Switcheroo

March 18 - With the new baby coming, we needed to do some switching around at our house and move the girls into a bedroom together.  Before we started doing all the switching, I thought I should take some pics of the way Rylee's room was before because I don't know if I ever have.  It looks so much different with bunk beds!  Here is Rylee's cute room before the moving began...

Rylee on her bed

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March 19 - And here she is sleeping in her bunk bed for the first time!  I still need to take some pictures of the whole new room.  It took awhile to get everything moved around and we still need to get them a new dresser that can fit all their clothes.  They were SO excited to share a room and Rylee was So excited to sleep on the top bunk.  I hope it lasts!  Avery can't wait to move into her big girl bed.  We are trying to find her some bedding and I am putting it off because she loves her crib so much I am afraid to move her.  Hopefully, it will work out OK!

Projects

Part of our recent craziness and my blog neglect as been due to several summer projects (and 3 small children....) Here are a few projects we have been working on.

For Rylee's birthday, my mom said she wanted to do something fun for her room. So, in April, she and Darren set to work on a little project. Since Logan's birthday was coming soon and it was easier to do 2 at once, they did his, too. Above is Rylee's room before....

And here is the after. I love it! I will love it much more once we get it painted, but that is a project for the fall. We had way too many summer projects. I am still trying to decide how to paint it, too. I think I will do the bottom white, but can't decide if I will leave the top or try and do something else....

Here is Logan's before picture

And the after...

It also still needs paint. I can't decide, but I think I want to do his room baby blue, orange and brown. Any suggestions on how to paint it??? I am terrible at this kind of thing!

Project #2 started in early May. (May 2) Our swingset! What a fiasco!!! First of all, the swingset I found that I liked went on sale online. I was debating about ordering it but couldn't decide and on the last day of the sale, Darren and I decided we should just do it, since it was 40% off and would save a ton of money. It said FREE SHIPPING on like 4 places on the website, so I was going to order online. Well, I should have read the fine print that said, "Free shipping up to $25", so when I put it in the cart, it charged $500 for shipping, and then took $25 off. Well, I was NOT paying that much for shipping! The closest store was in Layton (an hour drive), but they were out, so I called a few more stores and found the model we wanted in Salt Lake (an hour and a half drive). Darren won Father of the Year award by offering to make the drive and got there just about an hour before closing. He took our van and took out all the seats, but when he got there and saw the measurements on the boxes, he called and said "there is NO way this is going to fit!" Luckily, he read them wrong and the box wasn't really 7 feet tall like he thought. Somehow, they made it fit and he got it all in one trip! That night, we spent 3 hours after the kids went to bed unloading 5 boxes of wood and labeling them for assembly. Not ONE piece was put together. The above picture is our garage and it was pretty full of wood! Looks like we had our hands full! Darren won Father of the Year Award a few times for taking on this project!

This is Day 3 of swing set assembly. (May 4) I think Day 2 he put the frame together and assembled the rock wall in the garage and then Day 3 he assembled the frame. I decided to make a little photo journal of it since it kind of took over our lives for awhile. Darren would get up early the days he worked late and go out for an hour or 2, and on the days he worked early, he would go straight out and work until dinner or dark (or until it snowed!) What a great daddy! The box said it would take 2 people 14-20 hours. It was MUCH more that that! I stopped counting around 40! Darren spent just about every spare minute he had for 2 weeks and then about 10 more hours on the slide a few weeks later.
Day 4 - (May 5) Darren got all the floor boards put in and one wall of the clubhouse

Yep...More evidence for the Father of the Year award. Working on the project in the SNOW!
May 6 - Even in the snow, Darren finished all the walls and also the little picnic table. What a trooper!

May 8 - Darren added the small roof to the playhouse

He also built the big roof in the garage that day. We had to wait through the weekend to get it put on. He needed some help for that step, but that was the first time he had any help (besides me handing him a few things) for the whole project.

May 11 - We got the roof on! It was pretty tricky to get it up there without a real ladder. Darren, me and one of our neighbors got it up there and I was pretty impressed that we were able to do it with only 3 of us. It was a tight fight and we had to really shake it in there.
May 13 - The crows nest is added on

May 14 - Darren got the rock wall put on and the ladder

May 15 - Darren added the canvas tarp to the top and got the swing portion added on and the whole thing staked down! After TWO weeks, we were starting to look like we might finish soon. It was almost done, except for the slide... I was reminded SEVERAL times that we could have been done at this point if I hadn't insisted on the twisty slide...

The kids were so excited to finally try out the swings! It was a hit!!!

Logan likes the view from the crows nest. The big hole for the slide is a little bit of a safety hazard though.

The first ride on the glider

(May 17) The next project was assembling the slide. It was a MUCH bigger job than we expected. We were missing a few pieces from our box, so we had to wait a few days to put it together. While we waited for the parts to show up, Darren put together the different sections. The kids thought they were a great place to play and loved hiding in them!

He got the top of the slide attached, but had to wait for the parts to finish, and then it was REALLY hard to assemble!

May 29 - Almost a MONTH later, it is FINISHED!!! I kind of slacked off in the photo documenting process, but the slide finally got done! It was a pain to put together! For some reason, it would have Darren put a section together, drill some holes, take it all apart and then put it back together again. It was crazy! It was also really hard to get all the seams lined up and the angles just right so that the slide would make it around and not hit into the swing set. It took me, Darren, my mom and 2 brothers to get the dumb thing all attached and put into place. Who knew a twisty slide would be so much trouble? I just thought it looked cute and wouldn't get so hot for the kids. We were SO happy to have it done!!! First time down the slide! Yipee!!!

Ry loves it!

The next project was our patio.

The great thing about this project was it required very little on our part. Some guy just showed up and it was done the next day! It only hurt our checkbook.... We expanded it quite a bit - I should have taken a before picture, but I didn't. It is much bigger and ready for some summer BBQ and now I don't have to look out my dining room window and see Darren's grill! My favorite part of the patio is the border. We wanted the whole thing stamped and stained, but it was expensive, and we would have had to just tear out the old part which seemed like a big waste, so we went with just a stamped and stained border, and I loved how it turned out!

The next big project was SPRINKLERS! I also had NO idea what a big project this would be or how long it would take. I for some reason thought once the guy came and trenched, you just throw some pipe in there and you are done. I was wrong! Poor Darren worked his bum off to get them in. He did a great job and only had a little help. I think he was pretty proud of his work. I think it took him about 2 weeks to get them all finished.

Here is a final picture of our patio border. You have to wait a month between pouring the stamped part and putting on the final stain, so we were really happy when they came back and got it all finished up.

Last, but not least, our final project was GRASS!!! See how ugly and brown and dirty our yard was...

June 22 was a BIG day at our house! I almost cried when I came home from errands and saw this truck in front of our house! YEAH!!! GRASS!!! It took us 14 months to have grass and I was EXCITED!!!

Doesn't it look SO much better GREEN??? Our ward was fabulous and had the whole thing done in a little over an hour. I seriously teared up a few times when I looked out the window and saw GREEN GRASS instead of dirt. It is probably silly, but I was SO happy for grass!

Ahhh... Sprinklers working and green grass! Just in time to enjoy what is left of summer!

This will be our soccer field, I am sure....

We kind of ran out of time, energy and money for the rest of our projects this summer, so maybe we will get to them next summer. We didn't get a garden or any plants or flowerbeds in and we still have a lot of little things to do. I really need to post a picture of our swingset with the sand and the mulch in. It looks so much better than just in the dirt! We just finished that last step a week or so ago. Having a yard is so much work sometimes, but it is so great! We are really enjoying it!!! It feels SO nice to have a FEW projects done. If only I didn't have a MILLION more to go...

Moving!!!

After a REALLY long and dramatic week, we are F I N A L L Y moving into our new house and are so happy about it!
On Monday, (2 days before closing) we got a phone call from the bank saying that our loan couldn't go through!!! This was less than 48 hours before we were supposed to close and the idiot had NO idea that we were closing in 2 days, and that hadn't even looked at our file until then! I ended up bawling and asked the guy what we were supposed to do, and his response was that he wouldn't charge us for our appraisal and hopefully our realtor would be a nice guy and refund our earnest money. HELLO!!! We were going to be out a lot more than that! We already had appliances being delivered and had no place to live in a few days! After a few phone calls, I called him back to suggest a solution and he said the loan was back on and we could close on Wednesday as planned. I was so bugged that he had not suggested a solution, but I had to figure something out on my own. Doesn't he want us to use them for a loan???
Tuesday morning, I called to check on things and he tells me that he is meeting with the underwriters to see if this is going to work. That is after he told me that everything was good to go! I was SO frustrated at this point, but there had been 6 other offers on the house since ours was accepted, so it was really too late to try and change lenders or anything. He called a little later to say he had 2 of 3 signatures and was just waiting on the last one and everything looked great. Then a few hours later he called to tell me that they had entered some information wrong and now things weren't going to work again! At least this time, he offered another solution and we were able to work around it, but we were going to be pushed back on our close. The kicker to me was a phone call from the bank on Thursday saying that we weren't going to get the state grant we had applied for because now we made TOO much money! It didn't make any sense! It almost became funny to me!
After a few more hangups, the bank finally pushed our application through and thanks to a great title company, we were able to close, fund and record on Friday, which isn't very common, and get keys and start moving in! My mom took the kids for the night on Friday so we were able to get a lot done this weekend. We took the kids over to the house today and they are really excited about the house! They love having space to play and think the new house is so great! They were a little confused when they came home from Grandma's and some of their stuff was missing....especially Rylee's kitchen. She was pretty stressed over it! We are really excited to be settled and even MORE excited to be done with all the loan stuff and will be even MORE excited when we are through with moving!!!
In other news, I have started feeling the little baby in my tummy move this week. (The first time was Thursday, April 24th). I guess all this stress and craziness has the little one going crazy, too!!! Our ultrasound is scheduled for May 13th and we are very excited to find out if it is a little girl or little boy!

Announcing Some Expansions....

I haven't been too great at keeping up on my blog lately (or much of anything else in my life either!!!) I have been meaning to get this post done for a couple of weeks, but things have been crazy and I have a few good excuses for not getting to it. By now, most of you have already heard our news, but in case you haven't, we have some exciting news!!! (It would have been MORE exciting if it was posted awhile ago, but what can you do???) Anyway....

We are E X P A N D I N G our home in a few ways....

First of all, we are expanding our home by 2 FEET (baby feet that is....) and growing from 4 Webbers to 5! We are adding Baby #3 and are really excited for our latest addition! I am now 16 weeks along, and finally starting to feel back to normal...besides my ever growing tummy! I think I'm going to be HUGE this time! This has been my hardest pregnancy so far, maybe because I am taking care of 2 little ones, but I can't complain too much. I don't super sick - I don't throw up a lot (just when I brush my teeth!!!) I am mostly just really nauseous and SO tired! I fall asleep on the couch at like 9 every night!!!
We found out in late January that we were expecting and decided that we should keep it a secret for awhile. I took the pregnancy test and it IMMEDIATELY showed a positive, so there were no doubts or retests this time! Somehow, we managed to keep our secret until mid-March before we really told anyone, which is a major accomplishment for me to keep my mouth shut!

Baby Webber #3 is due

October 2, 2009,

but will probably make an earlier appearance. I have scheduled C-Sections due to complications in previous pregnancies, so they have already moved me up a week, and it is very likely that I will be moved up another week or 2 before all is said and done. So, we are expecting this baby to join our family in mid-late September and we are SO excited!!! My sister is due September 14 with her first, so it should make things really interesting in our family! It will be so great for my kids to have a Boman cousin and for this baby to have a cousin SO close!

We announced our great news to our families in Mid-March by wearing these fun shirts to a couple family functions. If you can't tell, Logan's shirt says "Thing 1", Rylee's says "Thing 2" and mine says "Thing 3". I have always done something fun to announce my pregnancy and felt like we had to continue the trend for this new baby, so they could feel special, too. Darren actually came up with the shirt idea and made them on the computer. I thought they turned out really cute and I think we will make a new Thing 3 shirt for the baby when they are born! I think our family's were a little surprised, but not too much. I think they have been expecting an announcement from us soon anyway. Here is the 1st ultrasound at about 12 weeks. Isn't our little peanut cute? I thought I wanted this baby to be a surprise since we already have one of each, but I can't take it! I have to know the sex of the baby!!! We can find out in a few weeks and I am really anxious! Poor Logan wants a BOY so bad! He is so funny - If we say, "What if its a girl?" he responds with "What if its a boy!" and if we talk about names, he only wants to talk about boy names! (So far, his best suggestion has been Phineas or Ferb....hmmm...not sure those are going to work!) If we say it might be a sister, he tells us that he already has one! I think Rylee is enough to try his patience at times and he isn't too excited about the idea of another girl in the family. I hope he isn't too heartbroken if the news is different.... Logan and Rylee are both pretty excited about the baby! Besides wanting a boy, Logan is also very interested in the size of the baby and wants to know how big the baby is all the time. I have a little book that compares the baby to fruit, so we have gone from "the baby is the size of a lime" to a lemon and now an apple and I think it will be something different today. He is really funny about being careful around my belly and likes to talk to the baby in this soft, sweet voice and pat my tummy - it is very cute! Rylee LOVES babies and I am a little worried for this baby's safety with her around - I think she will try to carry it, feed it, burp it and change its diaper all by herself, which would be great if she was a little bigger, but at her size, it might be a little dangerous! Both kids went to my first ultrasound and loved seeing the baby on the screen and Rylee talks about it all the time. She tells everyone that "Mommy go to doctor and he check her baby in her belly." She is also convinced that SHE has a baby in her tummy, too, so that could get interesting when it is time for delivery! The Dr was very cute with the kids at my appointment and even gave them each their own ultrasound picture, which they loved and thought was so special.

We feel so blessed to have another little one, and a little overwhelmed! #3 means being outnumbered and buying a new vehicle and needing some more space, but I am sure that everything will work out great and I know that these little ones are so worth all the worry and effort and money that it takes to get them here!!!

This brings us to e x p a n s i o n announcement #2.... We are expanding by square feet as well as baby feet! We have purchased a new home and should be moving in a week or two! We are VERY excited to have our first real home with no shared walls or ceilings and a yard and some more space for our family! We had driven by this home a few times and were kind of interested, and then the price dropped, so we decided to check it out. We LOVED it, but with Darren being self-employed, we were having a hard time getting someone to finance us. We got a phone call one day saying there was an offer on the house, so we needed to act quick, so I spent the day on the phone and found someone to finance us and a realtor and we made an offer that afternoon and by 5:00 that night, we were home owners!!! CRAZY how quickly things can happen! We are so excited and love our new house. It is a 2 story with no basement. I love that all the bedrooms are on the same level upstairs. Here are a few pictures of the inside. (I have heard its not a good idea to post outside pictures) It is pretty empty, but it looks much better without our poor dental student furniture anyway and I think it will take us awhile to get it all replaced!This is the view from the upstairs going down - We love this part of the house!Here is the entryFront roomThe kitchen - I am really excited about some more cupboard space and prep space. Maybe I will decide I like to cook.... We are having these appliances taken out and getting stainless steel ones.
The family room
The mud/laundry room - I love these little hooks and shelves for jackets, backpacks and shoes and stuff!Master Bedroom
Master Bathroom
Another bedroom - There are 5 in the house so I even get a scrapbook room! Wahoo!!!The bonus room - I am REALLY excited for this room to have as a play room for the kids! Lots of space for them to run and play!

Now that we have a house, my wish list for things keep growing and growing.... I want lots of new furniture and a million other things! I'm sure it will take a LONG time to get things the way we want, but we are excited to get started! It has been a long road for us to have a home! First on the list for us will be putting in a yard, since it is a new home! Yikes!!! That scares me a little but Darren likes working in the yard, so I think he is pretty excited! Our first project will be sprinklers......I'm sure there will be plenty of posts about this stuff to come! Now for the hard part....MOVING! If I don't post again for awhile, you will know why!