It's Christensen chaos... and I LOVE it!: July, the LONGEST month of my life

Whoa! As I went through the pictures I had from the month of July I couldn't believe it all had taken place just one month ago!! No wonder I felt so overwhelmed all month! Not only did I have the usual 5 kids, summer vacation, camps and clean up but we threw in a trip to Idaho and a move as well! So yes, there are one thousand pics in this post.

July always starts off with Bryan's birthday. He's SOOOOOO close to 40 now. hehehe. I shouldn't laugh, because that means I'm getting closer to 40 too. I wish we could've paused all our responsibilities and jetted off to somewhere fun for his birthday, but instead we met at the Bombay house for dinner with family and then went back home for cake and poorly wrapped presents.

A couple days later was the 4th of July, one of my favorite holidays! We always start things off at the parade. It was so fun to have 2 of my sisters and their families with us!

Almost all the cousins were together. Gotta love a color coordinated holiday.

I had big dreams of doing Tessa's hair based on some patriotic hair picture on pinterest, but that didn't happen. (darn you Pinterest and your over the top but drool worthy ideas). But ya know, she looked darling without it. This girl adores her Nanna!

The kids were ready for bunches of candy to be thrown at them from the floats.

Tessa wasn't impressed with the large percentage of taffy thrown. Like me, she'd prefer some tootsie rolls or something.

This little monkey wasn't really sure what was going on.

Afterward we headed over to Gunka and Nanna's house for our BBQ and pool party with LOTS of cousins and 2nd cousins!

Knox is obsessed with balls, in and out of the water. I'm pretty sure he slammed dunked balls for an hour or so.

Later that night we were off to a friends firework show. To say that it was so incredibly awesome is a great understatement. It was amazing!!!!!! We're talking just as good as any Stadium of Fire, just minus the crowds and terrible parking. So worth keeping the kids up until midnight.

Good food, lots of family, sunshine and fun! It was a very Happy 4th.

The next weekend we were off to one of our favorite places on this earth, Bryan's grandparents cabin in Island Park. It was hard deciding whether or not we should go. We had SO much going on, but in the end, that's why we NEEDED to go. We needed a break from the crazy. We needed nature, no internet, no TV, just lots of dirt and rivers and campfires.

This is Great Grandpa and Great Grandma. We love them.

And I love how they love my kids.

There's so much to do in Island Park. We tried out a razor. We might have to buy one of these someday!

We hiked around.

The boys even made time for a round of golf.

The kids favorite thing is having dinner outside by the campfire.

Hotdogs

And Smores of course.

Yum.

And enjoyed getting to know and playing with 2nd cousins they don't see very often.

We also floated down the river. Getting the boys ready for a real white water rapids trip someday!

Its when I'm in places like this that I want to go home and throw away the TV. What an absolute waste of time (says the girl who writes posts about a particular TV show).

I just love getting away and having more time, less distractions, so I can play with my kids and really see them. Ya know.

When we leave we miss the tranquility of this place and of course we miss Grandpa and Grandma too!

Though I didn't throw out the TV when I got back home, I did try to keep the kiddos busy with more worthwhile fun. Like swimming with their cousins.

We miss these particular cousins a lot. They just moved to New Jersey. That's way too far away.

We still ate hotdogs outside (just minus the campfire).

And spent more than a couple evenings slurping down the best snow cones ever. This particular night we taught the kids how to get people to honk their car horns as they drove by. It totally entertained them for about an hour. Who needs an Xbox?

There was a fun night meeting some 2nd cousins who live out of town. I loved catching up with my cousins while watching the kids play.

I also squeezed in a playdate in Park City with my Okie friend Michelle! SOOOO great seeing her!

Our families sure have grown since our Oklahoma days!

When we weren't out of town or playing with friends and family we tried to stay on a (pretty loose) schedule, which included our reading time. For those of you who chimed in on my Facebook post about how to get kids to read, I found a few things that helped. One was a reward (more on that later) and the other, which LOTS of people suggested, was finding the right TYPE of book. That happened to be books by Roald Dahl. They happily read James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr Fox. We went through quite a lot of other books before discovering these.

I also put them in a couple camps (tennis and a fun farm camp where they fed chickens and washed cows and stuff!).

I think the highlight of Cason's summer was finally learning to ride a bike without training wheels. Really I think the driving force was to keep up with his brothers who have been learning to mountain bike with their dad.

Mountain bikes were part of the bribe, I mean reward, for reading some big chapter books this summer. We were planning on getting them mountain bikes already, but I have a thing about my kids always earning things, not just being handed stuff. It worked out great.

Oh and Cason lost a tooth too!

Bry and I made time for some fun of our own. There was a date night to see Wicked.

And we did some golfing together.

When crazy kids and stressful jobs are set aside, and it's just the two of us, I remember how much I really like this guy. Maybe that's why we're counseled so often to keep dating each other.

Of course most of the rest of the month was consumed by my getting ready for the move.

While I packed, the last minute things were being wrapped up at the house. Lots of concrete had to be poured (this back driveway will someday double as a basketball court).

And the front driveway and stairs were poured. It doesn't look it here but it's a U shaped driveway. (we also got our porch railings put in.)

My little gnomes loved it and can't wait to ride their bikes up and down it!

And inside there were the little things like mirrors and light fixtures going in. This is the chandelier so many of you helped me pick out :)

In between packing boxes I was spray painting things for Tessa's room, like her bathroom mirror and this chandelier (I found it on ksl for about $30).

And then the moving began! Goodbye red and mustard yellow walls.

Time to call this place home! And since I've had a few requests from friends to see more pics, I ran over to the house on the morning of the move to take a few shots of the house before all the boxes and mess arrived.

The front porch. Hoping to find some good chairs to sit on out here while I watch the kids play and ride bikes and run around with their neighborhood friends.

The entry. Its not quite this big, its just my wide angle lens. I love my door. I drew it out on a piece of paper and amazingly they made it!

Entry leads into the living room. Again, it's not this big. But the windows are :) Luckily I live in a small neighborhood with lots of trees that help with the privacy, because sometimes these windows make me feel like I'm living in a fish bowl. Hello neighbors! I don't want to cover the windows though, cuz I love them! But the landscape is in planning mode and I'm hoping to have some trees to help with the privacy.

Now, I'd love any suggestions for pops of color for this room. My rug and couch are neutrals, but I'd like a colorful rug in the entry and some colorful pillows and accent decor. Any ideas?

The kitchen and dining room.

The pantry. For food and hiding kitchen appliances. It also houses my husband's beloved "sonic ice" machine.

My command center. My desk that will never stay organized no matter how much I try.

The den/library. It has a glass door on it and everything is positioned so I will always be able to catch a glimpse of what's going on on the computer (that we'll have there someday). My favorite thing in this room is the cupboard that hides my ugly printer.

My master bedroom. This pic I took right after we moved in the furniture cuz I guess I forgot to take one before.

The master bathroom. This is one side of it. We have separate vanities! I think my husband is more excited about this than I am. No more curling irons and blow dryers all over his space. His vanity looks just like mine.

Master tub. Bry and I aren't tub takers but my kids sure are. Funny enough, Bry didn't have much say about anything in the building of this house, pretty much left it all up to me, except for a couple things, one being his shower. I don't have a pic of it, but the 8 million sprayers in it were HIS idea.

Laundry room. It ended up being one of my favorite rooms. Though it still hasn't made me love doing laundry. It has a hidden trash in one of the cabinets (thanks Heather Hansen for that idea!) and a hidden ironing board in one of the drawers. And yay for Target having laundry baskets that matched my grey cabinetry perfectly!

The "penny bathroom" is what everyone calls our half bath. Yes, those are real pennies on the floor. I saw it done in a picture of a hotel lobby in New York and loved it! It's been a fun conversation piece.

Mudroom. Hoping all the coats and backpacks will litter this room and no where else. I am in love with my brick floors.

Tessa's bathroom. That's the mirror I spray painted. It used to be black. I didn't get any pics of the kid's rooms. Maybe once I get them some furniture (a couple of my kids are currently sleeping on the floor!) I'll take a pic of those.

The basement game room.

And a little gym. This is supposed to help me get in shape. We'll see how that goes.

So that's it. My home. I'm just so glad it all came together the way it did. We started with a piece of dirt and a bunch of ideas. For a while I thought I was crazy not to hire an interior decorator to help me. I mean seriously I had NO IDEA going into this, just how many decisions I would have to make, how many stores I would have to visit, how many hours I would pour over pictures on HOUZZ, how many sleepless nights I would experience while building this house. But in the end, I LOVE that it is ME. I tried to make all decisions based on what I liked, no matter who else might like it or not. It's where I hope to live for many decades to come. Heck I told my husband he was going to bury me in the backyard. The backyard that is currently a big dust bowl. I long for grass. So I guess the decision making isn't really over. I've now got to think of landscaping. And furniture. And how I'm going to keep this place clean. And how to keep my kids from destroying it all.

So now July is over, we're moved in and the summer is coming to an end. Onto another chapter.