Where Have All The Harkers Gone?

We are still here!

Seriously.

I promise.

Alive and well...but busy!

 

I can't believe it's been since August that I blogged but it's true and if anyone is still checking this page...well, thank you for being faithful!

 

I don't think I will attempt to make note of everything that has happened in the past 6.5 months but I want to mentionThe passing of one of the world's best Granddads there has ever been!  My mom's dad, Grandpa Gardner, passed away in November.  It was hard for me because I have been lucky enough to have 3 of my grandparents still living and the older I get, the harder it is to let go of some of the most loving and generous people in my life. 

All of that being said, I know he is much happier not being held back by physical limitations in this life.

I love you Grandaddy!

 

Quinton is a smart 1st grader with a bit of attitude for his mom but is always quick to hug me and will always be my first baby!

Sawyer at two and a half is affectionately known as the "destroyer" because he is all about finding out how things work and then making them not work anymore...yep, that about sums him up!

 

Sweet, sweet baby Gavin is already 6 months old!  I can barely believe it but I have the baby weight to prove it, LOL!  He is a very sweet baby and despite my desire to break our "Harker Boy Mold", he seems to ahve come straight from it!  We all love to hug and kiss and squeeze those sweet baby cheeks!

I know this may be a lame attempt at an update but Gavin is already awake and Sawyer...well, he's doing Sawyer-ly things that I have to put an end to before someone gets hurt!



The Big Move of July 2012!

I know I am way behind on blogging but I have to plead my case as a mostly single-mom who is ginormously pregnant (36 weeks tomorrow) and just lacking in time and energy...oh well!

Back to our big move!

Mobile to Lehi, Utah and our new house, which I LOVE but sometimes feels like the movie Money Pitt with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long.  Everything looks nice and new on the surface but sometimes, when you use it or touch it, it falls apart!  For example, we have a cute mailbox but it was pretty wobbly on it's stand.  It finally fell off it's stand this week and Matt is out of town for two weeks so I had to figure out how to re-mount it in 100 degree heat...little stuff like that keeps popping up.  I still enjoy our new house but home ownership is HARD!

The moving truck being unloaded:

At least the boys were easy to find that first day moving in!  They LOVE the backyard!

 My super awesome dad drove down from Idaho to help us move!  I think he entertained the kids more than he unpacked but hey, it takles a village!  This is the garage...I wish I could say it looks less full of boxes but it doesn't....I am too pregnant at this point to have any desire to move ALL of this stuff in the house!  I venture out here once in a blue moon...mostly for baby stuff...but not too often!

 I wanted to throw in some pictures of the boys from 4th of July.  We had such a fun day and ended it spending time with Matt's parents...not bad for a crazy couple of weeks!

 Here's Q, playing with his sparklers!  Check out those mountains behind him!

I know it may not seem like a lot but it took 2 trips to the bathroom, a sippy cup refill, a fight break-up and some additional refereeing to get this blog post up!  Crazy, I know!

Better Pictures of the New House!

Whew!  I found more pictures of the house online so I thought I'd share since a few people wanted to see the trampoline buried in the backyard!

This is a view of the side yard with cute little pergola and raised bed garden with sprinkler system.  My dad and nieces and nephew went by the house today and called me from it...my dad is ready to start planting the gardens before we even get there!

 Here is a view of the backyard from the opposite side of the sideyard above.  I really like the look of the stamped concrete deck in the back.

 This is the front room again but Matt tells me there is a great view of the mountains from that front window...I can't wait!

 This is still the front room from the fireplace looking out to the hallway/dining area.  The sellers put a flat screen on that far wall with benches in front but I have already been pinning ideas on Pinterest to put a nice coat/cubby system here since the house doesn't have a real mudroom.

 This is one of the bathrooms...I am not actually sure if this is upstairs or downstairs in the basement but I am guessing it's the basement bathroom.

 I like this view of the kitchen because from here, it looks like it's a nice wide space to work in and cook!  I like the white kitchen so much, I am having a friend at Tin Barn Creations repaint our wood dining set!  The table will be a nice pale yellow and the chairs will be creamy off-white.  I am really excited to see how it will all fit together!

 This is the little office nook in the kitchen.  I can just picture Quinton sitting here whining about doing his homework!

 I think this is the upstairs guest bathroom.  I love the high end tile finishes!

 And one of my favorites, this is the master bathroom!  It is not one of the biggest we saw during our house hunt but I LOVE the tub with the chandelier above it and all of the nice tile finishes in the bathroom.

 This is the shower...nice!  I'm thinking a glass door would look a lot better than the curtain, though.

 The tilework at the base of the shower...

 Looking into the master bedroom from the bathroom.  One of the fun surprises is that little grey rectangle in the bottom right of the picture is a laundry shoot!  How cool is that???

 The master closet...I may need to store some stuff in the basement closets but it'll be nice and roomy, I think.

 The media room in the basement.  The sellers are leaving the black sectional and the surround sound!  I can't wait to have movie nights in this house!!!

 The laundry room: The sellers had TWO sets of stackables in this laundry room...too bad they took them with them!  I am excited for the nice shelving though for sorting clean and folded laundry!

 A better look at the shelving in the laundry room.

 One of the basement bedrooms that actually looks like it gets pretty good light.

 The raised garden beds that my dad is all ready to plant!

 The famed buried trampoline which Alabamans have a hard time picturing, I think because of the water table here.  If you did this in Mobile, it would be full of rain water most of the time!

And that is the tour for now!  I am glad I found the rest of the pictures online so I can keep a good vision of it in my mind.  We are madly packing and getting ready!

Matt leaves tomorrow for another two week stint in Alaska so I am bracing myself for a crazy two weeks.  Wish me luck, though!

The American Dream

Matt and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary this weekend and what better way to celebrate than to buy a house, right?

With Matt's current client, he is in Alaska or traveling to/from Alaska about 16 days out of each month...barely leaving two weeks at home with me and the boys but at least when he is home, he is not working which is a treat in and of itself that makes up for the time he's gone.  Within 2 days of receiving this job offer back in February, we found out we are pregnant with baby #3 which is a HUGE blessing but also VERY daunting given the new schedule we were presented with his new client.  Needless to say, my lack of blogging over the past few months has been a direct result of just how hard it is to be a part-time family.

As part of this job transition and rotation lifestyle, we made the difficult decision to leave Alabama for Utah and all of the prospects of family support that it holds for us.  We haven't loved Alabama the past 20 or so months but we have loved the people who have become our friends here.  Through MUCH discussion...I mean A LOT of discussion, we decided to try and buy a  house in Utah.  We know the future holds more relocations for us but we decided that buying a house now would be a good long-term investment, even if we have to rent it out on down the road.

The poast 4 months has been a supreme blur of looking at houses online, looking through list after list that realtors have sent us and going back and forth between renting and buying...BUT, all of our hard work has paid off...we hope!

This is the house in Lehi, Utah that we are under contract for...finally!

I know it looks old on the outside but the inside has been a complete remodel!

Personally, I think the white picket fence is a little cliche but oh-so-cute (and functional with a 2 year old who LOVES to wander)!

 This is the living room as you walk into the front door.  The floors are a beautiful travertine tile which I think will hold up to my boys pretty well!

 From the doorway looking into the dining room.  Originally, we had wanted a family room that opened to the kitchen & dining areas but I really liked the flow of this house.  No, I haven't been in it but Matt was there on Friday and both he and the agent LOVED this house.

 The kitchen...what can I say?  Usually I like the nice natural wood colors but this kitchen just seems so crisp and clean and modern.  I can HARDLY wait to get in the house to see it all for myself!

 Another angle of the kitchen from the dining area...it looks more spacious in this picture.

This is the hallway that houses the three upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms, looking towards the family room.  The stairs lead down to the basement that has three more bedrooms, a storage room, a media room, laundry room and full bathroom.  Can you say bring on the houseguests???

There are more pictures to the house but I can only get so much posted right now!  I am too excited to move on to our next chapter that includes making this house a home for our growing family!  Maybe my next few posts will be about the joys of packing with a handy 2 year old!

Four on the 4th!

I am so far behind on posting updates to my blog so I thought I'd start with a baby step...four pictures from last month on the 4th of April!  I know, it's random...oh well!

Last month, my big sister had a law conference in New Orleans and since it's only about 2 hours away, I was game to go and spend the night with her and enjoy the big easy without kids!

I look awful in this picture - no really - I was still in the throes of having bad morning sickness so this was the cutest I could do for myself with no energy and trying not to puke from the weird smells!  But I do love my sis!

Quinton's school celebrated Dr. Suess' 100th birthday and they were able to dress funny (but still in uniform).  This was our best Dr. Suess look! 

 Just a funny picture of Sawyer being cheesy as is usually the case...he always cracks me up!

Matt and his shadow mowing the lawn.  It was funny to watch!  Sawyer walked behind Matt the whole way with his tractor - up and down the rows- acting like he was mowing, too!

Time Flies...

Time flies when you are having fun or at least that's the way the saying goes, right? It seems like time is passing us by at a breakneck speed! I swear it was only yesterday that Sawyer was crawling and now he can leap over small buildings! The Lego kind, that is!

Argh! As I'm typing, thinking Sawyer is snug in his bed about to fall asleep for him nap, he is knocking on his door! YIKES! Two nights ago, he discovered he can climb in and out of his crib...wasn't he just crawling yesterday???

Now I am back...Sawyer isn't going to take his nap anytime soon, so the 3 or 4 blog posts I wanted to catch up on and the photobook I am procrastinating doing for a Christmas gift isn't likely to get done either. Oh bother!

But who can help lovin' this little boy to pieces?

Inevitably, most days the ice cream van comes down the street...I know I could say no, but what's the fun and indulgence in always saying no to your kids? Pfft, that's daddy's job! :)

This is the little neighbor kid enjoying his ice cream, too.

I found another bike carrier in the trash one day and Matt pumped up the tires and it's good as new! Now I can make Quinton tow his little brother!

One of the reasons October was so busy was that quinton had fall soccer league going on and Matt was coaching. It was a very interesting league with some wacky rules for games but Matt managed to make it fun for all of the kids!

Quinton and his friend, Cameron. She played on his spring soccer league for the first time and she enjoyed it so much (and was so good) that she dropped out of dance to keep plaing soccer in the fall!

Although he isn't officially on a soccer team, we like to dress him like he is! Sawyer WISHES he could go and play with Quinton's team...he's always running onto the field the second I take my eyes off of him!

We also made it to the county fair in October! It was so fun to see Quinton try a few of the bigger kid rides. My only beef with the fair is that it's so freaking expensive! We went on a night where admission was only $1 per person but when you get inside, everything is so darn expensive! Jeez!

Quinton ALWAYS loves the bungee ride. He's good at flipping, too.

Look at the sweet angelic face. You would never know that behind these sparkling blue eyes is the mind of genius destroyer! Seriously, he can undo just about anything that I just did in a matter of seconds! I love him, though!

Yep, these were the BAG of pecans we picked from a friends' yard...

And last but not least, Halloween! Christmas and Halloween are my two favorite holidays to decorate for and this year was fun! We did Angry Bird pumpkins!

Plus, for like the first time ever, we ALL dressed up. Even Matt and me! This rarely happens cause I am usually so busy, I forget to do a costume! Since Halloween fell on a school day this year, I even rode my bike to school to pick up Quinton with this outfit on!

Halloween night trick-or-treating. Seriously, the candy haul these guys brought home was epic!!!

And that's it for October, folks.