Moving Day

Hooray! We finally get to move into our house. Living in a two bedroom apartment with six people was interesting. I'm glad it was only for a month. I'm sure Jack will be glad to sleep in a bed again. This is apparently the only picture I've taken of our house. Yes, it's a house. We aren't in a shack or a barn in Arkansas.
Tom and Grace check out the moving van.
Whoever designed this house didn't have kids in mind. When we looked at this house, I told Tom that it wouldn't take very long for our kids to break that window on the landing of the stairs. Luckily that hasn't happened yet but I have caught the boys launching toys (including a robot) down the stairs and hitting the window.
This is the boys' contribution to moving in. At least they kept Grace entertained for awhile. The boys were so excited to come home from school to our new house.

So this is the lovely orange walls in our office. The kitchen is the same color (including the ceiling). Sorry if you like orange. It's just not my favorite color. I'm sure I'll be painting soon.

Playing in the Park

Since it's still cold and there is still snow on the ground, we practically had the park to ourselves. The boys loved running all over the place. Here's Kade striking a pose for the camera. Typical Kade.
Grace loved the slides.
Jack, Josh, Kade and Tom were having snowball fights while running around the fort. I made Jack stop long enough to take a picture.
This park has two different play areas with a bridge that goes over part of the lake to connect the two.
We had a great time.

More Snow

This is our second week in Arkansas. Everyone says that this much snow is unusual. Our kids don't mind - no school again.
Our snowmen this time are pretty dirty looking but the snow is perfect for snowmen. We made these so big that I had a hard time getting the top two snowballs up into place. Jack and I barely did it.
Grace carried that snowball all over the place. She probably would have brought it inside if I had let her. Josh is always so good to play with Grace.
Kade.

Snow Days

When Josh heard it was going to snow, he insisted he needed a snowboard. He was pretty disappointed to learn that there isn't any snowboarding here. It's too flat and it doesn't really snow that much. Tom found this skateboard for the snow. The kids had fun pushing each other on it.

Grace likes the snow - she just doesn't want to be cold.
Is that an awesome snowman or what!
The kids loved throwing snowballs at Dad.

Our Second First Day of School

So this is our picture for the 1st day of School. We arrived in Arkansas on Monday night, spent a couple of days relaxing then started school on Thursday. It snowed Thursday night so we had three days off of school for snow days. The boys thought this was the coolest thing.

Flying

Up until about a week before we moved, we were planning on driving across the country to our new home, but Tom needed to be to work sooner than that so we ended up flying.

What a relief. The kids were excited for our flight. I'm sure the boys were just happy to have several hours of uninterrupted video game time.

I never realized how many airplanes flew over our house until Grace started pointing them all out to me. every few minutes she points up to the sky and says, "aipane."

She was in heaven going to the airport and getting on the plane. She kept kicking her brothers out of the window seat so she could look out.

Our Last Weekend in California

This was our last weekend to be with family before moving. We are going to really miss Uncle Chad and Aunt Lela. It has been so fun having family close by.

It was hard to leave knowing we won't see them for quite awhile.

I can't believe we have a picture with all the kids smiling at the same time and looking at the camera.