Just made an offer on our first home! Wow, sometimes I thought this day would never come...now we wait to hear if it is accepted. Here is a link to the listing if you want to see: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4924-Portview-Dr_Fort-Worth_TX_76135_M75460-40894?source=web

It has a small yard, but everything else about the house is more than I ever imagined having in a first home. We are so excited!

So, there are so many things going on in our life right now, I figure I better post regularly or else I will never keep up!

Trever graduated last Friday, the 17th. He graduated with a 4.0 GPA which earned him a summa cum laude ranking within his graduating class. Considering he was not even sure college was for him when he started it, we are all very proud of his accomplishment. He truly is amazing and excels at everything he puts his hand to.

His new employer took a little too long getting their paperwork together for us to be able to get full service movers, but we were able to get the u pack set-up where all we had to do was load the trailer and someone else drives it for us. Thanks to lots of help from family and friends we got that all done by Saturday afternoon and were able to spend a relaxing Sunday visiting friends and spending time with Trever's Grandma and Mom before they headed back to their respective homes.

Monday morning we piled in the car and took off on our adventure. Despite on small hiccup where the road we planned to take was closed due to snow, we made it to Trever's Dad's house on Wednesday evening as planned. The kids loved the hotels, especially the pools.

So now we are here in Cedar Hill, Texas trying to figure out what in the starry heavens to do next! Trever has gone in and signed all his official paperwork. We have decided that we want to seriously look into buying a house here, but of course with the holiday everything is running a little slower than usual. Hopefully early next week we will be able to get in with some lenders to see what are financing options are. Homes seem quite affordable in this area of the country, so hopefully we can find something we will will be happy with and can comfortably afford. For the time being we are staying at Trever's Dad's house, which is very small and not really designed for guests, we actually sleep in the camper trailer in the driveway because that is where there are beds available. Weir (Trever's employer) will actually pay for up to 60 days of temporary lodging, but we want to find out about house stuff first. We don't want to move into an apartment just to move right back out, plus most of them have a lease we would have to sign. We may look into an extended stay hotel, we are just not sure. At the moment we are mostly just trying to get through Christmas and then we will figure out the next steps. We did all the kids Christmas shopping yesterday, and I will never do all my shopping in one day so close to Christmas again, Toys R Us was a mad house!

Anyway, Trever should start his job on January 3, so we have all of next week when he is still around all the time to try to get some more things figured out, so wish us luck!

Hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas, we love you all!

Also, in case you missed it, our temporary Texas address is:

525 Flower Dr

Cedar Hill, TX 75104

OK - HOW DO I MAKE COMMENTS? I have tried with no luck. Anyway- Amber we are sooooooooooooooo Happy for you guys.

And my new home will be...

Well, I guess the Lord has a sense of humor. As most of you know, my whole life there has been only one place I said I would never live. However, Trever just heard back and in one week we will be moving to Fort Worth, Texas! Even with the Texas part of it, we are very excited. Trever has accepted a position as a Mechanical Engineer in their rotational program. That means that every 2-3 months he will move to a different position in the company and get to try them all out. One position will even be overseas! (Hopefully we will be able to go overseas too, they have never hired someone for the rotational program before who has a wife and kids, so they were a bit unsure how they would handle that, keep your fingers crossed that we will all get to go). He is still planning to go to graduate school, but we will either wait the two years, then go, or else he will do it part time while working. We will have to look in to the options available in the Dallas area and decide what we want to do in that regard.

We are all excited to get out of the cold, and Trever especially is excited to live close to his father who moved to the Dallas area last April. Hopefully we will be able to make visits to see the rest of the Southern half of the family more, since so far we haven't been able to visit them at all!

We are supposed to be out of our apartment by Monday morning (the 19th) at 7am. Weir (the name of my husband's new employer) will cover relocation costs, however, they have to get all the official hiring paperwork done on their end before we can start taking any steps toward getting the movers lined up. If they take too long then we will have to all the moving and driving ourselves and then get reimbursed. While that is certainly possible, I am hoping to avoid that option. When I told my doctor that I might drive across the country almost 8 months pregnant he told me I was crazy to even think about it! But as you all know, you do what you have to do.

Anyway, we are very excited for the next step in our adventures as a family. I am very proud of my amazing husband and all that he has accomplished and being able to land exactly the job he was hoping for. We love you all, and hope your lives are going as well as ours!

It has been fantastic to see what all of you have been doing. I Love opening the blog and seeing new things posted.
Our first craft show experience is done and we did pretty well. The expenses on this one were pretty high but we still managed to come out ahead so all is good. The nativity burls and some other things I made from birch were definitely the best sellers. The trip back from Fairbanks on Sunday night started out pretty terrible. It was snowing hard and very difficult to see but by the time we got to Healy it got much better. It was nice having some time with Dad and visiting with Rosculps. I brought some projects to work on so I kept busy the whole time. I don't think I could just sit there without something to do.
We are doing the bazaar at Colony after Thanksgiving and then we are done for now. I will probably try ETSY after Christmas.
All is well here. It is around zero and we are suppose to get wind tonight so tomorrow should be pretty chilly. We have quite a bit of snow on the ground but driving isn't bad.
Hope you are all doing well. I wish you could all be headed here for Christmas.
Love You

Hello! My name is Yvonne.

And I know we've been terrible about posting on this blog for quite a while now. Fortunately, Sharolyn reminded me when we visited them last month. As most of you know, we've moved to Louisiana and so far, we are really loving it. Scott is working at the Schlumberger offices in New Orleans and we live about 40 miles away in Slidell. He has about an hour commute to work, depending on traffic and is really enjoying his work life. The boys and I have settled in. We moved here at the end of May just in time for the beginning of a really hot, humid summer. We spent most of our time at the pool at the gym and making new friends there. Xavier started Taikwondo shortly after we got here and now has his cub green belt. He also started a new preschool this fall and is learning a lot! One of the things he's learning is how to talk with a southern accent, which I'm not too sure about. Toby is our little handful. He loves doing whatever Xavier does and wrestling with his dad. While Xavier's at preschool, Toby and I go to story time at the library or various playdates with our new play group we joined. It was a little difficult for me at first because I forgot how to get out and meet new people. I had such a great support group of mommies in Alaska, that I didn't think about how much I would miss them. I finally found a group of mommies and kiddos that I really like and that has made all the difference.

Since we moved here, we have made a couple road trips and head into New Orleans for family fun a couple times a month. We've been to see Nate and Sharolyn a couple times. They let us crash at their place last month while we were on the way to visit my Grandma Helen in Sioux City, Iowa. Which we were especially thankful for. The boys were appreciative of the dinosaurs for the road trip, but Scott and I may have gotten a little tired of the constant roaring ;) Thanks guys! We also drove to Houston, TX to visit with my old friend Aryn and her boys. It was during Tropical Storm Lee and we decided to just get out of town for the weekend. There was some flash flooding near our house, but no major damage. We are happy we made it through our first hurricane season without any troubles.

We've also discovered a ton of kid-friendly activities in NOLA. We love going to the zoo and the aquarium. It's nice because if you have a family membership to the zoo, you get into the aquarium for free. I think our membership has more than paid for itself at this point because we're there so often. There's a children's museum the boys love to run around and play at. I'm in love with City Park where there are parks with playground equipment, open areas to run and play, a place to rent paddle boats and get out on the lake, a Story Book Village where the kids can run through little houses and play structures based on Mother Goose stories, and even an amusement park area. I think if I would have toured City Park before moving here I would have been more excited about the prospect. During our house hunting trip, our hotel was right on Bourbon and it was a little overwhelming going to sleep and waking up to the sounds and smells of poor choices. I thought, "where are we moving our boys?" But once you're off Bourbon, it really is amazing. A really neat place.

Here's a couple pictures of our family since our move. The first one is of Toby at the pumpkin patch in Iowa. He had a fun time at the petting zoo area and kept picking corn from the corn maze and then taking it over to feed the animals.

This is Scott with the boys at the Insectarium for Crawl-o-ween. We were all suppose to be characters from the show Yo Gabba Gabba, but when Toby backed out, I did too. But Scott still dressed up as DJ Lance Rock because Xavier was Brobree and wanted his daddy to dress up with him. Best dad ever.

Scott has made it to a couple Saints games. He meets clients there as part of his job. I know, rough life. But he's been able to take Xavier to a couple games with him. This is what Xavier does at the games. Eats popcorn and chocolate.

Halloween Greetings

This year we received Halloween well wishes from

The pumpkin patch!

The North Pole!

The Italian Renaissance

The neighborhood black cat

and Mideval Times.

Everyone had lots of fun and way too much candy, we just wish we could have trick or treated to all of your doors!

PS Sorry that formatted so weird...not sure what I did, but it's 11 and I have been up since 5 writing a grant for the kids school and I am exhausted so I am not going to try and figure out how to fix it!

Happy Halloween!!

Tonight was our ward's "Trunk-or-Treat" and Chili Cook-off. Every year we say we/I say we're going to plan out our costumes way ahead of time,...but NO!, night before or even night of comes around and we scramble around the house. The kids are awesome sports about most outfits that are part of the final outcome.

Nathan even sacrificed some of his precious sleeping hours this morning after the kids went to school to make an awesome chili! He has become quite the chef around here, especially in the soup and chili dept. And you must know that he cannot cook in silence,...no fail Pandora is blasting through the kitchen. Actually the whole house and maybe even the neighborhood can listn in to Andrea Bocelli or Josh Groban, accompanied by Nathan. Love this man! He is amazing if I do say so myself!!!

Here are a few pics as we headed out the door. Had to document their costumes since we might change things up for the next party on Saturday! :)ha





***Little side-note: Check out our amazing new vinyl siding and windows (at least part of one).....More pics to come. We have been working, working, doing all kinds of projects. Of course working together on projects has it's challenges, but in the end I am so grateful to be able to spend time and work along side my best friend. We make a pretty good team! :)

Corn Maze

We had a fun family afternoon at the corn maze. We went a couple years ago to a different one, and I must say it was much more fun now that the kids are older. We managed to make it through the whole thing, filling in our whole worksheet, with 18 missing words and 9 rubbing images. It took just over 2 hours.

Christmas Exchange 2011

So I don't know if any of you even look at this anymore...but I thought I would post our Christmas exchange names so we are all thinking the same thing. We are at 2 younger than us, so:

Scott gives to Nathan

Shannon gives to Megan

Nathan gives to Amber

Megan gives to Cassie

Amber gives to Scott

Cassie gives to Shannon

Love you guys!

Amber

Stewart Family News

So I know some of you have already heard my news, and none of you would have a hard time guessing...but I am pregnant with number 3! We will have a little boy, due on January 25th. So far everything is going really great, we were having some trouble getting our medicaid sorted out at the beginning and due to the cost my doctor and I decided against getting a cervical cerclage put in this time. We talked a lot about my history and all the unsuccessful pregnancies as well as the ones with Ayana and Asher and he said he felt comfortable trying it without this time. I will have an ultrasound every month at my appointment and if there is any sign of my cervix opening we will do an immediate rescue cerclage. It is a little scary because it is something that could happen quickly if it does, but we just couldn't justify using all our savings plus getting debt on the speculation of one doctor years ago who said I might have incompetent cervix.

We decided to find out the gender this time for a couple of reasons. Trever said he knew Asher would be a boy from what he saw on the ultrasound, and I didn't believe him, so I told him to prove it. He did and knew immediately it was a boy, I didn't have a clue until every part was pointed out to me, everything looks the same to me in an ultrasound, they are all just fuzz. So he is pleased that I now believe that he did know what he as talking about with Asher. Also, I have been spending quite a bit of time sewing since getting my fancy new machine last Christmas. I have been doing some quilting and am excited to make stuff for the baby, however, I did not want to make everything in neutral colors, so we found out. (Though I have to say finding things to sew, even quilt patterns, for boys is much, much harder) Along those lines, I am not sure we would find out before birth again. It just isn't as exciting, I like the anticipation and the wondering the whole 9 months. Finding out half way through I felt like I barely had time to think about it much before I knew, and Trever agrees. Waiting just makes the excitement for the baby to come that much more sweet because you finally will know what you get. Maybe my feelings will change before the next one, we'll see, but for the few of you left in this family that will still have more kids, you should consider waiting to find out, I really think it is a lot more fun!

We are excited to have another boy, though Ayana bawled her eyes out when we told her because she wants a little sister so badly! Asher keeps us on our toes a lot more than Ayana ever has, and he has a mischievous streak 10 miles wide, but he also makes us laugh all the time and when he wants to be, is the sweetest little boy on the planet. Plus Trever thinks Asher needs a brother so he will stop asking to get his nails painted and playing with dolls, etc. He just likes to copy his sister, so Trever is hoping another boy in the house will give him reasons to not want to be quite so girly.

On other notes, Trever is in his last semester here, and will graduate in December. After that, who knows... We will be going to graduate school, but that will not be until September, and they will not even be making their acceptance decisions until march or April, so we will graduate here without any idea where our next school home will be. He is applying to 5 schools that are spread all over the country, so we could end up almost anywhere. We will have about 8 months of empty time between one school and the other to fill, the plan at the moment is to get an internship during that time. At the moment we feel like just trying to stay as close as possible to here will be the best financial decision to avoid expensive moving costs, but that depends on finding an internship nearby, so wish Trever luck in that regard. As soon as we know where we will be next year, we will let you know. I am excited for the time in our lives when we can plan more than a few months in advance, but I am enjoying the excitement of this time too.

The kids are doing great, Ayana turned four in July and is a constant joy to us. She had a pirate birthday were we hid a treasure chest in some local caves and then made her a treasure map and she led her pirate crew on a hunt to find it. She had a great time and loved the party. I made her cake and find I enjoy doing that quite a bit, but just a few times a year are enough for me, that way I don't get too tired of it. She is not in preschool right now ad misses it terribly, but I am sure she will survive. She loves to imagine and has imaginary kids that are almost always around (and usually blamed for any trouble that occurs) She loves books, and playing store. She talks pretty much non stop and has some crazy ideas. She also loves to sing, and will sing a song about anything for very long stretches of time. She also enjoys pretending that she is a dog and playing with her toy puppies.

Asher loves anything Ayana loves. He also loves food , and will eat almost anything that is not salad. He is a mama's boy through and through and will always choose me over anyone else, but he also loves to roughhouse with his dad. He loves puzzles and books as well as jumping and trying to do everything by himself. He is a constant ball of fun with energy coming out his ears most days. He is a very silly boy who loves to make people laugh and will do just about anything to accomplish it.

One of th perks of CA

One of the great perks to living in California is that there is a lot to do without having to fly somewhere. We spent a few days in San Francisco a fwe weeks ago before the kids head back to school (in the morning). The kids loved getting to go to the Exploratorium and the science academy place. Their favorite was the exploratorium because they got to do so much stuff. THey were so busy that RYan and I were juggling to keep up with all three of them. My favorite part was that it is much cooler in SanFran than it is in Fresno. I loved just walking around the streets near our hotel and enjoying the cool weather.

Other than that trip, we have not done much since the trip to the beach with mom and dad. THe kdis did swim lessons and loved them. JOnathan is now a really good swimmer and gets himself all over the pool. He likes to scare me by jumping in and then sinking himself to the bottom and sitting there until he can't hold his breathe any longer. I really do not like that game. Robert is learning that the floaties are really not that cool and he can have a lot of fun without them.The poor kid sinks like a weight so he is working hard to stay up. Katelyn is insane. That girl has no fear. She was by far the bravest kid in her little beginner class. She has no fear when it comes to the water. I think it is because she always had floaties on and did not need to fear, but now she does not want the floaties because she wants to dunk and swim. She can dunk or "swim" a little bit and then push her head up to breathe but only once before she needs help. She likes to be a Starfish where she lays on her tummy and spreads her legs and arms out and puts her face in the water. I am glad she loves the water and is not scared but seriously, her teacher may call it a starfish but I call it the dead man's float and she just makes me nervous because she will hold her breathe for quite some time.

Anyway, that is about all there is to report. Like I said, the boys start school in the morning and they are excited with the mixture of nervousness. They both have teachers that I have heard a lot of good things about so I think all will go really well.

I love you all.

Megan

Summer in bakersfield

We had a little different summer where for the first time we did not leave California. Mark worked all but two weeks and spent 4 weeks at the University of California Santa Barbara- not a bad place to be! Then, he taught a class at the local university and loved it.

So, we hung around here with lots of swimming and popsicles to keep us cool!

Some of the highlights of our summer in pictures:Christian played t-ball. He was a natural and loved it. Elijah did basketball camp, but I can't seem to find the pictures!We went up to Fresno for Jonathan's baptism, which coincided with a visit from Mom and Dad and a few days at the beach all together. Thanks mom and dad for making the effort to come!

Before heading back to work, we snuck in a few days in San Francisco- hiking in the Redwoods, the Exploratorium, wandering the city, and touring the jelly belly factory. It was a fun few days.

Caleb turned 2! We can't believe it, but our baby is now officially in his terrible twos. He is an absolute joy.

Tomorrow is the first day of school and the kids are all in bed- too excited and nervous to sleep, but they are there! Can't wait until next summer when we get to see everyone.

Love you all.

High Adventure

Nathan just got back from a 4 day trip to the Smokey Mountains. He and one other leader took 6 boys on a 30 mile backpacking trip through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park about 7 hours east of here. He was able to enjoy all kinds,....beautiful weather, gorgeous views, pouring rain, steep climbing and sliding down waterfalls...

Nature Center

Last month we had our roof replaced. They told us to expect the workers to show up at 7am. I was laying in bed, sound asleep when I heard some pitter-patter on the roof above me. I looked over at my clock seeing that it was 5am,...and thought, "You've got to be kidding me! those kids better not think it's time to wake up!" I rolled out of bed to investigate. All 4 kids were sound asleep in their beds. Still hearing movement up above. Kinda freaky. I made my way to the front window, pulled back the curtain to take a peek....the roofing crew had arrived! Are you serious?!?! Long story short,..I had to shuffle a few things around upstairs in the attic, when I came back down stairs I was now greeted by 4 children that were now awake, claiming there were loud noices on the roof. Tell me about it! By this time, it wasn't just walking around up there, they were actually starting to pound and scrape and who knows what else.
This is the view from my front window by about 7am when Nathan came home from work.

Since they were going to be working on the roof all day, and there was no way Nathan was going to get any sleep,. we decided to take an excursion up to the Nature Center in Memphis. The kids were fascinated that they got to be there for the snake feeding.

Wow - it really does look like we have forgotten this exists. I still love the posts that are made and treasure the pictures etc. so hopefully we will keep at it and maybe get rededicated to posting at least once in awhile.
I got response back from some of you about the possibility of a Family Reunion but if you have not responded please let me know your thoughts. I am totally open to any and all suggestions so let me know.
Things here are about the same. Dad is getting around quite well now. He is suppose to wear his boot all the time and still be using his crutches but his crutches haven't moved from their spot in several days and he sneaks around the house with out his boot frequently. It isn't very sore anymore but definitely still swollen. He goes back to the doctor on the 27th so we will see what he has to say. Dad is anxiously awaiting the fish arrival at Jim Creek - he says that they will be there on the fifteenth.
I think most of you are aware that I am now only working in the mornings and spending as much time as possible in the garage. Hopefully, I will have a pretty good supply of stuff ready for some bazaars we are doing later.
I guess I better get to work..
Love YouAll!
Mom

My Star Bellied Sneetches

As I was typing the last post about Asher's birthday the kids reminded me of their star bellied sneetch costumes. Several months ago they had a family activity on campus called Dinner with Dr. Seuss. There was a costume contest, and I wanted the kids to be unique, so I made them Sneetch costumes. They were so adorable I wanted to post a picture for all of you to see.

Asher's Birthday

So the title of this post was Asher's Birthday, but the first picture turned out to be the beautiful Ayana Grace. She is such an amazingly wonderful little girl. She is very smart and loves to help her Mom, Dad, and Brother. She loves any kind of art project as well as books and pretend play. She is a great example to our family, and is always super excited for prayers and going to church.
Our little two year old, Asher, continues to be a light in our lives. He is hilarious and loves to make people laugh and smile. He likes to make silly faces and to be sneaky. He has the cutest little giggle and smiles. I continue to believe that Heavenly Father gave him the cutest smile he could com up with because he knew Asher would need a way to compensate for his mischievious nature. He attends toddler lab on campus and greatly enjoys his class. He also loves to go to his nursery class at church and say his prayers, but he could do with out the sitting still for an hour in Sacrament.

He loves Mickey Mouse, so he had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme for his birthday party. We had a small group of friends gather at the park for a barbecue and cake/presents I attempted my first real decorated cake and was quite pleased with my results.
He received a lot of wonderful gifts but some of his favorites were these dress up sets from his sister. They both love to get on costumes and pretend.

It is hard to believe that he is two years old already, time sure flys by! What a wonderful little boy, we are so blessed to have him in our family!

Hooray for May

May has been an eventful month for the Burdick bunch. We started it off with Robert's birthday. He is officially 5 now. As we think about this last year, he has changed so much in wonderful ways. He is still the same Robert but now he talks...and talks...and talks. Preschool has been really good for him in that way. We went miniature golfing for his birthday and his favorite presents were nintendo games and a stuffed Kung Fu panda that you wrestle and it makes sounds.

Next, came Jonathan's birthday. He is 8!!! Kinda makes me feel old to have an 8 year old. He had a bowling party with his best friends from school and then came home to open presents and cake. His favorites were a Pokemon game and a remote control spider (I am sure that you will love that one mom). This past year has been good for Jonathan in the confidence area. He knows what he can do and he does not worry so much about things. He is our superstar reader (though Robert is getting pretty good too now) and read 11 books over spring break (all but 2 or 3 were over 400 pages).

Get Ready for the BIG news!!!! Ryan has graduated!!!!!!! Just in case you missed that ...RYAN GRADUATED!!!!!! It was wonderful to get to go to the graduation and see him so happy with his accomplishment. The kids were completely bored but loved when they caught sight of dad. We are so happy and proud of him. Now, to answer the question you all are thinking, what's next? Ryan has to study for a take a big test for the state and look for jobs. Assuming we find a job he wants to do around here we will likely stay around here. It is hot, but it is what feels right.

We love you guys and are way excited for a few weeks when mom and dad come and JOnathan gets baptized (you all are welcome of course). Katelyn is super excited because we will be going to the beach. She is one talkative little handful now. Everytime we get in the car she asks if we are going to the beach and when I say not yet she spends the next 5 or 10 or 15 minutes begging to "really please go to the beach." Katy wants her picture on here too so, here is one in the hat that Robert made for me for a Mother's Day Tea we had at his preschool.

Love ya!!!!

Courtney's Chorus Concert

This week Courtney did a Chorus Concert for School. Here is a video of her singing "Ordinary Miracle" from Charlotte's Web.

The kids were so excited....what started out as a nest just outside our bedroom window with 2 blue robin eggs, turned into this....

Easter

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for ALL of our yummy Easter candy!!! We should be set on candy for a while. :)

Love, Andrew, Jaxon, Keilee and Makeila

Hello all!

Hi everyone! I hope all is going well! Just thought I would do a quick update on how everything is going here......Nates parents came up and Jomei finally got blessed on April 17th. Easter was a ton of fun! We had fun dying eggs and had a great easter egg hunt in the morning! Poor Xavier was sick, so the girls decided to wait and do grandma and grandpa easter stuff until Xavier and Toby could be there too, so this past Sunday they had a great time do another egg hunt outside! Jomei is doing great, he just had hos 4 month appointment and is already at 15 lbs, 4 oz! Arianna is doing good at well. She went into surgery last wednesday to have her bump removed from her lip. There was some questions as to what her bump actually was, and it turned out to be just a built up mass of tissues. She is doing great, and not even really messing with her stitches, and yesterday the doctor called to let us know that the pathology lab results all came out great, non-cancerous and nothing to worry about! I'm glad that it is taken care of and feel incredibly blessed that everything turned out alright. Kyrie has been super busy recently! She had her school concert last week and it was so cute to watch. She has also been doing lots with her girl scout troop and she is really enjoying having those friends. She has her spring recital this saturday and we are all excited to go see it! I love everyone and I hope that everyone is doing well!

Visitors

We were pleasantly surprised to receive a phone call Thursday evening....Not so happy for them that their trip got prolonged, but excited that we were able to see Scott and Yvonne at the end of their house hunting trip. We are excited to have family move closer to our neck of the woods. The kids are so excited to have cousins to play with and fun weekend trips ahead!

Just a quick note- all is well..very busy. In the last month since we have posted, we have had a few more perfect report cards, a couple of stars in the school's production of King Arthur and Aubrey's baptism, to name a few. We are headed off to Idaho for spring break.More soon, for now here is a few pics of Aubrey's special day.