7 years and counting . . .

Monday marked our Anniversary of seven wonderful years. I recently counted and figured out that we have moved 9 times in those 7 years. Whew! We have made amazing friends, had really wonderful opportunities with our careers, taken a lot of classes, had some great vacations, but most importantly we've grown our family to 5 (next month). We are so blessed in so many ways. The Arave's watched our girls while we went to dinner at Stockman's Grill in Manti. It was yummy and a nice dinner without children. We didn't do anything too exciting. We have been saving for a mattress, a baby and trying to pay off the van, so those are our gifts for each other. Although Greg did get me a Symphony chocolate bar, yum! And we spent the weekend painting our bedroom to start our ongoing bedroom makeover. Greg is a wonderful husband and I dare anyone to disagree with me!

I had to share something funny that Alexis said this week. Actually there has been several things, but this is the best. I was cooking dinner and the girls were playing in the kitchen. Alexis tells Denali, "Mom is the boss and Dad is the Assistant." I laughed and said, "Dad's the Assistant, huh?" She replied, "Yeah. What does Assistant mean?" I told her it means the helper. She decided that she can be my assistant too. Neither Greg or I know where she came up with it, but I thought it was clever and very funny.

Well, I think I am nesting a little early. I have a long to do list that I would like to complete before the baby is born. Which includes painting several rooms, finishing the guest bedroom, decluttering every room and getting to what I feel like is "organized". I think I may have set my goals too high. But I feel motivated to get it all done and have been taking small steps towards the list. I was organizing or attempting to organize the office. For the first time ever, I have a nice sized space for an office/scrapbook/craft room. It's also our library with bookshelves. I am giving away everything I don't really want to keep. The books are going to the local library. If I decide I want to read them, I can always check them out right? Anyway, I am so far behind on scrapbooking, it isn't even funny. And although I have some photo boxes organized and labeled. I also have a lot of loose and misc photos in piles. Not to mention the last 3 or so years that all of the photos are digitally stored among memory cards, multiple computers and only a very few prints have been made. And then I have things like wedding invites, family portraits, christmas cards, etc. from loved ones that I just don't know what to do with. Help! I would love to hear tips on how to organize photos, what works best for you, do you have a portrait album, how should I go about catching up???? I was thinking I should start with January 2009 and December 2008 and then next month work on February and November and go backwards like that while I continue to stay caught up on current. But I really would like to start digital scrapbooking and I don't know much about it, so I really don't know where to start there either. Whew! (Deep breath.) Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I don't have a wedding photo to post, because I don't have any on this computer and am not quite organized enough to do that yet. Maybe soon I can post one though.

Here are two fun pictures though.


Alexis at Denali's age. Alexis had more hair than Denali does, but other than that, they are pretty much identical. I imagine our boy will look the same.

This was our cute little house in Alaska. Our first home.