Settling In

We've been in our new home for nearly two months! Time has flown by-I can't believe it has been over a month since I've last posted. Here are a few pictures of the past month.

Emily and Brooke in their Easter dresses. They loved the dresses and didn't want to take them off!

Easter egg hunt at Grandpa and Grandma Tolman's house. Emily took egg hunting very serious!

Grandpa Tolman's new addition!

For those who know Brooke, you'll know she is in heaven in this picture! Her bead necklaces are from some good friends in Louisiana--they went to a few "family friendly" Mardi Gras (sp?)parades and gave each of the girls a lot of bead necklaces!

Mike has been busy with work and I've been busy keeping up with the girls and getting settled into our new home. We still have lots of boxes in the garage and no pictures up on the walls, but at least we have the essentials unpacked!

Updates overload...Brace yourselves!

So I have been a slacker lately with updating, but I do have a couple of excuses (although excuses aren't good excuses!). Since January we have been a little out of the loop of things. We moved from Montana to Idaho and it was a little chaotic for a couple of months, but now things are slowly feeling like normal again. I think the best way to update things is by picture, so here is what has happened over the last couple of months.

A couple of times we've played pirates...eventually we got the whole family in on the fun and we even searched for hidden treasure!

Uhh, should I explain or just let the picture speak for itself?

A set of our sheets had seen it's better days, so I tore the sheets into squares and the kids (dads included) used these to make their pirate hats. I used paper towel rolls to use for their telescopes. The hidden treasure at the end was a bag full of balloons the kids got to play with. It was all a little spur of the moment fun, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.





Birthdays, birthdays, and more birthdays!

Emily's birthday was in February (sorry no pictures from her birthday... I didn't have my camera yet). Mike and I both have our birthdays in March. Aunt Katie also has her birthday in March.

Mike's mom always made him a bunny cake similar to this when he was growing up, so this is what he requested for his birthday!

I made a cherry cake for a joint birthday celebration for Mike and Katie. There birthdays are only one day apart, so we had one big celebration for both of them.

Jill made my birthday cake. It was a yummy carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. For my birthday, the movers brought all of our stuff from Montana to Idaho and we were able to finally move into our house...Happy Birthday to me! Yeah! (so don't mind the mess in the background, we were a little disorganized at the moment!)

We were able to go visit the baby bear cubs at Bear World. It was a cold and windy day!

Tada! This is our new home. So far we really enjoy our new home. We have lots of plans in the future for it--like finishing the basement, some landscaping, painting, yada yada yada, but for now, we are enjoying homeownership again!

Whew! That was our last couple of months in a nutshell. Now for a couple more pictures I took yesterday that I couldn't pass not posting.

I don't know what happened to this picture, why it is sideways, but I'm running short on time and too lazy to fix it right now, but last night I went to check on the girls and Brooke wasn't in her bed. I looked at Emily's bed and there they both were cuddled up together in Emily's little toddler bed. Isn't that what makes it all worth it?Yesterday the girls and I were going to run some errands with my sister Katie. She came to pick us up and while we were getting car seats switched around, Emily got herself ready! I had taken her pants off because she had just finished eating some yogurt and got some on her pants. Emily didn't want to be left behind. I told her she had to get some pants and shoes on before she could go. She got a hat and Brooke's flip-flop sandals and was ready to go! You can't really tell from the picture, but it is snowing outside! "Bye mom, I ready to go!"

We are planning a trip to West Yellowstone, MT, this weekend. My sisters and their families will be coming, but right now it is snowing and I don't know if we'll be able to go today or not! I hope we can go, it was going to be a fun weekend!

Free Homemade Gifts Tag...

This is what you do:

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year.
4. You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a song. It may be a self portrait or maybe even some creation I haven't yet dreamed up. I may draw. I may bake you something and mail it to you. It may not be big or impressive. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure! So come on, sign up!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!

Decisions, decisions...

Whew! The last couple of months have been CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY! We have moved from Montana to Idaho with very few hitches. We were concerned our house in Montana wouldn't sell because of the housing market and all, but within 3-4 weeks after we listed it, we received an offer and accepted it! YEAH! I was literally ready to do a victory dance...but somehow managed to control myself, barely. With that sold, we knew we'd be able to get into a house here in Idaho sooner than we thought. We had planned on living with my parents until our house sold in Montana. We had already moved in with them (and we still are living with them currently). But, things don't always go as planned...

Mike and I have had a difficult time choosing a house. We seriously have looked at over 40 houses and have re-looked at some of those a few times, too. We have an awesome realtor working with us, who has been extremely patient with us. We have finally narrowed the choices down to two houses.

Here is the deal--we have found a house that has everything we want in a house and it is in a excellent neighborhood. The only catch to this house is that it is at the very top of our price range. We could afford it, but money would have to be watched. The other house we found is $40,000 cheaper and the location is perfect. It is in the school district we wanted and very close to Mike's work. We would be able to save money each month, too. But, neither of us like the house that much. We do like that it comes with 2 acres (Brooke still asks for a pig on a regular basis :0) so we'd be able to do a future 4-H project), the location, and school district, but the house needs a little updating to make it something I'd like to live in. The other house is a lot bigger, very nice, and basically brand new. But, we would be tighter on money.

So, what do we do? That's where Mike and I are stuck. We could get into a house we like, or we could buy a house that is cheaper and put money into it hoping to recover what we put into the house if we decide to sell and upgrade at a later point.

Have I lost everyone yet? Anyway, this is where Mike and I are right now...we're going to look at both houses AGAIN tonight and compare and contrast and pray and hopefully by Friday make an offer. If anyone has any insights, please feel free to share!

On a different note, my camera is packed with half of our stuff in a storage unit in Helena, so I'll be posting picture free for awhile (unless I can sweet talk my sisters into sharing some pictures with me or until I get my hands on my parents' camera!). I may have to hint to Mike about getting me a new camera for my b-day next month...we'll see. :0)