The Heit Happenings

Starting 2012 With Post Number 201

2012-01-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

Here's my cutie patootie three-month-old!

Maybe Grandma's got cold fingers or something...

I've been trying to put videos on the last four posts from today and none of them want to upload. Grrr. Oh well. Maybe another day it will let me upload videos again.

Christmas Day and Beyond

2012-01-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

Ariel made these Angry Bird hats for each of the girls. Abby was napping, so I wore hers.

Abby woke up after awhile and was able to model it herself. Notice the other two are still wearing theirs. They love them!

Uncle GR (by the way, Brie has been calling Greg GR, which is SO cute) liked getting to know Abby better. She enjoyed his company also. Abby got to know Michelle quite well during their visit as well. They got along swimminly, too.

Yes, we were good this year. No doubt about it. :)

Cute chubby face.

So big!

The annual skating trip! Chelsea did fantastic on her skates, though I swear I had several heart attacks in the two hours we were there. She took a couple spills, but no tears, and she jumped right back up. What a trooper.

Big thumbs up!

We built a massive snowman with the ice shavings on the rink. Look at the size of this guy! This has become a tradition as well. It was really funny to see people's reaction to it when they noticed it. It was a big hit! Our groups antics were noticed by several people. I heard lots of comments during the little contests we were having. It was all positive, though, so we weren't compelled to get off the ice. We even got to take a break and watch the zamboni do it's job.

Christmas Eve

2012-01-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

Santa visited the Heits at Grandma and Grandpa Kelly's.

Santa must think Mommy and Daddy have similar tastes or something.

The girls enjoyed finding out what Santa brought them, though for the longest time, Brie was content to just watch Chelsea open her gifts. She got past that after awhile.

Here's the whole gang. The little girl on the corner is not Brie, that's Kyri. You can kind of see Brie's eye under Rick's chin there. Otherwise I think you can sorta see everyone. Except me, that is. Bahaha!

We've all been VERY good this year.

The traditional kids-with-a-present-under-the-tree picture. Abby wasn't too happy about it. Maybe next year, hehe.

Chelsea didn't want Abby left out of the fun. So she wrapped up a burp cloth in an envelope for her and helped her open it. What a sweet big sister.

This is how Abby knows her sisters: up close and personal. They love each other!

Playing with all the loot!

Football. Meh. The guys seem to like it though.

Christmas Eve evening is when Abby got her first taste of rice cereal. She was a champ. On a sidenote, her second experience was fantastic, her third...not so much. She hasn't had any past her third time yet. She'll get the hang of it eventually.

Still Not Quite Christmas

2012-01-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

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December still, but not yet Christmas

2011-12-12T13:38:00.000-08:00

The annual family newsletter is coming out soon. For those of you who have come to check out the day-by-day account of the flooding this summer that was mentioned in it, go straight to the Flood Journal post. You are welcome to check out anything else on here as well! Enjoy!

By the way, if you don't think you are on my parent's Christmas list and you would like to receive a letter and picture, send an email to me (Erin) with your address and we'll add you to the list! emk6@hotmail.com

Now on to the current events.

We start them young in this family

Chelsea and Rick went bowling for a Daddy-daughter date. Chelsea had a good time, but those balls are sure heavy!

This lovely pink dragon helped Chelsea bowl.

Abby got her baby blessing yesterday, which was the 11th of December. The dress she is wearing is the same dress that both Chelsea and Brie wore for their blessings. Grandma Heit made it! Grandma Kelly made the blessing blanket that is laying on the couch there. Such talents!

Here are the Heits that were here to witness/participate.

And here are the Kellys, all present and accounted for. We count Jennifer as a Kelly even though technically she's a Bowles.

Uncle Greg is back from his mission! He served in Brazil. We all went to the airport to greet him as he returned, only to find that the plane had arrived early. Shucks. Oh well. The girls were very shy at the airport, but at the Heit house it didn't take them long to warm up to him. Brie even fell asleep on his lap!

I took this as I'm trying to blog this post. I had Abby with me hanging out on Brie's bed, and it didn't take long for big sisters to find us and begin playing with Abby. She quickly was hugged, kissed, cuddled, and covered in every blanket nearby. Oh, big sisters. They love their baby, there's no doubt about that!

Family Photo Time!

2011-12-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

I LOVE MY FAMILY!

*I know there are no individual shots of Chelsea. That was an oversight during the bedlam that was our photo shooting session. We'll take some individual ones later so she's not left out forever!

The Christmas Season is Upon Us

2011-12-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

Here are our new friends Missoni and Alize (pronounced Ally-zay, or Zay-Zay for short) They moved to a place just a couple blocks from us. We like them a lot and see them a couple times a week usually. It was past Zay-Zay's nap time this day, can you tell? It was past Brie's nap time too, can you tell? Probably not so much. Brie is napping less and less frequently nowadays. Sigh. There are days that *I* need her naptime more than her. Oh well. She's growing up!

Chelsea and Brie had a good ol' time "helping" put up the tree and other decorations. Here they are having potato sack races in plastic bags.

Daddy helped Abby participate in decorating the downstairs tree. We have a big tree upstairs and our smaller tree set up downstairs. It has lots of our memory ornaments. You can see the Care Bear ones in this pic. There are all sorts of ornaments that bring back childhood memories. Grandma has also started collecting ornaments for the grandkids-one for each child for each year. They are stored away separately with a note of who it goes to and why it is significant or special. Then when they are grown, they will have a set of their very own special ornaments. I love that idea.

It was a full day of decorating! We haven't taken pictures of the finished decor, but we should. It looks really good!

Nobody was left out of the decorating. Some of the ornaments are even still on the tree, after having been up for awhile now. Ha! Actually there are only one or two that repeatedly keep disappearing or "falling off."

And we finally got a smiley face from Abby! Nevermind the off centered-ness of it, or the tissue laying next to her. I was watching her instead of framing her in the camera.

Here she is talking. Cooing is so cute at her age! Her eyebrows tell more of what she is thinking than her voice does. What do you think she's thinking here?

Abby is my first child to suck on her hands/thumb. Only rarely does she find her thumb, but once in awhile she'll suck her knuckles for fun. The other two never really did that. I don't let her suck her thumb. I don't want to have to help her break that habit later on. I'd rather go with breaking a pacifier habit. She's pretty good about only needing a pacifier to help her go to sleep though.

Christmas photos coming up!

Almost Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

We had a little leftover milk (Mommy had gone to the movies!) so Daddy got to feed Abby for the first time. So cute!

What to do for FHE when it has snowed outside....Sledding, of course! I caught Chelsea off guard here so I took a second one, but Brie was so cute I had to post them both.

These girls LOVE their snow gear. It is usually a challenge convincing Brie to take her coat and boots off after coming in. And getting her to come in is almost always a struggle as well. Getting her out of the van has become an issue too. She likes it all too much! It can take a long time to get back in the house and settled some times.

And everyone is ready to go!

This is Brie's first experience with sledding.

After going down the hill, they went up the next one a little bit with their momentum. As they stopped, they ended up tipping backward, which Brie got the biggest kick out of.

For our treat we enjoyed a lovely homemade pie from the Bent family.

Grandma had Abby smiling and cooing like crazy. But of course the camera puzzled her and distracted her, so no smiles were captured. Again. Someday I will be able to show her that yes, she was actually happy as a baby and not always serious. Or bored looking.

Helpful big sister putting the pacifier back in her mouth.

These girls love the iPad. They'd play it all day if they were allowed. I love that it's an easy distraction, and if I need some quiet time I can suggest Chelsea play a game on the iPad and she's all for it. But now Chelsea is saying, "Brie, don't you want to play ponies?" when she had no interest in the iPad at all. Then she wants it. Grr. I'm trying to limit the amount of electronic entertainment they have, and it's difficult when big sister suggests it all the time. Oh well. They'll be pretty good with all that stuff thoughout their lives. Not like us parent-folk, right? ;)

Early November

2011-11-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

Abby won't be left out! She got her turn on the teeter-totter at the mall play place.

And here we have a cute little baby bonnet that we've never used. But she sure looks cute anyway!

Now Chelsea gets a turn. This is also a very common occurrence: kisses. I have to remind her constantly that people don't like other people in their faces all the time. It doesn't stick.

I "helped" Auntie Beth make lefse last week. I mostly watched or flipped a lefse here and there. Grandma prepped the potatoes and Beth did everything else. I did enjoy eating one though. :)
What is lefse? It is pretty much riced potatoes with a couple ingredients like cream and flour and something else I think (That's how much I helped, I don't even know the few ingredients!) made into dough and cooked on a griddle. Mmm.

This big counter sure does come in handy! We like to use it for baking mass amounts of cookies, eating, and even sewing projects or other art projects. I could get used to having it.

Here the master lefse maker takes the thinly rolled lefse off the board.

It bubbles nicely on the grill.

If it's done right, it puffs up with air bubbles. It happened, but was not captured in this photo.

A stack of yumminess. If you've never had lefse, have some homemade lefse. How do you eat it? Cut it in half, butter one side a little bit and sprinkle a smidge of sugar on it, fold it in half again, roll it, and eat. Repeat with second half.

My goofy girls love climbing into beds. This one happens to be Grandma and Grandpa's bed. It doesn't matter who normally sleeps in it, a bed is a bed and they will utterly destroy the niceness of any bedding. But they have fun.

I had a birthday. Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7. Hours of fun abound. There were some other little gifts, but I'll spare you the goofy photos. I look chubby. I still have a few pounds to lose. Now my six weeks of restrictions is officially lifted. Have I worked out yet? Ask me again tomorrow. Maybe I'll have a better answer...

Once you hit thirty you have to start over. At least you do if you don't want a bonfire in the kitchen!

FHE moment: Making Thanksgiving turkeys!
Yes, that is Abby just laying on the counter. Don't worry, she wasn't there for long. I wanted everyone in the picture (except me, of course, bwah ha ha!). She even got to make a turkey, with lots of help.

And here it is! The cute thing about these turkeys is how they are made. The body is actually your foot traced, and the feathers are actually your hand traced! This was our smallest turkey for that very reason. It was also the cutest in Chelsea's opinion. I might just agree.

Here is our family of turkeys. Can you guess which ones belong with which family member? Never mind the strange body shape (and facial expression!) of the biggest turkey.
I received a cute turkey birthday card from Michelle which was hanging out on the fridge until we took everything off to clean it. I didn't know where it wandered off to when I took this photo. But don't worry. It has since been located!

Brie was loving the infant car seat. Chelsea liked taking care of Baby Brie. She even found her a baby bottle and filled it with water and gave it to Brie. Silly!

Halloween Time!

2011-11-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

Wowsers, these are all completely and totally out of order. What's up Blogger?
Well anyway, here are my earless Minnie Mouse and my lovely Snow White at our ward Halloween Party. So sweet!

And here is our gorgeous family of FIVE. I love being able to say that, hehe.

We were supposed to Trunk-or-Treat at the ward party, but it got rained out. So we went from room to room instead. Brie was very cute holding up her bucket and saying thank you. Chelsea was a little more shy and didn't say thank you too much, but it's ok. She's grateful.

We went over to Edgewood Vista early Halloween evening and visited with Great Grandma Heit and also to Trick or Treat around the facility. The girls enjoyed the fruit Great Grandma shared and also chowing down on their candy while we visited.

This year we did a little bit of REAL Trick or Treating. We were fortunate enough to have some pretty nice weather and kids that are old enough to understand the concept. Abby stayed home though. She snoozed right through it. We also took a car ride to trick or treat to Brenda's and to Grandma Heit's, but I didn't bring the camera to those places.

Here is our neighbor to the east. The puppy was only mildly intimidating.

Here is the finished version of the pumpkins we painted a couple weeks ago. They've since been rained on and are a little less painted/markered now, but it's all good. They've fulfulled their purpose.

Chelsea and the other girls in her dance class got to wear costumes to dance class last week. There were some really cute cosutmes, but I think my favorite is my Snow White. But I'm not biased. Right? Sure.

Wide-eyed Abby after one of her baths. I was trying to capture the sticky-uppy-ness of her hair as well as the curliness of it when it's wet.

It's really hard to see in the photo. It shows a few curls though.

Brie loves her accessories!

Chelsea learned "three special steps" from Agent Oso on how to make a healthy snack: ants on a log. So of course we had to do those three special steps. Did she eat it? Of course not. She enjoyed the ants and peanut butter. Mommy ate the log part.

My little Ladybug getting ready for her first Halloween Party, and one of her first outings in general. She's only been to church a couple times now and to Grandma's a time or two. We haven't ventured into Walmart yet. But soon. I'm not excited to try wrangling three little ones alone yet. But soon. I can't believe it's been nearly a month already. Time has gone by very quickly. But it's been a good time!

I love my family.

2011-10-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Another random sideways photo. I don't understand how these decide to turn themselves. No matter what I do I can't make it upload properly. Anywho. This is Abby next to the doll that Grandma bought her from the hospital gift shop. Now all three girls have a doll from there. So cute!

Chelsea got to be horsey.

Whooooooaaaaa!

Brie got in on the action as well.

On Jennifer's birthday Jennifer took Chelsea out to the Art Fest. This is how she came home-as a fairy! For a change I got her to look AT ME while getting her picture taken. All it takes is a little face paint I guess. :)

For Family Home Evening this last Monday we decided to do pumpkins. Sometimes we carve one or two and eat the seeds. At least Mommy eats the seeds. But this year we decided to paint, with the exception of Brie. She had markers. Now look at the tip of the marker and compare it to the color around her mouth. Yep, she was eating the markers while we weren't looking. Gross.

A work in progress. I've yet to take a picture of the finished products because Daddy just barely finished his tonight. I want us all to pose next to our pumpkins and I was not feeling too picture-worthy this evening, hehe.

I look awkward painting from this angle, but I had to post this anyway because I love Chelsea's face so much, hehe. She's imitating the Aflac duck. We have a couple stuffed Aflac ducks and of course they talk. "Aflac! Aflac! Aflaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaac!"

Little Abby got a short turn helping with Daddy's pumpkin. She didn't have one of her own. Sorry little baby. Next year!

This brings us to his evening. Brie unrolled the roll of scented diaper bags and called it her dress. "Dress! Dress!" I'm loving the fact that Brie still smiles for the camera. It makes taking pictures SO much easier!

My little step ladder of children. Aren't they so cute? All I need to do is find some matching outfits and do this again.

I thought this was kind of a cute open-eyed shot of Abby. She's still got those chubby cheeks! Brie likes this outfit of hers. "Bug!" she says. There are little lady bugs all over it. I guess Brie likes lady bugs.

Brienna's Birthday Party!

2011-10-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

My TWO-YEAR-OLD getting ready to eat dinner.

Here we have our guests: Daddy, Auntie Beth, and Auntie Jennifer.

Brie can't get enough apple juice. Ever. And Chelsea was a little grumpy and refused to smile. I think she was a bit jealous, but didn't know what she was feeling. Just grumpiness.

Grandma and Grandpa Kelly along with the newest one, Abby!

And on this size we have the Heits: Randy, Grandma, and Grandpa. Yes,we were segregated. But it's all in love, hehe. We had a potato bar along with salad and apple crisp and a surprise addition: apple cobbler from Grandma Heit. It was all yummy!

Time for presents! Chelsea was definitely overly helpful in this process. Brie loved all of her gifts and wanted to stop and play with each item as it was opened. A brief look through the book was sufficient to hold her till later though.

It's hard to tell what her favorite gift/gifts were. All gift givers were excellent selectors of gifts. Each one was meaningful to her in some special way.

And finally we have the treats! Cupcakes were the cake of choice this time around. Brie calls them muffins, but it's cute, so I didn't correct her. :) Ice cream and the apple desserts topped off a fun evening. After that we all watched the older girls play with all the new stuff and watched Grandma Heit style Abby's hair and try her hand at keeping her awake. All in all, it was a very fun time with the family. It wasn't elaborate, but Brie enjoyed it thoroughly (especially the pony decorations and balloons and of course the gifts) and that is what mattered most. Success! Happy Birthday, Brienna! She's getting so big!

Brienna's First Haircut

2011-10-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

These are pretty self explanatory. This is the "before" shot of the back.

And here is the dramatic "after" shot of the back. This is the only hair style I can do. Luckily it works well for the little ones.

It only took four packages of fruit snacks for her to munch on in order for her to sit nicely, but that's ok with me! I don't know how straight it is really, because though she was pretty good, she was still quite wiggly. It's an improvement, though! She smiles so cooperatively for the camera when she feels like it. "Cheeeeeese!" I love it! She knows she's pretty.

A distraction while showing off her hair to Grandpa. Yes, we keep the baby tub in the office. Not usually in the middle of the floor, but in the office nonetheless.

Rodeo and Bath Time

2011-10-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Daddy took the girls, I mean the two big girls (I have to get used to differentiating maybe), to the Rodeo on Friday evening. Brie thought it was alright but the noisy lady behind them ruined it for Chelsea apparently.

Hi, Daddy!

While the rest of the family was at the rodeo, Abby got her first bath!

She was less than thrilled, as you can see. Now I realize that she's still got her belly button and it's not supposed to get wet. The main focus of the bath was to wash her face and hair and I covered her legs with rags in hopes of keeping them warmer. I did my best to keep belly dry. I kept the water very shallow. Only a couple dribbles made their way down her torso, but oh well. She'll live. She won't get another bath like this for awhile.

Check out her hair! It looks thinner when it's wet, but look how long it is!

She zonked out with Grandma after bath. We shouldn't have let her sleep so late in the evening. This was the evening before the night of NO SLEEP. Night number one at home was great, night number two was the polar opposite. Night number three (which is our current count) was pretty good again, thanks to Daddy keeping Abby up for most of the evening. We'll try to keep going with nights like number one and number three.

Abigail's Arrival

2011-10-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

Here I am in labor. I think I played one game of Carcassonne before I was content to just sit and be in labor.

As you may or may not know, I was induced as soon as I hit 40 weeks. I spent a solid three weeks at three centimeters. When I headed in to the hospital around 5:00 on Monday, October 3rd, I finally made it to four centimeters.

They didn't get around to breaking my water and giving me the pitocin until 6:45. I labored for two and a half hours. After just a couple minutes and a couple pushes, we have baby Abigail!

Her skin was absolutely flawless! She was perfect in every way!

Abigail Kinlee Heit

October 3rd, 2011

born 9:13 pm

9 lbs. 2 oz, 20 3/4 in.

Phantom sideways photo again. Mommy and baby get to take a good look at each other for the first time. So precious!

Proof that she was so big! I thought Chelsea was big at 8 lbs. 5 oz, but Abby takes the cake for my biggest baby! (Brie was 6 lbs. 14 oz if you were curious-2 weeks early though)

Check out those squishy cheeks!

Before she was even out I could hear one of the nurses exclaiming about all her hair. She has dark brown hair that is a good 1/2 inch long at least. And it's really thick, too! I hope she keeps it. I'm not holding my breath though, since Chelsea came out with dark brown hair also. And we all know she didn't stay brunette! But who knows, maybe I will get a mini-me yet. hehe

At the hospital she didn't mind hanging out half naked, though I did keep her covered/wrapped most of the time. They didn't dress her in a little sleeper like they did with my other two. All Abby got was a long sleeved shirt-type thing to wear. It worked alright except it kept riding up her back.

The girls got to come to the hospital to meet little sister. Chelsea LOVES babies and was excited to come meet her. She gave her kisses and adjusted her hat and was thrilled in general.

Brienna, on the other hand, was quite suspicious about this little person and didn't want to go anywhere near her. She wouldn't let Daddy put her down, and that tongue never left the position you see it in here. Of course we did bring her into an unfamiliar place with big crowds of people watching her, and shoved a little moving baby at her. I'm not surprised that she was less than thrilled with the situation.

I took this while it was just me and baby hanging out at the hospital. We had lots of quiet time during the day since everybody else was working or watching big sisters. She slept soundly most of the day and night. It was really nice.

All packed up and ready to go home! These little newborn clothes aren't going to last her very long, that's for sure! She also went straight to size one diapers in the hospital. Big girl!

Here we see the new van we purchased last week. It works well for our family of FIVE.

I realize I still look pregnant, especially from this angle. Bah. Oh well. Hopefully I will be able to shed most of this in the coming weeks/months. I was shopping alone at Walmart yesterday and someone commented on how I'm still carrying baby around. Uh, nope. Baby is at home with Grandma...

Here in a more comfortable setting Brie was much warmer toward the baby. She excitedly jumped and exclaimed Baby! but she still wouldn't touch her or give her any kisses. But that's alright. At least Abby's been accepted by the whole family now.

This is our last post as parents of only two

2011-10-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

Flood Journal complete for now. (I think.) Read it here!

Chelsea is loving her second year of dance class. She's wanting to do ballet, which they do offer now at Brick Studio, but I didn't know she wanted to do ballet until after the first class was already done. So we are just going to continue with things as they are for this year and next year/next summer we will explore our options for a beginner ballet class. They have them for kids this little. I can only imagine how cute they would be in real tutus and toe shoes. :)

She's into this crookedy-type smile recently. But it's so cute!

Must be some tasty peanut butter cheese crackers and pudding. Mmmm....

Chelsea wasn't too interested in going to the MSU Homecoming parade until I reminded her about the floats that drive by and throw out candy. Then she was pumped and almost hopped in the car immediately!

If you look close, you can spy Daddy at work. It was really nice to see him at the parade since I didn't expect to, being as he was on duty capturing the day's events for the university. After the parade we headed over to the tailgating party at the dome, where we met up with Daddy. He thankfully was able to take a little bit of a break and help me get the kids fed among all the hullabaloo. Then I had to go to work for a full shift. My body was so sore by the end of the day! This was last Saturday. I was fully expecting to go into labor the next day, but alas. That didn't happen. ;)

Featured in this photo is also the Minot High marching band. These are the same uniforms that I used to march in back in high school--except the hats are better nowadays. Back in my day they were gold colored fuzz balls that looked like used Q-tips. That's what Mr. Jensen (who is still leading the band as you can see) called them. He hated them as much as we did, hehe.

It was not comfy for me to sit on the curb in my current state, but I didn't think about taking a chair. Actually I don't have a chair to take anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered. That and I don't think I could have managed the stroller, two kids, AND a chair, hehe. :)

She looks a little grumpy here, but actually she was having a great time. I let both girls go a little nuts with the candy eating and they didn't eat much during the tailgating party following the parade, but oh well. Sometimes I wonder how they are still LIVING with the small amount of food that gets into their mouths day after day.

And here we have Chelsea posing. This is a pose she learned at dance class. It's called the "Work it, Girl!" Maybe ballet would be a good way to go after all....
She is standing in Beth's basement work-in-progress. She had some sewer damage due to the flood and had to rip out a lot of her basement. Our focus here is the new flooring that has recently been laid. Isn't it pretty? There's also been a lot of work done on the foundation walls behind that new paneling you can see in the back. It's not finished yet, but we are liking the progress!

Here is Brienna playing with the Hex bugs that Beth got for her birthday.

In other news of the week: This week we completed the sale of our flooded house. So we no longer own our own home. We will remain basement rats at my mom's house for an estimated 15 more months to save our pennies and get back to the same dollars of downpayment money we had four months ago when we bought the house. But we are not flood victims. We are flood survivors. We are certainly not complaining about our living accommodations. We feel very comfortable and very loved and welcome here. We are extremely grateful for our fortunate circumstances and close family who have taken us in. We can't complain about 15 more months until full financial recovery. There are SO many that have no financial security in sight-at all-due to the flood. It's an ongoing battle that we are fortunate enough to be able to walk away from with minimal losses and full recovery in sight. We are so blessed.

More other news of the week: We traded in my Chevy Cavalier for a Buick Terraza mini van. Yes, I now drive a mini van. I can't believe I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but I haven't. I will do that at some point and let you see it. But that may not happen for a bit now. Anywho. We got an amazing deal for the Cavalier. We were going to ask for $2500 and hope to actually get $2000. (The world wide web told us the trade-in value was $2400.) They didn't even ask us what our thoughts were on what it was worth. But that's actually a GOOD thing because they offered $3000! Did we take it? Um, yes. Yes we did.

My favorite features of the van are: automatic side doors, an engine block heater, remote car locks/starter, built in DVD player, optional XM satellite radio and/or Onstar capabilities (which we aren't going to activate either one of, but it's still a readily available option), removable middle seats, and it is a very smooth and quiet ride. The girls LOVED it. Brie refused to get OUT of it after checking it out the first time. Luckily we were planning on going for a drive out to the Bishop's for a ward party, so we didn't have to fight her out of the vehicle. :) Chelsea was sufficiently impressed and enjoyed the ride, but was indifferent about getting out.

Next piece of news for the moment: I saved the best for last! Baby news! So tomorrow (October 3rd) is my due date. We've been expecting baby to make an early arrival for a couple of weeks now. But she's too comfy in there. But that isn't going to last for little baby. Tomorrow she is being evicted! At 8 in the morning (as long as there aren't too many other moms already in active labor) I will head over to the hospital and they will break my water. Hopefully that will get the ball rolling and start labor/contractions. If not, they will add pitocin and really get things going. I'm hoping I won't need pitocin, but I had it with Chelsea and things turned out peachy in the end. I'm not worried about it. I'm not looking forward to the labor part, but I am very excited about the baby part. I'm a little nervous if I think too hard about it, but I'm not worried otherwise. So if things go according to plan, we will likely have our baby before any of you actually read this! (It's coming up on 10:30 pm the night before I'm getting induced.) I'm hoping things go speedy-quick for labor and delivery tomorrow. I know many of you have had us in your prayers and we appreciate every prayer on our behalf! Thank you!

Look forward to baby pictures!

Beth Had a Birthday, Shout Hoo-ray!

2011-09-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

Chelsea has the cutest face here, hehe. Happy Birthday to Auntie Beth!

Beth looks pretty snazzy in her new clothes as well!

Here we have Grandma Kelly, working diligently on a baby blessing blanket, which she has now finished. It looks wonderful!

Grandpa Kelly is chillin' out while watching the prezzie-opening.

Brie was in and out of the action. She's eating a bag of fruit snacks, one of which has made it to the floor. (Surprise, surprise.) She knows she's supposed to sit at the counter to eat. Good girl.

Jennifer and I were both playing the role of photographer.

Notice the infant car seat sitting here, ready and waiting to be useful once again. Maybe soon...

Autie Beth got some nifty Hex Bug Nano things with a habitat, among other things. Science people like that sort of thing. ;) The girls liked looking at the bugs but initially the vibrating bugs gave them the heeby-jeebies! By the end of the night they were alright touching them ever so briefly, and only if necessary to get it back in the habitat. So funny!

And here we have me at 38 weeks. This is the point that Brie decided to come all on her own. I've been waiting since Wednesday for this little one to decide she wants to enter the world. I found out on my last Dr. appointment (last Wednesday, five days ago) that I'm dilated to 3cm, 80% effaced, and -2. Progress! This was more progress than I expected. So all week since, I've been very...aware...of every little movement, pain, pressure, etc. taking note if it felt even remotely like a contraction. Nothing has. Bah. I'm not REALLY antsy for the baby to come quite yet. The only real reason I would want baby to come early is a selfish one: it is FAR easier to recover after having a smaller (aka early) baby. I'd rather have a baby that is "done" though and suffer a little bit more in the process personally than have to deal with breathing tubes or feeding problems or any such thing.

Dr. was none too gentle with his exam last week. I'm wondering if he stripped a couple membranes (sorry if this is TMI) in the process. All that evening I felt pressure in my lower belly and baby has definitely dropped more. Well, we'll see if I've made any further progress at my next Dr. appointment. My next Dr. appointment is Wednesday afternoon, RIGHT before I go in to work for the evening. Should be interesting if Dr. prods as aggressively as he did last time...

Today-Part Two

2011-09-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

Flood Journal? Yes, please.

Be sure to read Today-Part One, which is after this post to read about the events of earlier today. It has been quite a busy day!

The baby girls missed out on some good old fashioned fun swimming this evening. Good thing Chris, Amanda, and Wesley could come!

My belly was dragging on the bottom of the pool if I wasn't careful, hehe. Brie hitched a ride with Daddy while Chelsea clung to the pole. She thought it was neat that she could do that. There are buckets overhead that are usually filling with water and then dumping down on folks. It didn't hurt my feelings that they were not functioning today. I don't really like getting dumped on, and the girls don't either even though they always think they will. They never do.

Alright, I give in. Here is a *gulp* swimsuit shot of me. Scary, I know. Enjoy it, because this is the last full body swimsuit shot you will probably ever see of me. Yes it is blurry. I am aware. ;)

And yes, this does in fact give me some motivation to work out after having this baby. I look a bit tubby in many of the shots I'm in (thanks to Beth for taking these pics by the way!) which is why you will never see them. Bwah ha ha!

Little kids are SO cute to watch have fun in kiddie pools. The tiny little slides are so exciting to them. The beach ball and noodles are so intriguing to them. I love it!

Brie was really cute playing with this little fountain. She had been trying to get some in her mouth, and I was encouraging her to try it again for the picture. But then she was just having fun opening her mouth like me instead of playing in the water. What goofs we grown ups become for our little kids. And to get a good picture of them doing their funny things.

See what I mean about the noodles? They are so versatile and can be just about anything. Including binoculars.

Chelsea was having a blast beaning Uncle Chris on the head repeatedly with this beach ball. He played along quite nicely. He must have kids or something. ;)

Tomorrow I get to visit the doctor once again and take the Group-B Strep test or whatever it is. Pleasantness. *sure*

In the evening there will be a family fun night at the Our Redeemer's Church with free food and games and bouncy things that is open to the community. We definitely plan to take advantage! Thursday there is a pot luck for flood victims and their families at Magic City (flood vics are not required to bring anything, but the other folks are asked to) and then on Friday there is an Applebees's-goodbye-night-out (Applebee's is a traditional girls night out for us) for a coworker of mine. I will be eating a lot this week. Good thing I'm not on that weight loss plan yet.

Today-Part One

2011-09-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

To the Flood Journal Post I go!

These pictures are a bit haphazard as far as their order, but oh well. I'm too lazy to try to fix it.

This morning we had weeds that were like THIS all over the yard, as well as lots of trash and debris laying around the yard.

And this little guy was smidging around in our basement the other day. We didn't see him today.

Amanda took care of those monster weeds and trash. Yay! It's been bugging me having all that in our yard, even though every yard looks that way. Thanks, Amanda! She found some interesting things, such as a whole crayfish carcass, among other things.

How do you feel about cleaning, boys? That good, eh? Just kidding. They did Grrrrrrrreat! Thanks, Rick and Chris!

It was a busy day at our house. Along with cleaning, there were people picking up debris on the boulevards. There is a video of this below. I thought it was pretty interesting at least.

The siding is now clean!

And so is the deck!

The sinkhole that is right here in front of our house was also being worked on today. The street was blocked off, but luckily Forest Road is a handy detour, as well as a place for me to park and easily reach the house. I have a video of them digging around in the pit as well, but it's not very interesting to watch. It was interesting to watch in person, though, which is why I took a video in the first place.

I watched for a little while and one of the guys came over asking me if I was waiting for them to get out of my way so I could leave the driveway or something. Nope. I parked out of the way. I learned that the folks doing this were all from Virginia. There was a father and two sons, and then another person who was also from Virginia on their crew. In case you were curious.

Along with all of this that is going on, we were expecting our flood insurance check to be delivered today. It was coming by way of UPS. We weren't too sure that UPS would even try to deliver it with the road being blocked off and tons of vehicles directly in front of our house. So I went to the UPS office (did you know their hours are from 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm? crazy!) and had them tell their driver to not even try and deliver it, (it needed a signature, of course) but to bring it back to UPS and we would pick it up after he got done with his deliveries.

Which we DID DO!

We have our $15,000 advance check in hand (that we never did anything with in case the claim didn't go through), the check for the remainder of the balance, a check for $1000 for taking our belongings out of the house, and a check for nearly $500 for putting up sandbags (even though they didn't do a lick of good in the end.) To the bank we go tomorrow! Next step: we are probably going to try to sell the house as it is, which should still give us a good start on a whole new house, in a different location outside of the flood zone. We have already had someone interested in buying it, but we couldn't work with his payment preferences. Rats. Oh well. Wish us luck! A few prayers on the matter wouldn't hurt either. ;)

Heit Pic-a-nic

2011-09-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

You can see just about everybody in this picture. Wesley is hiding there behind Chris, but he's featured later. Randy came also, but he didn't appear until a little later when most of us had finished eating. I didn't get a picture of him at all apparently....sorry!

Ok here's later. These two were ready to go back to the playground instead of eating much. Neither of them cleaned their plates before heading back out to play, hehe. Brie is in the stage where she eats next to nothing and I wonder how she stays alive. But she does stay alive, and she's happy, so we go with it.

Chris and Amanda and kiddos. It is very nice to have them here visiting. This is our first time meeting the twins. They are cute in person just like in pictures. And not to forget Wesley, he's also quite cute. :) They are related to US after all. :) :) :) hehe

Chelsea is big enough to go on this part of the play equipment. It stumped Brie however. She had to go down and around instead of across.

Siding! That's what Brie would say, anyway. These two can't get enough of slides.

The little girls got to try it out also.

Wesley was happy to "smile" for me in this shot.

You know, they've told me which twin is Katelynn and which one is Kairi several times, but for some reason it doesn't stick in my brain. This little one was not as impressed with the slides by the time I took her pictures. She WAS happy and smiling previously.

Two of my cuties hanging out. Awww.

I love family. What more can I say. I'm really glad our kids get to see their cousins sometimes, even though it's not very often.

Quick Post of a Cutie

2011-08-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

My Chelsea is so cute. She made little tents for the smurfs to sleep in.

Smurfette is the one on the right sleeping on a bed in her tent. Why? Because she was uncomfortable laying on the ground. Ha!

Family Home Evening

2011-08-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

Take me to the Flood Journal Post

This week for FHE Chelsea wanted to make blueberry muffins. Most of the time we just get the add water kind. This time I sprung for a package that had a can of real blueberries to drain and rinse in addition to adding milk, oil, and eggs. Chelsea had a ball!

Brie wasn't quite sure what I wanted her to do here, or why she is holding the muffin mix. Or why she was wearing an art smock. Or why I was taking a picture of her holding the muffin mix while wearing an art smock. But she's still cute!

But she sure did enjoy putting the paper cups into the muffin tin! She was smiling and giggling the whole time. It made me want to make more than a dozen muffins, just so that she could put more papers in, hehe.

Brie hasn't quite grasped the stirring bit yet, either. But Chelsea gets it and she gets better each time we bake something. Chelsea also enjoyed scooping the batter into the paper cups (with minimal help from Mommy).

And the grand finale: enjoying the fruits of our labors as a refreshment/bedtime snack. Ahh family home evenings are great. And the general authority that was just here for Stake Conference (I forget his name) was correct: The most important part of FHE is....the REFRESHMENTS!!!

Vacay to Bismarck

2011-08-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

We kicked off our family vacation with a family picnic out in Driscoll, North Dakota.

I know the people from Minot that came over for the afternoon, but I have no idea who the rest of the people are or how we may be related. They did have HEIT on their mailbox though, so that was comforting.

They were very hospitable hosts and even introduced us to their five new little kittens. Brie wasn't so sure about them but she did actually pick one up and hand it to Daddy at one point.

Chelsea had a great time with them, though she didn't want to pick them up. They did have pretty sharp claws, though, so I don't really blame her.

Daddy loaded me up with all five little kitties. They were so cute, and so noisy! Mew! Mew! Mew!

While Daddy was outside with Chelsea, some of us were inside enjoying the coolness. Brie found a Highlights magazine and made herself at home. She was content to study it for a good half hour.

Grandpa Heit called us out to check out the go-cart. It was kind of like a lawn mower with a seat on the front. Both girls LOVED it! It was noisy and bumpy, and one of the dogs kept trying to bite the wheels while it was driving, but they had big grins.

We tried the helmet on Brie, but in the end her head was just too small. These Heits had a couple dogs, several cats, three goats (which Brie enjoyed looking at and scaring by getting too close) and many, many FLIES. But that just means we had superb food and the flies were attracted. :)

What is this, you wonder? Well. It USED to be Gummy Bear Vitamins, but this is what happens when you leave the bag in your purse in the car while picnicking. Oh well. I guess the girls will survive for a few days without their vitamins.

After the picnic we headed into Bismarck for dinner and fun times at Snoopers. This place is like McDonald's playland on steroids. The girls loved it and didn't want to leave. The ball pit was a big favorite for them, especially Brie.

But we couldn't play forever at Snoopers because we needed to get settled into our KOA Kabin (it drives me nuts that they spell it with a K) for our first night. We chose the Kabin for our first night because of hotel availabilities. But I always loved camping growing up, even though cabin camping is kind of like cheating. Us Kellys were tent campers.

I didn't mind leaving the tent behind though, really. The cabin was really cute and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I just wish Brie had SLEPT that night. She was up nearly the ENTIRE night, and therefore, Daddy and I were also up nearly the entire night.

Chelsea gladly took the top bunk. I was a little nervous, but she did great. Brie visited her up there and promptly jumped up and hit her head. Luckily she's a toughy and didn't even really seem to notice.

We brought plenty of blankets and such, but we hardly needed any covering to stay comfortable. In the end, Brie ended up sleeping next to me on this bed and Daddy took her lower bunk, after two trips in the car to put her to sleep, she was still not ready to conk out for the night. Finally she slept a few hours next to me. I didn't sleep much because I was afraid she would fall off the bed (which happened while she was on her own bunk) but we survived well on our lack of sleep the next day.

Next day, Daddy took Chelsea swimming at our schmancy hotel pool (poolside room!) while Brie and I slept/rested in the room. Ahhhh...it was much needed. I don't know how Daddy did so well on such a small amount of sleep, but he did!

Just chillin out watching Phineas and Ferb.

Brie had a great time answering the phone. I'll try to remember to add the video at the end...

One of our wear-out-the-kids stops was the American Heritage Museum. It was kind of a bummer that the kid's section was blocked off for construction, but we didn't tell the girls that. They still enjoyed several aspects including these two little wooden horses.

Here is Brie after coming back from the Raging Rivers Water Park. I don't have any pictures from Raging Rivers which is sad because the girls were being all kinds of cute, but I left the camera at the hotel for peace of mind. I didn't want to have to worry about keeping an eye on it or keeping it dry. But as soon as we got back and got Brie out of her suit, she bee-lined for the bathroom, unloaded her bath toys, and sat in the tub waiting for her bath. So cute! You can also see the only photographic evidence of my new maternity swim suit here. It's drying on the tub. No, we didn't take any pictures of me in it. Your not missing out, I promise, hehe. ;)

Funny how some kids get comfy eating their dinner in hotels.

Have you ever seen so many olives on one sandwich? It's good though because all she ate of it was the meat and the olives. Goofy picky girl.

Another stop was the Bismarck Zoo. There was a huge rainstorm during the night which caused several parts of the zoo to be flooded or muddy, so we didn't get to see it all. But what we did see was fun.

We even got to pretend to be prairie dogs!

The Discovery Building was lots of fun also. Brie has gotten exponentially better at puzzles, even though we haven't been doing them too much with her. She was able to name all the animals and put them right into the right spots without any trouble at all. Smarty.

Look, I made it into a second picture! We made a stop at Famous Dave's on our last day after checking out of the hotel. Mommy sure did enjoy the ribs and other sides. The girls ate pretty well also. One can't go wrong when serving corn on the cob to my kiddos.

We went over to the little amusement park that's over by the zoo after lunch. The kids had lots of fun on the kiddie rides. Brie was even able to do most of the same things that Chelsea did. Chelsea did get to go on a roller coaster that she was technically too short to ride, but she did great and even raised her hands up in the air. She's getting so big.

Driving along in a stationary vehicle full of still animals. I guess it's fun!

Daddy took a few practice swings as well.

We had some time to kill before heading back to Minot so we went to a little playground within walking distance of the amusement park. From there we could easily walk to another park. From there we could walk to another. We just kept on park hopping till we ran out of parks. There were five or six in all along that strip of river. After a nice long walk back to the car we were hot and tired so we went to Dairy Queen. It was gooooo-ooood! It took Chelsea an hour to eat her ice cream cone. The cone actually started disintegrating and leaking before she got close to finishing. It worked according to plan though. From there we got some gas, changed kiddos into pajamas and got in the car with the hopes of kids going to sleep. Chelsea was out in no time. It took Brie a good hour of chattering away/crying before she fell asleep. But it worked in the end! Good vacation.

I did remember to put it up! Brie will make a great phone answerer, and hanger upper. She's not too great at the conversation in the middle yet.

PreVacation August

2011-08-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

There was a fun activity in the Target parking lot early this month. It was a lot like the fair, only everything was free!

There were several little kid fair-type games, a petting zoo, bouncy house, official vehicles on display and for sitting in, and food!

Brie was very interested in the penguin until he got too close. Then, she wasn't so interested anymore. When we walked away from him, her interest resumed.

Here are some of those official-type vehicles that the kiddos enjoyed sitting in.

And pretending to drive.

We enjoyed having the Vande Hoef children come over while their parents went out gutting houses. Chelsea was VERY happy to have friends come over. She'd been feeling very friendless recently. We haven't seen to many friends, even at church, since we've been doing just a sacrament meeting most of the summer.

(The real schedule resumes next week after Stake Conference which is this weekend.)

Chels built this fabulous tower ALL by herself. She was so proud! And so brokenhearted when Brie knocked it over. Luckily she has decided that even though she is sad about the tower breaking, it's fun to build another one. Whew!

This is where we spend a lot of time-eating at the counter. The kids take SO long to eat. The television set being right there on the counter contributes, yes, but even if it is off they still take forever.

Splashdown!

2011-07-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

Take me to the Flood Journal Post!

This is the first time breaking out the swimwear this season, isn't that sad?

Huh? What did you say, Mommy?

Who's ready to SWIM?!?!

Chelsea splashing Daddy right off the bat, brrr!

Brie took a backward tumble almost immediately off of this little froggie slide, so I was nervous that we would have a short, not-so-fun trip. But she recovered very quickly and enjoyed herself thoroughly, including more slides on the froggie.

Half of two kids.

Brie walked just a little too far into the deeper part and lost her footing. She got stranded like this for a minute until I dragged her over to where she could touch down again. She wasn't worried or anything, but I could just see her little wheels a-turning about what to do. So funny!

This mushroom thingy was a big hit.

LOVE the big smiles!

A more controlled float with Daddy in the BIG pool.

Those little life jackets sure to come in handy. I'm glad they make them that small.

Whew! Some zombie is all tuckered out!

Who had a good time? We did, we did!

Driving one of the cool cars in the arcade section.

Whoo-eee! I think someone is driving too fast! Check out those piggies!

I forgot to add this one earlier. Proof that Brie is a BIG girl! She went down the big slides just like Chelsea!

A Few Before and After Shots

2011-07-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

http://chelseaboo.blogspot.com/2011/06/flood-journal.html

To go straight to the Flood Journal post, click above

There isn't a whole lot one can say about this, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

The Mormon Helping Hands

2011-07-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

http://chelseaboo.blogspot.com/2011/06/flood-journal.html
click above to go straight to the Flood Journal post

Many of you may not be aware of what the Mormon Helping Hands are. Well, they are just that. Mormons who put on a yellow tee-shirt and do service! Simple as that. We don't have to have the tee-shirt, but the tee-shirt just makes it official.

The church feels very strongly about being involved in the community and in serving. In times of disaster, the church comes out full force. This post is just to showcase some of the things that are going on here during our Minot flood disaster. The church as an official entity has sent truckloads of supplies and they have asked a couple who is experienced in organizing disaster relief/cleanup efforts to come here and help us get organized. The church building is now a place to receive/distribute supplies, to take orders of members and nonmembers who need help, a campground for out of town volunteers, and more.

There are teams of people in charge of going into the homes and assessing what needs to be done and making a list of needed supplies-which is called a work order, there are teams of workers, there are teams that direct the work teams where to go first, next, etc., and it's just a whole lot of teamwork. The church sends us the official Mormon Helping Hands tee-shirts, but it is we as members of the church that are the work force. It is the people of our own community (as well as volunteers from around the area that are coming in) that make up the Mormon Helping Hands. We are here to help not only our members, but the rest of the community in the effort to clean up and recover from this flood.

This was taken LAST Sunday while things were still getting organized. There were already teams working full force, and here are some of the supplies that are still waiting to be used.

Again, this was taken last Sunday. This is not the full extent of the supplies. There were already teams out working and this was just taken by me after church.

And here is the other side of the gym as of last Sunday. It really doesn't look the same with all the inflow and outflow of supplies and equipment.

Many wet/dry shop vacs and the dry filters and some box fans over here.

I think these buckets are cleaning kits.

The sign on the Relief Society room door.

Inside the R.S. room. There is a big white board on the left out of the picture with lots of writing and charts. It's all very organized.

Here is the work order station, in case it wasn't obvious, hehe. The table was empty at this point, but I don't think it's always empty. :)

One of the trucks parked in the lot.

They've even brought in porta-potties for our camping volunteers. All of the previous photos were from a week ago.

Now we are to the photos I took today after church. There are no tents in the front of the church, but the back is a little tent community.

All of the volunteers that come in need to be completely self sufficient. They have to bring food and water and their own shelter. There are already 12,000 displaced people in town and not many households can take on MORE guests, whether they are volunteer workers or not.

These people are allowed to come into the church, but for the most part they are gone all day and only come to wash up and eat and then crash. At least that's what I would be doing. Work, wash, eat, crash. Yep. Sounds good.

So how does our tiny church accommodate keeping all these people clean? Well, it can't. So...

Angel Billings was assigned the task of building outdoor showers.

(these were taken over a week ago-they didn't wait until there was a churchyard full of tents to start building)

Who's the greatest assistant ever? Autie Beth, of course!

Rub-a-dub dub!

I am pretty sure this is Lindsay Williams. There were several youth helpers and Bishop Williams stopped by to check in on things also.

The showers are officially called the B-K showers, which stands for Billings-Kelly.

They were planning on making six, but they found materials for five only. So they went with five.

Not too shabby for outdoor showers. They are tapped into the water from inside, so the first showerers get warm water. There are also stations set up to wash boots and gloves and such outside without mucking up the inside of the church.

So there you have it. We have people from Bismarck, Fargo, Rapid City, and other places, even some Canadians. The missionaries have come in full force also. We have teams out seven days a week. We have many work orders, and will keep it up until the work is all done. There has been much progress made, but the end is far from in sight.

Just keep cleaning, just keep cleaning...

A Kid's Life

2011-07-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

http://chelseaboo.blogspot.com/2011/06/flood-journal.html
Click above to go straight to the Flood Journal post

Well even though life is turned upside down for many folks, we are fortunate enough to continue living quite normally here at Grandma's/home. Holidays like the Fourth of July come and go, and we celebrate! And the kids still have full days of playing. I even take a few pictures of them occasionally.

My cool girls getting ready to head over to the Scandinavian Heritage Park on the 4th of July. The Arts in the Parks and Zoo were closed this year, for obvious reasons.

Tossing the duckies back into the water. The girls also had fun chasing balloons and jumping in bouncy houses and popping bubbles and just enjoyed being outdoors.

Chelsea had a great time staying up nearly till midnight watching fireworks with the grown ups. She was enthralled by the iPad playing Bee Cell and Angry Birds while waiting for the show to begin. She was largely unimpressed with the big show by the time she had seen many independent fireworks around the sky, and was more interested in the iPad. But oh well. It was her first year staying up to see fireworks and it was worth it to everyone.

Fireworks don't photograph well in the dark. At least not with my photographic skills, hehe.

I should take a picture of my real glasses because somehow they got all bent up. I can't imagine how, but they are in similar shape as these pink ones...

Chelsea has been so into Angry Birds that Daddy decided to make a live action version. They set up boxes and used little plastic bowl things as the pigs, and the giant balls as the birds. They had a great time. I never would have thought of doing something like this. It's a good thing we have Daddy around. :)

I was trying to capture the cuteness of Brie's piggy tails and how she looks three years older with piggy tails in. This is dark, but still oh so cute!

Playing with balloons with the Spain kids while the grown ups play games.

I have a multi-talented daughter. She can hold a balloon AND stand on one foot. At the same time even.

Brie liked sitting in little Lexi Spain's bouncer and bumbo chair. Chelsea thought that was very funny.

And the Angry Birds continue! While shopping for some better fitting maternity clothes we came across a manufactured version of Angry Birds. All we had to do was mention it to Daddy and voila! The Angry Bird game appears! They LOVE it!

Again with the multiple talents: Holding a black Angry Bird with her TOES!

Second Evacuation Events through June

2011-07-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

http://chelseaboo.blogspot.com/2011/06/flood-journal.html

click above to go straight to the Flood Journal post

Grandma asked Brie what she was doing. She's not supposed to sit in the baby bouncer. She said, "Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!" Goof.

Jennifer and Chelsea made some cute jewelry together.

More fun with the water table. Here the girls are playing their horns. Rather Chelsea was pretending to play a horn, and Brie was doing whatever Chelsea was doing. She's a monkey. As in, monkey see monkey do.

Pushing the chairs around.

Chelsea is a crazy sleeper. She moves from the mattress to the floor and back and forth. I checked on her one night and found her like this. Goof.

And here's baby number three making her presence noticeable. I am surprising people when they look down and see a bump there. I only have 81 days left of this pregnancy and many of my coworkers are surprised to find out I'm pregnant. Huh? I think it's been fairly obvious for quite some time now, but I guess that smock I wear at work hides more than I thought...

The girls have discovered the joys of dangling their feet over the stairway.

They like to bend backwards and cry, "Whooooooooaaa!!!!" over and over.

Chelsea is quickly becoming addicted to this iPad, specifically Angry Birds. For awhile she was playing Bee Cell, which she still does. But she'd play Angry Birds for hours if we let her. (admittedly, I did let her play for about two hours this afternoon, just to see how long she would play, and also for a good scrapbooking session while Brie was napping) (call me a bad mom)

Self explanatory.

Our Lone Flooded House Image

2011-07-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

http://chelseaboo.blogspot.com/2011/06/flood-journal.html

click above to go straight to the Flood Journal post

Not the best view, I know. I stole this from the KX facebook page and it is incredibly low in resolution. But for those not on facebook, I figured I'd show you the one and only picture we have of our neighborhood with our house in it. This was taken right around the time of the river crest by the KX news team. Ours is the brown one peeking out from the far left.

More like how it is supposed to be

We'll see what we end up with in the end! I'm actually quite interested to see the condition it will be in by the time we see it. I'm almost certain it will be condemned. We'll see.

Activities from the first Evacuation

2011-07-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

I will be continuing to update my Flood Journal post, so if you are interested just scroll down a bit. I don't want to get ages behind in blogging in the meantime. Right now we are mostly just waiting for the water to go away so we can see what the damage is. FEMA is saying that the houses with 8 feet of water will be demolished. EEP! I honestly don't think that will be necessary in our case, gutting the place definitely, but demolition? I sure hope not. Not unless they are having us rebuild in another location. Which I doubt will happen for us. But I have no doubt we got at least 8 feet of water. We'll see what happens and just go with it.

So I'm doing a little back-blogging here. These are some cute pics from our first pre-flood evacuation to Grandma Kelly's. Blowing bubbles on a windy day with Autie Beth, such fun! The wind did our blowing for us, hehe.

Getting soaked while playing with the water table up on the deck

Reading about PUPPIES!!! Brie's bark is "Oof! Oof! Oof! Poppy!"

She sure loves books and puppies and Grandpa. She was in heaven!

The Humane Society was taking volunteers to come walk the dogs of evacuated families, so Daddy and the girls did just that!

This is one of the last times Brie will use a sippy cup. Soon after this she decided that she didn't want anything to do with them. She's a big girl and will drink from a big girl cup and that is that. She's done quite well overall, but still has some messy moments. But who's complaining, really?

Chelsea sure enjoyed walking the dog. Ah, maybe someday. Someday in the DISTANT future we will be able to get a dog. Maybe. First comes a house. ;)

Flood Journal

2011-06-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

I'm starting this post today, June 22, 2011, to chronicle the events of our situation with the Flood Fight of 2011. I want to keep a record of the information we are receiving from Canada and the newsmen, of what we have done to prepare, photographs to document that as proof, to track the level of the river, the timing of things, evacuation orders, and other important information. This will be an ongoing post, and I will fill in the information from before today as I remember or get documentation from the news sources. So if you are interested in what going on, check back here. I will eventually get links to photos as I get myself organized. It's amazing the amount of information to get up here and how much detail I have already forgotten. What a whirlwind. Here we go!

-5/31/11 Tuesday
-CLOSING DAY! We are new homeowners as of 9:30 am. We closed on the sale of our condo and on the buying of our new house back to back
-We applied early for flood insurance and set it up to take effect at closing
-a couple hours after closing we get news reports that the river would not be able to handle the amount of water expected-which was 1 to 2 feet above the current dike level
-evacuation was going to be necessary for those in the evacuation zones by Wednesday evening, we are in zone one
-We moved everything in from the garage to the main floor, nothing is in the basement except the washer and dryer, elliptical machine, and foosball table (as well as furnace and water heater)
-luckily we haven't had time to unpack much so it's all still in boxes
-We took out important papers and documents as well as scrap books and electronics and stored them at the Kelly's

6/1/11 Wednesday
-We went back and took out other important belongings such as irreplaceable games, books, etc
-the rain we've been receiving is making it impossible to build up the primary dikes, secondary dikes are announced and begun
-one of the first secondary dikes begun is the one on 16th St. right in front of our house, blocking us in against the river
-We went back and put our furniture up on buckets and moved things as high up as possible, took some more things out
-We put sandbags around our window wells, on the garage doors, and around the electrical panels in the back
-evacuation time moved from 10 pm to 6 pm
-packed short term bags, turned off the power and water, headed over to Grandma Kelly's to evacuate

week of 6/2/11 through 6/9/11
-Fret, fret, worry, worry, watch the river, hang out at Grandma's
-the secondary dike work was abandoned once the primary dikes dried a bit so work resumed on those
-there was an opening at the end of our street so we could get into the house to check on things, take additional belongings out
-Apple Grove area flooded

-the crest predictions suddenly dropped, the river never went over it's banks

-when the river got down to 1551.5 the Mayor allowed people to move back into their homes, but advised them to move in "lite" in case another evacuation became necessary

week of 6/10/11 through 6/19/11
-We left important document and most other things at Grandma's, but did go home and made the beds, shopped for food, watched the river stay in its banks

6/20/11 Monday
-City officials announce that the dikes are not going to hold the amounts of water coming
-Work on building up the dikes is abandoned
-Work begins on secondary dikes around the city infrastructure such as city hall, schools, the water treatment plant, the university, and dikes to keep Broadway open
-citizens in Minot and surrounding area are asked to conserve water, one of the aquifers will be shutting down due to issues as well as flood water
-all of Minot is advised to plug all basement drains due to sewer overloading and possibilities of backup
-We moved all belongings except kitchen and bathroom items out

6/21/11 Tuesday
-We moved the kitchen and bathroom items as well as the blinds and all other belongings out, house is empty
-furnace, water heater, carpet, fridge, stove remain
-Window wells are sandbagged, front door and front garage door and sliding glass door are sandbagged
-basement floor drain is plugged
-electricty and water are turned off, MDU will cut natural gas on their own

6/22/11 Wednesday
-cracked basement windows open to allow water in, in order to prevent pressure damage to the foundation
-removed fridge and stove from the house
-11:00 am Minot river level is 1555.36
-12:00 pm Burlington evacuation sirens sound, all evacuees are out, the water has breached the dikes
-12:57 pm Minot sirens sound, evacuate immediately, water is staring to overtop the dikes in some areas
-about 1:10 pm officials announce 3rd St. bridge will be closing (hoped to keep that one open-the north/sound routes available will be Broadway and the Bypass
-3:00 pm Minot river level is 1555.44 This is the level of the crest in 1969 flood. Officials predict 7-10 more feet with in the next few days
-around 5:00 pm giant rubber bladder tubes are placed as dikes along the bypass
-5:00 pm Minot river level is 1555.50
-5:30 press conference announced the crest should be around June 26th at a level of 1562-1563, 2-3 days earlier than previously anticipated, still 7 feet to go before the crest
-7:00 pm 16th St. is closed
-There are 500 National Guardsmen in Minot at this time

6/23/11 Thursday
-Minot river level is 1555.65
-about 1:15 Broadway is temporarily closed between University Avenue and Burdick Expwy to allow trucks free access to building the dikes, water is coming faster and deeper from Canada, expected crest now 1566.
-all citizens in the river valley are asked to evacuate voluntarily (not mandatory) due to higher crest predictions
-Bypass is temporarily closed to allow trucks to work, this cuts off all north/south travel in Minot essentially cutting the city in half for now
-by morning there will be 750 guardsmen in Ward County
-Presidential Declaration of a Major Disaster for ND has been made
-3rd St. bridge is open for now, will close tomorrow for diking
-Gauge says 1555.67 but it isn't changing much because it is spreading outward
-We are expecting "double the water" of the 1969 flood
-All state employees are allowed to leave work to help with the flood fight no matter where they live

6/24/11 Friday
-6:00 am Minot river level 1556.35 and spreading
-12:00 pm Minot river level 1558.52 (all time high was 1558.0 in 1881)
-in the last 24 hours the river has gone up 3 ft. we expect another 4-5 ft in the next 24 hours
-4:00 pm Minot river level 1559.57
-the road is wet at Dairy Queen, two blocks from Elizabeth's house
-there were four water rescues on Thursday
-there are 10-12,000 people displaced but only about 300 in the shelters
-Hwy 2 is closed between Minot and Towner
-Hwy 52 westbound lane from Sawyer is closed
-Hwy 41 closing in Velva for levee construction
-3rd St. bridge closed (use the bypass!)
-Senator Conrad says obtaining individual FEMA assistance is "critically important"
-Senator Conrad says keeping Broadway open is a "key priority"
-Senator Conrad says the White House is "fully committed to a full federal response"
-Mayor Zimbelman estimates 4000 homes damaged by Friday night
-Senator Hoeven says congressional delegation's priority is to get FEMA to make individual assitance available so temporary housing can be obtained for displaced residents
-10:00 Minot river level is 1561.0

6/25/11 Saturday
-8:00 am Minot river level is 1561.51, two feet to go before expected crest (1563.5)
-3:00 pm Minot river level is 1561.59
-NEW CREST INFO: expected crest sometime tonight at a new lower level 1561.8!!!
-possible water contamination, some river water got into the system untreated, boil order issued
-Harley's and the Grandstand are still good, but several dikes have failed
-Ramstad and Longfellow schools flooded
-Perkett school's (Chelsea's school in another year) dikes are eroding, working to reinforce (blackhawk helicopter bringing in 1-ton sandbags from the air
-first floor of Holiday Inn flooded
-Arrowhead dikes insufficient, now flooded
-thunderstorms around the state, we had an unnofficial? tornado warning, (I was at work at walmart and they had a code black where all the customers had to go to the center of the store-I don't think the national weather service issued a warning, but I heard there was a funnel cloud in the area)

6/26/11 Sunday
-2:00 and 3:00 am CREST! 1561.72
-We are just waiting now for the river to go down. Lake Darling is still very full, they are contemplating keeping the releases high now in order to drop the level of the lake but they won't release enough to raise the level of the river here, we don't want a repeat of this flood especially now that the integrity of the dikes (old and new) have been compromised and changed
-5:00 pm Minot river level 1561.55
-From what we can tell looking at houses near our area (no ability to see our house at this point) we estimate our water to be at least half way up on the main floor, possibly higher but we have no way of knowing without a visual

-Update from last comment: We finally saw a photo that was taken by KX News. Our house has water up past the eaves of the roof, worse than we hoped, but not surprising or shocking

6/27/11 Monday
-6 am Minot river level 1561.30
-12:40 pm Announcement of several water main breaks, system will lose pressure, may not be able to restore soon, ration water immediately
-4:00 pm 1561.18
-water releases from Lake Darling will be reduced by 1000 cfs (cubic feet per second) each day for two weeks. By the end of the two weeks the river should be back in its channel granted there is no heavy rain
-(as a general fyi, 8,000 cfs is a pretty significant flow from Darling, they upped the releases all the way up to 29,000 during this flood which is WAY more than we can handle, obviously)
-Rick and I met with a FEMA representative (Dan) to verify our identities and address from our online application, start paperwork process, got instruction on when to call for our inspection (when the water is gone from our lowest level)
-went to a free dinner for evacuees at the Maysa arena, many people are storing items there and/or camping on the grounds

6/28/11 Tuesday
-12:00 midnight Minot river level 1560. 90
-7:00 am Minot river level 1560.66
-Beth continues her fight with the sewage leak in her basement, today they are removing the carpet from affected areas, the pressure seems to be going down as the river slowly recedes, shop vacs are quite handy
-even though many places are diked off and dry, there are still problems with the sewer system and water system around town
-many many houses/businesses have been dealing with ground water seepage for weeks if not months
-Rick is working basically on an on-call basis, I am working as usual being only two minutes away from work and not having to deal with crossing town (two or more hour commute now) like many folk. This is fortunate. I may even take on a few extra shifts. We still have mortgage to pay (our first payment is due July 1st) even though we don't have to worry about utilities and other services at this point.
-We continue to conserve water by showering less, flushing only if absolutely necessary, not running the water in the house, no watering or sprinklers in the yard, rewearing clothes to limit laundry
-boiling order still in effect, we can't consume our limited tap water yet, but at least we haven't lost water pressure
-our phone and electricity are still good here at Grandma's
-Gov. Jack Dalrymple has invited President Barack Obama to tour the flood devastation in North Dakota, Obama says he will consider it
-There is talk that some of the houses won't be allowed to be rebuilt in their current location

6/29/11 Wednesday
-9:00 am Minot river level 1560.17
-4100 houses damaged, 800 with ten feet or more water
-One lane of traffic each way is now allowed on Broadway, but only from 7-10 am and from 4-7 pm
-6:00 pm Minot river level 1560.02

6/30/11 Thursday
-8:00 am Minot river level 1559.95
-8:00 pm Minot river level 1559.92
-we expect to still be above the all time high (of 1558) until July 6 (Wednesday) morning then it should drop about two feet within a couple of days, at that point we will be at the 1969 flood level, *amazing!*

7/1/11 Friday
-6:00 am Minot river level 1559.66
-6:00 pm Minot river level 1559.44
-People on the fringes of evacuation zones (on the outside fringes) in NW Minot can return to their homes as long as there is no river on their lawns
-The people in the zones protected by the secondary dike next to Broadway will be allowed home when the level reaches 1555
-I've heard rumors that FEMA will want to demolish any house that had 8 feet or more of water
-Rumor also has it that FEMA will not let the people with houses directly next to the river rebuild in the same location, I'm not sure of the extent of the truth of these rumors

7/2/11 Saturday
-8:00 am Minot river level 1559.31
-9:00 pm Minot river level 1558.76
-Broadway is now open (one lane each way, no turns) from 7 am till 8 pm

7/3/11 Sunday
-7:00 am Minot river level 1558.59
-7:00 pm Minot river level 1558.51
-From the Minot Flood Emergency Operations Center: Residents living on the East side of 1st Street NE and the North side of 7th Ave NE are allowed back to their homes during the hours of 8 am to 8 pm, beginning today. Residents west of 1st Street and south of 7th Ave. and the rest of the Evacuation Zones east of Broadway protected by the secondary dike, will be allowed back home when the river reaches 1555 feet

7/4/11 Monday
-6:00 am Minot river level 1558.22
-6:00 pm Minot river level 1557. 97
-Gas leak along the bypass closed down the bypass for several hours, Broadway only n/s route

7/5/11 Tuesday
-8:00 am Minot river level 1557.63
-8:00 pm Minot river level 1557.41
-Broadway now open 6 am till midnight (still no turns from 2nd Ave SW to University Ave)
-boil order/conservation of water order still in effect
-Hwy 52 open between Minot and Velva
-Those that live N of 6th Ave NE and E of Broadway can return to their homes between 8 am and 10 pm starting tomorrow, but asked to not use any water or sewer or electricity and to keep basement drains plugged
-Those that live E of 1st St. NE and N of 7th Ave NE same as above

7/6/11 Wednesday
-9:00 am Minot river level 1557.13
-9:00 pm Minot river level 1556.72

7/7/11 Thursday
-9:00 am Minot river level 1556.34
-went to seminar on how to properly clean a flooded home
-9:00 pm Minot river level 1555.80

7/8/11 Friday
10:00 am Minot river level 1555.41
-thunderstorms off and on throughout the day, tornado watch until 10 pm
-Mormon Helping Hands (MHH) build outdoor showers at the church for the volunteers coming to use, equipment has been coming in and organized at the church for checkout/checkin, Dad is quartermaster of the equipment
-Broadway is temporarily closed because the rain is flooding the road (opened again when water drained)
-10:00 pm Minot river level 1555.54

7/9/11 Saturday
-7:00 am Minot river level 1555.20
-MHH out in full force all day today from 7 am on, over 30 work orders have been made already
-MHH will be in full force all day tomorrow after a short 7 am sacrament service (rest of the wards combining for sacrament at 9 am and some may join the MHH after that)
-Tide Loads of Hope is in town
-10:00 pm Minot river level 1554.93

7/8/11 Sunday
-7:00 am Minot river level 1554.93
-Hwy 2 now open
-3rd St. bridge open
-Broadway is open 2 lanes each way with limited turns
-NDSF (ND State Fair) has been cancelled due to water receding slower than anticipated
-10:00 pm Minot river level 1554.64

7/9/11 Monday
-8:00 am Minot river level 1554.65
-bridge on the bypass deemed unsafe after being inspected, bypass is closed until further notice for repairs, time estimate unsure
-The boil order is lifted just for those living south of the 2/52 bypass and within the Minot city limits, That's us! yay!
-10:00 pm Minot river level 1554.61

7/12/11 Tuesday
-9:00 am Minot river level 1554.47
-city is prepared to pump water into the river channel once it gets low enough that it won't just flow out a little further downstream
-Mayor visited Perkett area (near our house) and said some places still have 7 feet of water, we don't expect to see our house anytime soon
-there will be a neighborhood meeting for Zone one/Perkett area tomorrow at 7pm at the Grand International, that's us, we are interested to hear what they have to say
-Ramstad will be held in the Auditorium this school year, Lincoln will be held at First Presbyterian, Central Campus Plus at Souris River Campus (Job Corp?)
-8:00 pm Minot river level 1553.94

7/13/11 Wednesday
-10:00 am Minot river level 1553.05
-The meeting tonight didn't reveal any new information. It was called by some neighbors who expected 10 or 12 households to respond, 500-600 people showed up hoping for information and news of our area, we spent 1 1/2 hours mostly bonding as a neighborhood and offering any help and information anyone wanted to share, there were a couple of gripers, but mostly it was a positive-though uninformative-meeting
-10:00 pm Minot river level 1551.78

7/14/11 Thursday
-8:00 am Minot river level 1550.52
-residents and business owners are now allowed into all evacuation zones with no rime restrictions provided there is no water on the lawn and you don't have to drive through water to get there
-you must have a valid ID and proof of address to get into the evacuation zones
-use of the sewer and water systems in prohibited, if there is water in your home call Xcel Energy to disconnect services immediately
-you may not stay overnight at your property unless it is in a self contained camper, camper needs to be parked in the driveway instead of the street so that debris may more easily be picked up
-fire and health officials will be going door to door in evacuation zones passing out info and answering questions
-(I think the city may have started pumping water back into the river channel because the river was down to 1549.99 earlier and now it is slightly higher)
-Rick got to 3 1/2 blocks from our house, he could see it from the railroad tracks by Arrowhead, our garage door has at least survived, not much else can be observed yet
-9:00 pm Minot river level 1550.10

7/15/11 Friday
-6:00 am Minot river level 1549.82
-8:00 pm Minot river level 1549.27

7/16/11 Saturday
-8:00 am Minot river level 1549.00, This is flood stage. Not moderate flood stage, not major flood stage. Just plain old flood stage
-tornado watches and warnings all day long today, we didn't get any inclement weather other than high temperatures and humidity levels
-We finally made it over to our house after they deemed the 16th St. bridge safe enough to drive on.
-The Arrowhead underpass is still full of water and debris, but we can go home by way of Burdick and 16th
-Xcel Energy had come already and Rick and I were able to walk around and take pictures of the condition of the house
-fortunately the floors are sturdy and sound (I've seen some wavy floors and heard about some that have broken through completely under people's weight), the walls are all wavy and mucky, the water level was right at ceiling level so the ceilings (aside from the vaulted ceiling) all got wet and have mold (mostly around the light fixtures for some reason), the light fixtures are full of water/muck, the walls are mostly just mucky and not moldy, the closet doors all came off their hinges and had floated around, the kitchen cupboard above the dishwasher came off and ended up by the front door, the floors are covered in slimy mud that oozes black gunk when stepped on (Rick says that is sewage-gross), the basement is still almost all the way full of BLACK water (that's the technical name for it as well as the actual color of the water), the doors are mossy/moldy and soft (I put a hole in one just nudging it with my toe to open it further-it was very soft), the windows as far as I can tell are all unbroken (except for one that I can see) and the sliding glass door has water in between the panes, the counters are warped and cracked, all the wood cupboards/shelves/railings are completely ruined/warped, our deck is still attached though badly warped and rails broken, our backyard inherited some of the neighbor's things like a little walking bridge and figurines, there is also a few shelves from somewhere in the yard, the garage ceiling has parts missing and insulation hanging from it, the garage walls lost all sheet rock and insulation, and the river opened the garage door about a foot.
-overall we were not surprised or shocked at the condition
-Rick took me away from the gunk (not good for unborn babies) and went back and started pumping the basement and mucking out the garage and driveway
-the Mormon Helping Hands will be helping us (us as in Rick since I'm not allowed) first thing in the morning after a short sacrament meeting at church
-of course this weekend it one of the hottest of the year and we have heat advisories all over, the temps will be between 89 and 95 with a heat index of 105 to 110 degrees. ick.
-9:00 pm Minot river level 1548.44

7/17/11 Sunday
-KX news has not been posting the river level now that it is under flood stage and also because of the weather advisories (such as tornado warnings/thunderstorm warnings around the viewing area) being on the screen constantly
-The MHH are in full force working on our house with Rick. I went over after the second sacrament meeting (for those not volunteering or going later to volunteer) and had Rick take a few pictures of the progress
-it is a hot, sticky, sweaty, yucky process
-We are most grateful for the help that we have in gutting our house. It already looks quite different, but it feels good to get the ball rolling with cleanup and recovery.
-from KX news: effective noon Sunday, the boil order is lifted fr North Prairie Rural Water Zones N-1 and S-1, Zone N-1 is generally described as west of Hwy 83 north of the Souris River and west of Burlington along Hwy 2 (including 101st St. NW) and east of Hwy 83 north of 19th Ave. NE. Zone S-1 is generally described as south of Hwy 2/52 from Bell School west to County Rd 10 (19th Ave. NW)
-the crew got out all the walls, woodwork, cupboards, bathroom fixtures from top floor except for the wall above the stairway, we need to scrape and sweep still, but it's mostly just 2x6 and 2x4 structure upstairs left, ceilings are yet to be removed, excellent progress for one day's work
-pumping the basement-still have about four feet at the end of the day

7/18/11 Monday
-Pumping the basement, looks like some more came in so we will take it slower with the pumping

7/19/11 Tuesday
-Rhonda from flood insurance company called to set up a time to check out the house tomorrow

7/20/11 Wednesday
-Our flood insurance rep came and looked at the upstairs of our house, he needs a couple secondary local price quotes (electrical, heating/cooling) and digital images along with some paperwork, should hear back next week some time
-had another Zone 1 meeting at the Sleep Inn, this time there were at least 20 officials ranging from city leaders to FEMA leaders to state leaders and even some congressional representatives, it was only a question and answer meeting, no new information was presented

7/21/11 Thursday
-our FEMA rep called to make an appointment for inspecting the house (I don't know when that is yet, Rick isn't home for me to ask him)

7/29/11 Friday
-in the past week we've gotten a quote from our insurance agency, FEMA has inspected the top floor and said to call them back when the basement is dry, and our contractor made a visit. We expect the numbers from the contractor some time next week. Hopefully they match up fairly closely with the numbers from the flood insurance. That would be really nice.
-just redoing the electrical work was quoted at $10,800 from an electrician
-the school year will begin Sept 6, school system has asked for permission to shorten the school year by five days and then just make up the residual 3

8/3/11 Wednesday
-Flood insurance people are coming tomorrow to photograph the basement now that the water is gone
-basement has been gutted
-subflooring taken out of bathrooms and entryway in preparation for sanitizing
-tomorrow will be the professional cleaning and sanitation/antimicrobial spraying
-yesterday someone accidentally drove their car into the sink hole in front of our house (which seems to be getting bigger also) they said they lost control after driving on a slippery substance-confirmed by police
-we will soon have a second contractor in to inspect and give estimates for rebuilding

8/11/11 Thursday
-boil order is lifted in all flood zones, which means all of Minot is out of the boil order finally
-we got our final quote from the insurance adjuster, signed it, and sent it in for review by the flood insurance company. we expect word in three to four weeks

8/12/11 Friday
-KMOT news team interviewed mom and dad (as well as Erin) as "Hometown Heroes" who have taken in flood victims, we were on the news!

8/26/11 Friday
-Rick has spent the last couple days (and will continue tomorrow) to power wash the outside of the house
-Rick has an appointment with Rainbow for tomorrow morning to finalize and finish paying now that the cleaning and sanitation work has been completed.
-A temporary power box has been installed at the house. We do have water (and without a boil order even!)
-We received our $15,000 advance payment from the insurance company two days ago. We are holding it until we know the rest is actually coming, in case we have to send it back. :(
-We should find out in a few days if we qualified for the full $1000 grant from Walmart. We know we will get at least $400, but we are optimistic that they will find us worthy of the full $1000.
-The MHH were "disbanded" but have been called back into service in order to fulfill the final 25-30 work orders still remaining since our equipment was sent away for storage but then some sent back (with orders for it to be donated to the community organizations still doing clean up work.) They will work through labor day and then be done. Again.
-Members are called to clean the church tomorrow to prepare for regular meeting schedule starting Sunday. We are going to clean the nursery with a big focus on the carpeting.

9/6/11 Tuesday
-We received our flood insurance check! We picked it up from UPS since our street was blocked off with the fixing of the giant sink-hole in front of the house
-Chris and Amanda were helping Rick do some more cleaning: Amanda took care of the outdoors, Rick finished the siding, Chris took out the last of the wet insulation and powerwashed the deck, they took out the last of the ductwork which will be recycled soon, and I'm not sure what other jobs they did since I was only there a short time
-Disaster people were cleaning the debris from the residential houses on our street today as well.

9/14/11 Wednesday
-Sold the house! Wrote up a purchase agreement, collected our earnest money, signed papers, set up closing date

9/28/11 Wednesday
-Today was supposed to be the closing. We signed but there was some confusion about the time on our buyer's part

9/29/11 Thursday
-Closing on the house completed! We are now no longer home owners, but we cannot say that we are homeless. Grandma and Grandpa Kelly have taken us in for the long haul. We estimate it will take about 15 months to save up and get back to the same dollar amount of downpayment we had going into the house four months ago. No complaints on that. We are not flood victims. We are flood survivors. It's not completely behind us until we own our own home again and are an independent family unit once more. But for the most part, the flood of 2011 is in our past.

New plan: Save the City

2011-06-21T18:31:00.000-07:00

A new update for you. Things have changed quite dramatically in the last few days. Here is a list of some of the happenings thus far:

Canada is flooding from large amounts of rain
I don't think the snowcaps have melted yet, and the runoff comes to us
There are three or four dams releasing water into our system because they are at full capacity.
There is an astounding amour of water headed for lake darling
Lake darling is full already
Darling has been holding back for US to have time to evacuate
Darling dam releases are going to dramatically increase to make room for all the water coming to the lake
This is good because we definitely do not want the dam to burst-shudder-
This is bad because our system can NOT handle anywhere near the amount of water coming
We can't handle it to the point where they stopped work on the dikes
We are under mandatory evacuation
They've advised us to move as much as possible including stoves, fridges, etc
The whole city is advised strongly to plug all basement drains because the sewer system is overloaded and will likely back up at some point somewhere
The city is diking the city infrastructure such as the water treatment plant and other such places
The water is already higher than the "crest" from the last evacuation
The new crest projection is ten feet higher than it is now
They estimate the water levels will be nine feet higher than the 1969 levels

And more.

So.

We have completely moved every single thing from our house
We are getting organized and settled into grandmas house
My sister Beth is half a block from the evacuation zone so she too has moved in here at grandmas though half her stuff is at the williams' house
We are not exactly sure how much water will get in
We are two blocks away from the water treatment plant, which has a webcam on the roof to record and observe the river

Whew! I'm getting completely distracted by my kiddos. I hope this list is somewhat understandable. Later I will post actual numbers as they come in. To sum it up, we are facing historic, tragic, unprecedented amounts of water. There is no way to avoid it. The water is expected to run over the dikes for a couple weeks.things change so dramatically so quickly. The last prediction of the water going one to two feet above the dikes didn't happen. But. I think this will. This water MUST come through save the dams, which is the dams broke, there would be no saving anything whatsoever. We'd be lucky to escape period. But the dams are in good condition and functioning properly. There is just so much water coming that we are all being overwhelmed. There is no way to hold it back any more. They've been holding back what they can to keep from going over, but it is no longer possible to prevent that. The lakes and dams are all full and are facing inflows that THEY can't handle. There is no choice but to release the water.

I don't want you to look at me with pity and tears in your eyes. We as a city are facing this crisis and dealing with it in every way we can. We've prepared in every possible way. Everyone is in the same boat. Every single person is affected by this, whether their homes are in the flood plain or not. The community has pulled together and is helping each other. The few through roads are more crowded than I've ever seen, but people are patient and let each other through. They follow the direction from the national guard and the city officials. They are taking care of their neighbors with help and food and drinks and storage and housing and everything one could imagine. I don't feel sorry for myself. I'm not happy with the situation, but it cannot be avoided. It is happening to all of us. We are as well off as is possible short of not having a flood. This is historic. In a sick kind of way it is exciting to be a part of it. It makes me sick in other ways too, but we don't dwell on that part. We are having an adventure, thats for sure.

Update

2011-06-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

Alright so not everybody has the skinny on the happenings, and I apologize for taking so long to let y'all in on what's been going on. Long story short: We are HOME!

The river in our area didn't flood. Other parts of the outlying areas were not so fortunate. I feel very deeply for the families whose homes were inundated with water. It oh so easily could have been us in the exact same situation. It's not a fun situation to find yourself in. And we were lucky. All over the city people's homes are getting soaked just from ground seepage. Our house, two blocks from the river, is dry as a bone. The only water threat we faced/face is if the river goes over the banks.

I say faced/face because even though we are home now, the season of high water is far from over. We've had record levels of snow, record levels of rain, record levels in the lakes, and record releases from said lakes at the dams. One dam, the Garrison dam, has never had to release water until this year. Canada has much water to flow down our way still. The river is still quite high.

Backtracking: The river had been expected to crest a foot to two feet above the levees. For several days we watched the level go up and up and up. Then the projections started to lower and the river stopped rising so quickly. Then the projections got even lower. The river actually started to recede! After a few days of receding water and lower projections the mayor changed the mandatory evacuation to a voluntary evacuation, but asked residents to move in lite and be prepared to evacuate again should the need arise. We didn't jump right in, even though we were able to drive through a break in the secondary dike really close to our house and walk easily to our front door. That dike was enough alone to keep us from our house, but also we didn't have any natural gas power yet. So no hot water at ALL. And our fridge was 100% empty.

Luckily the dike on our street was one of the first, if not the first, to get removed and put back where it came from. (Which is the north hillside of Minot high, for those familiar with the area.) Some of the secondary dikes are still in place. I can't express my relief at having our dike gone. It was bad news for us who were living on the wrong side of it!

Yes it is mostly just a pile of dirt along the road. We found out later that the only reason they even put the secondary dikes in place is because it was so wet that the primary ones were unable to be driven on/worked on safely. Once they dried a bit they abandoned the secondaries and went back to reinforcing the primaries. *Whew!*

It looks pretty pathetic in the picture here. It is way lower in front of our house than other parts of the dike. Other secondary dikes around town actually look like dikes and not just a mess.

Anywho. We are now fully functioning at home with natural gas and food and water and all that jazz. We haven't unpacked everything, though we did drag most of the junk that is going to be downstairs permanently to the basement. Our basement drain is still plugged so laundry is a no go. We do that at Grandma's house, (to be honest, GRANDMA does it at grandma’s house-we are so spoiled) and will have to continue for at least another month probably. At least we've gotten the toys unpacked! The girls had a ball playing with everything as we unpacked it and messing things up as we were trying to set up. But it was worth it. Some of their toys had been packed for months now. I really would like to unpack ALL my boxes and put my books on my bookshelves. But that is not yet to be. There is still risk of flooding. They are keeping the river levels extremely high because of the sheer volume of water that needs to come through. It seems to me that the water is just as high now, at least in our area, as it was during the major flood scare/preparation/evacuation. That may or not be the case.

I have to remind myself that they are monitoring the water extremely closely and are controlling the releases wisely. They are keeping the river high on purpose. It's a little uncomfortable how high it is, even for me, but it's the way it has to be. I am praying that this is an exceptional year and not the new norm. If it doesn't flood for another 42 years I can handle that because we aren't likely to still be in this house in 42 years.

So eventually I WILL get decent pictures of the new place taken and posted up here. Right now we are definitely not picture-worthy. I am working extra hours because a coworker is on a leave of absence and so I haven't been home much to make the place more home-ish. It's getting there. Slowly. I still love it. The kids love it. I think Rick likes it alright... ;) I can't wait to get started on my projects! (staining the front entryway and back deck, putting up a fence, putting handles on the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, installing the microwave, getting a garbage disposal, etc etc etc.) The list goes on. Then someday I would like new carpet and finally, finishing the basement! I think I need to rob a bank. Just kidding!

A few teaser pictures. Here is the master bath, wet shower curtain and all.

Master bedroom, if you didn't figure that out, hehe

Hallway looking from kitchen/living room area toward bedrooms. Rooms left to right: Chelsea's bedroom, Brie and Baby's room, master bedroom, and bathroom with the light on

Brie saying, "Cheese!" as I'm taking pictures

Play room portion of the finished part of the basement

That's all for now, everybody. More to come at a later time!

The Flood Fight of 2011

2011-06-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

That's what they are calling it. The Flood Fight of 2011. It is a fight indeed.

Some background info for those not keeping up with the Heits on Facebook. Last you may have heard, we were trying to sell our condo because we found a beautiful house to buy. Well long story short, we did in fact get a nice family to buy our condo from us. It took one month and one day from the time we put it on the market to the time we got the offer. We got our asking price with us paying the closing costs, which was our best case scenario and the best we were hoping for.

Our buyers wanted to move the closing date back to May 31st, but other than the appraisals and inspections, that was the only bit of business that needed doing. No problem. Our owners were fine with changing the closing date. So we would be closing on both the condo and the house on the same day. That is great except we needed to get our stuff out of the condo before closing. But we couldn't get our stuff into the house until closing. What to do with our stuff in the meantime?

Well in the end the owners agreed to let us put our stuff in the garage and main floor of the house starting the weekend right before closing, as long as all the business with our condo sale was peachy. It was. So that's what we did. We got our stuff packed up and moving day was on May 28th.

Our friend James helped us a ton by letting us use this truck of his from work. We also had help from several friends and all the family members (that weren't working). I had to work for a few hours and Randy had to work. Grandpa Heit came later on to help out.

This is nearly as full as the garage had to be. I was happy to be able to bring in the furniture and other bigger items and get them out of the moisture of the garage. Yes it is raining. I don't recommend moving in the rain, but you do what you gotta do when you gotta do it. Rain=not good for the near future, by the way.

The rest of the Kelly clan getting things in order between loads.

Moving went very well. We had a tremendous crew to help us out. We were all done by mid afternoon. We sent grandpa home to nap with Brie. I picked up Chelsea, and us womenfolk stayed around to start setting up beds and unwrapping the furniture. We had wrapped all the bedroom furniture in plastic to help keep from getting scratched and/or wet. Plus it kept all the drawers in. It worked fairly well. We went through a good couple thousand feet of saran wrap, but it was worth it, hehe. We got a lot done in that day.

Moving day was Saturday the 28th. Sunday we took off. Monday the 30th was condo cleaning day. Us womenfolk went to work and took 5-6 hours and cleaned the condo out for preparation of closing the next day. It looked pretty spiffy. Luckily we didn't have to preclean the house because they had it professionally cleaned after the renters left.

Tuesday the 31st comes around. This is yesterday for those keeping track. We went in and closed on the condo and the house back to back. Everything was very smooth except they reimbursed us for the condo fee for June, but we hadn't payed it yet. So we just had to go make the payment that they already reimbursed us for and we were in business. Rick dropped me off at the house and went off to get milk, get a second garage door opener since there was only one, and to make copies of the key, since there was only one. Weird, I know. Who only has ONE key to their house?

I turn on the heat, huddle in a blanket for a bit, and call Auntie Beth to come over to brighten my day. I had asked Rick how he felt and he wasn't feeling too good. I was still excited and happy and was finding it hard to get going on the boxes. But I did start unloading my kitchen stuff. Auntie Beth came and started helping. And Grandma Heit also dropped by to help. Right before grandma Heit came over, we got the news.

There was going to be a mandatory evacuation for all of the flood zone areas. We are in flood zone number one. Flood zone number one doesn't necessarily mean we are the highest risk. They are numbered geographically 1-9. Either way, we were going to have to be out of the house/area by Thursday evening. (remember this is Tuesday) They didn't think the Mouse River was going to be able to hold the water that is on the way. Fabulous.

We knew going into this deal that the river was high. We are within two blocks of the river on 16th street, right in the middle between the underpass of Burdick and 16th, and the Arrowhead underpass. This is not the lowest point by the river. The lowest points are over by Sammy's and 3rd. So they are definitely in much more trouble than we are. They are zone five or six, if you care. We still had several feet of leeway before the river became a danger to us. And they had said that the river had already crested back in April-that it was as high as it was going to get for the season.

Well.

They were wrong. During the week before closing we had 5 or 6 inches of rain all throughout the basin. That was NOT helpful. They have been releasing water from other areas because I guess in Canada they are having some flooding issues, and the dams were at full or near to full capacity with the anticipation of more rain and water flowing in. Rain and thunderstorms are STILL in the forecast for Thursday and Friday.

So remember we were going to have to be out by the end of Thursday. The water was rising faster than anticipated and they upped the out time by 24 hours (out by Wednesday night) and announced that they would be hastily constructing some secondary dikes all along the river valley. That sounds peachy, doesn't it? It IS peachy unless, like us, you live on the WRONG side of that secondary dike. That secondary dike is now fully constructed in front of our house, which would hold the overflow from the river right on our house, as well as others, obviously. Needless to say, I am not a fan of this secondary dike, despite the good it will do for everybody else. Call me selfish.

Up until the announcement of the secondary dikes, I have been fine mentally. Rick has been a bit of a basketcase. Controlled basketcase, but basketcase nonetheless. He's always been far more concerned about this than I have been. He wasn't excited about closing. I was. He was not feeling good about it. I was. Up until those secondary dikes, I was totally fine. After that, I admit, I shed a few tears. I was upset. I was suddenly in knots. I've gone in a few waves here and there about feeling good about things and feeling like I'm the center of target practice.

So that brings us to now. The river level stayed steady at 1553 point something as far as the height of the river over night last night. I know that doesn't mean anything to you. It doesn't mean anything to me either. But for perspective, the dikes are built to hold 1555 with a one foot clearance. So technically it could hold up to 1556, and the water would be brimming the tops of the dike. The water that is expected to be here (originally Thursday evening, now by earlier Thursday morning) is projected at 1557-1558. That's 1-2 feet above the dikes. Not good. Hence the evacuation and building of more dikes. (Of course the city and the national weather service have different projections, and it's all guess work anyway, but the outlook is not good on either front.)

Now they haven't ignored the main dike system. They have been building up and reinforcing like crazy. The national guard is here and everyone has been monitoring things 24-7 for quite some time. I'm really quite proud of our system and our people and how well we've been handling all this water. There has been sandbagging galore. I guess there is more water now than there was in the major flood of 1969. The difference is the dikes that they built after that. The dikes have been good enough for 42 years. Now, the DAY that we buy a nice new house, the dikes are no longer going to be enough. Crazy.

All along I've been wondering, am I foolish or faithful? Foolish or faithful? I have to be one of the two because I've never had any reservations about this house. I know Rick has, but we've still gone forward with things, in faith. But even now, I don't regret it. I don't wish we had not bought this house. I hate the fact that we are in this situation. I hate not knowing what is going to happen. I hate being diked in with the water on our side and no sandbags around our house. I hate that it's going to cost us lots of money whether we want to spend it or not if the water gets in the house. I hate the it seems inevitable that the water WILL get in the house and the question is just how MUCH. But all along I've been at peace. With the exception of the announcement of the secondary dikes. Then I had a nice emotional roller coaster dipping way down. But now, again, I feel at peace. I don't know. I am still wondering if I'm foolish or faithful. I have a headache and I'm definitely concerned, but I don't feel like we are doomed.

I have such mixed feelings as far as the house goes and as far as our things go. We have had to move our things several times now. We moved into the house and garage. We got the evacuation order and moved it all into the house. I felt good about what we had done. Then we decided to take some of the most important things out of the house such as paperwork and scrapbooks and journals and electronics and such. I felt like a pioneer sifting through our things trying to decide what was important enough to take and leave the rest. In some ways it's ALL important. In other ways, NONE of it is. So we went through and got our top priorities. I felt good about what we had taken and felt confident that the rest would be fine. Then came the announcement of the secondary dikes. I no longer felt so good, after hearing that the flood waters would be held in on top of us and not able to spread across square footage and lessen the blow for us. So we went through again and put things up as high as possible. Later we went back again and did more of the same. Then this morning Rick went back one last time to try to either move out the big furniture or prop it up on buckets or something. He worked up until the dike work was 50 feet from our house and were literally forced to get out or be trapped in.

Now we've done all we can do for ourselves and literally cannot do any more. All we can do now is wait and help other people where we can. As I type Grandpa and Rick are out sandbagging yet again. I am here trying to maintain my level of calm (if you listen too much to what is going on, you get REAL stressed REAL fast). In the end, stuff is stuff. The house is a structure. It will cost money to repair and/or rebuild/replace, but we are safe. That is what is important.

I am grateful for a safe and comfortable place to go. I have my mother's house to take refuge in. I don't have to go to the school or other shelter and depend on them for food and shelter. I have comforable accomodations and plenty to eat/drink/do. Our family is here together, safe and sound. We are blessed, despite what is happening around us and directly to our home and things. Things are things. Things can be replaced or done without. Family cannot. We are fortunate. Some people are dealing with tornadoes. Some have earthquakes and tsunamis. Right now we are dealing with flood water. And overall the situation is well controlled and monitored. We are just some of the unlucky few getting diked in. We are trying to be optimistic. There IS still a chance that the river will hold. There is a chance that if it doesn't hold, not much will go over. Or it will go over in areas other than our own. Fortune for one is misfortune for another. Just like secondary dikes.

Well I think I've said enough for now. I will try to keep the blog updated. I'm much better at keeping Facebook updated. We ask for faith and prayers from anyone and everyone. We need the dikes to hold, and we need no more rain. Thank you to those who have been praying for us. We are well and things are going as well as they can for the moment. We pray circumstances will not only not get worse, but that they will improve. Until later then.

Chelsea turns FOUR!!!

2011-06-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

Chelsea chose Ariel for her theme this year. She chose a funfetti cake with vanilla frosting. She enjoyed helping mix the batter and watching it bake. We turned the frosting blue and put little fishy shaped sprinkles on it.

The centerpiece.

I put pigtails and Brie's hair and immediately took a picture. Piggies tend to come out immediately and I wanted to document how adorable she looks with her hair actually done up. She looks so much more grown up with piggies.

Instead of having matching piggies with Brie, like I thought she might, Chelsea opted for a braid like Fawn instead. Fawn actually has her whole head of hair in a braid instead of just a little big, but who's keeping track?

Auntie Jennifer was in charge of some party games. In this one the first one (or team) to scoop all of their marshmallows from one cup into the cup on the other side of the room was the winner. This kept them occupied for a good 15-20 minutes!

The object of this one was to bat the balloon through the air across the room the fastest. Then back again. I've said it before, you can't go wrong with giving a kid a balloon. Just look at how much Brie is enjoying it!

And here we have potato bowling. I think us grown ups had more fun with this than the kids, hehe.

Birthday girl with her immedate family.

We call this one OCTOMOM. Ha! We actually stuffed a full 8 balloons into my shirt, but I have goofy faces in the other shots.

What's a party without prezzies?

Brie had a good ol' time going through the gifts and starting to play with things.

Brie was actually the first to ride Chelsea's new bike also. Do you think she enjoyed it? I'm just not sure....

Chelsea also loved her bike.It was too rainy to actually go out and ride, plus the dress was a little bit in the way, but she still LOVES it! Mommy made a good choice and guessed right at the size, whew!

After all the games were done and presents opened what did she do? Rescue worms off the driveway, of course!

Ironic how this is the best smile I got out of all my pictures this day. Worms. Whooda thunk?

Phantom sideways photo. I made a little bowl of jello with fishes just for fun. Nobody ate it (at least not during the party) but it was just for festive-ness anyway.

Daddy chose a fun game as his gift for Chelsea. Sumo Ham Slam. It's pretty cute. They are all enraptured.

And this is how game playing looks at our house: hands everywhere!

And a random cute photo of Brie. I found her like this one morning, holding her baby. Awww! She always sleeps way up on her pillow like this.

May Begins!

2011-06-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

Brie tried on Chelsea's dance outfit and really enjoyed it. Isn't she cute? I also love the backpack.

Someone found my roller blades. I'd love to be able to use them this summer, but I'm not the steadiest person on those things and I'd rather not fall down and kill a person or two. (not really kidding on that!)

A message for me. Awww!

Chels enjoys collecting dandelions and then "planting" them in this pot. She then waters them. She'll also run around to each little dandelion not yet picked and water them as well.

Spaghetti for dinner! Brie tends to tire of her bib quickly and just takes it off. So rather than fight that fight, I just took her shirt off. She didn't seem to mind at all! She actually slurped down everything on her plate and then some from mine! Growth spurt!

Chels perfers her noodles plain except for LOTS of parmesan cheese. She also cleared her plate, amazingly. Could both my girls be going through a growth spurt at the same time? That would be amazing. I could get used to them actually eating what I give them to eat. Sometimes I don't know how they are still alive, they eat so little. Oh, this is Chelse'as "tooth" that she insisted I take a picture of. :)

Later on, the girls and I made some cookies. Brie got into my sugar and started eating it, so I switched it with some flour. Her face was hilarious when she licked it for the first time. She didn't quit licking, but she licked a lot less. Ha! I'm not quite sure what she was thinking here, but it's funny!

Flour on the nose. Cheese! Too cute!

We were able to score a free big wheel for Chelsea the week before her birthday. We already planned to buy her a bike, but who can't use a free big wheel? She loves it.

Running around in the backyard. I could get used to this summer weather. The girls can run and run and run and then sleep all night long like a log. I like it that way. :)

Finishing April off with the Circus!

2011-06-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Never go to the circus without springing for popcorn or other munchies. At least that is a rule at our house. :)

My kiddos didn't sit still the entire time. Brie started out sitting on Auntie Beth's lap, to mine, to Rick's, to mine, to sharing a seat with Chelsea as seen here, to mine...you get the idea.

Here is the intermission where the zoo folk make tons of money off of us parents trying to keep out kiddos entertained. Yep, we paid for a pony ride. She loved it! Brie would have liked it probably, but she just got to walk around and look at things. I tried to talk Chelsea into an elephant ride instead because I think that would be neat, and she almost went for it. But she went for the tried and true ponies instead. I'm glad she enjoyed it!

What cuties I have in my family. I love the fact that my husband is so involved in the lives of me and the kids. He is SO wonderful!

And who can go to the circus without paying for a little annoying music playing light up gadget? Not us! The girls both loved it. I think it might get lost soon though...

And here is Chelsea's version of our family. I love the empty spaces for the bodies. Most kids draw the arms and legs right off of the head at first. But not Chelsea. No bodies, but at least our arms and legs don't come out of our ears and chins, hehe.

Easter Festivities and Other Cuteness

2011-06-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

I think it's a rule that all kids must discover the joys of playing under tables. I know I did as a kid. Brie is no exception.

Chels wanted me to take her picture, and made this face. What a goof.

The kid version of reading on the potty.

Watercolor painting is fabulous! I'm shocked and amazed at how easily Chelsea took to using her paints. Though it did surprise her initially when she rubbed her dry brush on the dry paint and then it didn't leave any color on the page! She allowed me to teach her the trick to water colors and she's loved it ever since!

Now on to some Easter fun times. We went to the zoo for an egg hunt. Brie would not walk on the sidewalk. She would only walk on this little strip between the sidewalk and fence.

It wasn't always easy to stay only on that small space, but she did it.

They divided up the kids by age groups. Brie had a good old time finding her eggs.

Chelsea had to wait till her age group had their hunt. She sadly waited, watching Brie do her hunt first.

They held the kids off the field until the whistle sounded.

Waiting in anticipation for the whistle. Still no voluntary smiles, just goofy faces in my general direction.

Showing her loot. They had a six egg limit. Certain eggs had prizes in them, and if you got other certain eggs they were redeemable for prizes at the counter. No special eggs for us, but it wasn't a big deal. She had fun running out there.

Here is where you turn your eggs in and exchange it for a bag of goodies. I kind of like that they do it that way. Rather than stuffing each egg, they make sure each kid gets a fair amount of loot. Plus bottles of bubbles don't fit in little Easter eggs.

Peek! Mommy sneaks into the shot.

This video is what Brie looked like after looking at the lions. The lady lion was upset by the hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people suddenly making a noise in her once quiet home. I was on the other side of the lion cage when the lady lion roared and kind of pounced toward some people on the other side-some of whom were Brie and Auntie Beth. I thought Brie would be spooked, but she wasn't. She was just sprayed by mud from the lion's messy den.

Num num num num...Taking a candy break during the egg hunt at Grandma's house.

Handy Easter basket-a hat!

Those rocks are colorful! Wait-eggs!!!

We had a great Easter!

More in April

2011-04-28T16:36:00.000-07:00

They discovered the small area behind the coat rack. And Chelsea found Daddy's scarf.

Chels liked tying herself up with the scarf, and also the end tables.

She still likes her boots and shoes. I will miss the fact that she can put these boots on herself, but needs help with her tennis shoes. Oh well. ;)

I LOVE this satisfied expression. It's like she's saying, "And you thought I was too big to fit in the dolly stroller..." Ha ha ha!

Some April Happenings

2011-04-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

It is finally getting nice enough to go outside! We took a family bike ride, first of the season, to DAIRY QUEEN!!!

We took a walk-the-bike-to-the-gas-station-for-some-air trip first. The girls had fun walking on the rocks and checking out what Daddy was up to.

Takin' care of business.

Brie had no problems helping herself to our blizzards. I got my traditional oreo mint (my other usual is snickers minus the chocolate syrup) and Daddy sprung for the toffee cookie flavor.

We got two blizzards to share between the four of us. It's cheaper and the kids don't really eat that much anyway. I feel bad that Chelsea didn't care for either one. Check out her face after trying the toffee cookie. Brie is diligently feeding me on the other side of the bench.

COLD! And yes, she has two spoons. At least one of the kids enjoyed the outing. Brie also came back wearing quite a bit as well, but it was worth it! Yay for warm weather and family outings!

Random Brian Teaser

2011-04-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

I stole this from a friend of mine on facebook. I'm sharing it here instead of there just for kicks and giggles.

3 guys rent a hotel room for $30 and split it 3 ways 10 bucks each. later the front desk clerk realizes he overcharged them $5. So he asks the bell boy to return $5 to the men. On the way the bell boy realizes they wont be able to split the $5 equally so he pockets $2 and only gives them $3. So the men now paid $27 for the room. If they paid $27 and the bell boy only kept $2 then where'd the other dollar go?

Who can tell me the answer?

Life Changes Galore

2011-03-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

So from the previous post, it's obvious that we have some life changing events coming up. A new baby definitely qualifies for life changing. Life improving, yes. But life changing. Well we have more than one big event in the works. We have to soon get a new vehicle-one that will fit THREE car seats. Those things are pretty expensive. How ever will we pay for said vehicle? Well we decided we'd just sell our home to get the cash. Just kidding! That isn't EXACTLY what we thought. It is, however, actually happening. We won't sell our home JUST to buy a new vehicle.

With this third baby we also find ourselves in need of a bigger home. Our current place is pretty great. But. It only has two bedrooms. Rick and I claim one for ourselves. We won't share. We're selfish that way. That leaves one room for Chelsea, Brienna, and coming baby. I know it has been done by other families before. I don't see it working out for us. Chelsea and Brie wake each other up early enough and often enough as it is sharing a room. It is also necessary for Chelsea to be asleep before Brie goes to bed, otherwise neither kid sleeps. They talk and play and make noise and bug each other. That's dandy enough except Brie is ready for bed at nearly the same time as Chelsea nowadays. Hallelujah! That is a great thing!

(Our solution for this sleeping at the same time is simple: Chelsea goes to sleep in her new big bed in the bedroom. Brie will not stay in the toddler bed unless she is unconscious when you put her in it. And it doesn't last all night usually. So. We moved the crib downstairs when the new furniture arrived. Brie just sleeps downstairs, sort of in exile in the crib, but not really. She seems to be happy in her crib and doesn't mind being alone. It works out peachy. And now we are spoiled by having had them separated and sleeping so much better.)

Less than a week ago we contacted the Realtor that helped up buy our condo. He's really great. We met with him and two days later he was showing us a house he knew about but was not actually ON the market yet. That is why we called a Realtor. The housing market has such a fast turnover rate here that the good stuff disappears IMMEDIATELY. Realtors have insider status and can do such things as showing us a house that hasn't even hit the market yet. Any of you that follow us on Facebook (which I realize is most of you, so just bear with me as you hear this all again) you've already heard about the results of said viewing. It was quite nice but seemed too small and a little dated. A couple days later we looked around at some more houses and lots for new construction. The girls LOVED looking at the houses and running around and sliding on the bare floors. Chelsea was definitely NOT impressed with the partially built ones. They were too messy. Ha!

Now keep in mind that the mortgage insurance rates are going up in two weeks, so it would be advantageous to have an offer made by then in order to keep the lower rate. So that is the general timeframe we are working with. I've never been concerned about selling our place. It's in a price range many people want and can afford and it's pretty good quality and better than many of the similarly priced options out there. (Which is why we chose this place in the first place!) We expected to have to put an offer on something going up in order to get something decent. So after looking at our options, we decided that we did after all want to go with new construction. We had one picked out, had visited the lot and found it satisfactory, and were prepared to go forward. (This is still less than a week ago. It still hasn't even been a week since contacted our Realtor. Can you say whirlwind?)

Well Realtorman was made aware of one house that came on the market the very day that we were going to go ahead with the construction deal. Ok. We wanted to see it. It sounded like a pretty sweet deal. It was three bedroom, one full bathroom, one 3/4 bathroom, double garage with a triple wide driveway, room for two more bedrooms downstairs complete with egress windows, etc etc etc. And it was only six years old. AND just under our peak affordability. Sweet!

We looked through it. It was found satisfactory, despite a semi finished basement. That part has great potential. The whole upstairs is complete and beautiful along with a huge family area downstairs which will meet our needs for the time being quite nicely. What did we do? Well. We finished our paperwork for selling the condo, cleaned and took pictures, listed the condo (which may show up on the website tomorrow), and made an offer on the beautiful six year old house with a semifinished basement.

We're almost current here, sorry for my long windedness. The next day (which would be today) the owners of said beautiful house gave us a counter offer. (We offered a lower price and asked them to pay closing) They asked for $3000 more than our offer (which still puts it lower than the initial asking price) and agreed to pay all the closing costs (which will be about $6000 so that is pretty cool.) Did we accept it? BOY HOWDY! Of course! So. Now the thing to do is sell our condo, and the deal is sealed. At this point, the pretty house is still on the market but with a contingency note on it. We can only buy the house if we use the money from our condo sale, so we have to wait until our place is sold to actually pay for it. Thus, it is still available for other folk to view and make offers on. We are counting on the fact that the contingency notice tends to put off Realtors from even showing it, since it's as good as gone. Hope, hope!

We had one viewing of our condo already, yesterday, the first day of even being listed. Realtorman had a client who he thought would be a good match. The guy DID like it and was very excited about it, but after going home and consulting with his parents, he decided he wouldn't be able to afford it after all. Bummer. I was really hoping this would be THAT easy and quick. If he had made an offer, we would be guaranteed the new house as of this moment! But no offer. Grumble. Oh well. So that is where we sit.

How do I feel about all of this? I feel really good. I feel excited. I feel nervous. I feel IMPATIENT. I feel sleepy. Why sleepy? Funny you should ask that. For most of last night I laid in my bed wide awake deciding how big I want my laundry room to be. Should we make a half, 3/4, or full bathroom in the basement? Walk in closets in the new bedrooms? And we hadn't even heard if the owners were on board with our offer! Now that they are, and we are stuck playing the waiting game, I'm going NUTS! I haven't even gone to bed and it's pretty much all I can think of already. I've been obsessive (almost) about keeping the house ready to show at any moment. (Yeah, it's only been a day and a half. I hope it sells soon so I can regain my sanity and loose my OCD tendencies.)

So there we are. I'm really glad I'm going to be gone/working/busy most of the next four days. We gave Realtorman free reign to come over any time, especially if we don't answer the phone. The Realtors are going to have a viewing on Friday, which I think is pretty darn cool. I didn't know they did stuff like that. It WOULD be a lot easier to sell a place or recommend a place that you've actually SEEN before. So I will leave the computer now and pace around making sure there's nothing dirty or gross showing. No bad smells anywhere, dishes are done, sink clean, toothpaste rinsed from the bathroom sink/counter, etc etc etc. Shall I rest? I am having doubts. I'm still really positive and optimistic about a quick sale, but the impatience and the not knowing for sure yet is maddening! Here is a cute photo for you to look at just for getting to the bottom of this wordy post. Enjoy and please say a prayer for us to sell SOON!!! We'd be much appreciative.

Baby Number Three, First Photo

2011-03-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

First Ultrasound, 12 weeks

3/21/11

I went to the doctor today for my first prenatal appointment. It was pretty fast. I got all the financial business done (it's pretty easy by number three in the same hospital), initial paperwork such as medical histories filled out, saw the doctor to get my exams, got the ultrasound, gave about ten thousand little vials of blood, and LASTLY peed in a cup. All of this was done in about an hour and 15 minutes. Not too shabby.

All is well with me and the baby. Baby was snoozing during the ultrasound and not squirming all over the place like Brie was. But she/he had a good strong heartbeat around 170. So far so good! Hip hip!

New Room!!!

2011-03-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

Here is the progression of this bedroom through the years. When we first moved in we, of course, didn't have any children. In preparation for having this as a kids' room, I left it empty and didn't put anything in it except for a few plastic totes. I didn't want to have to clean it out once a baby came. So for nearly two years it was empty. Then in May of 2007 our first baby, Chelsea, arrived. We prepped her room with a crib and a place to put toys over on this side of the room.

The pictures are actually cross stitched on fabric, which used to be sweatshirts, which I used to wear as a child. What a creative use for them, don't you think? My mother not only made the sweatshirts all those years ago, but she came up with the idea of framing them all on her own. She thinks she's not creative. Ha. Joke's on her, hehe.


Them on this side of the room we have the chest of drawers and changing table, complete with storage drawers as well. The picture frame on the wall was filled later, with pictures of, who else? Chelsea!

By January of 2008 we added a rocking chair. The bouncer moved around the house, but usually it was in the living room. (Look at little Chelsea! She always was a cutie pie!)

Before Sept of 2009, when this photo was taken, we moved Chelsea from the crib into a toddler bed. Why didn't we remove the crib? Well, I think that is obvious. Baby number 2, Brienna, would arrive in early October of that year. She occupied the couch for the first seven months of her life instead of the crib, but oh well. She HAD a crib and a bedroom, even if she didn't sleep there for the longest time.

And here we are in March of 2011. Chelsea has outgrown the toddler bed. She's been asking for a bigger bed for a few months already. Now we have finally gotten it for her! The crib has finally been removed, as well as the other furniture. It is distributed around the house. (You'll notice I don't have picture of the rest of the house here, hehe.) We bought two twin beds, a night stand, a dresser and mirror, and a chest of drawers. Here is Chelsea's bed.

Notice the extreme height of this setup. We didn't realize that if you get the footboard (which we did) there is only one setting--high. With both the mattress AND box spring, this is how high it was. Chelsea had no problems with it whatsoever, except it took a little effort for her to get up there. She loved it. LOVED it!

We took the box spring off and put just the mattress in and this is the new height. Chelsea liked it better this way, as do the rest of us. It is so much easier to get on the bed and I'm not afraid of her injuring herself if she should fall off.

But anyway, here is the fancy shmancy night stand. We bought and painted the lamp, since there were no lamps even close to a matching color.

Here is the other side of the room where the old chest of drawers and changing table were. The toddler bed is now Brie's. But. She doesn't stay in it. At. All. So we might end up putting the crib BACK in the room for awhile till she gets a little better at 1) staying in the bed and 2) sleeping all night again. But for now, we are giving it a shot. (As I speak, she is asleep in the crib that is now set up downstairs because she cried and cried and came out and came out and wouldn't sleep in the bed. Sigh.)

I'm also a little sad that the mirror is cracked in the bottom right corner, but they are replacing it with no problems. There is also a paint scratch right in the middle on the top of the dresser. Darn. I'm not having it replaced just for that though. Mom filled it in with some white paint as best she could. It looks better. I'm not really worried about it. I think it bothers her more than it bothers me, hehe.

White sheers to go along with the white furniture and white walls. I just painted the walls of this room in prep for this new furniture (and hopefully a MOVE soon). I would have gone with a light blue, but like I said, we are hoping to sell this place and buy a new house soon. So I went with white walls, despite all the other white in the room. I think it looks ok though. :)

Here is the cute valance that goes with the bedding set.

There is absolutely nowhere else to put this chest of drawers except for in the closet. The room is just not big enough to accommodate everything. But, we were aware of this when ordering the furniture. We got everything anyway, in anticipation of moving into a place with a bigger room, room enough for both beds to be set up as well as for the dresser, night stand, and chest of drawers.

Here is the step stool we got for Chelsea to get up on her big high bed. We painted it the same color as the lamp. Then we took out the box spring and she no longer needs it. But. Brie will still need to use it when she eventually gets hers set up. And who can't use a step stool when there are shorties in the house? hee hee!

Brie loves the big bed. Not to sleep on, or even to sit on for long periods of time, bu hey. She'll get there. Someday. She loves the stool, too.

Do you think she likes it? The camera caught Brie at a funny time. She was in the midst of copying Chelsea in putting her arms up/out. She is quite the copycat. Luckily she's starting to copy more word-type sounds as well. She says bubbo for bubble, which is pretty cute. She says it whenever she gets a bath now.

Check it out, Brie got AIR! I had to actually hide the stool after this because she kept trying to jump onto the bed from it. (copying Chelsea who was jumping onto the bed from the floor) She's not quite so graceful yet, as if I would describe Chelsea as "graceful" at this point.

Here is just this evening. Chelsea invited me into her bed to read her bedtime story. I gladly obliged. Brie was happy to join us, though she didn't sit very still and wanted to hold the book and flip through the pages.

Eventually she stopped wiggling so much and let others turn the pages, at the appropriate times. Ah, what a wonderful life. Really, does it get better than this? I know I get frazzled by my kids sometimes, especially when they are creepy (like Brie is when she's teething-now-again-STILL). But I can't imagine living without them. It seems like I have so much to do and so little time to do it. But without these little girls (and not forgetting my wonderful husband), I would have so much time and so little to do.

I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!

Fun Times in February

2011-03-08T20:07:00.000-08:00

I guess this is a good spot for a baby to sit...

...and for her Mommy, too!

Three-year-old and a ring pop. Need I say more?

Rick got this idea from the preschool at MSU. Instead of sidewalk chalk, colored water to spray the snow! Chelsea thought it was a GREAT idea and loved it!

Phantom sideways photo again. The Heits will recognize this fellow.

I realize that if you don't know what you are looking at, it is....yeah. But I assure you, it is innocent. It's harder to draw with a squirt bottle than you may think. =)

The rose was my creation. Chelsea did great at filling in footprints with colors. It was interesting that it didn't take long for our colors to completely disappear. Granted, it was a bit melty this day.

We had considered using this photo as a "Future Heit Family Photo" complete with three children and a dog, as an announcement of a third baby. It is a cute idea, but not clear enough I thought. So we went with the Valentine card bit. Plus, we don't have a dog, and a dog is not in the plans anytime in the near future.

Snow angel time. Funnily enough, sometimes Chelsea makes "water angels" in the bathtub. She lays down and splashes around in the limited tub space and announces that she made a water angel. Can I see it? Nope. But she tells me where the head and wings are anyway. =)

Chels asked me to take her photo and then made THIS face for whatever reason. I love her.

Daddy was pretty tired after pushing around these two in their diaper box boats. When Chelsea was little they were planes, and he would fly her around. Nowadays, they're just boats and stay on the floor. hee hee!

Blog versus Facebook

2011-02-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

Ok so here's a reward for the folks that actually come and read the blog: The news first! (Ok so the family knows and they are the main ones who read the blog, but there are SOME friends that read this thing...I hope!)

Yes, yes, it's true. We are expecting baby number three!

I am about 8 weeks along, which puts my due date at October 3rd right now. That is my own calculation, confirmed by a website online. We'll see if the doctor agrees with me and the internet after my first appointment. (Which is March 21st. It seems so far away!)

I haven't made the big announcement on facebook yet, which will REALLY make it public, but I will eventually. I haven't felt the need to keep this one a secret for the first three months like I did with my other two. I've been feeling pretty yucky for most of the day, just about every day. It's hard to hide that, or come up with continuing reasons why I am sick or don't feel like doing this or that. Plus, both grandmothers knew before I told them. How do they DO that? Anyway, we are very happy and excited to add one more to our family! Don't ask if I want a boy or girl. I will be happy with either! (Though it would be cheaper if it was a girl, haha!)

Cute kiddos and Curling

2011-02-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

Look at ME!!!

I absolutely LOVE this smile. I have such cute children!

Here's Brienna on a not-as-cold day. No snow suit this outing. She still loves her snowsuit. She loves her hat. She loves her boots. The other day she insisted on wearing this coat all morning long around the house. She's constantly wearing someone's boots or shoes. Typical girl. =)

Our Ward had a Priesthood activity, and us girls were invited too. Curling! Look at that form, ladies and gentlemen. Look at that form! (Ha! I wish I was as graceful as I look in this photo, hehe)

Totally off topic here, but is anyone else's ward like ours, wherein the women have Relief Society activities for women and the Priesthood men have activities for couples/families? I just thought about that recently. Almost all the Priesthood activities involve couples or families. Don't they have guy/bonding time? Us girls think nothing of getting together just us womenfolk. Meh. Oh well. It's all good!

And handsome Rick is up! He was quite good with the scoring this day. I had a rock in scoring position at one time, but it got knocked away by summat.

Here's a couple sweepin'. Go, go, go! Curling is so fun. If you haven't done it, I highly recommend it. No experience required. It helps if there is an instructor though, or at least someone who is very comfortable with the details.

Here's the whole group that showed up. There are three nonmembers, two of which are from Brazil! It was lots of fun watching the instructors throwing tips and suggestions at them, and they very politely nodding and then looking at each other like, uh ok. They did speak some English and picked up on things well, but I know they enjoyed having two other people there that spoke their language. (Portuguese)

Bath time is a hair-raising experience!

I tried to spike Chelsea's up with shampoo, but it didn't work. At all. So we swirled it up on her head and got this!

Who wants a crown out of bristle blocks? Brie does!

And again I say, my kids are so CUTE!!!

Chelsea's First Dance Performance!!!

2011-01-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

The real video is on Facebook. I will try to get it up here eventually. In the meantime, here are some cute photos to tease your appetite!

Adventures in Parenthood

2011-01-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

I'm ready for my close-up!

Here they are enjoying the bubble maker that they got for Christmas. Bubbles and kids are such a great combination. You can never go wrong.

Brie loves bath time. As soon as I turn on the water, she comes running. But she's almost always finished before her sister. What does she do in the meantime?

She finds a pair of boots, puts them on backward, and walks around the house! (nearly naked)

Notice the carpet shampooer. The previous night we had a run-in with poo in the tub. Not pretty. We cleaned up the culprit and her sister and didn't pay much attention to them as we cleaned the tub and toys. You can probably guess where this is going. There was more poo that appeared on the bedroom floor while we weren't looking. It was messy. I'll spare you the details. Hooray for adventures in parenthood! (and maybe blackmail stories for later, bwah ha ha!!!)

She came back in to visit Chelsea. She always wants to get back in the tub, but once she's out, she's out for the night. There's no jumping in and out of the tub here. This photo is also showcasing Chelsea's angry face. I think she didn't appreciate me taking MORE pictures. Oh well. This face is Chelsea's newest expression. I think it's adorable, but annoying at the same time.

This girl and footwear. They have a thing together. =)

Starting out the New Year

2011-01-06T18:24:00.000-08:00

My cutie Brie handing me a shoe. You notice she's got several shoes that she is carrying around as well. She has discovered the joys of putting on shoes, and thinks she's pretty hot stuff walking around in Chelsea's shoes or boots. She gets a kick out of Auntie Jennifer's boots as well, but she needs help to walk in them being as they go all the way up to her hips!

What a funny way to watch TV.

Well that makes it a little easier to see, doesn't it.

Chelsea has decided she likes to get into this position and flip her legs forward and off the couch. She calls it a somersault. She gets very frustrated if she ends up going sideways instead of straight off. I probably shouldn't let her do this, but I do. What if she ends up being a gymnast some day? This could be the start of her future Olympic career....ok so that's a stretch, I know.

My wrinkle-nosed little one. She's turning into such a ham! She's discovered what cameras are for I think. She'll give us these big cheesy grins and throw her head back, or crinkle up her nose and stick it out at us. It's adorable. I remember when Chelsea used to do things like that. Now Chels just asks me to put the camera away. (Not a chance, sweetheart, hehe)

Did I mention Brie's LOVE for her toothbrush? She even brings it to me and opens her mouth nicely while I brush her few teeth, just like her big sister does. (Chelsea brushes her own teeth, but then brings it to one of us for a double check. That way we know her teeth have all at least been cleaned a little) Brie also loves to have her hands washed in the sink. She's not tall enough to do it herself yet, but she has a blast getting me wet while I help her wash.

You can also see the bubble blower that I mentioned in a previous post sitting there by the sink. It makes bath time exciting, that's for sure!

No, she's definitely not camera-shy yet! You can't see too well, but this was just this morning: I put little pigtails in her hair. I missed some hair on her left there, and you can't really see them from this angle and lighting, but it was really cute. She looks like such a little girl with her hair in piggies. My baby isn't a baby anymore.

You can see how red her little eye bags are too. She's teething again, more, still. She slept in till 9:30 today and only made it till 11:30 before going down for a two-hour nap. Poor kid. Teething is such a long and painful process for her. She's working on her 12th tooth right now. Hopefully more are coming in at the same time.

You can see one of her piggies a little better from this angle. They didn't last long. She pulled one out right away. I put it back and showed her herself in the mirror. She liked that a lot. They lasted a few more minutes this time before she pulled one out. Then she brought the ponytail holder to me and wanted me to put it back in. After awhile she took it out, but put the ponytail holder on top of her head and thought she was pretty hot stuff. Love it.