Christmas Tree ...

We have a beautiful Christmas tree in our front room! It smells like heaven. Here are some pics of the kids helping us decorate. Becca was very excited to be the one to put the star on top.

After climbing the ladder and reaching over to the top of the tree, she wasn't sure she this was such a special job anymore (and I decided that our humble little star, purchased our first year married, is not really worthy of the size of tree we now have ... I'm looking for a new angel or something).

Pictures of Grandma.

We love you, Great Grandma Hardman!

We had a very eventful week. Last Wednesday night, my Grandma passed away. None of us expected this. She was 78, but we thought she had atleast 5 or 10 more years! She was so peaceful and angelic at Thanksgiving ... she didn't appear to be in poor health and had been recovering very well from her recent shoulder surgery. While we are very sad for ourselves and especially for Grandpa, none of us are sad for Grandma. She had a beautiful, full, and righteous life. One of the blessings/miracles of the week was that all our 29 cousins but 1 arrived for the funeral. We had not seen our Fetty cousins for many, many years. Sterling and his wife and kids stayed at our house for a few days. It was so fun to meet his twins (Camden & Leyton) and baby (Landon). Our kids had a lot of fun together playing Geotrax. Brent and I had a great time getting to know Sterling's wife, Jeannie, who beat us all at Settlers on her first try!

The funeral was beautiful, and the casket was amazing (Grandpa, the expert carpenter, built this masterpiece). I think Grandma is happy and excited that we all were able to get together again. We will miss you, Grandma!

Here comes Christmas!

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, we're excitedly getting our new house ready for Christmas. Here's Nathan and Becca by their newly hung stockings.

Can you tell by the red rashy faces that these kids have had colds? 'Tis the season.

Okay, Becca's messy face is mostly leftover lunch, but her sponge-curled hair makes up for it, don't you think?

Happy Holiday season, everyone!

It's another BOY!!!

We saw baby #4 at the ultrasound yesterday. Looks like Becca and Mom are now even more out-numbered. Becca was slightly put out at first, but after 24 hours of processing the news, she is now very excited to have yet another brother.

I'm very excited! Boys are so much fun (although this may mean some shopping ... Sam has destroyed most of the clothes Nathan left behind).

Fun news!

Halloween Highlights ...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!! We're cookin' up chili and cornbread. The kids are loaded with candy from the ward Trunk or Treat last night, but they're determined to go again tonight. Thanks to Aunt Lisa for the lovely Chinese costumes this year. And Brent and Dad came up with these costumes all by themselves:

Becca, Aunt Emma, and Nathan at the 87th (or something like that) annual Hardman Harvest Halloween Happening (did I get all the H's in there?):

Here we are at the pumpkin patch with Becca's preschool group:

And of course, CARVING PUMPKINS:

Sod is a miracle.

Before:

After:

Well, actually, the sod had been in for quite a few weeks before the snow fell. It sure was fun to have a place to build a snowman (and snow dog?), and to have a mud-free snowball fight.

A week or so after our grass was in, the guys next door were frantically trying to finish laying their sod. They finished up just as the first snow began to fall. Here's Brent and the neighbors, soked to the skin and frozen.

I'm a bad blogger ... but I have a good excuse.

I like to blog ... really! But when you're a sick mama, your major priorities are: make sure the kids get fed some form of food at mealtimes, don't throw up your own food, and lay on the couch as often as possible. Blogging is something like priority #478. So, for the last few months, that's my excuse.

Somehow (but knock on wood) I'm feeling a little better now at week 20. This post won't be long or impressive, but I thought I'd share a darling picture of my littlest man. Sam has been quite therapeutic this pregnancy, despite his horribly nauseating diapers. This kid just knows when Mom needs a cuddle. Any time I've been down, Sam's run into the room and done something very cute to make me smile. What a sweet kid! And he's getting very good at saying lots of boyish words like "dirt", "rock", "choo choo", "car", "truck", "Doc" (as in Doc Hudson), "moon", "Dad", and my personal favorite, "helicopter".

Finally!

We're actually starting to feel settled! Our house in Houston closed this week. It's a good feeling to only own one home! We love our new home!!!! We bought in the Cranberry Farms subdivision (new Ivory homes) at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. It is a very convenient location for Brent's work, because he can take the express commuter bus directly from here to his work downtown in just 35 minutes! The house is my perfect floorplan, and if I weren't so ridiculously morningsick with baby #4, I'd be enjoying putting it together. Fortunately we got most of the curtains and blinds up and the kitchen unpacked the day before the sickness really knocked me over. This weekend we're putting sprinklers in ... the grass will come in another week or two (hurray)! Although, little Sam might prefer no grass ... he loves throwing the dirt clods around the yard. He doesn't have a very big word list yet, but he can certainly say, "DIRT". Here's a picture of the kids on the front porch.

July in Utah

Here we are in Utah. The kids have had a good month living in both grandmas' houses. Brent and Jana are enjoying the mountain views and the lack of humidity and bugs.

We're counting our blessings, although we're extremely anxious to be settled. Actually, to tell the truth, it's been quite the roller-coaster. Finding the right home here in Utah ... working on selling the one in Texas ... financing the new one (Utah's not cheap next to Houston!) ... trying to sell the old one ... working out utilities, movers, Ivory Homes issues ... continuously dropping our price in Houston ... etc, etc, etc ... you get the idea. Roller-coaster! Nope, our house hasn't sold yet, and we close on the Utah home in one week.

But let's look at the bright side! Our new home is wonderful ... I couldn't be more excited. We chose to live in Lehi. Brent will ride the commuter express bus each morning to his job downtown. We'll live just a mile from the bus stop, so his commute is like 35 minutes ... pretty great! Our home is on the west side of I-15, just south of Thanksgiving Point. It's a new spec home. We're kind of suckers for new houses I guess (which we blame entirely on our parents, who never bought anything but new houses)! Fortunately we talked Ivory into paying for the sod so we can have a yard soon.

Anyone coming through Lehi, please stop by!!!

Here's a picture of Nathan & Becca helping Grandpa G. blow out the candles on his 50th birthday cake.


Playing out back in the sprinklers with cousin Bailey.

I'm bored ... and I never get bored.

I really don't get bored. I have way too many things I enjoy doing. But all of a sudden, Brent's out of town and I have every evening post-bedtime (7:30 or 8:00) to myself. I've been finding all kinds of things to do to keep my mind off the fact that my house hasn't sold yet and really isn't showing. Still gets a little lonely though. One can only cross-stitch, quilt, read family histories, listen to genealogy talk radio, and clean house so much, ya know (I'm such a nerd)? Tonight I decided to blog, but I had no new pictures, so I took pics of the kids sleeping:

Sweet little kiddos! (What a dangerous thing to do ... the flash could have woken somebody up .... but when you've got to blog, you've got to blog!)

And here's a quilt I cut out the other night. 5 pair of jeans ... takes up the entire TV room, as you can see. Maybe I'll sew it together tonight. What to you think I should do for the backing and border? Recommendations welcome.

Fortunately, I won't have to be "bored" for much longer. Brent's new company just booked flights for the kids and I in one week. Next Monday we'll fly out to spend July in Utah with our daddy.

Emerging baseball star found in Greenhalgh home!

Baseball boy knocks out camera woman

Oh, what do you do in the summertime?

Here we are doing the only thing you can do in Houston outside right now ... SWIM!




Brent had some time off between jobs. For the last week or so we've been playing like crazy with Daddy (trying to get our fill before he drives off to Utah on Friday). We've swam, gone bowling, played mini-golf, explored the Childrens Museum, eaten fantastic dad-made breakfasts, played Geotrax like it's Christmas morning, and kept the house show-ready at all times. Wow, Dads are great!

News Flash!!! Greenhalghs Moving to UTAH!!!!!

Well, it's old news around here, but I haven't told the blog yet. Yep, we're going to Utah. House is for sale as of 2 weeks ago. It's showing like crazy but no interested buyers yet. Pray for us! Brent leaves in 2 days to begin working in Salt Lake City, and Jana and the kiddos hang out in Houston until the house sells.