These are a few of my favorite things...

Okay, I know you all have been dying for pictures of the new house... here are a few!  Just some of my favorite features.

 First of all, one of the biggest things we wanted in a new house: one big main room!  Openness!  a bigger dining area!  (You can't really tell from these pictures, but it really is bigger.  You can walk all the way around the table easily without bumping into anything.) So this is standing in the corner closest to the entryway/stairs/front room.

 This is from the other corner, and I took it to show the next favorite thing, the kitchen drawers and cabinets!!  They are so nice and there are so many of them!!  We have over twice as many drawers as we used to and several extra cupboards.  So exciting to have lots of room!

Next, I love the recessed lighting!

And my dreams have come true; I don't have to miss the football game, or the movie, or whatever anymore!  I can cook and watch at the same time! (If I'm careful with the Cutco haha).

 Loving the view out back, although it will be prettier in the spring/summer, or in the winter covered in snow. November is the ugliest month in Utah!

 My bathroom makes me feel like I'm at a really nice hotel or resort or something! Although it is weird to not have a bathroom door (the toilet room has it's own door though.)

 It's like 7 times bigger than our old bathroom!!!

 My half of the giant master closet!!  Not all the way unpacked yet.  Our bedroom is huge and awesome too, but I didn't take a pic for some reason.

 I really love these stairs, so big and open!  They make it feel like you're not going into some dark cave of a basement!  More pics of the basement later.

 This porch.  I am going to LOVE this when the weather is nice!  we are going to get some chairs or benches for sure.  I have always wanted a big porch!

 These cute little shutters on the vent above our garage- love!

 Some views of the back and side yards...

 We are SO grateful that the lawn and basic landscaping are in- now we can just upgrade with more trees, flowers, bushes and a garden!

The big main room has tons of space for Owen's daily train track adventures!

 And the future possibilities for the basement are exciting...

This is going to be a playhouse under the stairs, and it goes around the corner to the left,

 shown here.  We are going to cut a door and window into this wall- it will be adorable.

 Views of the giant room taking up half of the basement

 It's well-lit and I love it!  Past that framed wall are the future bathroom, a drywall-ed toy room (theater room) and bedroom, and the cold storage room.

 And I tried to take a few pictures of Maris in this cute outfit I bought her. She can sit up by herself for about 3.5 seconds!

 And here's one last view, of our little deck with snow on it.

 Happy November!  I am loving everything about this house except the awful commute to school in Santaquin twice a day.... only 4 more weeks of that!

Our favorite sound

Enjoy this video of the cutest sound ever: Maris laughing. Whitney's singing is pretty cute too.

Moving Day!

Our moving day was crazy and awesome.  We felt so loved as Josh Anderson showed up at 8 am, Chris Mortensen at 8:30, I picked up Derek and Raycelan at 9, and by 10 we had about 8 young men, the Bishop, 3 of my friends Sarah Dees, Jessica Jenson and Ashley Kriegh, and our neighbor Bro. Bird and our home teacher Scot Rowley!  Eric had been up working since about 5:30 am and I joined him at 6:30 after I fed Maris and took down her crib.  We had the truck and Josh's trailer and our van loaded and everything cleaned out and emptied by noon!!  It was amazing.  My friends were so sweet and I was so grateful for the strong young men and Derek and Raycelan stayed all day!!  I took pictures of the "bucket brigade" getting our almost 40 buckets of heavy food storage out.  

 Then suddenly it was time to go!  The girls gave their plastic pool (with a crack in it) to their friends, so that's why they are in swim suits haha, it was a little chilly!  

 This is Miles, Alison, Kate, Whitney, and Ellaina.  The girls have played together for about 5 years, we will miss them even though they drove me a little crazy!

 At the last minute Katelyn was really sad and wanted to say goodbye to her swing, since we were leaving the broken-down swingset behind.  

 We were both a little teary as I remembered moving there with her as a little 18 month old and pushing her in that swing, it was just the two of us every day, we were all each other had. And now she's my big girl!

 Then we got pictures in front of the house- Whitney's first house

 Katelyn's second house

 Owen's first house

 and Maris's first house (she was an angel that day by the way!)

 Our family in front of the home we loved for almost 7 years.

 Goodbye dear Santaquin house, we will remember you fondly!

And we were off to Salem!!  Ryan and Kurtis joined us there and we spent a couple of busy hours unloading.  Even the kids helped, it was pretty cute.  And our awesome neighbors the Kellys came over and carried stuff for over an hour, so nice!  And of course there was Josh and Derek and Raycelan, we owe them all big time!

 By 3 o'clock we were ready to hook up the TV and watch a movie!  

It was exhausting but we were well prepared so it went smoothly, and we are so grateful for all the help.