Big Sister Annie

Annie is going to be a big sister!
June 20th, 2012

We have a small pocket of beautiful grass in our mammoth yard. It is a gorgeous sight and I can only imagine the whole thing finished. Imagine is all I have until who knows how long... a decade? In the mean time, we let Annie out today and she loves the little patch of grass as much as we do! St. George weather is pure bliss. I am assuming there aren't as many of us left in the U.S.A. who still turn on their AC's when driving home from work. I am pleased that I can count myself among them. (The part about the AC, not about the work. I've decided it's time to become independently wealthy and sit home collecting royalties instead of grading 100 essays every other weekend).

After much pleading and begging, Q finally started our first fire tonight!
Ironic that he is the one lounging on the couch enjoying it whilst I am blogging in the library.
It is a positive DREAM! I even pictured myself roasting a duck on an open spit
should the world end and it ever come to that. At least we have the option.

Poor Duke. It's been super cold at night so we broke down and let him in
the mud room. Don't tell his owners who live in our downstairs apartment.
Annie and Q and I LOVE Duke. I hope they let us keep him when they move.
He is the sweetest dog on the planet and Annie tries to ride him like a horse.

I brought home this massage chair cover from the cabin and it entertained Annie
for at least an hour. It took all of 60 seconds for her to figure out the remote.

I've been a wretched photo-taker as of late. This it it from Thanksgiving.
We had a mix of family members and some terrific food.
The most entertaining part of the evening was Megan bringing home her
serious boyfriend whose family owns Pasta Factory.

We spent Thanksgiving weekend at the cabin with Q's family.
Annie was not her usual self.
There was much whining and crying and gnashing of teeth.
Oh Annie. She's got spirit, we'll put it that way.

Annie was the cutest Halloween Chickie on the planet!
I have been dying to document her choice of costume. Last year I spent months pouring over thousands of costumes to find the perfect zebra but this year, Annie wasn't letting me have anything to do with it. When she saw that chickie costume across the store at Costco, it was beyond love at first sight! She begged for me to put it in the cart and completely shunned any other costume I tried to show her. She spent the next hour hugging it tightly as I loaded the cart with large amounts of everything you never knew you needed (because that's how Costco is).

Annie spent over a month before Halloween crying every day for me to get the chickie costume down and put it on her. Then she would spent 20 minutes in front of the mirror admiring her costume and wiggling her fluffy tail while she crawled. She cried every time I tried to take it off and once I even broke down and let her nap in it. Halloween was her dream come true because she wore that thing all the live long day, everywhere we went, and was content as could be.

She is a unique child. Halloween confirmed her immense love to be scared. I'm serious. She can't get enough of the genuine adrenaline rush of being terrified. I am probably the only sick and twisted mom that took their 1-year-old to the haunted corn maze, but she thrilled with delight whenever a ghoulish fiend or crazed zombie jumped out and terrified her. I must admit, it is quite rewarding to hold her while she is being scared. She gasps and cuddles right into your chest and then starts giggling to beat laughing gas. We had to leave the screaming motion ghost up a week after October 31st because she kept looking for it and clapping her hands so it would scream and scare her.

Annie is currently super cuddly. It is the best ever.

October also marked Lailee's birthday party. I would pay some
good money for the recipe of that incredible Italian cake I keep dreaming about.

RING RING: "Hello? Mrs. Hadley? Where are you and why aren't you in your classroom?"

Playing more catch up blogging:

Last month I woke up to a phone call that went something like: RING RING: "Hello? Mrs. Hadley? Where are you and why aren't you in your classroom?" Not the best way to wake up. Turns out it was an early day and my entire 3rd period had been waiting for me in my room for a full half hour before they finally sent someone to the office to find out where I was. And where was I? HOME! My worst nightmare come true! Just a few days before I was bragging to myself about how good I was for never having been late to work in 4 years. Bad, bad, double bad. No time to go to the babysitter. I threw Annie in the car and she enjoyed a day of teaching the 9th grade with me as she rode around in my sling for 4 hours of middle school and faculty meeting. She was perfect, thank heaven, and the kids even got some work done. Sheesh! I did NOT plan on bring-your-baby-to-work-late-day for sure. Disaster.

April 22nd, 2011
Which means I am officially 31. Yipes. I think 31 was a bit more difficult to swallow than 30. 30 is still a novelty. 31 is the real deal. So this was the first year in over 5 years that I didn't have to go to school on my birthday. Responsibility wasn't too far away though because I did have my cloggers perform at the Arts Festival in the morning. After that though, we were free to fly to SLC for the day.

Annie LOVES flying in my dad's plane. She loves any movement that doesn't involve a car seat.
...And let me just add how much more WONDERFUL it is to fly to SLC as opposed to driving.
It made for a lovely day trip, not to mention a nice birthday mini-getaway.

The real reason we flew to SLC was to go to Matthew's architecture showing.
He graduated from the U after many long painful years of study.
I have to say, when Dad texted me a pic of Matthew's graduation last week, I cried.
I mean really, how many people get to say they did it- they achieved their dream, they became what they said they would when they were little and people asked what they wanted to be when they grew up. Matthew did it. He is a real architect... actually, he's one of the best:

Matthew's art work is really amazing. I mean, really REALLY amazing.
When he was presenting, the judges stopped and told every other student in the room to take a good close look at Matthew's renderings because they weren't computer generated and are what real artists do. Did I mention his project won BEST project out of the 45 grads?! I wasn't surpirsed. In fact, I was expecting it so I perched myself in prime viewing position and readied my Nikon for a photo.

We were impressed with how many of the fam turned out for the event.
We have the BEST family in the world!!!
I thank the good Lord every night for my amazing extended family.
They are my best friends and I admire them so much.
I basically want to be with them ALL THE TIME.

Annie is funny. Even though the twins are identical, she preferred Abby all evening long. Whenever I tried to get her to look at Liv, Annie would try and pull herself back to Abby. Isn't that something? Annie is completely fascinated by the twins! We look at pictures of them all the time and I would bet money on Annie recognizing them as soul mates.

2 Magical Numbers

Today Annie and I went for a little WALK...

A little walk with 1 very VERY BIG destination...





A big destination with 2 extremely MAGICAL NUMBERS...

And those numbers are: .70 and 3,600.

I can not NOT absolutely NOT believe it! We did it! With 5 very intense years of digging our condo out of debt and saving every last penny and never spending a dime of my paycheck and taking second jobs and living in weird places and enlisting the BEST most shark-like pouncer of a veteran real estate agent with a will and a way and some serious praying and a heap of LUCK and a 15 day investor inhibitor and some lady at the bank named Neda who held back the 10 other BETTER offers and a misspelled name debacle and horrible wretched days of waiting waiting waiting...

We have a dream of a foreclosure under contract!

Wanna know why THIS is the one?

.70 acres!
3,600 sq/ft!

Here is the MASSIVE back yard:
I took a pic from the furthest point of the fence in the back yard but this is only half of the property.

It is INSANELY competitive to get foreclosures where we live. And I do mean INSANE!

(Below) This view is from the PERFECT back porch looking out on our future base ball diamond
(which will be possible because we have 3 irrigation water shares with the property).

It's a miracle.

...a miracle with a finished basement.