Rett's birthday cake

Hello there blog! It's been a while, I know. I need to take pictures of my house! I know, I know! In the meantime, Rett turned 1! Sorry about the deja vu if you're my facebook friend. But, it was so stinking funny I just had to post it. He was a little scared at first, but then he devoured his cake!

Kids' bookshelves

Have you been on pinterest and seen the ikea spice rack bookshelves? for a kid's room? VERY cute idea, so I went to ikea to purchase about 10 spice racks for the shelves.

The Atlanta Ikea is a freaking nightmare. HUGE, underground parking, TONS of people, etc. I looked in all the places the spice racks could be, then asked an associate to help me. They took me to another person, who said, no joke, "Ever since someone posted something on pinterest, we sell out of the spice racks the same day we get them. We are never in stock."

I decided I would have to find a different solution...

I taped where I wanted the shelves, and...



Made my own, and...

Voila! I actually loved the way they turned out.

We had a few bumps in the road, but all in all I love them. Pay no attention to the top row. Yes, we read Christmas books year-round...

Grand total: $30. Not bad, I think.

If you're in any way interested in some kind of tutorial, leave a comment, and I'll post one. If there's no interest, I'm kind of lazy and I won't bother putting one together. :)

Brandon's office

Brandon needed a finished office. In order to do that, we needed a desk and a bookshelf.

I love craigslist in Atlanta. We got the desk for a great deal, and the bookshelf at biglots.

This is the first room in the house once you walk in our door, so we really wanted it to be done.


Both this picture of Christ (Brandon's favorite) and the other pic in his office were purchased before we left Utah. We wanted some really good paintings before we left the abundance of church stores. :)

This pic is taken in our entryway. Do you see the frame around the room? We're getting glass doors put in. They should install it in a couple weeks. Brandon needs his office quiet for his conference calls, so the glass doors are kind of a must.

 

My house!

So, just for posterity's sake, let me explain. For the past 5 1/2 years we have lived in Pleasant Grove, Utah, in the most fantastic ward to ever exist. :) We loved it there, but we started with one kid in an 1100 square foot condo, and we ended with 3 kids. In 1100 square feet. With no backyard. And no storage space. It was great because we saved some money, but we were ripping at the seams.

So, we made the big move to good ol' Suwanee, Georgia. Brandon works from home, so we have more liberties as to where we live. Brandon's parents live about 20 minutes away, and it's nice to live by family. So far we love it. And we love our big house!

I want to post pictures of my house completely done and decorated, but it's taking longer than I thought. I'm trying to add pops of color and I have to do that on a budget. So, pretty much all the rooms are half done. :) These are pictures of my favorite features of the house before we decorated anything. Tomorrow I will post the only completely done room in the house... Brandon's office.

Here's my kitchen. At least twice the size of my old one. Gosh, I love that island... All the cabinets!


Our main living room. That looks so bare to me now. :) We love the vaulted ceilings.

Another pic of the living room. All the windows! And the space! If you look hard you can see the back deck.

Our master bedroom. Very big, with the recessed ceiling.

My bathroom! Can you believe it? You can't see it, but my sink is on the left, and Brandon's is on the right. Guess which one is clean most of the time. :)

My closet. Again, that looks so bare to me. :) It's pretty big, which is sooo nice.

I didn't take a pic of the backyard, so I will and I'll post it later.

Driving across the country... with kids- Part 3

Day 3 had us driving through the rest of Missouri, through the corner of Kentucky, through Tennessee, and on to Georgia. About 10 hours, if I remember correctly.

Tennessee was a bit of disappointment because 1) Everything costs money to see, and 2)The flood really did some damage to Nashville. The cheapest thing we could do was see the parthenon replica. Did you know there was a Parthenon replica? Neither did I. It was actually quite fascinating to read about, if you're a nerd like me. Brandon couldn't have cared less, but I was stuck reading all the back-story and seeing all the old pictures. Pretty cool, and the girls had fun.

Only problem is, there's a museum part in the inside that had modern art. Just skip it. Pornography posing as modern art. Seriously. Just a bunch of naked women. So dumb. But the back story and old pictures of the Nashville Parthenon were pretty cool.

The girls loved walking on the sides.

They had this pretty cool swing that we had fun swinging on. It's powered by pushing your feet down on the foot pedal.

You guys, I HAD to document this. I may or may not have been driving. I'll never tell. :) BUT, Lanie fell asleep! This girl takes 3 hour naps on a daily basis, but refused to sleep in the car. By the 3rd day, she succumbed and fell asleep! For a grand total of 30 minutes. At least it was something. :)

Was this last one in Georgia? Or Tennessee? I can't remember, honestly. But I thought it was cool. We need to move to Cassville. :)

Then the blessed time arrived when we made it to my in-laws! We got there Saturday, and closed on our house the following Tuesday. I promise to post pics soon!

Driving across the country... with kids- Part 2

Day two of our journey was as follows...

Day 2- Woke up really late. We had gotten in at 1am to our hotel, and like was previously mentioned, our girls don't sleep in the car. So, we wanted them to sleep as much as possible in the hotel. They slept til 9am (and so did we), and were on the road by about 10. It was okay because we only had about 8 hours of driving for day 2.

We were driving right through Independence, MO, so we HAD to stop and see some church sights. That's why we only planned 8 hours of driving. We stopped in Independence and went to the visitor's center there. It's weird because it's in the middle of all the RLDS stuff. Have you seen their temple? The tin man must have designed it. :) But the LDS visitor's center was really cool and they had stuff for the girls to do.

Liberty, MO was only about 20 minutes away, so we went and saw Liberty Jail. I was SO glad we did that. Such an amazing experience. The girls helped with the presentation before we saw a replica of the jail...

Seeing Liberty Jail was incredible. To be in the same place Joseph Smith had been and had so many precious revelations... there was such a spirit there. It was tangible. I hope the girls felt it too. 

We crossed the rest of the state of Missouri, and camped out right by St. Louis. And by camped out, I mean that we got a hotel. We got in around 8pm, and the girls loved eating burgers and watching a show on HGTV about the best back yards in the world.

By the way, Priceline is the best when it came to planning our hotel stays. Cheap deals.

Next up, Day 3! 

Going across the country... with kids- Part 1

Did you know... that it's 30 hours of driving to get from Utah to Georgia? We split it up in 3 days' worth. The first day we made it to Hays, Kansas. It's about in the middle of the state. Brandon had to drive our Mazda, and I had to drive our Van. I had the two girls (my mother-in-law flew Rett out, thank GOODNESS). Brandon had the turtle and the cat. I don't know who had it worse. :)

I told Brandon that I wanted to take pictures at every state crossing, and we only managed two. Once you hit Missouri, all the state crossings are in really metro cities, and it's too hard.

The first state was Colorado. :)

I cropped the pic and did a close-up of the girls because they were smiling so cute!

We made it to Kansas that first day, and man the girls were tired. We did 13 hours the first day. 

Here's our setup... 

That first day was the hardest, for sure. It was our longest day, and the girls were so tired and fed up of driving. Poor Lanie kept asking when we'd get to Georgia. They did really well though. They watched movies, played with toys, and ate snacks. But never slept. Little stinkers. :)