It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Tomorrow is December 1st...can you believe it!?  I love seeing how people decorate for the Holidays.  I'll share my decor.

We got started putting up our Christmas decor the day after Thanksgiving.  I used all that we had the last few years but added just a couple new things.

Here is how I decorated my "mantle" shelves.  I love my shelves :)

I went with a more muted white/cream theme with a few pops of the traditional Christmas greens and reds

I had everything from previous years but felt I needed something along the "Believe" blocks so I bought this garland at Hobby Lobby.  All their Christmas is 50% off this week!  Here's a close up.  I love the crystal-y winter look and love how it completes that shelf.  I then traded out my usual small wreath on the holder to the right of the "Believe" blocks with just a cute red berry one from Micheals (also 50% off).

I felt we needed a wreath on our front door.  I have been sort of looking around as I am in stores but I am not particularly fond of the traditional Christmas tree wreath look for my house.  As I was at Micheals shopping for other things, I ran across this one and had to take it home! It was exactly what I was looking for!  It may not look all that cute against an orange door but it is what it is :)

And a close up...I love close up shots :)  I love the blue beads and clear crystals in this and love how it's all glittered and frosted.

Here is our sad little Christmas tree.  We have had it since our first year married so about 4 years now and it's starting to fall apart.  It actually has been a good little tree.  I think we bought it for like 35 bucks at Target and it has served us well.  Next year we are thinking we will retire this little guy.

I love this Advent calendar I made with my MIL and SIL's last year...or was it two years ago??  It's in an old vintage Coca Cola crate.  Love.

We are almost done Christmas shopping!  I didn't hit my goal, to be completely finished by December 1st but what can you do?  I just hope I'm not one of those out Christmas eve scrambling to finish up...

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas!

A Little Update About the Adults

I feel like we have had a busy couple of months lately, with moving into our new home, fairly new jobs, parenting busy-boy James, and just getting settled into our new community and church callings.

I knew owning a home would be hard work but wow, there really is a lot more to it than I expected, for example, sealing our front porch and backyard "deck" for the winter...what!? (I put quotations because I'm not sure if I'd go as far as calling it a deck per say, but we fit our grill on it comfortably and with it you can fit like two or three adults) And of course we still need to get blinds and a water softener...Okay, don't panic, we do have blinds (I guess you can call them that). They are those make-shift paper blinds that you get from Home Depot for like 5 bucks.  

At least we have privacy :)  

There are so many projects I have been wanting to do to make our home represent our style.  I also would just love to go out and buy a whole bunch of furniture to totally redo complete our family room and the same for our living room buuuut....budget.  

And then there's the daunting task of putting in a yard.

"It'll all come together in time, Rachelle...Simmer down." 

 I tell myself that on a daily basis :)

Carson has been super busy with his job and has been working long, crazy hours.  This has been a struggle for us both. I think we saw each other more when we were both going to school full time and working.  At times I feel like a single parent and often times I. Am. Exhausted.  I seriously don't know how single mama's do it everyday.  And I know there are a lot of my friends and family out there who have similar or harder situations than mine so I really can't complain.  

But really Carson likes his job aside from the crazy hours which won't last long anyway.  I am still working for a nearby clinic and am loving it!  And I am loving my most important job, being a mama to this sweet boy...crazy hair and all!

We are liking our neighborhood and ward.  I was called to teach Primary like two weeks after we moved in and currently teach the 11 year olds and really like it.  Carson is in nursery and definitely has his hands full.  We have 3 nurseries in our ward!  Ahhh

Despite being busy or overwhelmed, we are loving life and 

still have time for some fun.  

Halloween 2012

This year Halloween was so much fun!  Having kids makes it ten times more fun!

James is still pretty young to understand it all, especially the actual trick-or-treating part but he had a blast with all the Halloween decor, lighting the pumpkins, going to costume parades, parties, and dressing up in his puppy costume.

Since we are new in our area, we decided we would stick around our neighborhood this year so we could get to know some more people and also let James trick-or-treat around the cul-de-sac.  It took FOREVER! ha, I'm glad we only did our circle :)  He was way cute though.

I absolutely LOVE Halloween and plan to get way more into it with decorating now that we have a house of our own.  I did do a little decorating with my new shelves which I already previewed here.  And I also made this really fun Witch's Spell book.  It was super easy AND cheap! I got the idea from a very talented friend, thanks for letting me copy you Leslie!

Here's with all the decor around it

I also love to dress up.  This year since James adores puppies, I thought it'd be cute to see him go as one.  And of course I have to coordinate mine and Carson's costumes to go with James' so we went as veterinarians.  Plus it was easy since we have access to plenty of gear.

puppies heart sounds great

ward Halloween party

the lighting of the pumpkins

at cousin Addie's school parade

As I mentioned, James didn't get the whole trick-or-treating thing on Halloween day but we went to grandma and papa Cullimore's house for dinner the following Sunday and he saw their candy and all of the sudden had it all down.  He pointed to the candy and said, "trick or treat".  So we practiced for next year.  We went outside, he rang the doorbell, grandma answered, he said "trick or treat" and she handed him some candy from a basket.  He's ready for next year!

Now whenever he wants some candy he says, "I want trick or treat".  haha

James is a year and a half

James is growing up so quickly.  He is in such a fun stage right now too (I know I probably say that in every post I do about his growth).

He loves to snuggle

Carson and I will just sit back and watch him interact with his toys or whatever and we just laugh and wonder, what is going on in that little boy's head?  He'll sit and jabber (some of it understandable, most of it not).

He is talking more and more every day which is really nice.  Less communication frustrations for mom and dad.  I now know if he wants his water or his puppy or his binky- so nice.  He is also putting two words together more.  Some of our favorites lately are, "All gone", "Bye bye choo choo" or "Bye bye car",  "Thank you" (ah, what a well mannered boy...not sure where he got that), and my ultimate favorite that he just learned to say in the last week or two "Love you" - melts my heart.  But he does not give that one out freely- it is pretty rare :)  On the flip side, he's starting to be a little punk.  He has started to say, "No, mine" for everything.  He used to share so well but now everything is his and he says it with such attitude.  He has started saying names too.  He says, Cardi, Robert, Lala (Lisa), Kyle, Ada (Addie), and Elmo.

he loves playing with other little kids

He is getting really good at body parts.  He knows what all of them are when you tell him to point to them but he only knows how to actually say "eyes", "ears", and "feet".  He is obsessed with ears and earrings in particular.  He will move your hair out of the way so he can get to your ears to see if you're wearing earrings.

He loves to knock on doors.  He also loves to throw balls, and he actually has a pretty good arm.  He has learned to slide down small slides on his own.  He can climb up, sit down, and slide on his own.  So daring.  He likes to help mom clean.  He'll get a rag and wipe the floor or the table.  So helpful.  He loves books and has even learned how to say the color yellow from one of them!  When he's looking at an animal book, he'll bend over and kiss the little animals.  How sweet is that?

his new book reading spot

He has started becoming familiar with what we do when we say a prayer.  He will fold his arms and kind of close his eyes for a sec but then will just laugh at us through it.  Then when it's over he'll say,  "Amen".  And really he did this all on his own just by watching.  We never really prompted him to do that.  He also has this childrens book that Grandma Cullimore gave him of Christ and he knows where Jesus is and can kind of say His name.  Makes me feel like we must be doing something right I guess.

He has at least two molars on the bottom.  He may have some on the top, I haven't really checked and can't see those as well.  He is also getting his bottom canines...those have not been fun :(

He thinks it's funny to climb into his toy box

I think it's funny to take a picture rather than help him when he falls
in head first and can't get out :)  I snapped this a tad late.

In the last two weeks he has decided he's too big for a morning nap.  I really had a hard time giving this one up.  I cherished his morning naps since I used that time to get ready for the day.  It became such a hassle though.  Some days he would take a nap, some days he wouldn't and I would fight him on it.  Now that we don't do the morning nap anymore it actually hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be.  I just either make sure I get up before he does or if I'm not able to, I just stick him in the shower with me and wash him off too.  He still takes his afternoon nap and it's great because so far most days it is around 3 hours long!  I am also finding that I have more freedom with just the one nap.  I'm not trying to get all my errands done during that limited time in between nap periods.

This little boy is the joy of our lives!  Love you, James!


By the way, as mentioned in this post, my foot was hurting after my half marathon...well, I took an x-ray and had a foot doctor take a look at it aaaand, it's fractured.  Haha so I'm supposed to wear this thing

Pretty darn cute.  It's a stress fracture which is pretty common with downhill races.  It has been healing up nicely the last few weeks and this was my last week in the little orthopedic shoe so I guess I can run again!

Let the DIY begin

Having a new home is sort of a bad thing...I want to decorate and make it our own and I want to do it all NOW!  I know we will get furniture to fill our empty house and we will acquire more decorations and such as time goes.  I have all these ideas but a strict budget now that we have a mortgage :)  I am really trying to be patient.

I have also become hooked on a few DIY blogs which doesn't help...but there are some really cute ideas that are great on the pocket as well so I decided to give one a try. I found this idea here and was really pleased with how fairly easy it was and how great it turned out!  We put these up in our living room.  I already had some of the supplies leftover from the builder (door frame molding and the paint) so it was an easy decision :)  And it only cost me $53!  They look so elegant too, hard to believe they were so inexpensive!

 I decided since it was that time, I'd go ahead and go straight to decorating my new shelves for Halloween! (I LOVE Halloween).  We don't have a fireplace so I figure these shelves can serve as my mantel if you will where I can switch out my decoration for the Holidays. 

Here it is all decorated for Halloween

A few of the decor were things I made but most of them were things I already had for Halloween or things I had laying around that I could use.  I got this whimsical owl vinyl decal from the blog I found the shelves on (I absolutely love that blog).  I was wondering what I wanted to do with it and remembered I had a decorative plate down in storage that would be perfect, and voila!  I thought it worked really well.

For girls night (while the men were at Priesthood) we made these spooky terrariums.  They were so easy.  All we did was buy a wood plaque (Hobby Lobby), a glass candlestick (dollar store), fringe (Hobby Lobby), spanish moss (Hobby Lobby), and a vase (Walmart).  We painted the wood plaque black then hot glued the fringe on and then also glued the candlestick onto the bottom for it to stand on.  Then you can fill the inside with whatever your heart desires.  So easy! The whole thing cost about $8!  I love the fringe on the base, it just screams old lady, haunted house doesn't it?

I also think these glass bottles add a lot of character.  The green one was from Hobby Lobby, I used the 40% off coupon so it was around $1 and the white one was from Walmart for only 97 cents!

I found the crow and the headstone at the dollar store. 

I also bought this vinyl decal from the same blog mentioned.  I already had the frame, I just adhered the decal right onto the glass then put purple (I know it looks blue in this pic, but it's purple) card stock in the frame.  That way I can switch out the colored paper.  The candle next to it I already had as my usual decor but I thought it looked good with my Halloween decor.  It sort of reminds me of a cauldron.

I'm having too much fun!  I have many more projects that I can't wait to get started on.

Go BIG

Last Saturday Carson and I ran our first half marathon.  The course was the inaugural Big Cottonwood half. It was BEAUTIFUL!


We decided to spend the night up at Carson's parents house so that we wouldn't have to wake up as early. Also Laurie was going to watch James anyway, so that way we could just let him sleep.

We woke up at 4:30am to get ready and head out.  We drove over to the finish, parked, and loaded the bus that took us up to the starting line which was just below Solitude.  Good thing they provided mylar blankets because it was Fuh-reezing!!

before the race...we look like we got bad spray tans :)

At 6:30am it was time to begin!  We ran in the complete darkness for about half an hour before the sun starting peeking up behind the mountains and it probably took about that long for my legs to stop feeling like they were frozen ice blocks.

We thoroughly enjoyed running with each other and getting to watch the sunrise which highlighted the beautiful changing leaves.

It was interesting to watch people too since we had been training just the two of us.  There was one girl who drove us CRAZY!  She came up from behind us on my left (Carson was to my right) and then cut RIGHT in front of me.  Ok, I'm totally fine with this IF YOU'RE GOING TO SPEED UP!...no, she SLOWED DOWN! Carson and I didn't even say anything, just looked at each other and went around her and got ahead of her again.  Then a few minutes later she pushes forward and passes us again and we see her cut someone else off!  She was driving us insane so we pushed hard and got a good distance ahead of her :)

There were drink/restroom stations every 2 miles throughout the course.  A little after mile 6, I felt the need to urinate. Boo.  We were hoping to not have to stop.  So I thought well, I'll see how far I can go.  Oh, it got uncomfortable very quickly! haha Mile 8 couldn't get there fast enough. So at mile 8 I did my business and bolted out of there.  Carson was so nice to wait for me.  We sprinted to make up our time (and pass that crazy cutter-offer girl that had then gotten ahead of us).

We ended up coming in at 1:51 which was great! About 20 minutes quicker than what we had expected based on our training....mind you, we were practically rolling down the canyon :)

We were really sore after the race for about 4-5 days and my foot really started hurting the evening of the race but I think it was just deep bruising from the pounding.  It is starting to feel better.

We started training at the beginning of July.  It was definitely a roller coaster ride....I HATED training but it feels SO good to have accomplished something we worked so hard for!

look who came out to see us finish!

best running partner ever

Camping

Three weeks ago we joined my family on what is becoming our traditional annual camping trip to Heber Valley Girls Camp.  This is our second year.  They use it obviously for girls camp during the Summer but in August and during the off season, they let families stay.

We had a blast!  If anyone knows about HVGC it is not like regular ol' camping.  They have cabins with electricity and bunk beds (you have to provide your own mat and stuff....which is good anyway), a gas grill, a pantry area with a fridge (that is behind a heavy duty door of course so not to attract bears), flushing toilets, and yes...HOT showers!  Ohhhh it's  rough I'll tell ya.

This year there is a fire ban that has sort of been on and off (mostly on) and we were hoping they'd lift it for us since we had quite a bit of rain the weekend before....nope.  So that was sort of sad, that's the whole fun of camping is the campfire but we made do and roasted our marshmallows over bricketts :)  Hey, at least we didn't come home smelling like a campfire so that's a plus. Also I'd rather it be there overall because of the issues we've been having this year with wildfires.  Better safe than sorry!

We had lots of fun hiking, playing horse shoes, volleyball, making kids crafts, and just enjoying each others company.  This campground is awesome, it is maintained and run by missionary couples.  My mom kept saying she wanted to put in for a mission there.  I agree, I think it'd be fun!

They have lots of challenge courses that you do in groups that are really fun.  And lots of "thrill rides" if you will.  Last year we did a giant zip line (my first ever...and I'm not gonna lie, I was scared).  This year we did this swing where they put you in a harness and hoist you up to the top of this tree (not sure how high, but it was high enough) and let you go.  It was nuts!  James even got to ride it...well not entirely, they harnessed the little ones and just let them hang and they'd push them like a regular ol' swing.  James was so cute :)  They made everyone stay back behind ropes except for one parent and so Carson went out while I took pics.  It looked like James was scared to death, he was gripping the rope but Carson said he was smiling.  I have another picture of James being harnessed up and it is so precious but its on my Mom's camera.  I've been hounding my parents to send it to me but they are taking forever so I'll just share it when I get it :)

James on the swing...hanging on for dear life.  

We stayed from Wednesday evening till Saturday late morning.  We went straight from there to the BYU game which was at 1pm and it was SO HOT!! Poor James was pretty tired but he did surprisingly well despite the heat!  We have Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Chris and Aunt Emily to thank for that. He even fell asleep for the last quarter and a half! Good thing we came equipped with sunscreen!...no burns, yay.

at the game

Such a fun weekend.  We love camping!...oh and of course BYU games too :)

Being a Stay-At-Home Mom is Hard Work

Just thought I'd blog about something Carson said that was funny.  It still makes me laugh a week later.

This happened the day of the mudslide.  So as I mentioned in that post,  since Carson couldn't hike Timp that day, James stayed home with him while I went to the baby shower and ran some errands.  He had been so tired lately because of not taking good naps etc. so he slept in till 10am.  He was just waking up when I left.

When I returned at about 2pm Carson was watching his cartoons, "The Avengers" (he's such a kid).  I asked how his day went.  He said, James got up, ate breakfast, then went down for a nap at like noon and has been napping since. Then he said, "I've gotta hand it to you.  This staying home all day every day with James is a tough job." To which I laughed and replied, "That's not fair!  He's not like this every day.  How come you get such a good day?"

James is really a good, chill baby so I really don't have it that tough, but as all mom's can attest it is still hard work whether or not you have a chill baby.  I just thought it was so funny the day Carson gets to spend playing mom all day he gets a misrepresentation of what it's really like.  And instead of getting all defensive I just had to laugh at his sarcasm.

By the way James napped till 4pm that day....geez I should've gone to lunch, a movie, maybe done some shopping :)

Saratoga Mudslide

Our weekend was an interesting one.

Carson had plans to hike Mt. Timp Saturday morning with some friends.  I wasn't going with because I had a baby shower to go to and other errands.  Well, early Saturday morning we woke up to a crazy thunder storm.  The lightning was amazing and it was just dumping rain!  But this meant that Carson couldn't hike Mt. Timp.  :(  Poor guy, he was so excited.  Seriously, we have so been needing water this Summer and really welcome the moisture but the timing was just bad.

Carson stayed home with James while I went to the baby shower and ran my errands, which actually worked out nicely in that sense.  And actually James pretty much just slept the whole day....he was such a tired boy.

at the baby shower

Later that evening we went up to Salt Lake where a family member was having his reception held in the Rice Eccles stadium tower.  It was amazing!  Such a beautiful place to have a reception, despite it being at our rival's stadium :)  They did some pictures out on the field so Laurie and Kelvyn took James with them to do that and captured some of their own pictures of him.  Carson and I stayed up in the tower and watched, there was no way Carson was going onto that field ;)  actually it was very windy so we (or I) didn't really want to go outside.  We had a great time there and decided to head back down at about 7:45pm.

James had been so tired lately so I was thrilled that we were entering our city before his bed time!  But as we rounded Redwood into our neighborhood at about 8:30pm, there were a lot of emergency vehicles entirely blocking off the road and were diverting traffic off East onto a smaller road.  At first I thought, oh no, someone's hit a deer but as we came around on the smaller road to try and get around the scene and maybe cross Redwood at a later point, there was another police officer guiding people around a large, VERY large puddle in the road.  As we drove past, I asked him what was going on.  He said there had been a mudslide.  I asked if he knew exactly where.  He didn't know.  I asked if any houses were affected.  He didn't know that either.

As we continued on, we could see that we were at the end of the mudslide and even down at that point, yards were damaged.  We then came to a standstill.  They were not letting anyone through that road as well.  As I mentioned we were at the end of the mudslide so it was blocking the road.  We were told a plow was going to come and clear it so we waited....so much for getting James to bed on time.  But really that wasn't my concern anymore.  My main concern was is my house okay?  Are my neighbor's houses okay?

Then my sister, Andrea who lives in Saratoga called me.  She told me she just read on KSL.com that there was a mudslide and she believed it was in the neighborhood just barely North of mine.  This is where her husbands brother and his wife live.  She had seen a house on the news that she recognized as one in their neighborhood.  Her brother and sister-in-law were out of town so she needed someone to check on their house.  Well, we weren't allowed in and my brother-in-law had tried to come out but of course wasn't allowed in so I made a few calls.  I was able to get a hold of my neighbor.  First, I wanted to check on the status of our house and our neighborhood and then to see if they could go check on the other house.  I was relieved to hear that our house was okay.  My neighbor drove over and checked on my sister's in-laws house.  She said the scene was pretty bad.  The roads were coated in mud.  They had to take a few different routes to even get there (this is like 3 blocks from our house).  Everyone was outside sandbagging and trying to deal with what happened. They reported the house seemed to have little damage on the outside (there was some damage to the side of their yard).  We were also able to get them access inside the home so we could make sure there was no damage inside.  Despite all the houses around them having major basement flooding their house was miraculously dry.  Except for the minor yard damage, the house was pretty much untouched.

In the meantime we were still waiting for the roads to get plowed (it had been about an hour at this point).  We had utilized our time calling back and forth coordinating between our neighbors who were checking up on the house and my sister.  But at this point, we decided to head back up to SL to stay the night at Carson's parents house. James was so tired and was having a hard time sleeping in the car seat.

About half an hour after we got to Carson's parents they were then letting people back to the neighborhood but by that point we had already put James down and decided we would stay.  I was supposed to teach primary the next morning at church and my team teacher was out of town so I had made a phone call earlier on to the Primary President telling her we would try to get back down on time.  She returned my call at about 11:30pm telling me they were also trapped out of the neighborhood and had just got back in.  She had also got word that they had cancelled church and everyone was to help with the clean up efforts the next morning.

So the next morning we headed back down.  I don't think we realized the severity of it until we drove through.  You could see it's exact path, everything in it pretty much destroyed.  Carson went to help with the clean up while I stayed home with James.  When he returned he told me how bad it was.  I think it was 24 homes were damaged, most of them filled with mud up to the ceilings in the basement.  Debri everywhere.  Yards wiped out.  Windows and even the whole side of one house broken.  One of the houses it hit is a total loss.  AC units and trees were uprooted and thrown into windows of houses.  People's belongings were destroyed.  A few teenage kids who lived in the basement lost all of their belongings.  I feel so sorry for these people.  And this is the same area that had the wildfire earlier this Summer.  Can you imagine having to be evacuated because of a fire and the threat of losing your home and then the relief of not losing it to just a few months later being hit with another major natural disaster and not being able to do anything about it?  The cause of the mudslide was definitely a direct result of the wildfire.  Because of the wildfire, there was no vegetation to hold back all the rain we received.

This used to be a park...now it's a swimming pool

Carson also helped yesterday on Labor Day.  There is still so much that needs to be done.  But I can't even tell you how impressed I am with the people in this community.  Everyone was so quick to jump in and lend a helping hand.  People gave up their whole day to help either shovel mud, carry buckets, make and deliver food for the volunteers, watch other people's children so that they could go and help.  I get sort of choked up about it.  There were volunteers from our Stake, neighboring Stakes, and even people from Lone Peak, Eagle Mountain, and Orem/ Provo areas that came to help.  I am grateful to live in a community that cares so much about one another.

James at 16 months

16 months, really!?

My baby is more of a toddler than a baby at this point and it kind of breaks my heart but he is so fun at this stage!

We went to the doctor last week and he weighs 22 lb (38%), is 31.5 in. tall (51%), and his noggin is still uuuge and is in the 93% (this is why he is super smart ;) )

He is such a busy little guy and is walking/running EVERYWHERE!  He took his first steps at just about 14 months and then somewhere in between 14-15 months he was off.  He definitely has a lot of bumps and bruises (usually on his face...I swear we don't abuse our child).  Along with this, he is trying to climb up on things.  He can get up on the couch and low stools but it is still somewhat difficult for him so luckily he isn't onto other things such as the kitchen table etc....for awhile.

He is a talking machine, it is so cute.  He says about 27 words, some of our favorites being "car" which was his first word other than mamma and dadda and he says it in a Boston accent making it hilarious.  Anything with wheels is a car....bikes are cars, strollers are cars, wagons are cars.  He says "wawa" for water and while we run along the river he yells "wawa!!" when he gets a good look at the water and he yells it pretty loud.  His latest new words are "hi" and "buh-bye" and says this often while talking on his phone.  He also says two words together, "what's dat?" while pointing to things.

The fingers have found the nose! Oh boy haha. Sometimes I'll catch him digging up there.

He loves eating with utensils, especially a fork and likes to stab the food.  He is a really great eater and always has been.  And even with 8 teeth, he eats pretty much anything so he no longer really eats baby food.   His favorite food the past couple weeks has been corn on the cob.  It's so funny watching him eat it.  He does it all by himself!  It's funny though because he will only eat corn if it's on the cob.  He has gotten kind of high maintenance :) We are still doing bottles but I will be working on getting him off of those here soon.  He has gotten better at using sippy cups with water so I think he's ready.

He is getting a molar!  He has been such a champ dealing with it too.  It really hasn't bothered him much like I thought it would.

He is obsessed with shoes (which of course is one of his words he often uses).  He loves to try our shoes on and wants to walk around in them.  He also loves to shut doors and will shut himself into a room and of course can't get back out, so he will cry.  He does this over and over, silly boy.

He shakes his head to say "no".  He also gives high-fives and knuckles.  He also likes to hit himself and others....we are working on redirecting this behavior.

Oh my heck, we love this kid so much!

Mommy's little guy

Eating corn on the cob like a boss...with the little pinky do-da to add :)

Our little Captain America...he didn't like it

The big reveal

Goodbye old house....

Hello new house!....

the finished exterior...yep we have an orange door :)

Let me take you on a little tour, come on in :)

entry

living room right off entry (love the windows and tray ceiling)

family room with big beautiful windows

this is what we see from these windows, Mt. Timp with the lake below.
This pic doesn't do it justice....it is beautiful.

the kitchen of course.  LOVE!

To the garage.
On the left is a half bath on the right is the laundry room

laundry room
(I so miss going outside and down our steep stairs into our dungeon to do our laundry ;) )
 

half bath

main bath down the hall from the family room

James' room (I promise the carpet is really not this peachy color)

closet in James' room (both rooms look about the same)

master

master bath

garden tub in master

from master bath into closet (nice to have some closet space again)

That is our home!  We also have an unfinished basement that we will later finish as needed.  Sorry about the pic overload but I love seeing people's homes etc.  The more pics the better I feel.  I also shared pics of before we were in with our furniture and stuff because we are still getting settled (you don't want to see the mess we've got right now haha).

I have lots of decorating projects up my sleeve.  Check in for some of those updates.  I am so excited to get started!

We are absolutely loving being out here.  Our neighbors have been so incredibly nice!

Thanks for stopping by!....(I'm such a dork).  Come visit any time :)