North Carolina... Here We Come!!!

We found out a little after 6am on February 6, 2017 that we got assigned to the Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville, North Carolina for residency!! We are thrilled and so excited to start this next adventure in our lives together. I'm so proud of Rick and all that he has accomplished. I can't believe that in just a few more months he will graduate! Yay! 

North Carolina, here we come!

February 5, 2017 - Sunday

Well today marks one week since Rick has been gone for his cardiology rotation in Arizona. The morning actually went pretty smooth. I did baths for Garrett and Brenna yesterday so I only needed to get Kimbri through the bath this morning (which she can basically do it on her own now anyway). 

I had the diaper bag and snacks packed and ready to go with kids' shoes on and ready to walk out the door in good time! And sacrament even went pretty smoothly. My mom took Brenna during the second and third hour so I could play the piano for the primary. Brenna took a nice little nap on my mom's shoulder during Young Women so that was good she got a nap in!

After church we came home and made some veggie side dishes, carrots and lima beans, to take over to my parents house for dinner. We had mashed potatoes, meat, a fruit salad and rolls. It was so yummy! Especially on a fast Sunday.

I tried to snap a few pictures of the 3 kiddos before church and I'm pretty sure I can never get all 3 off them to look at the camera and smile at the same time without it being blurry, haha. So here's what I got:

And then Garrett wanted to do a super hero pose...

 We were taking Brenna's church clothes off and they got stuck on her head and I thought it was too funny to not snap a pic real quick. And... yeah, that's our lovely way of stacking food storage in the background. Someday I want to have shelves! But for now, the floor works.

After church Kimbri was begging to get her picture taken, standing up on the wall outside my parents back door. This was the pose she wanted to do in the picture, haha! She's SO in to getting her picture taken all. the. time. I love it! She also wanted a picture of her hair :) Such a fun girl, that Kimbri.

February 2, 2017 - Thursday

We went to our ward play group today. I'm part of the Relief Society Committee and in addition to helping plan RS activities, I was put in charge of play group each week. This week we just held it at the church gym and the kids had so much fun running around getting some energy out. There are SO many little boys in our ward. It's awesome that Garrett has so many boys to hang out with. In our AZ ward there were tons of little girls his age so it's a fun change for him to hang out with other boys :) 

Garrett also still had his $3 gift certificate from Toys R Us from his birthday. So after dropping Kimbri off at the bus stop we made a trip up to Orem to let hime pick out something from their dollar section. He picked out a plane and a pack of 3 little boats to play with in the bathtub. They also gave him a birthday crown and balloon along with their "Geoffrey the Giraffe" stuffed animal and a book to go with it. On our way out he and Brenna took a ride on the Tonka truck by the exit and they loved it! Then we headed to Garrett's follow up appointment for his ears at the pediatrician. He had a ton of compacted ear wax that was making him not be able to hear. They had cleaned it out (and I still can't believe how much ear wax came out of his ears!) and they wanted to follow up. It was a busy day! 

Also, Rick left last Sunday morning to head to Arizona for his cardiology and ICU rotations for 8 weeks! It's going to be a loooong 2 months without him. We are hoping that he'll be able to come home once in a while. Once he gets his schedule we'll hopefully be able to figure out how to make it so he can come visit at least a couple times! 

Bye Bye January....

Well I can't believe January is over and we are headed into February. 

A few other things from January that I don't think I blogged about:

-We set up dentist appointments for Kimbri and Garrett at Cascade Family Dental. A guy in our ward works there and we heard great things about it so we went there and it really was amazing. They were so good with the kids! Especially Garrett- he was so nervous but they took their time with him and showed him all the tools, including "Mr. Thirsty" who sucks the water out of your mouth. They let him take a ride on the chair as they moved it up and down so he could see there was nothing to be afraid of. Oh, and the prizes at the end that they got to pick out were so fun for them. And they both got t-shirt as part of the "No Cavities Club". They thought that was pretty cool :)

-Kimbri had a Walking Report Card for the end of the term. It was where parents could go and watch their child show what they had been learning in school. It was pretty fun to see Kimbri in action, although it was a little difficult bringing the other two kiddos along with me.  She also got another pizza coupon for a free personal pizza at Pizza Hut for completing her reading so we went and picked that up for her to have for dinner. Kimbri thinks it's pretty cool that you can earn a free pizza for reading, ha! I think it's cool too!

-I had a dermatology appointment, finally! I saw a dermatologist when we were living in Arizona when my eczema had flared up super bad on my hands. Because I was pregnant with Brenna, he said there wasn't much that could be done. So, I started using all fragrance-free soaps, lotions, face wash etc... and use gloves when I do dishes, wipe counters off, or bathe the kids. I also have switched to Tide Gentle detergent for my laundry. It has been hard to change so many things, not to mention I can't wear any fun smelly-good stuff anymore, but I am grateful that doing all those things helps and the steroid cream I can use now has helped the insane itchiness on my hands/palms go away! 

-Connie and Brenda also came up to Utah, from AZ, to attend a funeral. It was a quick trip for them but we got to go ever to the Stone's house one of the nights they were here and visit them. Kimbri fell in love with Connie when we lived in Arizona and so it was fun to go visit them with the kids. Connie always had a room full of fun things for the kids to play with when we would visit their house in Arizona. Kimbri especially loved the Beary Bears. She was a like a Grandma to them while we lived in AZ. We made some great memories at Connie's house! 

-The week before Rick had to leave for his Arizona rotations we went on a date! Nolan and Brooke had given us a gift card 2 Christmases ago that we never used. It was dinner/movie gift card for Red Robin and Cinemark Theaters. Well, living in AZ they only had Harkins Theaters so even thought they have Red Robin in AZ, we never were able to use the gift card for the movie.... anyway, that was a long tangent. So we went to Red Robin and saw the movie called, "La La Land". It was pretty good! It wasn't like a, I'm dying to see it again show but I like it a lot and it has some good meanings in the movie. It was really fund to go on a date before he will be gone for so long. And the wonderful Olivia offered us free babysitting so that was super nice of her!

-One more thing... I didn't realize there was so much that went on... was that I was able to attend and AMAZING Stake Women's Conference. There were some incredible speakers and some really interesting and thought-provoking stories that were shared. One of the speakers was and LDS author that has written many book about the temple. It was really interesting to hear his remarks and have a discussion about how to prepare our kids to attend the temple. About how we should teach them, when reading scriptures, about symbolism, to prepare them for learning and understanding for themselves symbolism they will see in the temple. Anyway, it was a very uplifting conference to go to and I loved it!

Finally, here are a few random pictures from the last week or two:

A little hard to see because of the shadow, but
they have been loving playing in this crazy big
box! We've made fort after fort with it!

That can't be comfortable, Brenna... 

Brenna snuggling with her baby doll
Gma & Gpa Haycock got her for Christmas.

So. Much. Snow. Check out the fence and mailbox... crazy!
This is at the corner of our road where we drop Kimbri off at
the bus stop.

Brenna loves books. Enough said...

When they were sick, we watched a lot of movies
and snuggled on the couch.

Brenna loves yogurt... but makes a MESS!

But she sure was enjoying it!

I was doing Kimbri's hair for church (see next picture)
and I came out to find this lovely mess that Brenna created. Ha!
Game pieces, movies, books and more game pieces, everywhere!

Kimbri's hair-do she requested.

She sips her sippy cups in the weirdest places.
How is that comfortable?!

I have no words....

Kimbri loves asking me to take her picture.

I often find Kimbri like this when I check on her before going
to bed, ha! She love sleeping with her stuff. I love that the
light saber is on right next to her Jesus picture, jewelry box,
doctor kit/set and piles of books. She is too funny! Also, how
is this comfortable?! hahaha!

Kimbri's 100th Day of School!

So last weekend we invited cousins over for a pizza party. I picked Oaklee, Bridger and Kimbri up from the bus stop and brought them back to our place. And Olivia picked up Luke while she was out and about and brought him over to join us. We got pizza from Papa Murphy's and they all had a blast. While I cooked the pizza they all played Candy Land. Then we turned on some fun kid music and they all had a picnic on the floor. After dinner we played Bingo and then Dawson came and picked up Oaklee, Bridger and Luke. We sure need to have some fun cousin time while we like in Utah because it will be a while before we visit again once we move!

Bridger, Luke, Garrett and his grumpy face, Kimbri, Oaklee

Silly face picture!

She wants her picture taken all the time...
model face much? The not quiet a smile and
those deep, soul-searching eyes. Wowza!

Garrett has really been loving playing with his batman toys!
Apryl Bradford, a fellow med school wife, was getting rid
of a lot of her son's toys he outgrew and gave this to us when we
moved from Arizona. We kept it hidden till his birthday and
gave it to him then. He loves it!!

This little baby of ours loves babies!

The Utah Winter Life

As I mentioned in an earlier post, life has been more tricky this winter with not being able to go outside as often as we did in AZ. Arizona winters included countless trips to the park, long afternoon walks/runs, trips to the zoo, and a lot of playing in the backyard. Dreamy, right? 

Well now we are stuck indoors all. the. time. and it's making me a little cookoo.  So instead, this winter we are building forts with large boxes, playing toys, blocks, baking and doing workouts indoor (which I don't love very much). But we are surviving and just trying to wait patiently to find out what warm place we get to move to in less than 5 months!

Brenna loves unloading all the toys out of those bins.

K & G doing wall sits with me as part of and
indoor workout.

We built a lego ship. They were pretty in to it.

Kimbri's facial expression! Ha!

Brenna loves sitting in things.

Also, being in this yucky winter weather has
brought sickness... booo!!!

So I have a story about this picture of Kimbri with those two jackets. We were in Walmart and we walked past the rack of jackets in the background of the pic and Kimbri just about died wanting one of these jackets. I seriously felt like she had immediately transformed into a teenager right then. \

Kimbri: "Mom, this jacket it SO fluffy! It is SO soft! Can we get it, PLEASE?!" 

Me: "No, we just got you a coat not too long ago."

Kimbri: "Well we can get it for me for next year. Please?!"

Me: "No Kimbri. We can't get that jacket. Please come on, we need to finish getting the rest of our groceries."

Kimbri: "But mom, it was look so cute on me! Please can we just get it?" 

By this point I felt two things. One, I really wanted to get her a jacket because she was seriously so in love with them. But two, we really did just buy her a way nicer coat that was on clearance at Sam's Club, one size bigger, so she could have a good coat for next year. We also stocked up on winter clothes for next year recently cause Walmart has been putting all the winter clothes (pants and long shirts) on sale for $2-3. So that's where she got the whole, "let's get it for next year" idea. Haha!

I finally said, "How about I take a picture with you and the jackets so that you can look at them and remember them when we get home."

She seemed to be fine with that. Ha!

A Sunday morning of baking
cinnamon chip muffins and crepes.

Celebrating my dad's 53rd birthday!
(Bridger, Oaklee, Kimbri, Luke, Garrett,
Grandma, Brenna, Ava, Grandpa & Hadley)

Warm bread, made by RICK, is the perfect thing for winter
months when you just want something warm and yummy :)

So much snow!!

The bus didn't come because of too much snow so we
carefully drove Kimbri to school! Also, that was my hat when
I was little :)

A little snow?? We have gotten dumped on lately!

Trying out her easy back oven she got for Christmas.
She made mint brownies.