Finally here!

 After a last-minute debacle that delayed our closing, we finally own our new home!  We love it!  (Mostly).  Things that are still irritating Jerel are:  the stairway wasn't big enough to get our queen-size box spring up.  After a few nights sleeping on just a mattress on the floor, we thought of taking off the hand rails and that gave us just enough wiggle room to get it up there.  So, all is well now, but Jerel's holding on to the irritation for just a little bit longer.  Also annoying him is the fact that our top-of-the-line fabulous furnace isn't working correctly.  It has two zones and downstairs hovers around 67 while upstairs is around 80 (even though both are set to 68).  The repair people are coming (again) today so hopefully that'll get fixed.  Things that are still annoying Mandy:  it is not an big, old farmhouse with a wraparound porch.  That's okay; who wants to get their ultimate dream home in their 30's?  It would leave you nothing to dream of!  Really, though, we are delighted with our home.  It's almost twice as large as our old one at 3200 square feet, has an enormous garage, a huge playroom for the kids, and some beautiful features we were able to select.  Of course it's still half empty, but that's okay.  This is a home for us to grow into.  (And by "grow" I am referring only to quantity of stuff, not quantity of children, lest any false rumors start flying around!)

The kids seemed to have inherited their photo shoot dispositions from Jerel.  They just were not interested a bit!  We were able to get enough good shots, but there are so many where the kids just plain refused to look at the camera.  My fault--I only offered them the promise of m&m's when we got home; I should have had them right in my pocket to bribe them for each shot.  I'm all for teaching delayed gratification, but I'm also all for having darling family photos.

 I wanted a shot of both kids together.  This is as close as they would get to one another.  Silly gooses!

Me and my boy.  Love him!  For our Utah friends and family, be aware that this photo is being used on some posters for an autism study.  Don't worry--Isaiah doesn't have autism!  It's just that our photographer's sister needed a picture of a mother and son, and seeing how Isaiah is so adorable, this is the one she wanted.  So no, no family secrets here (I don't think they can even diagnose autism in someone as young as Zay can they?) it's just the beginning of Isaiah's career as a super model.

Oh Eliza, just smile!

My favorite of the whole photo shoot.