Sunday walk

A couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was just a week ago. Any way, we took a little Sunday stroll down to the man-made lake just down the way from us. It is a pretty site from afar, but the water is really nasty looking when you get up close. But that is what you get when it is just stagnate water.

And this picture I just had to throw it in, because Sof was loving the bubbles and loving Jaedon putting them on her head.

our home

All right so here are the house pictures. Just a warning, there are a lot! Mainly so you, or rather my mom, could get the flow of the house.

So here is the house. Under the big window we dug up the bushes that were there and growing up into the house. We planted some flowers and I think it needs a little bit of help. Our dirt here is pretty much clay, and I didn't have a clue on what to plant and what would look good. So next year it will probably change.

Here is the living room (and office), I am standing at the front door and looking to my right. This is a straight on shot from the front door. We are waiting for a chair to put in here as well. It is coming on the 24th. Which I was going to wait until it was here to show the pictures, but I think I have made you wait long enough. And then turning a little bit to my left.Then we headed up the stairs, and this is the view. Sofia's room is the the far left (that you can't see in this picture). Then it is Jaedon and Livy's room, their bathroom, and then to the right is the master bedroom. Sof's room, or the nurseryJaedon and Livy's room Their bathroom We took out the huge flat mirror, and put in this medicine cabinet

The L O V E suite! ... I mean our bedroom

our closet

a different view so you can see a better layout of the room. The bathroom is the door on the right. Obviously the closet on the left.

LOVE the double sinks! We also put in these medicine cabinets, because again it was just one huge flat mirror. Through that door that you can see is the toilet and shower.

and across from the sinks is this lovely tub. The kids love it just as much as I do!

Then heading downstairs through the living room you enter into the dining room and then there is the best feature of the house!... the awesome kitchen! There is actually a regular sized oven, with more than one big burner on top! And best of all a dishwasher! (In the near future we would like to change out the counter tops, and change the back splash) Then standing in the kitchen you have the view into the family room

From the dining room is the sliding doors to the backyard, to the far left we have planted a garden, (which of course is not seen in the picture) and again we are dealing with CLAY!! So we will see if anything produces anything. Next year I think we are going to do a raised garden, or the square foot gardening...and the lawn is starting to look a little better. One day when I was out raking there was a toad that was hopping along the fence.

From the family room there is the hall to the garage (door straight ahead), the bathroom/laundry room (door to the right), and then a closet, and then the downstairs (door to the left next to the garage door)

Bathroom/laundry room...I know I thought it was kind of weird to have them together, but it actually isn't too bad. And I LOVE my new washer and dryer!

This is in the garage. Jon built these storage shelves! He was like a little kid playing with a new toy making this.

Then downstairs. Downstairs has pretty much been designated the toy room. Which fills up the whole downstairs.

The fourth bedroom is down here and through that door. Which eventually will be Jaedon's and the guest room when we have the money to get a new bed.

Pretty much empty for now

We had a cute little bunny stuck down here in this window for a couple of days

So there's our house. We can't wait to have visitors!

omaha zoo

We ventured out to the famous Omaha Zoo. We went for just a couple of hours, and barely saw all that they had to offer. The place is huge! We did get a season pass though so we will be heading back soon and often.

Our first stop was the monkeys

The second place, and only place that Jaedon wanted to see was the Zebras! This exhibit was kind of interesting to me because it was the penguins, ostrich, and the giraffes. Jaedon really wanted to see the penguins swim, but all they wanted to do was go inside this building.The last stop was to see the elephants

house pictures coming soon...mom :)

mormon trail

We have been doing a little bit of exploring. Not much, but that is what Family Home Evening is for! We went to Winter Quarters, or the Mormon Trail Visitor Center. It was quite nice. We took the "turbo" tour since Sofia was getting a little restless and ready for bed.

From the light of this picture you might be thinking it is during the day and wondering why Sofia is ready for bed. It stays light FOREVER out here! I am still amazed about it too.

Inside one of the little houses that housed 3 families! It is seriously as big as our bedroom. Crazy! Jaedon got to try out pushing a handcart And so did I. I am such a nerd!

Just across the street is the cemetery for some of the pilgrims. And the temple is just behind that.

I thought you would be able to see the Angel Moroni, but I guess the lighting wasn't very good

The 2 silly kids are a little more interesting in these photos any ways.

backyard

To keep the kids entertained while we were unpacking we let them play with the hose. From this picture our backyard actually looks pretty good. Don't be fooled. Our house was vacant for quite a while before we moved in, and our neighbors told us that the back lawn had not been mowed for as long 6 months! But the front yard looks a little better because the neighbors on both sides of us would mow that side while they were mowing theirs. There are lots of weeds and a TON of 'thatch' or dead grass back there. We have just finished raking it all up and both Jon and I are dead. It has taken 3 days to do.

I had to put this one on here because it just cracked me up. Again the kids are outside playing while we are still trying to get everything unpacked. There are some rock beds along the side of the house, and the kids love to play in it. This day they had old water bottles and were filling them up. When I looked out though, I thought, "What is on Jaedon's forehead!?" He had taken the wrapper off of the bottle and thought it would make a good headband I guess.

closing day

Closing day was quite eventful. It first started out that we didn't find out how much the final cost of things were going to be until the morning of. Which is a problem because you can't pay with a personal check, we needed a cashier's check. Which also is a problem because we bank with USAA and it takes at least a day to get one. But we called our realtor and she said that we could just have it wired, but it would put us back a couple of hours until they got the money. Then it was almost time to go and do a walk-through at 11 and Jon thought he better call our realtor just to make sure we were still good to go. Well, apparently most of the things that we had put down in the contract for the seller to fix, had not been done yet. The seller is a contractor and does a lot of the things himself, so it was hard for him to get receipts to show that he had done these things. Then for some reason our lender was taking a long time to get the loan to the title company, so we had to wait even longer. But by 5pm we had signed and became officially homeowners. (we were originally scheduled to close at 12pm) Then when we got to the house it was BLASTED HOT!!! The AC was STILL broken. I say 'still' because that was one of the things that the seller needed to fix, and did not. So that is why he didn't have receipts, because he DIDN'T fix them! So the first night we did not spend here in the house. We made some calls and got everything taken care of. Or so we thought. Then our kitchen sink started leaking. WELCOME TO BEING A HOME OWNER!!! Luckily we were still under a 3 month warranty and were able to get it fixed. But even with everything going on, we went and celebrated by eating at Texas Roadhouse. It just happened to be kid's night. So the kids got to eat free, and they had this balloon lady going around and making some really cool balloons for the kids.

Jaedon got an alien. He didn't really want it, but the lady was sick of making the same things and so made this for Jaedon. At first he didn't like it, but then we showed him that the gun could come out, and then he thought it was pretty cool.

Livy got a butterfly