New Friends

We have a new friend in our neighborhood. Her name is "Spook". She's this cute little black dog that lives (technically) next door. But she's always over at our house. She loves Ty because he "shares" his snacks with her and likes to throw balls for her. She is at our door by 8 o'clock every morning and sticks around until bedtime. We spend a lot of time outside (probably because it is so easy now. When we lived in Boise it was this whole ordeal where we had to get the bag and the keys and the phone... it was a pain), and Spook is always with us. We can't even go for walks without her tagging along behind us. She has taken to the protector role on our outings- any time another dog even thinks about getting close to Ty- she is the first one to jump in between the new dog and Ty. We love having her around!

The Cozy Coupe

Okay- so Ty hasn't handled the move very well. He is tired, cranky and honestly more than a little bit of a pill. We're all adjusting though right? I have tried to keep Ty busy so that his spontaneous tears are kind of kept at bay. In an effort to help hold back the torrential alligator tears, my mom bought Ty a new car that he can ride around in outside in the yard. This was the original plan, but Ty loved riding around the house so much, that we have actually ended up keeping it inside. Ty likes to have his afternoon snack in it while he watches Elmo. It's kind of dopey- but definitely cute, and I thought you would all enjoy the picture!

Before and After Photos

Okay... so I've had some requests for before and after photos of the house. Eventually we'll get all of our furniture in the right place and pictures on the wall- and then everything will seem like home again. Right now- our only hangup is that we need to do some paint touchups- but do you know how hard it is to pull out a roller and paint with a two year old? That's like death to my leather couches!! So anyway- pictures are on the backburner until then. But... let's get started with the official tour of the house before we painted (I'll upload the after pictures in the next post)! First... let's look at Shaun and my bedroom. When we bought the house it was a dark, dark chocolate brown with a teal trim. Which actually could have been cute- but the room is kind of small- and it just seemed soooo closed in with all four walls dark. Maybe if it had been an accent wall or something- but it just made me feel like I was in the stomach of a whale or something. Just call me Jonah. She had even painted the hall the same dark brown- it was just sooo dark!!

Then came Ty's room- which in all reality looked like a hot dog bun or something. It was yellow and red. I think she was originally going for like a "Curious George" theme- but again- it really made the room seem small. I guess if I really like red or something I could have left it- but the previous owner had let her little boys dip their hands in yellow paint and press it against the wall. I didn't really want lasting impressions of kids I didn't know. It's kind of a cute idea though.... maybe we'll do something like that in the basement or something.

Let's see... We also have a third bedroom upstairs that we aren't really sure what we're going to do with yet. I think it will be a guest room for now- and then once we get to that point- it will become a nursery (no grandma Jacki- we are not announcing anything yet :) ). It was pink though and it just had to go too. It would have made a very pretty princess room- but in reality... who are we going to give that to? Shaun? Maybe he could hang up all his Michael Jordan memorabilia in it... Maybe not. Maybe we could get the paint color for Erica and her little girls- it would fit better.

The kitchen is probably my favorite room in the house (though this could be because we haven't had to do anything with it yet). It's not really a before- but I love it so much- I thought I would upload a picture anyway!

And now for something completely different...

Okay... This is it! Our new house! As most of you know- we have been living in Montpelier for a few weeks now and are just getting settled into our new casa. We looked and looked for the two months that we were living in Garden City for a place to move to... and it was a joke!! The homes up here are really old and run down for the most part. When we started our little house hunt we ran into some of the scariest things! One house even had a headstone in it's front yard. Yeah... you read that right- a headstone. Another one smelled like cat pee and another looked like it was going to fall in on itself. The other homes that weren't dumps were way out of our price range. We were starting to think that we were going to end up living in the cabin forever. But then... our realtor found us this little gem! The people that owned it had bought it and done a ton of renovations to it. I found a picture of it in its original state- and I almost didn't recognize it.

Anyway- while the family had done a lot to it- thier choice in paint left a lot to be desired. So we had a painting party to cover up the yellow in the living room, the brown in the hall and master bedroom, the red and yellow in Ty's room and the pink in the extra upstairs bedroom. I guess it just goes to show that one man's castle is another man's nightmare.

Things are now pretty well put together- and now we've just been trying to get pictures hung and furniture in the right place. I'll upload some more pictures as we take them. But now you are all up to date!! Yay!!

Fall Leaves

I love the fall. The crisp air. Harvest. And the beautiful leaves. Ty and I went for a nature walk when we were living at the cabin- and I just couldn't help but take a picture of my baby boy with the autumn leaves behind him. Ty loved going on these little nature walks. We took one every day (because really- what else were we going to do- there was no internet, no TV, no laundry facilities at the cabin), and it was really nice to just let Ty take his time and pick up all the sticks and rocks that he wanted to. I let him take a bucket along with us- so that he had a place to put all of his treasures. I kind of miss the walks now- just because the scenery was so pretty. We still take walks every morning- but now I'm pointing out things like geese and

Cabin Fever

Okay- so we spent about two months in my family's cabin at Bear Lake. I can't just skip over that part since I have some cute pictures of our adventures in isolation. For those of you that haven't been to the cabin- it's located just above Garden City in Logan Canyon. It has a beautiful view of the lake and is covered in trees and chuck full of critters. Grandma and Grandpa were up for a visit one week and Grandpa found a little garden snake for Ty to play with. Ty thought it was great- when someone else had it or when it was in a box. But the second that wriggly little thing got close- Ty backed up so fast!

Since we spent so much time here, I decided to give Ty a very special job (he was having a hard time adjusting to the move- so in all actuality I was just trying to give him something to take his mind off the fact that we weren't ever going back to the home he knew). His job every day was to lay out food for the neighborhood deer herd. This deer herd has about six deer in it- full of mama's and babies (with the occasional buck) and they weren't shy about coming right up to the cabin when it was dinner time. I could never believe how close they let us get to them! This picture is just right off the back deck and I was literally feet from them. It was crazy!