Welcome Home

Well, we've officially been homeowners for over 2 weeks. I really thought the stress of the past few months would melt away when we had the keys in our hot little hands. Ha!
Anyway, people have been asking for pictures and I have been hesitant to show them. This home is a fixer. It's not in it's glorified state...yet. We have a lot of really great ideas for it that will take a great amount of time and probably a great chunk of money. Two things that we are currently running a bit short on. I'm babbling and stalling. I'll just get straight to the point. Here are a few pictures of our "Little Fixer Upper".

This is the front of the house, obviously. Plans for this: new front door, new paint, landscaping, and eventually redoing the driveway.

This is from the front door coming into our future library.

Plans for this room: built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace and wrapping around under the window where we'll have a window seat. I also want to paint the fireplace white, paint the wall behind the fireplace a dark blueish color.

This is the future dining room (current dining room in back ground). We're going to extend the counters and cabinets in the kitchen out past the brown pantry about 4 feet. We're also planning on putting in an office center/school space on the wall that the table is currently on with drop leaf desks. When that happens we'll pull out the carpet, put the table where the desk currently is on the left wall, and put in pillars. The pillars will be hard to explain so just trust me, I think it will look awesome.

Kitchen. This is the part of the counter/cabinets that we're going to extent out another 4 feet.

The other side of the kitchen. I also want to add a backsplash. We're in the process of putting  handles on the drawers, hence the holes.

 Here's the one bath. Yes, it's a little on the smallish side, but we have great hopes for it. Not much in the ways of ideas yet, but great hopes...

 

The one idea I do have is to add some character by putting up wainscoting on this wall. You can see my potential paint colors for above the wainscoting on the counter.

 

 

This is just half the house. We have a garage that has been 3/4 of the way converted into an extra living space that we are using as a TV room and 3 bedrooms. It all needs attention of some sort and, honestly, I'm a little overwhelmed. Not to mention that we want to clean up the backyard, put in a deck and fencing, and eventually some trees that aren't dead (we already have a couple dead ones). Phew! I just have to think is long term...long term? Did I just say long term? This is definitely going to take some adjusting.

 

 

So, here it is, our "fixer". Please, if you have any ideas on how to make anything more functional or pretty don't be shy. Leave a comment!!! 

Out of the mouths of babes

Bre had her first parent-teacher conference of the year. Her first one with her kindergarten teacher was less then encouraging. Not because Bre was doing poorly, but because we felt like the testing that they did didn't properly reflect what we were seeing at home. That was when I pulled her out and started homeschooling. This conference was so different. Granted, she's a year older and she's grown tremendously, but still. [This is the part where I get to brag about how wonderful my kid is so if you don't want to hear it tune out now.]
Her teacher started out by saying how amazing she is. Breanne told us about something that happened to her at school last week and her teacher filled in the rest of the details. I'll tell you Bre's story first. She was at PE playing a game and her group didn't know that you were only supposed to take one item down at a time (like a relay, I'm guessing) and so they took more then one. Bre went up to her teacher and explained that they didn't mean to cheat. We were proud that she realized that she was doing something wrong and told the teacher, even though it was an accident. We got the rest of the story today.
It seems as though LOTS of the kids were cheating, things got kind of out of hand, tears were shed and it was Breanne that told the teacher and the other children that it was just a game and it wasn't about winning, but about having fun. The school has been working on respecting one another and the PE teacher felt this was a great example and pulled her up in front of the whole school on Friday and told the story. It was so funny to hear Breanne's version (she told us about the assembly and how the teacher told everyone what happened but it sounded like it was only a couple other classes there, not the whole school) and then to hear the teacher tell it. We got to see how she sees situations. I honestly think she didn't know that the kids ment to cheat, she just thought they didn't know the rules.
Her teacher also told us that she is reading at a 2nd grade level, doing math concepts that most of the other kids can't do and if we had put her in 3rd grade she wouldn't have been surprised.
We have noticed these things at home as well. She's blown us away with the ideas she comes up with and last Monday she even taught our family home evening lesson. She had ideas written on a piece of paper but she deviated from that to expound on certain things. She really is the most amazing child (there's no bias involved). We feel very honored to be chosen as her parents.
It's funny how you see your kids different personalities but Breanne's hitting that age that she's actually turning into her own person, developing qualities that will make her an adult (does that make sense?).
Kaity is still young and doesn't understand lots of things. She's still got her own personality but I can't wait until she gets to be where Bre is at and see what kind of decisions she will make when we're not around. She is starting to write out words like, "mom". That was a fun day when she asked me how to spell my name. I just told her the letters and she wrote them out. She's a little comedian too and doesn't even realize it some times. Her and Bre were telling each other "knock knock" jokes at the dinner table waiting for their food. Now they were telling them in the way you would tell the "interrupting cow" knock knock joke. So they say the answer as the other person is saying "_____ who?". Make sense? Anyway, Cameron and I were in the kitchen and this is what we heard,
(Kaity) "Knock, knock".
(Bre) "Who's there?"
(Kaity) "Jesus"
(Bre) "Jesus who?"
(Kaity) "Jews!!"
We don't know if she ment to say "jews", they were just making up really silly jokes that didn't make any sense, but that's what we heard. We could hardly contain ourselves, it was so random and honestly, really funny.
There's never a dull moment when those two are together.
Well, thanks for letting me brag about my children. They really are the greatest and now everyone else know that too ;)

Lucky #13

It happened again. We've moved. Really this blog is for people to know what state we currently reside in. Half the time I don't know.
Anyway, we packed up our stuff and moved our family BACK to the great state of Washington. We put in for a transfer to Portland, OR last month hoping that we would get it by the end of the year. Well, we got it. A little sooner then we thought but none the less, we got it. We posted our apt on craigslist in hopes that someone would pick it up and the right person fell into our laps. I was suppose to go to Portland the weekend these people came to look at apts for us but travel plans just weren't adding up. I called it off. As soon as I decided not to go I knew that the reason I was staying was because the person who needed our apt was going to come. Weird, I know. But she came and told me that we were an answer to her prayers. Little did she know that she was an answer to ours as well. She wanted to move in a week. AHH! I won't get into the details (it involves multiple moments of tears) I'll just say that it was a very stressful week. But enough about that. It's done. We're here in Vancouver, WA. So far so good. Maybe move #13 will slow us down a bit, huh? I don't think so either, but we can always hope.

Other things happening:
I started online classes the beginning of Sept. I had the crazy idea that I could handle a full course load. I'm 2 credits shy of a full load and I'm still feeling like I'm going to drown. Silly me. Why did I want to go back to school. It's hard for me to remember right now. I'll just keep going and hope it jogs my memory soon.

Breanne started first grade a few weeks before we left. She was heartbroken when we told her about the job transfer. She was making friends and trading friendship bracelettes. She even confided in me one day that she was in love with Aiden. It was so cute how she went about it too. She was standing behind the couch kind of figiting. She said, "Mom, I want to tell you something, but I don't want to tell you." I thought for sure she did something bad by the way she was acting. I just wanted to know what it was.
"Bre just tell me and get it over with, please." I was worried what it might be. Did she break something? Do something? Wet her pants? C'mon kid, what is it?
"I think I'm in love with Aiden." Luckily, I knew this Aiden kid because I had been helping out in her class a couple days a week. He was a bit of a class clown, but a smart kid. And I have to admit that she knows how to pick out the cute ones (she gets that from me). All in all it made me feel good that she wanted to confide in me. We did have a talk about what "loving" someone means and that she can date boys when she's 16. Sorry, kiddo, you got 10 years.

Kaity has beed awfully lonely without her sister around during the day. Her favorite part of the day is picking Bre up from school. She asks me multiple times during the day if it's time to go get sissy. There's been a couple days when Cam has been home and Kaity's been asleep when it's time to get her. I decide just to run and get her real quick. When Kaity wakes up she is so mad, It doesn't matter that Bre is home she's upset because she didn't get to go. It's cute when she does come. We stand in the grass waiting for her. Kaity keeps asking,  "Do you see her yet?" As soon as we do she runs to her and gives her a big hug. It's sweet to watch.

Cameron is still doing what he does best. His schedule changes on a monthly basis so it keeps us on our toes. Never want to get too comfortable. His new routes from Portland wont be near as interesting as the ones out of Fresno, but he says it's worth being close to family. I have to agree with him. We're only been here a couple of days but his parents came and stayed with us one night and my sister came down to help unpack. That was fun. I've missed spending time with her and I love that Sophia finally got to come visit us. We even got to go shopping, my sister and I, at IKEA. Wonderful. It was my second time there in 3 days. I see an addiction forming. She bought us a "house warming" gift. In reality she helped unpack my dishes and took pity on me. Either way, I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. I smile everytime I open my cabinet.

Other then all that, life is good. Our girls are getting so big. They're not so little anymore and I really wish we could have that stage of life again. It is fun to see them grow though. Anywhoo, here's to Lucky #13!!