Moving...

Our family has doubled (by children) since we have moved to our home in Texas.  It doesn't seem that long ago, yet over 6 years has gone by.  Jeff is in a new job market and so our desire to be more accessible throughout the DFW area is more important.  We have been house hunting for over a year, but have yet to find something that was right.  One of our big requirements in a home is large bedrooms.  We have three boys and three girls and we want them to share their rooms.  It's not an easy task to fit three kids per room, with beds, dressers, and misc stuff.  Finding one extra room that is large isn't usually a problem, but two large bedroom as well as a master is very tricky indeed.  The other important factors were a large enough dining area for our whole family as well as large living areas to hang out together in.  Needless to say we really don't want to feel cramped.  

Jeff's coworker had told him about Mansfield, a town south of Arlington centrally located in DFW.  We finally took a look online and found lots of different home options in a decent price range.  We took a trip out on a Saturday, met up with the realtor and looked at houses.  We found one that was really interesting to us.  It is on a could-a-sac and right by Joe Pool Lake.  We want space for the kids outside, yet not necessarily a large yard that we have to maintain (Jeff has allergies so mowing is a pain for him).  The best part about this house is the room sizes!  Seriously the smallest room is 13X14!  It is a 5 bedroom house so that also gives us lots of room to enjoy.  The other pluses that we get to enjoy are a library (previously a media type room), office, craft/sewing room, and extra guest room!

We will be closing on the house in mid December and will be moved in before Christmas.  It's going to be a busy holiday season.  Now to get our house cleaned out, packed up, and ready to move.  Oh, and let's not forget trying to sell or rent the one we are in now.  Crazy, busy times are ahead of us!

Here are a few pictures of the home that we got off the listing :)

The pretty garage doors and main front of the house.  

Front porch and landscaping

looking down onto the family room and kitchen nook area

The best front view we could find... taken from Bing.

The kitchen

The backyard

More of the front landscaping

Yay for big changes!  We are ready to have some more space, but will miss our friends on the west side of Forth Worth!

Trick or Treat!

Halloween has come and gone for another year.  We reused some of our old costumes and bought a few.  It was very low stress for me which was nice :).  We joined a friends trunk or treat on Saturday for tons of candy.  Clark really got into the trick or treat part of the night.  Grandma and Grandpa were in town so it was fun to have extra hands for the night too!  Here are all of the kiddos!

Monkey big dog!

Grant and Tamage as ninjas.  Grant is white, or ice ninja, and Talmage is red, or fire dragon.  So fun to be boys!

The family walking around.

Chica mouse.  What a poser!

Punkin leopard.  So silly

Lorna love bug!  So cute!!!

After the trunk or treat we drove over to a nearby campground where they do a forest of fear.  Basically trick or treating to the campsites.  They decorate really cool and have fun trying to scare the people.  We sat in the back of the truck and drove through really slowly.  There were some good scares too, poor Clark, and Grandma :).  We will probably make this a new tradition!

Since we had plenty of candy we went out to the Stockyards on Halloween.  We did a little bit of trick or treating and also a hay ride!

Here are the kids all dressed up again!

Jeff and I dressed up as Tough Mudder survivors.  It was fun to get to dress up as something cool ;)

It was a neat atmosphere with tons of stuff going on :)

Kayla joined us on our hayride ;).  She was working and passing out candy for the family store.  Then she ran out ;).  She is dressed as a cow!

Our side of the hayride 

It was a fun Halloween with some fun new traditions.  Now we have way too much candy... oh the candy :). Did I mention Clark is in love with his candy?  Oh, he is!  He sleeps with his bucket and his candy are his new toys.  It's a good thing he can't open up all of the candy wrappers!!