Getting Settled in CT

The first couple weeks in Connecticut went well once we got in our house. We moved in May 12, and I thought it was going to be 70 degrees or higher everyday at least, but I was wrong. I guess out here summer really doesn't begin until June. We had lots of days with nice weather but also lots of colder days and quite a bit of rain. But all in all it was good and Jackson enjoyed having all his toys again and a new house and yard to explore.

 Sadly all the pink flowers began to fall from our tree and ended up everywhere, all over our lawn, garage, even in our house. Still I'm super glad they were all in perfect bloom when we moved in.

We bought Jackson a few new toys for the new house, including a baseball bat and tee. He still prefers us to pitch to him though, trying to be like the REAL baseball players. This picture was taken from our porch and looks down onto our backyard, which backs up to this forest. Kinda funky out here, you can get to the backyard by walking out of the basement or go down stairs from the patio off the main level.

Love our green/yellow grass? Still working on getting it in good condition...

The first two weeks I tried to have fun with the kids during the day and then unpack and get settled during nap time and after the kids were in bed. The only problem was that Jackson didn't want to take naps anymore after we moved here. He just started climbing out of his crib and we ordered a bed for him right after we moved. Probably long overdue but while living in Florida he slept great at nights, took naps most days and never climbed out of the crib - I wasn't messing with it!

How I'd normally find him after I finished unpacking, the kid is in a climbing phase!

 The house had standard wood blinds on the downstairs windows and these great room darkening roman shades on all the upstairs bedroom windows. Well all of the windows except Abbie's room, she had the shades but not the room darkening kind. So lucky her, she got to wake up to the bright sun before 6 am! And lucky me to be there with her. We quickly ordered her some matching shades and hung up black trash bags in the meantime. Too bad they ordered the wrong size (just 1/2 inch too big) so it ended up taking over a month to get them in!

Wide awake in her bright room at 6 am, way too early for me...

 The kids get so excited when Tyler gets home from work! Now that he has a normal 8-5 job they both look forward to seeing him come home at a standard time every day. Sometimes Abbie is a little jealous as she watches the boys play outside.

We spend our afternoons playing in our basement! There's still a lot I want to get done down there to turn it into a super fun playroom hangout area, but for now it's a great spot to let the kids run around!

 During the mornings we checked out walking trails, parks, libraries and shopping that we will frequent over the coming years here!

My view along the Farmington River Trail

 We have picnics in the front yard, sometimes we'll go out and sit to wait for daddy! This blanket is the same one Tyler and I used when we had picnics while we were dating that summer in Provo. It always makes me smile when we use it with our kids now.

Living amongst the boxes. As soon as we unpacked a box we threw it in the garage. It was a good 3 weeks or more before we fit both cars in the garage. So many boxes and packing material! Finally we hauled it all away but in the meantime Jackson would make obstacle courses around the garage for his bike

 Nana sent Jackson this Animal Croquet set that he refers to as "animal golf" he played every day for those first couple weeks and since our grass was pretty long, we played on the sidewalk. It's still a fun toy now but he just was obsessed with it at first and got pretty good!

He golfs left handed!

 There were so many parks in Florida that we could either walk to or drive to in less than 5 minutes. Here it is not the case, but the parks we have found are pretty amazing! This one is Buckingham, in a neighborhood where we looked at some houses. Luckily for us we don't have to live there to use it, but it is about 10-15 minutes away. But we've gone a few times because it's huge and so much for Jackson and Abbie to do.

This is all one structure and just one part of the playground.

We still have a lot of projects to get done around the house but Jackson's room paint job was the first on the list and at least we did that. We spent most of those weeks just unpacking closets, bathrooms, storage, decor, kitchen items and figuring out where it all went. We were also getting ready to drive to Ithaca on May 24, for Ben's graduation! Then my whole family was coming to our house for a few days so we needed to just get the house ready for our guests!

She still loves playing in Jackson's room best :)