Making A House A Home

As mentioned in the post prior to this one, we closed on the house Wed. Sept. 14th. We have been very busy painting, unpacking, organizing, and painting some more. First, I must apologize to Amber for using the pics I took when we first saw the house as my 'before' pictures. In no way am I implying that I thought your home 'before' picture worthy. I actually really liked the way you decorated...and wasn't planning on painting right away. That was the plan until many sleepless nights during the long closing process. I'd lay awake in bed creating to-do lists and re-arranging furniture in my mind. Eventually I started seeing different colors on the walls. I forgot to take pics while the house was empty before moving. Der! Anyway. I also want to say that these are some very premature 'after' pics. I still have A LOT to do to get things just right. So expect to see more 'afters' in the near future. But for now, enjoy!

I was immediately drawn to the 'rustic country' style and many gorgeous antiques in the home.

If you know me at all, you are aware my favorite color in the world is green. I wanted a really fresh & bright dining room. I LOVE colored walls with white trim (que 'gasp' for those of you who think painting wood work is w.r.o.n.g.). I've got to say--the colors of this room (and all the others, for that matter) most likely DO NOT translate well onto your computer screen. In reality they are much more subtle. At least compared to what is showing on my screen.

I took these pics yesterday and already I've re-arranged the furniture in the room. I told ya...it's a work in progress!

I {love} these curtains. They are a burlap-y texture and a really nice neutral sand color. That window was a BEAST to paint. You can't really see because the curtains are covering, but there are windows on both sides of the big one that's showing. The end results were totally worth it.

Once the trim around the door was white I just had to paint the white door.

This lamp used to be black with an ugly crackle finish. Now I love it!

The living room was a nice neutral taupe color. Notice the 'home sweet home' vinyl in brown above the doorway. I LOVED that when we first saw the house.

We took a risk and decided to paint the living room a pumpkin orange color. Originally we wanted red. But red is so over-done and we thought we'd get tired of it quickly. We loved the orange right away. But even more once we hung the curtains and got our stuff in the room. I've had almost all of my decor for years and years. It amazed me how well it all fit into the orange room. It was meant to be! We still need to paint the trim in this room white. That will make a huge difference in the overall look. (we're not painting the banister, it's beautiful as is)

I really didn't want to lose the 'home sweet home' on the wall. We decided to paint over the vinyl and see what it looked like if we pulled it off. The original taupe color underneath blended too well with the orange. Then I thought to paint it white by hand. It worked! I can't wait to see how it will look when the trim is white.

The kitchen used to be a creamy color. We went with a bright yellow. I've always wanted a bright yellow kitchen. I can't wait to go look for some funky fabric and make a window treatment. We're also going to re-do the floor in the kitchen & dining room next month (hopefully). And get new/updated counter top. But that won't happen for a while.

L O V E this floor to ceiling storage. It's all over the house.

My 'utility' closet. I am happy to have a place to put the vacuum where it's easy to get to!

The bathroom was already this awesome green color. Our stuff looked perfect with it. All we gotta do is paint the trim (of course!).

There you go! We are currently working on our bedroom. Our bedding is apple green, gray, and white. We painted the walls a silvery gray color and are going to start priming the trim tonight. It's going to be a lot of work. But it'll look great when it's done. Our new couch comes Thursday! My parents are picking it up in Des Moines on their way down to visit. I can't wait!!! Later taters.

September Highlights

September has proven to be one of the busiest months this year. We spent the first half of the month packing up our rental in Osceola, IA. We closed on our house in Chariton, IA on September 14th. We moved Saturday the 17th. We have been working tirelessly making this new house our home (pics to follow later today). In between all of that many major milestones were reached. And we managed to squeeze some fun in there as well. Enjoy this reel of highlights!

You know how animals pick up on when major changes are ensuing? Well, all month long Amos saw us packing and watched the boxes piling up in our rental. He knew something was up but was doing a good job rolling with it. That was until one night he snapped. We had closed on the house and were gone most of the day/evening for that. That night we were packing up the first load of stuff we were going to bring over to the new house the next day. Mike was in and out loading the car and Amos was tagging along. At one point he jumped up into his seat in the car and absolutely would not come out. He must have been nervous we were leaving and not taking him with us. He wouldn't even budge for deli ham (one of his favorite treats). It literally took us a half hour to convince him to get out of the car. We made good on our promise when he got to go to the house the all the next day with me while I painted. It didn't take him long to approve of the house & yard!

Our moving crew! We had 9 strapping men, a 24' horse trailer, and very large farm truck help us move. It took 2 loads and about 6 hours to get the job done. We are so grateful for our friends from church who have not only willingly, but happily helped us out with such a big job. We love our new friends in Iowa!

Now that we have a big house to fill we have fallen in love with Goodwill and second-hand stores. We've acquired 3 'new' chairs, 4 'new' lamps, 5 'new' mirrors, tons of completely unique knick-knacky things, countless toys, books, and dvds for Evelyn, and many-many other things for just a fraction of their retail price. I have always loved taking something that is "eh" and turning into something that is "Oooooo!" It's safe to say that I have enough projects & re-dos to keep me busy for literally months. It's totally worth it though. I live for this! It's just that we can't pass a thrift shop now with out going in.

Earlier this month Evelyn started pulling herself up on things. Momma was quick to get the camera and capture the first time. We were washing her new toys from goodwill & she was checking on the progress.

Mike's 30th birthday almost got lost in the shuffle of all that has been going on this month. Luckily I had a reminder set up in my phone. Although I would have LOVED to throw him a surprise party, we ended up having a special, low-key celebration. Evelyn and I surprised him at work with a new plant for his office and some ridiculously colorful and festive balloons. Then I cooked him a scrumptious dinner. Which we enjoyed by candle-light in our new dining room. We ended the night with banana creme pie (one of his faves). It turned out to be a really great birthday.

One of the best parts of our new home is that it is only 6 blocks from Mike's work. He now has a 2 minute commute rather than a 30 minute commute! He has been able to walk to work on these beautiful fall days. He comes home for lunch every afternoon. And Evelyn and I get to pop in and say hi from time to time. Everyone at the office absolutely adores her...she's going to be so spoiled! (but in a good way, I hope). Daddy keeps mini tootsie pops on his desk--as you can see Ev loves them.

Evelyn had her first play-date this past Friday. Corbin came to play for the day. Can you believe by looking at them that he is only a month older than Evelyn (she's almost 10 mos, he's almost 11). He is HUGE and she is tiny. She wears size 1 shoes...he's in a size 6(!!!). She's in 9 month size clothes...he's in 18 mos to 2T! He runs around the house and she trails behind crawling as fast as she can. They were so cute together. We can't wait for him to come again tomorrow!

This past Saturday we ventured up to an apple orchard in Des Moines. To be honest, it was quite a disappointment. The advertisement we saw in the paper promised 'family fun'. That wasn't the case at all. But we did get some good pictures & honey crisp apples (that weren't ripe yet). So it was worth it in the end. The best part was that there was a brand new goodwill down the road! We hit that up.

There you have it. We have had both a very busy & very fun month. We hope you're enjoying this beautiful fall. And we can't wait for you to come visit. We've got plenty of room!

P.S. We'll send out an email with our new contact info. Sorry it's taken so long : (

Saturday Morning Pancakes

Who doesn't love a nice, relaxed Saturday morning? We sure do. Evelyn let us sleep in until 7:30 this morning. This was a treat since she's been favoring 5:30am all week. We all snuggled in bed - Amos included. And then we did our favorite thing to do on a quiet Saturday morning...we made pancakes!

Evelyn {l o v e s} frozen blueberries. I, however, do not like the stains they leave on her clothes.

Daddy is the pancake maker. Check out the fancy 'E' pancake he made for Evelyn. Cute!

Ev with a blue stained blueberry face, enjoying her first taste of pancake.

"I LOVE PANCAKES!!!!!" I think in the last picture of this series she's really concerned about running out of pancakes.

No worries Ev, we won't run out of pancakes for a loooong time! We thought we were genius' by making little bite-size pancake snacks for Evelyn with the left over batter. I call them "Jackson Pollok Pancakes". Mike had no idea what I was talking about. Jackson Pollok is a famous contemporary artist who invented 'drip art'. It made perfect sense to me.

We have a fun day ahead of us. After Evelyn's morning nap we're heading up to West Des Moines. I have a meeting with the owner of a gallery called The Lagniappe. Hopefully she'll start carrying Karena Bella Jewelry! Then we're going to Lowes to buy paint and some other stuff we'll need for our new house. And we're gonna finish up the day at Buffalo Wild Wings for some dinner. We're enjoying one last quiet weekend for a while. We'll be moving a week from right now. You could call this the calm before the storm.

Hope you have an awesome weekend!

Labor Day Weekend

I can't remember the last time we had such a great weekend. We had company for dinner Friday night. Saturday Mike and I went on a 'real' date. We got a babysitter and went out without Evelyn for the first time since my birthday (Feb 27th). We went window shopping for furniture, to Biaggi's (Italian) for dinner, to the mall to bum around, to Cheesecake Factory for dessert, and to Starbucks/Barnes & Noble to hang out. It was an awesome time! But the fun didn't end there. Sunday night we had our good friends Carlee & Jerry over to play some Uno and hang out. Then Monday was a jam packed with fun. We had a picnic with our friends and the missionaries (who are absolutely hilarious!). On our way out of the park from our picnic we ran into a big group of people we know from church. They were celebrating their daughter's 16th birthday by having an 'ice blocking' party. The pictures will tell you the rest of the story (and what ice blocking is, if you don't know):

Take a block of ice & cover the top with a towel...

...then ride down a hill on it. That's ice blocking. I gotta tell ya, I haven't seen something this entertaining in a very long time!

One of our missionary friends makes these 'para cord' bracelets. They are all the rage right now. He made Evelyn and I a matching set.

Face plant!

Amos had quite a good time chasing everyone up and down the hill. He won the hearts of everyone! He's such a good boy. Although, he kept eating at the ice blocks.

Would you look at that cute little face!

This is our sweet friend Carlee.

And this would be Jerry. He's...well, he's lots of fun! We'll just leave it at that.

After our fun and crazy afternoon Mike went to shoot guns with some friends. Iowa is definitely rubbing off on us. Watch out - next time you see us we'll be wearing cowboy boots, overalls and reliving every detail of the Iowa vs Iowa State football game. Just kidding! We really love it here.

The fun has come to an end and it is now time to get this place packed up and ready to move in a week and a half. We close on the house next Wednesday and move that Saturday. We are bracing ourselves for all the excitement and stress that come with moving. We'll try to keep in touch, but don't hold your breath ; )