PHOTO CHALLENGE

I love keeping up on the I heart faces blog and noticed this week the contest is faces and flowers so I decided to enter this shot that I took last week on our little walk.

RAIN

Today was one of those really dark and rainy day's the kind that instead of lifting your spirits it leaves you feeling like your happiness is being washed away along with everything else. I normally don't mind the rain, in fact I used to love rain storms and loved to run out and jump in all of the puddles. So after feeling down all morning I took Brooklyn to dance and when we got home my mood was still not great. While sitting in the car, in the driveway, I thought to myself how can I change this mood of mine. The rain had just settled down and the light was peaking through the clouds the way I love after a storm so I got an idea, I ran inside and got my camera, put the girls in their rain boots and we went for a walk. I haven't taken many pictures lately because I have been too busy with the move. It's amazing how happy taking pictures makes me especially when I am taking them of my happy girls jumping in rain puddles. I love our new neighborhood and can't get over how beautiful everyone keeps it. We have a area in the middle of all the homes that has a walking path along it and it is landscaped so beautifully. It was a perfect little walk and I went home feeling happy and rejuvenated. Plus, I got this shot that made everything even better! It makes me happy!

CHANGE IS GOOD

We have been living in our new house for about a week now and what can I say, We LOVE it! Last night when I got back from dance Toby had heated up the hot tub so we could relax our muscles after a long day. It was so nice to be able to sit in the hot tub and just look up at the stars and relax. We talked about how grateful we are for the things we have and that something that would make it even better is to have people over to hang out with and enjoy it with us. SO, I hope all our friends and family reading will come and visit us soon because we are ready for some fun times in the backyard this summer. For those of you who haven't been to our last house the backyard was pretty little we didn't spend much time back there because to be honest it felt like a prison a little bit. We had a huge cement wall and it just wasn't much fun to be out there. Not to mention it was pretty noisy with the traffic and the train. So believe me when we started looking for homes the backyard was really, really important to us. We will be hanging out back there a lot more which I am so happy about because our evenings used to be spent watching t.v. and now they will be spent working in the yard, swimming and bbq's. Although, I wont lie I'm still going to make time for Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice! Oh and Glee, modern family and Cougar Town... Crap, I didn't realize there were so many! I might have to slowly ween myself off the t.v.

The last few weeks while packing and moving my girls spent a lot of time doing this...

It's nice to see them outside running around now. I was feeling guilty!

GRANDMA CHRIS AND GRANDPA KEVIN

Brooklyn and nikell had so much fun having their Grandma and Grandpa here to visit! Now that they have gone home they both still say they want them to come back because they miss them. Brooklyn keeps reminding me she really wants to go to the zoo with them and is it ok if they come next year to go. (she still doesn't understand today, tomorrow, next week, next year, so when she wants something really soon she says can I have that next year. It works great for me because I just say sure we can do that next year.=))
So here are the few pictures we got right when Gma and Gpa got here. They got a few surprises from Grandma and were really excited about them. They love their cute little spring dresses and ask to wear them everyday!

I just wanted to say thanks to my mom and dad and Aaron again for coming out to help us move. We loved having you here and really, really, appreciate all your help! Can you come back now and help us unpack??

DANCE COSTUMES

I can't believe it has been almost a year since the last dance recital. This year is going to be even better though because Brooklyn will be dancing in it too. She has loved ballet so much and I am so excited to see her dance at the recital! Last year I just did the hip hop class but this year I thought it would be fun to do jazz too. I love dancing because it's a great work out but I don't realize it's kicking my butt as much as it really is until the next day when I can't move. I thought I would show a little sneak peak of Brooklyn in her costume.

I know everyone is just dyeing to see my costumes but I'm afraid you will have to wait!

PIRATE BIRTHDAY PARTY

I have a feeling I am going to be playing catch up for a little while. I have had a lot of things that I have wanted to post but I haven't had the time.

Max had a pirate birthday party and we took a break from packing to go party for the evening. We had a great time! Brooklyn and Nikki were a little bit afraid to go in the bounce house by themselves but when I showed them how fun it was Brooklyn got comfortable enough to go in alone. I think bounce houses are so much fun, I think I might want one of my own!=)

We love our Max buddy and were happy to share in his pirate birthday fun!

MOVING DAY

We finally got everything finished with fixing up our house! YEAH! That was a happy day! My parents and my brother Aaron came out this week to help us move and I seriously don't know what we would have done without them! My mom was AWESOME with my girls and helped out soooooo much! My dad and Aaron worked so hard and got this move done so quickly! Toby and I seriously are so grateful for the help they were to us!
We are almost all moved in except for a few more things that are still at the other house and it feels so nice to be in our new home. We LOVE it and think this is all so exciting! Brooklyn and Nikell keep running around from room to room checking everything out. They both were so happy to be able to stay the night in their new house! Brooklyn keeps saying to me "mom can we live here forever and ever and ever and ever??" I seriously can't even count how many times she has asked me that today. Brooklyn loves our orange tree and asks to have an orange like every 10 minutes. I still have soooooo much to do so I better wrap this up. But here is a sneak peak of what our house looked like when we bought it and what it looks like now. I will do another post with more pictures soon!

This is the family room before...

And after. We painted, put in the new light fixture, put in our surround sound speakers, fixed a base board that had some water damage and put in some carpet.

(the accent wall is like an egg plant, purple color and I LOVE it!!!)

The new light fixture that we also love!

(our good friend Karl Hansen helped us out with most of the work in our house, he did a fabulous job!)
Yeah for new carpet!

This is just showing some of the paint colors before and after.

This is Before...
After...
lots more to come!

Before I forget, last night when we were moving the big furniture into the house, Toby couldn't get a hold of anyone to help him and my dad move it all. So as they were doing it by themselves our next door neighbor who we know from church came over. He saw that we were moving and called some members of the church from the new ward we will be going to. Within one hour we had 5 boys around 16 years old and 3 more men and one younger girl to help us out. I can't tell you how much help they all were. The boy's stayed around helping us until 10:30 in the evening and whenever I told them they could go they said no, they were happy to help. I can't even express how much we appreciated their help, they don't even know us, yet they were still willing to give up their Friday night to help us move in.