First Day of School (2 weeks late)!!

Here is Miss. Lauren in all her Kindergarten glory! She was beyond excited for school to FINALLY start. We moved to PA the end of July and she was desperate to make some more friends and to have something to do everyday so we weren't sad at all for the school year to begin -for us it could not come soon enough. She picked out her outfit and told me she wanted her photo taken in front of the tree in the front yard. And she came up with all the fun/crazy poses herself (believe me, there are a lot more crazy poses but these are the lucky few that made it to the blog). And the wonder of Kindergarten has not worn off and for that I am very glad. She comes home everyday and tells me how much she LOVES Kindergarten. If I accidentally ask if she liked school that day she corrects me and tells me, "Mom, I don't like school, I love it!" And she really loves it when she has homework. We have already had math homework and some writing homework and she couldn't wait to do it. I hope this enthusiasm never leaves.

And this last picture here is of my cute girl in front of the D.C. Temple. We went down to D.C. for a temple trip a couple of weeks ago and it was a lot of fun to see this beautiful temple in person. The girls did great and loved staying in a hotel with a nice swimming pool inside. And Dave and I loved that the ward provided babysitting at a nearby stake center and we were able to enjoy a session together. It definitely made all the expense of the trip worth it! We are excited to see a lot more of this temple and to visit the D.C. area a lot more in the coming years!

Funny Conversation with Lauren

Sometimes I have the funniest conversations with Lauren and they make me laugh. A week ago we were driving back from visiting the Washington D.C. Temple and had just made a quick stop and while stopped Lauren grabbed a free real estate magazine. Once we were back on the road she asked me to hand her the magazine so she could read it (she is 5 and can't read). After I handed her the magazine the following conversation took place.

Me: Lauren, whatcha doing?
Lauren: Reading my magazine.
Me: Will you read it to me?
Lauren: No, I can't read Mom.

Dave and I smile and laugh a little at this point. So I ask again:

Me: Lauren, whatcha doing?
Lauren: Reading my magazine.
Me: Will you read it to me?
Lauren: No, I can't read Mom.

By this point Dave and I are really starting to laugh in the front seat of the car.

Me: Lauren, whatcha doing?
Lauren: Reading my magazine.
Me: Will you read some of it to me?
Lauren: No, I can't read Mom. I already told you I can't read! Why do you keep asking me to read to you?

Dave and I were laughing so hard. She really just didn't get what was so funny about the converstation.


A couple of weeks ago it was a beautiful day outside and I took the girls to a outdoor fountain to play. As we were walking up to the fountain Lauren said, "Mom, today is such a beautiful day I am going to say a poem." Here is her poem

The sky is blue
birds are blue
I love you
tweet, tweet, tweet!

I think the tweet, tweet, tweet part is my favorite!

Going, Going, Gone!

After 5 months of trying to sell our condo - we are glad that as of Friday we will no longer be home owners in Iowa! We got an offer last week (too low) but after some negotiations we were able to reach a selling price. The buyers are really getting a great deal but we are very glad to not be paying the mortgage on an empty condo anymore!

I am actually more sad than I thought I would be about finally selling our home. Besides all the wonderful friends we left behind in Iowa, this is our last big attachment to Iowa and now that it is sold it really feels like we have moved on. Even though I struggled with making our family of 4 fit into this 870 sq. foot 2 bedroom/1 bath home for the last 6 years we loved it there and are sad to say goodbye to our first home (first one we bought anyway). We have lots of good memories of our time in Iowa and in our little home but we are so glad to have finally sold it!

They like clean people in Connecticut?

I just had the following conversation with Lauren and thought it was pretty funny.

Me: Come on girls - it's time to take a bath!
Lauren: Ah Mom, I not want to take a bath!
Me: Do you know why we have to take a bath tonight (besides the fact that you played at the park today and got all sweaty and stinky)?
Lauren: No, why?
Me: Because we are going to Connecticut tomorrow so we need to get ready tonight!
Lauren: So why do we need a bath? Do they only like clean people in Connecticut or what?

Don't worry Tawnee - I am making them take a bath so we don't offend the people of Connecticut with our smelly selves!

Our new place

As previously stated, we are in PA and we are slowly getting our house organized and put together. Today we attended our new ward for the first time and it was great to meet so many nice people. Lauren has a really fun primary class that is full of lots of other 5 year old girls. She is going to make lots of friends and have fun. RS was packed full today and I don't know if it is always that full in there but it was nice to have a lot of sisters there. Our ward is the only one that meets in this bldg. so it isn't a very large building but the ward is supposed to be a very strong ward. But this bldg. has the smallest chapel I have ever seen - it only has 5 rows of benches! It looks like a stunted chapel! They have rows and rows of padded seats that go all the way to the back of the cultural hall to fit all the members. Since we are still working on the inside of the house I will include some pict. of the outside of the house so you can see how green it is.
There are so many trees here too. We are so used to wide open corn fields and rolling hill in IA that it really bothers me to drive down the highway and only see huge trees on both sides of the roads! I am sure we will get used to it though.

View of the front of our house

Front of the house and the side yard

A pict. of our neighborhood park taken from our front yard! It is great to have it so close!

From our deck looking right

From our deck looking left

Tree in our front yard

Looking out from our front door

Back/side yard

We are very excited to use our yard. But it sure is A LOT of grass to mow. We bought a new pool last night for the girls so if we can get a day without any rain then I am sure we will be swimming soon.

NYC

Okay - we are here in PA and slowly getting our house put together! Luckily we have had Dave around all week to help. I have a few pict. and I will post them soon but I don't like any of the pict. inside the house because it is messy in all the pict! Hopefully we will find a place for everything soon.



I need some help though. Dave has a conference in NYC in a week and when it is over I am thinking of meeting him there with the girls and spending a couple of days in the city. Since Dave hasn't been in 10 years and I haven't ever been I am wanting advice on what to do with two small children (remember, we will just go for a couple of days)?!?! Any suggestions from those of you who have been would be greatly appreciated. If you can think of a great place to stay too I am open to those suggestions also!





Thanks for the help!

This is where we put Liddy while we were moving boxes into our basement. I have no idea why the pict. is coming up sideways - sorry!

We are on our way

Well, the time has come to say goodby to Iowa and move our house to Pennsylvania! It has been a very busy last month so it will be good to finally be in PA and in our new home. In the last month we have flown to PA to find a home - Flown to AZ to visit family - Driven to Utah to visit more family - Driven back to AZ for a final visit - And flown back to IA! I forgot the camera for the Utah portion of our trip but I have lots from AZ and now I can't find the cord to download them so that will just have to wait until we arrive in PA and have the internet up and running. Fortunately we shouldn't be without it for long - that was the first thing Dave set up for the new place! We are very sad to leave behind our good friends and home in Iowa - we have LOVED the last six years here. But we are excited to start the next phase of life. Dave drove one of our cars out to PA this weekend and he just kept calling me saying how beautiful PA is. He says we are going to have a lot of beautiful places to camp and explore with the girls. So the movers come tomorrow to pack us up and hopefully we will be on our way Thurs!

Busy

Okay - everyone is busy so this really is a lame excuse but my poor blog has been seriously neglected over the last month. We have been busy playing with trips to Kansas City, Pella, Independence, and Nauvoo. In the middle of May we had Grandma and Grandpa Folsom pay us a visit to meet Lydia and to also see Dave graduate with his doctorate from The University of Iowa! We have had lots of play dates at the park, children's museum and friends houses. We had Lauren's graduation from Pre-school and her dance recital is today. And in between everything we have been getting quotes from moving companies, showing our condo - still trying to get it sold, cleaning constantly so it is ready to be shown, and looking for a place to live in Pennsylvania! I will be glad when the last one is done! It takes up way to much time to constantly be looking at the listings, emailing people, making phone calls, setting up times to see properties. And tomorrow Dave and I are leaving our sweet girls with some dear friends and we are finally off to PA to pick a place to live! So once we are back we will finally put some pict. of all our big events we have had the last month.

Here are a couple of cute pict of the girls though!

Lydia and Lauren adore each other and love to play together.

Look - I have two teeth now!

Lauren at her dress rehearsal for dance yesterday!

(From L: Tori, Megan, Claire, Anne, Lauren)

Where's Liddy?

Can you find the cute little baby among all the toys?

We're moving to Bethlehem!

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania that is. Dave accepted an offer as a tenure track professor at Lehigh University yesterday! Even though this job moves us even farther away from our families we feel really good about it and are very excited to have a job! Lehigh is a small, private University with a top ranked Business Program and Dave will have some really good students to teach and work with. We have been online trying to learn more about the area and have talked to some church members who live there. We are excited for this new adventure. We want to take advantage of being so close to so many fun places and explore while we are there. We will be close to NYC, Washington DC, and Philadelphia and I am really excited to explore those cities and visit all the amazing historical areas that the East has to offer. So if any of you find yourselves on the East Coast - give us a call! We want visitors!