Cheyenne's first hairdo

Cheyenne's hair is getting really long in front, so I decided I should try to do her hair. Is this how you do babies' hair??? I didn't know what I was doing really. Do you think it is long enough to try piggie tails?? It is so hard to do because she will not hold her head still. Anyway, I documented Cheyenne's first hairdo:) Also here are the CUTEST pictures ever of Cheyenne and Jeff in the tub:)

Happy Birthday Jeffers!

Exactly ten days ago, Monday, August 17, Jeff turned 28! Can you believe it??? I can't, I still feel like I am 20:) Jeff is just the best husband in the world! He works so hard, and barely ever gets to be home to relax with us, but he loves his job and is very good at what he does. I tried so hard to think of something that would be good to make his birthday special, because he is always like, "oh its just another day," but then he does so much for me on my birthday. Anyway, so I woke up early and made him an omlette and pancakes, and he just ate the pancakes so I got to eat the omlette when he left:) Then I saw this idea on my cousins Afton and Stephen's blog to have a sign for the baby to hold up, but Cheyenne wouldn't hold it. When she finally did hold it, she ate big chunks out of it, so it didn't turn out the way I planned. Anyway, we drove to Jeff's school to surprise him and brought his class cupcakes:) It was fun, and plus it gave us an excuse to spend more time with him. 

Oh... and I painted Cheyenne's toenails for the first time... I had to do it while she was asleep in the swing, and I have this fast dry stuff I sprayed on it. It looks so cute!

Happy Birthday Jeffy pie! We LOVE you!!

Oh and we also went to Outback to celebrate- Thanks Grandma + Grandpa Bennum!

Home Sweet Home

Okay so the video didn't work. Here are about a million pictures:) We are really just trying to convince people to come and visit us! Here is the front of the house from the street. We are trying our best to salvage the grass.

Here is the $300 mailbox. Ridiculous. Everyone in the whole neighborhood had the same one, so we had to get it.

When you walk in, the laundry room and garage are to the left. I kind of wish there was a pocket door here, but it is okay.

Garage. 

Entryway. Really high ceilings.

Dining Room. Someday we will have a table here:)

Living Room and our $20 leather couch! My dad found this at a garage sale. It is working well for us for now.

We just bought this table on craigslist yesterday and we love it! It matches the floors perfectly.

Our backyard, grill and the neighbors fence.

Our little patio and our backyard. Our property goes back quite a ways, so eventually we would really like to cut down some trees and lay some more sod to make our backyard bigger.

Our kitchen and barstools.

Tile backsplash. We still need to fix behind our stove. I guess we are supposed to have someone cut notches in our granite, so we can slide it back all the way. It is on the "to do" list along with a million other things:)

I love to watch tv while I am cooking! 

Another view of the kitchen

Our bed. I have to point out that the bedroom set was also a craigslist find!! I LOVE good deals:)

Here is our light fixture, I am a little obsessed with it. I think it looks so elegant:)

The view of our room when you first walk in. It is unnecessarily large, but it is kind of nice. I kind of wish the extra space was added to our living room or kitchen or somewhere more useful, but it is nice having a big room I guess.

The ceilings in our room.

The jetted tub that we thought was broken, but Jeff fixed it!!

Our shower, my favorite part of the house:)

Master bathroom.

Stairs up to the bonus room

Unfinished bonus room. Will finish when we have a couple more kids:)

Cheyenne's room

Cheyenne's bathroom.

Computer room with extra bed.

On July 15, Jeff signed the papers and we closed on our first home!!! It was kind of a nightmare trying to get it all to go through since it was a foreclosure and everything, but it finally happened and we were so excited!!! Luckily my Dad flew out here for a couple weeks and helped us fix things and get our Certificate of Occupancy. I don't know what we would have done without him here, seriously. Also, we have like the world's most amazing neighbors. Seriously, I don't know where they came from! I have never met anyone so helpful to someone they barely know! They are such a cute couple too and they have the cutest tiny wiener dog. Anyway, our neighbor installed our appliances for us, and our garbage disposal AND fixed the electrical in our kitchen. OH, and they gave us a dresser, grill, and a really beautiful mirror. Yeah, we are definitely blessed to have them living next door to us! Anyway, so we finally got the Certificate of Occupancy and are really starting to feel settled. Since we didn't have the C.O. when we moved in, we had to get a temporary mortgage through our bank and then it was supposed to have transferred over to a permanent one by now, but a huge mess happened. Our person doing our loan at the bank quit, and then Taylor, Bean and Whittaker went under. Anyway, so now we have to find a permanent mortgage from another bank before January. This could be a big blessing because maybe we will be able to get a lower interest rate. Since we have been moved in, I have been obsessed with Garage Sales and have found some really great deals. I LOVE the garage sales here, they are really good compared to the ones in Elberton. Plus, there are about 100 more per weekend here:) Anyway, I had to tell ya'll about my garage sale obsession, because I watched this video and realized I was pointing out all my garage sale finds, haha. I get so excited about a great deal!!! Anyway, this is the video of our house... we feel so blessed to be living here. It definitely was the right decision. We LOVE our new ward, tons of young couples and babies, and I also got a job coaching a club volleyball team in Athens for the winter/spring, and they said I can bring Cheyenne with me to anything I need to. That is so great for me, because they have overnight tournaments in Tennessee and places like that, so it would be too long for me to leave her. Anyway, I hope you will be able to come visit us SOON!!! 

Little Miss Audrey

Audrey is my brother, Aaron's daughter. She was my first niece and she is so sweet, cute and fun. She made the trip to Utah with my mom and I, so she got to come stay a week with me after our trip. I had been wanting her to come stay with us for a while, but I felt so bad about the timing of her stay. We had just bought our new house and were in the process of moving out of our old one. So Audrey was a big help taking care of Cheyenne. Unfortunately, we were soooo busy so we didn't get to do many fun activities. We did all have an overnighter on the floor of the new house and played LIFE and ate Little Ceasars Pizza. One day, we went to the mall and she jumped on one of those trampoline things with the bungee cords attached. We also got her and Cheyenne matching outfits at the Children's Place Monster Sale. She is such a good girl and a great cousin to Cheyenne. They live in Florida so we get to spend Thanksgiving with them too! We miss you Audrey and I promise next time you come visit will be much more fun!!

UTAH

After our trip to Washington, Jeff headed home for football practice and to buy a house and I set off for Utah with my mom, Cheyenne and my niece, Audrey. It was really fun, but unfortunate that it had to be at the end of another vacation. Plus, the timing with buying the house while I was gone, I felt like I should be at home. Anyway, here is a picture of us right before we left on the long drive to Utah.

We first went to Idaho where we had an Anderson family reunion. My Mom's parents have both passed on, so the Anderson reunion is all of her brothers and sisters and their families. There are so many of us it is really awesome! I am estimating but I think there are 9 children, 50 grandchildren and like 80 great grandchildren with more on the way! It is nutso! They have been having these reunions for years, but this is the first one I have been able to go to. I absolutely LOVE my Anderson family, so it was so great to be there and felt so good to see them all again. I hope we can go again in the years to come. The reunion was at my cousin Melanie's house in Rexburg, ID. They have their own little lake with boats, swings and a zipline! This is me and my two nieces Audrey and Genevieve on the zipline. We are being pulled up in this picture and on the way down, we got soaked. I was told I wouldn't get wet, but apparently we were too heavy with the three of us... 

This is my cousin Jordan helping me feed Cheyenne some lunch.

After a couple of days in Idaho, we headed to Utah. We got to stay at my Aunt MaryAnne's house, which was so great. I used to live there every summer growing up, so it is like my second home! Cheyenne got sick, with a very high fever for two nights. Here I am with a sick little baby at Jeff's sister Jenny's house:

It was so nice of Jenny to have a little get together at her house so I could see her and some of Jeff's cousins while I was visiting. The picture is Jenny, Natasha, Stacey, and Brittany. This was all the girls except little Heath snuck in:)

This is Josh and Natasha's baby Heath, Cheyenne and Eli and Brittany's baby Grady. I wish Cheyenne could have played with them more, but she was not feeling well at all. They are such cute babies though:)

It was such a fun trip and I had planned for like a whole year to play in an outdoor volleyball tournament with my good friend Diane that Saturday, but Cheyenne was so sick, I was very worried I was going to have to take her in and our insurance is no good in Utah, so I decided I'd better head home early. Plus, I had a brand new house waiting for me!!! So I am REALLY REALLY bummed that I didn't get to see Diane, or play in the volleyball tournament with her AND I missed out seeing my good friend Emily and my Kearns people. There is too little time!! Hopefully some people can come and see me and hopefully it won't be my last trip to Utah. It was a great vacation, but it is good to be home.