Settling in. It's been a long time coming.

What a summer! We were SO grateful for Kevin to find an awesome job.  We're glad that it is the sort of company he wants to stay with for the long run. He says everyone seems to switch from contractor to Air Force, but they often get to stay on the same team working in the same place.

Once he'd made sure he loved his job we started the house hunt. We found a fantastic realtor who helped us find the perfect mortgage company that worked miracles to find us a great loan. The whole situation makes me grateful that Kevin and I have great credit. It would have taken us probably 2 or 3 additional months to top off the down payment if we didn't qualify for this neat program.

I was eager to find a place closer to Kevin's work so he could be home more. I know a lot of people have LONG commutes, but for us 45 minutes each way was too much. I was also excited to be in my own space. We have awesome family that let us crash when we needed it most, but we were excited to be independent again :) (See previous post about our rough year if you missed it.)

We came up with a list of what we wanted in a home. It was like Christmas! I mostly came up with the list and Kevin signed off on everything, adding a couple of his own preferences. He is laid back enough that he just wanted somewhere comfortable and left the technicalities up to me.

Our realtor sent us several homes in the area we were looking for. When I saw picture of this home I knew pretty much right off the bat that it would be ours. Part of me was bummed that I didn't get to spend days touring homes and looking at pictures of rooms, but the other part was grateful that it was SO obvious where we needed to be.

It fit everything we were looking for. After reading "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up"  and falling in love with the konmari method, we decided that we would rather have a really nice house than a really large house. Thanks to konmari we rid ourselves of probably half of our stuff and found a gorgeous home that might have felt too small with all of the junk I've been carting around for years. LOVE!

The neighborhood is quiet and it is less than 3 miles to Kevin's building on base. We are close to everything. All my favorite Provo stores are within 10 minutes and the Layton Hills Mall is less than 15 minutes away. There are several parks within minutes drive and one is only 5 blocks away! After worrying that we'd been "forgotten" for so long and left to struggle along it feels surreal for things to fall into place like this!

For those of you who have asked, here are some photos now that we are settled in! 

So glad to have a place for my chair that is AWAY from daily kid wear and tear!

 Family Room. We only keep one ottoman of toys in here so it is actually staying pretty clean! YAY!

 There are a few things on the "to get" list. Here we want one of those nest chairs since this is our reading nook.

 This is the playroom and the only reason the rest of the house is staying decently clean. There is a bathroom just off this room so it is a perfect area for Evelyn to play! It will be evern better when we figure out a storage system and can get the toys out of their moving boxes for good.

 Look at those closets! Pre-konmari they would have been to die for. I don't need nearly as much space for my clothes now, but I do still love having the room!

I love my kitchen :)

The yard is small, but we LOVE it! 

 Thanks heavens it is fully fenced. Evelyn LOVES to go out back and play and I am so glad she can!

It is wonderful to have a place to call our own after so long. I'll be turning thirty in a couple of months and this is a great way to start the next decade. I've spent the last 10 years living the college life and I am ready to live this life now. The kiddos keep me on my toes, but it is nice to have fewer stressors than I have had with school/work/job hunt. Bring it on :)

It is a good day to be grateful!

A Real Live Actually Healthy Muffin!

OK. So I have been on a crusade to make my family healthy, whole foods (at least the majority of the time). That being said, muffins should be a no brainer...nope. Most are filled with sugar (often more than half as much as base product ex.flour in most cases). In my mind that is a cupcake. I don't want to fly off the deep end though, because I have a toddler who needs to eat. She loves Indian food, Oriental food, Mexican food, and Italian food, but I DO think she would balk at a bran muffin.

About a week ago my wonderful mother in law gave me a few large zucchinis out of her garden. They were about 18 inches long and as thick as my bicep. I know from experience that slicing and roasting those babies is out. Anything big enough to de-seed is probably too big to serve that way. 

I found loads of zucchini recipes from white bean and zucchini farfalle, to zucchini tex mex dip and Kevin was a gem and ate them all. 

I finally came across this recipe.

 http://news.health.com/2011/06/29/zucchini-muffins/

It had a lot of promise. It was already pretty light, but I thought I could tweak it and make it even more so without loosing the flavor and texture.

I made it once as recommended, but then made it several more times (there really was a LOT of zucchini) tweaking it as I went. The end result is pretty darn healthy for a sweet muffin. It is soft, moist, and really tasty. Evelyn has been eating them...a lot, and Kevin loved the idea of freezing a few batches for on the go breakfasts when he needs to get out the door to work.

Makes 18ish muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour + 1tsp vital wheat gluten

2/3 cup white sugar (I used splenda and added less
1 cup packed brown sugar
3.5-4 cups grated zucchini
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1.5 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2-3 tsp. vanilla extract (or vanilla paste)
1/3 cup canola oil

1/3 cup applesauce                                                                                                                                       2 tsp. baking powder (I just realized I should have doubled this, but it worked fine with 2tsp)

Cinnamon and sugar for topping

The prep steps are exactly the same for the original recipe at health.com, but I sprayed muffin tins rather than lining them.

1. Preheat oven to 375. In large bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.

2. In medium bowl, combine grated zucchini, eggs, vanilla,applesauce and oil. Stir well to combine, then gently stir into flour mixture. Be careful not to overwork this—it will lead to dense muffins!

3. Fill lined muffin tins about 3/4 of the way up with the batter and then sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on each. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden.

Summer send off!

I have lots of friends who have done amazing things to send off summer (trips, boating, huge parties, concerts, etc.). Around here we've been a little more chill in kissing summer goodbye since I have had all the excitement I can handle this past month. Between house shopping, car shopping, moving, unpacking, and having two kiddos adjust to a new place I've had no time to even realize that summer was heading out! It finally sank in when I turned the AC off for a full 24 hours this weekend. It struck me even more this morning when I dropped Evelyn off for her first day of preschool (yay!).

What an amazing summer! Kevin found an awesome job which he loves, we relocated to a beautiful home (pictures will come once things settle down), we were able to spend a lot of time with family, and now I have the chance to make a bunch of new friends in our new ward!

We went to the Treehouse Museum with cousins last weekend. Next time I go I am totally buying an annual pass. They have SO much to do for the littles! Evelyn LOVED the instruments they had there. She spent loads of time playing with the castle playset. She found 2 princesses (maleficent and aurora), a knight, and a dragon and acted out sleeping beauty :) I think we'll go back every week or two since it is only 15 minutes away.

Rhett is still growing like crazy still. At 8 months he is a crazy fast crawler and yesterday he made it up 2 flights of stairs before we realized where he went. We really need those baby gates up!

Evelyn started dance class. She is in a ballet and jazz class right now. She is so excited to show me how she can walk on her tip toes. She also loves to show me how she can 'leap' over things that she sets on the floor :)

I learn more and more every day that kids are sponges. They are learning all the time...even when you think they aren't. How do I know this? Mostly because the past month Evelyn has started singing ALL. THE. TIME. What does she sing? Songs we only hear on the radio in the car! Ones that she has only heard 3 or 4 times. It is nuts! The other day she started singing 'Boom Clap' by Charli XCX. She thought it was "boom crap" though...bahaha! It did make us rethink what we listen to on the radio though. You sort of have to when you hear your toddler sing "come onto me, come onto me now". Looks like we'll be sticking to CDs from here on out. Apparently she likes Taylor Swift and Maroon 5. She has been singing 'Shake it off' and  'Moves like Jagger' for the past 24 hours.


Now for the picture flood!

 Afternoon movie time always ends like this. Thank heavens since in-her-room naps are apparently 'for babies'

 

 This girl LOVES to dress up in her princess dresses. When dressed like Sofia, she sings her theme song over and over again

 

 

 Those EYES!

 

 

 Fire fighter digs at the museum

 

 Climbing to the top of the Tree House

 

 Building a ball track with daddy at the museum

 

 Suiting up for wizards chess

 

 Castle playset

 

 He totally wanted to eat those armor puzzle pieces

 

 Drums!

 

 Sometimes activities are just too much for Rhett.

 

 The kiddos love to play this new game. Evelyn gets into the cupboard and Rhett opens and shuts the door. Yes, Evelyn is in the cupboard.

 

 First day of preschool and all she wants is to show me how she can stand on her toes

 

Nope she is not excited at all!

 

 

 

Life is good. I have a lot to be grateful for.