Home!

     When our family first moved to Texas, we knew we wanted to buy a house sometime down the road. I contacted my uncle, who works real estate, and asked for some hookups. He found us a local agent, by invitation only, who contacted us. We had been pretty early in our apartment lease, so we told her it would be almost a year before we needed to move further.

    Well, the year FLEW by, and as if on cue, she and our lender contacted us and asked if we were still interested. We honestly at that point decided we were going to just rent, since we didn't quite have the down payment we wanted. However, our lender was absolutely fantastic with making it happen. The home buying process for us was a breeze! We honestly had a really great team.

    There were a few areas on our mind, and the house hunting officially began. Linda showed us a selection of homes one day, and then a couple the next. Gary and I discussed which ones we liked best. We were also sent links to homes that fit our criteria. One afternoon, I browsed a couple of homes she sent us, picked a couple of favorites, and sent them over to Gary. He knew immediately which one he liked, and that afternoon, we went to check it out. We knew then we wanted to make an offer. The homes go so quickly!

    That evening, we received word our offer was accepted!

  So, here we are! We closed on the day we wanted to close, and moved in that week, which was a month ago. We still have some boxes that need to be unpacked, but we're settled for the most part. We're in a beautiful community in Hutto, Texas. Hutto is the countryside Northeast of Austin. This is where you see farmlands and stretches of beautiful, green land. There are fields behind our backyard, so we do see bunnies and other critters, but we immediately hired pest control services too, you know, since we don't want critters inside our property. We love how green and quiet it is here, and also love how we can see the stars so well at night.

   We currently have been working hard to get our lawn and grass taken care of. The bachelor living here before us didn't seem to do regular lawn maintenance. I don't think he actually lived here that often. We had water coming out of our a/c unit the day after we moved in, only to learn he hadn't done regular maintenance on that either. Thankfully after a few Youtube videos, Gary was able to fix and take care of it. Besides that, we were told our house was the cleanest walk-through that had been done in a long time, which was good news for us. As for the lawn, Gary's been working hard to de-thatch the grass while I've been working on the landscaping. I've mulched and and landscaped the trees planted in our front yard and have been working on the hedges as well. We have nothing in the backyard, so once the grass is greener and looking better, I'll start the gardening and landscaping back there as well. I still like the open space for the kids and dog though, so I won't go too crazy.

Anyway, we love it here. It's so quiet, our neighbors are super friendly, and our ward is great. As a mom of two littles, I often found it hard in an apartment to keep things clean and organized all the time. I feel I can do a better job here in our home with more space. Sure, it's never going to be perfect because, well, I like to find that balance between housework and spending time with the children, but it's really great to care of something that we OWN now.

The family is doing well too. I find it easier now that Gabe's getting a little bigger, so I can keep him entertained on his play mat and/or his exersaucer, and Alex has more room to run around and play. They're both healthy too. Alex is still tiny at 22-23 lbs and has a checkup soon. They might mention his weight, but I don't know how to make him eat more since he's ridiculously picky. I do my best! Little Gabe has gained almost 3 pounds in the last month (he's 14 lbs now). He had a moment where he wasn't gaining, so after finding the right amount of supplementation plus adding in a couple of dream feeds at night, he's jumped up. He's about 95 percent breastfed now and the rest is supplement. That balance seems to work just fine. And now that he's older, he's more efficient at nursing, so our sessions are 10-15 minutes now instead of 45 minutes or so.

Anyway, that's our update for now! Boys are asleep so it's ME time!!

My handsome kid!!

These two can spend all day in the backyard

We have a BEAUTIFUL view from our backyard and kitchen. These are some wicked storm clouds.

Here's a shot of our house in the rain

Alex received this gift from his uncle Devonn and aunt Carla on his first birthday. He finally gets to use it!

This is a great way to keep him entertained and cool when he wants to play outside

My sleeping baby

Hanging out

Just finished mulching- now to add flowers!

On our drive this morning to the grocery store. The big Texas sky! It takes about 15-20 minutes to drive to town or to the grocery store.

My blue-eyed beauty. He and his brother definitely do NOT look alike!