A relaxing night

WE ARE OUT OF THE OLD APARTMENT! This picture was taken a couple nights before we moved out. Melia really loves playing Rock band even though she obviously isn't really doing it, but she loves it!

I have been having a few of these "relaxing nights" lately. For those of you who haven't heard, Treven received a promotion to the Fitness department. He is going to be trained to be a CFT or Certified Fitness Trainer, which he is really excited about. Treven also will be considered full time so we receive the wonderful full time benefits. It is so funny that we are so excited about having health insurance... Treven and I haven't been insured for about a year so we are dying to have some insurance! He ALSO is getting a raise of 2 dollar an hour! Everything is going so well at work and he is loving the people he works with and the environment there.

Well back to the reason why I am having a few relaxing nights... a guy named Tim, who Treven works with, broke his ankle about 2 weeks ago so they pulled Treven out of the back stock to cover Tim's area in Apparel. Then Treven got the promotion and WAS supposed to start this upcoming Monday with Fitness. Well another person in Apparel got fired last week unfortunately, so Apparel is short people so Treven has to stay another 2 weeks there to cover until Tim comes back from his injury. So Treven's hours now have shifted. He no longer has the abnormal schedule in retail of 7-4 Monday through Friday. He now has the normal retail schedule and is working a lot of nights. It is nice to have him in the mornings with the girls though. Kind of stinks, but Treven is okay with it. We still get the raise and benefits now so it is all good!I am so proud of all the hard work Treven is putting in both at work and school.

The other day Melia wanted to have a picnic so we took their play food out to the deck and had a play picnic. The girls LOVED it. It will have to be a weekly thing :)

We also started learning out letters with Melia. Each week we are going to do a letter and put the letters and things that begin with that letter on our window. Melia loves it and it really is helping her care about learning her letters! And yes, that is right, Andrew is up there. Melia insisted!

It has been a blast to have Anne right around the corner. Andrew and Melia love playing with each other and we went to the Children's Museum last week with Buffy and Noah as well and the kids absolutely loved it! We took Melia and Andrew to go see Treven's dad's snakes (he breeds and sells them) Melia and Andrew loved it and Andrew actually touched all the snakes along with their chameleon, Sam.

It is so funny to listen to Melia and Andrew talk to each other whenever they are together. In the first couple of days they showed us the difference between boys and girls, Andrew had asked Melia to tell him a story so she continued with telling him about the princess who fell asleep and the prince came and gave her TRUE LOVE'S KISS (she made sure we heard that part) and the princess woke up and they lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Andrew then asks, "Where is the dragon?". Melia said, "The prince got him." and continued to start the story over included the dragon part. Then Melia yelled out "And they lived happily ever after!" and Andrew goes, "AND THE DRAGON DIED!". It was awesome! Anne and I just looked at each other and laughed.

McKenzie is growing up so fast. She is becoming more social with everybody lately and is really picking up on words. She stills loved her babies and has to have her baby with the bottle when she goes to bed. She is doing great in the bunk bed and really loves it. Her new thing is to say "WAIT!" when I am saying good night and shutting the door. Then she wants a hug and kiss so I do and then leave again... she continues to say it and I say Kenzie, go to sleep. And she just cracks up laughing. She thinks it is so funny. She also loved Papa. She calls him Pops right now and runs to give him a hug whenever she sees him.

I am getting more sub calls lately so it is nice to have Treven have some days off during the week so I can sub without paying for babysitting. I am still organizing the new apartment. I am getting myself ready for the half marathon I am doing in May... we will see how it goes! This last month, my wonderful old room mate from BYU Idaho, Megan, came up to visit. She has never been to Oregon/Washington and she is thinking of looking for a job up here in the fall. She is in grad school at USC for Social Work. There are zero jobs in California so she is looking elsewhere. After her visit, she definitely is looking up here and wants to move here when she finds that job! We are so excited!

Today we went and saw my brother and his wife go skydiving and it was awesome. It was a beautiful day today and it was nice to be outside for most of the day.

Well back to my relaxing night... sorry for the rambling. Enjoy the pictures.

Preview to the new apartment

We are planning on painting some walls in our bedroom, living room, and kitchen/dining area so this is just so we can show those friends far away what the place looks like!

Girls room

Girls bathroom

Our bedroom

Kitchen :) That door leads to the washer/dryer and wonderful pantry!

Dining room

Hallway

Living room

District Defender of the Month!

I am so proud of Treven and his hard work is starting to pay off at work.

A couple of weeks ago he received Defender of the Month for his store. For those of you who don't know, Treven is an apparel processor at DICK's Sporting Goods.

Well today, all the store managers presented their store Defenders of the Month and explained why the certain person received it. Then they all vote on who will be the District Defender of the Month out of the people nominated from each store. Treven received 5 of the 7 votes (his manager could not vote for him) so that is AWESOME! Now he goes on to be nominated for Regional Defender of the Month.

I am so proud of the hard work he is doing and the awesome father and husband that he is! And we are so thankful for the help of my brother, Brent, getting Treven this job. It has been a real blessing in our lives and an answer to our prayers.

We love him!

New Hair cut for Melia!

I decided to chop Melia's hair to get it all the same length! We did it today and here it is!

Before...

After!

Another after shot

Lil' update...

We are moving into a new apartment on February 10th... I know, we move a lot! BUT we decided it was best thing for us given the circumstances. We will be moving to apartments that are right across the street from a hospital, WSU Vancouver (where Treven goes to school), and right around the corner from my parents and only about 2 miles from Treven's parent's house. We will be in the same ward as our parents, but we have been on our own here for a while and now we have our own place, we aren't living with my parents. We are very excited for the move. We don't have to be out of our old place until the end of February so we are planning to get everything moved over in about a week and then leave the rest of the time to completely deep clean the old place. The new apartment is in a gated apartment complex, and the apartment is about 300 sq ft bigger. It has an actual pantry which is awesome and central heating and air conditioning!

If you want to take a look at them, www.nwluxuryapts.com and it is Highland Hills. We are moving into the Highland 2 apartment. We have been praying about this decision for about a month and decided that it is the best for our family. With Treven's work and school, it will be better and I have been working in the school district up here more than anywhere else so I always had to drive further! That is our big update.

Christmas was great with all the family and Melia asks daily if we can do it again and do the money drop again. The money drop, for those who don't know, is a tradition started about 5 or 6 years ago in my family. My parents save up all their extra change all year in a jar and then on christmas day, my dad drops it from the stairs and the kids just scramble for it. They add some dollar bills and some dollar coins. Then everybody brings what they got to the table and pull a name and everything get switched to the person's name you pulled out. I hope that made sense... all in all, Melia LOVED it and wants to do it everyday! haha It was really nice being home for Christmas and to not have to worry about traveling with the girls. I could just drive home to our own bed every night!

My sister, Anne, and her family will be moving here at the end of February and I couldn't be more excited! They will be living at my parents' house for a little bit and she is due in April and now we will be right around the corner.

Melia is loving being a Sunbeam in Primary and really makes sure that she goes every week. With the move, she will be switching classes so hopefully that will go well. Andrew, Anne's son, will be in the sunbeam class with her so that will be nice. There are 14 sunbeams already in the Ward so we will be adding 2 more! They are not too excited about that! haha! Oh well!

McKenzie is becoming such a little girl! She is talking more saying words no or yes, baby, MO! (Nemo), socks, stuck, where did it go?, drink, up, teeth, and more... She knows most of her body parts. We are teaching her elbow, knee, and chin now, but she has pretty much everything else now. She loves playing with her cousin, Noah and they love to dance around the house together. She loves playing with her baby she got for Christmas and takes it EVERYWHERE with her. She will be 18 months old on the 15th which seems nuts! She is slowly getting switched over to going to Nursery at church. She really doesn't like me leaving, but I hope she likes the new nursery because that is where Melia starting loving nursery so crossing my fingers!

Well I am more of a stay at home mom now since subbing is pretty much non existent right now. They are trying to pass levys for the schools right now and if they don't get passed then teachers most likely will be fired so teachers are trying to not take days off. We will see what happens. Treven's job is going well and we will find out soon what his new position will be. Hopefully very soon! :)

Anyway, that's us for now! I will try and write more since now I am pretty much a stay at home mom.

Merry Christmas!

Well today is Christmas Eve... I am sitting here waiting for Treven to come home from work so we can go to my parents' house for the night. McKenzie is asleep and Melia is watching some Christmas shows she loves, aka Spongebob's Christmas episode.

We have not updated for a while, but our big news is that we finally became a second car family and we are thankful for that. We got a Nissan Quest. We felt that we needed to buy a second car and we are NOT planning on having another baby for another 2-3 years, but we didn't want to have to turn around in 2 to 3 years and have to buy another new car that would fit the third child so we bought the van. We absolutely love it! I will post pictures of it soon. Whenever I remember to take a picture of it, it is too dark outside.

This year has flown by so fast, it is amazing. I feel like we just moved here yet we moved here about 8 months ago. The girls have grown so much since we have moved here and they are becoming great friends and sisters to each other which is so great to see. I am so thankful for everything from this past year.

This next year I am signed up for the Hippie Chicks Half marathon in May. It is an all women run on Mother's Day weekend. I really can't wait and I will start training on Monday. I am so excited for it. I was supposed to do a half marathon in September, but was not able to due to a respiratory infection and a possible stress fracture. Crossing my fingers that my body will cooperate this time. ;)

Treven is really enjoying his new job at Dick's Sporting Goods. They are been great and he has been able to have a full time schedule. We are hoping to be actually put to full time status in January for the benefits and pay raise. Treven was hired as a holiday person because they had no permanent positions open and so he had to have the temporary 90 day trial before becoming full time. The 90 days is up in January so we can't wait for that to be over. School is over and next semester starts up in January. He has a pretty easy schedule next semester so it will be nice. He receives his residency in April so hopefully he will start going full time and be done SOON! :)

Well that's us. I will post pictures of Christmas and the van next week. I will post a picture of McKenzie. I took this night and I can't believe that my baby is gone! haha She looks like a little girl now, especially when he hair is done.

Here is our Christmas tree. Our first one!

The countdown blocks I made. Melia loves them!

Little girl McKenzie

Melia's message from Santa

Go here to watch Melia's Santa video http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/7761efd4b9cae0c952e59faa9e83a9d2