Buying a house!!

For anyone who hasn't heard yet, we are going to be buying a house. We are soooooooooo excited!! We should be closing in a little over a month. (I think it is going to be a long month....) We only looked at 7 houses--we were pretty nervous we would be looking at 50 or so, but after we saw this one our minds were made up! It has 5 bedrooms (one potentially is an office, but has a large closet, so can be a bedroom.) 2.5 baths It has a nice size backyard, which isn't common around here. It's right across the street from a neighborhood park. So, here's the pictures:

Entry way.

Kitchen--I'm super excited about all the cupboards and counter space!

It even has a walk-in pantry!!

We really wanted an open living/dining/kitchen area--hooray.

The way too big master bedroom

and bathroom, oh well.

Sarah's room (right next to ours.)

Jessica's (maybe Jessi and Emmy's)room--Jessica was so sad that the Tinker Bell pillow doesn't come with the house!

Emily's room? (We're holding out hope Nate's sister Clarissa will come live in it next summer??)

Office (downstairs)

family room (playroom for now.)--upstairs

Utility room. I'm so excited to have a laundry room that isn't part of the kitchen or bathroom!!

Completely fenced in backyard!! It will be so wonderful that the kids can go play outside without us all having to make a big excursion of it.

Garden area!!

Some of the fun we have been having lately:

Sarah loves the bouncer my friend Sydni let us borrow (she also let us borrow it the summer Emily was a baby!) She wasn't a big fan of her baby swing we got her, so we finally took it down. I think the bouncer is a little big, but she sure enjoys it! We love Sarah's big drooly smiles!

We took a trip to the Oregon Zoo this week with my friend Kristy and her kids.

Our apartment pool has been the highlight of Jessica and Emily's summer (and Nate's.)

Creative Jessica

I am so amazed at how creative Jessica is--she has quite an imagination!! She is always surprising me with the things that she comes up with: This is her Peter Pan Costume, she ties a ruler on her hat for a feather, a necklace on her waist to hold on her dagger (magic wand.)

Her scuba diving costume:

She gave our Family Home Evening lesson this week on Lehi's dream. (I helped think of a couple ideas, but most of it was her.) She didn't want anyone to have to be the bad guys, so she had the animals be those mocking in the great and spacious building (couch).

A broomstick for the iron rod.

The lamp for the tree of life and some bright yellow candy for the fruit.

Sarah--3 months!!

Illinois to Oregon

Our 5 years in Illinois went so much faster than I thought they would when we first started out. They were wonderful years, but we are excited for Nate to be done with school! We loaded up our stuff in U-Haul boxes so we wouldn't have to drive a truck across the country and headed out of Illinois on May 22nd. I first felt Jessica moving inside me when we drove from Utah to Illinois almost 5 years ago. Now we left Illinois (in the same Buick--it lasted through grad school!!) with our back seat full of our 3 beautiful girls. We must have taken at the beginning of the trip, looking at how content every one looks. We had a couple big challenges on the trip: 1-Sarah isn't a fan of the car, and when she was awake, she was crying. The car didn't put her to sleep, but being bounced or swung in her car seat sometimes worked, so we had to stop often and Nate would swing her car seat around--I was amazed at his patience!! 2-Keeping Jessica and Emily from waking Sarah up when she was asleep. We tried to bring lots of tricks, but they wore out after awhile. For Emily we had our most success with snacks, she ate a lot on the trip! Here is a picture of Jessica's favorite toys on the trip. She entertained herself for hours making dresses for her dolls out of paper towels and packing tape. I had to rip off lots of pieces of tape and hand them back, but it was worth it--a lot easier than it would have been for me to keep them out of Sarah's car seat. Emmy just wanted pieces of tape to put on like band-aids or to put on Sarah's car seat, or other places in the car! We usually just stopped whenever Sarah was sad and drove when she was asleep, so the girls would just play in the grass or rocks by the side of the road, and we would pass by the exciting places. We did stop at Little America in Wyoming though and got ice cream cones! We got to stop in Utah for a week and spend time with family--hooray!! Nate's Aunt Ruth made our girls darling princess dresses, which they have been running around in ever since. We got to spend time with all of Nate's immediate family in Logan and then all of my immediate family in Salt Lake--it was wonderful! They were all there together for Sarah's blessing, which was really special! Jessi also made herself some shoes on our way to Oregon. We made it from Utah to Oregon in just one day, although we stopped 10 or 11 times! We made it here to Hillsboro, and are enjoying our new apartment. The hot tub is really just warm, so Nate has taken the girls there many times, and they have had so much fun!!

Congratulations, Dr. Jack!!

Nate did it, he graduated with his Ph.D.!! 5 years ago, we thought this day would never come, but it did, and it was so wonderful! I am so proud of Nate, he worked so hard, and sacrificed so much for his family, and with the Lord's help we made it!

Nate's parents came to celebrate with us, and we had a wonderful time together!