Enjoying our new house

Thankfully the kids have not had a problem adjusting to the new house. The first night or two I thought they would cry and say "I want to go home" but they never did. They seem to love the extra space just as much as we do and enjoy running from one end of the house to the other. They also love spending time outside, riding their bikes and driving their new truck from Santa! They are already well know in the neighborhood and enjoy playing outside with the neighbor kids. We are very fortunate to be in a  neighborhood with lots of young families, just our street has a 7 yr old, 4 yr old, 3 yr old, four 2 yr olds, a 1 yr old and a 2 month old. I can only imagine the fun we will have as these kids grow up together and play in our quiet little cul de sac!

I just love this picture!

Yesterday we had a playdate in the cul de sac. There were lots of bikes, battery powered vehicles, and kids but it was great to be outside in the spring like weather spending time with friends. Next time we will have to figure out how to block off our street so we don't have to keep counting children with every car that comes down the street.

Charlie(3), Ashton(7), John(1), Cooper(2months), Addison(2), Emmie(4), Bryce(2), Collin(2) and Jake(2)

Charlie and Bryce

Jake and Emmie

 

Buddies! Jake and Collin

 

 The Mommies!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sending Hugs Kisses Valentine's Card

Create custom cards for Valentines Day and Easter at Shutterfly.

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Will you be my valentine?

Friday the kids enjoyed their first Valentine's Party. I put together valentine's for each of them to pass out to their friends. I found this cute idea online, it was a butterfly template that you could print, cut out and stick a sucker in it for the butterflies head. I thought that won't be too difficult and would be really cute for Addison's valentine's. Then I thought if I'm doing something creative and cute for Addison I had to do the same for the boys. I searched the interent and found a shovel that said "i dig you", easy enough! One more, I find this alligator that said "I'd snap at the chance to be your valentine", it was cute and perfect for Collin's personality. The alligator was a little more time consuming than I'd thought but it turned out really cute and I think they had fun passing them out.

Addison's Valentine's

Here's the link to the printable templates if your trying to figure out what to do for your cute little valentine: http://www.skiptomylou.org/2009/02/03/printable-valentines/

 

Bryce's Valentine's

Here's the link to this idea http://momswimbikerun.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-dig-you-valentine.html 

I didn't do the bags around the bottom I just taped a bag of fruit snacks to the bottom and they were done!

Collin's valentine's

Here's the link to the alligator template:

 http://www.skiptomylou.org/2008/02/06/id-snap-at-the-chance-to-be-your-valentine/

All 36 valentine's

I didn't go to the party because I was worried the kids would cling to me and not participate in their party but I was so excited when I got these pictures from some of the other mom's. Thanks Jolie and Catherine!

Bryce passing out his Valentine's

Addison checking out her valentine!

Bryce looking pretty excited about his Valentine's

Collin enjoying his party snacks

Addison, Collin, and Bryce enjoying the party

The class with Mrs. Schmidt and Mrs. Connie

Standing: Luke, Bryce (with his shirt up), Dane, Jack, Owen and Charlie

Sitting: Ella, Mia, Addison, Mrs. Schmidt, Morgan, Collin, Drew and Mrs. Connie

One thing leads to another!

When we invested in an old house we knew there would be work to do updating the bathrooms, kitchen, plumbing, and electrical. Thankfully we have dads that are pretty handy with those things and are so awesome to help us out. We learned real quick that when you start one thing it always leads to something else. Our first project started with updating a bathroom which lead to replacing the old galvanized plumbing, which lead to this late night trench digging event!

The house is pier and beam so Bryce enjoyed crawling under the house with Papa and daddy.

It took several phone calls and a trip back to Home Depot to find out we needed a key to start this thing (even though we were told several times it didn't)! 2 hours later it started and made the trench digging job go really quick. 

By this time of night our work turned into a neighborhood affair with several neighbors pitching in to help out.

Catherine, John, Addison, Collin, Bryce and Charlie were part of the cheering crowd. The boys had fun watching the big boys dig in the dirt with the "tractor".

It's days (and nights) like these that we will look back on and laugh about everything we went through to make this house our home but for now its making our marriage stronger!