Main floor part 2

Troy's office with his new massage chair that he's in at least once a day. The computer desk was a mess so no picture of that, sorry.

Kitchen - half the cupboard space as the old house so
I'm still working on that.

It looks clean now but ask my kids, it never looks like this and
luckily you can't see the floor.

Family Room

LOVE this backyard. Plenty of shady places for the kids to play and there's a little bench hiding in that back corner - perfect place to steal a kiss.

I have plans for this garden but it's raining every day the next couple of days so I can only blog about it for now.

Main floor

Welcome to our home! Here are some pictures of the main floor.   My 4 year old spilled half a bottle of baby powder upstairs and tried to clean it up with a blow dryer (he said the Holy Ghost made the mess, not him) so it might be a while before I post pictures of the upstairs. :)

Front door

Inside - front entry & living room

Living Room

Dining Room

Basement part 2

Here's the rest of the basement:

13 year old finally has his own room

Game table with spinning middle - games are in that armoire

Man cave - 2 reclining sofas and a reclining leather rocker - very comfy.

New Home Pictures - Basement

I love going into other people's homes to see how they decorate and organize things. I'm still not done decorating but I know our extended family would like to see our "new" home. Here are some pictures of the basement.

Our old dresser painted black now for our 10 year old son

His bed - I need to make a black headboard

3/4 bath

Cold Storage - half that stuff is my mom's that she needs to come get so I can fill it up with our year supply of food and toiletries.

I LOVE the food storage shelves.

There's another longer wall like this to the right.

100 day Book of Mormon Reading Challenge

In our Relief Society we started something new and wonderful - a Book of Mormon reading challenge! Last year we did a 6 week challenge so it ended up taking around an hour every day to get it done in time. This year we wanted to mix it up a little and make it easier. Somewhere, someone in our presidency found this 100 day challenge. I love that it has a thought for every day and a question to ponder so it makes you STUDY instead of just READ. Simply submit a comment with your address and I'll email you the pdf file. (I haven't figured out how to do a link to it on blogger - if anyone knows how to do that please comment.) We cut them and put them together as booklets with a whole punch in one corner and held it all together with one of those metal rings. You could pass it along to your ward's RS presidency or make one for yourself to do this summer.

Home Sweet Home

Moving is CRAZY. I'm still delirious from it all. Do I miss the old house? No, not really. It served it's purpose and we really did need a bigger house. Do I love the new house? Emphatically YES! (Less emphatically said on cleaning day.)

Did I mention that we "swapped" houses? We bought a home 4 houses down the street from us and she decided to buy our house. Financially convenient since neither of us had to pay realtor commissions. We're friends now to say the least but it was still crazy trying to move in and out at the same time.

I'm almost unpacked. I'll get pictures on here ASAP. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive and slowly getting back to real life.

First Birthday!

Today's extra special because you turn ONE!

You'll eat cake and ice cream and have lots of fun.

It seems like yesterday you were brand new.

And now, there are so many things you can do.

You'll light your first candle and we'll make a big fuss

To be sure that you know you're precious to us.

Today's extra special because YOU turn one!

(Happy Birthday Baby! I love you whole bunches!)

Winter Cleaning

Hubby and I talked and he convinced me that we really do need to move. We don't fit in our house anymore meaning there shouldn't be 3 boys in one small room. And he'd like to park his Jeep in the garage... for once. OK, OK. Hence the Winter Cleaning. I don't want to move junk. So I've been going thru closets, re-organizing, throwing stuff away and I have to say...

It feels SOOOOO great!

We're giving away as much as possible and throwing away all the junk we've accumulated. The house seems bigger and cleaner already. :) House repairs are slowly getting done too. So that's why I haven't been blogging regularly lately.

Did I mention we found a house we love? I HATE moving. I hate keeping the house clean so other people can come look at our house but I'm actually looking forward to it now because of this "new" house. We haven't placed an offer yet but we're getting ready to. In the meantime, lots of cleaning going on at our house. Hubby got rid of 4 trash bags full of clothes to give to the homeless shelter. And I found Big Sister's old clothes (I thought I got rid of cuz we were "done" and they are perfect size for Little Sister. Don't need to shop for her for the next year. :) Hooray!

Now go clean your closet and let me know what you find! I promise, it will feel so good!

December Recap

She's crawling which means this is all you're going to get because she's getting into stuff again.

P.S. We had a fun week-long winter break at our cabin Bear Lake (that's where this video was shot)

Christmas Books

I've been wanting to do this for some time. Each year the kids get a book for Christmas but this year we are reading one book a night for story time. Hopefully next year I'll remember to wrap them up like presents and then we can pick one from under the tree each night.

Here's a list of some of our favorite Christmas books:

1. A Night Without Darkness: A Nephite Christmas Story by Madsen (I still cry whenever I read this)

2. An Animal's Christmas Eve by Wiersum

3. Morris' Disappearing Bag by Wells

4. Snowmen at Night by Buehner

5. My First Story of the First Christmas by Buck

6. Who Is Coming to Our House? by Slate

7. Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect by Schneider

8. The Gift of the Magi by Henry

9. The Polar Express by VanAllsburg (we watch the DVD and have hot cocoa)

10. A Christmas Dress for Ellen by Monson

11. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey by Qojciechowski

12. The Littlest Angel by Tazewell

13. We Were There by Bunting

14. The Crippled Lamb by Lucado

15. This is the Stable by Cotten

16. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Suess

17. The Berenstain Bears Save Christmas by Berenstain

18. Christmas Oranges by Bethers

19. One Wintry Night by Graham

20. The Three Gifts by Orr

21. This Is the Season Beloved of the Year by Dewey (love the artwork!)

22. If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Numeroff (this feels like my life right now, LOL)

23. Grandfather's Christmas Tree by Strand

24. The Night Before Christmas by Moore. We play a game with wrapped dollar toys - whenever the word THE is said, you rotate the gift around. Then before bed we read Luke 2 from the Bible and then sing a couple of Christmas hymns acapella with only the Christmas tree lights on.

This year for myself I've read Evan's latest, "Promise Me" and I really enjoyed Freeman's "A Christ-Centered Christmas". Last year my favorite was "The Nativity" by Gaskill and a little booklet called "The Christmas Scene" by Maxwell.

What's YOUR favorite book to read at Christmas time?