Our New Home on Oaktrail

Basement view from the stairs (future great room)

Other side of the basement (future bedrooms)

Down to the basement

Master bedroom and bath

Ila's bedroom (sorry... it's dark)

Isaac's bedroom

This is the kid's bathroom

Hall (on the right is a bedroom, linen closet, and another bedroom, on the left at the end is the master)

Aimee's kitchen

Here is the family room looking from the dining room

So we are under contract on a house on Oaktrail. Here are a few pictures of the place. We signed papers and spent about 2 hours over at the house today with Daniel and Cat. We will put up more as we get closer to closing (March 31st.)

Ila Turns 6

Well, it's been awhile and I have no real excuse as to why I don't blog as much as I could, but hey, better late than never right?? Well, yesterday was Ila's sixth birthday. In talking with Jason I asked him if he realized that next year she'll be in first grade and Isaac will be in kindergarten. He didn't want to talk about it. It's hard to admit that your children are growing so quickly. Yesterday I looked at three of them sitting in the pew at church and I realized just how fast they are growing. For example, our little girl got an "MP and 3" player for her birthday, really at six? She says things that amaze me, the observations she makes, the way she reads already, AMAZING!!! She is the smartest little girl ever, she is beautiful and has the biggest heart. We love her and are so grateful that she is a part of our life!

Halloween in Rexburg

Costumes

Ila was Bat Girl, Isaac was Spider Man, and Turtle was a doctor!

Lights Out!

We put orange LED lights along the roof line, orange lights on the bushes infront of the house, and pumkin walkway lights up to the front door. The street lights are on the corner, so our yard gets pretty dark.

Bone Yard

Here is the bone yard. We made most of these tombstones along with the coffin. The coffin opened and closed by a motor I rigged in the bottom of the coffin. I placed a skeleton inside along with a black light. It was awesome!

Wendy the Witch

We built this witch out of a 4x4 post and a pool noodle. It looked great, but the wind took off her head three times. I'm not sure if this one will make to next year. It did have a motor in the caldron that moved the handle around and around. It was pretty cool with the lights and fog machine in the caldron.

Aimee made the tombstone with the misting skull on top. We used sheets of the 1 inch foam from Lowes. It looked great once it was painted gray. We cut out the word BEWARE and placed orange LED lights inside for an eerie glow.

Giant Spider

We put our inflatable spider up in this tree. Fuzzy pic, sorry. This looked great, you could see it from down the street.

Spider's Web

The pic is a little fuzzy, but this is a web we made to hang between out neighbor's trees. We added a few giant spiders and a severed hand in the middle. I made a light box and placed it under the web so you wouldn't walk into it.

Here is our clearance steal from last year. K-Mart had this thing 90% off, and we picked it up for a around $15. Ila's school asked us if they could use it for their school Spook Alley, of course we set it up for them. He sits about 8' tall.

New Addition this year! This little witch stands about 50" tall and waved her left arm up and down. Nice little addition to the walkway.

Creepy Creeper

We hung this guy from the trees, his creepy cloth hung down about 8 feet. We stuck a flood light on him and lit him up. The only problem with this guy was the wind. Every time the wind blew his cloth would bet stuck in the tree. Pretty cool though.

Mr. Bone Jangles

Notice the hands in the hip! Just another glow in the dark skeleton.

Harvest 2 years ago

As requested, I posted some pictures from harvest last year and a snow picture.

Aiden Turns -2-

Well, today was the big day. Our youngest has officially turned two. It's a bittersweet age. He has so much to experience, so many things ahead for him, so much for him to do; and yet, still soo many tantrums to throw. At Stake Conference tonight there was a young couple in front of us with one child they were struggling to get to sleep. I almost leaned forward and said, "You know this is the easy part right?" Anyhow, we did a Spongebob party because he LOVES Spongebob. He got a Spongebob bed set, jammies, and movie. His favorite gift though was from Rachel and Tyler, the smarties!!

We had a small family party and we were very fortunate that Aiden's great Aunt Jeanne and Jackie were in town so they came and joined us for the festivities. It occurred to me today that my kids are so lucky to know their great aunts, uncles and grandparents. Rachel, Tyler and Jacob also came to celebrate with us and of course, I didn't get any pictures of them.

Not the worst cake ever but not the best either. This one was a checkerboard of blue and yellow with lemon filling between each layer.

Dan and Cat came too and this was during the singing. Nana and Poopa joined in via the webcam.

He is such a cute little boy and we love having him in our family. We look forward to many more adventures to come.

Ode to Aiden

Aiden turns two next week, so in honor of him I have prepared the following prose (please bear in mind that I am not a poet):

It does not seem that long ago when on that September day,

God graced us with a little boy and no crying came our way.

A happy child, he'd prove to be so well loved and adored.

When singing with the 'Tiger' song he always strikes the chord

With big brown eyes, he's quick to smile and torment ladybugs.

Intelligent beyond his years, he talks and offers hugs;

This little man has won our hearts, our family he completes,

Such blessings now ours because of him, our cup became replete.

He is all boy, loves, trucks and blocks and digging in the dirt.

He'll flash his smile and melt your heart, he is a little flirt.

Each day he learns, grows and explores, knowing no need to fear it.

Our lives enriched our hearts are full and we are grateful for this spirit.

The Fourth of July

The fourth started with a flag raising at our church which was pretty neat. People who were arriving to stake out their places even stopped and put their hands on their hearts. It was Jason's idea but lots of people said that they were so glad we had it so maybe next year we'll do it again.

After the flag raising we set out to watch the parade. It was neat and lasted waaayyy too long. By the end the kids had had enough and I have to say they had a ton of candy.

Lastly we had a few families over for dinner and fireworks. I only snapped some pictures at the very end so here are some pictures from then.