Our New Home (as of next week!)

Next Friday, I am proud to say, we will be owners of this brand new house!

I have never owned a home before and I am very excited.  I took some pictures yesterday during our walk through.  The builder still needs to go through and do touch up paint and a few minor things, but it's pretty much done.  Before we move in, we are hiring someone to paint a few accent walls to give the house a bit of color.  It especially needs it (I think) in the kitchen and living room.  Our couches are tan, the walls are tan, the carpet is tan--- but not for long.

Here's a shot of the backyard of the house.  Nothing too fancy.  We plan to build a deck maybe next summer.

Here's a shot from the back porch looking out.  It's a pretty big backyard.  We are excited to put in a garden next year and other fun things for the kids.

It was hard to get the kitchen all in one shot, so here are a couple.  I'm loving the granite and the tile backsplash.  The walls are going to be painted a vibrant red-orange.  I'll have to post pics after the paint, I think it will make a huge difference.

Through that arch, is the entry room, which will be my piano room!

Suzy's room.  It is off the main entry room.  There is a little hall- Suzy's room is on one end and Noah's on the other and there's a bathroom in the middle.  Perfect.

Kids/Guest Bathroom

Noah's Room

 The front entry room or in my case, piano room.  I'm so excited to get creative in this room.  But first, I gotta save up some money to get everything how I want it.

Living Room off of the kitchen.  I didn't get a great shot of the room- I was too focused on the fireplace.  Love fireplaces!  So glad I have one!

Hall off the front entry room down to the master bedroom.
(That door Noah is trying to open is the most massive, awesome closet ever.  It could practically be a room.  I love storage!  Thank you house for having some!)
I also really like the color that our wood floors turned out to be.  This is a good shot of the floors.

Master bedroom.  Soon to be home to our NEW KING BED, YAY!!! (We have had a double bed since we got married so this is a major upgrade).

Master Bath.  That's a jacuzzi tub on the right.  And then a separate shower--but you can't really see it.  And I'm obsessed with our closet.  It's bigger than the picture shows and we have had a kid closet for the past, ummm..forever, so YAY!

Laundry Room.  Exciting!  Not.

View from the top of the stairs going down to the front entry room.

Our home office/adults only/no kids allowed room!

We want a place for Jared to study while he is working on his MBA- and also a room where the kids don't bring their clutter to.  This room is upstairs and it will be perfect.

This room will eventually have a couch on the left, a desk, a tv mounted on a swivel on the wall (so it can double for a computer monitor and movie screen if you are sitting on the couch), and an extremely large world travel map, likely to take up a good chunk of the pictured wall.

Can't wait til next Friday! Yippee!

Baby #3

I have been up for the last hour and a half this lovely, Saturday morning while my family is still all sleeping.  I thought about folding laundry for about two seconds and then headed right over to the computer to play on Pinterest.  Now I am really being productive by blogging.

Well, blog world, if you don't know already, I am pregnant with Baby #3!
I am finally out of my first trimester.  It was the worst first tri yet.  With Noah, I never threw up.  With Suzy, I only did twice.  With this baby, I threw up all the time.  I convinced myself I must be having twins because I was so sick.  But I'm not.  During the last 14 weeks, my husband has learned to reappreciate me for the work I do as a stay at home mom.  (Read that to mean, my house completely fell apart and meals were either cereal or eating out.)  I've been feeling good now for the last two weeks and feel mostly back to normal.

I'm already showing.  I can't believe it, honestly.  Didn't show til 19 weeks with Noah.  16 weeks with Suzy.  And here I am 14 weeks busting out the maternity box.  Oh well, I guess it is the price you have to pay for these little cuties:

Baby due October 17th. C-section will be the 10th or 11th.  My 30th bday is the 13th. (!!!)  Party at the hospital!

London

I know that one day I will finish blogging about my trip to Europe.  Until then, I get to relive the trip every few weeks! :)

London (part 2) was an amazing part of our trip.  We both really fell in love with the area and would definitely go back. 

When we first got in from Paris, we checked into our awesome hotel and then walked downtown for about an hour (we love walking) to see our friends- Ryan and Gabby!  They both lived in DC with me when we were all doing internships.  It was great seeing them again!

Afterwards, we had a few hours before going to watch the fireworks (we were here on New Year's Eve).  So we got hot chocolates and walked around the city.  It was amazing.

They had a "Winter Wonderland" set up in Hyde Park that was AWESOME to walk through.  It's like a giant fair with a Christmas theme.  Lots of people were out and the environment was the best.  We kept talking about how fun it would be if our kids were there with us.

After spending an hour or so at the fair, we walked and took the obligatory picture in front of Buckingham Palace.

And near Big Ben...

And other than seeing the fireworks by the river, that is all the sightseeing we did.
Would you believe that I didn't get a single picture of us and the fireworks?
I did get a video though and maybe if I can figure it out, I will post it later.
It was way cool.
The fireworks were AMAZING.  However, I will say I felt a little old for the crowd that we were near.  Most people were drunk, smoking pot, swearing, getting into fights, and/or blasting music- I honestly would prefer playing Scrabble and eating Rotel dip with my parents. :)  But it was still a once in a lifetime experience and I'm glad we got to check it off the list.

Here is a cute, random picture that I took from our hotel lobby.

Our favorite part of the London trip was spending time with our friends, the Mateers, who live a little bit outside of London in Chelmsford.  You can see my friend, Liane in the background of this picture walking towards us. ( ha ha, love you Liane :) )  That's the only pic we got.  Liane and I worked together at BYU International Services.  Good times.  We ate at "The Carvery" for a traditional English roast and potatoes.  YUM!

Here's Jared and Steve.  They became quick friends over a late night game of RISK, which they teamed up for against a bunch of Steve's family and friends. And dominated.

We are smiling, but we are really sad to leave Chelmsford. Wish Liane and Steve lived close to us!

But we had to get back to London to see LES MIS!!!

And I loved every second of it!

Up Next:  Espana!!!

Paris!

Sometimes (like now) I really wish that I took good pictures with a good camera.  As it is, I really don't like taking pictures.  Especially not while I'm on vacation wanting to enjoy the moment.  But then, after the moment is over, I have nothing.  And then I regret that I didn't capture the moment.

I guess that was all just a background to say, all our Paris pictures were taken with an I-phone.  If I was more of a photographer, I defintely would have captured that first moment when we walked out of the train station right into the heart of Paris.  It literally took my breath away.  I just stopped walking and stared and let it all sink in.  It was an amazing feeling.

I also would have taken random pictures as we walked around Paris for 5 hours.  The city was enchanting.  The people were fancy.  The food was good.  The pastries were AMAZING!

I would have taken pictures of those amazing pastries.  And the cute little bakeries.  And us eating at them.  I would have taken a picture of us eating our first crepe!

I would have taken about 10 million pictures at the Palais Garnier, where we saw a Tchaikovsky (*fav*) ballet.  That was the most amazing building I have ever been in.

*Sigh* Well, luckily I do have a few pictures.  And here they are!

Amusez-vous bien! (Ok, i really don't know what I'm saying)

Europe! The Beginning

I have to admit that these pics aren't the most exciting ones we took on our trip.  But then, as I was thinking back on it, the first part of our trip really wasn't that exciting.  I mean, I guess it's all relative.  Going to Europe= exciting.  But compared to everything that we did, this was less exciting.

Said Goodbye to our kiddos.  I took a picture of them in the car at the airport so I could look back on my camera at them when I got homesick.

Here we are on the airplane.  How happy do we look?!?!
I took a Lunesta and was out for 4 hours.  Fastest plane ride ever. (6 hour flight from Chicago to London)

Here I am in London!  So, we arrived at 7:00 am London time.  Felt like midnight.  But since I had slept on the plane, I was OK.
We had made plans to stay in the temple hostel that first day and do a session while we acclimated ourselves to the time change.  Good idea in theory. Super hard logistically to get to the temple from the Heathrow airport.  Expensive too.  But it was the temple and we got blessings for going so I'm glad we did!  Here I am on the temple grounds.

After the session, we decided to go running.  Our run was an adventure.  We ran to a tiny town about 3 miles away in the pitch black.  We kept thinking there would be street lamps, but there never was.  We passed by the cutest, coziest little British houses that still had their Christmas decorations up and we could see families through the windows gathered together in their living rooms hanging out.  I came to two conclusions on that run.

1. We are spoiled as Americans.  We don't need as big of houses as we think we do.
2. Less is actually more on Christmas decor.  You should have seen these cute, Charles Dickens houses and you would have to agree.  They had like one strand of lights across the front with a tiny Christmas tree in the window.  We loved it.

We ate dinner at an Indian restaurant in the little town.  We got a lot of strange looks by waltzing in there with our running clothes on.  Apparently in Europe, people get dressed up to go out.  Oh yeah, only Americans go out to eat in their sweats.  Oops!

The next day, we woke up way early to take the train to Paris.
Here we are waiting at the Lingfield train station to take us to the bigger train station.

Coming up Next:  PARIS!!!  The city of love!
PS. I do love America and Americans and wearing sweats, just want to be clear.

I'm Baaaack!

Hi, remember me? I used to blog.
When you get too far behind, it's just easier to put off blogging. 
I never wrote about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, nor our 2 week trip to Europe!
I don't even know where to begin.
I just dug out some pictures- now I can knock out Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  I'll do bits of the European vacay over this upcoming week.
And then I'm caught up! YAY!

Halloween:  I know it is ridiculous for me to even post about this, it seems SO long ago.  But anyways, Noah was a kitty cat, inspired by Dora.  Halloween is his favorite holiday.  Well, maybe it's tied with Christmas.

Suzy reused the giraffe costume of Noah's from last year.  Cute.

Noah went trick or treating with his cousin, Jack.  Do you like how Noah was so inspired by Dora that he is even carrying a Dora backpack?

Thanksgiving.  It came and went.  We ate with our awesome family here in Arkansas.  I somehow managed to not take a single picture.  Dang.

Christmas.  It was awesome.

And there you have it!
Now, let's see if anyone reads this.  My sitemeter showed 3 page views today! :)  I love the 3 of you that stopped on by today.  You are the ones that have faith in me.  Watch out, I won't disappoint this week!  I have a lot of cool Europe stuff to talk about.