Smile

These kids just make me smile! Summer has been fun, but since my kids don't go to school yet, not a lot changes around our house....we get to play all day, everyday anyway :) We have been going to the pool, gymnastics, movies, play dates, and whatever else to keep us having fun together. It has been a fun summer together! We also love summer, because that means daddy is home a lot more too :) I hope you are enjoying summer too!

Two Years in the Making.....

Two years ago (exactly this July) Ragnar and I decided to take a leap of faith and move to Houston, Texas. Ragnars previous job provided no future and we felt that the time to move and find new employment was before our children were older and they became more difficult to provide for. So, we put our house up for sale and waited until November. We still had no potential buyers and so we went ahead and moved down to Houston in December to live with my parents for 9 months. We kept waiting for our house to sell and we got renters for a year, and then continued to try and sell our home. We then moved to Humble, TX and rented a town home here. Having had to maintain two homes has been a huge burden on our family, but we have always felt grateful to be able to afford to pay for them both. We now can officially say....our home has finally sold, and part of that burden has been lifted. It is so bittersweet. My heart has been stuck in Smithfield where we met so many wonderful people. Since we still had a home there, it made it easy to stay so attached. It was our first home, our first major purchase, and the place where we brought our two children home from the hospital. It was a place where we have had some very fond memories. I always dreamt it would be sold to a wonderful family who would love it as much as we did. Sometimes you have to give up your dream to let something go. We had an investor contact us who owns some of the other town homes and he is finishing the process of buying ours. Although I am SUPER grateful to have the financial burden lifted, my heart is sadden to have our home that we tried to take such good care of turn into a rental unit. I guess sometimes you just have to try and keep the memories of good things with you as opposed to holding on to the actual possession. So now, once again I say.....our home has finally sold and we are indeed grateful to be able to move forward with our life here in Houston!

Rainy Days!

This is what happens when it rains for what seems like a week straight......

Movies under the umbrella....

Running through the house...

The Invention of our Super Cavin!

Here he comes to save the day...... (maybe he can make the rain go away!)

Even with all the rain and being stuck inside, they still manage to smile! I love these guys!

World Cup

Every four years Ragnar is able to enjoy is his passion to the fullest (well he would enjoy it more if he were actually playing!). We have been enjoying the world cup the last few weeks, and we are loving it!

GO GERMANY!!!

We need to get Ella a jersey too....even I have one!
Hopefully they will make it one more game to the final!!! Hip hip hooray!

Goodbye Baby.....Hello Big Boy!

So a little over four years ago my mom bought us this crib. I have loved it, but when we got it we thought a plus was being able to turn it in to a toddler bed. After Ella and then Cavin I never really thought it would make it into the toddler bed that it is capable of, but here it is! Cavin is now far too old for my own good and wants to be big like his sister. Given the fact that we are renting and don't have room to store the crib, we decided to go ahead and put the crib to its full use. So here it is before....

And After with the kids loving jumping in!

Then.... Cavin escaping as I am sure will be the rest of my life...

I will let you know how he does....now that he is FREE!!!!!

Our Little Ballerina!

Posing in her new ballet outfit from Oma Uschi!


Her new dance studio

Her teacher Mrs. Cheryl

They even got to be princess ballerinas with tutus and crowns!

She has to have a picture with her biggest fan..her brother Cavin!

Today Ella started her first day of ballet. She was SO excited. She talked about it all before bed and when she woke up. We just decided to put her in a 5 week program to see how much she really liked it. She dances around the house ALL day long, but going to class is a little different. So we tried it today and she ran out of the class and said "Mom that was SO much fun!" I'm so excited, and I hope she continues to do well and love it. We love our little ballerina!

Aloha!

I don't even know where to begin. There are a million pictures and so I just wanted to add a few of the hundreds to get a glimpse of the fun we had on our vacation to Hawaii. My parents took Ragnar and I and my older sister Natalie on a vacation to Hawaii this past week. We had a great time and were so glad we were able to go. We did some fun things and we enjoyed the time for ourselves. We missed our kids a lot, but they were with my brother Corey and his family and had so much fun on "their vacation" that they didn't seem to miss us so much!

The beaches were so pretty and the sand was so soft, running on the beach was much more difficult than I thought it would be!

We stopped at the L.D.S. temple, although it is being renovated, we wanted to see how beautiful it was.

I wish we could have climbed the stairs.



All the trees there were so cool.

There was always a nice breeze, it was so pretty.

We first started at a condo at the North Shore in Oahu and we snorkeled and swam and relaxed. We even played games....my favorite.

This was at Waimea bay. We got to body board here and the waves were so strong here that Ragnar and I washed up the shore many times :)

Then we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was probably one of my favorite things. It was so neat to watch them dance and show us all about their culture.

Yummy smoothies.


My parents enjoying their meal!

Hey Mr. Tiki man!

Next we went to Honolulu and we went on the Atlantis submarine ride. It was neat. We really only saw turtles and fish, but it was still cool. We even got below 100 feet.

I love riding on boats.

Pretty waterfalls.

Natalie enjoying the vacation.

Then we hiked Diamond head where you can see most of Honolulu. It was beautiful.


That night we went on a Star dinner cruise which was interesting.


I think a cruise would be fun someday.

The next day we were at Pearl Harbor and saw The battleship Missouri and the Arizona then went to the aviation museum.


I'm going to drive the boat!

We had a great time shopping, getting a tan and sight seeing. Vacationing must have stressed Ragnar out because we even found his first grey hair!! Haha! I am so grateful to my parents for letting us have this wonderful memory. I am also grateful for my brother and his wife for taking care of the kids. They had a great time, and hopefully they will want to still see them in the near future. Thanks again to everyone we had a wonderful time!