Pulling up!!

Jake and Emmy are now pulling up on anything and everything and we have high hopes of them walking by the time the weather really gets nice.


My drawer full of Gladware keeps the babies entertained for unbelievable chunks of time. Entertainment at it's finest!


For once, Jake gets the upper hand on Emmy and she is NOT thrilled, as you can tell!

SOLD!

Well, as easy as that our house is SOLD! It must be some kind of world record to sell your house by owner within 48 hours of putting the sign out in your yard (particularly with the way real estate is going in Utah these days) but it sure helps when your younger sister's family is in the market for a house in your area. Yep, we sold to Jocee and Brick and we are so excited to have them as neighbors! Negotiating the deal was a killer (Jocee kept going for the jugular...asking me to include this and that in the sale! haha) but we managed to work it out! :) We will probably close around the first of June which leaves us with a lot of work to do on the house we're purchasing between now and then to make it livable (it is a house 2 doors down from where we're currently living that was struck by lighting last summer and suffered extensive damage in the resulting fire. They are hanging sheetrock throughout the house now...the kitchen was really the only room completely spared).

The whole idea of moving came completely out of the blue and we are still just a BIT nervous about this new home turning into a major money pit. But if we can avoid any major hiccups in the renovation we think the home is a better long-term fit for our family in this neighborhood that we've really come to love. So....wish us luck! Hope we can get things going quickly. Here goes my first stab at general contracting and lining up subs--hopefully in a timely sequence!). So...that's the news from the Richards. Happy Easter!

Big News!!

We have some exciting news (and breathe easy everyone, it's NOT a pregnancy announcement!). We just put a For Sale By Owner sign out in front of our house this evening after negotiating a deal (contingent on the sale of OUR home) on a house just two doors down from us. Spencer said, "You know everyone in the ward is going to start calling you tomorrow, right?" And I just told him I would tell people we wanted to move closer to his work. Pretty clever, eh? haha We are unsure what our chances are of selling with the real estate market the way it is right now, but we are hopeful. We think it would be a great opportunity for us although we LOVE our current home and will be happy as little clams if nothing changes and we stay put. So...we'll keep you posted. In the mean time, refer anyone you know who is looking to move to Bountiful or North Salt Lake to our little "for sale" blog at www.summerwoodforsale.blogspot.com and keep your fingers crossed!

Caleb, the acrobatic napper...

This is Caleb, my now 2 1/2 year old son, in September 2005 when he was roughly six weeks old. We were up at the Richards' cabin near Oakley and this tiny little guy just fell dead asleep in my arms all of a sudden and completely out of the blue. It was hilarious and I love this picture!

Now...fast forward to yesterday. I took Caleb to his room for a nap. We did the whole routine...read a book, laid there together for a minute, and then I left. When I went back to check on him about 20 minutes later, I opened his door to find the lights all on and this:

He literally fell asleep standing up! Or at best, propped up! Honestly, what a kid. Apparently finding a comfortable position has, since birth, had little to do with whether or not he can fall asleep. He very well may be the death of us but at least he keeps us laughing in the mean time.

Yesterday was an expensive day...

So, here's how yesterday went down for the Richards family: Cort came upstairs just after waking up and I was getting ready in my bathroom. We chit-chatted for a second and then he said to me: "Caleb had an accident downstairs RIGHT on the carpet!" I told him that this was impossible because Caleb sleeps in a pull-up. Cort assured me that the pull-up had leaked and that Caleb had indeed had an accident on the carpet. At this point, I was slightly annoyed. Our mornings around here are fairly stressful when everything goes perfectly. Five little people to get fed, dressed, combed and brushed leaves little to no time for extra clean-ups or problem solving. So, I finished getting myself dressed and then went downstairs to make the boys' beds and assess the damage. I knew I was in trouble when I could tell the minute I hit the bottom of the stairs that the carpet outside our mechanical room (clear on the other side of the family room) was wet. On closer inspection I realized that cute, sweet Cort had grossly overestimated the size of Caleb's bladder. It was not, in fact, a leaky pull-up but a leaky 50 gallon water heater that had caused the sloshy, spongy carpet outside his bedroom. Sigh. I think I would have preferred the leaky pull-up.

Anyway, Spencer was totally unavailable by phone and my parents were out of town so I was flying solo! I did the best I could: called a plumber, started trying to soak up water with towels and towels and more towels. Rotating them through the dryer as quickly as I could. Finally the plumber showed up around 3:00 and replaced the water heater for a mere $700. Yikes. Then he told me I would be foolish to not have a disaster clean-up service come in and start tearing out carpet pad and drying the carpet, drywall and studs that were soaked. So, I did that too. They showed up 20 minutes after I placed the call (almost as good as 911, huh?) and hooked up their fans. I think we have 8-9 going right now. The workman told me the fans are $25/day each and that we'd need to run them for 3-4 days. You do the math. I tried not to cry or put my fist through the wall in front of this poor gentleman but I was BUMMED! After he left, I checked to see if the fans are, in fact, gold leafed or diamond studded since for that kind of money, they definitely ought to be. But, no. They are just ugly, industrial fans and they are LOUD.

So, once the fans are unplugged sometime this weekend we'll still have to replace the pad and re-lay the carpet and then raid the kids' piggy banks to cover the ridiculous but unavoidable expense of our mini-disaster. Oh well. Life marches on.

MORAL OF THE STORY: The plumber told me that all of this could have easily been avoided had one of two things happened: 1. the builders of the home didn't get the slope of the floor in the mechanical room right when they poured the concrete and the water that leaked from the water heater ran perfectly AWAY from the drain in the center of the floor. Go figure. Check the pitch of your concrete floor wherever your wather heater is and make sure it's correct. If it's not (like ours) you need to 2. caulk the perimeter of your mechanical room to make it water tight. Easy. Inexpensive. Would've saved us big time bucks and hassle. We'll be doing that as soon as everything dries out.

Happy Birthday Spencer!

Yesterday was my handsome husband Spencer's 34th birthday and we had a great, albeit simple, celebration to honor the #1 husband and daddy in our lives. Anyone who knows Spence knows what an incredible person he is. We feel so lucky to have him!

Before Spencer got home from work, the kids had fun making signs and decorating the house (with PINK balloons...it's all we had on hand!). Then, our little family enjoyed a steak, broccoli and rice dinner (yum!). After dinner we dropped the three oldest kids off at Grandma Jo and Grandpa Lyle's house for a hot tub and a sleepover (thanks again Mom!) while Spencer and I raced home with the twins to host some of our friends for a little birthday get-together. We had dessert, watched the Jazz game, and played some pretty intense rounds of foosball. All in all, a pretty fun night. Happy Birthday Spencer! We love you and hope you had a great day!