Welcome to Our House Tour!

We've been in our new house for about two weeks, and it's really starting to feel like home. 

 Danny cried for "the blue house" the first couple nights, but he's back to sleeping through the night and  I think he's adjusting well. It didn't feel like home for me at first either. I was surprised to feel that way, especially since I was up here almost every day while it was being built. But I love it more every day!

 So this is our front porch with pretty stamped concrete. I'm itching to run out and buy fall decorations for the porch. A few days ago that magical feeling in the air hit me! You know, the one that you only feel during the fall?

I need some blue pillows for that bench to match the door too, don't you think ; )?

I LOVE MY blue door : ). I don't know why, but I really wanted a blue door from day one. Even before I picked the color of the whole house.

 We have a covered patio in the back that we love. Nick sits out there on our make shift patio furniture and studies in the evenings. It's wonderful.

So here's a quick tour of the inside. I'll start with the laundry room since that's the door we always come in.

Walk through the laundry room, and you'll come into the kitchen/dining room.

It's been so fun cooking in this kitchen. There's so much counter space, and I can see right into the family room while Danny's playing.

In the picture above you can see my pantry. To the right of that is Danny's room.

Danny really likes his room. He was pretty excited about he blue wall, and about having all of dad's cool legos on display. 

This pantry has been kind of a catch all space. It's great to have one of those when unpacking. Some day I'll organize it.

To the left of the pantry is Danny's bathroom.

I decided I better get going on the potty training thing since he'll be 3 in December. Cute picture huh?

He sits on it a lot, but nothing ever comes out : ). It's going to be an interesting adventure!

So on to the family room. As you can see it's right off the kitchen which I love.

I got most of my paint color and light fixture ideas from my friend Rachel. I swear she could decorate my whole house and I would love every bit of it! Thank you Rachel!

  Our laminate wood floors are SO beautiful. Not the easiest to keep clean, but beautiful. 

Here's a quick pic of the third bedroom/office/home of the giant treadmill spot.

Our family room is bright and spacious, but in desperate need of color and decorations! Suggestions welcome!!!

I attempted to dress up the mantel a little. Failed. 

I was thinking something like this. Minus the star. Nick has an aversion to star decorations. Not sure why. I REALLY like the yellow blossoms though.

And oh my goodness this would be perfect for Christmas. 

Last is our bedroom. I love my dark grey wall and new bedspread. I'll love it even more when we have a bed and lamp tables. I want them to be white : ).

Nick is going to build this bed for me some day when he has time to breath. It's from http://ana-white.com

The master bathroom and closet are so much bigger than we've ever had! So fun!

Oh and BTW, we did the tile for the bathtub and fire place ourselves. Liz stayed up late helping one night too. It's fun to brag about our work and all, but I am NEVER EVER doing that again!

The closet is Danny's favorite new hiding place. I'm glad he prefers to hide behind (and knock down) Nick's pants and not mine ha ha!

Oh and I can't forget the view. It is just so lovely. 

So there you have it. We have a lot of bare walls and a few little projects left to do, but it's coming along! 

We feel blessed to have such a nice home and in the same town as our families. They helped us so much during the building and moving process. I hope we can repay them some day!

One More Cake

I decided I could squeeze in one more cake before the chaos of moving and setting up my classroom sets in.

My friend Katie was married on the 14th of July. It was beautiful and romantic. They wrote the sweetest vows and Katie wrote her groom a song. Everything to make me miss my sweetie pie who was in Virginia studying for his master's degree. Thank goodness he only had to stay one week! 

I'm really happy with how the cake turned out. I LOVE the new fancy stand I bought for it. I think it's gorgeous. I love the cake topper Katie picked. It's a old fashiony and sweet.

Here is my lovely sister-in-law Jordan. She was a bride's maid. I wish I could have got a better shot of her dress. She looked adorable! Danny had fun dancing with her at the reception.

A few days before the wedding, Jordan threw the coolest bachelorette party for the bride! They went to Morgan Lake and camped over night. I helped her set up and we had so much fun. The decorations turned out great! I just thought camping was the coolest thing ever for a bachelorette party! 

We also celebrated Joey's Birthday that week. He is 19! 

SOMEONE (me...ha ha!) grabbed a "0" instead of a "9" at the store.

I made him wear a birthday boy badge all night. I'm going to miss him when he goes on his mission. I just love my little brothers.

Lately

Where do you start when you have so many pictures to post? I've taken tons of pictures this last month, and I just can't leave any out. Thank goodness for collages to make this many pictures look cute and organized.

So here we go. Here are all my pictures that will bring back great memories some day!

Father's Day

I had a vision of how I wanted these Father's Day pictures to turn out but Danny was NOT in the mood. I gave up thinking I didn't get any good shots, but what do you know? I love them now!

Father's Day was a wonderful day full of family time. Church with my parents and siblings. Ash and Joe sang a duet in the Branch, and they did lovely! Lunch with my fam and dinner with Nick's. Honestly I don't remember many details about the day. We go to dinner with our families so much that they all just kinda blur together. Lucky me! 

One thing I do remember though is that Nick worked his buns off to get ALL of his homework done so he could spend the day with our dads. I was SO happy to spend father's day with him. Nick is a wonderful dad. He loves Danny and Danny knows it. He plays with him EVERY day for long periods of time, and teaches him how to count and read while they play. He's very firm when teaching Danny right and wrong, but so loving at the same time. Danny definitely respects his dad!

Cousin Time!

Danny asks me where his cousins are all the time, and we all love it when they come to town! Danny is growing out of the push Gage down every chance I get stage (thank goodness!), but is now entering a tormenter/teaser stage. In the bottom picture Danny is rubbing Gage's head over and over to make him scream. Sometimes when Gage falls down Danny will sit or lay on him so he can't get up. Poor Gage. It never ends, but he never stops smiling!!!

Happy Birthday to Stephanie

Nick's older brother and his wife came to town. We haven't seen them for 6 months. Stephanie had a birthday, so we got together for good food and ice cream cake! Liz asked me to make the cake. The layers went like this, chocolate vanilla ice cream, brownies, hot fudge, crushed oreos, strawberry ice cream, all covered in cool whip and topped with twix and sprinkles. Yes, tasted amazing. 

Whitman Mission

Liz took some of us up to the Whitman Mission Museum in Milton Freewater. It was beautiful, sunny and a great reminder of how good we have it in these modern times. If you haven't heard the story of the Whitman Mission Massacre, you should look it up sometime. 

Can you tell Danny likes his Uncle Chris and Aunt Stephanie? We usually only see them on Skype or FaceTime, so it's pretty exciting when they come to town. They were so cute with Danny. They're going to be great parents someday. 

4th of July

I love this holiday. So simple and laid back, but so important. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I tear up every time I see military personnel or the flag in a parade. 

Our town had a parade. It was fun and relaxing, and we got a BUNCH of candy. 

After the parade we went to the park with cousins Garett and Miranda. There was a family with a bouncy castle who was so kind to let our kids jump for a while. They all took good naps that day!

Later we had a BBQ with friends and then watched fireworks with Dad and Ash. Did you notice Danny's ear muffs? They are awesome for kids who are scared of noisy fire works!

And of course

The House

This is not the final color of the outside, the siding just comes in that color. 

We ran up there yesterday to see that paint and cabinets. Looking good! I can't believe it's going to be OURS. I'm so excited!

The walls are painted light grey and I have a dark grey accent wall. I like the dark accent wall so much I think I want to paint one in the master bedroom. 

This next week they will be installing the floor, pouring cement in the yard, and Nick will be putting up all my light fixtures! It looks so far from being done, but the builder says he'll be done in four weeks! So some big changes are coming!

Yay for Summer!

Last Thursday was the last day of school! That means no more subbing for a few months, and lots and lots of playing with this guy! 

Now that I'm use to working a little, it feels like such a vacation to be home every day. 

I was sad when Nick and I made the decision for me to go back to work part time.

 I think I cried. 

But is has been great! I get stressed easily so I was nervous to start, but after a few weeks I felt way more relaxed and started enjoying my time in the classrooms again. 

I really miss teaching sometimes.

Danny stayed with his Grandma Lizzy on days that I worked, which he LOVES to do. Some mornings I cried while driving away knowing that he was inside crying for me. Now he's used to it and pretty much pushes me out the door.

Being away from Danny a couple times a week has made me appreciate my time with him so much more. Now I take advantage of our days home by going to the park and teaching him new things. 

Nick said I seem more alive now too. So yeah, it been a good things for us!

Nick has the opposite of a vacation right now. He's studying full time on his masters and working full time on our new house. He gets pretty worn out sometimes! Poor guy. I should scratch his back more or something. 

This fall I'm going to be teaching a 2nd grade class for a couple months while the teacher is on maternity leave. So Nick will be staying home most days with Danny while I work. He'll still have homework, but hopefully that will feel like a little bit of a break after all the work he's been doing.

I'm excited to teach 2nd grade. It's such a fun age!

It will be crazy setting up the classroom at the beginning of the year and all that, but at least I have the summer to work on it.

 By then we'll be in our new house! Right now the plan is to move in by the end on July.

Speaking of our house, it now has a roof, windows, and siding! Not painted yet. Nick is finishing up the electrical tonight, and an inspector is coming tomorrow. I need to post a picture soon.

As usual Danny and I really look forward to when Nick gets home at night! 

I'm so grateful to still takes time to play with us even though he has no time. This week has been really warm so we went to the park and then tested out the new sprinkler.

Danny is usually afraid of water, but as you can see, he was pretty brave this time.

We couldn't stop laughing at him trying over and over to lick the water and get sprayed in the face every time. I'm guessing this sprinkler will be apart of a few more fun summer nights for us! 

So that's kind of what we are up to right now. Life is good! 

Sorry Ben that I didn't have any pictures of the house this time. I'll get them on here soon!

Wedding Cake

Wedding cake for a cute country style wedding reception in town yesterday. 

It's crazy how much time these cakes take. 

This one was  two tiers with buttercream. No fondant. Oh that should be easy! So I thought. It still took forever, and I was working up until the last minute as usual. It turned out pretty darn cute though.