Adjusting

Hello!

Life in Montana is starting to fall right into place.  We are slowing finding our niche.  We found a church..are slowly making some friends...and I found a hair salon and stylist that I love...

Gavin
Gavin has gotten into pretending quit a bit lately.  It's quit precious.  He has a bear that joins us for dinner, wears Gav's clothes, gets tucked in with Gavin and last night he even got a bath with Gavin - he was in the bath before I had the choice to tell him no.  Gavin even feeds the bear, just like ma'ma feeds Sage - haha!! He is always asking him if he needs to go potty, or if he is okay.  And often tells him "it's ok bear, we can fix it". It's funny what you don't realize you say until it's coming out of Gavin's mouth ALL the time.  He often starts his sentences with, "so mom"... cracks me up every time.
Gav also has a mat that has roads, stores, trees and stuff like that on it.  He calls it his Town, all of his cars, animals and men live there.  We play in it everyday.  He likes to line up his cars, load up the front loaders and of course crash the cars.

Gavin also loves to feed his sister - haha!!




Gavin had his first dentist appointment this week.  He did really well... he rode the chair up and down, got to shoot the "squirt gun" and had a little watermelon fluoride painted on.  I can't believe my baby is old enough to go to the dentist.






Sage
Sage is just so cute and makes me smile.  She is quite the ham!  I have a feeling she is going to be a lot like her brother:)  She is fast; though she is not quite crawling yet...  but she has the army crawl down.  She loves to play in the tunnel we have set up in the play room.  We took Sage swimming for the first time last week, she absolutely loved it, plus she was adorable in her purple swimsuit - I love having a girl:)

Izzy
Izzy is adjusting well, however she cannot wait to have a fence so she can have a yard to run around in again. The poor thing has definitely taken a back seat since the kiddos have come along.  We try our hardest to get her out for a walk, hike, dog park (what have you) at least once a week.  Sometimes that doesn't even happen.  Poor thing is also making Brian lose his mind.  We have hardwood floors in our new place and if you know Izzy you know she is not the calmest/ most graceful thing.  So we are starting to see some nice scratches here and there.  The solution....booties.  Yes...out dog wears booties.  She is a completely different dog in them. I would call it DEPRESSED.  They sure do save the hardwood.  She doesn't have to wear them all the time.  It's pretty funny!!

Brian and I feel like we are constantly working on a house project, and if you can imagine we don't have as much time for that as we would like with 2 little tykes running around.  We are loving our new life in Montana.  We found a hiking trail 1 mile away from us and the day we went, no one was on it.  It was amazing.  Last week our church hosted a free ski night on the local ski hill (Great Divide).  It was awesome! We took the kiddos so we didn't ski but we enjoyed the fire pit, hot dogs, hot chocolate and meeting new people.  For Christmas Preston bought Brian and I tickets to the local theater.  On Friday we are looking forward to a night out.

GO BRONCOS!!!

MONTANA!!

Hello All!!  I am finally starting my blog, as I told many of you I would!!  We have now been in Helena for almost 7 weeks.   So, here goes 7 weeks of catch up.  

We took off after I finished up work on November 25th and headed out in a caravan.  Me with the kiddos and the dog, Brian in the truck with the camper and Teenan in the UHaul.  It was awesome.  The kids did fantastic and we made it to our new place in one piece!  We then started the dreaded unpacking process, which we are still doing might I add.  Moving the week of Thanksgiving was a blessing in disguise as we were able to take advantage of all the Black Friday deals.  Brian started his job the following week as did I:) Being home with my kiddos has been such a blessing, but quit the adjustment.  No Starbucks breaks mid-morning, gym time at lunch, and instead of adult conversation - make believe, diaper changes and lots of kisses and snuggles - it can't be beat. Being there for every new step each day is amazing.  Brian has really enjoyed his new gig as well; he works with some really great guys! Both also new to Helena, one from Alaska and the other from North Dakota.  He has really enjoyed driving to work with no traffic and traveling the 10 miles into town in 10 minutes:)



I have tried to jump right into community activities to try and keep Gavin entertained and maybe meet some friends in the meantime.  Helena has a great library, kids museum, carousel and lots of parks to keep us busy. 



Teenan and Eva came for a visit the first of December.   Of course, the week they were here the high was never above 0 degrees.  It was miserably cold and unfortunately kept us pretty home bound. Nonetheless it was wonderful to have Nana and Papa here.  




The kids have had some huge milestones since moving here.

Sage moved into her own room.  It was a really nice change for Brian and I...no more wispering and tiptoeing around before bed.  It was however a little bit of a struggle to get Sage adjusted to her new environment, I think we are finally there:)   Sage also started on solid foods which I have decided to make this time around.  It has actually been kinda fun.  Her favorite food so far is butternut squash.  She also is sitting up on her own and army crawling everywhere - trying to keep up with her brother.

Gavin has moved into a toddler bed with a new sports theme bedroom.  He is turning into a little boy way to quickly.  He is a smart, funny little man who has been keeping me on my toes.  He is 100% boy.  I love it but wowsers is he busy.  We have also started potty training just this week actually.  I would say we are not off to a strong start, but you have to start somewhere!!  He has also been really into bedtime prayers; which is absolutely adorable. Sometimes the prayer goes a little like this...I will start Dear Jesus and he will go thank you for; Ma'ma, Da'da, Sagy, Izzy, TV, my milk, Nana, Papa, Grandpa, Uncle Preston, Noah... it will come flying out of his mouth so fast.  It's hilarious.  Tonight for instance.  We put him down and I was out cleaning up the kitchen when all of the sudden he was bawling... I go into see what was wrong he said we forgot to pray for ducky (a ducky he has in a snowglobe, which was sleeping with him might I add)...once we prayed for him he was good to go.  

To get our Christmas season off to a great start we decided it would be a fun new tradition to cut down a Christmas tree.  The day we went to pick our tree the weather was beautiful, it was 50.  Montana has not been as cold as we were expecting.  We drove a solid 15 minutes and were in a foot of snow and had our pick of trees.  We found the perfect one.  Lesson learned, trees always look smaller in the forest than they do in your living room.  Once we got it in the living room we had to cut a good 4 feet off the bottom, it was hilarious.  After that it was perfect!!

My dad and Preston drove up here for Christmas.  It was such a fun way to celebrate our first Christmas in MT.  We had a wonderful, fun filled week...Christmas Eve Service, Christmas lights, opening presents of course, sledding, walking around downtown, eating at some of Helena's finest establishments:) and spending some wonderful quality time together.

Well that is the last few weeks in a nutshell.  I will post more often, so you don't have to read a novel every month.  Thanks for reading my blog!!  You are all greatly missed!