I know, I know!

This is probably getting old, but I'm just so excited! The house is almost done, just a few finishing touches on the outside and carpet/appliances on the inside. We close on the townhouse tomorrow. I can't believe how fast everything is going.

Disneyland - Day 2

Since the kids didn't have school on Thursday or Friday we decided to go to Disneyland on Monday and Tuesday to try to beat the Utah crowds. I think a lot of people from around here had the same idea though because we saw so many UT license plates. On Day 2 we decided to start the day with a character breakfast in the park. It was so much fun and the food was so good! The characters took a lot of time with the kids posing and taking pictures which was nice. After breakfast we headed over to CA adventure to ride the rides and see the sights. Bradley loved California Screamin', Kylie loved the Tower of Terror and Ben loved the Pixar Parade. Grant loved it all! As soon as CA Adventure closed we headed straight back to Disneyland to finish out the night. 2 days, a few blisters and countless rides...it was a fun trip to the "happiest place on earth". Wednesday afternoon we drove back to my Grandma Phillippi's house and spent one more night with her before heading home on Thursday. The kids are already planning next years trip, I hope they're paying!

Kylie and Ben with Eeyore
Captain Hook

Kylie got a hug from Tigger

Minnie with the fam

Grant getting his own time with Minnie

Kylie and Jessie

Heimlich would pop up and say "Candy Corn is my favorite vegetable." The kids thought that was hilarious!

Candy Corn was used as decoration all over the park

3 cute kids!

Instead of toys, Bradley wanted to collect pins from his favorite rides. He even traded them with Disney employees around the park. Definitely taking after his grandpa!

The ladybug ride

In line for the Nemo Submarine

Mickey and Minnie in their Halloween costumes

This is the front gates, everything was just beautiful

L.A. Temple and Disneyland Day 1

Last Saturday we drove to L.A. to celebrate my 30th birthday at Disneyland. We were able to stay with my Grandma that night who lives in the San Fernando Valley. On Sunday we took the kids to see the L.A. Temple since neither of us had been there before. It is really beautiful and such a peaceful sanctuary in the middle of a busy city.
Sunday night we drove to Anaheim and stayed at a hotel where my parents drove down from Northern CA to meet us. We had connecting rooms and the kids loved being able to run back and forth into Grandma and Grandpas room. On Monday (my birthday) we were up bright and early and spent the entire day until 10 pm in Disneyland. The kids did so well and no one had a meltdown or needed to go back to the hotel for a nap. Since I got in free I wore a button that said it was my birthday and all the "cast members" kept wishing me a happy birthday. It was such a fun day! I was just as excited as the kids. Here are a few pictures from the day:

The park was decorated so cute for Halloween

Waiting in line of our first ride...Snow White

This was pretty much Grants demeanor for most of the day. He did really well!

Everybody got Mickey ears with their names on the back.

(Ben's pose cracks me up!)

This is on the ship that sails around a little island

(Again, Ben's face!)

It was so fun having my parents there and they were so nice to watch the little boys so we could go on the "scary" rides.

Thunder Mountain

Bradley and Kylie went on all the big kid rides and loved it

We had lunch at my favorite Mexican Restaurant

Ben loved all the characters and even made Pooh hold his "grabber"

He loved Tigger

There was a great fireworks show at the end of the night. I love this picture of Dan, Grant and Kylie watching the show.

There were pictures projected onto Small World while the fireworks and music was going on.

This was the huge Pumpkin Mickey at the beginning of Main Street

Update

I have so many posts to do about our past week, but this one is easy and quick so I thought I'd do it first. In just 9 days, our house went from the one wall garage to a 2 story house ready for stucco! It has been so exciting watching the progress. Only 2 weeks to go!

Front of house
Back of house
(you can see our mountain view)

It's real!

We are building a house!! We are so excited and feel so blessed that our prayers were answered. We put our house on the market on April 1 when I was 7 months pregnant with #4. I figured that we might be out of our house before the baby was born. :) Little did I know it would take 4 months beyond that! We prayed and prayed about finding a buyer and a new home that would comfortably fit our bigger family. I thought I found the perfect home a couple times only to have them sell. As we neared the 6 month mark we lowered our price again and got 3 walk-throughs in 1 weekend. This resulted in 2 offers that we thought were low, but countered anyway. That same weekend a buyer called our agent and, after hearing that we had other offers, put an offer on our house sight unseen. It was our asking price and he didn't want any of our appliances like the other buyers did.

We were so grateful and decided to go to a local builder the next day and see what it would take to build a house. I told the builder about the model I liked and hoped to build, even though it had not yet been built in this subdivision. He told us that they had just finished the foundation/basement of this particular model because he thought it would look good in this neighborhood. It would be finished in +/- 5 weeks and we could still pick out the colors, options, etc. We fully expected to have to rent a small apartment for a couple months in between which would mean moving twice. Instead, we close on this house and then close on the new house within days! Now we are buying the house I love just a mile from this house so our kids will go to the same school and have the same friends. Not surprisingly, we will be in a different ward, but the same stake.

Here is the picture of our first wall! (the garage). To see the floorplan click on Salisbury Homes. Our floor plan is called "Hamilton".

Our Little "Punkin"

On Friday Kylie went on her first Kindergarten fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch. She was really excited to take her first bus ride and even more excited to wear her new pumpkin outfit. She was able to pick out a pumpkin and play in a sandbox filled with corn. We love our little "Punkin".