News from Nebraska.

We just can't keep it a secret for any longer...

Baby Norman #2 joining our family January 8, 2013!

P.S. I found a super cute idea on pinterest that I wanted to use to announce our exciting news- a picture of Keaton holding out the ultrasound picture- but Keaton wasn't gonna have it. He is most definitely in the "if I wanna do it I'll do it, if I don't I won't" stage of toddler-hood. :) I 

I live in Nebraska?!

I still picture our home to be in our little apartment in Orem, Utah. Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and think we are there. At the grocery store, the gas station, or the pharmacy I keep thinking I see people that I know- family and friends from home- and then I remember... that it can't be them cause they don't live here.

It just doesn't feel real to me yet that we live here.

I live in Nebraska.

For years now, I have had this "Today I feel..." magnet on our fridge. It cost me $1 in the dollar section at Target. It's silly, and I probably wouldn't have kept it for this long except Maddie seems to really love it whenever she has come to visit.

Maddie: "Ashley, how do you feel today? Hungry? Fat?! Ha, ha, ha." (As she proceeds to laugh hysterically.)

I just love it.

So, this picture is for her.

And, here is my answer these days Mads- I feel ZANY.

Absolutely and completely zany. I guess it is from the move. My life just feels in a constant state of "newness?" (I don't know how else to describe it?)

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing. We really like it here. So far, I really like it here. For the next year Columbus, Nebraska is our home and so far there are quite a few things that I really like about it. So, I decided to make a little list.

10 things that I LOVE about Columbus, Nebraska: (so far :) )

#1- The first thing I noticed and automatically loved about Nebraska is all the trees. There are no mountains, or hills, or absolutely anything like that here, like Utah, but there are tons, and tons, and tons of beautiful, huge trees. They line the streets and fill the neighborhoods and I think they are gorgeous and a very enjoyable part of Nebraska.

#2- There are lightning bugs here! There are definitely no lightning bugs in Utah. I love sitting outside at night with Justin and Keat and watching for lightning bugs in our yard. I also have really enjoyed when we have been driving at night and I've been able to look out into all the farm fields- there are tons and tons of lightning bugs out there! It's fun and makes me happy for sure.

#3- We have air conditioning here! Which is a very 1st for us since we have been married. It was almost torture in our last apartment with how hot it would get in the summertime! On the very worst days our temperature gauge in our apartment would read anywhere from 90 degrees to 97 degrees!!! I honestly don't know how I did it?! Having central air is a dream. :) It is quite humid here (as my hair can attest to), and because of the heavy humidity having air conditioning (in my opinion) is just that much better.

 #4- We have a dishwasher! Need I say more? We have never had a dishwasher before either.

#5- (This is kinda a silly one, but nonetheless...) Our mailbox is right outside our front door. At our old apartment we had to walk around the block to get to our mailbox, and although that isn't the worst thing ever :) it is quite convenient to have the mailbox so close by. Plus, it also means that we have a walking (for lack of a better word?) mailman, which I happen to think is quite fun.

#6- There are bunnies hopping around all over the place here- in our backyard, at the parks, and in the fields. It's so cute! I keep telling Justin that he needs to catch one for Keaton to have for a pet. :) He says that would be really hard and won't even try for me! (We also see lots of squirrels, and  lots of noisy birds in our yard, which Keaton loves.)

#7- We have the Disney channel! (I've already mentioned this before, but I think it's worth mentioning it again.) We have Disney, Disney XD, and Disney Jr. I love, love, love it. It makes me happy daily. And, since we are finally unfinished packing and all settled in, I finally have a little extra time to watch all things Disney. (Which usually happens during naptime. Justin is a stink and won't let me watch the Disney channel once he gets home from work.) Having the Disney channel also means we have cable. Another 1st. And, although Justin won't admit it, I think he is enjoying watching movies and tv shows with me that we wouldn't be able to watch otherwise, plus I know he will enjoy watching sports in the future. :)

#8- It is quite fun to live in a house. We have 3 floors and so, so, so much room. (It might take me quite a bit longer to clean than our teeny, tiny apartment, which is a negative for me, but it may be the only one. :) ) It's weird, to have so much space, but I've grown to love it already. It's a new, fun, good experience. Plus, it is in fact a cute little house, in a cute little neighborhood, in quaint little Columbus, (emphasis on the little) Nebraska. :)

#9- We can hear the "choo-choo" trains... Okay, so this isn't exactly a "love" about Columbus, Nebraska thing. The trains are close to our house and go by quite frequently all the while blowing their horns as loud as possible- particularly at night. We learned the hard way that it isn't a great idea to leave our windows open at night. (between the trains all through the night and the noisy birds starting at the crack of dawn...). We are getting more and more used to the trains everyday, but there are still nights when I wake up to the sound of the trains horns blowing, and blowing, and blowing all through town. It isn't as annoying anymore (as long as our windows are closed, of course), but it does sometimes scare me a little- like I am waking up from a scary dream just to realize it's just another train. On a more positive note, Keaton gets super, super excited when he hears the trains and looks around and says, "Oooh!" and "Choo-choo." :)

#10- (I am going to kinda combine 2 things in this one.) I am 100% a stay at home mom now. It is amazingly wonderful and I can't help but hoping that is lasts forever. :) And, I have a husband now!
He, he. Just kidding. That is probably not very fair to say. But, with Justin only working now, Keaton and I see him so much more which is so great. We get to do so many more things together as a family now- family dinners, bike rides, walks, movie nights, just purely spending time with Keaton, and we even got gym memberships at the YMCA (which has free daycare, not that Keaton will like it- it is much too much like nursery... we'll see how that goes!).

Happy, happy, happy. That's what all these things make me. Which is good, cause as much as I like it here so far, it is still an adjustment. I have never lived so far away from family and friends, in such a small, unfamiliar place. But, Columbus, Nebraska it is quickly growing on us. And, all these things I love so far, daily put a smile on my face.

P.S. (Instead of adding a #11, but would be very wrong of me not to mention) EVERYONE we have met here- everyone in the branch, our neighbors, Justin's co-workers- has been extremely nice and welcoming to us. We have already made quite a few friends. :)

Columbus, Nebraska feels like home more and more everyday and in a year I fear that we will love it here so much we won't be ready to leave! But, for now, we plan on livin' it up and just enjoying every second of our time here because, like time frequently does, I'm sure it will fly by much too fast!

A family photo shoot.

So, also back in May, Heather took a few family pictures for my whole family. (My mom mailed these pictures to me and I had to scan them into the computer... which lowered the picture quality quite a bit... but, I still really wanted to use them, so just know that the real photos don't have problems like these one do. :) )

Our family is growing like crazy!

The Nebraska sky.

It was kinda stormy out the other night and the sky just looked absolutely beautiful.

We *heart* BYU.

Back in May (Friday, May 11th) my cousin Tad and his wife Heather came to Orem to visit us for a bit and Heather took some cute family "BYU" pictures for us on campus. She did a great job and I think they turned out super cute. Here are a few of my favorites...

I love the silly face Keat is making. :)

And, of course we had to get a few pictures of Keaton driving daddy's race car!

I have a pretty cute little family, don't ya think. ;)

All caught up.

And, there was sure a lot to catch up on!

Hello, from Columbus, Nebraska!

We have been incredibly busy the last few weeks with the big move and such so I haven't had a chance till today to catch up our blog.

But, as of now I am completely caught up.

You MUST scroll down and down and down to see all the new posts...(You even have to click "older posts" enable to see EVERYTHING new.) You don't want to miss out on any of the fun and crazy things we have been up to lately. :)

Our new wheels.

Last Thursday we bought bikes!

Justin and his bike, and Keaton's seat for him to ride in. :)

 "Hi."

Keaton is in love and is so happy and content every time we go on a bike ride. And, every time we stop or he thinks we are done riding and he isn't ready yet he signs "more, more" over and over again. :)

Oh, and here is my super cute purple bike which I rather love. Sorry, no picture of me on my bike cause let's be honest, I hate taking a picture with just me, alone. And, there was no one around to take a picture of all of us together.

Attack of the killer ants!

Okay, so maybe not killer ants, but they are HUGE and they are GROSS! Can you see them? These pictures don't even do justice to ALL the ants that were EVERYWHERE in our kitchen the past couple of days. We move our food in and the ants moved in right along with it!

So, what do we do? We put up little ant bait traps with pesticide in them to kill them!

And, fortunately it seems to have worked. As of this morning the alive ants are few and far between and most of the ants are either dead in these lovely ant "restaurants" or dead on the ground. It's gross to clean them all up, but better dead that alive!!!

Home Sweet Home.

Our house in Columbus, Nebraska- the place we will call home for the next year. The unpacking is finally over and I am pleased with how everything turned out. We love our new little house! It is crazy to have so much space after living in such a tiny apartment for so long.

Let me give you a tour... (I wanted to take a picture of the front of our house, but we are supposedly getting new windows- have been since we moved here- and the guy that is doing the windows has a bunch of ugly stuff in front of our house so I will have to take a picture later... That is if he ever actually finishes the windows. and at this point I am quite skeptical.)

(Oh, and f.y.i. the description of the picture is ABOVE each picture.)

Okay, here is what you see right when you walk in our front door- our family room and dining room.

Here is our family room when you are facing the front door. (Can you see my super cute new pillows that I have on our couches in these pictures?? Aren't they great?! My aunt Suzanne found them when we came to her house to pick up the love seat and I am super excited about them! Thanks again Suzanne!)

Another angle of the family room- in the back is our computer desk and computer which is in the dining room.

The view of our family room opposite the couches- with Keaton enjoying some Disney Junior! :) (Ignore the small vacuum and wood in the corner... that darn window man, we haven't seen him for days and the insides of the windows he already replaced have frames that he has yet to put back around the windows...)

Our dining room. The door on the left leads upstairs and the entryway on the right leads into our kitchen.

Our bedroom. (Yet again with wood in the corner... and of course we have no blinds. That's been interesting.)

Next to our bedroom is our upstairs bathroom.

Which only has a bathtub- no shower. So, I guess this is mostly Keaton's bathroom since Justin and I don't use it to shower or get ready in?

The left side of Keaton's room- we inherited a toddler bed from my aunt Jil, although I am hesitant about when we will start using it... the crib is just um.. easier? I'm not ready for my baby to be able to get out of bed on his own yet. Is that bad?

The right side of Keaton's room- with his crib. :)

 The left side of our kitchen (facing towards the dining room).

The right side of our kitchen. The door in the right hand corner leads to a few stairs at the bottom of which if you turn right take you to our little mudroom and our back door, or if you go to the left there is another set of stairs that takes you downstairs.

 And now, back to the dining room and the stairs which lead upstairs.

Into what I like to call a "loft" type area. The doors on each side of the picture are closets (that smell- well, the whole upstairs smells a little off-I'm working on it- but the closets smell especially bad) and the door straight ahead takes you into the upstairs bedroom a.k.a our guestroom if you ever come and visit (and anyone is welcome anytime!). :)

Here is the door to the upstairs bedroom again. Next to it is a little closet which I designated as our extra blankets, pillows, and air mattresses closet. (Sure hope they don't all start smelling funny? Ha, ha.)

The other side of the upstairs bedroom. (We are considering getting a bed for up here so that if you come and visit you won't have to sleep on the air mattress...)

And now back to the kitchen and that door I talked about earlier...

Which takes you to our cute little mudroom on the right.

And to the back door.

Which takes you to where we park our cars and to our little garage in the back. See it back there on the left side of the little driveway? (We don't have a driveway or a place to park in the front of our house. It's kinda weird getting used to using the "alley" to get to our house and using the back door all the time and never the front door.)

And then, if you turn left it takes you to our basement. 

Which as of Monday, when I took these pictures, still was in a large amount of chaos. While unpacking it became the place to put anything and everything that didn't have a home... 

On the opposite end of the basement from all our crap is this little contraption- a de-humidifier. Yes, it's a bit humid here and my hair is struggling with it- and although we have this thing I haven't seen it help a whole ton yet?  Who knows. 

In the middle of the room with all our crap there is an entryway that leads you to... 

A little room where we put up a portable closet. (The closets in the bedrooms are quite small and we didn't have enough room for all our clothes.) And, that door next to the closet takes you into the downstairs bathroom. 

Which is where the shower is.

The door on the left of this picture is to a nice, big closet that I am very grateful for. And, it is in this bathroom that both Justin and I come to get ready each day. It's a little annoying, but we'll get used to it I guess. :) 

Opposite the bathroom and our makeshift closet is our "laundry room."  

So far, I have found it a little annoying to carry all the clothes up and down, up and down, but other than that it is nice and big and I have a lot of space for all our stuff so that's good. :)

Oh, and here is another picture of our basement room- the same one with all our crap in it before. Yesterday I completely unfinished packing (Hooray!) and I am happy with how it all turned out. (This is the room I most dreaded unpacking due to all the random stuff that was just everywhere in it.) From left to right- our camping stuff, our food storage stuff (quite a pitiful supply...), our holiday decorations, and my craft stuff, and then some of Justin's school and work stuff along with backups of pictures and some random stuff of mine. Doesn't it look so nice and completely organized? Yeah, it feels way good. :)

Then there is "Justin's" side of the basement- left to right- his tools, snowboards, window cleaning stuff, and then there is some stuff we don't need for this apartment like our tv converter boxes, an ac window unit, and our microwave. Then all the way to the right is one of our casualties from the move- a tall in table that we used to have in our bedroom.

It busted on the way here I guess?

And now, the leg in one corner won't support the table.

These are the pieces that fell out when one of the super smelly moving guys unwrapped it from the blanket it was wrapped in- "Opps." He says. "They didn't pack that one up correctly." Uh, yeah, guess not.

I think that the moving company covers the damage though, we just aren't sure how they do that yet? (We also had a broken picture frame and a pretty big dent in our brand new washer. :( )