Another surprise visit!

At first I thought this would be a pretty boring week, but as it turns out we've had visitors almost every night!

Yesterday some good friends from Idaho stopped by with their cute little boys. Char enjoyed playing with the oldest boy, Coen. He is almost 3 and of course can walk anywhere he wants to. I think Charlotte aspires to do the same sometime soon. She was showing him her toys and following him around. Very cute!

It's been nice to see friends this week. So glad you guys stopped by Reid and Kim!

surprise visit!

Our friend Emily, from Pennsylvania, called us on Sunday to see if she and Sarah could stay the night last night. "of course!" we said! It's not often that we get visitors from out east. It was so great catching up with both of them. I'm so glad they included us in their "out west" road trip. They had a lot of fun stories from their past 2 week adventures. We had the map laid out on the dining room table checking out all of the route options for the way back to PA. It made me a little hungry for a good road trip. I love those big long road trips!

I think our next one will need to be a southern route that includes a lot of states I've never been to like Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolinas etc... That would be a fun adventure!

Who moved my cheese?

The book, Who Moved My Cheese, is very appropriate for this summer in our lives. A lot has changed in the past 2 months and it looks like change may still be occurring.


1. We bought our first home
2. Our car died, we bought a "new" one
3. We found out we are expecting baby #2 in the spring
4. Things at work are changing drastically for Nate

I think change officially covers every aspect of our day to day life.

I have the book Who Moved My Cheese on my dresser right now. I've been reading it and actually really enjoying it. I'm not an avid reader, but this one is a quick read.

anyway....more to come....

Pickles and Icecream

Yep it's true! We are expecting baby #2 in early March. I'm already feeling the affects of this one too. Charlotte has become used to finding me laying near the bathroom door. In fact, she now drags her toys down the hallway so we can still play. She is a good sport about it already. I'm sure she will be a great little helper and a great big sister.

This has already been a crazy summer for transitions...new house, different car, change in job structure for Nate and now a new baby. I think we're ready to call it quits on new things for a while. =)

We've enjoyed getting more settled into this house. Routines are starting to form and I like that a lot. Also, We're getting to know our neighbors one by one. We have a very nice young family that lives across the street. They have a little boy about the same age as Charlotte. I'm hoping to get to know them better soon.

Summer is going well for Nate. He has a terrific staff. They are all so responsible and great with the kids. That is a huge plus for him. It definitely makes his job a lot easier.

Last weekend we had our big family summer birthday celebration. It was a great time! I enjoy getting together with the fam! My mom has several pictures posted on her FB from the event.

That's about it! Just wanted to share the news!

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

Charlotte is 1 today! We put up a big tent in the backyard last night and today we will put all of our pillows, her stuffed animals and any soft blankets in there for her to play with. I think she will LOVE it! It will be her very own bouncy house in our back yard. I'm also going to set up her little pool to play in when it gets warmer.

Happy Birthday Charlotte!

Quinoa

I'm really excited about quinoa as one of our new protein staples. I bought a large batch of it in the bulk section of the grocery store today. My hope was that C would just love the stuff...but no such luck. She is kind of a texture kid. If the food is a strange texture, it ends up on the floor. I even tried blending it until it was smooth and adding her favorite food to it, but she could see right through that plan. Oh well, it was worth the try. I will try again tomorrow.

Thanks John and Marilyn!

Here are some pictures of our new riding lawn mower given to us by John and Marilyn! Nate was so excited when they brought it over that he just decided to mow the whole lawn that night. Surprisingly it only took him an hour to mow the lawn! I'm thrilled to have this. I think it will be a great help. We do have a push mower too that my Grandpa Stuewe gave us as a house warming gift. It's a really nice Honda and it runs just great! I think it will be good to have both each for their own uses. This is a huge yard and needs to be mowed at least once a week. We have already had the summer staffers over a couple of times and we've had some fires in the "fire pit" out back. I'm looking forward to 4th of July. I think we will just hang out in the back yard and watch fireworks by our fire.

Thanks John and Marilyn for our new riding lawnmower!

our "new" car

We woke up at 6:30am and headed out the door to start what we thought would be a VERY long car search day.

The first car we looked at had only 64K miles on it. But it really was pretty beat up and had some other issues with it. We offered a lower price, but the seller had others lined up to see it that same day and said no.

Our second car we looked at was really more of our dream car, but way out of our price range. We let them know right off the bat what we could afford and they were a little hesitant, but still let us test drive it.

Well...long story short...they took our offer and that's the car we bought! Here are some pics of it!
It's a 1998 Toyota Avalon. It's very comfortable and has a lot of extra perks that we really could live without, but they are fun to have. We were on the road home at about 11:30am! I'm so excited to have that chore out of the way. Now we can relax and enjoy this 3 day weekend!