It's been a crazy month!

The last few months have been a little crazy!  Abbie and Leah started school, Abbie is in 2nd grade and Leah is in Kindergarten. 

The kids got a little restless during the summer and found some creative ways to play and keep busy!

 

Even Olivia was playing games, she became pretty good at disappearing!

Abbie turned 8 years old (and got baptized yesterday, see post above)

 

She got some Lego Friends from Leah and was so excited she screamed with joy and then tackled Leah with a hug.

Last but not least, we bought a house!  That's right, we are finally homeowners!  We have been renting the house we're in (and for the last 13 years have always rented) but we finally found a wonderful house in the right location and will be moving next week!  We're up to our ears in boxes and upheaval but it's been fun to pick out new carpet and do some painting in a few of the bedrooms.  We can't wait to be settled into our new place, if you're ever in the area give us a call and we'll give you a tour!

Our new house

Now that we've been here for a couple months, I had to show before and after pictures of the house. Here's our house today with the fall colors and leaves falling off the trees.

The backyard before we moved in

The awesome built-in swing set that the kids love

Living room

Dining area

Basement

Jared and my sister who looked at the house with us back in July

Now the after pictures! It's taken me two months and a lot of shopping, borrowing from sisters, and rearranging to get everything decorated and to make it feel like home. I love it now!

The new and improved living room

Dining area

Kitchen

I love that I can see the living room from the kitchen while I'm cleaning or cooking and also that I can see out the front windows and back door from the kitchen too, to keep an eye on the kids and for any visitors.

Porter's room

The girls' room

Kid's bathroom

Master bedroom (and bathroom, we finally have our own!)

Basement/library corner

Storage room

Guest room

And guest bathroom

Other half of the basement (and what it normally looks like)

My still-left-to-unpack craft room. It's the last room to unpack because it's not necessary to survival (according to most people, fellow crafters would beg to differ) but I'm excited for the day when it's finally ready to use. It's next on my to-do list after finally updating my blog!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our house. Come visit anytime!

Moving Day

After packing for a few weeks, the big day finally came. We got the truck on Saturday, had people over on Monday Aug. 16th to pack it up, and left early Tuesday morning for Utah!

Abbie helping to pack her toys. She did pretty well with all the changes going on after I assured her that we would get all her toys out first thing when we got to the new house.

Driving across the country in the minivan while my brother and sis-in-law drove the moving truck.

We made the 24 hours of driving trip in two days, amazingly with three kids, and we were glad to finally be in our new home. Here's Abbie in front of a sign all her cousins made for us.

Unpacking the truck

We had a little bit of help...

And got it all unpacked in just a few hours with all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and little ones helping.

We barely got everything inside the house and garage before it started pouring rain!

Whew, we finally made it to UT. I'm so excited to live around family!

I'm 32 now and a big announcement! (No, I'm not pregnant!)

It's the start of birthday season in our house! My birthday is in August, Abbie's in Sep, Jared's and Porter's in November, and Leah's in December. I turned 32 today and had a pretty good day, considering we just got back from a family reunion late last night and Porter has been sick with the croup. The girls found some old Christmas wrapping paper and went to town wrapping toys from around the house to "give" to me as presents. Jared brought home dinner from Panera Bread, my favorite, and a bumpy cake and we had fun just having a simple celebration and spending the evening together as a family since we've been apart a lot lately.

Abbie and Leah singing a song that they had practiced for my birthday

Just a cute one of all the kidsOne of the reasons we've been apart from the kids lately is because we also just got back from a trip to Utah where Jared was interviewing for a job! And he got it!!!!! That's right, folks, WE'RE MOVING TO SALT LAKE CITY!!!! In two weeks!!! Things have been pretty crazy around here lately, we only found out about the job a few weeks ago and then went and interviewed and looked at houses last weekend and now we're in the midst of renting a moving truck, canceling appts and rescheduling others, changing our address with about a million bills and online companies, collecting moving boxes, squeezing the kids in for last-minute checkups at the pediatrician, giving things away and collecting borrowed things from others, trying to get everything done that we've ever wanted to do here in MI, making calls and researching info about our new home and city, registering Abbie for school, figuring out travel arrangements, and packing! Aaaahh, packing!!! Last time we moved we only had one kid and were coming from a 2 bedroom apartment so we didn't have half the stuff we have now. It's going to be crazy trying to get everything ready but it will be awesome once we are in our new home! I have a lot of family in UT and we're going to be a lot closer to most of Jared's family so it's going to be so great to be able to see all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents more often and also to be there for all the big holidays and events like birthdays, blessings, and baptisms. We've been looking for a job out west for a couple years now so this is a long-awaited change. It's really short notice and seems crazy to try to get there before Abbie starts kindergarten but it will be so worth it once we're all settled in. So if I don't see you or call you back in the next few weeks, please forgive me! I'm packing!

P.S. Here's our new house! Isn't it adorable? I love it, it's perfect for what we need and is within a few miles of four of my sisters and their families! I'm so excited! Happy Birthday to me!