Really should be more bipartisan...

Happy Birthday Trevor

Today was a big day at our house. Trevor had been counting down the days until "his" day. Since it is our spring break this week he got to enjoy a day with everybody home.

Trevor had a hard time deciding on what to pick for his birthday dinner but finally decided on dino nuggets, tator tots, and fruit. I love it when my kids pick easy meals! Trevor's favorite yogurt is yoplait Boston Cream Pie so he decided he wanted to try the real thing for his cake. He was not disappointed and said the cake tasted even better than the yogurt!


Happy Birthday Trevor! Glad you had a good day!

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[Sound of proverbial slap across the face with a glove]

These boots aren't made for runnin'

Tamara's been taking some walks around the neighborhood.

Here's today's:

House pictures

Things are looking better now that the grass is turning green.

Our sun room or "sunspot" as Trevor calls it. So far this room has been used as a homework room, (Natalie's favorite spot to do homework) reading room, craft room, and we love having a good place for kids to put shoes on and take them off.

Other end of the sun room

Kitchen with our new table that seats eight so we can now all fit around the table!


Computer room looking into the family room


Boys room--Their bunk beds are waiting to be remade into single twin beds since it will fit their room space better.


Little girls room

Upstairs bathroom

Master bedroom

The basement is a disaster but at least we have a place to keep stuff where we don't have to trip over it until we get the rest of things organized. The big girls room is not set up since we are waiting to get their bed finished painted. Once their bunk bed is put together they will have lots more space to move around. Their room is the smallest room but they are so excited to only have the two of them in a room instead of sharing it with the two little girls.

Spring surprises

Moving into a new house brings lots of unexpected surprises. Some are good and some are scary! We were pleasantly surprised and excited to find flowers blooming in our yard.

Spring has sprung!

Cup cake fun

Trevor's birthday always falls during spring break so this year he wanted to take a birthday treat into his class before vacation week. After seeing some of my sisters fancy cupcakes I decided to give it a try. Mine aren't nearly as fancy as hers but I think I did a pretty good job for my first attempt. I'm excited for my sister to come visit next month so I can see the master at work and learn some of her tricks!

Trevor really wanted me to order cupcakes from Sam's Club so they would come with a ring on top of each one but he was so excited when he saw what I had made. Now we just have to figure out how to get them to school in one piece.

Big Changes!

More than nine years ago we moved our little family across the country to what felt like a whole new world for us. We were very blessed to find a nice complex that was kid friendly with a roomy 3-bedroom townhouse just for us. Over the years our family has doubled and our roomy townhouse didn’t seem very roomy anymore.

March 2010 we decided to look at the possibility of buying a house and so the journey began. We did research, asked questions, looked at houses online, signed up for “first time home buyers classes”, and did lots of praying. We knew we wanted to stay in the ward and we didn’t want to switch schools. It sounded easy enough but we were having a hard time finding a house big enough but still in our price range.

In October we finally found something and felt really good about putting in an offer. One big drawback, the kids would have to change schools but we felt like we gave it our best shot. Our offer was accepted and we moved forward with the home inspection. Mentally I had already moved in. I would go to sleep at night thinking of all the extra space and we were all really excited. In early December the house went into foreclosure and our agreement was off. I was devastated. I cried. We now went back to our house list and set up appointments with our realtor to start the looking process again. As we did some searching online we thought that maybe we should expand our search area and now had homes to look at in the “other” ward. We kept praying to know we were doing the right thing.

December 17^th we met with our realtor to look at six houses. We crossed some off our list after looking at them and had one good possibility except for the fact that it was in the other ward. (Not that there is anything wrong with the other ward but our ward really feels like family and is a small struggling ward while the second ward seems to be bursting at the seams.) We continued onto the next house on our list and as soon as we walked in the front door I knew. It was what we needed size wise, had a big fenced yard, had been nicely kept up, was still in our ward, AND the kids wouldn’t have to switch schools. We sat down right there and made an offer. We call it divine intervention and it has been amazing to see how all the little things and the not so little things have fallen into place throughout the whole process.

One year after we started looking into buying a house we bought a house. We have now been in our house for one month and I’m starting to wonder how we ever made it work in our little place. I guess when it is all you have ever known it works out. We have enough rooms to have two people to a room (all four girls were sharing a room previously) and all but one of the bedrooms is large. I finally have my very own washer and dryer, a kitchen with real workable counter space, lots of space to run around outside and play, and the list goes on. We’ve gotten a lot accomplished in the last month and it now feels like home instead of somebody else’s house.

The kids have all been awesome helpers and it has been fun to see their excitement. Emersynne still walks into a room and says, “I lub my new house.”

Here are a few photos and I will work on taking some more when we get some sunshine.

Not colors I would have picked but we decided to save the painting for a later project since nothing needed to be painted. This is the formal dining room which we are using as our computer room since the kitchen is big enough for the table and chairs.

Nice wide entry way

Piano/TV room painted a very bright yellow. I do have to say that the walls don't look quite so bright with the furniture in there.

Stay tuned for more pictures. We are loving all our space and are excited to be in a house!