I have realized there are several reasons for my delay in updating my blog. One of those reasons is because I feel like I always need to post pictures with my updates. Well, who says you have to post pictures?!! There are no blog rules! So, here you have it. Plain, simple, pictureless blogging. I love it!

Yahoo for December. And yahoo for a simple Christmas! Keven and I have made it a priority to do things simple this year and it has been SO great! Simple gifts. Simple plans. Love it. Doing things simply have truly made the small portin of this Christmas season more pure for me. I am grateful to celebrate the birth of our Savior and rejoice in His life, teachings, example, and atonement.

Nothing crazy new with us Walls. Just living the good life, in simple holiday fashion. Hannah has fallen in love with the Christmas Carol cartoon Mickey and gang does. She likes to say "Bahumabug" like Scrooge. Very cute. Spencer is a hansome lad that continues to be my snuggle pal. He is getting in the crawling mode. He does the rocking back and forth on hands and knees. This boy loves to jump so when he learns that he can move on his own I wonder if I will be able to keep any control over him? I'll keep you posted on that one.

Does anyone else believe that this is one of the coldest winter seasons ever?!! Seriously, I don't remember it being so cold! I have always felt I can handle the cold well but I think I might be becoming a wimp. I am cold all the time! Sorry, not trying to complain here- as I am not one for complaining. I am just stating a fact. :)

We are excited for all the new friends we are awaiting to meet -- Baby Holbrook, Baby Sorenson, and Baby Nixon. Also to Baby Jace and Baby Jacob who have arrived but we haven't seen in person yet! Love you guys!

Wow, I really am all about the pictureless blogging. How simple and easy. Look forward to more of in the future. :)

New Family Pictures

Yahoo for new pictures! And thanks to Aubrey who took them for us!!

I wanted to show this picture because it really portrays Hannah's go-go personality. This particular pictures shows all the cute granddaughters. Do you notice the one girl who can't seem to stay looking forward? That would be our Hannah. Aubrey shot TONS of pictures, and only a few of them actually have Hannah looking in a somewhat forward direction. The pebbles that could be thrown off the bridge which much more entertaining!!

A Much Needed Update!

Alright folks, here it is. Our long awaited post of pictures. Hang on tight because we have quite the stream of pictures. Welcome to some of the Wall 2009 Summer highlights!

Here is our cute Spencer Russell Wall on his blessing day ~ July 5th, 2009.

This is Hannah hugging her bestest friend, Caleb. My how Hannah loves her friend! The Sorensens have now moved from our little neighborhood and Hannah is missing Caleb quite a lot.


The shirt says it all! What a cute Utah Man we have!!

Spencer is getting super big! He is now 3 1/2 months. He has the sweetest smile and dispostion. He also is going to be a tall boy, he is already growing out of his 3-6 months oneies!

Brother and Sister chillin on the bed. Hannah is a great big sister!

Farwell to Aunt Lydia who is teaching English in China until December!! We surely miss her lots!

Our cute Spencer in the tub!

We had a surprise 60th birthday for my Mom. Here is part of the crowd from the party.

These are two of my Mom's wonderful friends, Chris and Mary. Thanks for coming ladies!

Happy 60th Birthday Mom!

Here is the latest addition to the Wall Family. Poor Keven has wanted a dog since we got married but so far it had been to no avail. It only took our neighbor, Billy Stone, and some superb selling tactics to get a dog in our home. I am not a big pet person but this little dog has fit in quite nicely. Pebbles is one of a kind! The right size and perfect energy drainer for Hannah!

Yahoo for a successful garden! I am still amazed at the wonderful vegetables we have been harvesting! - especially as I have ignored this garden all summer with Spencer being born. If ignoring a garden can produce this great stuff then I would recommend it to all!

The Paget Family Reunion - thanks for a great time everyone! We loved it! And thanks to the Cranes for putting it all together!

Here is Hannah participating in the little kids donut eating contest!

My first donut eating contest - I am a huge fan!

Hannah and Garrett

Keven playing the blind folded dueling game.

Garrett kept pretending to be dead and Hannah was very concerned.

Here is our wild girl! Hannah has spent the summer jumping on the trampoline, riding her bike, playing with the neighborhood friends, swimming in the kid pool, etc. We love our Hannah!

This is Hannah's first horse riding experience. I thought she would be scared, but she was quite the opposite. She loved it!

Thanks for staying with me through the end of our picture session. What a great summer we have had and yahoo for the coming fall! Hope all is well for all our blog friends!

Ironic

Alright, here is my rambling story. I find it SO ironic!

So, I have been raving about how this delivery has been a breeze compared to our first delivery. It really has for the most part, but the past two weeks have given me a run for my money. This is why.


#1 - Last week my sweet husband got me a used elliptical machine for my birthday. I was very excited, because as most women can attest, the weight with the second baby does not come off as fast as the first. I have been very anxious to start exercising because I would love to be able to wear my clothes again! Anyway, I technically should probably not be exercising at this point in my recovery but I guess I felt rules don't apply to those such as myself. So while using the exercise machine for the first time a screw came loose and I went crash. No fun. Totally sprained my ankle, but really am lucky it wasn't worse. Needless to say, I have stopped using the exercise machine. My sprained ankle is doing lots better. When I first hurt it I couldn't even walk! I was super scared because I couldn't imagine trying to care for a newborn and 2 year old on crutches. Luckily after a few hours I was able to limp around on it. Since then it has gotten better every day. You probably wouldn't even notice I hurt it if you saw me now. And as a kind friend said, maybe I got thrown off the machine to save me from getting myself hurt worse since I really should not be exercising anyway.


#2 - Monday night I started feeling funky. Tuesday I didn't eat because I felt weird. By Tuesday evening flu had set it like crazy! Seriously, I don't think I have ever had the flu this bad. Nursing and not holding down food for a few days is not a good combination. But hopefully I am now on the mend. I did get checked for swine flu and I am negative. Thank goodness! And thank goodness for IV's that can put fluid into you when you can't do it yourself!

Last night Keven and I were talking about how crazy the past two weeks have been, and I find it quite ironic. I truly had felt this delivery recovery had been too easy, I have felt so great! Especially for having a c-section........but I guess you never know what is waiting around the corner.

Hopefully there are no more health adventures awaiting us. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

The Boy

Here is a quick update on the boy!

Spencer is such a sweet baby! He is easy going, mild, and loves to cuddle! He is growing in a manner to catch up with the likes of Hannah's big baby size. He gained a full pound and two inches his first week and a half home! His hair is blonde with a redish tint to it. Everyone says he looks like his Daddy, which I must agree with.

Here are a few fun photos to share!

Can you believe this? Already a thumb sucker! No, not really. But we have caught him this way a few times!!

And then there were four!

Welcome to Spencer Russell Wall!!

Born May 15th, 2009 @ 9:02 a.m.

7 lbs 9 ozs 19 1/2 inches

Updating...

Hello friends. I am here to update our little blog since it's been almost a month since my last post. I wish I could upload some pictures for you, but sadly I can't find the necessary cord equipment. I think it got misplaced in our office move...... So the updates.

#1 - Our house projects are finally almost done! Yahoo! The basement is finished (okay, we need to touch up our molding, but it's close enough for me!), the kitchen projects are done, and the boy's room is officially painted w/ crib and dresser up. The paint job in the baby's room turned out great! I am still getting used to the basement color, but I could rave forever about how I love the baby's room!

#2 - We are 9 days and counting until our scheduled c-section for "the boy". Can't wait!! I think Hannah is finally grasping the idea of a new brother. Today I found her playing around with the baby car seat I pulled out to clean. When asked what she was doing she told me she was cleaning brother's seat. Super cute.

#3 - Other updates? Let's see......life is just pretty much the same thing for us! Keven is still working with Superior Insulation. He loves it and so do I. What a great company to work for! He is still serving in the Elder's Quorum Presidency, always the constant fix-it man for everyone, and the forever comedian. We sure love this guy! Hannah is busy as ever, but learning and growing so much! She continues to amaze me with her speech level. She can say everything and anything and is always coming up with new phrases and sayings. She loves playing outside and would spend all of her time in the backyard if allowed. Can't complain about that! And me - well I am just here, busily preparing our house for new baby. Super excited to be almost done with pregnancy! I am looking forward to summer days with family and friends. I still serve in the YW and also find myself busy with Brighton, as is that season again. I have got 7 of 8 devotionals scheduled so I can go into new baby world with peace. I love the neighborhood activities I am lucky to be involved in- bookgroup, playgroup, bunco. Super good times!

That is about it! Stay posted for the arrival of Baby Wall next Friday, May the 15th!!

2009 Home Projects

Here are some of the promised pictures of why I feel like I have been so out of the blogging world. We have been working on some major home projects for the past 6 weeks and are still in the middle of finishing. Our home is officially a huge mess but it will be worth it!

First, Keven is amazing. He is seriously the most handy man ever! All these pictures show work that Keven has done with his own two hands. He never ceases to amaze me with what he can do!

The first big project we undertook was re-roofing our house. OH MY, that was huge! And we are SO glad it is behind us! Just as a word of advice to any others that may need a new roof, you may seriously want to consider hiring it out! It was such an incredible amount of work and we would never have accomplished it except for the amazing neighbors we have! I felt so guilty watching the men who were literally on our roof ALL day and into the late evening. They looked SO exhausted!!!
Thanks again to all of you who came and gave us a hand because we would never have finished it without you! We are truly blessed with wonderful neighbors and friends!

The next big project has been finishing an unfinished room in our basement. We are planning to move our upstairs office downstairs to this new room and let "the boy", as I like to call him, have the other upstairs room.
Finishing the room downstairs has also included MANY other things. At the same time we have put in lights in our living room, which did not have lights before. We were able to have our basement and upstairs insulated -- yahoo for finally have a warm house!!! We fixed our upstairs ceiling, as it was struggling from new lighting, a swamp cooler hole, and nail pops from new insulation.
Wow! Are you feeling overwhelmed reading this??!! I am feeling tired just looking at all this work!

Here are a few insights to our lovely projects -

New upstairs lights

Holes in the wall from insulation. We had to patch them up and repaint.

And this is the after picture. Can't even tell them were MAJOR holes here before!

Here is Hannah's cute hand print in the plaster of our wall. She had a hard time keeping out of all the mess!

This is one of the first pictures of our unfinished room. Keven knocked out walls, then framed the room, put up insulation, and then drywall. Seriously, what a handy guy!

Like the archway? All praise goes to Kev!

We were able to paint a bunch of our house this weekend and this is the basement color. It didn't turn out quite like I planned but it is always nice to have a fresh coat of paint! Thanks to our family for helping out with that project!!

And here is our tile-less floor. Keven is now getting ready to lay laminate flooring in the basement hallway and new office.

And don't you worry, there is still more to come! We need to put up the floor molding, paint the baby's room, and then put in the A/C!!

We are five week away from new baby! People keep on asking me if I am ready for a new little one and I am surely getting there. I think once all these home projects are done I will be more than ready! But for now I am content to wait until the house is back in order. I am not a good person in living with a mess but I have had to become one. Keven has done a very timely job with everything so I am not complaining, I just will be happy when we are living construction zone free!
I know I promised a picture of me but I still haven't taken a recent shot. I PROMISE that will be my next post! And also the updates of our continued home projects!

Happy Birthday!!

Hooray for Birthdays! Hannah celebrated her 2nd birthday this past week - how the time flies!

On her birthday we were able to play at the park with her boyfriend, go to dinner, get an ice cream cone, and pick out a toy. Miss Hannah picked a baby doll with a toy car seat. It is super cute to watch her carry the doll and/or stuffed animals in the car seat, she loves it!

Sunday we had a little party with our family. Hannah did a great job of blowing out the candles. Blew them right out before we had even finished singing!
I made a cake in the shape of an ice cream cone and I am happy to report that it turned out looking okay! I get nervous adventuring in things such as cake decorating, but this one turned out better than I expected!
Thanks to all our family for coming to Hannah's party! She was spoiled rotten and we greatly appreciate everyone's kindness!

Also, I have been asked several times about posting a picture of myself with the prego look. I promise I will work on that soon. I will also post the pictures of our house projects, as there have been so many going on lately! So get excited for a fun post of growing Cary and changing house!

Hannah's Happenings

Hooray for Hannah's latest Happenings!
I apologize, as this post will be completely about Hannah and her newest adventures!

First, Hannah had her first official haircut! Her hair was getting quite long so we decided it was time for a trim. Here is the before picture.

And here we are after!

Daddy did a great job holding Hannah in place and a movie did a great job of keeping her somewhat entertained. We took off a few inches. I was the bold and daring hair cutter, who very much appreciates the encouragement I got from family and friends. It wasn't as hard as I thought and it turned out great!

Second, Hannah is potty trained!!! A couple of weeks ago she decided she didn't like wearing diapers. She started taking them off more and more and we didn't want to press her to keep wearing diapers so we took the plunge into potty training.
The first few days were pretty rough but then it suddenly clicked and since then things have been great! I am still in shock over how quickly she caught on and how well she has done. I truly was expecting it to be more difficult. She has had a few accidents but besides that she is doing fabulous!
Hannah loves her big girl underwear and sports just them continually.

These last few pictures show one of Hannah's newest interests. She loves to color! We have tried to drill down the fact that coloring only occurs on paper, but that hasn't quite sunk in.
One day we came in to find her decorating herself and our bedspread in black pen. And the pictures do not do justice to the job she did. She was covered in black ink! So were our bedspread and pillowcases.
Keven and I were shocked to silence. We first took pictures, laughed, and then tried to once again drill down the "no pens" rule we have. Gotta love it! Our bedspread will now have a new design made from the love and artistic ability of Hannah!