Some things...

I've been working on this post since last Thursday, but just wasn't able to make it happen until this morning. Oh well. Here are some things we've been up to lately.  

(Warning, this is a pretty random post.)

--Unpacking! I'm sure that you are bored out of your mind reading about the process of getting into our house: the packing, the moving, the unpacking. But it's a pretty big deal to us. We love everything about our house, and still get excited each time we open up a box and figure out where its contents should belong in our new house. 

--We moved in on a Saturday and were excited to go to church the following day. It took us a really long time to fit in with our last ward and had a really hard time at first, so we were determined to be positive and outgoing. We checked LDS.org to make sure that we knew what ward time and building our ward met in. That morning, around eight o'clock I even had David check again just to make sure - because "If church starts at nine, we still have time to get ready." But no, lds.org assured us that eleven o'clock was our time. We arrived in the chapel five minutes early and had plenty of time to look around our ward. It was wonderful - we noticed that there was a good spread of age groups. Lots of young people, lots of older people, and lots of people in the middle. The speakers were a cute young couple who had recently moved from Utah State/Logan (it must be fate!) and their talks were amazing. After sacrament meeting, we chatted with the people behind us and felt so good that we were doing so awesome. I remember thinking "This is going to be perfect, I love this ward already!" We found the bishop and introduced ourselves, after a few minutes of chatting he told us that we seemed like a nice young couple but that unfortunately we were in the wrong ward. He graciously pointed us in the direction of our real bishops office. We were crestfallen! All that positive energy and putting ourselves out there to talk to other people for nothing. (I seriously had been thinking that we were going to love that ward - I guess the joke was on us!) We picked ourselves up and went and met our real bishop and his counselors. They were really nice and we were able to fill out the request for our records. 

(Side note about that: I may or may not have written on the records request sheet, under the section about previous callings/interests, that I would love to be the in charge of going around and taking everyones picture to put on LDS Tools. I'm constantly shocked that so few people have a picture loaded and I think it's just because people don't know how to do it. When we were ward missionaries (and new ward members) it was a constant source of frustration because we didn't know who people were.  I'm hoping that my little note inspires them to create a calling just for me! It probably wouldn't last super long, but a few people each week - plus being in charge of any new move-ins - it would be awesome. Plus, that way I would get to know everyone in the ward. I'm such a visual person sometimes and being able to see a name and a photographed face helps me so much. I don't know if I was too forward in basically asking for that calling. But I really hope it works out!)

This last week we made it to our ward. We were almost on time. (Lydia and I woke up a little under the weather, luckily after waking up at five she slept in until 8 - which gave me time to take a long hot bath.) We were afraid that they had already read our records in, but after a quick look at LDS tools - we were still definitely in our old ward, which ironically was just split and placed into an entirely different stake so we had to read through lots of names to make sure that it was our old ward. Lydia was a darling all through the meeting. She was pretty content to sit in her car seat (this never happens) and eat the puffs that we kept feeding her. I stepped out to blow my nose and when I came back David had pulled Lydia out of her seat. I grabbed a few more puffs to give to her as David whispered, "She isn't hungry anymore." I thought, "Thats fine... puffs aren't real food anyway" and placed a puff on David's shoulder for her to grab. Instead of grabbing for it, she knocked it off. I shook my head and smiled and handed her another puff which she grabbed and then proceeded to throw it onto the ground! I was shocked. David looked over at me and said, "I told you that she wasn't hungry anymore." Silly girl. I guess she really knows what she wants! (She had never done anything so deliberate like that before.)

Overall, our ward went really well. We met some really nice people, several of which live right on our street. David took Lydia during Relief Society and not only did I get to listen to a wonderful lesson about conversion. But I also was able to make a list of all of the names I could remember of the people that I had met. (Bonus, when I just dug through my purse to take a picture of the list I remembered that the teacher had handed out some Dove chocolates. I hadn't eaten mine because my nose was too stuffy and I didn't want to waste the deliciousness. I am now sucking on this beautiful little piece of chocolate and am being encouraged to "Remember the little pleasures in life.") 

I realize that this is kind of dorky. But honestly, I don't remember names well unless I can write them down and refer back to them a couple of times. I decided that I was just going to be dorky and remember the names then have to ask three times and then still not remember their name but not be able to ask anymore because I should already know it. I'm excited about the people that we have met though. I think this ward is going to be wonderful. It's always nerve wracking to jump into a new ward and not know anyone. It's even more so this time, because we know that we are going to be here for a long time. But the worst is over. We've been introduced and have committed to being outgoing for at least the first six months. I know that sounds lame, but we tend to be homebodies. But we are going to invite some people over for dessert or something and really put ourselves out there. Hopefully if we stretch way out of our comfort zone for the first six months, we will get to know people and be solidly built into the ward. 

This picture was not taken last Sunday. But it was taken on a Sunday. And you should be able to see how darling Lydia is in her pretty winter dress.  

Also, this picture. Because she is cute. 

Honestly, I'm thrilled about our house and where we are. But I am over-the-top grateful that I have good friends that live close by. My sweet friend Ashley and I still hang out frequently even though we aren't in the same ward anymore.  (Don't mind that i'm wearing the same shirt as in the picture above.) I mentioned above that we had kind of a hard time in our last ward, but making such a good friend made all of the other tears worth it. I wasn't very sad about leaving our apartment because as I knew that we would still be friends. Knowing that I have other friends close by (specifically Rebekah, Kaylee, Wendy, and Melissa) makes the transition to this new house even easier. Because I know that I can count on those friends no matter what. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many people, further away, and especially nearby.

(These pictures were taken on one of the more recent adventures with Ashley, Elsie, and Carson.)

Now this post is getting super long and rambly, but as I was loading the above pictures I couldn't resist adding these ones as well. Lydia is into everything lately. She loves to explore, knock things over, pull herself up on things, and pretty much anything else she can manage. The other day she was exploring the entertainment center at her Peaden grandparents when she got caught! I don't know if she tipped over or if she just tried to sit down, but either way I looked over and saw this:

I made sure that she was okay and then made a mad dash for my camera. It was so funny. She wasn't upset, just a little annoyed that she was stuck. I could barely stop laughing. It was just too cute. As soon as I let her loose, she just moved on crawling to the next thing and figuring out what mischief she could make there. It's such a fun stage to watch her move and explore, but also so sad. She tips over, slips, falls down, bumps her head (and arm and chest and face). Right now she is sporting a sad little mark on her cheek from bumping something and I just noticed that there is a little bruise right above it as well. I don't know if it's from the same thing, or from a different bump - but either way it breaks my heart to look at it. Poor girl. Luckily she is quite the little trooper and it doesn't seem to bother her and definitely doesn't stop her from exploring. 

I know that this post was pretty random - but I just wanted to jot some things down. We've been working on printing out our 2012 blog book and I absolutely LOVE reading about everything. It makes me want to be better at blogging, because I love to look back and remember. Here's to random little memories that bring about great big smiles! 

*Update: Right as I pushed "Publish" - the doorbell rang. It was our next-door neighbor, Katie, and she came bearing a plate of delicious banana or zucchini cake something-or-other with yummy yummy frosting.  Isn't that sweet of her? 

She was so nice and I am so happy to finally have met our "next-door" neighbor. We chatted for a little minute and I am even more excited about having this be our home, in this area, for a very long time.*

RC Willey Showroom

Sometimes I feel a little guilty about how many new things we bought when moving into our new house. So I have a few pieces of information to preface this post with:

-David and I spent $15 dollars on a TV stand from DI when we got married. That is all. Every other piece of furniture we either already had or was given to us for free. Our couches, bed, and stools - all gifts. The couches were headed to the DI when David's High Councilor over his ward (Brother Krogue) in the Bishopric heard that we didn't have couches and he dropped them off at our apartment. Our bed was my parents old mattress. The stools were wedding presents. We later picked up a coffee table that someone was giving away for free.

-Also given to us as gifts: Our TV (we used a small 12" one that my parents had in their basement for the first 6 months until David graduated and asked for a TV), our Wii (my graduation present), our lamp, and our dresser for our bedroom.

-We didn't have a table for the first 6 months (at least, probably more like 8-10 months) that we were married... until someone in my parents ward heard about it and gave us an extra one they had. For free. (Honestly, when we went to pick it up - we were shocked at how beautiful it was. I love the ivory, the windsor chairs, and the gentle curves along the edge of the tabletop.)

-We have been married for almost 4 years and have never owned a washer and dryer. I think that I went to a laundromat 3, maybe 4, times. The rest of the time we have depended on our parents to let us come home and do our laundry at their houses. (Yes, our baby is 9 months old. It is possible to have a baby and no washer and dryer.)

The point of this preface is to remind you that David and I have spent practically NO money on furnishing our home. A couple of walmart bookcases, a $2.50 end table, some flowers from the dollar store. We have saved, and saved, and saved. We are both pretty frugal by nature - and the fact that we were using a couch whose stuffing was falling out the back and whose buttons were hanging by threads, or that our entertainment center was cheapo plywood and kind of a funny shape, didn't bother us at all. We were just happy and loved our little home.

However, as we were preparing to move into our home we looked at the amount of money that we had saved up and we decided that we wanted to buy a few new things for our new house. Obviously - a washer and dryer were at the top of the list. Also, a refrigerator was a must as the house didn't come with one. We'd been promising ourselves for years that our first big purchase was going to be a new bed, because our old one was just... well... old. And anyone who has ever slept in a really old bed, knows that really old = really bad. (Not that we weren't SO grateful to my parents who gave it to us, because we are SO grateful. We would have been sleeping on the floor if it wasn't for them.) Thankfully, we had saved up enough money that after carefully budgeting it all out - we still had enough to buy some new couches for our family room and maybe a sofa for our living room.

We spend hours and hours and days and days shopping around at pretty much every furniture place in the Salt Lake Valley/Utah County. We started in September and got some good things over Labor day. We continued to shop over Thanksgiving and all during Christmas at all sorts of different stores. However, when all was said and done - we ended up buying everything at RC Willey. They were so good to work with us! They put the items on hold at the sale price, but were fine to hold on to them for 6 months or 3 months or however long it was until we were going to get into our house. And then, they would deliver them all together instead of paying for delivery at 7 different places. We were really pleased with their service and spent a lot of time there picking out our washer, dryer, and refrigerator. Due to a killer sale on their room groups - we actually were able to get a whole set for both the family room and the living room. We got an awesome bed that came with a Kindle Fire HD, which picked up a few weeks later and then immediately sold for $175 on KSL. (We saw it as another $175 discount on the bed, although it was a little sad to see it go.) I even convinced David to get up with me on Black Friday to buy a chaise lounge as a doorbuster! Moral of the story - we loved RC Willey, got some great deals, and couldn't wait for it to all get delivered!

As I mentioned in my previous post. Most everyone who helped us move left pretty soon after we started moving. But David's parents, his sister Amy, and my sister Melissa stuck around until RC Willey got there because they wanted to see all of our furniture. We waited, and waited, and waited - and then finally they arrived!

Melissa gave me grief about taking this picture. Something about my compulsion to document every moment in my life. Harumph. I was just really excited, okay? When I opened the door the guy said "Hello, we're here to deliver.... shuffled all of his tickets around... uh... a whole house of stuff. Does that sound right?" Yes, Mr. RC Willey man, yes it does.

Soon after I took this picture, I set down my camera and followed the RC Willey guys around like a little puppy. I helped put the couch cushions on - because even though they were planning to do it, I couldn't make myself wait for them - I had to do it right then. Our couches, tables, and bed went in pretty easily. (The one guy brought the whole box springs in by himself. He just stretched out his arms, grabbed it on either side, then brought it into the house and up the stairs. I should have taken a picture. It was impressive!) The washer and dryer went up the stairs and were installed in a matter of 15 minutes or so. The refrigerator took quite a bit longer to get into place. I guess McArthur didn't plan super well for getting a refrigerator into the kitchen past the massive island. But, alls well that ends well. The fridge is now in place and has since been fully stocked with food. (Yay!)

Okay, enough of my talking - lets get to the good stuff... the "After the RC Willey guys finally finished delivering everything" pictures: 

These are my favorite. Its a little hard to tell but they are a gorgeous, almost shiny, grey. The lamps are kind of a silver-plated glass, and the tables are a rich dark wood. The pillows are so pretty, they have dark magenta-ish and varying shades of grey modern-flowers. Love, love, love! You may notice that the couches in the family room look a little similar to these - but, uh, it's just a coincidence. 

 Okay, you caught me. It's not a coincidence. Haha. When we were at the store we both fell in love with this blue couch and love seat. Like, head over heels. They were perfect. The perfect color, the perfect casualness, the perfect material, and the perfect comfiness. The fact that they were in a super-affordable room group and came with coffee table, side tables, pillows, and lamps made it pretty much irresistible. We decided pretty much then and there that those were the couches for us. Then suddenly I saw a nearby room group that made my heart go pitter-patter. The grey and pink and did I mention the grey? It took us a few minutes to realize that they were actually the same couches, just different styles. Feeling silly, we asked several people's advice and then decided just to put both of them on hold. Our thinking was that if we found something that we liked better, we could always just cancel one of the sets. But that way if we found a more formal set somewhere else we could cancel the grey or if we found a less formal set we liked better we could cancel the blue. We liked to keep both options open. We looked and looked but seriously could not find a single other couch set that we liked even nearly as well. So we just bought them both! (Because we love them. David loves the blue the most, and I adore the grey- but we are both 100 % pleased with the choice to buy both of them because we love them!

Also, note the super awesome brown chaise lounge in the left corner. Seriously the favorite seat in the house. So comfortable. If we are anywhere in the area its pretty much guaranteed that one of us is sitting on it (if not both of us). Oh, and the rug is from Rugs US. We got it for 65% off and it is darling (although it is a tiny bit scratchy. I'm hoping that wears off.)

I have to be honest. The only item that we purchased that I am a little disappointed about is our fridge. We decided to go with the Satina instead of the true stainless steel for fingerprint/magnetic reasons. I think it was probably the right choice (especially when price is factored in) but I can't help but wish that the finish didn't look SO different than our other stainless steel appliances. It's not that big of a deal, and I'm sure that we will get used to it... but I'm slightly bummed about it.  Also, it didn't come with a top shelf/butter tray. There is an area there - but no tray to slip in. I'm going to have to call them I guess. Regardless, a fridge! Yay. Our favorite thing about this fridge is that in the freezer the ice is completely in the door - so it opens up a ton of space in the freezer. (And little yuckies can't fall into the area where the ice is dispensed.)

Apparently I forgot to take a picture of the bed before we put a sheet on it. I really should go and take it off and post a picture of the pretty pattern on the pillowtop. But the mattress is much deeper than our last one and getting the sheet on was really hard. Let me just say that we love this bed! It's firm and soft at the same time and thinking about it makes me want to go curl up and take a nap on it. 

And last, but definitely not least. Our washer and dryer. Hallelujah! Shout out to Cal and Sue for letting us use their washer and dryer for our 4 years of marriage. (And to my parents as well.) But honestly, the thing that I am singlemost excited about in this house is to have my very. own. laundry. room. I am fighting the urge to stand up and dance about it even now. *couldn't resist - did a little dance - now I'm back* I have big plans for this little room, and I can't wait to get started. Actually, we started last weekend. My dad is helping me make/making me a wooden laundry pedestal where I can put baskets in the underneath. Oh, I have so many plans for this room! After a ridiculously exciting trip to the store to get laundry supplies I've even done my first two loads. And I'm not joking about it being exciting. I was like a kid in a candy store. "Oh, I want that detergent... ooh ooh and this fabric softener... oh and definitely some of this special whitening bleach." I refrained from buying all of the available laundry products.. but just barely. Too exciting. 

And what does Lydia think of all our new belongings? 

I think she loves them! Almost as much as her mama does. 

(Yes, I just posted a picture of my reflection in my brand new washer, ka-chow!)

We are thrilled about all of our new furniture. It seems so strange to have things so new - but at the same time, these items are perfect for us. We are just loving our house and everything in it. Lydia has done great adjusting and has even slept a couple of good nine hour stretches over the past couple of nights. (Now I need to work on getting to bed earlier so that I can still have more than a 5 hour stretch.)

Thank you RC Willey! 

(Contact us, and we may even be willing to do a commercial for you. "Hi, we're the Peadens and everything we've ever purchased for our home has come from RC Willey." Haha, only kidding... sort of.)

All moved in!

We absolutely love our new house. Love, love, love it! We are all moved in and soaking up the newness of the house and are filled with excitement for this next big adventure. I wanted to post this sooner - but our internet didn't get set up until Monday and then, joy of all joys, our router decided that it didn't want to work. No matter that it was working fine two weeks ago when we moved, oh no. So last night we made a trip to Best Buy to pick up a new router. I finally feel connected to the world again! (Which is silly because I still had my iPad which connects to 3G internet on its own AND my cell phone - but I still felt antsy about being able to get this blog post up.) 

We actually got the keys to the house on Friday evening, but decided to just wait and make the big move on Saturday morning. So bright and early, we showed up at our house and got things ready for the big move. We laid plastic down on the carpet in the entry, hall, and corner of the family room. We picked up the moving truck from McArthur and then headed to our storage shed to meet up with our awesome moving crew. (I'm going to say this now, because I feel really bad about it - but I got NO pictures of the moving process. That means that I have no photo documentation of all of the wonderful people who came to help us move. I thought about it several times, but I just wasn't sure where my camera was and by the time I found it - the majority of our helpers were already gone. So, for those of you who came and helped us - but didn't get your picture taken. I'm sorry. We are SO SO SO grateful for your help and honestly couldn't have done it without you. Yes I mean you Coopers, Newbolds, Griffins, and Renchers. Thank you.) 

Everyone showed up and made quick work of packing up all of our belongings from the storage shed and into the moving truck and the giant truck that the Coopers arrived in. (Thank you again!) I was amazed at how quickly everything went in. Then we all drove over to the house and started moving everything to the right rooms. We had an "inside crew" and an "outside crew". The outside people brought everything into the kitchen, and then the inside crew moved it to the room where it belonged. There were over 20 people moving boxes from one place to another, but it actually went very smoothly. Most of our boxes and items were labeled - there were just a few things that I wasn't sure where to put. (I'm looking at you cedar chest.) 

When the first big move was just about finished, a team went back over to finish getting the couches and a few other things from the storage shed and I headed to Little Ceasars to get pizza. (I really believe that is a rule somewhere: You help someone move - you get pizza.) By the time I got back, they had moved the couches into the basement. I'll be honest - I didn't think that they were going to fit and had told David that he was crazy for thinking that our big couch was going to fit down those stairs. Apparently, this group of people is much more moving-savvy than I am because they fit them down the stairs with hardly any problem at all. I'm so impressed! 

After everyone dug into the pizza, we looked around our house and could hardly believe that it was ours. It had been so long since we had seen our stuff (okay, an exaggeration, it was only two weeks) that I kept looking at things and saying - oh my, look how pretty! -oh, look, I love that! It was just so fun to see all of our belongings in this house that we had been dreaming about for so long. It's amazing how quickly we felt at home. I thought that it might be weird for a while to be living here - but from that very first day it felt like home to us. It fits us perfectly and I feel like we are meant to be here. After pretty much everyone left I was able to snap some pictures of all of the rooms with their newly introduced boxes:

(Bear with me, there are a lot - feel free to skim them and continue reading below.)  

It was nice to be able to take a little break for a minute. 

Sorry, SO dark. The lighting in some of these pictures is terrible - but I am a believer in keeping photos even if they aren't perfect. They are life.  

We finally said goodbye to my dad after he helped us fix a mirror that had broken in the move. (I'm doing my very best to keep my superstitions at bay. No bad luck for us, please?) We had two mirrors that were fairly similar in size but the mirror part broke in the one with the frame that we liked the best - so my dad took apart the second mirror, scraped out an opening in the back of the frame, and got it all ready for us to hang in out new house. He is amazing and I'm so grateful for him! 

Lydia was in heaven, exploring all over the place. I was worried that she would have a hard time adjusting - but from the get-go she was all over and loving her new home. 

My sister Melissa showed up (she had to work that morning) to help start putting things away. 

But mostly, we just sat around  and rested until RC Willey came to deliver all of our furniture. 

This is where I was going to load all of the pictures of what our house looked like after RC Willey showed up - But I decided that these 30 pictures are probably enough for one post. I'll post again later with the pictures of our fridge, washer, dryer, bed, couches, end/coffee tables, and lamps. 

One last THANK YOU to those who came and helped us. We feel so loved and are so grateful for such a wonderful support group. We can't wait to have a big housewarming party sometime soon!