Ames

So we've done it! We moved to Ames, IA, and are getting use to the town and excited for school to start.  We were lucky enough to find a lovely house to rent, and I knew that my mom would want to see pictures, and I would want them later on down the road :)

This is it. I love it (even though there are many things that have not been so good, but I'll save that for another post). I really do love it. It's big, all the main rooms are on one floor, and we don't have to worry about upsetting neighbors with crying or yelling kids. 

Our front room. The door in the top, left corner is the front door, the middle door goes to the bedrooms and the right door goes into the kitchen. Both the middle and right door have pocket doors that can be slid closed. The flooring is cork tile (the area rug is new especially for this house), and was horrid, but once again I'll focus only on the good for this post and do all the...not so good for another post. :)

Just off the living room is this little gem. We turned it into a computer/reading room. Yes it has a wood burning fire place!! I may be a wee bit ecstatically excited for Christmas and having a place to hang our stockings!! And it has awesome built in bookshelves!! Yippie!  

 I don't know how a picture of the dining room didn't get put in here, but right off the computer room is the dining room, it has our table and piano in it and a sliding back door that I'll talk more about in a minute. 

This is our kitchen (with Tony making dinner). Can you feel the 70's awesomeness!?! It's fantastic! It has more cupboard space then I know what to do with. Seriously we have empty cupboards and drawers. I'm sure they will get filled some time, but for now I have nothing to put in them. 

The boys room. It's big enough to have the slide attached to Liam's bed!! They are going crazy over it!! 

Emma's room. :)

Mine and Tony's room

Now on to some of my favorite things--

See that little door? It's in my linen closet. Guess what it is....

A laundry shoot!! Yippie!! The kids are all excited about putting their clothes down it, so all of our laundry goes downstairs and out of my way!! It's really made the house stay clean! And it's small enough that no children can be shoved down! Bonus!

My other favorite part prefaced by my not so favorite part. The landlord decided that now what a good time to till up the backyard, add better drainage and reseed. I'm grateful that the yard will be good, eventually, but I'm kinda bummed about losing our backyard. But the good part? Directly behind us we  have a Lutheran church (who also happens to be the people who own our house) and they told us our kids could play on this. 

 A built in playground. And playhouse. In our backyard. This picture is taken out my sliding back door I was talking about. I love it! Fox always asks to play at the park, and since I can send him out and watch him from my kitchen window, I say yes. :) Which is a big change from our previous place.

We also have a basement. But I don't want to talk about it right now. I'll post about it later, when it doesn't make me want to cry. :)

Things I love about our new house
-the playground
-you can hear the bell tower
-the library is Amazing!
-it's on a quiet street
-room!! tons of it!
-Separation of children at bedtime. I'm pretty sure Emma was the instigator of all the naughtiness at bedtime. Now they just go right to sleep. :)
-Windows! Light! Tons of it!
-The laundry shoot
-A dish washer
-A garage
-The fireplace