In May of 2006, Mark and I received the keys to our first home. I remember having so many mixed emotions about moving to Tolleson. Sydney was so little and we were thrilled to have a house for her finally. We celebrated her third birthday the first summer we were there. Mark made the big decision shortly after we moved in to return to school and pursue and MBA degree. We added cute little Sophie to our family in May of 2007. We worked so hard on this house to make it beautiful and make it our home. I have so many happy memories of our Tolleson house and it still a little difficult for me to write this all down.
However, I would not want to forget those little things that made this house so special.
(ok, this is as far as I got the first time I started writing this and then it was just making me cry so I put this post away for a few weeks...and now I'm going to attempt to tackle it again)
I was originally going to write down some of the happy memories in this house...but I think in the interest of trying to finish this post I will skip over the details. In general, we had many happy Christmas's, birthdays, lots of dancing, lots of good food, and a lot of laughter and love in our Tolleson place. I'd like to think that the new owners will walk in and feel the laughter in the walls!
We finally made the decision earlier this year that it was time for us to leave and move on with our lives. On a side note...long before we ever had started discussing the possibility of moving, I had a strong impression one evening that "our time here was finished". I remember I was driving on 99th Ave. (with the girls) and those exact words came into my mind. I thought it was kind of weird, probably because it was right around the time I had just finished doing the paint and chair rail in Sydney's room. In fact I think I thought that it was a ridiculous thought because we were probably going to end up staying in this house for many, many more years than we had ever intended. Later when we made the decision to leave, and I was scared, I thought back to this impression I had months earlier and I knew we were making the right decision.
It was understandably a very stressful summer. Not even a trip to the beach in May could take some of the edge off things. In fact, while we were at the beach, we had several offers come in and reality sank in that we were really going to be leaving. Looking back on everything that happened I realize that we have been blessed and ended up exactly where we were supposed to be. Moving is always a bit crazy. This is our 6th move and 11th ward we have been in. So I think we are pretty good at the whole moving and adjusting to change thing!
Even though we were sad to leave behind all the memories in our old home....we LOVE our new place. We LOVE our new house, we LOVE our new area, we LOVE Sydney's new school, and we LOVE our new ward! I can't believe how happy the changes have made us. The first few weeks I kept thinking that maybe something was going to happen and it was all going to disappear. But I know we have been blessed and guided to the next place (hopefully last place) we are supposed to live. It has been so nice to have family close by and have a great ward that also happens to be many of our neighbors. I am loving that (even though I always thought I wouldn't like living so close to everyone). However, it is nice to go outside in the front yard, or over to the pool (yup, we ended up with 2 community pools and one is right around the corner from our house) and see people from our ward and they have all been so nice and friendly. So I guess I could have titled this post "Moving On" or "Falling in Love". I have fallen in love with Gilbert and our new place!
I realize there are still no pictures of the new place. I will definitely have to post some of those up, as well as first day of school, and about a million other things that have been going on :)
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I bought a Costco cake and then put a few fairies on top to make it a bit more Disney fairyish.
I also threw down a blanket in the living room so they could all eat pizza and Capri Suns while they watched Tinkerbell!
And last but not least, I made each girl a "tinkerbell" tutu. It was so cute to see all the girls running around (including Sophie) in their tutus and waving their wands.
Sydney had fun with her friends and enjoyed all the presents this year! 
