Brodericks: October 2014

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

KaTe!

Kate is such a fun girl to have around! She is full of life and smiles! She is now 10 months old! In the last few weeks she has started to eat baby food and loves it! She also tries to eat a lot of other things like leaves, flowers, etc. Anything she can get her hands on. :)

Whenever Kate gets excited about something she loves to point at it and jabber. She also loves to kick her heels on the ground. It's so cute!

Kate is now a VERY fast scooter. No official crawling yet, but I can't turn my back very long and she's into trouble.
Claire has taught her "no,no" means you shake your head back and forth. It is so funny to see her catching on to the language.
She is also saying, mama and dada. Just yesterday she stared clapping too! Hooray!

We spend a lot of time outside! Kate loves being outside and really loves spending time with Claire! She watches Claire's every move and gets a huge smile on her face when she sees her!

Since we started sleep training, Kate has only been waking up once at night. Hooray for sleep! She used to wake up between 2-3 times. Once my milk adjusts to the lake of night feedings we can work on dropping that 2 am feed.

Kate loves to cuddle with mom! She also loves using her feet! She literally reminds me of a monkey! I sat down with her at the piano...her first inclination was to play it with her feet. :) When you pick her up she will use her feet to grip around your waist. She also loves to put her feet up on everything (just like the stroller above.)

Kate is also great at grabbing things. In Claire's words, "Kate's a good grabber." Especially when it comes to Claire's precious monkey or minnie! Kate takes every opportunity to grab those things first. Sibling love, right?

We feel so blessed to have two healthy, happy girls!

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Mississippi

A typical day in Mississippi looks like this...

Can you see that blue sky and sunshine?!

We are loving living on the Station! It is 175 acres of amazingness! Trees, ponds, vegetable gardens, and flower gardens. I feel like we live on this beautiful plantation and I get to enjoy it without having to do any of the work. They mow all the lawns, do daily maintenance, and the girls and I just get to enjoy!

Sitting on a big swing....and the next two pictures are the view from the swing

Really? YES!

Claire was so excited to get some flowers!

The station has a gravel loop that is 3/4 a mile. It is so beautiful to walk and just enjoy nature. This was on a walk.

Getting a double stroller was definitely a must! This was an awesome craig's list find! A double jogger! The girls love it and I love it! (Yes, once in a while we need a jacket but it was still in the 80's yesterday.)

Kate loves her little foot rest too! Haha!

Shaun and Claire making some rice crispy treats during conference weekend.

Kate trying out her crib...YAY for getting her own room!

We found some fun things while unpacking! These glasses were a great hit! :)

Mississippi is VERY humid! We decided to invest in some amazing pop-seal containers so our food doesn't get stale overnight. I made cookies for dessert when the missionaries were coming over. They were perfect soft inside and slight crunch on the outside. I put them in a regular container (not like the ones above) after they cooled. When we pulled them out a few hours later they were completely soft and had lost all of their crunch. :(

Another part of our house I love is the sun room! Right now it is laundry and storage but I love all the light!

The first month here we did not have a dishwasher. I didn't realize how much time and effort it would take to wash all of the dishes by hand.

We decided to bite the bullet and buy a portable one! Best purchase ever! I was proud of myself for not using paper plates all the time, but I am LOVING having a dishwasher again!

Claire wanted to help "wash" AKA play in the water.

The view from our front door. We get the best sunsets!

More pictures from where we live!

In the morning we enjoy playing bubbles in the sun room!

And afternoon walks are great for getting a quick nap in. :)

We have had a great month living on the station. We are still putting the finishing touches on our house but it is definitely starting to feel like home!

The biggest problem/ frustration we had initially was getting internet! It's amazing how many things I am used to doing on-line. Because we live in a town of only 6,000 people a lot of internet companies aren't available. We live on the "wrong side of the railroad tracks" for internet. To put a line under the tracks it costs, $20,000!!! Finally we found that we can have verizon home fusion. It costs $120 a month for 30GB of data. Believe it or not, this was the cheapest we could find. :( But it's better than nothing so we aren't complaining.

More updates coming soon about our adventures in Mississippi!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Pictures from Shaun's phone...

So I just realized that Shaun had a bunch of pictures on his phone that I missed when posting blog updates...so instead I'm going to be lazy and just post them in one big post. :)

Okay...this is what my bedroom looked like for 9 months...:( The road was so loud that Shaun couldn't sleep. Our very old window was going to cost a ton of money to replace so we decided to put this insulation board in. No sunlight at all! When I see this picture I just cringe... Glad to have sunlight again!

Kate helping with the packing materials. Haha

First time eating (7ish months). She wasn't too interested...

GF ice cream cones from Aunite!

Trying to eat again...still not liking it!

First time in a swing...not sure what to think.

While shaun was working one weekend in the Grad library he had some company. YIKES!

He thought it was dead...went to the bathroom and came back it had moved. crazy!

Celebrating Shaun finishing his dissertation we went to Bob Evans. Kate's trying to decide what to order. :)

Outside our Wooster Ward building on our last Sunday there.

A quick day up to Cleveland to see our friends! Claire loved the Canoe!

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

We Sold our house!

As you can tell I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog!

ANYWAY... It was nothing short of a miracle! We sold our house! We put it on the market once we had accepted the job in Mississippi and knew our timeline. We didn't want to be homeless or have to move twice.

We decided to list it with the Realtor that we worked with when purchasing it. She was awesome! The buyers had to be pre-approved for a loan before they could schedule a showing. I really appreciated that! I didn't want to be kicked out my house unless the people were serious about buying.

We had a few showings and they loved the house just not the location. Time was ticking but knowing we had a house on the station in Mississippi that we could rent and wouldn't have to worry about buying a house right away we just kept praying.

One early evening we were outside playing with the girls and our neighbor walked over to say hello. I jokingly said, "do you want to buy a house?" He responded, "I'm actually really thinking about it." (YEAH!) He had been renting the last 7 years and his unit didn't have any updates. He was very excited about it, and so were we.

The hard part was getting a loan. It wasn't anything on his end, but since the housing bubble burst it's very hard to get a loan for a property when it is attached to a rental unit. Most of the townhomes where we live are rental units. :( So Chuck had to find a local bank to give him a local loan. Phew!

He offered us full asking price, no inspection, and chose to close in september. It really couldn't have been more perfect! It's a great feeling knowing that your house is going to someone who will LOVE it! He loved the garden, all the updates, etc. He didn't even mind the noisy road behind us. :)

We signed our end on August 29th. We were told he wanted to close September 18 and take possession on the 20th. When we went to sign he had changed the date to September 3rd. Meaning he would pay the majority of the mortgage, HOA, etc. for the month even though he still wasn't getting possession of it until the 19th. What a nice guy! It worked out perfect, especially since OSU stopped paying shaun mid august.

We are happy to report eveything went smoothly and we no longer own our little townhome.

Some fun pictures:

Really happening!

Claire didn't want to stand by the sign...so she is showing off our yard!

Yes, Kate, we are so excited for you to have your own room :)

Such an exciting day!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

End of school VaCaTioN!

VACATION! September 3-23

And yes, by every meaning of the word…we actually had a vacation! It was so perfect! Before we left, I spent the last 10 days in Wooster packing just about everything. Shaun was busy working trying to finish his stuff in the lab so it was pretty hectic but we made it!

We flew out September 3^rd at 6 am. So we were up around 3 am. The girls did pretty well on the flights and I was grateful to have Shaun there for tag teaming. We flew into Vegas and picked up our rental car (we got a free upgrade to a van. It was AWESOME!) And drove to St. George to stay with our friends the Stauffers! We met the Stauffers in our first married ward. It was so great to see them! We had a great time going to the splash pad, eating at a fancy restaurant and seeing the St. George temple. My birthday was on Friday, the 4^th while we were there. It was a really great birthday because I didn’t have to worry about doing laundry, packing, cleaning, etc. It was nice to just spend the day with our friends. Shaun surprised me and got some GF cupcakes so we could have a mini celebration for Claire, too. They were really delicious! And Michelle got me two new books to read! Hooray!

After we said our sad goodbyes (on the 5^th) we drove up to Spanish Fork and made a quick stop at my old school. The girls were definitely in need of a stretch break!! There are only a few people that still work there who I know and they are in the office. I enjoyed our quick visit and we headed next to Beth’s house. (Shaun’s sister)

She lives in Lindon. We stayed in her basement and it was a great setup for us. Claire had her own room and Kate was in our room. Everyone slept awesome (which makes vacation so much better.)

The week was filled with so much fun! Going out to eat with family, celebrating Claire’s 3^rd birthday, getting spoiled with Kneader’s French Toast, visiting family at their houses, going on a date with Shaun to the temple, Eating at this incredible restaurant with my brother, Tyson & Brittani. And checking out the new science building at BYU. We really wanted to spend some time in the BYU bookstore but we forgot about how they have devotionals and the bookstore closes. L Another time.

We finished our UT stay by spending half a day at temple square! It was so awesome to see the new city center mall, walk around and show Claire all the cool things, and we actually went on top of the Conference center, which was a first for us. Considering all of the stuff we tried to cram in the girls did really well.

I never thought I would want to move back to Provo/ Orem area but going back this time I could really appreciate it for what it is and maybe someday we will end up there. It was just so nice to spend some much time with Shaun’s family. They are so sweet to us and our girls. Plus, my heart LOVES the mountains!

Then, we continued driving to Idaho to spend some time with my family. It had cooled off quite a bit and we actually had to go buy the girls some socks so they wouldn’t freeze.

We had a great time in Idaho. We drove up to Rexburg one day to visit the Hansen family. We met them while living in Ohio. They were great friends to us. We also got to spend some time with my grandparents and with my aunt Leisa and Uncle Stacy.

While home Shaun ran a race with my mom and brother. The girls and I stayed home since it was so cold. We forgot to pack our winter coats. But Shaun enjoyed spending time with them.

Shaun headed out to meet with the movers and wrap up everything with our house. Then he drove our car to Mississippi. The girls and I stayed several more days with my parents and then flew to Mississippi. While I was home, both of my brothers came into town to visit. It was so fun to be with everyone (Just missing Seleta).

We spent a lot of time outside playing. Claire practiced taking turns with Teancum on the slide. The day after t the girls were definitely in need of a stretch break!! Teancum left Claire didn’t want to do the slide because she couldn’t take turns. Haha silly kids.

While we were with our families we also took the opportunity to have our father’s give us blessings. It was interesting how similar our blessings were. We are definitely meant to be in Mississippi. The adventure awaits us!

I was not looking forward to the 3 airplane rides by myself but I just kept telling myself it will be fine and by the end of the day we will be there. Well, on the way to the airport Claire started throwing up. Then, we get there, I unzip the suitcase to change her clothes and the zipper completely breaks. In the meantime, my suitcase is too heavy and the overcharges will be $100 unless I can figure something else out. Thankfully my mom had an extra small bag in her car that I stuffed a bunch of things in and used as “Claire’s carry-on.” The rest of the day went great. We made it just in time to walk/ run for our lives to get to each flight and then made it Jackson Mississippi. Grateful that everything worked out.

We were so sad to see this vacation come to an end. We really had such a fabulous time! Thank you to everyone who made our stay so fun and memorable.

St. George