Our Home

The front of our home

We live in a quiet and friendly neighborhood in a small city in Northern Utah. Although we live in the city, it doesn't feel like it at all!  We have a quarter acre with a big garden, a small orchard, berries, grapes, and chickens.  We love that the kids can have such a fun outside area to explore and play! We love that they can have hands-on experience with growing things.  There is yard work to do every day and as parents we have enjoyed the opportunity to teach our children hard work and the law of the harvest.  I cannot exactly explain what it is that stirs in me as I watch the kids roaming free in the fully-fenced backyard, dig for hours in the sandbox, interact with the chickens, and pick a handful of berries that they shove straight in their mouths or fresh produce from the garden.  It feels wonderful that our children are lucky to have these things.  Creative, unstructured, good "old fashioned" (non screen time) play is something we encourage for the kids and this house makes it possible in so many ways for us. They are free to just be.  Their days are filled with wonder and "projects." Truly it is a magical time and season for us as parents and this is the perfect home to raise children in! We are about 20 minutes from a major city.  This has been perfect for us and similar to what we were used to in Rexburg.  We love sticking home, but have also enjoyed the variety of activities available at our fingertips.  We moved from Southeast Idaho two years ago, so we are still getting to know our new home and area. So far we have absolutely loved it!

Backyard 

Backyard view 2

Backyard view 3

Gavin, Sennika, and Shipton helping in the garden

Leland and Sennika picking pears

Shipton in the sandbox

Shipton spends part of his time most days in his swing.

PEARS!

Leland picked these peppers and tomatoes from the garden.

Gavin "helping" to rake leaves

Dad is the best trimmer and Mom and the kids are good haulers.  Even Shipton can carry small branches. Things were extremely overgrown when we bought the house.  We have cut down and trimmed back.  It will take a few more years to get things to how we completely want them. We are taking steps a little at a time and it has made for some fun memories and family time as we have worked together.

Shipton eating Raspberries.  Most days he begs for "berries, berries."  This picture was on Halloween!  It's been fun to have them strong for almost 6 months straight.

We love the inside our home just as much as outside!  We live in a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom home.  It is modest, yet spacious and a perfect floor-plan for a large family.  Here is the heart of our home:

Although it normally looks like this...

Cue Heavenly Music...it CAN look like this.  I acknowledge that these are very pretty pictures.  I don't want you to be surprised when you come to our house and see REAL LIFE though. :) These pictures below show that we have a pretty house, but this isn't real life for us like the above picture is.

Kitchen and Dinning room

Kitchen/Dinning room with peek into front room

Spacious Family Room just below the kitchen/dinning room

AND WHILE I AM SHOWING PICTURES, YOU MIGHT AS WELL SEE THE FRONT ROOM, RIGHT? :)

Sennika and Shipton have their own bedrooms. 

Shipton's room

Sennika's room

Gavin and Leland share a spacious room.  

The boys' Lego room.

Although we have had the nursery more set up at times over the past 2 years, this is how it currently looks:

Blank canvas.

DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE MASTER BEDROOM TOO?  Ok, but I will leave the bathrooms and the laundry room, and storage rooms out of the pictures.

Our neighborhood is amazing!  We were blown away by how friendly our neighbors are and how easily we were accepted.  These people are tight-nit and extremely social.  

All dressed up for the annual neighborhood Luau!

Every year our neighborhood also gets together for a "red neck" water slide. Mom with Shipton...

and Leland.

We look forward to many years in this wonderful home, neighborhood, and area. We look forward to sharing this wonderful home with another (or more) children...to give them these opportunities to be kids in such important ways!