Um....It's August?

Where have we been all summer?  Well, it all began when we bought this:

A cute little rambler that took months and months to find.  Our house hunting adventure was ridiculous.  We probably toured almost 70 houses in person and we looked at over 1,500 online.  And then it all came together.  A house within our price range with a reasonable commute to Chad's work, in a decent neighborhood that met our MUST-HAVES list (well, except another half-bath upstairs would have been nice).  And there you go.  We found it, offered, and three weeks later, signed our lives away.

For two weeks, we really got to enjoy ourselves:

 I loved playing outside with the kiddos when the temperature would cool a bit.  I thought, "This is why we wanted a house."  And I already feel quite a bit of affection for our house even though it isn't exactly my dream house. 

And then it was time for my boys to get down and DIRTY....

(If you'll notice his completely black feet...

...and Chad is COVERED in insulation dust in this picture)

All because we decided to do this:

Though it is looking better now, it is definitely still a project in the works.  We have a long way to go.  Meanwhile, every second of Chad's time has gone to working on the kitchen.  We still have boxes to unpack and pictures to hang, but all is on hold for now.  We are really hoping to be painting by the first part of September.  Cross your fingers. 

Even though the house has literally taken over our lives, we did manage to squeeze in just a little bit of summer fun:

We also got to go to Bear Lake for four days with Chad's family.  SUPER fun and will be featured in a future post (I hope).  And just last week, I decided to train for a triathlon that will be on September 11th.  That's right, I have only a month to train so I've definitely been busy too. 

The kids are growing fast.  Lydia loves playing in the front yard (I think especially because I'd prefer her to play in the back) and Russell is getting really good at standing and stuffing his face just like a teenage boy.  They'll both be having birthdays in the next two months and I can hardly believe how fast they've grown.  I still struggle with motherhood, but I must say that my kids are pretty dang cute (most of the time).

And that is our summer.  Well, most of it.