update

Things are going smoothly with selling our house. We worked hard to get everything perfectly ready and on Oct 11 we had five showings lined up for the first day. We received an offer that night. After some short negotiations we came to an agreement and everything was set. We are closing on December 4th.

We will spend December in Utah visiting family and friends and then fly down to New Zealand in early January. We have been busy working on our visa applications which have required extensive medical paperwork, fingerprinting and FBI clearance. Hopefully everything will be pulled together in time. The process has been more complicated than we expected.

Halloween

The babies have been sick this week. We missed the library party but decided that they babies were well enough to stop by the ward trunk-or-treat and then a couple of neighbor's houses. They looked so cute in their costumes that I had to show them off.
The kids were pretty overwhelmed at the ward party. They just kept staring at everyone. Max wanted to be held the whole time and Maya just kept staring at people.
We went trick-or-treating to a couple neighbor's houses. The kids got the hang of it pretty quickly, although they didn't want to stop at the door, the made it all the way into 3 of the 4 houses that we went to visit.

you got caught

I left the room for just a few mins and came back to this mess. They just too cute for me to get mad at, so I just took photos instead. Thankfully it all came up from the carpet. The funniest part is that the kids have been sick this week and haven't really wanted to eat much, I guess I just wasn't offering them the right thing.

ducks

While these pictures may look sweet and serene I must admit that usually when I leave the house I am constantly worried that one of the kids is going to run out into the street, fall in a lake or just fall down and start screaming. Most of the time I end of carrying both kids, which is now almost 50lbs. I have been working really hard on getting the babies to hold hands when we out out places. Hopefully in they will get better at it soon.

books

The kids LOVE to read books. Books are their favorite toys. They don't just flip through the pages, the look at each page and point to the things that they recognize. They often come and sit down on our laps with a book in their hands saying "book, book, book" and nodding their heads.

Regardless of what the book is about they are ecstatic if they can find a dog or a cat. They aren't talking much yet but the use a lot of signs that they learned from Baby Signing Time. They make all the signs they know when ever they recognize something in a book.


Here the babies are reading "Where the Wild Things Are". They love the book, but I'm pretty sure they aren't ready for the movie.

at this age...

At this age we like to climb up on top to chairs, tables and book cases....

we like to get stuck in strange places....

and we don't like to be locked up.

why, mom why?

Maya was really not interested in having her photo taken for her visa. Maybe I shouldn't have offered to let her watch Yo Gabba Gabba before I remembered that I needed to take the photos.

snuggle time

The babies are getting even more snugly these days, and I love it. They nuzzle their little heads into my neck and wrap their arms around my shoulders when they are upset and when they are ready to sleep.

They even have started to be snugly with each other. Sometimes when they are sitting in their booster seats, they will lean their heads towards each other and smile. They like to hold hands in their car seats, and sometimes (with a little encouragement) they will run up to each other and knock each other down with hugs.

When I came into the room a couple of days ago, I found Maya with her head on Max's shoulder. I was too late to catch it on camera, but I love that they like each other so much. Of course, they also take toys from one another and fight for Mom and Dad's attention, but they really do like to be together.

mangoes and a sunday walk

latest on the house

Yesterday, we finally had a sunny day, and we had professional photos taken of the house. Our realtor sent a stager over last week to help us get ready. Saturday, we had some landscaping done to clean up the yard. Everything is now in order. Finally our MLS listing is completely finished.

The stagger had us take down all personal photos and religious art. We cleared off the bookshelves and added decorations to the bathrooms. Thankfully, she loved all the Mayan weavings and used a lot of them to decorate walls that were once covered with family photos. It was fun to see how someone else (with more decorating skills) could use my things to make the house look nice.

We had our first showings on Sunday. Five families came to see the house on the first day. We feel very optimistic that the house is going to sell qucikly.

It feels pretty strange to live in the house that we are showing. My yard has never looked this nice, and there is no clutter anywhere (other than the garage which is starting to fill up with things for a future garage sale). Even my closets are clean. If only I could live this way all the time. (If I had all my brothers and sisters here, I would feel like we were the Bluth Family.)

Thankfully, the babies have been good sports about not having all their fun toys out. This is due in large part to the fact that we have taken several trips to Chick-fil-A. Max and Maya have reached the developmental milestone where they are more excited to play than eat. When we arrive at the parking lot, they start kicking their legs and squealing with joy.