New House!!!

Ok I know this is the post you have all been waiting for... It has taken me a while to get these pictures up but I will probably do it again after I get all of the rooms decorated. I am working on it... which is a lot more then I can say for the last house. Some of these pics are from the old owners I haven't taken any yet but I will let you know which.

Back yard view, notice the solar panels on top...

Back yard

Basement family room, this is the previous owners stuff.

view number 2 of basement with previous owners stuff

also the basement with the old stuff but they did leave the big table here and the cabinets...

kitchen dining room with there stuff. They took the island and we still need to get one.

another view of the kitchen

the living room and yes the sweet baby in the pic is my Merrik. This picture is taken from the loft up above.

Loft upstairs. This is where we keep all of the kids toys and all of our books. We hope to someday put a reading area up there.

Mason and Merrik's bedroom upstairs

this is the Jack and Jill bathroom that joins the boys room with Mirra's room. Love that the toilet has its own door.

Mirra's room

Master Bedroom

More master bedroom but this is the previous owners stuff

Master closet

Master bath and again the toilet is separate love it...

Office/craft room/guest bedroom

Laundry room and half bath

The kids have loved having a hill in the backyard. They have already found a bunch of uses for it. They have had a blast.

Racing Daddy, Mirra won!

Mason and his friend Dallin on the smaller hill

We live on 2 acres but most of it is in the woods. We have a river that runs along the back border and a pond that is out front which we have been told is a great ice skating pond in the winter but we haven't been able to try it out yet. We are surrounded by woods but this time we are only about 7 minutes from a grocery store and a major city. We are also one mile from the on ramp to the freeway. It is a great location.

Potter Park Zoo!!!

So this summer we spent a lot of time looking at houses. House after house after house. I have to say this is a much easier process to do when you are living with your mother who will take the kids while you go. This go round we drug all 3 kids with us to every single house. When we finally found what we were looking for the fun began... We started the packing and cleaning process. YIPPEEEE!!! I wish you could see the sarcasm that I feel when writing those words. The kids were so good through the whole thing. Finally on October 1st we decided to take a break from it all and do something fun with the kids. We went to the Zoo!!!

Update

Wow I didn't realize how long it has been since I posted anything here. I am way behind. I am just going to put in some pictures in this post and explain them to catch up.

Merrik's first smile that we were able to get in a picture. We tried forever to get. He is so sweet and happy. I am so lucky to have him as a son. I truly have the best baby in the world. He never cries, he is never fussy and he is so quiet. Sometimes a little too quiet. We have to try hard sometimes to even get him to do a raspberry back at us.

Mirra loves her baby brother. She is such a big help. most of the time she would rather be holding Merrik then doing anything else. She is such a good big sister and babysitter!

Mason loves Merrik too but he is waiting anxiously for the day when Merrik can play with him. He tries hard to play and gets frustrated when Merrik can't throw the ball back or what ever he wants him to do!!! mommy is constantly having to tell Mason to please don't be so ruff with the baby! But don't they all 3 look so cute together!!!

Mason tries to find other things to do a lot now that I am busy with the baby and can't spend 100% of the day focusing on him. This particular day he thought he would be like Mommy and put on make up, he just couldn't quit figure out where the mascara was supposed to go...

Mirra started first grade in September. She has made a lot of friends in her class this year and has been doing really well. She is reading great and does almost perfect on her math. Her favorite thing to do though is art. She makes me something in class about 3 times a week. Almost always it says how pretty her mommy is, She is so sweet.

Mason misses her so much though. He can't wait to join her at school. I have had to start doing "school time" with him everyday. He is doing awesome. He knows all of his letters and there sounds as well as all of his shapes and colors. He is going to be a very smart little man.

Mason got this fireman rain coat from Missy. He loves to wear it. It was so nice to have because we had a very rainy and wet fall.

Both kids worked rally hard this summer and learned how to ride their bikes.

With daddy's help one Sunday afternoon they finally did it.

Mirra was so excited that she jumped off her bike and did a victory dance!

Mason was that excited to but he just stayed on his bike and yelled "I DID IT!" with his hands in the air.

Merrik was just hoping that he would have a few more minutes of peace without his brother poking his eyes out.

Mirra truly loves holding her baby brother!

Mackinac Island

Ok I have been to visit many places, well not really many really I have been to visit a few places, but this has to be my favorite so far. I could not choose between photos so again there are going to be a million pictures on this post but wouldn't we rather see pictures then anything else really? So for those of you who don't know about Mackinac Island I am going to tell you a little bit about it first and then put the pictures. I never knew there was a place still like this one on the planet let alone in the state that I just found myself living in.... Mackinac Island (said Mackinaw) is in the upper peninsula of Michigan. There are 2 cities that ferry people across the water to the Island St Ignace is up on the upper peninsula and Mackinaw City is on the main land Michigan. The water between the 2 are where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. They are connected by a huge 5 mile long bridge that is beautiful. We stayed on the St Ignace side in a hotel over looking the lake to the island. Our hotel balcony had the perfect view. Saturday Jacob and I celebrated our 7th Anniversary. We got up early before anyone else was awake and watched the sunrise over the water. It was beautiful and the perfect start to our day.

The land on the right is Mackinac Island

On Mackinac Island there are no motorized vehicles allowed. There are horse and buggies or bikes to rent if you don't want to walk around. It was really a sight to see.

The ferry ride over

Mason's favorite part was the boat, Ferry, over and back

Mackinaw Bridge from the Ferry window

we went right under the bridge which was out of the way but a very cool thing to see. You could look up and see the cars driving over the top of us. Kind of made me more nervous when we went back across the bridge the next day but still very cool to see. It is a 4 lane road up there.

waiting to get tickets to go to the fort

the white building behind Mirra is Fort Mackinac.

A bark hut. Everything was bark from off a tree

Inside the bark hut

looking out at the bay on our walk up to the fort

soldiers were all around to answer questions

here they are shoe=wing us how they had to load a gun back during the Civil war

Merrik enjoying his visit to the fort. No sun No walking just sleeping. AAAHHHH this is the life

After the canon demonstration

Kings of the rock

Aylayna is now the Queen of the rock

Mirra loved the beauty of the flowers and all the buildings. She wanted a picture of each one.

Look at this anchor Mom. It is so old.

they really have beautiful buildings

and flowers everywhere

Waiting to get into the butterfly house

These are the cocoon's There are so many of them. There are even some that look like they are made of metal. They were so beautiful. They said most of these would hatch in the next few days. One already had you can see it sitting in the middle.

The pretty flowers were easier to take pictures of then the butterflies that were flying everywhere.

They had  thousands of butterflies surrounding us

This one thought grandpa was sweet

Merrik in his second outfit for the day.

Best buds keeping track of each other  while we are heading to get lunch.

I finally gave Merrik his rattle for something fir him to see. He really liked the look of it.

After walking up the hill to the grand hotel we thought we would get a buggy to take us back down. The grand hotel is in the picture in the background.

Here I am trying to show how clear and beautiful the water is.

Saturday night Mom and Dad had to leave. We went back to the hotel and swam for awhile then watched the Saturday night fireworks from our balcony and went to bed. Sunday we just took our time doing what ever the kids wanted to do.

the kids decided they wanted to see the light houses

This one is on St Ignace. I wish we could have gone in though.

One the Dock out to the light house

This is one of the Ferries like the one we were on the day before

Mackinaw City withe the bridge in the background.

this is behind the Old Mackinaw Fort Lighthouse. I don't know why I didn't get a picture of it though. We could have actually gone in it but Mirra and I were wearing open toed shoes and Mason was to short so we didn't go in.

We went to a place were peolpe were dressed up like old trappers and Native Americans selling things like turquoise, furs and leather pouches

I think they were putting on some kind of pagent later but we didn't stay for it.

I was shocked the whole trip at how interested Mirra was in the history of things. She decided she wants to take her Grandpa Nielsen back there sometime because he was a soldier so he could tell her more about the cool things then I could. I guess we will have to go back but I am not sad about that at all...