Come on in!

Well, we made it!  We're here in Atlanta, safe and sound.  We've already discovered the unbelievable shopping the area has to offer....not that we've had much time for shopping ;D  We rolled in late Saturday afternoon and headed straight to our new house to meet the pool guy.  After dinner and baths we hit the hay, knowing that Sunday would be a busy day for the Gang as we had our home inspection plus meetings at the new house with 2 different builders.  Needless to say, we ended up spending the majority of the day Sunday at the house, and then about 30 minutes at the car wash cleaning all 3 cars after our long trip down here ;D

Today was our first day of homeschool, and we were happy to finally have some routine back in our day!  Although, I'm not gonna lie, 8 kids in 2 hotel rooms for hours and hours on end isn't the easiest way to spend the day, but we managed.  I got up early and got showered and ready for the day so I could take charge of the chaos, and then I woke all the kids up and we had breakfast.....

As you can see, Jacob had a bagel with Nutella :D  They do have a nice breakfast here at the hotel, but because it's an "extended stay" hotel, they don't have tables or an eating area in the lobby....you get to take it to your room.  Knowing that I would need to have a place for Caleb to eat, we hit Target on Sunday and bought a cheap highchair to get us through the next couple of weeks!

Although we are a bit short on space, we fit in the two suites pretty well, and have all the comforts of home....

Well, maybe not all the comforts, but we did bring toys!  Here's the Gang at breakfast this morning....

But I know what you're all dying to see is the inside of our new house, so let's get on with it!!  I snapped a few pics yesterday during our inspection.  Here's the front entryway....I love the double front door!

The office is to the left of the door and the formal dining room is to the right....

Next we have the main living area, and this is where we plan to put our t.v. in this house (over the fireplace)....

And although I would like to have vaulted ceilings in this area, we have a bonus room over this space instead, so I was really excited to see what they did to the ceiling in this room to make up for not having the vaulted space!!

But while I LOVE the ceiling, I'm not too crazy about the way they finished the fireplace, and we are already talking with our contractor about changing it to stone instead of the marble that's there now.  And that white paint on the bookshelves has got to go :D

Here's the kitchen.  I was really excited to see they had already put under-cabinet lighting all around the kitchen....now hubby doesn't have to do it!  I love the granite that they used- it's that nice brown and cream that doesn't show all your food crumbs like the black that I had in our KS house did.

The only thing we plan to do to the kitchen is add a trash drawer.  This next picture is Allie and Emily checking out the faucet- the area behind them is the kitchen eating space, and the area to the right of Allie is the hearth room.

Here's a better shot of the hearth area and you can see how it flows into the kitchen.  It has a great vaulted ceiling and a stone fireplace!

Here's the butler's pantry heading into the formal dining room....

The doorway to the right is where you go down to the basement- that's where we will put Allie and Emily's rooms and a theater room.  This next picture is back to the hearth room- a ceiling shot- I got a little out of order here :D

Here's a picture from the front entryway looking upstairs....

There are four bedrooms upstairs plus a bonus room.  This is the bedroom that Caleb & Jacob will share....

The above picture got "stuck" to the picture right above it (during upload somehow) and I can't separate it....ugh!  Anyway, it's a shot of the upstairs hallway, and so is this next picture.....

Noah & Matthew will share a room, and Josh will have his own room this time!  Sophie has a bedroom on the main floor off the living room (it's actually a 5-bedroom house, but will be a 7-bedroom by the time we finish off 2 bedrooms in the basement).  We're excited to be able to give the four oldest kids their own rooms this time, despite the fact that we're in a smaller house!

This next shot is of the master bath- not much too see ;D

It's about the same size as our bathroom in KS, but what's really impressive is the closet off the bathroom.....

It is incredibly HUGE!!!  Tons of space!  It's the length of our garage and has a window at the end....

And then it wraps back around the other side with even MORE hanging and shelf space!!!

Here's a shot from the window back into the bathroom!  See Emily waaaaaaaay down there?!

And finally, a shot of the bonus room that steps up from the 3rd floor- this will be our school/playroom!

It has great windows that overlook the woods and will soon overlook our new pool!!

Well, that's the grand tour for now!  Time for bed....tomorrow I have to take Sophie to the health department and then over to her new school to get her registered- we hope to start her in school on Wednesday or Thursday this week!