That's a first!

We've had a lot of changes in our family lately with moving and starting over somewhere new. Along with that, a lot of firsts have happened too. Here's Abbie on her first day of kindergarten:

She also lost her first tooth a few weeks after school started!

The tooth fairy also made another visit to see Porter. He got his first two teeth within a week or two of Abbie losing hers!

Leah started preschool with her cousins


Abbie and Leah both started ballet
Again with their cousins!

Porter thinking about crawling (just thinking, though, not moving yet)I got a new haircut

Our first family picture in our new home
We have also had a lot of visitors in the past few months. My mom was the first to use the guest rooom and the kids loving seeing Grandma again!

Abbie had her 6th birthday! She wanted a My Little Pony cake but I didn't want to fork over the big bucks so I made our own rainbow cake and she loved it!

She got a bunch of My Little Pony stuff so she was happy!

As you can see here

Leah was just happy to wear a hat, eat cake, and get Abbie's hand-me-down toys!

She also loved wearing Abbie's birthday crown and jewelry, we'll be using it again for her 4th birthday next month!

We also made a visit to Temple Square for the first time since moving to Utah. Abbie and Leah loved looking at the huge "castle" (temple) and seeing the brides getting their pictures taken.

Pretty gardens and girls

The whole family by the reflection pool

An awesome picture I took just as we were leaving I loved it so much I changed it to sepia and printed it off in 11x14 to frame. It looks like something you'd find in Deseret Book, right?
Well, as you can tell we've been busy. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully it won't take me three months to update again!

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!