home sweet home

  I think it's time (since we've been here a month already!) to show you our new abode!  It is a two story townhouse, which is one of four units on our side, and four more units on the side near the school.  Downstairs is the arctic entry (no pictures), the living room, kitchen, laundry room, dining room, boys' bathroom & playroom.

 This is the living room.  

Josh swears he will never live again without an easy chair.

Great. ;)

 The door you see is the door to the arctic entry.  

That is one of the windows downstairs that faces the tundra.

 I adore the pictures we (finally) put up on the wall. 

 The boys kissing me;

Josh holding our twin babies' heads at one week old; 

and the boys' hands on my pregnant belly.

 That is the front door (to the right) and the playroom.

I love the fact that there's a playroom downstairs for all their toys.

The window in their playroom also looks out on the tundra.

In fact, two weeks ago we saw a real live red fox out there, looking for a meal.

It was very exciting!

I hung Wyatt's name banner & the paintings the boys did as one & a half year olds.  I love how colorful the room is. Soon there will be bright turquoise curtains to finish the room.

 

We have Wyatt's dresser in the playroom, which is really convenient since we spend most of our days downstairs.

 

The playroom also has their game table (which has basketball, soccer, football, air hockey, poker, chess, a pool table, and a bean toss) and their train table.  These two activity centers keep them busy!

And those (totes & bins) are chock full of all their long lost toys!  There are still some coming (mostly Christmas gifts) that the boys are very excited about.

This is the entertainment center in the living room.

The bathroom is the door on the left,

the playroom to the right.

We have opted for no TV, but have a Wii, an XBox 360 & a DVD player.

 

This is the downstairs bathroom, the one we use for the kids.

 

Hidden behind that lovely shower curtain are roughly one million foamy bathtub toys, a bath seat for Wyatt & the boys' bathtub squirt guns.

We got all new towels for the whole house, and I am in love.

Ours, which were from five years ago, had seen better days.

And this is our computer station.  We were both so happy to have the desktop back up & functioning as it processes much quicker than the laptop.  This is where I now do all my blogging.

To the right of the computer desk is my downstairs bookshelf.  If I had more money, I would invest in some more of the boxes (the green ones) to hide even more of the clutter, but I did the best with what I had.  My motto here is "Make do" as our goal is to save money, not spend it.

The bottom shelf is all the boys' coloring books, scissors, pre-school curriculum, paper, crayons, markers, stickers, flash cards & CD's.  This easy access allows the boys to choose some activities independently and I love watching what they choose to do randomly. (Logan likes to cut, and Jack likes to color.)

The two middle shelves are mostly mine.  Phone books, office supplies, printer paper, the boys' memory albums & a happy yellow bowl that is home to Josh's keys, wallet & watch each night.

The top two shelves are for more computer stuff, our video & regular cameras, as well as our three favorite games.  I play a mean hand of Rummikub.  If you haven't played, I suggest you try it. I love it!

This is my kitchen. Or at least part of it.  The kitchen is very wide open, which I love, but has minimal counter space, which I hate! The oven & microwave are very powerful, though, and I'm grateful for that.  Josh also thought ahead, and when he ordered the toaster, he got one with space for 4 slices! Genius!

 Off the kitchen is my laundry room.  It has my stackable, front-loading washer & dryer (love them!) as well as our additional full size freezer.  The freezer is full of salmon caught right here in the Yukon, moose meat also caught here, and the rest of Josh's meat order (hamburger, bacon, sausage, corn dogs, etc.)

 This room also stores my new best friend, this laundry separator. I love it. I can't wait to order another one for Josh and I. Sorting laundry is one of my pet peeves. I hate it. I just want to be able to throw it in!  Josh snagged that shelf from a friend, and it has been so handy for all the laundry essentials & Josh's minimal tool collection.  In addition to the washer, dryer, freezer, shelf & laundry bins, we store all our extra Rubbermaid totes in the laundry room.  I use them for laundry hampers, toy storage, trash collectors & play things for the twins.

This is our dining room.  It has a very homey feel to it, and I think it's where I spend my most time.  The table extends even larger, and we have two more chairs (one at the computer desk & one in the downstairs bathroom) so it will seat 8.  The door on the right is the laundry room, and the door on the left is the pantry.  In the window are our Valentine's cards, blocks & window decorations. And on the wall, if you can see them, are my favorite picture frames. The one on the left has a picture of each of our boys as infants, and says, "Live, Laugh, Love" underneath.  On the right are three frames with photos of our family: Josh, the twins & I in Rockaway; sweet baby Wyatt; and Josh holding Logan & Jack at about five months of age.

The pantry runs the length of the passage under the stairs, and is really amazing.  As stocked as it looks, I am actually getting nervous about our food supply.  These kids eat so much! And we go through it so quickly! Thankfully, I placed my first Bush Order with Fred Meyer in Anchorage on Friday, and they will be shopping & shipping it to me today!  I'm not sure how long it will take. I am hoping only two weeks, but expecting three to four weeks until delivery.

 

In the dining room we have Wyatt's high chair set up, with all his toys tucked underneath so that when he plays "Throwing-all-my--toys-on-the-floor" we can just hand him more toys from his bucket.

To the right of Josh's easy chair are the stairs. I was pretty nervous when I heard they were wood, but we have only had three falls, and two head bonks.  The boys are really good about holding the rail, and I am a stickler for no playing on the stairs!

 This is the hallway upstairs.  Upstairs is the boys' bedroom, our bathroom & our bedroom, as well as the linen closet (no picture).  The door you see on the right leads into the twins' bedroom.

 Directly in front of you when you enter is Jack's bed.  To the right is Logan's.

 My mom is making the boys' quilts for their beds, and I can't wait (!!!) to get them. 

 The ones from my grandma's sisters Alida & Myra will do the trick, though, until the ones from Nanny arrive.

 I also am going to order curtains, and eventually a rug, which I think will warm up their room.  And I've put in a request to Aunt Julie for some wall art for their room for their birthdays.  She's crafty, so I'm pretty excited to see what she comes up with!

 This is our bathroom, which is upstairs between our room & the boys' room.  I love all the new bath stuff- curtain, rug & towels.  So luxurious!

 In the mornings when I take the luxurious shower Josh allows me before he leaves for work, I usually turn on my Ipod and listen to something happy to set the tone for the day. 

 I can't describe to you how lovely it is to shower without the interruption of any of my three children.  Pure bliss.

 I decided to hang this cool shelf in the bathroom, and I'm glad I did. Every morning when I see those shells I smile.  I got them at our favorite shop in Rockaway, Flamingo Jim's.  The boys love the big conch shell, "so I can hear the ocean!" they say.

And finally, the master suite.  This couch was originally downstairs, but when Josh had the opportunity to get a larger couch for the living room, he jumped on it & moved this one upstairs for me to nurse Wyatt & for us to read bedtime stories on.

 The piece of art above the couch is one I purchased while still in Vancouver, for our Alaska house.  I grew up with birch trees in my front yard. I loved them.  I still do. I love Robert Frosts' poems about birches, and I love the memories I have of my neighborhood friends & I finding caterpillars in the grass below them, having fallen from their web-like nests.

 That window above our bed is amazing.  The most spectacular views of the tundra, the sunrise, the moon & the stars can be seen.  Each hour the light here seems to change, and with it the stunning beauty evolves.

 On the wall opposite my bed we have our wedding picture hung, along with a photo collage board that Josh's sister Julie made me for Christmas. It says "I could not ask for more".  So perfect. I love it.

 Behind our bedroom door is a picture of us at Homecoming our senior year.  I love this picture.

 And to the left of the closet doors, I have the angel my grandparents gave me in high school.  I think of her as my guardian angel, and I've always had her hung in my house.

 Wyatt's crib kind of floats between my bed & the closet.  It works well.  He's close enough to me to wake up & soothe or nurse him easily.  Soon we hope to move him in with his brothers.  We'll see how that goes!

And finally, my bookshelf.  Honestly, I can't believe how bare it is, but it makes me happy nonetheless. I only brought with me my parenting books, the handful of (fifteen) novels I own that I haven't read yet, a few photo albums, some empty journals & all of the boys' children books.

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I love this house. I love that it's brand new, and when I clean it, it shines. I love the views from each & every window.  And I love that it's the place where we are finally together.

Home sweet home, indeed.