-cat.  She loves repeating the things we are saying and I had to catch this moment of Tess teaching her the alphabet...

 We tried (and mostly failed) to keep up with the advent calendar.  When we were successful it was mostly due to Addie stepping in and offering to take over.

Our annual trip to Christmas Village for Grandma Wayment's birthday was a hit.  The kids always love seeing all the lights and mostly just love being together. 

Afterwards we went for Grandma's favorite dessert...ice cream!

Love these girls in their Christmas shirts...

Dad always bringing the fun...

When I was growing up, my mom always made chocolate fluffs.  I decided to pass along this tradition to these ladies...

And of course we decorated sugar cookies...

 We had a Christmas party with our Sandy friends...

Santa came to visit...

We were able to watch all 3 girls at their school Christmas Sing...

And help out with their school Christmas Parties...

The Payne Family Party never disappoints. We love spending time with this large group of people.

This time of year always means a hospital visit or two.  Croup takes us down every time...

Gingerbread house making (or eating)...

And just like that it was Christmas Eve...

We started by opening our Christmas jammies.  It was fun to see how excited the girls get even when its just jammies...

We stopped for a visit with Great Grandma Johnson.  We love visiting with her. Always kind and always smiling.  Ready for a hug and a kiss anytime. We love to hear her stories and are always grateful for the time we have with her.

 And then on to the Wayment Family Party where we are always spoiled, have lots of fun, and create lots of great memories...

And after a full day, we made sure Santa had cookies and milk waiting as we headed off to bed...

Christmas Morning was so fun. We love watching the girls open presents and be so thrilled with what they got.  

  Christmas Dinner with the Paynes. You really couldn't ask for a better group of people to spend Christmas dinner with.  From poppers and crowns to lamb and good company. We enjoy all the time we get with this group...

We even got to talk to Carson who is on his mission in Chile...

 The day after Christmas we decided to head down to St. George.  After I found out about the Fibromyalgia and POTS, Devin and I really started discussing how much work and stress our current home (and yard) was.  We really started discussing moving and the idea of moving to St. George.  Its something we have talked about since we first got married and have been more seriously talking about throughout the last year.  When we went down in October we started checking out areas and neighborhoods.  Throughout the following month we started looking at specific homes in the areas we liked and planned the trip in November to look at houses.  There was one in particular that we were super excited about but by the time we got down there it was already under contract.  We were really disappointed and not interested in any of the other homes we saw.  Our agent told us to go back to our hotel and look for any other homes that we might want to see.  A house popped up that I had never seen before and it was in an area we loved and fit all of our other wants.  We asked to see it and immediately fell in love.  After discussing it for awhile, talking to Devin's work about working remotely(which we were surprised that they would allow him to work remotely) and discussing it with the girls we put in an offer on the house.  The home is a new build and the basement and backyard had not been finished yet.  We were able to work out a deal with the owners to have the basement and backyard finished and that we could close on the home in May.  (The hope was to let the girls finish school before moving.)  Everything just seemed to fall into place.  We prayed a lot to know if this was right for our family and things just kept working out.  So we wanted the girls to see the home again and take them around St. George to get them excited about it.  

Even in December the girls wanted to be in the pool. Luckily it was heated!

 We stayed in a hotel and its pretty hard sharing a room with a toddler.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep much.

The next day we took them to check out the fun stuff that they have in St. George like the Children's Museum...

And Zeppes!

It was a fun trip and a good way to ease the girls into the idea of moving.  Of course we all feel sad about the idea of moving farther from family and friends but we are really excited about the new adventures that St. George holds for our family.