The house

Here are the pictures of the house, as is. We aren't quite done unpacking, so there are still boxes everywhere. I'm sure you will get to see it looking better when I post later pictures.


The kitchen. See, not very many cupboards, at least not as many as I had before. I'm beginning to understand why people think they need bigger houses. I don't need a bigger sized house, I just need more storage! Oh well, that's why we're renting.

The dining area. The corner shelf there is all the appliances we use. I wanted it to be my pantry but Ryan did not like the idea of everyone seeing our food, so instead they get to see our pans and appliances.

The front room. Bad picture, but you get the idea. Boxes.

Master bedroom. Even more boxes.

Frog's room. No boxes :) We thought it would be a good idea to at least put the kids rooms together so when they go to sleep we can put everything else together without waking them up.

The boys room. We thought about not setting up the bunk beds, but the room is too small for that. Do you know how hard it is to make the bed on the top bunk?

The play room. I thought it was better to put all the kids toys in this room instead of having it be a living room for us. This way the baby can be asleep upstairs and the other kids can still play. Oh yea, and their rooms aren't big enough for all the toys. My workout stuff and computer are here too.

The most important part of the entire package! The garden. I'm so excited to finally have one of my very own. I asked my dad to come help me get it started. It wasn't all cut up, so he used his shovel to dig up where I could plant. I have strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and pumpkins,

When we moved in, I went out to the garden and found a bunch of strawberry plants. My dad was able to replant them so they could breath and get big.

My first tomato.

This is where a playground will be put in. I'm hoping it comes soon. My kids don't seem to know what to do with a house. They just stay inside all the time.

The whole side of the lawn where the garden is. My wonderful friend gave us this table and benches. She is also doing Dave Ramsey's plan and knows we need to not buy things so we can pay our debt off. She also got me my tomato plants and took care of them until we moved.

moving

We made the big move last weekend. Ryan started packing two weeks before so we had stacks of boxes in the apartment. Ryan went to pick up the u-haul and the first thing he said when he came back was, "It looked bigger on the website." It was a lot of work to stuff every thing in; luckily we had my family and some of the elders quorum here to help. Including our Home Teacher who is a champion packer and able to find a place for just about everything (the rest went in to My Father-in-laws pick-up. My great friend and mom cleaned the back of the apartment while the truck was being loaded.

Ryan brought the truck to the house where his family helped unload; while my mom and I stayed at the apartment and had the relief society come and clean the rest. I felt kind of useless just watching them do it but there's no way I could have done it trying to pack the pantry wiped my 7 months pregnant body out. I know, just making excuses.

Here are pictures of the apartment with all the boxes in it. Included is a picture of the truck stuffed full (I was Impressed).


Ryan thought it might be a good idea to pack the kids.

Dining room

living room

kitchen. Notice those cupboards. One of the downsides of the new house: hardly any cupboard space.

Master bedroom

Frogs bed and all the baby clothes. Yes, this is how we lived.

Master closet. Another thing I will miss. This thing was almost another room.

Boys bedroom

Oh yea, did I mention? It rained the entire day. There were a few breaks, but mostly it just rained.

The truck with everything smashed in. Our helpers didn't want to be in the picture.

Iran

I haven't really been watching the news but I came across this on a blog. I thought some might be interested. I know I'm not a political blog or anything but here you go.

Disneyland!

The fourth and sixth day were spent at Disneyland of course! It took us the entire first day to get through 3 parts of the park. Little did we know, those are the ones that have the most rides. I couldn't figure out why we didn't get much done until two days later when we were done with the other half by noon.

The first day we went there was my birthday. If you go on your birthday you can get in free but I figured I would get more money if we just bought me a three day hopper and I got the birthday gift card with a day's ticket on the card. I was able to buy 3 sets of mickey ears, a stuffed animal for the baby and one for Frog. Yes, that's what $69 buys you at Disneyland. The ears alone were $41. Maybe I'm cheap, but that's a lot of money to spend on something that won't get worn very often. Oh well, Disneyland gave me the money, why not do something fun with it! We let the kids design their own ears and that way if we ever go back or to Disneyworld, they can just wear them there because there's no distinction between parks or the year we went. I thought that was a brilliant idea! Of course they now talk about what they want to change about them but it wouldn't make any sense if they just liked them the way they are.

You also get to wear a pin on your birthday and the employees are all trained to tell you Happy Birthday. It only took me two employees saying it to make me realize. It was kind of fun.

The castle. You'll notice we all have our Disneyland shirts on. There is this awesome discount store that comes and goes near us where you can pay about $5-$10 for Disney shirts. We were smart and went there about 6 months ago and bought these. Every so often we're smart like this.

The Buzz Lightyear ride.

There is this Jedi Training thing where you can get picked to get trained and fight Darth Vader. We went twice and the boys didn't get picked either time. They were pretty upset about it and thought we were going to keep going until they did get picked. Too bad we live so far away.

The younglings waiting for their turn to fight Darth Vader and Darth Maul.

Its a Small World. I have to admit last time I rode on this, it was pretty boring. I didn't like all the new things they did to it. It's just tacky, in my opinion. But, it was so much more entertaining when you have a kid next to you saying 'WOW, look at that mom!' They were amazed by everything and Frog danced to the song. She loved it!

Here they are with their hats.

We were the holders of the hats when the kids didn't want to wear theirs. OK, Frog really didn't want to wear it at all. Doesn't he look cute in his purple hat?!

Not sure what ride this is. Probably something I couldn't ride. See how big they are riding by themselves! They grow up so fast.

Alice in Wonderland.

What a face. Frog is asleep next to him. She fell asleep the first day and some rides they can't be in your lap, so Ryan sat her in the seat and she slumped onto his lap.

See, now I'm the holder of the hat.

Winnie The Pooh ride. We got to ride this thing like 5 times. The line was so short and it was near Splash Mountain, which I couldn't ride.

Winnie The Pooh.

Tigger. If you look at Frog, she is trying to give him five. She gave five to all the characters we saw. Every time she sees them in the pictures, she holds up her hand and says 'five'. She loved them all, which is so different from the boys when they were her age. If you look at Monkey, he still doesn't like them. I don't blame him, they are kind of creepy.

Us waiting for the "parade". I put that in quotes because it is not a parade. A parade is where you have a stream of different things. This thing stops in front of you, does this big 'Celebration' song and dance thing and then its over. I thought it was kind of lame.


The "parade"




On our drive home we stopped by the LA Temple. Its very nice and the grounds are beautiful. The Visitor center is under construction, and as a missionary informed us, it has been for a while. Of course I had to use the restroom, so I walked in the front door with Owl and felt completely awkward but thankfully they have a bathroom in the front and we were able to use it. I have my sweater on because I didn't feel comfortable going in with the shirt I had on. It says "knocked up". For some strange reason I didn't think that was appropriate. Our plan was to stop in Vegas on the way home, so it was appropriate for that!

California Adventure

We spent the fifth day at California adventure. Its a bit more geared toward big kids, but there were some things for the younger ones and me to do. The boys were tall enough to ride on the Tower of Terror and hated it! When I asked them what they liked the best about each of the places we visited, they just said they liked everything about Disneyland/California Adventure but they hated the Tower of Terror. Ryan said it wasn't as good as the one in Florida. I guess I didn't miss much.

We had to get in front of the big F, of course!

All the letters.

I think this is some train thing in the Bug's Life area. I didn't ride on it because I was sitting in Guest Relations waiting for our new glow sword to get there. We bought them on our way out of Disneyland the first night and it was broken by the next morning. Thankfully they traded it in for a new one. I wouldn't have been happy if they hadn't because that dumb thing cost me $10. Ugh, theme park prices.

This was kind of the look on her face for most rides. She was either terrified or curious.

Playhouse Disney of course!

I thought this was the coolest picture. We weren't supposed to use flash photography, so this is the kids going after the real bubbles coming down from the ceiling. They're glowing and seem to be amazed!

My nieces love Princesses, so my sister in-law wanted to take them to this princess lunch thing where you get to eat this ridiculously expensive meal and have the princesses come around to your table to take pictures with them and have them sign your autograph book. This is what my little one did the entire time. It was a nice quiet lunch for me :)

I figured I'd take pictures of what the experience is like. Here is Cinderella and Belle in the background.

Snow White

Yet another Carousel for her to ride. I think these were her favorite rides. She never got tired of them.

The boys bonding, or something.