Parker’s T-ball

Parker played t-ball this past fall and really enjoyed it.  He was so cute to watch too! David, Maggie and Lizzy would find ways to entertain themselves. Maggie liked taking pictures of everyone and the 3 of them all loved playing by a big tree. It was pretty cute.  The weather stayed almost perfect the whole time.  It was just 4 weeks with 2 games a week, which is perfect! Parker would get a little turned around sometimes after hitting the ball, but he would figure it out and get to those bases.  He loved to throw the ball. They all took turns throwing the ball and he really enjoyed his turn.  It is always fun to have the extra curricular activities.

So many New Things

 

So David and I have been married over 10 years now and our furniture has been through 4 kids and too many moves to count over the years. I have been wanting a new couch for a while now, but couldn’t find one that both David and I liked.  But finally this past August we went and found a great couch that we absolutely love and for an amazing price, which makes it even better! It was way bigger than we thought it was at the store. When they delivered it, I went downstairs an was shocked at the size of it!! It is perfect for family and all the visitors we have.  I couldn’t be happier about it.

From a 10 year old completely too worn out couch, to a brand new HUGE super comfy couch.

Last year was an expensive year for us.  We started out the year of 2014 starting to save for the Hawaii trip we wanted to take for our 10 year anniversary.  In February I started really getting serious about it and looking at possible dates for us to go. That same week that I started looking at Hawaii stuff our water heater went out. YIKES! That was a nice chunk of change for us. Thank goodness for emergency funds!! After that was done we started saving up again for our trip and I think in March I began looking again at plans for it and no lie, that same week our van broke down. The water pump and some other very expensive and needed part died that week and another few thousand dollars later we decide 2 things. One, that it was time to sell our van and two that maybe we should postpone our Hawaiian getaway.  I kept feeling like this wasn’t the year to go, but who turns down a trip to Hawaii?! So I told David that I didn’t feel like we should go to Hawaii and he told me he had been having the same thoughts, but didn’t want to say anything and make me feel guilty.  For whatever reason we just were not meant to go to Hawaii this year!

We bought a new van this past year. A 2011 Dodge Caravan and I love it so much!! It is roomy and beautiful,  it has been an amazing van so far and I am so grateful we got it and somehow were blessed to pay cash for it!

On Mother’s day 2014 I told David I would love a new faucet and shower head for our downstairs bathroom.  As with all home improvements it snowballed into us redoing the whole bath and tile surrounding it as well as a new toilet.  It took about 2 months to finish this terrible project where I was forced to share a bathroom with all the kids in the upstairs bathroom. The $50 project quickly turned into a lot more than that within a matter of days! I have hated that bathroom since the day we moved in. The tile was not kept up with very well and no matter how much I scrubbed and cleaned them, they still looked dirty. So I spent a day with joy knocking out every single tile in there.  That is when we found mold and had to replace the walls as well! That was fun! It was such a painful process, but the end result has been awesome. I got a new tub and toilet that I love. The tub looks clean and can actually stay clean unlike the other one. It was not something that we planned on doing this year, but that’s how life goes!! And I am so glad to have it too and thankful that David has the skills to make-over our bathroom.

From this mess to…

THIS!!

David did an amazing job on the bathroom and not one day have I missed that gross tub or nasty tiles!!

In August of 2014 the day before school started for the kids I was doing loads of laundry, when all of a sudden my dryer stopped working!! Luckily I had finished the kids laundry, but unluckily I had not finished all the laundry and had a load or two of wet clothes! It was terrible. Our washer and dryer were never that great and they were 10 years old and I was totally wanting new ones anyway. I was sad about the timing, but so excited to say good-bye to our old washer and dryer and hello to some very pretty and so much faster ones! I have on average about 10 loads of laundry in a week and with the old set it would take about an hour and a half to dry a load. It was terrible! With the new washer and dryer it dries the clothes on average in about 45 minutes!!! It really has been life changing  having a good working washer and dryer and I don’t hate laundry nearly as much as I used to. 

Another thing that was done in our house was our mattress.  We have had it for 10 years, like everything else, and it was a horrible mattress. Somehow 10 years ago a horrible sales lady talked us into getting a firm mattress. We hated it ever since and this year we finally couldn’t take it anymore and went shopping for a new one.  We fell for the lie that memory foam was the way to go and so much more comfy and good for back problems than regular mattresses. So in August we bought a very nice memory foam mattress.  After a month we hated it. Everyone told us it took a couple of weeks to break it in and to be comfy, but it didn’t and so we went and exchanged it for an extra plush super comfy new mattress. My nights have been much better since getting this awesome mattress!

We also bought a new lawn mower this year.  We haven’t had one in about 2 or 3 years, because we had some teenagers mowing it for us. David has bad allergies and I had babies all over the place for so long that I couldn’t devote that much time to our poor yard, so we just went with the boys for those years, but this year since I didn’t have a baby and I wasn’t pregnant I was more than happy to get back into mowing the lawn. I really don’t mind doing it. I put on some music and get a nice hour and a half work out.  We also had a lawn company come and fertilize our yard this year and it looked amazing! Totally worth the money to get it treated. 

In November David and I were going to Las Vegas for our anniversary. The Sunday before the week we were leaving I came home from church to find all of my food in my freezer was thawing right before my eyes.  Our refrigerator was broken!! It was terrible! Again, I had kind of been wanting a new fridge, but not right before a vacation! So the next day we found  an awesome fridge on KSL for a great deal and then turned around and sold our fridge for $100~can I just tell you how much I love KSL Classifieds and I don’t know what I would do, if we ever do move to another state without the convenience of selling things online locally! I’ve been wanting to switch from white appliances to black for a while now and I guess we are on our way now!

David’s old 2004 Honda Civic had to have quite a bit of work done on it this year too.  It was due for a major tune up and David still loves that little car, so we put some money towards that this past year as well. 

I also took on painting the whole house. It has been beige in all the main rooms for a while now and I just could never decide on a color that I just loved until this past year.  I found a grey that I loved called Manhattan Mist. So I painted the kitchen, upstairs living room, hallways, girl’s room, our master bedroom,and bathroom downstairs. It feels so much better. It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for a house! This is the after. I forgot to get a before.

David also started finishing up the laundry room and adding drywall to it.  It looks so much better! Pictures will have to come later, because I haven’t had time to take any and it is a disaster in there right now, post Christmas!

David’s company moved buildings and David helped a lot with the move. He was at the new building a lot before they actually moved over helping them set up all the internet and whatever other stuff they needed! The old company had some counters and shelves there and David’s company didn’t want them, so they were going to throw them out. David being the saver he is, called me and asked if we could use some counters! I said yes of course! So for free we were able to get a work space for David for the garage and a work space for me in the laundry room. I have been wanting a counter in there for years and it finally happened and I love it! I made it my little crafting area and love it so much more than I thought I would in the laundry room!

I think that is it for big purchases for 2014. It was a busy and expensive year and thank goodness we didn’t try to add a trip to Hawaii to that! When it rains, it pours and hopefully the rainy season is over for us for big purchases for 2015! We are blessed that David has a great job and that we are able to handle little surprises in our life. So very blessed.

Catching Up

Clearly I have been slacking in my blogging for the past year.  My goal this year is to first get caught up again and then print the posts into books.  Then I will try to keep up with weekly or monthly posts.  That’s the goal anyway.  I don’t know that I have a good excuse for not blogging this past year. I guess having 4 children kindof kicks my butt most of the time.  Between keeping up with homework, book reports, cub scout requirements, reading with the kids, keeping up with laundry and housework, potty training, having David with a full time calling for 4 years as Elders Quorum President, my calling as Relief Society Activity Planning Committee, extra curricular activities for the kids and oh sleeping, the extra time  that I do have I don’t usually want to spend it thinking about the madness that was the previous day or week!! But for my sake of keeping a better journal of my kids lives I am going to try to do better. I really do love the blog and once I start I find it very hard to stop. I always say okay just one more post…Time just goes by way too fast and although some days seem to be never ending, years go by in a flash these days.  The thought that Parker will be starting Kindergarten in 2016 is really freaking me out. He is too little for all that! Maggie will be getting baptized this year, David will be in double digits and Elizabeth will be getting too much like a toddler and nothing like my little baby. 

People always said that once you get past the third child, it’s easy.  I thought people were mad and lying to me, but it turns out they are right! Somehow it was way harder having just 2 kids so long ago than the 4.  The fact that they entertain each other and the small things they do to help out that I just don’t think about is amazing. David and Maggie really are amazing helpers.  They know how to do so much.  David is always trying to help me cook and asking questions to figure out how it works. He’s got a few things that he has gotten great at making.  Maggie is loving helping in the kitchen as well. She loves to do dishes.  I have got to let go of my somewhat O.C.D. that I have about how the dishes go in the dishwasher and making sure they are actually clean enough to go into the dishwasher and let them learn more.  They are great at helping with laundry as well as picking up their rooms. Don’t get me wrong, I have to give some reminders, but they have actually learned how to put things away and not just sweep things under the bed and call it clean.  Parker has been in a particularly helpful mood these days as well. He comes into the room and says, “Mom, I help you?”  It’s adorable.  He has gotten really good at following directions and wanting to help.  Preschool has been amazing for him! He absolutely loves it. He gets to ride the bus and has the sweetest old man for a bus driver that just is so friendly and sweet to Parker.  He has come leaps and bounds with his speech. Still not where he should be, but he speaks in sentences and is a lot more intelligible than 6 months ago.  He is such a delight to be around.  Elizabeth is hilarious these days.  She is very happy most of the time, but when she gets sleepy you can tell almost immediately.  She will start picking on Parker and that is our cue to put her to bed sooner than later.  She loves going to bed! We tell her it is time to go night-night and she goes and tells everyone good night and waves good bye.  She then goes and sits to get her teeth brushed and goes happily into her bed. Most nights she looks relieved to be in her bed for some alone time.  Her and Maggie share a room downstairs next to our room and most nights, when Maggie goes in to go to bed we hear Lizzy saying hi to Maggie and then talking away about who knows what! It is so cute.  She is quite the bully.  She mostly targets Parker, but sometimes other kids get in her way too.  She is so bossy too.  Just today we asked Parker to go get his pajamas on and he was stalling.  Then Lizzy walks over to him and puts her hands on his back to start very gently pushing him the direction of the stairs and says, “ Go, Parker. Pajamas. Go!”  David and I just looked at each other in amazement that she could A. say that so well and B. be so dang bossy!! She is adorable and a lot of fun, but so much work. I forget how hard 18 month old kids are majority of the time.  She doesn’t like any kind of electronics or t.v., so you have to get creative to entertain her, especially when you are tired and just want to sit and do absolutely nothing!!

They are 4 amazing kids. Handfuls, but great! It is so much fun to watch them grow so much everyday and see what comes out of those mouths! Here’s to me doing a better job at keeping up with our everyday lives, so we can look back and laugh some day. Wish me luck!

Austin’s Farewell

So way back a while ago on July 23rd, 2014 Austin, David’s little brother, went to the MTC in Orem, Utah to begin his 2 year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  We were so happy to get to spend the last few days with him, before he headed to the MTC.  He has changed so much the last few months before leaving for a mission. Having just graduated in May and then leaving for a mission in July, it just seemed like he was too young to leave, but he has done amazing so far.  He is doing a great job on his mission and is loving the work and the people.  In just 5 short months he has changed so much. We were able to Skype with him over Christmas.  I was waiting for shy little Austin to be there, but no, he had this light in his eyes and was just so talkative and mature. He was grinning the whole 2 and 1/2 hours we got to talk to him.  There were probably about 20-30 people at the Torgerson’s that day and everyone filtered in and out of the room to chat with him.  His 2 best friends even got to come and talk the whole time with him.  He had the spirit with him the entire time and you just tell he was purely happy.  In the 11 years that I have known Austin, I don’t think I heard him say more than a sentence here and there, very quietly.  But this time he was confident and talkative and just happy. David and I were so glad we could be there to see him and talk to him.  He really is an amazing kid!

Can’t wait to see him again in just a year and a half! Time really does go by in a flash, but we miss him a lot! This is Austin Skyping with us at Christmas. Sherrie and Dave were on pins and needles waiting for his call. Austin was about 20 minutes late calling and every minute that went by they got a little more restless.   But it was worth the wait, clearly!