Halloween...Buzz Lightyear Style!

We had a really fun Halloween this year. Austin dressed up like Buzz Lightyear. I was worried he wouldn't want to keep his costume on because we have not had much luck with that in the past, but he loved it! We went trick-or-treating with our friends Erik and Amy and their little son Trey. Trey slept the whole time and Austin wreaked havoc on the neighborhood.

It took a little while to get the idea that if he knocked on the door, people would come out and give him candy. He just meandered around kicking rocks and playing in the dirt. We caught up with some other trick-or-treaters and Austin finally figured it out by watching and following the older kids. We had been to about six or seven houses when the havoc started. Austin was walking up to a house and saw a little lawn light and decided to punt it...needless to say it broke in to several pieces. I wasn't sure what to do because it was obviously beyond repair. After examining it I gently laid it back on the ground and began to scold Austin as we walked away. Here's the embarrassing part...the owners of the house were in the group that was trick-or-treating with us and we didn't know it. They saw the whole thing. So not only did Austin embarrass us by using their lawn light for kicking practice, but I embarrassed myself by just walking away and not owning up to it. The owners were really nice and said not to worry about it, but I felt so bad and couldn't stop kicking myself (no pun intended) all night. I should have walked up to the front door and explained what my naughty two-year-old did, I should have offered to pay to replace it, I should have...I should have...I should have...

Well, I wish I could say the embarrassment ended there. About two more houses down the road a family was sitting outside handing out candy. Austin goes up and gets a piece of candy and then walks over to the "FOR SALE" sign on their lawn, winds up, and kicks it across their yard. The family was right there and saw the whole thing. It was then that we decided that we had had enough of trick-or-treating. As we are walking back to Erik and Amy's house, Austin decides that he is tired from all the kicking and destroying people's property so he lays down in the middle of the side walk and decides to take a rest. All in all, we were ready to put the little rascal to bed. Here are some before and after pictures of that memorable evening.

BEFORE

AFTER

Our Big News!!!

We are so excited to make two big announcements. The first is that we are expecting baby #2. Brittney is due the end of March!!! For those of you who know the Gardner clan, March is the month of Birthdays. The official due date is actually on my sister Emily's Birthday.

Our second announcement is that Vance found a job last week. It was a very fast and unexpected thing. Vance has been searching and searching for jobs since he graduated in April. We were beginning to feel very discouraged after so many letters of rejection and hearing things like, "we have 120 people who have applied for the position, and will only be interviewing three." We began to wonder if we would ever find a job, but we had hope that with Vance's education and background, a door would finally be opened for us.

Last Thursday, Vance's mom called and said that she just found out that there is a high school counselor position that just opened up at Sugar Salem High School. She said they had hired someone several months ago but that person called and backed out. The school administrators were frantically trying to find some to fill the position that was supposed to start on Monday. Vance's mom is close friends with the school superintendent and the principal, and after hearing about the situation they were in she mentioned that she had a son that just graduated with his MPA and would be a really great fit. Vance called the principal and had a phone interview that morning. They said they were interviewing a few more candidates but they would let us know of their decision by 5:00 that night. We were really reluctant to get our hopes up because we had been disappointed before. That night the principal called and told Vance they had selected him for the position and would like him to start on Monday. We were shocked. We couldn't believe how fast everything happened and how it had all fallen into place. We really felt like the Lord was aware of our situation and had a hand in making this job happen.

Now, being a counselor at his old high school is not really Vance's dream job, but we really feel like it will be a great stepping stone to where he wants to be. Vance has always wanted to work for a university but just didn't have quite enough experience to go along with his degree. This job will give him the experience he needs in academic advising that will hopefully help him to get a job in the university setting in the next few years.

Vance is obviously already in Idaho, but I have to give a 30 notice here at Alpine storage. I am not going to be able to join him up there until the second week in September. It has been a little rough not having him around since I am still feeling pretty sick from the pregnancy and can't seem to function without an afternoon nap. I definitely have a new appreciation for single moms. We are really excited for this new adventure in our lives and feel extremely blessed for the new opportunities that lie ahead.

Austin + Buzz = Best Friends

There is no denying it, Austin loves to watch movies. He is just like his dad that way. It started out with "Kung Fu Panda" aka "danda", then we introduced him to "Cars". I think he may have broken a record on how many times one child can watch and rewatch a single movie. Then we bought "Up" and Austin really like that one too. It wasn't quite as big of a hit as Cars and Panda but we were so excited to introduce a new movie into Austin repituire. I might have lost it if I had heard the theme song from Cars one more time.

About a month ago we got a great coupon for the Toy Story movies. Austin has not been the same since. All he thinks about is Buzz. He asks to watch Buzz about 50 times a day (of course being the good mom that I am I don't allow that kind of madness to occur). When we bought the movies, there were free tickets to go see Toy Story 3 inside. We were really excited to take Austin to the theater to see Buzz on the big screen. We stood in line on opening night, bought a big tub of popcorn, and a big root beer, and waited for Austin's reaction when he finally saw the 12ft Buzz Lightyear. When Buzz finally made his apearance Austin went CRAZY!!! He started yelling "BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ!" over and over again. The other people in the theater must have hated us because we only made a half hearted attempt to shush him because we thought it was so funny. We were a little worrried that Austin wouldn't sit through the whole movie in the theater, but the only time he took his eyes off the big screen was to shove more popcorn in his mouth. He must have eaten half the tub himself. I've never seen a kid eat so much popcorn.

We have been wanting to buy Austin a toy Buzz ever since that night. We went to Wal-Mart to get Austin a real Buzz Lightyear, but they were $45.00. We felt that was a little rediculous and settles on the $6 miniture action figure. The great thing about 2 year olds is they don't know the difference. Austin has not let Buzz out of his sight. He totes him around everywhere. In the rare moments that he does put him down he looks around and says, "where's Buzz". A few seconds later when his missing friend has been located he exclaims, "there he is!", and all is right with the world again.

Graduation!!!

Well, it finally happened. Vance has officially graduated from grad school!!! He earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Brigham Young University. It feels a little surreal. Vance makes a comment nearly every night that goes something along these lines, "Hey what am I going to do tonight...Oh yeah, whatever I want to do because I don't have any homework!"

Vance's parents came to see Vance walk for Commencement. It was really fun to have them here and Austin enjoyed getting reacquainted with his Grandma and Grandpa King. Here are a few pictures from the BIG DAY.

Well, it has been a while since I have written an update on our family. The King's have just been plugging away here in American Fork Utah. Vance graduates in April. He has been a little overwhelmed with school work and applying for jobs. We have been a little discouraged with the job hunt so far. There is a lot of competition out there. Vance has the degree, just not the experience so it has been slow. If anyone is aware of any HR or administrative positions let us know. We are willing to go where ever the job is (except Alaska....who wants to go to Alaska?). Vance has been very optimistic. We know that the Lord is mindful of us and something will work out sooner or later. We just hope that it is sooner rather than later.

Austin is getting so big. He will turn two next month. I can't believe how fast he is growing. He has lost that baby look to him. He looks little such a big boy. And let me tell you he is a big boy. We took him to the doctor this week for a check-up. He is in the 80 percentile for weight and the 99.6 percentile for height. I can't for the life of me figure out where he got his height from. He has struggled a little bit with his speech. He doesn't seem to talk as well as other kids his age. We were a little concerned so we recently had a speech pathologist come and evaluate him. He isn't delayed enough to qualify for early intervention services but he is a little behind. The speech pathologist gave us some good tips to help him learn new words and to start putting words together. Hopefully the few things we learned will help him progress a little faster. He is a very active boy. He loves to run and jump and kick balls. Sometimes if I have been busy and haven't taken him outside to get some energy out he will just start running laps around the kitchen table. I am so excited for spring to be here. I have a feeling we are going to be living at the park and the pool this summer. Austin really loves to play with his little friend, Mason, that lives downstairs. Well, it is more of a love/hate relationship. One minute they are running around laughing like crazy, and the next minute they are screaming and fighting over a toy. We are working on sharing but it is a big concept for two-year-olds. It has been really fun for Austin to have a friend so close.

Well, that is about it for us. We are just taking it one day at a time and trying to enjoy all the sweet moments that life brings.

Family Pictures for the New Year

Here are some fun pictures we took on our holiday trip to Sugar City. We weren't able to spend Christmas with the King's this year because Brittney had to work, but we went up for New Year's and had a wonderfully relaxing time. We spent time with family and friends and Austin got lots of quality time with his Grandma and Grandpa King. It snowed a lot while we were there which made for some cool pictures. It was Austin's first real experience with snow and he had a blast helping his Dad and Grandpa shovel the driveway.