Temple Saturday

One Saturday we decided we needed a family trip to the Columbia, SC temple. 

Our 3 wonderful kiddos

Emmalynne took this picture of Carman and I. She's gotten pretty good with the camera!

This is Clara's most recent pose. She says "I'm just being cute."

This is how Emmalynne likes to pose and Clara joined her.

The girls were looking at the angel Moroni. I had them hold Benjamin's hands so I could get a picture of the 3 of them looking at the angel. But then the girls wouldn't stop adoring their brother.

Here the girls are peeking in. The temple was just closing and when the lady came out to lock it up she invited us into the waiting room. She showed the girls the pictures on the walls and asked them questions. I was proud when she pointed to a picture of Joseph Smith and asked the girls who it was and Clara replied "Prophet!"

Photo Recap

Here's my lame 2 month catch-up. 

 For Halloween, the kids and I all dressed up as Minnie/Mickey Mouse. Carman would have done it with us if he didn't have to work. And, if I hadn't packed up the family and drove to Illinois to visit my parents.

 We fed Benjamin something sour. I don't even remember what it was. He wasn't as disgusted as he could have been.

 Grandma made skirts with the girls while we were there and they really enjoyed it.

 Poor Benj was exhausted but couldn't seem to stop staring at Grandpa.

 We went to a mexican restaurant for my Mom's birthday and she was shocked when they came out to sing to her. (I ordered in Spanish and at the same time I let them know it was her birthday) As you can tell, her friend Julie got a kick out of the whole thing too!

 Everyone tried on the sombrero.

 On our way home we stopped at my friend Melanie's house. The kids always love playing there and it breaks my drive in half. We stayed for a few days and totally renewed the girls' drive for playing dress-up since we hadn't had ours out in awhile.

 Clara is quite observant. Before she put my running shoes on she put on the ankle brace. Then she pranced around the house for awhile singing, "I'm running, I'm running..."

 Here we are on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I slept on the couch with Clara. If only someone could have taken a picture of all of us :)

 We had a good time putting up the Christmas tree. The kids have all been really good this year about not taking all the ornaments off. Benj takes them off every now and again but Emmalynne always puts them back on!

 Carman and I ran our 1/2 marathon on December 8th. It was great! I was dreaming of averaging a 10 min mile and came really close with a 10:10 min mile. We ran together the whole time. I'm sure I would have gone a lot slower if it weren't for my amazing husband! Total time was 2:13.

 The kids came to cheer us on. It was great knowing they'd be there to see us. They've all been very patient throughout our training.

 My awesome sister came along with all my kids. She even ran to bring me new ear phones around the 10 mile marker because mine broke at the 3 mile marker.

 Later that day Carman and I volunteered at the Community Nativity Festival. The girls (especially Emmalynne) loved looking at all the nativities. Carman and I decided after running a half marathon we should not volunteer ourselves to stand up and greet people for 3 1/2 hours.  Lesson learned!

Lost

I don't have anything exciting to post at the moment. I just want to publicly complain. I haven't been able to find our camera for 3 weeks! I really don't want to buy a new one but I hate not getting pictures of my kids, particularly baby pictures. That's all.

Surprise! HaCkEd!!!!

Hi Sweetheart! This is your Hubby! I hope you can forgive me for hacking into your blog. I just can't stop thinking about how much I absolutely love you and I wanted to let you and the world know.

Sarah Ragatz, you are the most amazing wife I could ever imagine. You give me such great hope, direction, and drive every day. When I am having a difficult day and am just about ready to throw in the towel, I think about you and everything becomes bearable, if not completely and utterly wonderful!

You make me happy when I am sad. You help me to laugh when I am ready to cry. When my spirits are down and deflated, and I feel like I am good for nothing, you put me on a pedestal and make me feel like I can conquer the world! Even when I don't believe in myself, you are always my number one supporter!!

What I'm trying to say Love, is that I couldn't ask nor dream for a better soul-mate! You make me whole. Thank you for always being so loving, so determined, so steadfast in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for being such a wonderful mother, teacher, leader and example to our beautiful children. Thank you for being you!

Honey, I love you with all my heart and soul and will do so throughout the eternities. I hope that I can be as good to you as you are to me. You are my everything!

I don't know what more to say other than what I have already said - Sarah, I Love You!

Love Always,
-Your Hubby
Carman J Ragatz IV

We Love Lucy!

Has anyone ever touched you so much that you can't even explain it? That's how I feel about Lucy. And I've never met her. This is her family and my friends, Chad, Cherisse, Dallin, and Jocey:

When Lucy was just 5 months old, she was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), the number #1 genetic killer of young children. The Lunts were told Lucy'd be lucky to make it to her first birthday. This month she will be turning 4! They have been so blessed to have so much time with their little girl, as this disease will eventually take her life. Because of SMA, Lucy cannot walk, crawl, sit up, or even hold up her head. Every last one of her muscles degenerate, making talking, swallowing, and even breathing difficult. 

But Lucy does not let SMA define who she is! Through stories, pictures, and videos, I have truly come to love this sweet little girl! God could not have sent her to a family more perfect for her. Her siblings adore her. Her older sister Jocey plays princesses with her. She even got Lucy in on ballet lessons (which she mastered in her awesome power chair). Dallin joins in when they dress up as superheros, although Lucy insists on being Aurora. Lucy also likes to "dance" with Dallin.

Lucy is so amazingly determined. She decided that she wanted to use the potty and does so successfully, despite that being something SMA should prevent her from doing. She helps her mom clean by mopping the floor. At preschool she really tests the limits of SMA and does all the craft and other projects the other children do. This past school year she decided she was ready to ride the bus and was quite persistent until her mom obliged. At the same time, she can be very understanding when it comes to not being allowed to do all the things she wants to do. And just check out her beautiful blue eyes! Who could say no to those!?

I've always wished there were more ways I could help this wonderful family. Carman and I have decided to run our first half marathon in order to join the Lunts and the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation in raising funds and awareness of SMA. We are going to run so that children suffering with SMA can run and do everything they want to do, too! Our goal is to raise $1,000. The GSF is a nonprofit organization committed to accelerating research and putting and end to SMA and 100% of donations go towards that goal. Please consider donating. The half marathon we'll be running is Charlotte Thunder Road on November 17th. It happens to be the day after my 30th birthday! The best gift I could ask for would be to help us reach our goal in combating SMA. The link in my sidebar will take you to my FirstGiving page where you can safely and conveniently donate right to the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation.

Although the following video was created for a fundraiser a couple years ago, it is excellent at portraying the message I hope to get across. Just after Gwendolyn's introduction, you'll see baby Lucy's smiling blue eyes.

Breathing Again

Brief summary of the past few days' events:

Wednesday: After expecting to close on our house sometime the end of this month, our realtor called and asked us to close on Friday.  We had until Monday to get out. I just didn't have it in me to say no. What if we would have lost our buyers?

Thursday: Panic set in. We went to find a place to rent. We had been eyeballing this particular house and we ended up getting it. The landlord is letting us do a two month contract which will automatically renew until we get a job and move to Colorado.

Friday: Close on our house! Absolutetly crazy. Then I went home and packed it up!

Saturday: We moved into our new rental. We had a lot of people show up to help us with our last minute move and we're so grateful! Just to throw a little excitement in, our moving truck broke down and it had to be towed (full of our stuff) to the new house. We had one load left at the old house and unfortunately couldn't get a truck to pick it up.

Sunday: After church we had another few amazing people help us get our last load. Its not something we wanted to do on a Sunday and we felt so aweful having to do it but were grateful for wonderful people willing to help us.

Now that our week has begun we've started unpacking and settling in. The girls have been a little more emotional than normal but they really do love the new house. Pictures to come.... as soon as I unpack the camera... :( No idea where I put it.

Lots Going On

A few random pictures to summarize life:

We had a great flight to Seattle for our family vacation back in July. The girls thought riding in a plane was really cool. And I felt like we were rich. Seriously, flying with 3 kids=rich. Never mind the fact that we flew standby.

 These 3 really love each other. Emmalynne enjoys being Benjamin's mommy.

Clara turned thug. Ok, I just thought she looked hilarious. She has stickers on her cheeks and her baby. Soon after that I found stickers all over the floor. I thought the girls learned their lesson after peeling them off the floor for an hour. I guess I was wrong about that because the next night the babysitter proudly told me that she had cleaned up the house (despite it looking the same as I had left it). She explained how she took ALL the stickers off the couch. Really? After crying and whining for an hour about having too peel them off the floor, they still didn't learn? Then again, maybe they did-they didn't have to clean them!

 Benjamin has his 2 bottom teeth. He likes to roll his tongue over them.

 We had our traditional camping trip for our anniversary. Ok, so not very traditional. This year I was lame and really didn't want to go. Carman was sweet and improvised. We made a huge tent in the family room. The girls slept in it and I got to enjoy the comfort of my own bed. I only had to go downstairs twice in the middle of the night when Clara woke up and freaked out...

 Its been H-O-T! Seriously, click on this picture to see how red Emmalynne's face is. She was proud of herself. for learning how to spin down this part of the playground.

 On Labor Day afternoon we went swimming at my sisters. We started the day without pictures at our church 5K and breakfast. I was disappointed that Emmalynne wouldn't play at the park and I had to push her in a stroller. It wasn't even a jogging stroller. Blah.

Emmalynne gets to go to preschool twice a week. She was so excited. This was just outside the building on her first day. She feels like such a big girl and talks about "my preschool" all the time.

 This is the most recent picture of my big guy. He's 7 months old and the happiest little baby I've ever known. No joke. He's figuring out how to crawl. I suspect he'll get that down in the next week. I'm enticing him with balls that he feels the need to chase after. He finally sits up on his own without toppling over. He enjoys being included in the games the girls play. He gets super excited and bounces and kicks his legs.

 Sunday before church I heard the sound of paper being torn coming from the kitchen. If found the Clara sitting at the garbage can peeling a bulb of garlic. Emmalynne joined her. They kept themselves occupied for probably half an hour.

 I saw Clara using her teeth when she got frustrated. Here is their garlic loot. I'm not sure if Clara ate the pieces that are missing or spit them in the garbage. When they were done Emmalynne told me "garlic's too spicy." Sure it is... when you eat an entire bulb.

 Emmalynne has enjoyed taking pictures. She's gotten better at getting my whole head in the shot. She takes some pretty good ones some times. She took this one of me at the computer.

Schiele History Museum

We went to the History museum with a friend today. It was free day. I love free. Right now they have a cowboy exhibit. The girls loved the horse!

Just Waiting Around

I have so much I want to blog about that its overwhelming. I imagine I'll end up skipping the good stuff like our awesome vacation. 

We are supposed to close on our house on the 14th of Sept but they are having problems scheduling the inspection so it might take longer. We're totally ok with that. I'm not even going to think about packing until after the inspection is done. Dumb idea? Probably. I'll learn the hard way. We are also hoping Carman will get a job in the Denver area. Thus, we're not looking for a place to rent here. We're just waiting another week or so in hopes he'll get a job offer. I have to admit, in my spare time I've found several houses in the Denver area I wish we could put an offer on! :) 

Going, Going, Gone!

Shortly after putting our house on the market we headed out on a family vacation (more to come). After being on the market for 7 days we got an offer on our house! Today we signed some paperwork and our house is officially under contract (for a total of 9 days on the market)! We are set to close on Sept 14th.

We feel truly blessed in this. We assumed it would be on the market for a few months. Now we're hoping we'll be just as fortunate in the job front. It would be so foreign to me having to live in Charlotte in a rental. I LOVE our house. It will probably always be my favorite home. I love the layout and there is something special about it being our first house. Lets hope Heavenly Father's plan for us involves a quick move!

On the Market

...the house, that is. We have decided we want to move to Colorado (despite recent fires and shootings). Carman started applying for jobs. Naturally, we have absolutely no idea how long the process will take. We decided it'd be best to put our house on the market now though. That way when he gets a job offer we (theoretically) won't have to worry about trying to sell the house in a short period of time.

I was amazed at how much we had to do just to get it ready to sell. Our house hasn't ever looked so nice! I won't be too disappointed if we end up staying. :)  FYI: the kitchen makeover was before we decided to sell. And, yes we mostly did it ourselves. We hired out the resurfacing of the countertops and we had a friend help us with the backsplash.

I got a nice 5 page document from our realtor on staging and tried to follow it as much as I could. When she came to take pictures today I was really hoping she'd notice our hard work but assumed it'd be normal to her. Much to my delight, she was very excited about our house and commented several times on things she noticed we'd done, despite it being her first time to our home. She even said, "I love it when sellers do everything right!"

Carman spent the half hour before her arrival cleaning up our master closet and was proud of himself when our realtor said she wanted to take a picture of it just so she could show other sellers what their closets should look like.

So, I guess we've done our part and now we just play the waiting game! ...and try to keep it spotless in the meantime. Wish us luck!

This Post's For You

We finally completed our kitchen makeover! When it started all we were going to do were new countertops. 

Instead we:

*Had the countertops resurfaced

*Painted the cabinets

*Put up a tile backsplash

*Painted the kitchen walls

*Tore out the molded cabinet from under the sink and made a new one

*Switched out the white non-working dishwasher for a black one that functions

*Put some fancy ivy on top of the cabinets

My New Job Description

Today after Emmalynne told me "You're the Mom!" I asked her what the mom is supposed to do. She thought for a minute and said, "Take a nap ALL day." Umm, OK! I'll be her mom any day!

Whistle While You Work

Here we are practicing our whistling skills.

American Idol Contestants

Emmalynne and Clara started singing "Tonight, tonight, tonight..." a long time ago. It sounded so much like this song by Genesis that I had the girls listen to it. Crazy singing ensued. If it sounds like run-of-the-mill screaming to you, you just don't know my girls well enough.

Other than getting a late start (I'll have to cue them next time), they pretty much sang every note on key. Perfect pitch. Need I even mention the timing? Perhaps its time for them to step up to ward chorister at church. Way to go girls! Hopefully their dad's singing skills will kick in at some age and they won't be stuck at my level forever.

Something About Clara

I was sitting in the family room with my sister. Emmalynne and Clara were coming down the stairs (or playing on them, not sure).

Clara: *crazy loud 'I'm dying' type of scream*
Me: Clara, what's wrong?
Laura: I think Emmalynne did it.
Emmaynne: *sheepish grin*
Me: Come here Clara. Come here Emmalynne.

Clara comes screaming all the way to me. I check for noticeable decapitation or oozing blood. Everything looks good.

Me: Clara what happened?
Clara: Em did it. (stretching her foot up for me to examine)
Me: What did Em do?
Clara: Em kick me. (audible attempt to stop crying)

Me: (sternly) Emmalynne, why did you kick Clara?
Emmalynne: I didn't.

Obviously, something happened. Clara sounded pretty near death. I need to punish Emmalynne for something. She was definitely the culprit. I probe.

Me: What did you do?
Emmalynne: I licked her foot.
Me: (holding back a smile and trying not to laugh) Oh, don't lick her foot. That's not nice.

Vacation & Party #1

The first of this month the kids and I took a trip to Lexington, KY to visit my friend Melanie. We went to a nature park one day.  

This is Rachel, aka, Emmalynne's new bff. Em is so shy and hesitant, even around kids. She can really clam up when kids aren't nice to her. Rachel lovingly included Emmalynne in everything and Emmalynne couldn't have been happier.

 The fish were fun. If you didn't have to feed them and clean their tank, I'd get one for the girls.

 When you look at this picture are you thinking the same thing I am? *whoa... that's a lot of kids*

 ....if only Clara went pee on the potty as frequently as this baby. Just joking. She's actually pretty good. However, due to her strong will, she pees her pants if she wants to. (that was up until a few days ago when I put a diaper on her. Now she's sure to make it to the potty every time)

For the 2nd year in a row we were out of town for Emmalynne's birthday. I figured we just let it slip by and celebrate when we got home. Silly me. Special thanks to Melanie for throwing Emmalynne a party!

Melanie made pizza, one of Emmalynne's favorites. As you can tell in the above picture, she was pleased.

Then Melanie made her a cake with blue icing. 

 Emmalynne got to open a few presents.

 Her party was Strawberry Shortcake themed so we played "Pin the Strawberry to the Basket."

 This is Lincoln. His bday is less than 2 weeks after hers (born the same year). They kind of used to be arch nemesis. I'm glad they get a long now. It makes the trip much easier on us moms!

 With a view like hers, you'd think Clara would have won the game!

 Good thing I took pictures. I forgot they played musical circles, a safer version of musical chairs where the adult gets to pick the winner. Mostly the kids just ran around on the circles. Every now and then Joe remembered to stop the music and call out a winning color.