Celeste is 4!

Celeste had her 4th birthday on Saturday, April 28th! We started the day by going to the local "Books and Breakfast." They serve everyone free breakfast and every child gets a free book. Curious George was this years special visitor. Celeste was disappointed she didn't get to go see him because he left before we were done eating. While Celeste, Caleb, and myself were attending Books and Breakfast, Ryan and the Elders Quorum were at our house moving everything out and into storage. I didn't want to spend all of Celeste's birthday moving so we tried to finish up by early afternoon. The rest of the day included making a cake, naps, and just having fun!

That evening, Grandma Mikesell and the Botts (my sisters family) came over and helped us celebrate.

Celeste wanted pink cake with Pinkalicious on it. We couldn't find a Pinkalicious doll so Tinkerbell had to work. :) I am not as clever as most of you and not able to draw Pinkalicious of make a cake to look like her!

Celeste is very loved and got plenty of gifts!

She had lots of help from Caleb and her cousin, Elsie

She saw this water bottle in the store a couple months ago so we snuck it in our cart and bought it for her. She was so excited!

She kept making funny faces when she saw each gift!

Now she can go fishing with Daddy this summer!

We are so blessed to have Celeste as our daughter. She is such a sweet, nice girl. And one smart cookie, too! She has been reading (thanks to Grandma Harrison) for about 4 months now and keeps on going! She knows her math facts to 10 and can tell time. I could go on and on. Many people tell me what a sweet girl she is and it's true. We love Celeste to pieces!

Head Bands

This is just a cute picture of Celeste. She has been into wearing headbands just like her baby cousin wears! I think she looks pretty cute (despite her silly look on her face)!

Photography Class

During the month of March, I drove 30 minutes once a week in the evenings to take a photography class. I LOVED IT! I learned so much and can't wait to learn more. The teacher was fantastic! I get so excited thinking about the class and can't wait until she offers more! Here are a few of my assignments I had to do. All pictures were taken in complete manual mode.

Family

Silhouette 

Panning

Hands and Feet

(this is not Celeste)

Self Portrait (Yes, I took that myself)

These I was just practicing lighting

Thanks for letting me share! In April I took the same teachers Photoshop class. Again, I have learned so much! These pictures are all unedited but I have since done some touch ups to a few.

Celeste's Kite

I have to document this for my sake. On March 30th, Celeste's preschool class had a kite flying day. Each child was to bring in a kite and they went outside to fly them. We do not own a kite (and I forgot about it) so that morning before preschool, Celeste decided to make her own kite. She was SO proud of her creation and thought it flew better than anyone else's kite. (Which it did because it had a short string and there was no wind at all that day!) 

She'd take it down the slide with her. 

This kite followed Celeste around for days. It was so cute to watch her so proud of something she did. I love you Celeste!

Ryan

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!

 Hope you have a wonderful day! Thanks for all your help today as we're packing our whole house!

I LOVE YOU!

SOLD

Yes, our house is sold. It had been on the market for 6 days and we got our first offer. After a couple days of countering back and forth, we went under contract!

We also bought a piece of land that we close on 3 days after closing on our house! I will be posting pictures of the progress.

Things are continuing to fall into place and we're so blessed.

BIG News

Okay, so maybe it's not BIG news, but big changes!

My House...

...for sale.

I love my house. It's where I've raised my children so far. It was our first home. We've put a lot of time and work into it. We love the neighborhood. We love this house. (I did have to fight the tears when I saw the Realtor pounding the sign in my yard.)

However, it's time to move on to something bigger. When we bought it, we didn't have any children and it was perfect for us. Six years and two children later, it's getting crowded and we're outgrowing it.

It's quite a long story but in the past 3 weeks, this is what's happened:

-Thought about building a house

-Got a lead to a good builder and found out costs would be cheaper than we thought

-Our Realtor (who we hadn't talked to in over 6 months) called with someone who was interested in a home just like ours

-We showed our house the next day

-Didn't sell our house

-Talked to the contractor and picked out a house plan

-Bought a house plan and it's in the contractors arms for the bid right now

-The house has been on the market for 4 days (since last Wed) and we've had one showing and two more scheduled so far (plus the Realtor walk through)

We have our eye on a lot we like. We're waiting for our bid for our new house and hopefully to have our current house under contract so we can buy the lot. We're so super excited. Everything has fallen into place and I KNOW the Lord's hand has helped us. We are so blessed.