Update and Final Countdown!

I did not realize that the last time I posted an update about what has been going on over here in Las Vegas was during Christmas time. Though it doesn't seem like so long ago, a lot can take place in a matter of a few months. We have all been keeping busy with our usual stuff. Here is an update on each of us:

Ryan-He is still working for Safety Kleen and just loving his job! He is very busy with juggling work and school but couldnt be more excited to finish soon. He spends a lot of his evenings on the computer doing school work but most of all spending time with the kids. His nightly responsibility is to give kids baths and read them bedtime stories. The kids look forward to their time with Daddy every day! Weekends are even better cause Daddy is off and spends time with all of us! We cherish our family time while we can.

 Story time! 

Big kid playing with his Legos! 

Caleb- He did it! He earned his 50 kindergarten sight word certificate. We are so proud of him. He worked so hard to earn this certificate and whats even better is he learned all the sight words before the end of the school year. This will definitely help him as he transitions into 1st grade. He has been very busy with lots of school activities. He has tons of homework (well what seems like tons to me) and sometimes likes to do it and sometimes doesn't. Yes, we have gotten to that stage of homework isn't cool anymore.He is doing a lot better with his reading, writing, and sounding out words. He is reading on level, which is a relief as he is on track with where he is suppose to be for his age and grade level.

 All ready for his spring concert at school! 

His 50 word certificate! 

Thomas- We are finally in underwear! Hip hip hooray! Let's all do the potty victory dance. Though we still have some accidents, he has not worn a pull up during the day in over three weeks. Last night was the first time we tried night training. He did well. He got up one time in the middle of the night to pee and then first thing this morning he went to the potty. We are so proud of him... especially Mommy since I dont want to change 3 sets of diapers when baby arrives. I decided that I needed to quit pull ups cold turkey, even it mean cleaning up accident after accident and even if it meant accidents in public too. We got pass that very quickly. He learned quickly that accidents are not good. We are hoping to get him into the typical peer program at Caleb's school. This would be a full day preschool. Therefore, he would be in school the same amount of time as Caleb. There are some stipulations to the program. We are hoping that this month when they hold their auditions "assessments" that he is a candidate. He will be in school with peers that are autistic or have down syndrome. They are looking for kids who are well behaved and can be good role models. They don't want kids that will be disruptive or not mature. So far, we have faith that Thomas is a candidate. We think he will do good. We are also hoping that the ratio of boys and girls will have a good balance this year as that also plays a factor. So please cross your fingers and say your prayers that our little man gets picked!

Mickey Mouse's biggest fan! 

His special request of nothing but carbs for lunch! 

Riley- Oh our little spidey girl! She climbs everything and anything that she can. She is sassy and lets you know by being her little drama queen self. Her favorite words are happy, no, go away, mine, momma, dadda, shoot (the better version of S***). Oops! Yes, I say "Oh shoot." But at least I keep the language clean around the house! She has many teeth, which I was so worried about because she was a late teether. She had her 15 month check up and is 73rd percentile for weight and 90 percentile for height. Both do not surprise me. She is still very clingy to me and refuses to sleep in her toddler bed. We are hoping to change that before baby arrives but it may not happen. I am also hoping that she transitions okay once her little sister is here. But we will see when the time comes.

 Our little spidey girl! 

Riding Daddy's car! 

Me (Deanna)- I am approaching 34 weeks pregnant. I am uncomfortable, exhausted, grumpy, happy, emotional, etc... you name it I am feeling it! Its tough being home all day a lone with the kids but I wouldn't change of it for anything. My days start early. I am up at about 5:45-6:00 in the morning. I have to get all three kids up and ready for the day. Caleb has to be at school by 7:40. We usually leave the house around 7:30 to get good parking in the front. I use to walk in the morning to drop him and in the afternoon to pick him up but walking has been hard on me. My back is hurting and my pelvis feels broken with every step. Yes, as you can tell I have reached the point of complete misery. I know, I should be thankful and yes I am... I am so excited to meet little girl Aubrey Marie! Thus with that said, I suppose in this update I should share some of her 3d ultrasound pics we had done. We are awaiting her arrival sometime in mid May so we dont have too long to wait.

And just a few more of our little minions:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends around the world! We figured by now that you may have received our Christmas card in the mail or its still making its way to your mail boxes. We hope that this year has been fulfilling for each of you. We have had one incredible year of closing a chapter and starting a new one.

With that said, we have so much to be thankful for as we end this year and start a new one. We are thankful for our family and our close friendships. We are thankful for our health and our kids. We are thankful for our faith and the love that God has shown us this year through our trials and how much we feel strengthen through Christ. As you ring in the new year, be safe and enjoy your celebrations! 

In other news, for those who may not follow us on facebook or instagram-we found out on the 19th that the new baby is a little girl! As a family we are so excited to welcome another baby girl. I think now our household has some balance :-). 

We send our love to you all! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Everyone could use an update!

Hi Family and Friends...

So our family has a bit to report on. I feel like even though it has not been too long since my last blog update there has been a lot going on over here in the Richardson household.

We are now completely settled into our new home, which we are renting. The kids are still getting use to living in a new house and sometimes cant help but want to visit the old house, which is just right across the street. We have already had our first accident in the house with Caleb. Poor kid was jumping down the stairs (Yes, even after we told him so many times not to jump). He suffered from a bad concussion and had a terrible abrasion on the back of his leg as well. Yes, this accident required a trip to the ER. Thankfully, after about two weeks he was back to himself. He was such a good boy at school during those two weeks. Especially since he had to miss recess, stretch time for lunch, and PE. Caleb is doing pretty good in school. We have already had our first Parent Teacher Conference. They said he has shown significant improvement and that everything he has learned to date he is retaining. This pleases us cause we now know all our hard work to keep him focused to do well is paying off. He responds well to positive reinforcement and is certainly a little perfectionists.

Thomas... well he is still missing his brother throughout the day and tries to find ways to entertain himself. He really doesn't find playing with Riley very interesting. On the other hand she thinks it is a thrill to play with her big brother. Unfortunately we are still working on potty training. For a while he was very interested but lately its the attitude of "I love my diapers mom." I have been researching some tips online and asking friends for advice and support. I would like to try and get him trained before the end of the year. Please cross your fingers for us! We also celebrated Thomas's 3rd bday. Like last year we did a Mickey Mouse theme and he loved it!

Riley... is still walking speedily along furniture. She has taken a few steps on her own but nothing too serious. I know she will walk any day now and surprise us all. I am surprised at how early she is reaching all these milestones then I realized she does have two older brothers to keep up with and she really just wants to be one of the big kids!

Ryan... He has been very busy with work and we love him for his dedication to work hard and support our family. He also has been busy with school. He has about a year left. He cant wait to be done. I told him the last year will go super fast and the last month will go super slow. But nonetheless the day he turns in his last assignment will be so fulfilling. I just cant wait for the day he turns to me and says "I sort of miss school." Cause I had a moment or two like that after I finished. We look forward to watching him graduate!

Me... Well I havent been up to much. Just keeping the house in order and taking care of the kiddos. I started working on more crafts and pinning ideas on Pinterest for Christmas gifts. I want to try and make majority of the gifts this year but we will see how well that works out.

Here are just a few of the crafts I have been working on: 

Infinity scarfs I made. 

A snowman table runner that I have been meaning to make 

since last year. 

In other news!!! We are pleased to announce that we are NO LONGER HOMEOWNERS! I know... how could we be so excited about this news. Well for those who know, our house situation has had its fair share of ups and downs. We are just so happy that we could short sale our home and also make someone else's dream come true by being a first time home owner. Though I am a little sad and still coping with the idea of letting our very first home go, I know that it is now a chapter in our life that we can close and move forward. Besides, we have already begun to write the next chapter. I don't know when we will buy again. I do know that with new programs in place we can buy in as little as a year from now. But we both agree that we will tackle that when the time comes.

In other news again!!! We are also excited to announce... (Well the picture says it all):

And one last picture just cause I love how much my boys love each other!

We will write more when we have more updates! 

Kindergarten

Well now is as good as anytime to write about Kindergarten. We just finished the second week of school and I cannot tell you how relieved I feel that today is Friday! I am so exhausted at the end of each day that the sound of Friday is just so exciting. Caleb so far is loving Kindergarten and has had a good two weeks of school that I know of. His teachers have not said much so that must be a good thing. We are so proud of him and how even on the toughest mornings he still likes to go to school. He has made some new friends. He talks about several of his classmates. One particular classmate he talks about is a little girl named Kayla. He said he loves her and that they are best friends (Oh young innocent love). The other day as the bell rang to go line up to go to class Kayla and him were holding hands walking back to class to line up (Such a cute moment). Kayla's mom laughs just as much as I do as we watch our kids play. 

In other news... Caleb has received a "good job" stamp for two weeks in a row. So we are pleased to hear he is doing good in class. We also did our first packet of homework this week. The experience of sitting down with him and getting homework done was interesting. For about the first five minutes he was fully engaged and willing. Then he sort of got "bored" with the assignments. I had to figure out ways to make it fun. Nonetheless, we were successful! He turned in his homework this morning. We sure hope that we get good news back on his first packet of homework. 

We also placed our first Scholastic book order to help support his classroom. We didnt buy a ton of books as we already have lots of books but we just plan to order each month if we can even if its just one book. Anything we can do to help his classroom. We also bought two PE shirts to help support the PE department. Its not much but every little effort counts. 

Now an update on how the other two are coping with their older brother gone during the day. Thomas for the first week had no idea what to do with himself. He missed Caleb so much and did not understand why his older brother AKA "best friend" had to be gone so long at school. He also didnt understand why Riley was not up to playing at the same speed as his older brother does. Its funny how kids somewhat cant figure out how to function without their siblings. This second week went a little better. He still misses his brother a ton throughout the day but is slowly warming up to playing with Riley. He finds her as someone who loves to impose more than anything but I think eventually he will understand that she will not necessarily understand that she is doing something wrong. But today the funniest thing happen. Thomas was building a bridge with his wooden blocks and Riley crawled over and knocked it all down and looked at him with the biggest smile and loudest squeal. She thought it was so fun to destroy what he was building. Thomas on the other hand was not too happy. After the destruction of the bridge Thomas decided to play hide and seek with Riley. Of course she wouldnt understand the concept of playing that game. But I helped Riley hide. Fortunately for Thomas she is easy to find cause she is babbling all the time and he can find her by listening for her.

Well here are some photos for you all to enjoy! 

This photo was taken by one of Caleb's teachers at Kinder Orientation. 

I saved this picture from the classrooms blog online, which for 

those concerned, is a password protected site. 

Took this picture at Caleb's Kinder Orientation. He found his 

desk and started coloring the activity they had sitting out for the

kids. 

Of course, we must get a first day of Kindergarten picture! 

This was him about an hour after he got home from his first

day of school. I expected him to do just this after a 

long day at school. 

This was taken at Caleb's Kindergarten Open house. The picture 

of him is one they had displayed in the classroom that they took 

during Kinder Orientation. We had such a fun time at his open house doing a

scavenger hunt that his teachers prepared for us. 

And what would the first day of school be without a 

picture with your siblings! 

AND that is all FOLKS! 

Making a new house our "New Home"

To our family and friends:

For those of you who may not know, we have finally moved. We are renting the house across the street from our home. Many said this move with be easy as we would just be walking stuff over. But I have to say any move is hard but we got it done. We are thankful for all the "muscle" that came to help with the heavy stuff. We are thankful for all the "muscle" that came to help with even the minor stuff. We appreciate it so much! Moving with kids is not an easy task, but somehow we made it work. 

For now, our house is being sold. We have an offer and are hoping to hear back within the next week what the status is on the approval. If all goes right we should have the house sold. So while we sit and wait to hear back from the banks, we spend most of our time making the new place our "new home."

After living in our home for 8 years, you can imagine how many sentimental moments I was holding onto with the home. But what has really helped me in particular to move forward is the fact that I had to position myself to make business decisions and not emotional decisions. Therefore, business wise, I think that moving forward and selling our home was the best we could do for our family. Financially and emotionally we are better off. And for that I am thankful. I believe I owe the good man up there a thank you for giving me the strength to maintain my faith in my life decisions. 

For Ryan, I think he is relieved to just be moving forward. He was really never the emotional type in this situation. He completely had framed a business like mind when it came down to make the final decisions for our home and our well being as a family. 

So as I continue to settle into our new place, I think about all the work I have put into the new place just to make it our own. Even if we dont own this home, the landlord was so wonderful to tell me "She wants me to love the home." She allowed us to paint whatever we wanted. All that she asked was that we use "tasteful colors." Which if anyone knows me really well, I have a talent for picking colors out and matching my decor I already have! And I like to think I choose tasteful colors. 

So to tell you our moving story... it may take forever. But in a nutshell. We had to do some work in the house before moving in to get it ready for our little family. We painted the dinning room (using as an office) , kitchen, family room (using as a play area), and all three bathrooms. We had the carpets cleaned and the previous tenant our friend had the house professionally cleaned. We are in the process of re-caulking the bathrooms and kitchen area. So far its coming a long well. We brought the sprinkler system up to code. The dead grass is now growing back nicely in the front and back yard. We also had the yard professionally serviced prior to us moving in. 

We moved things slowly in shortly after we painted but made our final move on July 4th weekend. Unfortunately because of the holiday it was just Ryan and I moving the smaller stuff. My sister Kiani did come to help that weekend. We were both so thankful for her help with the kids and moving the minor stuff. 

We have all our paintings and pictures hung. We have the kids bedrooms organized as well as our own. My sewing/craft/guest room is coming along. I have to say when I walked into our new home for the first time with all our furniture in place it actually felt like a home, our home for that matter. It is amazing how putting your own personal things in a house can almost immediately make it feel like home. As for the kids they are adjusting well. They love that the new house is two-story. The boys have already experimented with sliding sleep bags down the stairs as well as pushing each other down in a box. Yes it is a scary site, but I am there monitoring them. Our pets are adjusting well too. We are still getting use to the idea that downstairs will always be that much cooler than the upstairs during these triple digit temps. You dont really think about heat rising until you live in a two-story home. We fortunately have fans in each room that are on during the day to keep the upstairs cool. So far its working wonderfully! 

If you want our new address, please reply via e-mail or if you are not on our blog mailing list, please private message me on facebook or e-mail me. 

Here are a few pics of the kids and Daddy in the new place: 

 Riley is getting bigger! She turned 7 month's on the 26th! 

 Sleeping with his minion toy! 

 Sleeping with his minion toy! 

 Thomas loves to sit in the pack n' play with his sister Riley! 

Notice the little pinch in the arm she is giving him, yup! Thats 

cause she wants him to know its her territory... And I think

she wants the iPad! 

 Caleb has a habit of sitting in Riley's rocker. Good thing it holds his weight! 

 Unfortunately, this was time-out. Except I dont even remember why I put them on time-out! 

The kids love and miss their Daddy! This is them on the weekends! 

Road Trip Adventures!

The last time I posted, I talked about some of the fun activities we were able to do as a family before we hit the terrible triple digits in Las Vegas. Since then we have done a lot as a family as well as started a new adventure, which I will blog about in a separate post after this one.

In mid May Ryan and I took the three munchkins on a road trip to visit some family. We drove very long hours to reach Ryan's home town of Wright, WY. The drive up was terrible and good at the same time. We hit really hard rain and surprisingly some fog. We decided that not even half way there we would stop because it was already 10 pm and the rain had not subsided, plus at that point Caleb had a few accidents because he likes to wait until the very last minute to go potty. Plus we were probably really tired but didnt want to admit being exhausted. We had intentions of at least making it to Little America in WY but decided that stopping somewhere in Utah was better because of the rain and the potty accidents. We had the hardest time finding a hotel because our network on our phones were not working good and some of the hotel apps we had were working slow as well. We ended up stopping in Provo, UT for a bite to eat and next to the place we stopped had three hotels. We checked all three hotels and all were booked. I suppose there was some kind of convention going on. Probably something associated with the BYU campus. The reps at the hotels also told us we wouldn't be able to find a room for at least another hour of driving. Well they were wrong. We actually drove about 35 miles down the road to Heber City, UT. We were fortunate enough to find a hotel there that had plenty of rooms. By the time we got settled in, it was a little after midnight. The kids had been bathed and fed. Ryan and I stayed up for a bit just to make sure we had our plans in order for the  next day. We woke up fairly early to get the kids ready and going. We had the free breakfast at the hotel, which wasn't the greatest but it saved us money on buying breakfast that morning. We headed out around 8 am to finish the rest of our road trip. The rest of the way up there was rain, strong winds, and sunshine. The kids did very well on the trip surprisingly. It was our first time traveling for a long period with Riley, so we were not sure how well she would do. She actually was well behaved. And for that we were thankful!

We had intentions of driving up to Jamestown, ND to see the rest of Ryan's family but with the weather not being the best and had already traveled so far with the kids we ended up not heading that way. We really wanted too though! Fortunately, Ryan's Grandma Bieri, Sister Katie, and our nephew Christian drove down when the weather was better and spent a few days with us. During our time in Wright, WY we had a chance to visit the Trails Museum located in Casper, WY, which is about an hour drive from where we were staying. I am not sure how much the boys enjoyed this museum but I know they particularly liked the cart ride and sitting in the Wells Fargo Cart on display. They also loved the big train coming out of the wall, and the iron wire horse. Regardless, it was a nice museum to visit. We particularly enjoyed reading more about the Mormon Trail and Martins Cove. Here are a few pictures we took at the museum:

Additionally, while we were out there, we drove out to Rapid City, SD and visited the Dinosaur Park and the Reptile Gardens. On the way back, we stopped at Meghan's (Ryan's sister) College, Black Hills State University, which is located in Spearfish, SD.

The boys in particular really enjoyed the Dinosaur Park and Reptile Gardens. They thought it was fun. Despite the cold weather and the rain, that did not stop the kids from climbing the gazillion steps at the dinosaur park or running around the reptile garden to see all types of reptile creatures! Here are a few pictures we took at both places:

DINOSAUR PARK

REPTILE GARDENS

On the way home, we made a special stop at Independence Rock. The boys loved it! Who would have known that a giant rock in the middle of nowhere would interest them, but it did! It was a nice 30 minute break for us. Riley was able to have a bottle, and we were all able to stretch our legs! Here are a few pics we took:

Well that about sums up our trip! I probably left some details out but not on purpose... It was just a few months ago and my mind has been preoccupied with other things, such as a move, which I plan to update in another blog post... So please be on the look out for it! :-) Love to all our family and friends that follow.