update

this week was mostly spent in a hotel down in utah. shannon went down on sunday night and I joined him tuesday afternoon. while we are still waiting for our house to close. i hate how long it takes. i shopped a little. and we spent lots of time with the Anderson family (my cousin Katie her hubby TJ and their adorable children Taylor & Peyton) we went out to dinner and watched the american idol finale together. we are glad we are moving down close to a couple of friends we already have in utah. and shannon LOVES his job! already in his first week they paid for three of his lunches. took the whole company out to a movie. and we learned they are taking everyone to lagoon next month and still paying him for the day! after such a long search it is such a relief he found his dream job & it is a great company! the hotel was good but it was hard to keep easton entertained without baby einstein and the jumperoo, I would definitely much rather be in my own house that is for sure. yesterday, shannon's parents came down and took out to dinner and to see the movie 'iron man'. today was our last week in our ward here and we have just been cleaning out the cupboards and trying to get everything finalized. tomorrow we go out to aberdeen to do memorial day with my family and visit my grandma wahlen's gravesite. we got the u-haul ready and are planning on moving out friday morning. there is a possibility of not being able to move in until monday and in that case we will probably pay extra to keep our stuff in the u-haul and stay with family over the weekend. we will definitely be glad when all this moving stuff is done with!! but i guess once the moving stuff is done with then comes some house renovations! that's life..from one thing to the next! here are some pictures from our week....mostly an easton overload!

easton can now hold himself up at the coffee table..

Easton and I
Easton and dad

our funny child

cute little peyton anderson
taylor anderson playing the drums with her pencils (drumsticks)

Easton has learned how to do motorboat sounds with his mouth and usually does this instead of eating. when I tried to get video of this he stopped, but I still managed to get a pretty cute picture. he is totally a solid food junkie now.
This is Easton's new face he is making all the time...he is constantly biting his lower lip
wild hair boy...another pic making 'the face'

last day at the salon...

Last week was my last week at the salon. I had a really hard time leaving. I actually kept messing around instead of actually leaving, until I finally just left because I knew I had alot of packing to do and a husband who was waiting for me to come help him with it. Tonight I went and officially packed it all up and gave my key to the owner. I thought I would be able to be strong and not break down but I must admit I cried on the drive home. I know my hubby thinks I am crazy because there were so many times when I was really busy that I complained that I didn't want to do it, I just wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Now I'm pretty sad thinking of not seeing all the wonderful girls I work with, and not talking with all my amazing clients each week. Don't get me wrong I love staying home with Easton. What I will not miss: looking in the mirror at myself all day long every day...for those of you who wonder why I never post pictures of myself or why I am so critical of myself...this is why. For now I'm still planning on going to Aberdeen (where most of my clients are and Easton's grandparents, reason to visit) to do a 2 day marathon. I will really miss Kassidy who is my co-worker and sidekick and has become my bestest friend at the salon, we have worked side by side for 2 1/2 years now. I got lucky to work with such a great group of girls with minimal drama. I'm contemplating whether I'm brave enough to attempt doing hair in Utah.....we will see. As sad as I am to leave the job I love so much. I am looking forward to a summer with Saturday's off (woo-hoo), our first house in a new place, and added time to spend with my hubby and child!

Shannon starts his job tomorrow at Marketstar and is gone to Utah tonight and in a hotel for a while till this weekend. He is way excited and I'm excited for him. The thought of staying in a hotel all day while he was gone to work drove me crazy just thinking about it. His solution was to go shopping...my response..."how much debt do you want to be in?" If I went shopping all day every day the result would not be pretty. well, it would be pretty just not kind to the wallet if ya know what I mean. However, Easty and I do miss him very much and will be down to visit soon..we cannot go all week without him. I guess one shopping day will be okay.

moving situation

So lots of things have been going on in our house lately, which would probably explain the lack of posts on my part. This will be a novel, so my apologies before I begin. A couple of weeks ago we traveled down to Utah to go house hunting. My first time house hunting (other than driving around to the ritzy areas of town looking at houses way out of our price range) so this was the first for REAL house hunting experience! Our townhouse we have now was a foreclosure and even then we had no real plans of buying it was just a good opportunity.

We first went down on a Monday night for sure we would put in an offer on a house in Ogden. We loved the house and couldn't believe it was going for such a great price. Once we got there and saw the surrounding neighborhood we knew why. Then on Wednesday we traveled down again. We saw some nice houses and some really bad ones. Ones where they only took pictures of the nice parts of the house. We narrowed it down to a townhouse in Ogden which I must say was one of the most beautiful townhouses I had ever seen. it had a fireplace, skylight, and little loft area with a two car garage. no backyard though. it was still in a sketchy area of ogden so we called the police department told them where it was at and they said it was a high call area. The other one was a house in Clinton, Utah (about 15 minutes South of Ogden) it was a cute house but has carpeted bathrooms?? and some funky looking tile, completely white walls, and old appliances. However, it does have a fenced backyard, 2 car deep garage, and you don't have to share walls with anyone (always a plus). Everyone does always tell us that tiling is pretty easy, and white walls are a good thing because they a blank canvas upon which I can do lots of painting! We will have to rip out the carpet in the bathrooms and lay tile also. I don't want to imagine potty training Easton in a carpeted bathroom, yikes! We decided since there was work that needed to be done in this house we would put in a pretty low offer. $6000 less than they were asking plus closing costs. So really about $10,000 less. We in all reality thought they was no way they would accept or they would counteroffer. Luckily enough they accepted! YEA!

Then came a bunch of other problems. Our mortgage guy said we might not be able to be in it until the end of the month. Shannon starts his job this Monday and has the rest of his vacation to get moved out this week. Then one of the lenders said he would not be able to approve us for the loan until Shannon had a paycheck stub..I guess a letter from his new work was not good enough. We are doing an FHA loan and they are alot more strict. The housing market is not what it used to be. Also they would not count my income because I made less last year than the year before. I guess having a baby is not a legitimate excuse for them. Ugh, men! Even more bad news, it was looking like it would be June 6 till we were in our house and we were going to be homeless and live in a hotel. Luckily enough we found another lender who says a letter once he starts working is good enough. So Shannon will still have to stay in a hotel for a little while, but good news is we should be in our house by the end of the month. We have packed most everything up and are down the bare essentials in our house while most everything sits in our garage ready to be hauled away! I am very excited to be in our first real house!! Hopefully we will be posting pictures of our little family in front of our first house soon!

In other news, Easton is almost 8 months old! AAH! He still refuses to crawl and rolls to his tummy all the time but cries after a few seconds of being on it. He has however conveniently found a way to get around without crawling. He scoots. yep. the other day I put him in front of baby einstein and left the room when I came back he had scooted to the entertainment center. It is a very slow way of transportation seeing as how it took him a while to get there. On the positive side that means I don't have to worry about a fast moving baby for a while! I have not been a great picture taker lately but here are a couple I have snapped.

McKinley Daw after performing 'Parachute girl' at her dance recital in Blackfoot. I wasn't intending on being in the background of this picture.
McKinley getting ready to do her dance
McKinley putting a chokehold on Halle and Easton
Easton always happy when food is coming his way

Happy Birthday Angie!

Sorry this post is a little late but I wanted to give a birthday shoutout to my older sis Angie. She turned 27 on Friday May 9th. We got to attend McKinley's dance recital and then have a fun dinner at her house. She is a great sister, is always the life of the party and lots of fun to be around. She is also a great friend and I appreciate all she does for me! We also adore her two precious daughters and are excited for the third little Angie to make her entrance to the world! Love ya Ang, happy 27th!

the sisters: from (l to r) Angie, Whitney, Hailey, and me