Our current home

We got our first house! We close on May 14th and then we are doing new carpet, paint, doors and appliances. We hope to move in towards middle of June. After we move in, we will work on landscaping and new grass (sod). Currently I don't have any pictures of the house but can write about it. :)

It's 4 bedroom, 2 bath with a "bonus room" that is unfinished next to the garage. It will currently serve as the man cave until we decide to finish the room and make it a 5th bedroom. It's almost 2,000 sq feet and has a wonderful backyard with beautiful covered patio and waterfall (that is broken). It has tile flooring throughout the kitchen, dining room and hallway. Granite counter tops in the kitchen and gas fireplace. There a about 6-7 mature palm trees in the front yard with spotlights on them and a cute little front porch to fit my bench swing. :)

We recently found out that in 2006, this house sold for 295k!! And we bought it for 127k! We are able to get the 8k Federal Tax Credit and the California State Tax Credit as well for 6k. We have been truly blessed with this house and cannot wait to start working on it and move in!

As I talk about this new house, I know I will really miss the house we live in now. We live in a beautiful gated community with such great neighbors and quiet streets. Here are some pictures of our current home that will be missed.

Poppies

Poppies are in bloom here in Southern California. They are my favorite flower. We drove to the Poppy Reserve about 20 minutes from our house on Sunday (after church of course...). It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. This was FAR more enjoyable than our little trip to Disneyland last week!

What's That?

Kids. Gotta love em.

Time Out

The horsey had a time out today. He hit the bunny and was in big trouble. He went to time out 4 times in a row. Emerald was very frustrated with him. She scooted up a chair and sat there and watched horsey the whole time he was in time out. (Making sure he wouldn't leave or start playing)

It's amazing how much kids notice things that you do. I hear Emerald telling Charlie, "No, no, no Chareee" or sometimes she says to him, "Wanna go time out Charee?!?"

I hope she learns some good things from me...and I'm sure she will learn a few bad...like when I say the word "bitchin". Hmmm...oh well!

Who is LENA B. ?!?

It all started on a sunny afternoon in Cedar City, Utah. Doug yelled my name from across the hotel room in his famous "Icabod" voice (that doesn't sound anything like Icabod Crane, but we call it the Icabod voice). He yelled "LLLLIIIIISSSSAAAA!" but to me, I heard, "LLLLEEEEEEENNNAAAA!"

And that's it. That's how the beginning of my nickname, LENA, came about. Ya, I know. Oh. My. Heck. So. Dumb. After that, we laughed at the name of Lena (an inside family joke due to someone we knew who was also named Lena....but we can't go into that :)). Doug decided to tell all his friends at school to start calling me Lena and all my friends to start calling me Lena. It spread and now most close friends call me Lena....even though my REAL name is Lisa...Lena is my nickname....even though Lena is a real name. :)

Other versions of Lena:
Lena B.
Lene
Leeny Weeny

Oh, Oops

I forgot to post that Charlie is now WALKING! He will be 16 months next week so it's about time he started walking. Maybe he will burn some of that fat from his thighs...or maybe not...it's cute no matter what. :) Love my Charlie baby...it's hard to see him walk because now he is no longer a "baby" and so now I'm going to need a new baby for a replacement...........we will just leave it at that. ;)

February 2010

Jacob was able to come home a few days early from his travels with work and so we were able to spend Valentine's Day together. We went to the restaurant Claim Jumper in Palmdale...YUM. Then we went and saw the movie Valentine's Day (seemed fitting for the occasion) and it was a great movie.

Also in February, I joined a Book Club (yes, it is very exciting...so exciting I am blogging about it). This book club is with a bunch of other mothers that live within the Antelope Valley...so anywhere in Lancaster, Palmdale and Rosamond (where we live). I found this group on Yahoo Groups and there are about 35 members, I think. It is such a great group!! It's wonderful to meet other Moms out there and get a little culture (not your typical "mormon mommy" group lol). So we are reading the book "Certain Girls" by Jennifer Weiner (yes, that is really her last name...love it). It's a great book...give it a read!

We went to Vegas towards the end of February for a conference Jacob went to for work. It was a good time...we had a two bedroom hotel room and me and the kids had fun getting out and checking the town out. There are TONS of fun things to do with kids there...kind of funny I think. We planned to stay there Wed-Sunday so we could have the whole weekend to visit both of our families that live there...but we left Friday night because Vegas just gets to you! It was great walking The Strip at night and seeing the people passing out porn cards on the corners...they smiled at us with our two kids and our giant double stroller full of snacks and extra diapers, etc.

We went to a Young Women camp fundraiser one weekend and participated in the dessert auction. I was aiming for the "better than sex" cake but once the auction started going up to 10 bucks...I backed out. It sold for 27 bucks! Geez...I hope that was really good cake. The next day I attended our Visiting Teaching Conference. It was so fun...we had breakfast and made lots of cute things for the sisters we VT. I love our ward and the sisters are just wonderful!

And now it's already the second week in March!! We are really excited for the Chili Cook-off this weekend with our ward and the Jalapeno Eating Contest that the Bishop wins every year...except this year. That's right, he's going down this year. I worked at Subway for a good 6 months and I've had my experience eating Jalapenos. Bring. It. On.