House for Sale!

As of today, our house is officially on the market!  I know I already showed you a few pictures of our kitchen updates, but I wanted to show off a few more before and after pictures.

before

after

before

after

upstairs bathroom before

after

sort of before....more like in-progress I realized I should have taken a before picture

after

before/in-progress

after

downstairs bathroom when we bought it.  it was yellow for a while.  it's much better now.

after

Easter Pictures

Matthew's face is the best.

my boys

and the girls

Home Improvement

In case you haven't heard the news, we're moving!  It's just one town over, so no major life changes. And we're buying it from a friend, so there's no listing for you to go check out pictures.  Sorry.  Our plan is to move sometime in May.
In anticipating this move, we've been gradually doing some home improvements over the past few months.  Now that it's really happening, we're working a lot faster!  In the kitchen, we painted the cabinets and hardware, and this past weekend Scott painted (yes, painted) the counter tops!  It was his plan and vision from start to finish.  He researched, bought a kit, and did all the work.  The result is quite impressive!

Here are "before" pictures.  They are from when we bought the house because, apparently, that's the only time you specifically take pictures of your kitchen. 

So we haven't quite finished ALL the cabinet doors yet, but the bottom ones look nice, right?

first coat

then sponge on three shades of brown

add a clear finish, and you're done!

now we just have to finish those cabinet doors....

Cell phone pics

And now it's time to play.....what's on Deb's cell phone!

Our buddy Samuel came over to play one day, and this is the masterpiece he and Hannah created.

Brimfield got new recycling bins.  It gave us something to talk about for days.

This was from a sick day a few weeks ago (playing a game Aunt Julie got for his birthday).  Sadly, a stomach bug hit all the boys in our family this past week, requiring another sick day from school.

Riding his bike that Nana and Papa got him for Christmas.  His shirt says "I wake up awesome."  It's true.

Hannah wearing a dress that my mom made for me.  I'm sure I have a picture of me wearing it, but I'm too lazy to find it right now.

random post-bath photo opp.

Matthew loves his "Baby Tinley" (It's fitting that he can't pronounce her name, since he called Jackson "Sonny" for at least six months.  And Micah used to call Carter "Tartar".  Gurley kids - butchering the Oyster kids' names since 2009.)

"Crazy Hair Day" at school.  Micah wanted an American flag look.  

Micah's basketball season just ended.  I took no good pictures.  

Another terrible picture - the second grade reciting a poem at a school assembly.  Micah is behind the kid with the orange striped hat.

I got my hair cut.

 And finally....
I was texting with Meghan last night around 8 o'clock and was surprised to hear the doorbell ring.  I walked over to look out the window, still holding my phone.




Our conversation went like this:

Me:..a little longer...hold on.  There's a goat on my porch.
Meghan: What!!?
Me:

Right.  No one was around.  We obviously thought of Leah, who has a history of leaving us livestock, but she lives out of state now.  Scott's strategy was to ignore it, and it would go away.  I felt bad that the hat was over his head and decided to go out.  When I opened the garage door, Leah's brother was there, and the rest of the family came out of hiding.  I should have suspected she was home for a visit.  :)  

Daddy-Daughter Date

Hannah and Scott got to go on a special date last weekend put on by Chayil (her Wednesday night group at church).

The boys wanted to get in on the picture-taking.

Scott said Hannah didn't want to dance with him most of the time - just with her friends.  Here she is with Ally Hay and a few of our other good friends.

 

You may remember that our little Gurley-girl (who just hit 5 1/2 this week) had some success with riding a two-wheeler at the end of last summer.  However, she struggled after that and went back to using training wheels for a while.  Yesterday she told me she was ready for no training wheels again, and she was right!