Christmas in Review

Isn't the end of Christmas always bitter-sweet? We had a great Christmas at my parent's house at Mason Lake. Everyone was together. It was our first Christmas all together since we lost Willie...and that too was bitter-sweet. My mom for the first time EVER has a job. She worked the whole day on Christmas Eve. It majorly changed up how we normally do things. My sister Joanna and I along with my Dad (who now cooks) started working in the kitchen as soon as she left for work in the morning. It was memorable. :)

The tree. If you look close you can see the kids contribution! ;)

Bren helped me make Christmas cookies

I think I might have the cutest niece ever

The cousins (sans Easton...he's not ready for sitting on stairs)

playing with Bentley

My silly siblings

Me and Rach

Clothing didn't stay on very long. Lots of cooking, running, a wood stove and a fireplace to keep everyone quite warm!

All 5 Wagners

Christmas morning

Lots of stockings!

Easton's first Christmas (and his 9month birthday!)

My 3 favorite little boys

Celebrating Jesus' birthday with birthday cake!

There is something wrong with Jordan

Kid Quotes::Vol.29

Setting::Brendan is trying to teach my grandma (his great-grandma) how to play Wii

Brendan: So, grandma, how long has it been since you've played video games?

Grandma Joann: Never! I've never played video games.

Brendan: Not even when you were a kid?!

Grandma Joann: There wasn't such a thing as video games when I was a kid. There wasn't such a thing as television when I was a kid. Can you imagine!??

Wyatt: Soooo, you didn't know about them and you didn't care.

Grandma Joann: That's right.

Bentley

My sister Joanna (a.k.a. Jojee) got a new puppy this past September. He is a golden retriever named Bentley and he is SO cute. But he is also very much a puppy and gets into all sorts of trouble and has insane strength combined with insane energy....bad combination. Joanna and her husband are out of town for a couple days for their anniversary and my parents (and us) are watching their doggy. Well today is sunny and we've been a little cooped up so we decided taking Bentley for a walk this afternoon would be a good idea. I took my Dad because I wasn't sure I could manage it alone (actually he came with me because he wasn't sure I could manage it). Boy was that a good decision. That dog basically drug my Dad down the street. When Brendan asked to walk Bentley we kind of knew what was going to happen but let him have a go anyway. We told him to hang on tight because who knows how far he'll go if he gets loose! Brendan did his job alright, but got drug down the road....fast and then got drug on the ground just like the movies. He wasn't hurt at all, but totally freaked out and my dad and I couldn't stop laughing. Poor Brennie!!! The walk didn't last long. I seriously don't know how my sister walks him twice a day. He. Is. Crazy. The dog whisperer would NOT be happy with how that went this afternoon!

Home for Christmas

On Wednesday I flew out of Phoenix (by myself) with the three little boys, headed for Washington. Rand can't join us quite yet, but I am always so grateful that he doesn't mind us heading out a little early (or staying a little late) so we can extend our trip even though he can't. We miss him though!! The flight was great. I have the best kiddos! Easton was a tad wiggly and my arms felt like they had a great work out after, but we made it. The weather is typical and we are loving it.
I'm going to really try to take more pictures and blast them up here more often. Easton has been a little needy, so it's been hard to sit and do anything that takes longer than about 30 seconds! (those top 4 teeth are just not coming through!!)



We have countless pictures of the kids at this counter, since Brendan was about 6 months old and sitting in that clip on chair! 

 Easton with Jojee and Great Grandma Joann

 Wyatt and Me, making biscuits

Isn't Easton looking big....big as in older??

First Christmas

 Need to do a little blog catch up! I'm in Washington now for Christmas, but here are some pics from our first Christmas. We had Rand's Mom, Dad and sister over to our new house for a little early Christmas since we won't be there. Early Christmas' are way better than late Christmas'. As you can see from the first picture, the kids' made out like bandits. Rand's mom gave us her Wii that she had bought for using WiiFit, but she just didn't like it or use it that much. I told her to just wrap it up and give it to the kids. They've played Wii with their friends and their Autie Jojee, so they had been asking for one but we had no intention of getting them one. So these are 2 really lucky boys. Actually we are all having fun with it!! And our first party was a success and the new house works great for entertaining!! Can't wait for more parties there.

I love this picture of the 3 boys. Wish it was a little lighter, but I think it is so cute. Just sitting in front of the tree waiting for their auntie to hand out more presents!

And then carollers stopped by!! 

It's December

And this is December in Phoenix!

Living Room

No where near done, but living room is coming together and the Christmas tree is up. There are priorities when there are little boys in the house and Christmas decorations is one of them!

See if you  can spot the early Christmas present/house warming present we received last week!!! :)

Having lots of fun in our new house!!!

Merry Christmas to us!!

Got this in the mail yesterday. I LOVE it!!! I got a bunch of pictures that need frames from my pals at Cooper Studios, but this is by far my favorite. Thanks Amy and Forrest!!!

New House

Okay, okay. House pictures. I delayed posting anything until we were official and now we are official! After 3 and half years of what has felt like true wandering we are homeowners again! God has protected us and blessed us more than we can even say. We sold our home in WA right at the beginning of the big economic crumble and God has protected us from buying over and over again. While frustrating at the time, we knew it was smart for us to rent...we just didn't know how smart until hindsight set in. Now life feels a little more even-keeled and God opened the doors for this to happen. We could have never afforded this house just 3 years ago with the inflated market and finding a nice rental at this price these days (at least in phoenix) is impossible! We feel so lucky and so blessed.

These pictures I took while we were still looking at the house. Things are a crazy mess so until we are more moved in these pictures will have to do, just to give you an idea!

2068 sqft.
4 bedrooms/2baths
pool
remodel
HUGE backyard (by phoenix standards)

The Wagner Residence sans landscaping!

 Come on in!

Living Room (staging furniture)

 

 School Room (off the living room) Kids are standing in the laundry room. Back door is just beyond them down that little hall.

Main bath

Master Bath

In this picture clockwise from left: (taken from Master) furnace closet; play room (or easton's room can't decide); straight ahead boys' room (maybe all 3); right= library/office/guest room; then linen closet. Hallway to living area to the immediate right but not in picture.

Back patio (part of it)

The farm

View from master br

The only thing making it possible for me to live in Phoenix May-October

Back door from garage. Gate to front.

Our park!

Front door

Pantry (if this wasn't here, I wouldn't have bought this house. This makes the kitchen big enough!)

Out the living room window.

Kitchen

We really, really love it. The house has been beautifully remodeled and so we don't feel the need to do anything cosmetic. So nice! We have an insane list of projects and it will be a work in progress for a long time while we make this place "ours". More house pictures to come as we get settled!

Easton::8 Months

I'm baaack. You can safely assume that every time I post something new, I am probably not doing what I should be doing...at least for the next couple weeks. But everyone needs a break now and then, right?

Before it's 9 months...here's Easton at 8!!

Easton is on the move! We can't call it organized crawling or even scooching, but the boy gets places. It's fun to watch. He's pretty frustrated because he knows he wants to, but his body just won't do it yet! I'm guessing by Christmas he'll be getting into a lot more trouble!

Easton's favorite activity is pulling toys out of boxes or buckets or bags or.... and banging toys on different things. He loves music and already has a little dance he does and sometimes he even sings. He likes clapping his hands along with people and he finally got a new car seat! He still isn't a huge fan of food. Let me rephrase that. Obviously the boys likes food, but he is rather particular and seems to still mostly prefer one brand...and that would be me. He likes oatmeal and rice cereal but can't stand any kind of fruit with too much flavor. He will tolerate bananas and as far as other "flavors" we've done pretty well with squash, peas and sweet potatoes. He is wearing size 24 months/2T and I am still in total disbelief at how big he is. He's gotta be 30 lbs now. While we were packing I ran across some baby stuff of Brendan's. Brendan weighed 34 lbs when he was 2 and Wyatt was around the same. We've got a record setter here!

He's a joy.

Only a baby with older brothers...

 

 Clapping!

 

Miraculous Healing?

For unknown reasons our computer is showing no signs of virus. We backed everything up onto an external hard drive and since haven't had any problems. Strange. Perhaps when we turn it off it will never come back on. I don't know. A little nervous to load any pictures.

UPDATE: We signed all our legal documents for the house early this morning. We are waiting for seller to get all of his in then it will all get recorded and ta-da! New house! Our monthly payment and interest has just gone down and down over the 6 weeks that we have been going through this process. What a blessing! And then to top it off (long story short), we are getting a new refrigerator out of the deal! We went and bought it tonight. AND our computer has healed itself (for now)! It's been a great day. A little bit of a downer is that our landlord wants us out this weekend instead of next and so we are moving everything a little faster than we had planned. But once we are in, we are in!!!! We're pumped.

While I'm procrastinating tomorrow, perhaps I'll post some pictures! :)