Our New House

     We spent New Year's Day moving into our new house. We had so many people from our old ward come and help us move, we felt pretty blessed. I had most of our stuff packed in boxes and ready to move. I tried to be pretty organized and I got rid of several things, (I still want to get rid of a lot more stuff) but in the end I ran out of time. We had sick kids the week before and we really were not sure exactly when we would need to leave so it was hard to plan and know exactly what to pack. I spent the morning while everyone was loading up our stuff, throwing all of the last minute things in boxes. I was lucky that someone in our ward moved right before us and they gave us all of their boxes. I told my mom kind of where I wanted everything at the new house so she was there helping to make sure all of the furniture and stuff got put in the right room.

     Brynlee and Anna were at Grandma Hirtle's house where they had spent the night. They had a great time over there and even got to go to Aunt Janeen's baby shower. I tried to watch Kyla but she was kind of freaking out with all of the people in our house and she really had no idea why everyone was taking all of our stuff. I ended up asking my sister Alesha to come and get her. Everyone came at 10 and we were done well before lunch time. I drove over to our new house and was surprised at how much had already been done. My mom and my sister in law Heather had all of the clothes hung up in the closets (I packed them on the hangers) and they had clothes in some of the dressers. The Justice family stayed and helped to get all of the beds set up and they even helped to make all of the beds. Then they brought us some pizza, plus they brought us dinner a few nights later. We can't thank them and everyone else who helped enough.

     I worked on putting all the food in the pantry later that day but we didn't have the kitchen drawers finished yet so I had to wait until later to get the rest of the kitchen stuff unpacked. By the time all of our helpers left later that day we had the majority of the boxes unpacked. All of the stuff is not exactly in the place I would have put it so I have been going through and reorganizing stuff but it was a huge blessing just to have everything up and out of the way. We really felt moved in from day one thanks to all of our help. When Brynlee and Anna came home they were both really grouchy since they didn't get enough sleep that night. We put them to bed and they seemed to adjust really well to their new beds and rooms. Kyla is still trying to adjust to a new room and a new bed.

     The day after we moved into our new house sent me back to the old house to clean. Joel was there working on cleaning out the garage and I cleaned inside. My mom took the girls and Joel's mom came and helped me to clean the kitchen. We got a lot done but we were not quite finished so I went back on Monday to finish up. On Sunday we went to church at our new ward and we all liked our new classes. On Monday when we went to our old house to finish cleaning Brynlee and Annalyn both just went on an on and raved about how nice and clean everything was. They couldn't believe how beautiful everything looked. Annalyn had me take a picture of her in her old room and she really misses it. I was pretty surprised that they had that reaction but I will miss that old house too. There were a lot of great memories made in that house. We lived there for four years which is longer than I have every lived anywhere before. And to think we signed a six month lease in the beginning because we din't think we would be there for long. I will not miss the old carpet, (especially the carpet in the dining room) the dark paneling and wallpaper on the walls, the cold windows that would have ice on them in cold weather, the mice, or the old musty smell of an old house but we will really miss our big yard with all of the room to play in and the big trees with our tire swing and the room to have chickens. I was a little bit sad to hand over the key to our old place. But then I get to our new house and look around and I still can't believe that we own such a fancy house. We love it so much. There is something special about owning a house that we built on our own. We know our new house is well built because we did (almost) all the work.

     Goodbye Old house! You will be missed.

     We spent the next week dealing with a sick baby and trying to get the house more organized. Joel finished the rock on the front of the house, put up some pictures, and got us some mirrors for the bathrooms. One of them broke right away so he had to go back to the store for another one. Luckily Kyla was feeling much better by then because Joel's brother Josh brought back the rest of the cabinet doors that Saturday and spent the entire day installing them, with Joel's help. Once the cabinets were in the appraiser was able to come and then we could finally close. Yahoo! Joel and I signed the paperwork on the 11th of January and we are now officially homeowner. It is a good feeling. We are loving that Joel can come home and eat dinner with us. His projects on Saturday don't have to send him far away. He has been putting in shelves in our garage lately and he is working on making us a new kitchen table. He built a stool for the girl's bathroom and he has gotten to spend several different evenings just relaxing with the family. We love it!

    Annalyn and Kyla are pretending to sign papers like Joel and me.

     And now for a few pictures of our new house. There are a few of them from before we moved in and some from after we have all of our stuff in. To start off here is a picture or our entryway and the living room. There is a nice big walk in closet in the entryway and Joel did all of the shadowbox stuff and the oval ceiling to add some unique features. Notice how the living room has a curved wall with the fireplace in the middle. I think it turned out nicely. The living room is huge and as soon as we walked in after we moved it felt like even our furniture looked nicer.

     Here is the kitchen. The first picture is taken right after we moved in and then I added another picture after the cabinets were put on. We have so many cabinets that some of them are completely empty. I guess we need more stuff. HaHa. Joel did all of the tile work with leftover tile from work and he got all of the knobs from leftover jobs as well. 

      Here is the dining room with a picture of our pantry. Our table looks so little in that big dining room. 

     This is a picture of our front entryway closet and our laundry room/mudroom. Then you can see the stairs that lead up to the bonus room that is above the garage. Right now the bonus room is a big toy room. I love it because all of the toys and the mess are not in the middle of the living room anymore but it sure is a mess up there. Eventually there will be a bathroom behind that door you can see. 

     Here is the master bedroom, bathroom, and closet. Everything is so much bigger than what we had before. Our last bathroom was tiny so this one feels huge. 

This is a picture of Anna's room. She will eventually share with the new baby. Brynlee and Kyla get to share the other room. They both have the same closets. The last picture you see here is a picture of the office. 

Last I am going to leave you with a picture of the girl's bathroom. 

     We sure do love this house. I don't know how we will ever move away. It feels so good to be living in this house that we worked so hard on. It sure was a lot of work but we love the way it turned out. 

December 2015

     This last month was pretty crazy. There was lots of sickness, Christmas, packing, and we were frantically trying to finish up our house so we could move in. The month started off with a trip to take Brynlee and Annalyn to the dentist. It turns out Brynlee had another cavity in one of her back bottom teeth. They were actually able to fit her in to get the cavity filled that day and after much convincing she decided to stay and get the cavity filled. I figured that way I didn't have to drive all the way back there another day. The only bad part about that plan is that Anna and Kyla were not planning on staying any longer and they were pretty naughty. Then Annalyn had to use the bathroom so I rushed her there while I left Brynlee in the care of the dentist. They had her hooked up to this cool mask that gave her some laughing gas. By the time I got back with Anna from the bathroom they were almost done. It only took them about five minutes to fill the whole cavity and they used white filling so you can't even see it. Good thing Brynlee is a trooper and did so well with it. I am just sad that she obviously has not the best teeth. She is good at remembering to brush every night. She is also missing one of her top permanent teeth so we will see how that turns out.

     A few days later Anna, Kyla, and I went to the library and then stopped to visit Joel and brought him lunch while he worked on putting the laminate into our new house. It was terrible weather for working outside so his boss let him bring some of the workers to help us out at our house. I made everyone lunch and then we went home. I told Joel I would bring him dinner and I got it all ready only to have Annalyn start throwing up. She was miserable and just fell asleep on the couch. I couldn't get ahold of Joel to tell him that I would not be bringing dinner so I had my mom stop by and take it to him. We put all the kids in bed and a few hours later Kyla woke up after throwing up all over her bed. It was pretty bad. Then in the middle of the night Brynlee started throwing up. It was about an hour after that when the sickness hit me. It seemed to hit me the worst because I was miserable. I was supposed to go visiting teaching and I could not get ahold of the lady I visit with but there was no way we could have gone. Anna actually seemed to be feeling a little bit better by morning but we still mostly spent the day laying on the couch with a bucket and a movie on. I held Kyla and rocked her and tried to keep everyone hydrated. It was a pretty miserable day. By that night all of the kids were feeling better and able to eat some food. I couldn't eat anything until the next morning. Then I could have some toast. By then Joel was sick though. I don't know how he managed to put in a full day working on our house but he did. Luckily it was a short bug because we were all better and able to go to church on Sunday.

     Brynlee was also lucky enough to get over her sickness just in time for her Tavaci performance where a group of kids got up and sang and performed to some Christmas songs. She has been practicing for it since September so I am glad she was able to go and sing. Brynlee's part of the performance was to run across the stage and pretend to be a naughty girl that was running away from her mom. She did great at that. I wish she would have had a speaking part, she would have liked that much better. We did have a minor problem right before the performace because Brynlee's bangs were super long and her teacher was very clear that she did not want the kids to have hair in their face. I tried to just pin them back or put them in a braid or something but she didn't want anyone to see her scar. Luckily my sister Heather was able to come over right before the performance because she would not let me even attempt to cut them. We decided not to do Tavaci next year and she was just fine with that. She enjoyed learning the dances/movements to the songs but I don't think she was crazy about all the singing. Now she wants to play soccer. We will see about that one but I am secretly really excited about her wanting to play soccer since that is what I played growing up.

     The week before Christmas I was sitting in the house packing up boxes while all of the kids were sleeping when I heard what sounded like a gunshot. I thought that was kind of odd because our new neighbors have never shot guns this late at night. I went to look at the window and I heard a loud explosion. The house, a little single wide trailer that is right next to ours was completely engulfed in flames. I saw the people who live there running away from the house. Talk about a scary sight. I called 911 but they already knew about the fire and were on their way. I ran outside to make sure everyone was alright. They wanted someone to call our landlord so I gave him a call and let him know what was going on. I watched them riskily save their truck that was right next to the house. Finally the firemen showed up and they slowly walked up with their hose and started to put on the fire. I expected them to come running in with sirens blaring but at that point I guess there was really nothing they could do but to watch the fire and make sure it didn't spread. The house and everything inside was pretty much a complete loss. The family that lives there was devastated about their dog that was inside the house. I talked to the teenager a few days later and they were actually able to get their dog out. He went inside the burning house to save him and is pretty lucky that he made it out alive. It was a pretty sad thing to have happen right before Christmas.

     There was a lot of things going on with our house this month. We were hoping to be moved in by the end of the month. We almost made it. We got our appliances and enough of the cabinets put in so that we could have the granite put in our kitchen. We had someone else install the the carpet. I love the feel of our brand new soft carpets. Joel put the laminate in the kitchen, put the counters in the bathrooms and finished the tile in there. He tiled our kitchen and did the stone on our fireplace and part of it outside (his dad helped with the outside stone.) Joel finished all of the electrical stuff and put up all of the light fixtures and he did the final things for the plumbing and then he called for the inspections. The plumbing inspector had one little thing for Joel to fix and as soon as Joel fixed it we passed with flying colors. The electrical inspector was not a nice guy at all and he really gave Joel a hard time. He kept finding things he should have caught a long time ago that we now super hard to fix and that he could have just let slide and then he made us pay for another inspection. Luckily he finally passed us but he sure was mean about the whole thing.

     Joel and I figured out all of the loan stuff and the money process and got that worked out. That was a difficult process and a good learning experience for both of us. We had a preliminary appraisal and we were pretty happy with how things turned out. Joel had several little things he had to work on and fix so he took two weeks off towards the end of the month. We got to celebrate Christmas together and I spent some time over there with Joel cleaning things and helping him to get our house ready to live in. We got the final inspection done and passed on the last day of the month and we officially got the certificate of occupancy. Yahoo! The only problem is that we could not officially close on the house until the cabinets were finished. Joel's brother Josh did the cabinets for us, he lives in Rexburg and he should have had them in already, it just took him longer than expected. Joel's boss who is the person that owned the house at that point told us we could go ahead and move in since it would be at least another week until the cabinets would be done. Joel started bringing over some of our furniture that night and he got some people from the Elder's quorum to agree to come help us move the next day. We ended the year pretty excited for the next year and we were excited to start the new year by moving into our new house.

     The month of December ended with Kyla and Annalyn both getting pink eye. Joel ended up staying home from church with them so they didn't even get to say goodbye to everyone at church. I took them both into the doctor on Monday and we found out that Kyla not only had pink eye, she also had an ear infection. We got an antibiotic for her and some pink eye medicine and we got the flu shot, at least the nose spray for Brynlee. I had several people that were going to come over and help me pack that day but I had to cancel my help so that no one else got pink eye. Luckily my girls all helped me out that day. I got pink eye on Tuesday and on Wednesday Brynlee woke up with a fever. So there went all of my help. No one wanted to risk getting sick and I can't blame them. Luckily I had a pretty good start on the whole packing thing so we got most of the things packed. Plus we weren't moving that far. Everyone was better by Thursday and my mom came and helped me pack Brynlee's room up. We went to Jake and Rachel's house to play games for New Year's Eve and Brynlee and Annalyn spent the night with all of the girl cousins at Grandma Hirtle's house. They had a blast doing that.

     Yes, our month was pretty crazy but it ended on a pretty good note. We had a good Christmas. Anna and Kyla got into several things, including the sugar and my make-up and we watched Jakobee and Remi one day. My sister Alesha came home from China and we were excited to spend a little time with her. We are all pretty excited for the year 2016.