October started off very rainy. We got so much rain during the month of October, and we loved it. I don't think it rained all summer. If it did, it wasn't more than once or twice. It was so nice to have cool, wet weather. Brian especially loves the rain because it reminds him of Oregon, and I love cool weather. There's nothing better than curling up with a good book on a rainy day. Connor also liked the rain. He loved watching it pour down outside the window. A few evenings there was even some thunder and lightening. We had fun sitting together in our chair and watching the flashes of lightening and then waiting for the rumble of the thunder. It scared him a little, but the anticipation of the next bolt also made him laugh.
With rain comes puddles, and we took advantage of those. Connor loved finding the puddles in our parking lot and immediately ran right into them. He would giggle as he stomped his feet in the water.
Our closing date got moved up a day. We weren't able to find a babysitter for Connor so we brought him with us. When we arrived, he got attached to the wooden birdhouse decorations in the waiting area of the title company. He wasn't happy when we had to go to another room, he wanted to stay and play with them. Thankfully, they had a toy chest that they brought into our conference room. Once Connor discovered it contained wooden trains, crayons, and puzzles, he was a happy camper. They also set him up with some snacks.
Connor happily sat on the floor and played with the trains and colored a picture while Brian and I signed the papers. We'd been warned that there would be a ton of documents to sign, and there were, but it didn't seem too bad. It took about an hour to sign everything. My hand was a little tired at the end, but not as much as I was expecting. It was pretty exciting, and a little bit of a whirlwind.
The next morning, we met our realtor at our new home and she gave us an awesome gift basket and the keys. When she put the keys in Brian's hand it suddenly became real. We were both feeling all the feels right then--overwhelmed, excited, happy, etc. It was a bit momentous. We'd just purchased our first house!
Afterwards I took Brian back to work, and Connor and I ran some errands. Layne came down that afternoon, to start helping us prepare the house for painting. We did a little work and then went to pick up Brian from work. They were testing train sets in the lab and so we took Connor in to see them. He loves trains, and as soon as he saw the ten or so train sets spread out on the floor, he was in heaven. He went from train set to train set trying them each out. I helped him hook up the train cars and figure out how the remote controls worked. Some of the trains were especially cool and puffed real smoke. We had a lot of fun playing with them together.
Now that we officially owned our house, it was time for the real work to start. We had a lot to do to get it ready for us to move in. Thankfully we didn't have to be out of our apartment until the end of October, so we had almost a month to get everything done. We found out that we would need almost every day of that month.
With Layne's help we got a lot of work done at the house that first weekend. He came down a couple more times throughout the month to help us paint, install shelves in the bedroom closets, fix lose stairs, etc. We really appreciated his help. Without it we would not have gotten everything done in time for our move.
Connor loved it when "Papa" came to visit. He warmed up to Layne really fast and they were best buddies. He loved following Grandpa around the house and tried to help a lot. In the evenings, he liked to sit by Grandpa and read books, look at stuff on the phone, or play games. Each time I told him Papa was coming to visit, he would get super excited. It was fun to watch them together.
We spent every spare minute we had at the house during October. When Brian would get home from work, we would eat a quick dinner and then head over to spend the evening, patching, sanding, priming, or taping walls. Each Saturday we spent the entire day working on the house, and I went over with Connor during the day sometimes to get some extra stuff done.
Connor was such a good kid the entire month. He did have a few meltdowns here and there, but mostly he was content to play with his cars or crayons while Brian and I worked. He was a very patient one year old and we were so grateful for that. There were a few days were he was just sick of being at the house, but like I said, he was mostly happy.
After a week of hard work, that not only included prepping walls, but painting the entire ceiling upstairs, we were ready to start painting the upstairs walls. Layne came down to help us.
When we were setting up painting tools in preparation to begin painting, Connor couldn't contain himself and jumped in to help. He had been watching Brian and use the paint roller to paint the ceiling, so of course he knew how it worked. He grabbed the roller and started rolling it back and forth in the tray.
Once he deemed that there was enough "paint" on the roller, he ran over to the wall and started painting. He knew just what to do. He was so happy as he worked.
The roller was a little heavy for him and it got away from him a couple times. That didn't dissuade him from trying to paint. It just made him laugh.
That Saturday we got the majority of the walls painted upstairs. Layne and Brian did most of the work while I kept Connor occupied. He had learned while we were painting ceilings earlier in the week not to touch the paint or it would stick to his hands, but that didn't stop him from touching freshly painted walls. It was hard work trying to stay out of the way and not touch wet paint. I caught Connor laying down on the job at one point. Haha!
Over the next week, Brian and I finished painting the walls upstairs, re-taped around the trim, and primed and painted the trim. I went over a couple days during the week and worked on touching up edges where the tape hadn't quite done it's job.
Around the first of October, Connor decided that he no longer wanted to take naps. I would try each day to get him to go down but he would have none of it. It was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we were busier during the day and I no longer had to plan my schedule around naptime, and a curse because I no longer had that two hour stretch of alone time to get things done while he slept. Most days he would go and go until bedtime, but a few times he would crash around 5 or 6 and then be up all night. I think he still needs naps but he just refuses to take one. Little stinker. I couldn't believe he wouldn't go down for a nap anymore, especially once we started having late nights working until 10 pm or later at the house. It did catch up to him one day and he crashed while we were reading books in bed. He will now occasionally go down for a nap, but for the most part has stopped. I was hoping he would at least make it to 2 1/2 before he stopped naps, but my little over-achiever didn't even make it to 2 years old.
When we weren't at the house, we were home organizing and packing. One cold day we looked out the window and saw that the mountain tops were covered in snow. It was a cold overcast day, and apparently it was cold enough that the higher elevations got snow. It was so cool, and I got very excited for the holidays. Connor will be old enough to really enjoy playing in the snow this year. We'll have to get him a sled and some winter clothes. I'm so excited to go sledding with him, throw snowballs, and build a snowman. I hope we get a lot of snow this year.
Connor's love for pumpkins did not diminish, but only increased. He loved looking at the ceramic pumpkins on display outside of Smith's or the real pumpkins outside at Walmart. We always had to stop and look and touch them...both coming and going.
Between being so busy and preparing to move, I didn't pull out any Halloween decorations this year. I felt bad about this because Connor was so excited by all things Halloween. One day we were playing, and I started drawing him little Halloween figures. He loved them so much that I decided to cut them out. We put tape on the back and he hung them up in our window. He would play with them all the time, pulling them off the window and putting them back on. I'm glad he loved them.
My brother Luke and my Mom came down around the third week of October for a couple days. My mom watched Connor while Luke and I took a day to work at the house. While I worked on odds and ends, Luke painted the entire ceiling downstairs. He did in one day what it would have taken us a week of evenings to do. We were so appreciative that they came down to lend a hand. We really couldn't have finished painting in time for our move without the extra help. Brian and I have the best families.
Even though my brother loves me, it does take a little more than just the promise of getting to see me to get him to come to Utah. He had found a hat making shop in Salt Lake and had decided that he wanted to have a custom made hat for himself. We drove down one morning they were here. Luke was as happy as a kid in a candy store. He hand picked out the style of crown, brim, ribbon color width. The guy that runs the shop was very nice and gave us a tour of the back and explained how the hat processing works. It was pretty cool to see all the hat shaping blocks and machines they had.
Connor had fun wandering around the store, looking at and trying on hats and playing with the ceramic dalmatian they had on display. He was so cute when he was wearing some of the hats.
Brian and I worked the entire next weekend at the house and got the walls painted. A couple days later we had the trim primed and painted as well. It was a big push there at the end, but we managed to get it done.
Paint is like magic. The house looked so much better after we finished. We love how it turned out.
Layne and Kris came down the weekend before Halloween to help us finish getting ready. They helped us clean the kitchen cabinets, pickup our new fridge, and clean paint from the floor. They also helped us do some more packing and move a few loads of boxes over. It was a lot of work, and again we appreciated the extra help.
We moved on Monday, October 29th. Tyler and Kelsey came down from Idaho with their boys to help us move. Luke was supposed to come to, but he ended up catching Mono and was too sick to get out of bed. Patty (Kelsey's mom) came to help as well. With two cars and a pickup, one person watching the kids and the four others moving furniture and boxes, it only took us all day to move. Haha! But it would have been a lot longer without the help. At one point, Kelsey, Patty, myself, and the boys went to a park while Brian and Tyler took a couple loads over. The boys needed a break and it was good to let them run around in the fresh air and have some fun. Once they unloaded the last thing from the truck, Tyler loaded everyone up said good-bye and left. He's not one to stay in Utah very long either. Haha! Again, we are so grateful for their help. We couldn't have done it as quickly or as smoothly by ourselves.
We've moved all of our boxes of stuff downstairs to the basement. We have our furniture arranged on the main level in a way that makes it livable. Upstairs sits empty--except for the bathroom--waiting for carpet. We were hoping that our carpet would be installed before we moved, but it just didn't happen. At first we were really stressed about the whole thing, but it's worked out all right. I unpacked the kitchen and bathroom right away and we got our internet service hooked up. It's given us some time to relax after our month of crazy work hours, packing, and moving before we have to unpack everything. It's been a nice breather.
Since we were so busy this month, I really didn't have time to plan a costume for Connor. Also we were in between wards when Halloween hit, so we didn't really have a place to take Connor trick-or-treating. We missed most of the kid-friendly Halloween events that occurred the weekend before the holiday because we'd been cleaning and packing. We hadn't even gotten him a pumpkin. Halloween evening we went to buy a pumpkin. No one had pumpkins left! We visited store after store and none of them had pumpkins. Finally we found some mini pumpkins at Smith's and bought a couple for Connor. On our way home, we drove into Lowe's parking lot and they had three pumpkins left. Slim pickings. One was an oblong white gourd, one was lopsided and bumpy, and one was big and orange but kind of flat. We opted for that one.
We took our pumpkin home, and after dinner carved it up. Connor had fun watching us carve it. He wouldn't touch the pumpkin guts, but laughed when Brian and I pulled out handfuls of seeds and slimy strings. He was very attentive while Brian drew on the face and I carved it. He loved it when we put the candle in and turned out the lights, and then when we placed it outside.
We spent the rest of our Halloween watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and other Halloween-ish showes while eating some candy. It wasn't super excited but was all we could manage this year. I felt bad that we didn't dress him up or take him out, especially since he's been so excited about Halloween this year, but it just wasn't going to happen. Hopefully next year we will be able to give Connor the real Halloween experience.
As of now we are still in a holding pattern waiting for carpet. I'm anxious to get new carpet so we can move the furniture up and get unpacked and start hanging things on the walls. We are so happy and thankful that we finally found a house and were able to buy it. This is a huge thing that we didn't think we would be able to make happen for a few years yet, so it's amazing that it has happened now. We have definitely been blessed throughout this whole process. We are also very grateful for all of our family members who have encouraged us in this endeavor and helped to make it possible.
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