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.

posing for pics, grapes, and auntie times 2

I seriously LOVE Yellowstone. There is so much to see. I want to go again this summer!
Erin and McKenna came into town last week, we had a blast! I love them!
Whenever she gets into the toilet paper, I say "Lexi, give it to mommy!" and she tears off a small piece at a time, it takes forever! She also enjoys eating it....what the??
Conner's high school graduation!

This is what happens when I take a 3 minute shower!

This morning we went over to Beehive bank in Rexburg to pose for some pictures. They told us to dress casual, and they wanted us to pose with our lender who gave us the housing loan. Justin, Lexi, and I had to sit there and pretend like we were signing our bank papers all over again. We felt so retarded. How much cheesier do you think we could get!? Anyway, so if you happen to see a pamphlet or poster at Beehive, just know that I tried to get out of it the best I could, but failed.
I'm really excited for this weekend. We are going to the Robertson reunion, (Justin's mom's side) and we are going to Lava hot springs all day on Friday. YAY! I actually totally spaced until a week ago that we even had this planned this weekend. So it should be a lot of fun, hopefully I will have some cute pics to post.
Grapes-Lexi has a new obsession with grapes. A few days ago I had thrown a small handful of grapes away that looked like they didn't have much time left until the mold started to grow. The next thing I knew Lexi had retrieved them from the garbage and was snacking away....yuck right? It gets better. On Monday I went grocery shopping and picked up another bunch of grapes. On my way walking inside I dropped a couple on the ground outside our door. (I didn't notice at the time). So on Tuesday I went to grab the mail, and Lexi followed me outside. I stopped to talk to a neighbor, and I noticed she had sat down and was playing with something in her hands. I finished chatting, and went over to see what she had found. Of course she was munching on a few grapes she had found which were already half eaten by ants....gross!!!! So I took her in, cleaned her up, and gave her some fresh washed grapes from the fridge.
Good news I will be an aunt of two more sweet babies by the end of the year, a girl and a boy!!! YAY! Its going to be awesome, one in September, and on in November. Congrats to both Des and Ashley!

The stomach flu, our house, and the water park

Lexi-so done at the water park!

Okay fine I will touch the water, but only once

Cute pic of Daniel! Before he got sick :(

Liking the dry play ground much better

Grumpy on the way back from Home Depot

We have been trying to ignore Lexi through the night when she cries, because she still isn't sleeping through the night, and I think for heavens sake you are 15 months old, you should be able to go through the night without a bottle! Anyway, we started this trend a little over a week ago, and last Wednesday night she cried twice throughout the night, and both times I ignored her, and it wasn't so bad because both times were very brief. So at 7am my internal alarm clock wanted me to go check on her, so I opened her bedroom door and immediately smelled something foul. I figured it was a messy diaper, but when I peered over her crib, I noticed some dark brown looking pieces scattered all over her crib. (she was still sound asleep with her butt in the air) I thought to myself great, the one night she is wearing two piece pjs without a onesie she poops and fishes through her diaper and scatters it all around her crib, and then falls back asleep in it. Real cool. Anyway, I call in Justin to come and inspect because it really didn't smell like poo. We eventually figured out that she had puked up green beans from dinner the previous night. So I got a bath and clean clothes all ready, and woke her up, bathed her, cleaned up the mess in her room, and then figuring the beans just hadn't set well with her, gave her a bottle while I was getting her dressed, and she puked all over herself again. (this repeated for 4 days, no joke) Then Justin got sick all day Saturday and Sunday with the same thing. So basically I had a weekend of a sick husband who couldn't help me clean up puke or change diapers that were full of soup. Toward the end of the day on Sunday, Justin felt a lot better so we went to Pocatello and spent memorial day with Justin's family, and had a good time eating good food, and visiting the cemetery. On our way out of Pocatello we stopped in at Home Depot to buy a wood floor for our house, and Lexi puked all over herself, the cart, and the floor of Home Depot. We went and told someone as soon as it happened, and the guy was like no prob we will take care of it, and an hour later as we were leaving the store it was still there....Anyway, so that was my weekend, Lexi threw up a couple more times on Tuesday. So this morning I shampooed our carpets cuz as you can imagine things were starting to get pretty stinky. Lexi is doing a ton better which is such a great relief because it was really starting to ware on me, I was getting so worried about her keeping hydrated. Although she did puke today and yesterday (its clearly her new attention getter) so we have to rid her of that fun habit. And ode to cousin Daniel, somewhere in the mix of interactions in the past week, he got sick as well. (sorry Daniel, we love you!) Good news though today my parents arrived in town, so its wonderful to have them here, and we are going to Yellowstone on Saturday...which I am so excited about! :) And also WE FINALLY CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE TODAY! I just have to say it was well worth the wait becuase we ended up paying zero dollars for closing, and actually got 500 hundred dollars back! (paying your tithing really does bless) So tomorrow we are going to buy furniture for our living room, and we already bought wood floors for the living room and hallway, and a nice rug. Its going to be a lot of work and a lot of cash to make it how we want, but I think in about 5 years we should be done with the improvements. SO yay! We are moving in sometime in July not sure of the exact date, but I will be posting before and after pictures as we slowly but surely remodel. It's going to be a really fun project for Justin and I (mostly Justin:)