Out with the old and in with the new!

I just wanted to post a few things that we have been working on lately. As if our lives aren't hectic enough with a toddler, and the gym, we are constantly working on and remodeling our house that was built in the 1950s. We bought our house in may, and moved in in August of this year. There were a few things that needed to be done right away, that I just couldn't live with. Our house is 5 bedrooms, 2 baths. 3 beds up, 2 beds down, 1 bath up, and 1 bath down, and a little over 1000 sq feet on each level, on a quarter acre. The first time we looked at our house, I was like no way, not doing it, too much work, no. After looking for a few more days, our realtor suggested our house again. So we went and looked at it again, and I warmed up a little, but still wasn't really sure. This was Friday, and on Saturday night, I turned to Justin and I was like we need to make an offer on that park st house. He was like really? So we talked about it for a while, and decided why not? Lets just see what happens. So Monday rolled around, we made an offer, and it turns out there was already 2 other offers on it as well. After a few counters, and waiting we got the house, and we love it! Im so glad that everything worked out with it. The house was just so old, and hadn't been remodeled in so long, that I couldn't see the potential. Lucky for me, someone else had better insight and helped me to realize that it was perfect for our family. Anyway, I just wanted to post a few pictures of what we have been working on We took pictures of the house during the inspection last april, and then have been taking them as we remodel. We have done all of the remodeling by ourselves because Justin is so talented. The only thing we hired out was new carpet downstairs. The first two pictures are the stair well going downstairs. Before it had some hideous wood walls, so justin tore it all off, sheetrocked, and repainted. It turned out nice. There was also a wood stove surrounded by bricks at the bottom of the stairs, so we tore that out, because it was dangerous, and so ugly. The next two pictures are of the downstairs family room. Again more wood paneling, ugly light fixtures, etc. We aren't finished with the family room yet, we need to cut in a window, cover up a funky light fixyture, and replace doors, but it has come along way. The last two pictures is of the upstairs living room before and after. The living room is my favorite. We went to put in pergo, and new carpet throughout the upstairs right after we moved in, and discovered beautiful wood floors in every room but the kitchen and bathroom. The floors were in excellent condition, but looked like a basketball gym floor, so we sanded, and restained the floors, and decided to keep the wood floor throughout the upstairs, which we love! Anyway, the living room is the only room in the house that is completely finished, and we love it. We have been so blessed with a great house in this cold Rexburg weather (-5 degrees right now) and we are so grateful.

Oh another post

I just want to say how grateful I am for my little Lexi, she is such a joy in our lives. In ten days she will be 21 months. The other morning I was doing dishes, and she was in the bath, and all of a sudden she was singing as loud as she could "Ya ya go....moo moo moo." Over and over again. (Old MacDonald) I got most of it on video until she looked up, and was suddenly embarrassed. Much to the joy of her daddy, she is quickly picking up some gymnastics skills, she can walk half way across the low beam by her self, and she jumps off and says ta-da. She can also perform, a straddle, tuck, and pike on demand. She is working on her forward roll, but needs a little push at the end. She copies a lot of what we say, and then we are so excited that she has learned something new, we ask her to repeat it, and then she acts like she doesn't know how to say it, and says "dat" which is her word that she says when she doesn't know how to say something.
My mom came into town this past week to visit her new grand baby Soleil, and she stayed with us. It was so nice to have her around, but it makes me lazy because she does all of my dirty work. (Thanks Mom:) My nephew Jake was blessed on Sunday. Of course he was an angel the whole day. Justin and I are slowly but surely buying some Christmas presents and we hope to be done by December 10th? I can't wait to do some secret santa stuff this year, we already have two families in mind. There is no better way to get into the Christmas spirit then to buy for a family in need! Anyway, looking forward to hearing all of your christmas ideas and fun activities.

Things of the fall

Jake
Jake, just a few hours old

Soleil being cute (I stole these from her mom)
Soleil with her attitude

It's been awhile, I know I'm a slacker. Much has happened around the Packard home the past month, but I haven't been on the computer as much because the computer is in Lexi's room, until we get a wireless card, and the only time I write is when she is asleep. So anyway, great news, I have an adorable new nephew (Jake Gordon Babcock sept 14th 8lbs!) and an adorable new neice (Soleil Mabel-Marie Taylor September 24th 5lbs 10oz) They are both so cute, and it's so fun to be around newborns, Lexi was the last new baby on both sides of the family. Jake is an angel, he only cries when he is hungry, and I think he will be a good balance to his crazy brother, which is a relief for his parents. Soleil is much like Lexi in the attitude department, she is only 2.5 weeks old, but she definately already knows what she wants. She loves to be held all the time by her mom :) As for our little family, we are consistently working on our house. yesterday we painted the whole kitchen this green color, but today we both hate it, so we are going to repaint. It turned out kind of a mint green, and we were going for more of a sage green....such a pain. A couple of weeks ago I was able to take a trip to Oregon, just Lexi and I to see my family for a few days. It was a good time, just relaxing, and I need that. Justin was in Seattle for a gymnastics competition over our 4th anniversary, and I was like Heck I am not sitting at home alone on my anniversary, so thats what we did instead. The flight to Oregon was fine, but the flight back home was terrible. When lexi was about 4 months old, i vowed that I would never fly alone again, but I had obviously forgot how terrible Lexi can be on a flight. I was actually crying, it was so embarassing. Lexi was on this steriod for her cough that made her so psycho and grumpy, and to top it off, all those Oregon Liberals who don't believe in having children until your 40 gave me the dirtiest looks. During the five days at my parents house, I got mistaken for a teenager 3 times from 3 different people! So basically everyone at the airport probably thought I was a seventeen year old single mother who couldn't handle her child im 24...gah! Anyway, thats about as exciting as my life is right now. I've actually been pretty lonely lately, all of our good friends have up and left us here in Rexburg. I keep thinking I will meet someone I click with in the ward or someone, but I just haven't. There are a lot of great people in our ward, just none that I would feel comfertable hanging out with. Luckily we do have family close by that I love, but I can't always bug them, (they both just had new babies, so their pretty busy :) Justin is pretty fantastic at entertaining me, but sometimes you just need to hang out with the girls you know?
Poor me right ? :) anyway, here a few pictures, including one of Jake and Soleil.

17 again....I wish

Pictures from Justin's sister Corinne's wedding. She married Justin Hoskin (yay for 2 Justins in the immediate family) These are a couple cute shots from the wedding last weekend. First of all, as cheesy as it was, and as cocky as Zack Efron is, I have to say that I loved the movie 17 again, it was very entertaining, but that's not the plot of this post. My friend Amber stopped over for a few hours the other day to hang out. Lexi had fallen asleep for a couple hours so we couldn't go anywhere. We ended up chatting about the past, friends, flings, high school, etc. We were trying to figure out what year it was and what time of year she was dating one of her many flings. So I decided to pull out my old journals to try and figure out when this all took place (not so long ago I was faithful in writing in my journal like once a week). Anyway, we ended up reading some old journal entries from high school and early college days and we had all these oh yea, and omi gosh I can't believe I said or did that moments. We had some good laughs over a few things, and that was that. I realized after reading through a few entries that it had been so long since I had actually read my journals. That night I was going through more entries, and reading the worth a laugh ones to Justin, I can't believe how mean I was to some of the guys I dated, or how self centered I was in high school. I wish I could go back and change the way I treated certain people. Wouldn't it be so amazing to go back in time, and know what we know now? Although I didn't necessarily like the person I was in high school, I do miss the care free lifestyle, where the only thing I had to worry about was what color I wanted to dye my hair, I miss crazy girl talk and pranking people, I miss wearing tight jeans, and looking decent in them, I miss someone else cooking for me, and paying for my car insurance, but most of all I miss feeling like life was always going to be so cushy and easy. I have a good life, and Im so blessed, but there are so many responsibilites, so many people depending on me, bills to pay, laundry to fold...etc etc. Thus the plot of this post is me complaining because I am feeling overwhelmed, and tired, and Im wishing I could go back to a time when life was almost always sweet. On a good note, my house is put together, we have working internet, Im eating yummy peanut butter cookies I just made (why cant I fit into my jeans again) and Im blessed with amazing friends and family.

Mostly just blabbing

Me and Lexi-Lexi has a black eye from falling into a door frame :(

Me and Erin and our baby girls at her sisters wedding in Draper

4th of July parade! Thats justin in the air!

Just catching up on some things...first off we finally move into our house two weeks from today...hooray, its crept up fast, and I have no clue how we are going to get everything packed. Our living room is already stuffed with boxes, and you can't even tell we packed anything. We probably wont have internet for awhile, but as soon as we get it set up and going, i will post some pics. I took a lot of pictures of those when we did the inspection, but the first month we will be doing some remodeling so I will put some before and after pics up. Its actually quite overwhelming. Most of the house has not been remodeled since the 70s. The upstairs bathroom looks maybe 90s but thats about as new as anything is...so as you can imagine the house needs so much work which equals time and lots of money. We have already spent a lot just on the flooring, so we have to cool it for a while, and save up until we can do more. Anyway its a lot to look forward too, we aren't going to have any boring weekends, thats for sure.

Today my brother in law went through the temple for the first time, it was a neat experience, but let me tell you, I have never been so irreverent during a session! Instead of going to the chapel first, we just went straight to the endowment room. There weren't many people there yet, maybe ten, and the officiator gets to the front of the room, and rips a loud one. Wow. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't look at him, so I looked over at Justin but he wouldn't look at me ( he said he couldn't for fear of loosing it) So that basically set the mood for the rest of the session. Ten minutes into it a guy in the back row snoring away, head back and everything...funny! Someone finally nudged him awake (a good 5 minutes later) Then an older man, had to have been like 90 was sitting in his wheel chair making all these loud noises with his chair, then forgetting stuff, and shrugging his shoulders at the officiator, and raising his hand at random times. (funny again, he was way cute though) And then last but not least the witness couple probably age 40 or so, had to have been newly weds. Every time they had to get up, he would jump up, grab his wife's hand, and they would gaze in each others eyes for a moment, and then up to the front where they would whisper sweet nothings to each other and giggle (hello distracting!) and then he would walk her back to her seat where they would gaze at each other again ..this continued each time until I just had to laugh out loud (it wasn't too loud though, more like a whisper laugh, but still), I just couldn't handle it. Then in the Celestial room someone asked justin when he was going on his mission...yea he served his mission like 6 years ago. Wow it was a lot of fun though. Very entertaining session, although I didn't feel I got much out of it!
Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from the past month. We have had a busy summer already, but Im loving it, sad to see that its already half over!

wii fit vs the wii active

Just to throw it out there, I have to say if you are in it to work up a sweat, the wii active is the way to go!!! I did a 20 min medium intensity workout, and it kicked my butt a little. I like to think I am in pretty good shape (not shapely body or anything like that, more like I can run three miles in a decent time and not faint) but it worked me good, and it was fun, I will do it again. The wii fit is fun...but I think that's all it is, I don't really get a good workout from it. Hopefully I did the right thing by purchasing the wii active. Anyone else have an opinion about this? Share please if you do.

All American

I just wanted to take a minute and say how grateful I am for this country. When I was younger, saying the pledge of allegiance, and the star spangled banner didn't mean much to me, but today it brings tears to my eyes, and although its kind of embarrassing that I get emotional about it, I am so proud to be an American. I can't believe how blessed I was to be born into this country with so much blessing and opportunity. I am so incredibly proud and grateful for all those people who fought and risked their lives to make America what it is today. It's true that America isn't seeing the best times right now, but there is still no where else I would rather be. Justin said to me the other day, "honey, we are living the American dream, we own our own home, we own our own business, we have a wonderful family, and we are happy." I was like wow, isn't that the truth. I and so many of us are so blessed. I hope everyone remembers how lucky we are and takes a minute to celebrate this upcoming 4th of July.