Our summer in pictures!

We LOVE the weather here in the summer! We are always comparing the weather on our phone app to the weather in Texas.
We moved this summer , which is getting a little bit old for the kids since we have done this 2 summers in a row.

Anyway, because we are inside so much in the winter, it is always our goal to be outside as much as we can.

We had a membership at a pool that many of our friends go to, we loved it!!

We also have beaches 15 min from our house and we love going there as a family, when we can.

These are some of our fun memories from summer 2011!

New house!

It was a very interesting process to house hunt in Illinois.Houses here are very different from houses in Texas!!!
Here is why:
They love their siding-blah
Almost no one has a fence-kinda weird
So many houses look exactly alike
Their taste in finishes is opposite of mine- light wood vs dark, etc.

Anyway- the upside is they almost all have BASEMENTS!
How did I survive all these years with all these kids without a basement! We love our basement!!!!

Our one tip would be- make sure it is finished. Our unfinished basement in the rent house was scary and dark ! I think we were all afraid to go down their.


So we looked for about a month and found one house, really cute, great character, not quite as big as we had hoped. We put an offer in , they would not come off the price. Hello! you need to be ready to come off your price if you are selling your house! It is the reality today!!

We were done with negotiations. Needless to say, God is Awesome! Later that week in another area we found the perfect house!

We were looking for a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house. We found a 6 bedroom house with 4 bathrooms. The basement is totally finished . The basement includes a huge bedroom for the big boys a beautiful bathroom. I have a workout area and a scrapbook room as well as a HUGE crawl space and a fun Entertainment room. We have also made the 5th bedroom a school room! We are so excited to have this house! We know the Lord provided this for us and we are so thankful.

WOW, I STILL HAVE A BLOG!

It has been sooo long and sooo much has happened in our family in the last few months! For starters our baby girl's adoption was finalized this summer. We had a small gathering of family and friends to celebrate all that the Lord has done ! It is always such an emotional day to hear the adoption is finalized! In her case it was bitter sweet for her parents who we care about , knowing the huge loss they will be facing. She is such a precious joy! I am speechless at the thought of getting to have her as my daughter.