Holy-moly batman, the last few weeks have been NUTS!! I think we are crazy. Scratch that, I know we're crazy. This is seriously how we seem to always do things -- do something big and overwhelming in as little time as possible, ready, go!

We have been working on finishing all of our house projects, and starting a few new ones too. If it weren't for the help of our family, I have no idea how we would have made it. Every night we did something -- whether it be painting, trim work, painting, fence, painting, packing, and so on. We neutralized most of our colored walls in the house because we tried our best to stage it. Put in new backsplashes in our bathrooms, new floor tiles, and I'm sure a million other things I can't recall. Our house went on the market this last friday, and this weekend has been crazy with 6 showings already! One of them came back for a second showing, and we whole-heartedly think they ought to buy the house. lol

Here's a link, check it out! http://www.trulia.com/property/3061990463-11374-Otis-St-Westminster-CO-80020



Some pictures!

My two cuties playing together!

Mikayla loves standing on the back of the walker and letting Alex cart her around

Alex LOVED Chipotle rice and black beans. He thinks he's too mature for any type of baby food.

Adding to the craziness, we went to Seattle last weekend on a house-hunting trip. Mikayla wanted to do only two things: play with Emlyn and go to the beach. We looked at a ton of places. We finally settled on a townhome we saw our very last night there. We wanted something with a decent size garage to hold our belongings until we bought a house. After flying back to Colorado, we were told the townhome was NO LONGER available and was being given to a previous applicant who had backed out. Long story short, we are now going to be renting a townhome we haven't seen yet, and are hoping for the best! Again, it must be how we roll. It's the same thing we did when we first moved back to CO. *sigh*

Mika and Emlyn being silly

At the beach. We were only supposed to go in to our ankles

Alex's first time touching sand

Ian was concentrating pretty hard lol

Mikayla met a friend

Alex LOVED the wet sand

Um, somebody forgot we were only putting our feet in...

This is how we looked when we headed back to the hotel

Mikayla was pretty cold once it got dark :)

The day after we came home, this freaky-looking wasp tried quite hard to be in our house. It uses that super long tail thing to burrow into wood. Crazy!

So there you have it folks, a very condensed version of our insane month!

We're moving....

back to Seattle! Ian was hired by Warner Bros. Games. We're very excited to move to Seattle, but sad to leave Colorado. We've been working hard to get our house ready to sell and hope to put it on the market this coming week. Anyone want a house? :) In the mean time, here's some pictures of our happenings as of late!

Mika rocking out

Mika driving the boat at my Estes Park birthday shindig

Alex going for the camera

Me and my awesome bro!

Giant yucky spider that stole a web in front of our house

Funny expression on my little guy

I seriously love my cuddle-bug!!!!

Seattle Trip

May started with the game company Bungie in the Seattle area flying us up for Ian to interview. It was awesome -- they paid for my ticket, our hotel, rental car, and food. We'd been praying for guidance for our future of where to go, and wanted it to be Denver or Seattle. Not sure if we actually wanted to live in Seattle again, we figured we'd give the job a chance and get a feel for the area from the perspective of our family as opposed to our newlywed days. Our first night there our friends got together and threw a bbq. It was so fun to catch up and hang out. So fun I forgot to take pictures. Overall, we had a wonderful trip!

I was worried about how much sleep we'd get in one room with two wiggly kids. It worked out, and mornings were super cute! :)

The view of Bellevue from our hotel window. Beautiful weather!!

The kids and I went with our friend Mary and her kids to the Red Robin at the docks in Seattle.

Then we went to the Aquarium. Emlyn and Mikayla loved seeing everything there!

The aquarium is built on and in Puget Sound, and you cross a bridge to go into the underwater part.

That evening we had dinner at Luke & Mary's house. The girls ran off to play, and when it got too quiet.... we found them making dog food soup!

The girls and Alex, along with the rest of us, listened to Ian's hysterical rendition of Green Eggs and Ham

When we were on the plane, the boys were t.i.r.e.d.

Mikayla insisted on pulling a suitcase, usually she wanted two of them :)

A week after returning home... the plague hit!

Okay, so not the plague actually, but it might as well have been. Whatever it was hit us HARD. After a week of being sick and not getting any better, and wheezing with a hard time breathing, I went to an urgent care clinic and was diagnosed with early pneumonia. No wonder I couldn't breathe! Not to mention the fact if I blinked for too long I'd about pass out. The next day we took Alex to Children's hospital because he was wheezing too. They suctioned him and gave him amoxicillin for an ear infection. Two days later Ian and Mika went in to their respective doctors. Ian had a sinus infection, and Mikayla had an infection in each ear with freakin' blister on one. Poor, poor thing.

A couple days passed, and while the kids were slowly getting better Ian and I were not. Ian kept having horrible fevers that made him puke, and I was getting to the point of being unable to breathe again. Death was welcoming by this time. I went to our regular doctor and found my O2 was at 86. She gave me a nebulizer treatment, told me I had a sinus infection, and prescribed me an inhaler and augmenten. She was appalled the clinic hadn't prescribed an inhaler for me the prior week. It was then I learned Z-pak is used for infections of the lungs, and amoxicillin works best for sinuses.

So... after a useless ER visit for Ian that evening, the WALGREENS clinic finally gave Ian a proper diagnosis two days later. It turns out Ian was given Z-pak for his sinus infection which did nothing for him, so he fought it on his own. Then it turned into an ear infection, and he was given amox. and finally started improving.

It was seriously a nightmare for two weeks straight. It would be a hard choice to choose between that or no epidural during labor! Still, during this time Alex remained cute...!

Mikayla turned 4 feeling super sick, look what a trooper she is! We were going to have a big ol' family bbq for her special day, but postponed it two weeks later, and had a meager celebration the day of.

Last but not least... end of the year school pictures :)

April in a Nutshell

We spent the month looking for jobs and Mikayla was super excited to see Disney Princess on Ice. She wore her pink dress, and was super stoked to get a surprise princess nightgown after the show! Since then she has been even more in love with the color pink, and obsesses -- uh, loves anything with Sleeping Beauty.

We pulled out the old walker for Alex to play in. Mikayla had to give it a whirl for old times' sake. haha!

Here's a slightly less arachnid shot

This little dude melts my heart with his smiles!

Sometimes we all feel a little bit nuts. I hit my point yesterday. Ian had applied to Disney in Boulder and made it all the way through to the last round of interviews. It really felt like it was his job and all the elements aligned themselves to where they should be. We were really excited when Disney called, only to hear that there was that one person who was a slightly better fit for the job. Oh well. We were bummed. We're hoping the other place we want pans out, otherwise, it would seem we've exhausted the Colorado possibilities. It's just been a bit stressful. On top of it all I had bronchitis, Ian was sick all of last week, and now Mikayla is sick. Oh, and did I mention that last week she had a terrible allergic reaction to a plant in our front yard? She had blisters on her face and her eye was all swollen. I felt so terrible for her. We took her to the doctor twice because we thought it was impetigo the second time. It wasn't until after obtaining antibiotics that our little allergy test on her arm showed up. At least we figured it out!! Now Mika has the flu or something, and today her legs ached so badly she wouldn't even walk. For some weird reason it's very stressful to me when my kids are sick (well, mostly Mikayla because she gets all the weird stuff). I wound up with a migraine tonight because of it all. I'm a wimp.

Luckily we're blessed with such wonderful and helpful family. We have hope and pray it'll all work out so we can stay in Colorado. Also, it would NOT be fun to move a 4 bdrm house. Moving from apartments was work enough. lol

Now I'm going to cuddle with my husband and watch a movie, and enjoy my all time favorite BROWNIE BATTER icecream! :)

Mikayla was pregnant with one of her dolls

I love my chunky baldy!

The last week or two have been uh, interesting to say the least. Wednesday of last week Ian got a phone call saying he was laid off. So were about 36 other people at his work, not to mention the 20 from the other game the week before that. Things have gotten quite crazy there from what the 'leftovers' have been saying. Ian's been so good at sending out resumes to all the places around town. So far one local game company has called him back, and another place that's a total joke. Yet strangely there's a few Seattle game companies wanting to talk, and he has a phone interview with Microsoft some time next week. I have no idea yet what the future holds for us, but we're toying with the idea of moving back to Seattle. We've been praying for guidance, and it doesn't help that the roadway to Seattle seems to be trying to open up, while the Colorado road not so much. It has only been a little over a week though. Soooo, yeah, I don't know!!!

It's been nice having Ian home though, and we've been getting a lot done around the house. We even finally finished framing in the sliding door we had installed last year. Thankfully Nana came and watched the kids while we worked, and Grandad came later that night. They even bought us pizza, it was so sweet. :) It'll be nice to finish up all the house projects that became very uninteresting when I was pregnant with Alex. Speaking of... I am so in love with Alex's baby chunk. Mikayla was always very slender and dainty, so little chunky baby thighs are all I seem to talk about in the mornings. Loooove it!

Look at my little bald-headed cutie!!

Mikayla is SO hilarious. She just loves to dance and make up songs. Forgive the darkness of this video, I got the camera as fast as I could and wasn't able to get other lights turned on. Mikayla put on this lovely show for us, and I have no clue where she got the tune from!

For fun, a picture of Mika and Alex at 4 months

So things have been pretty good overall lately. Mikayla had a couple days last week where she was the most ornery girl ever, just begging to be in trouble. If she were a teen I'd possibly chalk it up to pms, but what's her excuse at 3.5?? lol All I know is if she's anything like that as a teen, we're in deep trouble. She's usually pretty cute though, and makes up her own songs. Even better, is when she doesn't have the words to regular songs quite right. For example:

Jingle Bells
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells all the way
Almost time it's fun to ride
In a one horse open sleigh, hey!

Bah Bah Black Sheep
Blah blah black sheep
Penny many wool
Yes sir, yes sir, big bags full
[then the rest]

I adore it! Alex has discovered his hands and feet lately. We've been putting socks on his hands so he doesn't scratch his face, and the other day he was staring at the socks and then immediately put them and his hands in his mouth. He's also super cute when he nurses, because sometimes he'll be silly and stop, then look up at me sideways and smile. It cracks me up. He has the most adorable smiles!!

Alex was blessed at church on Sun. February 6th. It was very sweet, and here's a cute picture of our family who came!

Alex all dressed up

Mikayla being ocd about her ponies being in a line. :)

My two cuties!

Burrito baby

I love this little guy!

That's his "yeah, I know I'm hot stuff" look

Alex adores Mika and always watches what she's doing

Full body sticker art. Hmm. lol