Home Sweet Home

Ready to walk into the house after signing the paperwork. Millie was already inside exploring.
It was almost a shame that we had to move the furniture in -- the girls loved running around the wide open spaces.
Happy to be home.
The breakfast nook. The wallpaper was one of the first things to go.
The backyard. We love how shaded it is!
Abby and Jane having fun sliding down a mattress.

We are so excited to finally have a house of our own and we have been loving our house! The girls have been so cute and excited about it too, so many of my apprehensions about it being a difficult transition for them have pretty much receded. Millie has been very eager to help around the house and to keep things neat (even though our house projects haven't allowed us to get everything settled yet). She's taken a lot of pride in picking up the toy room before bed (most nights) and keeping her room straight (most of the time). Abby calls our house "Houston, Texas" and doesn't quite get that the name applies to all of the surrounding area as well. She loves running through the sprinklers. Jane has had the rockiest transition (she's been a little more clingy), but is coming around and she loves the new space. We have been busy moving in and trying to work on a few surface, aesthetic changes (mostly stripping layers of wallpaper and painting), but it has been fun (sometimes :)) to learn how to do home improvement projects and to have a house of our own to work on (I'll start posting some before and after pictures once we get things more settled). Mark has really enjoyed the yard and scored a whole slew of yard tools at a garage sale last Saturday.

The weather has been beastly, but we have been enjoying swimming at our neighbor's pool and the community pool nearby. Otherwise, I try to go outside as little as possible. I think, however, that it was a good idea to move in during the hottest part of the year so that I know that this is as bad as it gets and can only get better (I hope!).

It has been so great to have Mark home the past few weeks and miss him now that he has started a free-lance consulting project in the area. We're grateful for his hard work, though!
He'll start his real job in September.

One of the greatest blessings since arriving are the new friends we've made. We actually have another family from our church on our same street with two girls and a boy right around the same ages as our girls and they have been so welcoming and the girls get along so well with them. We love having them as neighbors. We've also so enjoyed getting to know other families. As an uncanny coincidence, Mark's sister's husband's brother (if that makes any sense) moved into our ward the week before we did. They also have kids right around our kids' ages which makes it so fun!

Funny Millie-isms, Abby-isms, and Jane-isms from the past few weeks:

Millie: "Does the Devil have a wife and children?"

Abby: "I need a drink and I can't hold it!"

Abby: "Sleeping Beauty wants to say prayers. She says lovely prayers!"

Jane (in answer to any questions posed to her): "Nope!"

Millie (about her toy puppy): "I love it so much! I just can't take my eyes off it!"

Abby: "Why did Jesus make the snow not talk?"