Our New House

Many of my friends in Pennsylvania have been asking for pictures of our new house. I completely understand, because I really like to have a visual image for where someone is, when I picture them in my mind. Otherwise, they're just Out There in some unknown void. So, here are the pictures of our new house, starting from the top floor, down to the basement.

All the bedrooms we use are upstairs. Beginning in our bedroom, here is our master bathroom:

Here is our room (you can see the door to our walk-in closet - we've never had one before and it's soo nice!):

The picture of the Salt Lake Temple, above our bed, was what I saved for as a house-warming gift to myself. I love it!
Next is Andrew and Ethan's room. Their dressers were from my childhood, and Mom and Brent gave them to us for them to use. We're probably getting bunkbeds for them for Ethan's birthday, and we'll put the toddler bed away for a few months, 'til Alex is ready for it.

Right next to their room is Alex's room:

The main bathroom is also on this level, along with a good-sized closet for storing medicine, extra toiletries, towels, humidifiers, etc.

This picture is taken from the top of the stairs looking down into the Front Room/Living Room. I wish I would've gotten a better shot of the ledge on top of the wall above the piano. I love to decorate up there!

On the other side of that wall, is the Kitchen: (It looks so bare to me in this picture because now I've had so many other decorations for the holidays up there. I took these pictures a long time ago.) Mike's parents gave us the bar stools, and they work so perfectly! Someday I want to rcover the seats with a fun maroon or something.

The Dining Room can be seen through those bars. Off the Dining Room is a sliding glass door onto a deck (you can see it through the Family Room window) This picture was actually taken before we moved in, so the desk and couch are not the ones that is there now. We liked how they had is set up, so we copied them:

Here is the furniture that is really there. One the wall, above our family pictures, it says "Family; A Journey to Forever," in vinyl lettering, which was a gift from our friends, the Pitcavages. We LOVE it!

Here are the stairs to the basement. Of course, we don't always have Andrew's tent set up, this was just a fun activity for a day when we had Elliott and Quinn over. (It's Quinn you can see at the bottom of the stairs.):

The first door on the right as you reach the bottom of the stairs, is the Laundry Room. It is the only part of the house that is unfinished. It's small, but just perfect for what we need. We love our new washer and dryer that we had to get!

The next door is the Office. Obviously, it's the last room we have left to unpack and really set up. We have way to much junk (mostly thanks to me), but someday we'll get through it all.

The playroom is next. It has no real door, which is actually a good thing for a playroom, we've discovered. It is still considered a bedroom, since it has a closet and a window. Someday it will become the Office and the Office will become Andrew's room.

There are two other closets down there - we love having room for storage! And a Bathroom with a shower:

This is a bad picture of the backyard, since I took it from my bedroom window through the screen), but you get the idea. The swing set/slide, was built by the previous owner's father. Getting that was an awesome bonus! We are excited to use the garden, after three years of not having a place to garden. The shed is where we keep all our extra clothes, holiday decorations, and the yard stuff.

So there you go. I'm glad to have all these "before" shots to look back on, years from now, when we've changed things so much that we can't remember what it used to be like.

Andrew's Basketball Talent

As soon as the flyer came home from Andrew's school announcing sign-ups for Junior Jazz Basketball, I got online and paid his dues. The night before his first game, Mike took him in the garage for a little skill building. Andrew's P.E. class was also working on basketball skills at that time, so it took a little convincing to get him to think he should practice at home too. It was so cute (Mike would correct me here and say, "It's cool, not cute!") to see Ethan and Alex following Andrew around as he followed Mike's instructions. They dribbled around Mike's toolbox, placed in the center of the garage. They aimed for a spot about 7 feet high on the wall and took shots at it. And Mike had him try defense as Mike dribbled around him. We thought this would become a weekly event, but unfortunately so far, this has been the only night of practice at home. Once, Andrew went with Mike early Saturday morning to play at a church, but it looks like someday we're really going to need our own adjustable basketball hoop for any frequent practicing to take place.

So then the games began. They were held at Farmington Junior High, and none of Andrew's friends whose mothers I'd contacted were going to be participating. Andrew was very nervous that first night. To our joy, he found that one of his classmates from school was on his same team. That was all it took to loosen him up. Sadly, his friend, Colby, broke his arm half way through the season and couldn't continue. (Remind anyone of Andrew during T-ball last spring?) By then, it didn't matter to Andrew, though, because he had made friends with his other teammates. Mike noticed right off that Andrew has a natural talent for defending! He stays on his guy (they wear matching colored wristbands to keep track of the person they're defending), and always has his arms out. He's also usually the first one down the court after a turn-over. One skill he's been working to develop lately is to get open to receive the ball, and look like he actually wants it. He's done better on that the past couple games.

As usual, Andrew is always in motion, whether on the court or on the bench. One game I watched as Andrew took his turn to sit out and began doing push-ups, sit-ups, and running in place on the sideline. As the game went on, I noticed Andrew never returned to the court. As I was helping him put his coat on in the end, the Coach's wife told me that she tried to get him to go back out, but he kept refusing. I asked Andrew why, and he said, "I wanted to do my exercises so I could get better for the next time I play!" I reminded him that the exercises needed to take place before the game, since Daddy and I had paid money to provide him with the opportunity to actually play while we're at the games! What a character!
For some of the games, Ethan and Alex come along to support their brother (we remind them that they will one day have their turn, and Andrew will be coming along to support them, too.) Ethan does such a fantastic job of entertaining Alex! They play so well together! Sometimes they play inside the gym, on the bleachers, or with the portable hoops at the side, and sometimes they run up and down the hallway ramp just outside the gym. Once, both Grandma and Grandpa Slade, and Grandma and Grandpa Larsen came to watch Andrew's game. Ethan and Alex entertained them just as much as the game did!

Halloween Fun

I did an excellent job of promptly posting pictures from our October Halloween adventures on Facebook. Which meant that I did not ever get around to posting them on this blog. Until now. (And, since I apparently didn't learn my lesson well enough from the last time, this is another LONG blog post, sorry!)

*Early in the month, our friends, the Lucherinis, invited us to go to the Treehouse Children's Museum with them. It was after school hours, so Andrew was able to join us. They were doing a program called the Enchanted Woods, in which actors told the stories of many fairy tales, while the kids listened with rapt attention (except Alex, most of the time, who's usually too busy to sit still.) Then they received a prize from each character. It was fun for all of us, and I was pleased to see that the majority of the "treats" were not candy.

* On the 10th, my mom brought her grape juicer and her expertise to my house to show Kim and I how to make our own grape juice from the grapes that grow over the fence in Kim's yard. (Thank you Kim for graciously sharing of your abundance!) We canned 14 jars and shared our life stories with each other. It was a great day. The following Monday, I canned another 11 jars myself. Now the challenge is making it last - It's soo delicious!

* As an added treat this month, Mike and I went on a REAL Date - just the two of us! We saw "The Foreigner," a very funny play. It was put on as a dinner theater at the Farmington Community Center. The food was good, and we laughed hard! It's nice to have time just the two of us, away from home, and not have 45 minutes of driving afterward just to take the babysitter home!

* Ethan and Alex got to spend some time at Aunt Carina's house, with Tyler. Carina had sugar cookies all ready to be frosted. Yum! And perhaps a touch messy! :-)

* Most Wednesdays in October, Ethan, Alex and I attended Story Time at the library, along with Ethan's best bud, Elliott and his brother Quinn ("Winn," as Alex says). It's adorable to watch Ethan and Elliott together. Alex, as usual, had me chasing after him throughout the place, trying to keep him from pulling every book off the shelves. It's always an adventure.

* One Saturday, after our family had worked together to clean the entire house in just over one hour, we rewarded ourselves with a trip to Cherry Hill for a round of miniature golf. Carina, Ben, and Tyler were able to join us! We loved seeing all the fun Halloween decorations throughout the course! Mike and I had to laugh when Ben and Carina began keeping score after the first hole. With three kids to keep up with, we haven't kept score for mini-golf in a LONG time! It didn't take long for them to give up on it as well.

At one point, Alex tried to crawl into one of the castles. We turned away for a second, laughing at his attempts, only to turn back and notice he was nowhere in sight! Did he really succeed in entering that tiny doorway? We could hear him, but couldn't see him. We soon found that he had crawled around the castle and was stuck in the bushes behind it. Whew!


* Our Ward held a Halloween Party/Trunk-Or-Treat the week before Halloween. It was our first time to dress up this year. I had a blast getting all ready and then hearing that people could not recognize me due to my excellent makeup job (even though my fake nose wouldn't stick and I ended up just painting mine)! Andrew (Link, from Zelda) won the doughnut eating contest on the round he entered. Alex (a Pumpkin) received several broken bits of doughnuts from Meghan Stott, due to the inability to deny his completely adorable "Peese," he says as he bends slightly at the waist and implores sweetly with his eyes. Ethan (Captain Hook) enjoyed many of the games, but the most fun was being a pirate like Elliott. Mike even dressed up this year, because Ethan's eyes lit up with delight when I casually asked if Dad should be a pirate like him - I couldn't resist buying the adult size costume after that!
* For Family Home Evening, the Monday before Halloween, we carved pumpkins. This is NOT Mike's favorite part about Halloween. He helped out a little when it came to the actual carving, but mostly he helped keep Alex entertained so he wouldn't be in the way. The boys mostly can't stand to scoop out the goop, so I make the deal with them that if they will pose for one picture of them scooping, I will scoop out the rest for them. I just love to watch them get grossed out by the guts! Ethan chose a pirate ship pattern, for which we had nothing but the picture on the front of the pattern book. I think I did a pretty good job of making it up! Andrew chose a spider in the moon. He was excited that this year he was able to use the saw to do some of the carving himself. He did a great job!

* I had the good fortune of holding the Preschool Halloween Party at my house. The difficulty was in deciding which delectable treats to make, and which party games to play. In the end, I chose to make my traditional wassail, which the kids mostly didn't care for; eyeballs made from gummy lifesavers, a raisin, and vanilla pudding, all placed in half an Easter egg (which explains why Alex now calls all plastic Easter eggs "eyeballs."); and cupcakes with spider webs frosted on them. We played Pin the Nose on the Scarecrow, (I was quite pleased with my quick creation of a scarecrow, using Alex's clothes); "Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Ghost," which was fun because only a couple of the kids were familiar with Duck, Duck, Goose, so most of the game was spent reminding the kids of the rules of the game; and we danced to fun Halloween songs! We also had them paint a pumpkin to take home, ruining only some of the costumes they were wearing. All in all, I think they all had a great time - I know I did!




Oh yeah, and did I mention that it snowed during the party? The kids loved peering out the window to watch it come down. At one point there were huge flakes, then tiny ones. Within about an hour of the party ending, all the snow had melted, but it was fun while it lasted.


*Ethan's Preschool also took him to a local Pumpkin Patch as a field trip. The kids played on the playground and in the hay maze, then listened to a story and learned a little about how to grow different kinds of pumpkins. We had already carved our pumpkins at home, but Ethan really wanted to pick a pumpkin from the patch, so I figured it was worth the $2 to bring him more happiness!
* By the time Halloween actually arrived, for the first time ever I felt like I was already Halloweened-out! Still, we did our parental duties to clad our children, and ourselves, in costumes once again, and go through the expected motions of the night. I even made "Brains" (scrambled eggs) and "Worms" (buttered noodles) for dinner. Then, Mike dutifully marched the kids through the streets to gather the candy we would then spend the next few weeks regulating its consumption. I became excited about the prospect of finally having enough trick-or-treaters coming to our house to warrant me staying home to pass out the candy, and wondered if the two large bags I'd purchased would be enough. I'd heard that there are usually many large crowds throughout the night. To my dismay, the neighborhood crowds were mostly nonexistent, probably due to the success of the Trunk-or-Treat. So, I spent the night taking down my Halloween decorations, listening to Halloween music, and drinking my wassail by myself. It was somewhat bittersweet. I was grateful when my family returned for the evening and settled into watching a show together, occasionally interrupted by the few straggling trick-or-treaters.