First Day of School

School is back in session at the Carr household! Brinley is in first grade and Julianne is in her second year of preschool! McKay is just as cute as can be and still gets to stay home with Mom all day ;).


Brinley was sooo excited for school to start. This is her fourth school in one year! That's a lot for a little girl, but Brinley has been such a trooper! I love that she is my oldest. I hope she gets to spend many, many years at her new school! She also has the BEST teacher this year and comes home happy each and every day!

These are my beautiful nieces, they walk with Brinley every morning and afternoon. It's so much fun for her to get to go to school with her cousins!

Julianne LOVES preschool. She also has a darling teacher that makes school SO much fun!

Can't believe how big they're getting!

Our House!

I decided buying a house deserved its own post, seeing as it is a very BIG deal to us. After 9 1/2 years of renting, we finally were able to buy our own home!!

My fellow student friends and I, would talk all the time about how nice it would be when we finally owned our own home...well let me tell you friends, (as some of you already know) it is!!!! No first time home buyer comes away without a story about how it came to be, so here is ours:

We were very content living at my in-laws, and had been there about two months. My kids were on cloud nine being able to live with Papa and Grandma Carole and only living about 4 minutes down the road from Grandpa Frank and Grandma Julie. Not to mention, we had cable T.V for the first time in our married life ;). HGTV, FOOD NETWORK, ESPN, DISNEY, re-runs of Full House, all of us were loving it! 

Greg and I especially loved finally being able to save some money. Our plan was to live there for about a year and then buy a house. But like most plans, they never work out the way you think they will. 

One day we were at my sister-in-laws house, and she mentioned to me that there was a house for sell in a really awesome neighborhood across the rd from them. She explained that it had just barely gone on the market that day and she was surprised because homes in that area hardly EVER go up for sell. I look at the pictures, saw the price, and thought what the heck, we might as well just take a look. I called the Realtor and he said he could fit us in at 3:30. Greg was happy because was going golfing at 4:30 so that would give us plenty of time. 

We pulled up to the house, met the Realtor, and before we even walked into the front door he said "I don't mean to be a pushy salesmen, but I just want you to know that you are the 7th person I have shown this house to today and I know for a fact we already have two offers coming in. So not pressure but if you like this house, you will need to place an offer tonight!" No pressure, my foot!! I thought, well that's NEVER going to happen, seeing as we were not prepared at ALL, or even had the slightest clue how to go about buying a house! But we decided to walk in anyway.

We walked in and my mind was going a mile a minute. I couldn't really even focus on what we were seeing because I just had this panicked, rushed feeling inside. It was a feeling of , "oh my goodness, we need to try to buy this house or you are going to regret it!" I didn't even know if I loved the house or not, I just knew we had to try to get it! I didn't say anything to Greg, thinking that there is NO way he will be on board with this but after we were done and were driving away I asked what he thought. He said he liked it but didn't know how it would work out because we didn't even have financing yet to make an offer and he had a T time to get too! 

So there you go, we almost didn't make the offer because Greg needed to get to his T time!!;) HA HA!

To make a VERY long story short, and to be honest I don't even remember all that happened during the next 3 1/2 hours, we ended up at the Realtor's office at 7:30 that night to make our offer! 

Our Realtor's were awesome! It was a party writing our offer letter and they were both so helpful to walk us through the process and help us understand what we were doing. We left their office at 10:30pm and they told us they would let us know the next afternoon if we got the house or not! 

On the drive home my head was just spinning! I still couldn't tell if I wanted them to accept the offer or not. I just kept telling myself that if they did or did not, it was meant to be! I didn't sleep well at all that night! I was so anxious! 

The next day of course seemed like forever. Finally it was 2:00 and I got a phone call. It was our Realtor and he had conferenced in Greg. He did this thing where he hyped us up and told us there ended up being 4 offers made and us and one other came within about a hundred dollars of each other, then he said " AND YOU GOT THE HOUSE!!" I think he expected us to start yelling and screaming in the phone, like we had won the lottery, but instead Greg and I were not very animated. Yes we were excited, but at the same time we were SO overwhelmed with all we had to do in the next 4 weeks! And not to mention, we were NOT prepared at all for this HUGE life change that we didn't even see coming!

Over the next week, we set up our home inspection. He told us to come at the end so we could go over everything. I was really anxious to go because I couldn't remember the house all that clear, since everything had happened so fast! 

I was just hoping to LOVE it and be so happy with our purchase. 

We walked in and immediately I felt so relieved. I LOVED it, I loved it so much more than I remembered. The walk through went so well and we got to move in 3 weeks later!!!! (After a lot of furniture shopping and having it painted!) 

Here are some pictures: 

The front living room

 The great room

 Our backyard!

 The basement family room/playroom

 Brinley's own downstairs bedroom. She loves having her own room!

 The kitchen

 Dining room

Front yard

We love our house so much and are so thankful for it! We live in the best neighborhood and are loving getting to know everyone that we go to church with. We also love that we are still so close to our family that lives in Utah. 

A Big Catch up of our Summer!!

JUNE

The beginning of summer started with a fun trip to St. George. We stayed the first few days with our good friends the Searl's, who we met in Dental school. My girls LOVED staying in their condo and playing with their little girl Elery. 

 There was an awesome playground right outside the condo.

 Playing in the swimming pool

 The rest of the time we spent at Greg's mom and dad's time share. We had a great time swimming, playing, eating, and go on this fun little hike!

McKay and his buddy Ellie. He LOVES her and won't even come to me if she is holding him.

 Brinley playing in the yucky water!

 Brinley always has to be where the action is!

 It was a great trip!!! Should have took more pictures!


I had a fun get together with my friends. Emily, was in town from Texas.

 At West Weber visiting my cousins Kole's new baby cow!

 First Cabin trip of the year!
McKay with Grandpa

 Baking with Grandma

 Cute McKay

 R&R, what we do best up there!!

 Julianne has so much fun playing dress up in Grandma Carole's clothes.

 Uncle Jared and Aunt Kristin's family came to visit! We went to the cabin again with them and celebrated Greg's 34th birthday!!

 Playing in the water

 We met up with Heather's family for the day at the lake!

 For the rest of the time Jared and Kristin were in town, we played non stop! It was sooo fun!
Here we are at Liberty Park in Salt Lake.

 We even ran into Kajsa and Manna! Fun surprise!

 It was HOT!!!

 We went to Park City one evening and rode the Alpine Slide!

 Julianne and I rode together

 Brinley was brave and went by herself!

 One day we went the the Bountiful rec center and went swimming. Christian and Brinley played non stop!

 Julianne on the other hand, played in the water for about 10 min and then just wanted to sit on her beach towel and eat snacks!! A girls after my own heart!

 On the last day they were here, they blessed new baby Ellie! She looked so beautiful and I'm so sad that I don't have a picture of her in her dress! We LOVED having them all here!

JULY

We went with some of our cousins to the Bountiful 24th of July Parade! So HOT but so fun!

The next day we had a big Fab 8 reunion! Almost everyone was there! And all of us together, have sooo many kids! 23 and two days later Danny and Darci had their baby so it makes it 24!!!

 AUGUST

We had the best little miracle ever! The Gubler's, (minus Tim ;( ) came to visit!!! They were so kind to fit us into their busy schedule! My girls were in absolute heaven seeing their long lost buddies from st. louis again! 

Julianne and Sam played non stop and she even got him to wear a dress!!

 Brinley and Peter picked up right where they left off and played every second together! They still said that they wanted to marry each other!

 So Cute!!!

 We miss them so much!

 Cynthia and I. I cried sooo hard when I hugged her goodbye. I miss all my St. Louis friends everyday! They are so special to me!
Thanks Gubler's for making time to see us!

And no summer is ever complete without our annual River Trip! My girls and Greg talk about this trip ALL year! 

Emma doing Abby's hair

 Meagan Jane and Brinley

 Such fun cousins! They all get along so well together!

 Brinley and Emma went down together for a little bit!

 Meagan Sammy and Greg getting ready to go down...again!

 Uncle Gary!

 The whole bunch! Lookin' River good!

 We sent McKay with my mom and dad up to their cabin, which is about 45 minutes away, and then they were kind enough to bring him to us for the last day. McKay LOVED the water and cried when we got him out, but much to Greg's dismay I would NOT let him go down the river! Maybe next year!

 Brinley and Meagan turned into wonderful river buddies! Brinley is still laughing and telling stories about all their adventures going down together :)

 Julianne got the best deal ever! My Dad brought up his raft the last day and so she got to ride with Grandpa first class! She even went down the water fall in it!

Celebrating Papa's and Michael's Birthday!

 After we had a BIG dance party! The girls are loving Abba right now. (I wonder where they get?) It was so fun watching them dance together!

So fun!!!

We decided to end our summer with who it began, and had the Searl's up to my parents cabin for the last weekend before school started. It was kind of cold and rainy most of the time, but we had a blast anyway. 

The girls loved playing with Ellery and Greg Bryce Miranda and I all had fun talking and playing games the whole time!! 

Singing to Frozen!

We had a GREAT summer!!!