New House

So, I'm not going to go in to the long story, but the short story is, after finding an amazing house for sale down the street, we decided to move! It was all very quick, and the new transition has been a little overwhelming, but overall, we are very happy to be here and feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful home.

This is our old house that we sold. It holds a lot of great memories and we loved this house.

This is our new house. Same ward, same street, different city. We love this area so much and are so happy we found our "forever house."

The view from the back.

We finally got to move in on June 24th. We had to celebrate with some Martinelli's.

The first night we were there someone got married at the clubhouse and so we had a pretty amazing fireworks show. We love love love the view off the back deck.

The view from my bed. It is so fun to wake up to such a beautiful view. It definitely feels like we're on vacation.

The kids can eat breakfast and lunch out on the deck in the shade.

This picture shows the view behind them. So beautiful.

Our yard is bigger which will be so nice to have more room for them to run around. We haven't had any golf balls in our yard yet, hopefully we continue to be this lucky.

Mckinley LOVES to pose for the camera and it cracks me up. She is the best!!!

June Pics

After the rainy month of May, we had a record hot month in June.

We had a fun day at Manila Pond.

I called my friend McKenzie from high school and she met up with me there last minute. It's always so fun to see her!

Brandon plays softball on a city league every year with his brothers and some friends. It's always so fun to go and watch the games, which I don't actually watch, but it's fun to get out with the kids and visit.

We had so much fun at the Carillon Bell Concert. Brandon's dad is so great at planning family get togethers.

A fun day at the splash pad in Provo with cousins.

Tyler was so hyper and cute!

Living with Grandpa and Marmee

Our first loan for our new house fell through at the last minute so we had to start over with a new company and we went and lived with Brandon's parents while we were waiting on that. It took longer than we expected (of course) so we ended up being there just shy of 3 weeks. We enjoyed it while it lasted and had a lot of fun.

The kids all slept sideways on a Queen mattress on the floor. Sleeping was probably our hardest thing about being there. The twins wouldn't go to sleep before 11 and would still wake up at 6 so they were pretty cranky and ornery most of the time (more than usual).

We had lots of fun out on the trampoline and playing in the nice fenced in, shady back yard.

We did lots of swimming in our kiddie pool. Kallie loves dressing up and I had to get a picture of her wearing a swimming suit and high heels. Ha ha ha.

Another hard part about being there was when Ryan and Jessica's kids came to stay for 9 days. It was a handful having 7 kids age 7 and under in the same house, but we survived. The kids had tons of fun playing with their cousins.

A fun outing we took one day was to the Bean Museum and then across the street by the bell tower where there is a pond with ducks who definitely aren't afraid of humans.

The kids had so much fun feeding them crackers.

After the concert by the bell tower the kids get really excited about seeing the bells.

Girls Cabin Trip

In June my mom planned an overnight cabin trip for all the Stum girls. It was so much fun! I took Kallie and Mckinley with me and they were both so good and we had a blast. It was a quick trip, but a lot of fun!

May Pictures

Well, since I last blogged, we sold our house, packed it up, moved all our stuff into the garage of our new house 13 houses down the street, lived with Brandon's parents for three weeks, and then moved into our new house. I have a lot of catching up to do.

We had so much fun watching these baby robins grow in a nest in a tree. The birds built the nest super low so we could just tiptoe up and peek in. In 10 days the birds hatched, and flew away. Well, they did spend a few days living in our window wells and it was fun watching them there, and then they flew away. Anyway, it was awesome, and an experience we will probably never have in quite the same way again. So fun to have it before we moved from our house.

Tyler and Mckinley helping Brandon mow the lawn. :)

One day while my house was all boxed up I got to visit with two old friends from Australia. Lynda Innes and Courtney Turner. So fun. And Courtney brought all sorts of Australian treats for us to eat.

Mckinley finished up preschool at the end of May. Robin Scott was her teacher. The school was called Great Beginnings Preschool. It was in the basement of Robin's house, just next door. Super convenient! She learned so much and had so much fun. So sad it had to come to an end.

We had the rainiest May ever but finally got a sunny day and enjoyed it with cousins and popsicles!

And we had to take advantage and go to Nielsen's grove to see the baby ducks. My favorite park ever!

Mckinley and Tyler both took turns pushing Brandon on the swing.

Mckinley is 5

This sweet little thing is FIVE years old!

Mckinley loves birthdays more than anyone I know. It was so fun to look forward to it with her. She had her traditional mickey mouse pancake, and also she requested strawberry mini wheats so she got those.

We didn't get her much for her birthday since she was having a party, but she and Tyler and Kallie have been loving this doll house that was a hand-me-down from their cousins, Holly and Ella.

Mckinley was SO excited that her birthday fell on a school day. Her teacher does a great job of celebrating their birthdays at school. They also had a mother's day program at school that was fun to watch.

We had lunch at Wendy's after school.

Then that evening we took the kids swimming at the Orem Rec Center. They had a lot of fun!

The next day Mckinley got her kindergarten shots at her well check. She didn't cry at all during the shots, but made up for it later that day by crying for hours about how awful the doctor is and how she never wants to go back.

Later that night we went to the Payson Temple open house. Mckinley kept saying when do we get to go in the temple? I can't wait to explore!

Saturday was Mckinley's first official birthday party. We invited her school friends and church friends. I thought a lot of them wouldn't come so we invited 17 kids. Well, 15 of them came! So with our three, it was a full house of 18 kids. Kristen made her this adorable balloon cake.

The kids did really well and the party was a success! We had pizza and birthday cake, and then went on a treasure hunt and played pin the tail on the donkey. They all had a lot of fun.

Mckinley is the most amazing child. She definitely has her melt down moments (usually over really silly things) but for the most part, she is the best little helper any parent could ask for and she pretty much does a better job at life than I do. She is super smart and loves to color and draw and has a wonderful imagination. She is so kind and sweet. I just love her to death!!