Just an update

We were able to move into the house last weekend on an early occupany contract. We love it so far. It's been super stressful because life has been a mess and looking at all my house contents stacked into a huge pile has been overwhelming. I think I have like 95% of things put away now.

There are a lot of things we really love about the house: we love the yard. It's big and green. We have lots of shade and some really nice landscaping. I have a flag pole too, how cool is that! We have a garage to park our cars in (and store 'stuff'). We have lots of room in the house! I have several empty closets and two pretty sparce rooms (Don't worry I'm sure I'll fill them up soon). Overall the house has a lot of upgrades. Little things that I've noticed, like nice fixtures, high quality carpet, super nice appliances, huge heated jetted tub, crown moulding, wood flooring (laminate but great quality) a great front door, central air, ect... I think that the previous owners put a lot of work and money into this home assuming it would be their home for a while.

There are a few things we don't love: white carpet. Whoever invented white carpet should be shot. I mean, there is NO ONE who can keep it clean. We had it shampooed when we moved in but it just shows every little bit of dirty. Also, our master shower is teeny. I'm not sure I could shave my legs in there...

We got a new washer/dryer when we moved it. It's one of the fancy frontloading HE types. I love them! I ALMOST get excited to do laundry. We are getting some paint colors and hopefully will be able to get some areas painted this upcoming week. We love the furniture we got off KSL. We just need to find the perfect dining table. We don't sit down often since our schedules are near opposite, but eventually we'll need one! I also can't wait until I can get a deep freezer. I've wanted one for a while now and since we have the space for it, I can't wait until it's in our budget! I'd love to stock up on some meats.

My pumping sessions lately have produced less and less. I finally ran out of my freezer stash on Tuesday. Today we had some major issues. TMI alert: We made the switch to whole milk Tuesday. Today Sophie has a super hard morning and was so fussy. We got in to see the doctor and found out the milk made her super constipated and she has a fistula. We have to do miralax and no milk products until it's healed. Poor girl! It was a sad sad sad scene in the doc's office. Poor baby!

We just got the interent, so I haven't been on lately, but just so everyone knows we're still alive!

We're just kind of in limbo with the new house. The appraisal was delayed... so we really can't move forward until that's done. Either way, we need to be out Friday night. We're just kinda flying by the seat of our pants!

I am getting so excited about Sophie's upcoming birthday! I was able to make her invitations and decorations (some I'm still making). I'm having Whimsy Cupcakes do her cupcakes (they are delicious!). I'm also going to be making some mini cupcake pops (Picture to come if I'm able to pull them off). I can't wait! It will be in our new house too, which is going to be so fun. I got some way cute toys for her at my favorite store :) I hope she has a really great birthday. I don't know why 1 seems SO BIG. I can't believe she's going to be one. Where has the time gone?

We went to Lagoon again on Saturday. Man she LOVES it. She has no fear. Her favorite is the kiddie tidal-wave ride, the boats, carousel, and the whale ride. I can't quite tell if she really likes the roller coaster and dragon ride. We didn't get a chance to do many others since we could only go for an hour or two. I can't wait until next year when she'll be able to ride a lot more.

Life is busy! I am not crafty, but made some invitations for Sophie's birthday to send to family and have made some decorations. I'm such a perfectionist it's hard to let little things go! We've also been trying to line up things for the house. The appraisal will hopefully be this week, so once that is back and it appraises appropriately we'll be home free! (ha... the home wasn't free though). Our house now is smaller, so we don't have basic things like a dining table, recliner or chair other than our couch, ect. I've been so blessed to find some great stuff off KSL and at the DI. Last night we picked up a dining table, two sitting chairs, and a overstuffed recliner. Today, I had an 'inspiration' to go to the DI and lo and behold they had the most darling floral antique-ey wingback chairs! Only 60 for the pair. I about died. I did practically run to them and throw my body over them so no one else could buy them.... ha. We're busting out the shampoo-er and going to get everything really clean today and set stuff out in the sun (Don't you love the cleaning power of the sun?! I sure do). It's so exciting to think about getting moved into the house! I can't wait. Our closing date (just approximate) is Sept 21st! The renter wants to move in on the 18th though, so we'll just be in limbo for a few days until we can actually get into our new house.

I've been getting a few presents for Sophie's birthday lately. It's hard to narrow down what to get her. I've never been very good at getting presents, I always stress about it! Those with kids, what have some of your babes favorite presents been? Whenever I see good deals on stuff at the thrift store I get it. I have about 6 Tupperware full of toys: fisher price, little tikes, playskool, ect. We got the Fisher Price Sweet Sounds home for $1 from the DI. I bought the people/furniture for about $10 off ebay. I can't decide if I'm going to save it for Christmas because I'm not sure she'd really use it. I also got the fisher price stacking star toy for 1.50. I couldn't believe it still had all the stackers! I threw some batteries in it, and cleaned it up. I hope she loves that. Last year I found a little tikes baby carriage thing for a couple bucks. I may find a cute dolly and get that out. She's not walking yet so she may like to push that around. I found some monogramed stuff yesterday at DownEast too for super cheap. I always see Sophia, never Sophie, so I happened to find a blanket and a bag and couldn't pass it up. I of course got a few outfits (but what one-year-old wants a new outfit for her birthday). I did splurge on a few things: some new bath toys and a jogging stroller. I luckily had coupons so the stroller was almost $70 off but it was still more than I wanted to pay. I set it up today and really like it though, and hope it motivates me to loose at least a portion of my fat. It rides smooth and has a speaker for your Ipod.

We both hate school. I only have one class but it's like pulling teeth to get there. Kale is full time school, and full time+ work. I always feel bad like I should work more so he can work less, but he said he prefers I'm home with Sophie and he doesn't mind working so much. I know it must get tiring to work 6 out of 7 days. Oh well, what do you do!! This RSV season I'll be able to work full-time and then some if I want so that will hopefully get us caught up. We have very little debt but I would love to start making double payments on our cars or start paying off a student loan we got about two years ago. Right now the interest is deferred until Kale graduates so I haven't felt a need to make payments... It it always interesting to make it work, and now with a little bit more house payment I may have to budget a little differently.

I can't believe summer is over and fall is starting. It's sad! The last couple nights I've woken up feeling like an icicle! I even have put Sophie in the fleece footed sleepers lately so she doesn't freeze! I swear like a month ago I was sweating to death... Utah weather...

Our New House!

So... we got things in motion and even though we didn't sell our house (we found a hopefully very reliable renter for a 1 year lease) we are going to be able to move into our house at the end of the month! We are so excited and so blessed that we can get into a bigger house at 4.25% interest rate! We see ourselves living in this house for the next 15 years so it's a great move. We were able to go through it again with the realtor tonight and I took some pictures. Just know this is the 'rough draft.' We obviously don't have any of our stuff in there and it will need a light cleaning before we move in. We have already been making some plans of where to put what, gotten a few little things off KSL, and are anxiously awaiting our closing date!

The kitchen
The family room (can't wait to paint those walls purple)
The 'visiting teaching' room (front room)
The master bath
Kitchen view/dining room
Master (walk in closet woot woot!!!)
Sophie's room
Extra bedroom (hoping they leave that dresser cause its so quaint)
Downstairs bathroom

It's got several 'levels' to the home. It's almost 2000 sq feet with a total of 4 beds, 3baths, kitchen and dining room, front room, family room, laundry room, and storage room. It's on just over 1/2 and acre. The yard backs up to protected wetlands so we'll never have a neighbor in the back or on our south side. We have some different plans for the yard (we like grass more than little rockbed/bushes/trees clusters. Here are some pictures from the actual listing.

On another note: My brother will be home in less than 3 weeks from his mission! Wow that went by slow but fast at the same time. We'll be so happy to see him!