our home, for a year anyways

Here's some pics of our new place.  We love it.  As you can see, it is beautiful.  A bit messy, but pretty!

front room with gas fireplace, a lot of light.

 kitchen.  no dining area is really annoying.  but pretty counters and new appliances.  a lot of light from french doors going to back yard.

 long wide hallway.

 washroom.

 anna's library.  (harry potter closet under the stairs).  if you know anna, you know she needs a library.  no more picking up books off the ground for me.  the mess just stays in there.  i attempt to organize occasionally (we've only lived here for a week) but she reads all her books everyday anyways so they just end up in piles on the ground.

 pretty bathroom.  no tub, just a big shower.

 anna and julias sleeping room.

 beach room (i do yoga on the beach every morning!), office, playroom.  lots of afternoon and morning light.

 our bedroom.

 anna and i went for a walk today.  there is a jr. high 1/8 of a mile from our house.  we walked to it and anna said "mom am I three?"  she thinks she will get to go to school when she is three.  I told her no, you are still two, but this school is for big kids, teenagers.  she didn't believe me.  so we went inside, got a visitors pass and walked around the school.  when the bell rang and all the big kids came into the halls she got a little scared and grabbed my hand, but she loved it.  she thought it was cool that schools have their own libraries.  she loves watching people.  it was fun to look at all the kids.

 doddling.  pulling icicles off the snow and splashing in puddles.  it took an hour to get to the jr. high and back.

 the view from our backyard.  what?  !!  look at that mountain!  i lvoe it.

 jr high.

 doddling on the way home.  these girls love eachother so much.  when julia goes down for a nap anna misses her.  she will be plaing then she suddenly says "mom, julia is WIDE awake (not just awake)"  I say - uh no anna, she is still sleeping.  I always lock the door to keep julia safe during her naps.  oh, did I mention that the rooms have locks (like with a key on the outside) on all the doors.  i love being able to lock anna in at night.  no need for those childproofer handle things.

 CHEESE.  goobity goos.  I love these munchkins.

anna is happy to have a place to call home.  she gets better by the day.  especially since we started going to storytime again.  this girl thrives on a schedule.

I'm a little snowman

short and fat, here is his broomstick here is his hat.  when the comes out I melt away, down down down whoops!  I'm a puddle!

treehouse museum

rich and i went to my old roomates wedding a few weeks ago.  while we were there richs parents came up to watch the girls.  they took them to the treehouse museum in ogden.  looks like they had an awesome time!

new place

So we found a place to live.  Rich was tired of living at my parents.  I went to visit my grandparents and when I came home he had created a spreadsheet of all these places for rent, their details, prices and location.  Wow, he was motivated!  We went out apartment shopping and the first and only place we went to was the place we are currently living!  It is a basement apartment near my grandmas house in Holiday.  It is beautiful.  We planned to move in March 1st because we didn't want to spend money on rent so soon.

I went by the apartment a few times to pay a deposit and to see if Im allergic to the cats that live upstairs.  One time I went I had a list of questions to ask the landlord (does anyone smoke, do the neighbors have a noisy dog, do i need to buy a CO detector, stuff like that).  Rich was supposed to go by after work later that night to pay 500$ to hold the place for us. 

When he got home the landlord had told him that I had too many questions and he wanted to be sure that we were going to be good tennants before he rented to us.  He said the last tennant had been very demanding and would call him when any little thing went wrong and in the fall she called and said "there are a bunch of pears on the ground in the back yard, can you get someone over here to take care of it?"  (there is a pear tree).   Our landlord (Ron) told richard he didn't want tennants who were going to call him every time there were pears on the ground.

I don't want to be that person....so we wont be.  But anyways we went back one more time so Ron could show us how things work and he wanted to have us sign the rental agreement.  We thought the price included utilities.  It didn't.  There was a small squabble.  We loved it too much to let it go, so we signed the agreement anyways and left.  Later that night Ron sent me an email saying we could move in 2 weeks early for free to make up for the difference.  How nice! 

So we hurried up and moved in.  It was pretty intense.  We got an armada of heiner vehicles.  Rich and I filled the tacoma and the corolla in the morning.  Then we went back to the storage unit later that night and filled my moms van, richs truck, kelbys truck and my dads truck.  whew!  Then rich has done like 4 more trips in his truck.  we've still got some junk to get (or get rid of...), but we are almost there.

So our new place is really nice.  Its got a huge backyard that is completely fenced.  I am thrilled to let anna play back there in the summer.  Its got a lot of inside storage, but no garage ):.  We are making it work though.

We have had a lot of visits from family.  A lot of cousins to play with.  alright, enough with the words.  Here are the pics.

This is the OCEAN room.  All of the toys are in here.  As you can see, despite being a basement apt it is nice and bright!

 we eventually cleaned it up, this is just after anna found all the boxes with her toys and opened them all on her own while i was unpacking other things.

 both girls are sleeping in a tiny room.  its working good.  anna has only woken julia up once and she went back to sleep quick so it was no big deal.

 this is my sis amy in her orange hunting/snow suit.  awesome.  she created a sledding hill in the back yard and is pushing her youngest down in a laundry basket.  awesome.

 evan, anna, chloe, me sledding down the hill.  on diaper boxes.

 go anna go!

 after sledding the cousins came in to watch a show.

 cute.

 one problem with the new place is the lack of a bathtub.  anna hates the shower and is a MESSY eater.  So I stuck her in the kitchen sink after dinner a few nights ago.  She loved it.  It was hilarious. 

ill get more pics of the place soon.

books books books and a valentine story

well valentines day was fun for anna.  Aunt Virginia brought her a suck suck thing (sucker).  She loved it.  Grandma gave her a valentine bear with hearts all over it.  She loved it.  Grandma had a super busy day - she is a florist - so we delivered some flowers and ran some errands for her.

Its my parents anniversary on feb 14th.  So my dad left a little present of chocolate covered strawberries on my moms bed.  Anna went in there to read books.  I went to the bathroom.  When I came out anna had a chocolate covered strawberry in her hand.  I gasped.  Anna had trembling lip then started to BAWL.  she wouldn't look at grandma and ran to the basement and hid under her blanket.  She wouldnt even come out to read a book with grandma.  After an hour or so she was okay and grandma shared the rest of her treat with anna.  Silly anna, she has a conscience!
Anna loves it here.  So many books and so many people to read her books.

 while i was doing yoga they found the VHS stash.  Lots of Disney and Richard Simmons.

 Valentines cooking making eating with grandma.

 what are my cousins doing across the table??!!

 jane.

 amber and chloe.  the adored older cousins.  making "sprinkle soup"

 tall tall tower!  Richard and anna made this sunday while i was visiting my grandparents.  i guess it fell down and really scared anna.

a good end to valentines day.  anna and grandma reading books.  wait, thats a good end to everyday in annas "book"

This is the place

So Saturday we went apartment hunting.  The first place we went to was perfect.  I don't have pictures but its 3 bed, 1 bath, 960/mo basement apartment close to Richards work.  It has a BRAND new library/ rec center down the street and is seriously 5 min from the mountains.  It has a huge yard with a pear tree and lots of grass.  (Currently hidden by snow).  It is about 5 min from my grandmas house, which is I important because Anna loves to play there and I love to visit.

So anyways, we are just hoping our house sells because we've put some money down to hold it.

Other than that we've been fulfilling familial obligations and are ready to be in our own place so we can have our own lives again.

We went to the aquarium in sandy yesterday with a friend from blogger!  It was fun.  We had a great time.  Anna was sort of naughty.  Today we did some Pinterest crafts with my awesome sis in law at great grand,as house.  It was a great time.  After that Virginia watched Anna while I went to....WINCO!  I love winco and miss it terribly.  It is so far from my parents house that this is the first time I've gone since being here.

Tomorrow Rich goes to Nevada for a day.  It's nice I won't be alone!

Oh and one more thing.  I got a letter in the mail from the hospital I worked for in newberg. They said that the total vested sum for my 403 B was something like 970,000.  Last time I checked it was only $300.  Sweeeeet!  The economy must really be doing well!

Pics of those Buhler cheeks to come, hopefully tomorrow!

sleeping arrangements

above:  anna sneaking upstairs after we put her to bed.  look how "innocent".  she's like cindy loo who.  "can i have a drink of water?"

 After we went back down she was sleeping in the hall.  next the box of stuff that i dont know what to do with.  i was nervous to leave it in the storage unit b/c it has oil in it.

 julia is sleeping in the bathroom.  we started her out in our room.  NO GO she knows we are there and yelps for us all night.  then we moved her upstairs across from my mom's room.  NO GO.  julia has a bad habit of waking up at 3 or 4 am for a snack.  i just let her cry.  my mom wont do that.  so to stop my mom from bringing her to me I put her in the family room.  Too cold.  she kept waking up.  so next stop was bathroom.  she sleeps great there.

 the stuffed animal line up.  one baby in bed and 3 others on top.  not sure what anna was thinking.

 grandma telling anna secrets (go to bed anna)

 julia loves grandpa.  loves loves loves him.  anna, not so much.

 julias favorite toy.

 look mom, a spoon!

i took some valentines photos today.  i love this one.  julias thinking - what the what?!