Home Sweet Home

 We have recently moved to Hyde Park while we transition into our life here in Cache Valley.

This home has 

3249 sq. feet

6 bedrooms

2 1/2 baths

2 family rooms

1 extra large bonus room

1 garden shed

2 car garage
work benches

3 fireplaces

 This is the front family room.

The before and after of the kitchen are unreal.  I'll have to post the photos sometime when I get them from my mom.

 I'm so happy I finally found a little home for my violin I played when I was just a wee lass.

 I LOVE the natural light of this home.  We rarely have to turn the lights on.  Soooo helpful.

I have this table a little crammed into the corner because we are coming and going from the backyard so often.  However, this dining room is a great size for when we entertain and extend our table out to accommodate a large group.

This is the covered patio off the dining room.  We back a canal and a large field, sooooo lovely having privacy!

This is perhaps my favorite room of the house.  This is the play room/office.  The girls play in here for hours and I can sit at the computer and do my work.  It's a win/win for the whole family.  

Lydia's Room.

 I saw this on pinterest, so helpful.  You put a pool noodle under their fitted sheet and it serves as a bed rail.  Way better than having those large, bulky rails up.

 If you're renting, these banners are a great way to add color to a room without having to paint.

Emma's room.  This is the one wall in the house that we did paint.  And let me tell you, it was a doozy!!!  Glad it's over, and also I love how it turned out.

I took a tip from pinterest and painted Emma's fan pink.  We are fan people and it's nice not to have to hide it away every morning.  I redid Emma's old dresser with new paint and new fabric to the side of it.  The Eiffel tower is Emma's night light, I found those rose lights at Cannon Beach, they're my favorite!  Both the girls are funny, after all the work I go through on their rooms (and they really do love them and are so appreciative about it) their favorite thing is their light switch plates, go figure.

This is the girl's bathroom.....

 ....that connects to our bathroom.  We thought we would hate this at first, but it's actually QUITE nice.

 our bathroom

 Our bedroom

Another pinterest inspired project.   Except I used fabric and starch and pinterest suggest paper and modge podge.  I love how this turned out :)

Our bedroom has a sliding glass door that leads out to this deck and the backyard.

 My favorite part of this yard....the hammock and a good book!!

That cement square is a basket ball court, which we have transformed into an art studio specializing in sidewalk chalk drawings.

If you go downstairs we have our laundry room that leads to the garage

An extra family room that we don't use, as well as an extra bedroom that we use for storage.

This spare room is used to store all of our coats (we have quite the collection) and is also where Ryan gets some peace and quiet to do his homework.

Our guest bedroom has ZERO windows.  So if ever you want to sleep in, this is the place to do it.  Also this is my favorite room to nap in :)

The guest bathroom

Well, that's it.  Hopefully we will be here for a while.  I counted, and it's not pretty, but since Lydia was born (3 years ago) we have called 9, yes......N-I-N-E different places home.  Yeah.  We're hoping for some stability, but we'll just take it one day at a time.  We're so happy to be here and I just need to give a shout out to my parents (especially my mom) for making it happen.

August

We took Emma to Lagoon for her first time since she was 1.  We had the BEST time spending the day with her like we would a friend.  We left Lydia behind and Ryan, Chloe, Emma and I went on every ride at the park.  Emma was such a sport as we forced her to go on the biggest roller coasters.  There were some tears beforehand, but by the time the ride was over, she was a fan of the adrenaline and kept wanting to go again and again.

 The above random photo is of my latest snack craving from Trader Joe's.  I stocked up in Oregon and I am already planning a trip to SLC to stock up again :)

I LOVE Temple Square during all four seasons, but summer is one of my favorite times on the grounds.

 We moved this month (post to shortly follow) and as we unpacked I came across my long lost friend, Tucky.  This dog was loved to death!!  When I pulled him out of the box I can't even describe how much it tugged at my heart strings.  Not gonna lie, I've been sleeping with him lately, the girls are delighted by the concept of me sleeping with a stuffed animal.

I have loved living in Cache Valley and being closer to Bear Lake.  We've been able to cruise up there for a few day trips.  As always, we love the shallow blue water.  These photos aren't looking so blue because the summer fires had a wicked haze over everything, but when we were out riding around on the lake the color was unreal.

This is how many of our adventures ended this summer....the girls being COMPLETELY wiped out with fun.

Best mom/daughter date ever!  Stacey, Sara and I all bought my mom a Wicked ticket for her birthday.  Before the performance my mom and I went to all of our favorite stores from Logan to SLC.  Then we had our favorite dinner at Thaifoon.  LOVE spending time alone with my mom.

Wicked with my cousins, aunts, and my grandma.  I am so lucky to have such a fun family!

My Aunt Lee scored all of us these tickets, I don't even know how anyone can get their hands on them without the right hook ups.  Lee and I splurged and spent $150 on our tickets so we could be in the front rows.  It was seriously worth every penny.  I will never return to the mezzanine level again!

As our last hoorah before school started Annie took the four Utah grand-kids to SLC for an all day adventure.  We went to Pioneer Village where the kids were in heaven.  Emma longs to be a pioneer and she loved having a look at how their lives must have been.  This place could entertain kids all day!  There was gold mining, school education, pony rides, the general store, train rides, crafts, petting zoo, and the list goes on.

Afterwards we went to the Gateway for Lydia to buy her very first build-a-bear.  No surprise that she bought the exact same bunny as Emma and even gave it the same name.  The rest of the kids all got to pick out a new outfit for their stuffed friends.  They were in heaven!  Then they played in the fountain and we ended the day with a cherry lemonade from corn dog on a stick.  QUITE the day!

My sweet little Emma started first grade on August 23rd.  Going to school all day has been so good for her and she absolutely adores eating hot lunch every day.  I am so thankful that Emma continues to be innately good inside.  Our family is so much better because of her example.

 Paradise puts on the cutest festival I have ever been to.  Seriously, it can't be beat.  The kids get to crawl into a pool and catch their own fish!  All for only $1.  Rides are $5 for an all day unlimited pass.  The food vendors are delicious and very affordable.  The people are fresh out of a Normal Rockwell painting.  This is my favorite activity to ending the summer season.

Family has been the center of our World ever since we moved to Cache Valley.  I'm so thankful we live near so many of them.  Below is a progressive dinner we had one Sunday.  Appetizer's at my mom's, main course at my Aunt Carol's, and dessert at my Aunt Lee's.  Perfect large family activity.

Whenever Ryan takes these girls on a daddy/daughter date he always does something unique and unforgettable.  This is a photo of a river he took them to.  Then they each gathered rocks, one by one, to create this waterfall.  We've gone back to visit this creation and clearly this is a date the girls will never forget.

I am so glad that the girls and I took advantage of the pool while it remained open after school hours before Labor Day.  We pretty much had the entire place to ourselves.  Emma got the courage to not have a lifeguard catch her at the water slide and even to jump into the deep end.  I love the picture of her swimming, she seriously looks like a puppy doing the doggy paddle.  She knows how to swim under water so it makes that photo extra delightful to me.

This has been such a great summer.  We have spent more time together than ever before.  I think for the first time in my life I was ready to welcome the school year and the change of seasons.  I truly feel like my summer cup was filled, I couldn't be more thankful.