Feeling Nostalgic...

Warning…I tend to ramble when I’m feeling nostalgic. Just ask my husband…
It has come so fast!!! We aren’t actually leaving Texas for another 2 ½ weeks, but I have been feeling very nostalgic for the past couple of days. Today the movers came and loaded up all of our stuff for Washington. Our apartment looks very bare. It is reminding me of the trip Dan and I took down here to check out the area before moving, when we saw these apartments for the first time. Then I look at Broden and am reminded of Jacey when she was his age. When we moved to Texas she was the same age that he is right now. Then THAT makes me think about how much our family has changed in the past 3 years. I like to think it has been for the better. I hope so! :) We are definitely more independent, and I think we have proved to ourselves that we can get through just about anything relying on just each other and the Lord. I was initially nervous about moving so far from our family, who we love so much. Don’t get me wrong, we’re grateful to be moving back closer to them, but we also realized that we’ve probably branched out to get to know others down here a little more than we have living closer to family in the past. That’s something I hope to take with us. We’ve been grateful for ALL of the good influences we’ve had down here. We’re grateful for extended family that we probably wouldn’t have known otherwise. We often say that we would be thrilled if 10 years down the road our family was just like them! I’m grateful for the influence of good friends, whether it’s other students who traveled the same road we did, other young moms who I watch and try to pattern my parenting skills after more than they will ever know, or older women who I visit taught or served with in Young Womens who were always there to mother me a little bit and make a fuss over my kids when my own mom and mother-in-law were so far away. I’m even grateful for the influence of Jacey’s cute primary teacher/ adopted “grandma” (who could probably be my grandma!) and the way even she has made Texas feel like home. I’m grateful that we’ve been able to live somewhere where people have a firm belief in God and share those beliefs freely, even if they are different from mine. I’m grateful that we’ve been able to live someplace that is SO family friendly, and where people are so committed to their children. I realize that this probably sounds like I am leaving Texas kicking and screaming, but I’m not. I’ll admit I have had some mixed feelings just because I have LOVED the past 3 years down here. A very wise woman (a fellow YW leader- she has raised several teenagers, so I consider her to be very wise!) recently shared a great Dr. Seuess quote with me. She said, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” That quote has made all the difference in the world in my attitude. It’s so true! I know we have been so blessed to know the people we have known and learn the things we have learned. How can I be sad when I think of all the great memories we’ve made down here? Some people go their whole lives without those kinds of experiences. And on top of that, as hard as it is to say goodbye, I am EXCITED for the future! I know God has a plan for our family in Washington, and I can’t wait to see what it is. I am excited to see my kids become better acquainted with our families. I am excited to see where Dan’s career takes him, and excited for him to finally be able to do all the things he wants to do in his practice. Call me crazy, but some days I am even kind of (keyword kind of) excited for the change in climate. I do love days like today when we were loading our van and it was the perfect late November day in the mid-70s; however, I don’t always love it when it’s November and you are craving soup and you have to sweat through dinner to eat it . My kids are SO excited to play in the rain and stomp in puddles more often. I am sure the novelty will wear off quickly. I am very excited though for the change in seasons, the beautiful scenery, the mountains, camping, NO POISONOUS BUGS OR SNAKES, and clean (although cold) lakes where I can see my own feet. Most of all I am looking forward to a new stage of our life, new opportunities, new friends, a new job :), and the exciting adventures that “newness” brings!

Johnston genes....

People always tell me how much my kids look like their dad. And I think that's great, because I think their Dad's a pretty handsome guy. But, I'll admit, I secretly dream of my dark-haired baby that I know is up there somewhere. :) And I may be slightly biased, but I think my kids are pretty darn cute. I must say though, even though everyone talks about how much of Dan they see in them, every once in awhile I see the little traits, expressions, mannerisms, etc. that tell me they definately have my DNA. So just out of curiousity I had to do this look-alike meter that I saw on my friend Eliza's blog. Now the evidence clearly shows that Broden looks more like his dad, but scroll down and look at Jacey's! I knew it! Maybe the next time someone tells me she's the "spittin' image of her dad", I'll direct them to my blog to prove she's a perfect mix! Oh- and for the record, I feel like I need to add that Broden has my dark eyes....

Sillito Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family history - Free family tree maker

Sillito Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

My disclaimer

OK- now that I just went on a blogging marathon to catch us up for awhile, I feel like I need to give a heads up that I will probably not be posting very frequently for the next little bit! :) We are moving out of our apartment in 2 1/2 weeks. That is slightly misleading, because Dan doesn't actually graduate until Dec. 13th, so we will be around here and there. In between that time we will be taking a vacation, preparing for graduation, having family in town, etc. For the next 2 1/2 weeks though, I should be packing, getting rid of things, packing, getting rid of more things.... you get the idea. So if I am posting frequently for the next couple of weeks it means I'm either really on top of things for this move, or I'm just postponing the inevitable, in which case I will gladly welcome comments encouraging me to get to work! SO....take your time reading the (many) posts that I just spent way too much time on, and we'll have lots of fun pictures to share by Christmas time!

Just like Daddy

Are we brainwashing him early? Perhaps.... But when you have the opportunity for your kids to have a huge scholarship for attending the same chiropractic school as their parent, you do what you've got to do. The truth is, we could care less if Broden follows in Daddy's footsteps. But it's still fun to capture little moments like this when he tries so hard to be just like Dad without any prompting from us.

Halloween

I realize everyone else has posted their Halloween pictures a long time ago, but I figured it was better late than never, right? This year was the year of mythical creatures in our home. Jacey was a princess riding a unicorn, and Broden was a dragon. We enjoyed a very festive halloween at the Weeds this year, complete with halloween-themed dinner and fun trick-or-treating with friends.

The whole clan, including one very uncomfortable dragon that insisted on sitting on his mommy's lap!

We were pleasantly surprised when we got there to see another dragon and a little knight waiting for us, keeping with our theme for the evening. We had a minor setback when we realized that Broden's costume was a little too small. A problem, I might add, that we wouldn't have had if he would have let me try his costume on him before Halloween night. His hood smooshed his poor little head down so he was like a little turtle inside of it. In fact, I was trying to impersonate him, and had a sudden sharp pain shoot down my neck that hurt so bad we had to postpone trick-or-treating until Dan could give me an adjustment. Even though he wasn't happy about having to suffer through pictures with his hood on, he cheered up when we let him take off his hood to go trick-or-treating. I wasn't sure if he'd really know what to do, since he spent last year in the stroller and wasn't too interested at the ward trunk-or-treat. But Jacey and Nathan were excellent teachers, and Cody and Broden got the hang of it real quick. I loved seeing him push his way up underneath all the big kids at the door and say "Tricky Chee!" And while between the two of them Jacey definatly got more compliments on her costume, Broden was the one that made the stash this year. When we got home, Dan and I noticed that Broden's bag had almost twice as much candy in it as Jacey. Turns out the cute little ones who need the candy the least are the ones who everyone seems to favor. We had a wonderful time, the kids got spoiled, and they haven't even noticed that every day a grab a handful and throw it away. (Shh....no spilling my secret please!)

And the evening ends "happily ever after", holding hands and all!

Boys...

Maybe it's just the fact that he's a boy, maybe it's just the fact that I've been super-busy trying to get things ready for our move and his play time has been a teeny bit less-supervised than usual, but Broden has made sure lately that I don't have any downtime. The hard thing is, after he does something that might just be slightly naughty, he is SO pleased with his accomplishment that that he runs to find me and pulls me to show me what he did. He looks so proud of his creativity, that sometimes it's hard to get upset. For example- Yesterday while I was on the phone with our movers he opened the fridge, found a bag of shredded cheese, carried it over to the closet, found the swim bag (with floaties, beach towels, etc) and dumped the whole bag of cheese in the swim bag. Then, you guessed it....he ran to find me and showed me the swim bag. I keep reminding myself that someday I'll think these little things are funny.

But then he'll do something really sweet, like this:



He lined up all of their stuffed animals on the couch, got the scriptures and "read" to all his stuffed animals. It was 5 minutes of peace and quiet, and reminded me of how grateful I am to be this sweet boy's mom.

Not happy....

I am so glad Broden is a boy, because it has taken him FOREVER to get any hair! We finally decided it was time for a haircut. We had tried one time before, but he had so little hair, and it was so fine, the clippers couldn't even cut it. Last week we (ok...I) decided it was time to try again, because we had family pictures scheduled for that night with my good friend Whitni. I should have known better... he already had woken up too early from his nap, and after many attempts to get him to fall back asleep I finally accepted the fact that it wasn't going to happen. Then, when Dan got home I gave him the job of giving an already grumpy almost 2-year-old a haircut. Broden was not happy with my plan. How did he punish me? By being a stinker during family pictures! He wouldn't smile, wouldn't sit down by himself for a single shot, and wouldn't even sit down by Jacey for a picture with her.

Luckily, Whitni is super talented and we still ended up with pictures that we love. I won't post them ALL here...(even though I think my family is beautiful, I realize that not everyone wants to look at every picture we have:) Besides, you might just find one in your Christmas card, and I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise! But... we're so glad that she squeezed us in before she has her baby next month and before we move.

Carving pumpkins

The night Dan came home we celebrated by carving pumpkins. Jacey did NOT like the feeling of cleaning out the pumpkin. Broden, on the other hand, LOVED it and didn't want to stop. Jacey designed the face and Dad did the carving. They were both excited to see the finished product, and we think they did a pretty good job!

Our adventures minus one daddy

A few weeks ago (wow..time flies...) Dan went to Venezuela for a school thing. He could explain the details of it much better than me, and if I can convince him to do a blog entry (he never touches the blog) about it I will. All I know is that he went with one other student and a faculty member and they treated baseball players at a big tournament involving teams from various Central/South American countries. He was down there for 10 days. We sure missed him, but tried really hard to create our own adventures!


Does someone look a little too comfortable?

Of course there were the slumber parties. The guest list wasn't very long, just Jacey and I. It's kind of a tradition whenever Dan goes out of town for a seminar that Jacey gets to sleep with me. I'm not usually a huge fan of kids in my bed, but I don't mind too much when he's gone....except I still end up with 4 inches on the very edge of the bed! It's great when he's only gone for 2 nights, but I started running out of ideas for slumber parties by night 3. You can only paint your toenails and eat popcorn so many nights in a row!



So Jacey was very excited to have a "real sleepover" (that ended before 11:00 that night), while her friends parents went to a halloween party. She decided it's very fun to have friends over in their jammies, have pillow fights, and giggle in bed. We'll have to put an end to co-ed "sleepovers" someday, but she sure had fun, even if there was no toenail painting involved.

The rest of our week was filled with an ongoing fashion show that Jacey put on for all of her stuffed animals, where she lined them all up on the couch, tried on every article of clothing that she owns, did her very own "runway walk" that ended in front of the full-length mirror where sure then determined if her clothes were still modest. She made a HUGE pile of clothes that don't fit her anymore. I was very tempted to tell her to just never lift up her arms and all her shirts will be just fine... at least until Christmas!


This is the response I got when I asked the kids to give me their best "We miss our Daddy" face. The missed him , I promise... they just thought it was pretty silly that I asked them to look sad in a picture!

Between fun little activities, preschool, playtime with friends, dance class, soccer, church, etc... our time actually went fairly fast. By the end of his trip though, we were ALL ready for Dan to come home. The kids had lots of fun decorating the door for his big welcome home! It's great to have him back, and I thoroughly enjoyed the following week where he (voluntarily, I might add!) took charge of both bedtime and getting up with Broden in the mornings to get his day going while I enjoyed some quiet time to myself!