Kitty Cats...

My dad keeps stray cats up at the shop to keep mice out. One recently had a litter of kittens.

This was Nash's first time holding a kitty. He was a little nervous and dropped it...OOPS! Good thing Ashley and Ked were there to help him.
Sadie and Koen were good at teaching Nash how to hold the kittens properly.

This next picture cracks me up. Nash has this thing with his mouth lately where he makes an "O" shape when he is excited.

Gone Truckin'

My parents own a family trucking business. Nash LOVES trucks right now. When he sees a truck driving down the road he gets excited and says "andad's uck" (grandad's truck). My brother Kedrick was washing one of the trucks and Nash thought that was so cool and followed him around.

The whole group had to join in on the shining of the wheels. Boy am I glad there is a new generation to do my old job. ;)

Ked promised the kids a ride in the truck to go see the kittens at the shop. They were waiting so patiently.

Nash tried to be a big kid and climb in by himself.

Doesn't he look like he is in HEAVEN! :)

Driving "andad's uck".

When we got to the shop he got out and started running around to all the other trucks. The neighbor's dogs found him, or Nash found the dogs...it's a toss up.

Utah...

Nash was so good on the plane. We had a few draw backs at the Philly airport but we had given ourselves enough time that it didn't matter. Nash pooped on take off, and then fell asleep on the landing, which caused a little bit of an issue, trying to gather all my stuff and opening up the stroller, etc. The airline wasn't much help. Although, randomly the guy sitting next to us on the plane to Phoenix ended up being one of Darin's chief residents and he helped us out when we landed. Getting onto the flight to SLC was a different story, but we made it and it was great to see the mountains of Utah! My mom was at the airport to meet us. Nash recognized her right off and started dragging her around the airport while I waited for our luggage. Our first stop was Orem to visit the Willardson's. Nash loved seeing his grandparents and gettng all the attention as well as meeting the dogs, and it was fun to see all the changes they have done to their home. I didn't have my camera so I wasn't able to get any pictures. Nash and I were pretty hungry so after the Willardson's I made a V-line to CAFE RIO! YUMM...craving satisfied! :)
The next day we traveled the 4 more hours to Blanding. Nash was such a good traveler. Given I let him have his binky for most of the trip. :) My whole family came over that night to play and eat dinner. Oh how I have missed my mothers cooking!!!! Nash really loved all the freedom and ran all over the yard, chasing the dogs.

This dog however is my dads #1 child and he is a little grumpy. My dad was so excited to have Nash come to Blanding, he called every hour to see where we were. He didn't want us to tell Nash who he was, he wanted to see if he would remember him. He did for the most part, but then he saw the dogs and that is where his attention went.

Nash is now at a good age to play with his cousins. Sadie mothered him and Nash loved it!

My mom made the mistake of laying on the grass. She was swarmed by all 3 grandkids.

He thought it was funny to sit on her chest and squeeze her nose between his knees.

This is what she looked like when they were done with her....

Holy Grandma Louise!

Koen stole her glasses to put them in a safe place so they wouldn't get broken. I guess the safe place was his face. :)

Hotel Living...

We were moving all our things to a storage unit and cleaning like mad on our anniversary, and since we are now homeless we decided to take a mini family vacation (although, Darin still had to work.) and stay in a hotel for a couple days. I forgot to get a picture of a room but Darin was able to get a good deal on a nice hotel room with a jacuzzi...exactly what ALL of us needed after the stress of dealing with landlord Bruce and moving. The hotel had a pool as well. Nash hated the pool last year, but this year he LOVES it. Not necessarily getting all the way in but touching it, putting his feet in and splashing.

It was so nice to spend some time as a family, before Nash and I headed off to Utah!

Nash and I couldn't fly out until Thursday, June 3rd because he had an appointment with the Pediatric Specialist. He was referred to Dr. Sneft because of some developmental delays. It takes about a year to get in, so we were happy when we only had to wait 4 months! Although, a lot had changed during that time, and Nash grew out of some of his quirks with the help of the OT and Speech Therapists. Dr. Sneft did a series of tests on him and she verified what we already recognized was going on. Nash is a very anxious little boy with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) tendencies as well as sensory motor issues. She recommended we continue with Early Intervention with OT and Speech and then add a medical Speech Therapist from Darin's hospital. She will follow up with us in 6 months to see how he has progressed.

House Troubles...

On May 28th, Darin and I somewhat celebrated our 5th year anniversary. We have been living in Pennsylvania for 1 year on May 28th as well. In February of this year we hit our limit to dealing with our landlord and decided to begin looking for a new place to live. After talking it over and viewing many homes we decided to go ahead and buy. Although this meant leaving our beautiful 1906 home in Emmaus....

I really loved this home because of all the space, the location and the character of the home. Although, there was several things we didn't like about the home.

1.) Because it was built in 1906 it was very drafty and cold in the winter, and a beast to heat.

2.) In the summer our landlord only allowed us to have 1 air-conditioner (window unit) for the whole house. Before we moved I found 3 at a yard sale and he said he wouldn't put any of them in for us because they were too old. So we had to go buy a very expensive air-conditioner, which he informed us would be a permanent fixture in the home. Then he came into our home before summer was over and took it down, without our permission.

3.) We live in a HIGH Radon area and our landlord wouldn't test our home for Radon or lead. Our pediatrician now wants us to get Nash tested.

4.) The master bedroom had the only full bathroom, which made it a little awkward for guests. We had our bedroom in the other rooms, but it was to hot in the summer for Darin to sleep in the daytime without the air conditioner. I solved this problem this past March when my brother Cody came to visit. We had an extremely large closet in the master bedroom that was always cold and really dark. I decided to see if our bed would fit...

It was a perfect fit...just a little wrinkling on the top. :) The first time Darin walked into the house after I moved the bed he said "ummm where is our bed?" lol

We actually really liked it in the closet and Darin was able to rest well after a long 30+ hour call.

We are very sad to leave Emmaus, it is such a fun little town, with things happening all the time. Most of Nash's playdates are in or around Emmaus. We loved being close to 2 really great parks, the swimming pool, walking distance from the grocery store, pizza hut around the corner, and an awesome running trail. We lived on a very busy street which made it a little unnerving to have Nash outside playing. But the yard was HUGE and our landlord took care of it. It was great for a yard sale. We decided to have one a few weeks ago and sold almost everything. The only down fall of the yard sale was when our landlord decided to mow our lawn and mowed right in the middle of all our things. Yeah I guess you can see that the BIGGEST down fall of the house was the LANDLORD. So we decided to COME OUT OF THE CLOSET, packed up our things...

AND MOVED!

Our lease ended on May 31st. The townhouse we are trying to buy was to close on May 28th (our 5 year anniversary). Although, we have had MANY set back with the loan companies. During the process we were referred to 3 different lenders and nobody really knew how to go about selling us a house because of our LARGE student loans. We finally found someone, and they just were not on the ball. They got our closing date wrong, and then told us we still needed to track down and submit some paper work. After talking to several different physicians we have learned this is a common practice in our area.

Darin and I worked hard to get everything done, he had a couple of days off so instead of getting a moving truck, we just piece mailed everything to a storage unit which we found for only $16, close to our hopefully new home in Breinigsville. Thank goodness for our good friends the Dowling's and the Holtzhafer's for letting us borrow their pick-ups. It didn't take us too long and Darin and I did it all ourselves. The Dowlings were moving to a new apartment as well. The original plan was to share a moving truck, which we did for a few BIG items like the treadmill. Thanks Nick and Kristen for helping us!

We had some ward members come over and help us clean, and a few of my club mom friends watched Nash for me. Moving was a little stressful this time, especially since we had no clue where we were going to live. The mortgage company asked for a 15 day extension which has left us homeless for 15 days. We looked into renting a home for a short time. Our friends the Ockermans found us a great deal for a hotel extended stay. But once we processed the numbers it just made more sense for Nash and I to fly home to Utah for a visit. Darin had to work so he stayed back, and is living with the Dowlings. THANK YOU AGAIN!

Nash and I fly home this Sunday and hopefully our home will close on the 15th. Please keep us in your prayers.

Birthday Cake...

In Darin's mind, a birthday is not a birthday until you have an ice-cream cake. He would rather have a Dairy Queen cake but a cake from the local grocery store seemed to suffice as long as it was ice-cream!

I had to laugh at the size of this cake, especially since it was just our little family of 3 going to eat it. Darin was so excited to have the whole cake to himself for the rest of the week.
Lighting the candles was VERY serious business....we did it 3 or 4 times.

We love Skype, we were able to celebrate Nash's birthday with both grandma's. I didn't take a picture of opening presents with Granny C. but I love this picture of Grandma W. watching Nash blow out the candles.

He would take these big breathes but then he would close his mouth and blow little amounts out...

That didn't work so well so he started waving his hands and that was the most effective...not to mention the most fun!

We lit the candles at least 4 times because Nash had so much fun putting them out. Finally we were allowed to cut the cake and EAT. Boy was it yummy!

I can't believe our little Nasharoo is TWO!!!

Nash turns 2!

We have officially entered the TERRIFIC TWO'S!!! Nash turned 2 years old on May 23rd. The month of May was a crazy one for our family but we wanted to do something special to celebrate our sweet little boy. Nash's good pal Will is 5 days younger so his mom Christine and I decided to do a combined birthday party/playdate since they basically have all the same little friends. This party was very low maintenance. It was held in Will's back yard, which is great because it is fenced in, they have a fun little playground and sandbox, and nice deck. We invited 10 little friends ranging from 2-3 years old to come over eat cake and play outside with Will and Nash. We requested no presents and there were no organized games.

I decided since the party was so low maintenance that I would put a little effort into the cake. I found a great website on Parents.com that has step by step instructions on how to make a variety of different cakes. I let Nash choose which cake he wanted and he chose the frog cupcakes, and the Monkey cake. It wasn't too hard but it took me 2 tries to get the cake right. I think they turned out pretty cute. I figured if a 2 year old could tell what they were I did a good job. :)

A big reason why we kept the party low maintenance is because these 2 cute little boys really didn't know what all the fuss was about. They were just happy to eat cake and play with friends.

2 year olds are so funny to watch, they just wander around not really interacting with each other but happy to be out and about. Darin bought a bubble maker that spits out bubbles at an outrageous amount. It was a hit with the kiddos!

I made some playdoh for the kids to play with.

We only had 1 squabble..caught on camera. It was between the birthday boys over the lawn mower and it looks like Nash got the upper hand....

We were happy with how the party turned out. The weather was beautiful and it was VERY low stress. Which is exactly what both families were looking for. Will's dad is a doctor at the hospital and they are in the process of moving to a new home as well. So life is a bit busy for both sides. We are so grateful for such good friends out here. Here are Nash's little buddies...

Riley, Will, Travis and Rufus

Brooke, Edward, Weston, Ava and Kathryn

(I am missing a picture of his little girl friend Camryn)