Happy Easter! {2015}

Celebrating our first Easter in our new home!

Can I get an Alleluia?!

A certain little girl wanted to leave the Easter Bunny
this weed dandelion. The bunny replied "mmm, thank you!"
Not sure I want that kind of bunny hanging around my house...

Egg hunting bright and early...

Getting fancy with some resurrection pancakes...

...and reading the Easter story...

...before going to church and getting ready for dinner with family!
(I inherited about .000000001% of my Mom's knack for
entertaining, so I'm actually pretty proud of this one!)

Happy Easter from the Hjelmstads!

So We Bought A House...

Now that it's officially offical, I can finally stop worrying about jinxing things and let the cat out of the bag: we are [quite!] suddenly homeowners again!

Buying a house wasn't really part of our plans for 2015--and certainly not within the first two months. Granted, we've been renting for the past three years so we've always kept one eye on the market, knowing that we planned to buy our forever home here. There was even a time when I could tell you the price of every home we drove past, because I was scouting listings every day for the "perfect" place. But after all the changes of new jobs and finally selling our house in New York last fall, we were a little exhausted. So we went into this year content to let the dust settle, and I figured it would be another year or two before we would seriously consider making the move. After all, the previous tenants remained for something like eight years, so I figured we had plenty of time. And I wanted to take that time to ensure we could buy the right home at the right price in the right neighborhood (a euphemism for "I was being extremely picky"). So as we rang in the new year, we settled into the comfort that we would be in our rental for a good long while.

(Did you hear that? God laughing?)

Well, barely a week into the new year, the rental agency called seemingly out of the blue to say that our rent was going up just a teensy bit, like only THIRTY PERCENT. 

Our immediate reaction was whaaaaaattttt!?!?!...followed by unimaginable dread, because we knew it was more than our landlord being stingy--the market had likely taken a turn for the crazy across the board.

Sure enough, when I got online to check prices out, I saw just *how much* the rental market had blown up during my short break from watching things like a hawk. Hence the insane hike in rent that matched the going rate for each and every one of the few available places in the area. We could barely get a condo for the same price as our house. Not a bad appreciation in a short three years for our owner, but certainly not good news for us.

To me, the stakes for keeping our family in place felt extremely high; we've worked so, so hard in the past two years create a level of familiarity and confidence in our children's schools and environment that facilitates their progress. I even chose the Reserves over another job so we could have the flexibility of me being home and keeping our kids as stable in their day-to-day routines as possible. 

So, despite the crazy market appearing to force us out, we decided to look and see if buying a home in the area might make more sense than renting.

Turns out, it did.

At least financially. The problem was, for every person who was selling a house, a million bajillion people were flocking to buy it. Right about the time we moved here it became a total seller's market, and there have been fewer and fewer homes for sale as time goes on (especially in winter). The few that are for sale can get snatched up in just a day or two--sometimes even just a few hours. With hundreds of buyers looking at the same houses at the same time, the bidding wars and how fast sales move can be just insane.

So with time and luck not exactly on our side, we jumped into the process like little poster children for House Hunters, with only one day to really look at houses and make a decision, only 3 houses total to look at, and only one house that really even met our criteria. We did end up seeing five houses by the afternoon, but still only that one met our biggest needs, and--let's face it--our wants.

Blessedly, just that one was enough.

We liked the pictures online, and liked it even more in person, so we put in an offer immediately. Despite an open house happening that same day with other buyers rolling through (making us very nervous indeed), the sellers accepted within an hour! We were shocked, excited, overwhelmed...and relieved. Very relieved.

This is my "Holy buckets, we just bought a house! IN A DAY." expression.

The past 45 days since we put in that offer have been a whirlwind to put it mildly, but the doors have continued to open at all the right times every step of the way. I've said over and over that I'm not person who makes rash decisions, least of all when it comes to something like, oh, buying a house. But even with all my hesitation over such rashness (or, as my mom aptly identified, my complete aversion to change), it was impossible to deny as the pieces fell into place one after another that it was absolutely, positively, 100% meant to be.

Packing fun. Send wine. Or chocolate. Or both.

Aside: we decided to pack and move our family of five all by ourselves. In a single weekend. Because we're insane like that. And of course the forecast immediately started calling for one snowstorm after another. But having friends and people we didn't even know (friends-of-friends-of-friends) offering to help us move and watch our kids just proves how unbelievably amazing humanity can be. I don't know how we will ever repay such wonderful people!

Back to the new home: there are a few trade-offs, of course; having rented one of largest models in our old neighborhood, we are losing a little square footage in the bedrooms, and we are having to demote the office to the basement (the office that we had just fully furnished when we got our new jobs...sadface). We'll definitely miss that some, since it had quickly become our favorite room. We will no longer have the luxury of being able to walk to the elementary school (but we can still go to the same school!), and we will definitely have a list of eventual cosmetic updates, like the jungle border and faux-painted sky in Ethan's bedroom. But as of right now he's in love with it and wants to keep it. So whatever. There's so much potential, though, and we finally have the option to take that potential and make it our own--since it's actually ours! (I had re-decorated and renovated our rental about fifty billion times in my head, but of course could do nothing to it...but now, oh the possibilities!).

I'm coming for you one day, fabulous 90s Amazonian border...

And you, Burnt-Sienna faux-painted master bedroom.
Have I got some designs for you...alll over Pinterest.

But we still get four bedrooms upstairs, we get to keep both our formal living and dining rooms, and we have an awesome yard--with space to play and grill and a patio in the side yard already designated for our firepit s'mores nights. I also happily said goodbye to our rental's hideous linoleum and old mismatched appliances and popcorn ceilings and shag carpet in favor of hardwoods in every room and new appliances and bright, open spaces.

I can appreciate your functionality, old kitchen, but that doesn't mean
I had to like your style. Or your tiled countertop grout that 
harbored every last crumb I tried to rescue...

So much lovely potential I can hardly stand it!

And--get this--we have even better mountain views than we had before! Which I never would have considered a possibility (short of buying a million dollar home). When we started looking for a house, that was the first thing we tried to prepare ourselves to let go of: our wonderful west-facing backyard that had been perfect for mountain sunset gazing every night for the past three years.

Well, even though our new backyard faces primarily east, it's a corner lot, and that firepit area on the side yard has a great view of the mountains--which are also visible from the front porch. And then there's the view from our new master bedroom. It is far better than any view we ever had from our old house--and it's in our room, not wasted on a kid's room! We are so excited to relax in our sitting area next to the window or go downstairs to relax on our front porch on summer evenings and enjoy every bit of mountain sunset that will ever grace our Colorado sky.

And the best upgrade of all? Our new next door neighbors...who just happen to be our dearest friends! Their daughter is Marie's best friend from school, and their son is our boys' favorite playmate--now separated only by a fence. We are all ecstatic, and I foresee many happy afternoons playing in our collective yards.

(See? I told you it was meant to be).

The chances of finding the perfect house on such a short timeline with everything we needed (and more) were slim to none, as my anxiety reminded me many times over. So such a turn of events just proves to me that the hand of Providence was putting every piece in place from start to finish.

Even if He had to literally force us into it!

I just hope He doesn't pull another stunt like this until retirement, since we (would like to, pretty please?) plan on staying at least until then!

So that's the story of the home we never planned to buy.
Home Sweet [hopefully-forever] Home has never come as such a surprise, and it's truly never been so sweet!

Together Time!

Remember Christmas? And the wonderful suprise that Santa brought us?

(Yeah, that was over a month ago...)

Well, here's the month-later photo recap of all the wonderfulness that happened. Much of it involved staying inside and hanging out in our PJs during multiple winter storms, but it was nice that the visit wasn't dictated by a super-packed schedule. We got to just hang out and enjoy each other's company, and with only a week together (which flew by) we still worked in plenty of fun!

Snow...snow...snow....

There was plenty of PJ-clad game playing and random silliness; I avoided every game of late-night Scrabble like a boss (and the subsequent 2am bedtimes, because that's how my family rolls), but of course joined in whole-heartedly for Pictionary--which the girls dominated, of course. And then there was Hot Potato (except it was an apple) which the kids played for the first time and are now obsessed with.

Shenanigans

Re-enactment of the White Christmas
"Sisters" song and dance...
because traditions...

We got to celebrate my dad's birthday on the 28th--it was the first time we've all been together for his birthday in at least four or five years:

I can see his halo, halo, halo...

We went ice skating:

And we had a girls-only date at Tattered Cover!

The kids loved every second of being spoiled...

Making gak with Aunt Chica!

...and hated every second of saying goodbye. (So did I). 

We can't wait for the next hello!

Merry Christmas! {2014}

This Christmas has been full of anticipation. The kids have been counting down for forever, and in the mean time we've been cooking up a nice little surprise for them.

Off to mass!

Last night after mass, we went to Peter's brother's as usual to open gifts with his side of the family. What the kids didn't know was at the same time, my family was flying into Denver as a little Christmas suprise.

My aunt, ever the gifter extraordinaire, sent matching, personalized Christmas PJs for all of us (we hid my family's until their arrival) and we tucked the kids into Ethan's room for their first "Christmas Campout" all together as a "special treat" for Christmas Eve. It was really a guise to make beds available in the other two rooms for Uncle Q and Aunt Chica; thankfully the kids ate it up and didn't suspect a thing.

Bright and early, my mom snuck up to the reading corner and waited for the kids to open the door and start looking for Baby Jesus (the first gift that we always open after wrapping him and hiding him somewhere upstairs).

The realization and reunion of grandmother and grandaughter was pretty spectacular, especially since Marie has been talking for weeks about wishng she could see Grandma again soon.

And then the rest of the family joined in the party...

Obligatory Christmas Jammies photo!

Even Samson got his own embroidered jammies--size XL.
We somehow managed to stuff him in for a
few brief seconds of entertainment...

It was fun to watch the kids jumping up and down and squealing with delight over the gift opening, but my favorite part of the gift giving were these little gems that my brother slipped into Peter and my stockings. It took about five minutes to stop laughing from the hilarity of it all. They're camoflauge-wrapped Hershey's kisses with little Army men from our wedding seven years ago. We'd scattered them on all the tables at the reception as part of the decorations; how my brother managed to salvage not one, but two--and stash them for seven years--and then remember that he had them, we will never know. (And he's not telling). He's just got a knack for that kind of stuff. Seven-year-old chocolate, anyone?

We hosted Christmas dinner with my family and Peter's parents, and had to bring up another table and use all the chairs to fit everyone...it reminded me of many Christmases growing up and made my heart happy.

Siblings...

...the rest of the family...
and Santa Baby.

It even started snowing around dinnertime so we could have a White Christmas after all.

....................

In case we missed you on our Christmas card list after my whole computer crash debacle, here's our card from this year--be sure to send your address if you'd like one next year!



Also, because I'm a total map geek who's ironically terrible at geography, and because I have way too much time on my hands, I tracked the different places our cards went to this year...it definitely shows where our families live and where the highest concentration of Army installations are across the country. I think we have a little work to do on befriending the midwest, though!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

A Keepin' It Real Christmas Season...

I love the little bits of shimmer and joy of the Christmas season sprinkled into all the great big hunks of reality, don't you?

***First off, a public service announcement***

I need your addresses please, dear friends! Remember when my computer decided to transform itself into a useless brick? Well it went down swinging and took with it my updated Christmas Card list that doubled as my address book. My latest version prior to that is three years old. So if you love us and we love you, pretty please text/email/Facebook message/carrier pigeon your address to me? Please please?! Thanks a million!

Next Up: 

Lots of fun talk about decorations and reality and the kind of productivity that doesn't really count. Short version: look at all these cool pictures of our decorations that I made even though real life keeps happening!

---        ---        ---

We've lit the Advent wreath and the oratory candles only once so far and it's already almost the third week of Advent. But my Blessed Is She Advent journal is getting lots of mileage which is helping me personally on the spiritual front!

I also put out the straw "fluff" for Jesus on the Little Oratory but it's just sitting there, not carrying on last year's tradition of letting to kids put a piece of straw in Jesus's manger for each good deed they do. That would require both cluing them in to the presence of the straw and getting the manger out. (Crunch time tactic, maybe?)

But we have shamelessly used the passive-aggressive Elfie to our parenting advantage:

Two nights in a row at that. Guess which parent did which?

Unfortunately Elfie hasn't seemed that much more beneficial than my attempt to curb the kids' materialism. I got so tired of hearing "I want that! I want that TOO!" during every blasted commercial they saw that I told them they could keep a list and choose one thing to ask Santa for. This was Marie's list after less than 24 hours.

The "choklit pooting" (chocolate pudding) is my favorite.
She had it after her dental surgery this summer and loved it
so much she's asking for it for Christmas. Sure thing, kid!

Then there was the wreath making--because I really needed four more Christmas wreaths in addition to the five we already have. Really I did. Hence the beginning of all sorts of productivity--doing things I didn't need to do instead of things I sorta did, like laundry and dishes and all those Spirit of Christmas killers.

No better way to get in the spirit of chore neglect
than Josh Groban and yards upon yards of deco mesh and burlap.

But it's a good thing I got those outside wreaths done because they--along with Jesus and company--are currently the only things alerting the neighbors to the fact that we haven't forgotten that Christmas exists.

See, the lights were mostly up last weekend. But then they came down, because stress is no fun and communication is hard and outlets are inconveniently placed. (We can sing The 12 Pains of Christmas all day long in solidarity...)

BUT the good news is that, in an unprecedented planning victory, I've already bought nearly every gift for every person on our list (and I even got my early Christmas gift of the functional techonlogy on which I'm currently typing!). I even got the Angel Tree gifts back to the church BEFORE the deadline! A true Christmas miracle. Now for Peter to wrap them all because I am incompetent...

I also managed to remember the Feast of St. Nicholas this year! I'd been planning to do something traditional (like putting shoes out for little gifts) in an effort to steer the kids more toward the 'giving to people in need' spirit of St. Nick than the 'tell me what gift you want' spirit of Santa Clause. I quickly forgot about my whole plan until approximately 10:36 the night before, so I snuck into the kids' rooms for shoes and remembered that I'd gotten them all rosaries for stocking stuffers (score!). I whipped a little something together and proudly set it out, only to wake up the next morning to hear Marie crying about not liking anything she got except one thing. Ya win some, ya lose some.

Shiny: did you know that submerging ornaments is not as simple as Pinterest makes it look? Shocker...

Then there's the story of The Three Trees. 

I knew it was probably inevitable when I started getting not-so-subtle hints from Peter around Thanksgiving...texts with pictures of a 12-foot pre-lit tree at Homeboy Depot and casual mentions of a tree that would reach the ceiling of our two-story family room and other such preposterousness.

Me:  "Why are you sending me pictures of fake trees when we already have two?"
Peter:  "It's pre-lit!"
Me:  "..."
Peter:  "And it would look really good in the family room! ...and it's only $400."
Me:  "We already have TWO."
Peter:  "..."
Me:  "Well, maybe this is the year we try a real tree. And then we're not stuck with it if it's too ridiculous."
Peter:  "Done."

Hence the 15-foot Colorado Concolor Tree that now resides in the family room, while the Jesus tree is in its prominent place in the front bay window:

And finally, the has-been family tree has retired upstairs to sulk forlornly with the laundry that I need to fold but will probably just throw on the floor because all our baskets are in use serve as a festive centerpiece to our master bedroom oasis.

Hey, I ran out of steam after the first two. But at least The Tree That Shall Remain Undecorated already has lights on it (and a single forgotten gymnastics ornament from last year that I probably won't bother to take off).

Speaking of decorating the tree, we had to miss the 3rd Annual Friendsgiving for the second year in a row (try that math) because Ethan once again got sick. So instead of parading him around with a 103 fever, we stayed in and decorated the Big Kahuna. The little guy even did his fair share whilst hyped up on sugary fever reducer before he crashed. Total bottom feeder.

How many ornaments can you fit on one branch? If you're Ethan: ALL OF THEM.
Snuggling with his digger ornament and watching big brother do big kid stuff.

Any guesses on how many days/attempts it took to get the angel up? (3 days. At least 15 attempts.) We've agreed that next time (yes, I've already agreed to a next time) the angel goes on before the tree goes up. I'm happy to have a real tree in the house again after seven full years of baby proofing fake trees. I grew up always picking out a real every year. But it will be a long time before I agree to a drive into the Rocky mountains to cut down a 15-foot tree...not the same as cutting down a 9-foot tree from a happy little Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania.

At the end of the day, it's been quite the nice addition. I can even get a picture of the whole thing while standing in the kitchen. And if I crop the picture just so, it is beautiful and sanitized enough to post to Facebook for an inside look at our perfect life!

What dishes?

Last stop: find that coconut milk eggnog that I know one of my trusty grocers has to have stocked for me by now!

Hope your real is getting filled with a bit of sparkle and shine too--but not at the expense of your sanity. May your Advent be fruitful, and may your children always believe that wine bottle covers are really puppets.

[Psst! Addresses pretty please!]