Auntie CJ to the rescue!!!

As the details of our moving timeline came together, we realized that Taber would be out of town, starting work in West Chicago the same week the movers were scheduled to come. The thought of trying to do all my mommy duties while orchestrating a move was majorly stressing me out. Taber was worried so he sent out an email out to our families to see if anyone could come help, and my amazing sister in law answered the call. 

With last minute noticed, CJ rearranged her schedule, and her mom rearranged HER schedule, so she could watch CJ's 5 children while CJ flew out to New Hampshire to help me. I know it was a big sacrifice for her and her family and I just can't thank her enough for coming to the rescue!

As soon as she got here she jumped right in and got to work. As a seasoned mother she was a pro  helping Teya with homework and getting the kids bathed and ready for bed. I never had to give her any instructions, she just took care of business!

Even though she had never been to NH before, she bravely plugged addresses into the GPS and set off on adventures with the kids. She took all of them to Chuck E Cheese (30 minutes away) by herself!(something I don't even dare to do!) She is awesome!

The kids had so much fun with her and were always completely worn out when she brought them home.

She also took the girls down to the Boston children's museum for a day. I have many native NH friends who refuse to drive in Boston traffic, but she just went for it!

For 4 days, she kept my kids, fed, entertained, clothed, carpooled, bathed, and cared for while I focused on the move. It was so nice for them to have the stability of being with the same person instead of farmed out all week. It was also nice at night, once the kids were in bed, to have CJ there to help me patch walls, scrub bathrooms, or just stay with the kids while I went out shopping for appliances and running other odd errands. I literally don't know what I would've done without her!!

Thank you CJ from the bottom of my heart for being my lifesaver that week! It was a lot of hard work, and I love and appreciate you so much for being willing to come to that for me!! So blessed to have such an amazing sister in law :) 

Taber's new hobby

Shortly before we left New Hampshire, Taber's good friend Kenta, introduced him to the wonderful world of Remote control airplanes. 

At first I thought it was just a fun little toy, but apparently this is a full on hobby that requires practice, skill, and geek like to devotion to learning all things RC. 

Taber started out with a little Champ that he affectionately named, "Bequita."

He took advantage of every opportunity to hone his skills, including waking up at 5:30am to meet Kenta at the field to go "flying."

On several occasions we'd go as a family to the park to watch Daddy fly. The kids had a blast playing on the playground and Daddy got in his airplane fix.

Once he mastered flying his little Champ, it was on to bigger and better...

His next project was to spend a week in Kenta's basement, building his own airplane. 

This is the finished product. He was pretty happy about it. 

Once the big plane was built, Taber and Kenta starting spending a lot of time together on "flying dates." It actually made me really happy to see Taber so excited about something and to see him carving out time in his schedule to do something he enjoys.

There's the plane in flight.

Cam is fascinated by it

Here are the the boys with their planes.

Since we've moved Taber has missed having Kenta's wise RC tutelage, but he's doing pretty good on his own keeping up the habit. Our new house is on a golf course so it's the perfect set up for him to just walk out the back door and fly his plane out there for a few minutes before dinner.  Happy Hobby = Happy Hubby :)

Saying Goodbye... 10-14-12

On our last Sunday in New Hampshire our dear friends the Noel's hosted a going away party for us so we could say one last goodbye.

Russ and Teresa Noel are two of the kindest most genuine people on this earth. They constantly opened their home to us and always made us feel like part of their family. Teresa came to my house many times to watch my children for me, and she was there for me until the very end, helping me scrub walls after the movers took all our stuff. I love them both so much and am grateful to have been blessed by their friendship.

We spent the evening chatting, eating yummy food, and giving lots of big hugs to our wonderful friends.

It was nice for the kids to say goodbye to their little friends too. 

 I took a ton of pics because I wanted to remember everyone, so I'm just going to post them all because I love these people so much :)

Lovely ladies from my Nashua 1st ward

And these are all families from different wards who we became close with (through the play and girls camp) Some of them had to drive over an hour to come. It really meant a lot to see everyone. 

So many amazing friends! We love them all so much and are grateful that technology allows us to stay in touch so much easier. 

Later that week we had a few more friends drop by to say goodbye.

When Teya met her best friend in preschool, I was introduced to her mom, who became one of my best friends too! The girls were in the same preschool, kindergarten, and first grade class. We love Mia and Laura and their sweet family so so much! Glad they came by to say goodbye one more time. 

Another family very dear to our hearts is the Blanchettes. Teya and Emerson and Brinley and Eliza (all snuggled together on the top row) have been the best of friends since we came to New Hampshire. Jenn has been one of my closest friends as well. There's no way we could've left without one last group hug.

Rigg's Annual Halloween Party 2012

When Taber found out that his company wanted him to start work on October 15th in West Chicago, the first thing I thought was, "I guess we're going to have to do our Halloween party early this year!" 

So that is just what we did. Friday the 12th we hosted our bash, and the following Monday Taber started work in Chicago. We've got our priorities. :)

This year Taber finally gave into my begging and agreed to go as Jasmine and Aladdin! Isn't he perfect? He could totally get a job at Disneyland in that outfit... ;)

Here are some of the fun costumes that night:

Punk Rockers,  Chef and a cute witch.

George and Martha Washington, NICU nurse.

Replacement Refs, Desi and Lucy

S'mores, Cowboy Sheriffs.

Wayne & Garth from Wayne's World, Business Casual & Day of the Dead (winner of scariest costume) 

Mucinex Booger and Mother Nature, Fancy Lady and Mr. Magoo.

King and Queen, Legos, 

The Good Fairy and Pinocchio, American Gothic

We also had a few great minds thinking alike. We had the California Edition of Where's Waldo, and the 25th Anniversary Edition of Where's Waldo. They all looked pretty fabulous :)

And now for the costume contest winners. 

This year we did it a little different and instead of having 1st, 2nd and 3rd, we had specific titles to vote for. 

Most Creative Costume went to:

Kendall and Kenta who came as Punk N' Pi 

(you can't see it but on the back Kenta wrote out the whole number figure for pi. True math geek dedication ;)

Funniest Costume went to:

Joseph and Kemper who came as Heman and Shera in HOMEMADE costumes. (Kemper even sewed Joseph his own little fur loin cloth) Everyone was dying laughing. So so awesome!

Host's Choice for Best Costume went to: 

Kaddiz and Stephen who came as a Beekeeper and his Queen Bee. 

Kaddiz handmade their costumes, including the painstaking process of dying 50 little fuzz balls, cutting out tiny wings, and gluing them together to make the bees on her beehive and on Stephen's mask. Amazing!!

And the winners of the BEST COSTUME, voted in by a landslide were...

Gary and Susan who came as Bert and Mary Poppins. (I knew they were going to win when they spontaneously started singing, "It's a jolly holiday with Mary." Too perfect. 

This year, with all the moving preparations I didn't have time to pull together my usual minute to win it games, so we played Family Feud instead. 

I just used an app I bought on my iPad and hooked it up to our TV. Worked out great!

We played girls against boys. The girls put in a good effort...

 But the boys dominated.

After the games, we ate, chatted, ate some more, and just enjoyed the evening with our wonderful New Hampshire friends. 

 Great party, great night, and glad we were able to continue one my favorite Halloween traditions :)

Applefest half marathon 2012: One last hurrah! 10-6-2012

2 weeks before Taber started work in West Chicago he decided to run the applefest half marathon one last time before saying goodbye to New England. (I would've joined him but 2 surgeries in 4 weeks kind of took running off the table for me... I'm finally starting to work it back into my routine again, slowly but surely :)

 The night before the race we had our traditional pasta feed with other friends who were running. Since spectating can be pretty challenging I decided to carbo load with the runners too :)

 On race day we loaded up the kids and drove Daddy to the starting line. The girls wished him luck and promised to cheer really loud when they saw him. 

The gun went off and we all gave Daddy high fives as he passed by the starting line.

 Then we headed over to mile two for another cheer stop. We got to spectate the race with Thomas and Abby whose mommy and daddy were both running.

 Cam loved clapping for all the runners

 Daddy passed mile 2 looking strong! The girls were ready with cheers and high fives to pump him up. 

 After mile 2 we didn't plan on seeing him again till the finish line, so to kill time, Teresa (who was watching Thomas and Abby) and I took the kids to Dunkin Donuts and then found a park where they could play.

When it started getting close to Taber's projected finish time we loaded the wagon and headed back to the finish line. By this point the kids were spent so we had to bust out the iPad for back up.

 Luckily it kept them all VERY entertained while we waited :)

 Cute Thomas and Brinley cheering on the runners.

 Before we knew it Taber was coming down the home stretch, on track to set a new PR on the very challenging and hilly applefest course. 

 With about 100 yards to go he stopped by the curb and grabbed the girls to finish the race with him. They ran their little hearts out and I snapped this picture as Daddy and his girls finished strong. 

Proud of Taber for running a great race, for setting a new PR on that course, and for showing the girls that the best finish is when we finish together.  

Pumpkin Patch 10-5-2012

The first weekend in October we took the kids to a pumpkin patch

 The weather was so beautiful and warm that the kids were in short sleeves and shorts! Rare for a NH October!

 Besides picking out some lovely pumpkins the kids had fun exploring the farm and stopping for photo ops. 

 Cam loved the pretty flowers.

The most precious pumpkin of all.