We're home!

We got home yesterday afternoon and are sure glad to be back! Our little guy finally has a name...Gage D Allen (D for his grandpas - Duane and David). The kids sure love him. The first thing Jace says when he walks in the door is, "I want the baby." Katie's a little mommy and loves to show how gentle she can be giving him hugs. Luckily we've had lots of family help with the kids so Scott was able to go back to work today and I am resting here at home with Gage. We're working on getting settled in and trying to keep up with our sleep. Gage has been a good baby and did pretty well his first night home. We love that he's finally here!

It's a...

...BOY! Baby Allen (no name yet) was born today at 8:58 a.m. He weighs 8 lbs and is 21 inches long. The delivery went smoothly and besides a bruised face he is doing great. He's a pretty mellow kid so far and we're excited to welcome him into our family!

No baby yet

Well, I was hoping to go early since Jace came ten days early, but that day has come and gone. Hopefully it will be soon!

Our big boy!

We celebrated Jace's 2nd birthday this week...I can't believe he's already 2! He's such a good boy and so much fun to have around the house. He had a great birthday and got lots of fun toys.

Jace is into orange right now. I don't know if it's because he really likes it or if he just likes saying it, but he asked for orange cake and orange ice cream (sherbet) and that's what he got. He was happy with it so that's all that matters!


House update: Since I last wrote, the sheetrock has been put up and the taping and texturing are finished. They've also put in the doors, closet shelving and trim. Next week they will paint and the week after that they will start putting in the floors. Things are moving along fast and I think we'll be in by the end of April unless something unforseen comes up.

Baby update: No baby yet, but I am still a couple weeks away from the due date. I am dilated a few centimeters, and although I know that doesn't really predict anything, at least it means that it's all getting started. The baby is growing a ton right now so I hope it decides to come out soon before it gets too big.

Our new house...

We finally took a picture of our house during the day so you can see what it really looks like. We'll take inside pictures as things get finished up. Right now it's a lot of wood and garbage and mess...not that interesting. So far the basement has been framed, wired, and plumbed. Things are moving along great!

Crazy three weeks...

I know you are all probably wondering about our house since it has been so long since I last wrote. Well....it has been a pretty crazy and stressful three weeks to say the least. First of all, picking out our own flooring, counter tops, cabinets, and paint colors is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I had lots of help, which was great, but I never imagined that I would have such a hard time choosing, especially when it came to finding things that were within our budget. It's funny that if we were to have bought a house already finished I would have liked it just fine no matter what was in it (to a point...I may have wanted to change a few things, but I wouldn't have worried about it much), but knowing that it was my choice what color of carpet we walked on or what paint color was on every wall of our home is a lot more pressure. I know I take forever to make decisions anyway so I should have guessed I would have a hard time on a house, but I've found I'm not alone on finding it difficult to make decisions when finishing a house.

Anyway, everything was finally chosen...and then we decided to finish the basement. We
debated a lot about it, but thought that it would be the best thing to finish it now and not have to worry about the mess later. That decision brought on yet another stress because then we had to decide how we wanted our floor plan, which was also harder than I thought. We have one of those hallway basements - long and skinny - and it is so hard to set up a floor plan with one of those. I'd bore you with all of the little details of things we had to choose and make decisions on so I won't write about them, but there were a lot, and I have decided that I will never build a home from scratch unless I have so much money that I can do whatever I want and not worry about it. I guess that is the biggest stress - the cost. Not the cost of the house itself, but of all the extras we could add in. The house is already really nice, but we wanted to add a few other things, especially things that would be so much easier to add as the house was being finished instead of later. But everything costs 'just a little more,' which alone doesn't really cost that much, but times it by 10 and turns into a lot! It was hard to give up some of the things we wanted, but I think it will make us happier in the long run when we're not stressing about house payments.

Now things are finally getting started. The framer comes in today, and as soon as the basement is caught up to the top floor (wired, sheetrocked, taped, and textured) all they have left is the finish work. We don't have a set closing date yet. We'll know more in a week or so, but we hope to be moving in 2 or 3 months. I know we'll love the house and we are excited to see it finished, but it sure was a lot more involved than I thought it would be. It will be so nice when it is all over.

Well, that would have been great if the house would have been our only stress during the past three weeks...My back has been aching a lot the last couple of months, which is a pretty normal pregnancy symptom. But two weeks ago (right in the middle of all the house stuff) I pulled my back - hard. I couldn't even stand or walk by myself. Scott had to stay home for a few days because I couldn't do anything but sit on the couch all day. Every move hurt, and even sitting still was uncomfortable. It was awful! We worried that I had really hurt something, but when things started getting better after a few days we decided that it was just a really bad pulled muscle. Since then I've been feeling better every day, although I still have to be careful to not do too much. I really don't want to have a sore back when I start taking care of a brand new baby in a few weeks.

Speaking of the baby, I am due in a little less than 5 weeks and it is coming up fast! I'm nervous about 3 kids, but I'm getting so uncomfortable that I'm feeling more and more ready every day. However, with all of the craziness going on we don't have names picked, bags packed, or a crib set up yet. Hopefully we'll have at least a list of names by the time he/she comes, I probably won't pack a bag until I'm in labor, and I don't think we'll even set up the crib until after we move. I did get some newborn diapers though, and I hope to go through some baby clothes soon to pick out a few things for a boy and a girl to get us started until we know the gender for sure.

Despite all of the chaos in our lives right now, things are still going pretty well. Katie and Jace are doing great and are starting to play really well together. They also fight really well together, but over all they have fun. It's so cute to hear them pretend in their own little world.

Katelyn is loving primary and I've recently heard her and Jace having their own testimony meeting. I'm not sure if she learned it in class or picked it up from Sacrament meeting, but it was pretty cute. She loves learning the songs and sings them so much that Jace is picking them up too. She's also excited for a baby to come live at our house. She told me the other day that if the baby is a girl she wants to name it Jasmine, and if it's a boy we should name it Tarzan. A little too many Disney moves I think. : )

Jace will be two in a few weeks. He doesn't seem like he could already be that old, but I guess that's how big Katie was when he was born. He talks all the time, even more than Katie did at that age, and says the funniest things. He's still doing great in his bunk bed and rarely gets out when he's not supposed to.

Here is one of the few pictures I've taken in the past few weeks. I pulled out my camera today just so I would have something for everyone to look at in my post. I can't promise, but I hope to have some house pictures soon now that things are finally rolling.

We finally did it!

Since we already bought a minivan and a bunk bed this year, we thought we might as well not stop there. We decided to go all out and buy a new house too! : ) After months of looking we finally found something we both love. It's a spec home in a newer development that Scott just happened to find on the MLS list. He found it on a Wednesday, we looked at it Friday, put in an offer that night, and it was accepted the next day. It all happened so fast, but we felt good about it. I think we've looked at so many houses that we knew we found the right one when we saw it. And it's a good thing we snatched it up when we did because we found out that there were several other people interested in it as well.

The house isn't finished yet so we weren't quite sure we wanted to buy it at first. It's so hard to imagine what things will look like in a house that just has sheet rock and bare floors. However, the builders have a spec home in town of the same floor plan so we decided to take a look at it to get a better idea of the finished product. We stepped inside the house and were immediately sold. It was so beautiful! We loved the model home so much we almost want to tell them to finish ours the exact same way. But this week we start meeting to pick everything out. I want to see all of our choices just to make sure there isn't anything I like better. It's a little overwhelming, but fun at the same time. I just hope everything we pick out ends up looking good together.

This picture is actually of the model home, but ours looks basically the same. We couldn't get a good picture since it was so dark, but we will have more coming...hopefully some of the inside too. So exciting!