The yard...

So when buying a house... look at the yard. The people we bought the house from lost the home, so they lost interest in mainting the outside of it. They never watered the lawn, pulled weeds, or mowed the lawn. So needless to say we have our work cut out for us. I have almost got the inside of the house together so I thought I would start on the outside. Now, we were not planning on doing much with the yard before winter but the flower beds were terrible and I figured if I could get the weeds pulled up then next spring it won't be too bad.


The flower bed before... (this is how the entire flower bed around the house looked before I started. It was horrible.


and after!!!


What a difference.


Looking good!!!!


Front view, bad pic though with the sun shining in the background. Making progress though.


My kitchen coming together.. but I can't wait until we can get our custom made kitchen in (by Steve of course).


The stairs going up and down, nothing fancy right now, but we will continue to dress up the walls etc...


The new sectional by the fireplace.


The other side of the living room. I need to figure out where to put things and I can't wait for Steve to build the entertainment center... our tv looks really sad sitting on a table currently (hehe)


Oh the fireplace... So cute!!
More to unfold as we move in more and decorate! Any visitors welcome.. HAHA!!!!

House affairs

Well... We are finally in our home and I again have internet, but the journey here was crazy to say the least. We packed up and left on Thurs Sep 22 (that feels like forever ago), and headed to Utah county. We were told by the seller that on Friday (the next day) we would sign our papers and be able to move in that day. Well we were able to close on Friday but the family living in the house was still there. So with our house packed on a trailor, we stayed with Steve's family for several days. We were then told that we would be able to move in on Monday and we finally got the keys to house late Monday night. So yes, we couldn't move in that day. So Tuesday morning we headed to the house. We get there just to find out that they had shut off the utilities and that we wouldn't have utitlies till Thurs... What??? Steve and I had basically had enough up to this point. So we unloaded the trailor and went and stayed again at his parents house. We decided to paint on Thur once we had all utilites set up, but didn't get to painting till later, so Thur night we again stayed at the Chadwicks (that was 1 full week in their living room. I am happy to say that we are offically in and Steve is back to work (haha). The family that lived in the house before didn't clean anything and had dogs that stunk up the place. So we are working on some serious deep cleaning. Because it took so long to get in we couldn't order our furniture so we have been sitting on camping chairs in our living room (what a site). I did get my kitchen table and I am loving it!! I am loving a garage, especially with all the crap... I have pics below of some of the house. Once I get all furniture and more settled I will take more pics. I am loving it in Eagle Mountain but really missin the friends in Roosevelt. Hopefully they are having a little fun for me too!


Our house on a trailor. The rest was in the boat and trucks. It was quite the sight to see. We thankfully had good weather the entire time it sat there, (and we did lose 2 boxes that I can't find... grrr)



We were all pretty tired from all the running around.


This was the color of the living room before we painted... yes it is bright bright yellow


The kitchen was a lime green and I was on to of the pantry painting. It was fun. The colors before we painted were horrible...


Steve's sister and mom painting above the living room. Look at the difference in color. It was scary


This is the double garage off of the third car garage. They fit perfectly.


This is the 2 car garage.


The 2 trucks side by side. Everything fits!!!! HEHE


My kitchen table in the little dining nook. I love it, so much fun!!!

Moving!!

Well our move is just on the horizon, and I couldn't be more excited. I am super happy to be back closer to family and to be out of Roosevelt before the next winter. I am not really a winter person, and living in Roosevelt did not help that "love" for winter!! We will be moving this up coming week on either Wed or Thur. I have two pictures of the front of our new home! The pictures are terrible, because they are a picture of a picture but I had to put it up. So when we do move, I will have all sorts of pics of us there!!! Destinee is having a little harder time leaving friends but she is so good at making new ones, that I don't think she will have a problem. She is very excited about buying a home and having her own room for a change! Peyton asks all sorts of questions and thinks its cool that we have boxes everywhere. She keeps telling everyone we are boxing our new home. She is funny!



Left view of the house


Right view of the house, again terrible pics, but something to show!!!

Summer is ending...

I can't believe its been a month since I last updated my blog. So we will try and make this as short, but informative as possible. First, and most important item of business, WE ARE MOVING!!! Yep, we are finally moving forward with buying a home in Eagle Mountain and will be moving on the 24th of September. We are really excited!

We had a great 24th of July. I took the girls down to my parents over the 24th of July weekend and I ran in the Desert News 10K (which was a blast with my sister-in-law Kira) and we stayed for the parade afterwards. I didn't get any pics, but the girls loved it. Destinee at the beginning of August lost her 8th tooth. So we took a picture of that because she was so excited to lose yet another one. Shortly after, my dad went in for major heart surgery and did really well. It was a little bit of a shock for all of us, but he is recovering nicely. Steve had his birthday on the 9th of August and we went to see my sister who came into Salt Lake to visit. It was so much fun to see her and the girls had a great time being with her. We stayed the next few days with Steve's family and did some boating before the school year began. We had a ton of fun. Steve got a flying tube for his birthday from his parents, so naturally, we had to try it out (pictures in slide show). It is a really fun tube for kids to ride on also. Destinee, at the age of 7, learned to wake board this year and was doing awesome. We are going to buy a wakeboard just for her so she can get better! It was so fun to see her tackle something that seemed really scary to her. I was so proud of her. We played for a couple of days and then headed back to Starvation reservoir on the 13th of August and played on the wave runners and boat with my brother Spence and his family. It was a beautiful day and loads of fun as always. My little Oakley just turned 2 on the 23rd and Peyton will be turing 4 on the 28th. So we did a little combined gift and got them a motorized princess Toyota FJ cruiser. They are having such a blast with it!!! We did cupcakes and spent Oakley's birthday boating (of course). Steve's sister Brittanie got home off her mission on Monday, so we were able to see her and she came boating with us. It is so nice to have her home and back in the swing of things. And now..... Destinee started school. She was looking all grown up going into 2nd grade. She was really excited to meet her teacher, and wear her new backpack of course. Once school starts, I know that summer is coming to an end. I love summer and I am sad to see it coming to an end already, but we have many adventures ahead of us and cant wait for them.

Chadwick boating/camping trip

We had our official Chadwick boating trip for 2011 with Steve's family and we had a blast! I only have a few pictures because I was really behind on getting my camera out to capture everything. So I have at least a few pictures. Well we got there on Thursday morning and setup camp and off to play. I took a group of kids to go tubing and they had a blast. Then we took a group of people to do some wakeboarding and the only pics I got were a few of Steve (that is mom took for me), and a few I got of his mom and sister boarding too. We had an awesome dinner, playing on the beach with grandpa, and a serious rainstorm. A first good day! Then on Friday we got up, had a fabulous breakfast, cleaned up, and we were out on the boat and waverunners. We did somemore tubing, wakeboarding, beach play and started doing some cliff jumping. All kids took turns driving and riding on the waverunners the whole time we were there. Steve found a new cliff that he thought looked fun, so we took him and his brother Aaron over there on the boat where they jumped (I did get a few pics of that), more rainstorms and playing on the water trampolene. We ended the day with yet again another awesome dinner and some time around the campfire making smores. We woke up saturday to perfect sunny weather. We picked up our camp and then spent the entire day playing on the water. We played from about 11:00 am till 8:00 p.m. It was a blast. I did some cliff jumping with Steve and had a blast and then Destinee decided to do some jumping with her uncle Johhny (who is 6), Steve, Steve's mom, and dad. I got pics of them jumping. She was so brave. The first cliff she jumped was about 10 feet and then she tackled a 12 foot cliff. Destinee was loving it. What a brave little girl she was. The trip was a success and we all had fun!!!! We can't wait for next year's which will hopefully be in lake powell for a week!

Slip and slide away

Last year we bought a little slip and slide for the girls and we finally got around to pulling it out this year, so I thought I would just take a few pictures of the fun they were having. My neighbor and friend pulled out her slide to and it was great fun for the kids.


The girlies love the water spraying out the side of the slide


A knee slide for Dez


I love Peyton's face in this picture


She does really well at sliding


Oakley's close up, I love how fat her cheeks look (although they are not fat at all)...

A fun play day at home!!!!

Beach Day

Yesterday some of us girls (and then Steve later) went to Starvation to play on the beach. The kids all love it and this time I brought the waverunners. We had such a fun time. The kids took rides on the waverunners and it ended up being a gorgeous day. I believe we will be going again in a week.

Utah Valley Half Marathon

I have the final pictures of the run with Steve's sister and mom. What an amazing accomplishment for all of us. I love my bright red face and the sweat glistening off my head (sexy)... So now I am ready for a 10k in July and hopefully another half marathon in October. Yipee. And I am so excited, I am signing up for Ragnar for next year with my sister-in-law. I have wanted to do it this year and was not able to get in, so next year will rock!!!! Thanks Kira.

Races, bruises, and sunday naps

I love everthing about summer. Who doesn't right? Well with summer, comes a few bumps and scrapes. The girls have now had their fair share to show mom and dad daily. Even little Oakley comes inside showing off all her little scrapes too. Oakley would be outside from dusk till dawn if I let her. She is an animal. Peyton loves the usual adventures like riding her bike, swimming, jumping off of things and of course falling down on the playground...


The picture truely does no justice to how it turned out.

Oakley loves to play in the water and even likes the pool when its empty with her friend Jessi. I loved how cute these girls were in the bright blue swimming pool...



Fathers Day was pretty mellow in our home but ended up being really nice. We, of course, want to spoil steve a little bit since he works so dang hard. So we decided instead of getting him a dozen roses, we would put together a candy bar bouquet. We had a fun little poem that went with every candy bar and it was a blast. He came home in the morning to a yummy breakfast, with of course, "I love dad" spelled with pancakes, who wouldn't love a little pancake love! We bought steve a new blu ray player and ended the day with a fabulous roast dinner. Everything turned out really nice. Church was so nice, many wonderful things said about fathers and the girls were really good too. It was funny, after we got home from church, I had to finish up dinner before steve went to work and as I was busy in the kitchen the rest of the house was quiet... to quiet. So as I go to check on the girls, peyton is asleep in the living room with a towel around her and Oakley is on the side of the chair playing barbies. Who knew that Oakley would sit and play barbies all by herself, but she was having a blast. Destinee was quietly reading to her little stuffed animal friends in her room. What a way to have a Sunday afternoon. They are such great kids.








I finished my half marathon just a little over a week ago and I was so happy to have completed it. I had so much fun running with Steve's mom and sister (although his mom took off and we didn't see much of her until the end of the race, she is a power house at the age of 49, GO MOM!!!) I have 2 pics from the company taking the pics and I will have a couple more to post asap.. The first picture is of Steve's sister Nikki and I running down the canyon, I bet I was singing as I am always pulling a funny face. The other picture is of me coming in the end and I was screaming and yelling cause I was so excited to finish!!





More fun in the sun to come as we have beach days, swimming, and a camping/boating trip just around the corner!!!

Summer has arrived

Finally!! The warm weather is arriving and the kids are playing. It has been so nice to let the kids finally run around outside and play. From morning till night they play hard. Its lots of fun. It sure has made my house a lot more quiet and clean, and I can get the kids to do their chores so they can go play. I have my half marathon on Saturday (yikes, hopefully I can last with my bum knee) and we are planning for a camping/boating trip with Steve's family in the beginning of July. Super excited for that. We will be hearing back about the house we put an offer an, hoping that it is excepted so that we can move soon. I continue to cook like a mad woman. Cooking has become very therapeutic for me. So if anyone has any great recipes they want to share as of late let me know! I threw a pizza party last Friday for my little primary class and it ended being a blast. The kids had a great time and I had some fun myself. Destinee and Peyton got a hair cut from grandma Chadwick last time we were in Provo. We cut off 8 inches of Destinee's hair and she is loving it. Very cute on her. Peyton was really really good while we cut off a couple of inches on her hair also. The swimming pools and lunch at the park are starting our summer off just the way we like! More pictures to come throughout the summer has the play time unfolds.


This picture is horrible because my camera is terrible but these mozzarella bread swirls are amazing. I love working with bread.


Peyton playing in the water (clothes on of course), she is getting better about putting on her swim suit, especially if big sister is getting hers on.


What a cute little smile!


Sweet Dez heading out to play with Popsicle in hand. What's a warm day without a Popsicle right?


Oakley would not hold still long enough to take a pic. So we got the messy pony tail with the backpack ready to run out the door.