Thanksgiving, Christmas, House and More

We had an absolutely lovely Thanksgiving with our families despite me being sick with a horrid cold all week.  My mom had a great idea this year, and brought gingerbread houses for each of the girls to decorate as our post-Thanksgiving dinner activity.  The girls loved decorating while Dads and Grandpa slept and watched football.

We usually decorate gingerbread houses at some point during the Christmas season, but this worked out perfectly.  I have a feeling that this will become a new tradition!

Our Christmas season has been fairly low-key.  My mom took all of the grandgirls to see Mary Poppins on stage.  It was a fun day for sure!  Claire and Meredith have been running all of the Advent activities in our house this year.  It's been a nice break for me, and they have been enjoying being in charge.  They are getting so competent in so many ways.  I just love it!

This week has brought on a bought of sickness from a couple of kiddos in our house, but what's new?  This is the week each and every year that someone tosses their cookies in my house.  We always host a large Christmas party for our friends on the Friday before Christmas, and each year someone is puking.  I fear those germs every year, but our friends continue to come back!  They must not be getting too sick from being here. :)

In other exciting news, my new refrigerator arrived yesterday!  Our old one has not been able to hold an appropriate temperature in the freezer or refrigerator for months (consistently 5-10 degrees warmer than it should be).  It has an unacceptable amount of moisture in it always, and despite cleaning it over and over again, I can't get the mold to stay away.  It truly disgusts me beyond what you can imagine.  The old one is a side by side and barely has room to put anything like a cookie sheet or a casserole dish.  I have hated it for years and have often wished that I could have back my old refrigerator from our other house that we purchased at a garage sale for $35.  It was old and ugly, but it worked beautifully.

I wanted to hug the delivery guys yesterday morning when they arrived.  I loaded it with our food and am amazed at the additional amount of space that I have a available.  Our new fridge has the french style doors at the top with the freezer at the bottom.  I have an entire shelf in the middle that has nothing on it!!  The usable space is lovely.  Feeling so blessed today as I get ready to eat my cereal with COLD milk. :)

In house news, the drywallers are finishing up this week in our addition!  So excited about that.  Josh is taking the week off between Christmas and the New Year to work on getting some things completed.  Our new driveway is completely done, and things are definitely moving in the right direction.  We are getting so close to parking in the garage!!  I am giddy.

I'm sure there is more, but that's all I've got for now.  I hope all of you are having a nice Christmas season! Hugs to everyone!

home sweet home addition

Our house.  We purchased our house seven years ago.  It was repossessed.  It was disgusting.  And that is a kind description, really.  

Really.

The short version of the story is this: We walked into the house, and part of the ceiling was lying on the floor.  I looked at Josh and said, "We are not buying this house."  

Josh is a visionary...not to mention he was obsessed with the 5 acres, the barn, and the 1/4 mile long driveway.  He was in love.  I was disgusted.  

We discussed it.  It met and surpassed all of my expectations except for the condition of the house (we were looking for a paint and carpet house since we had two kids and were trying for a third).  

We put an offer in, we found out we were pregnant with Amelia the follow week, and our offer was accepted a couple of weeks after that.  

We couldn't believe that we owned it.  It was amazing, exciting, and overwhelming.  

Josh worked tirelessly...and then some.  Of course, there was so much more work to do than expected.  We thought we weren't going to have to redo everything.  We were wrong.  The house was torn down to the studs, and Josh worked on it for 7 months straight.  Amelia was born 17 days after we moved in.  

There was only one major thing missing from our house.  An attached garage.  It originally had a garage, but a previous owner had turned the garage into a family room and a laundry room.  So, no garage.  

We have wanted to add a garage since day 1.  There is never a good time.  

Then, we had to decide where to put this garage and if there would be more than a garage.  Our house was built in the 70s.  It is obvious to me that people who designed houses in the 70s had z.e.r.o. clue that people need to STORE things in their houses.  Closets, anyone?!  Seriously.

Please allow me to whine for a moment about my "first world problems".  

We have closets, but they are itty-bitty.  Josh and I share the one in our bedroom.  Claire, Meredith, and Amelia share one in their bedroom.  Olivia shares the one in her room with all of our homeschool curriculum, winter coats, Halloween costumes, the pack 'n play, and kites.  

Seriously, though, we only have 3 small closets in our house.  Three...for six people.  We had a front coat closet when we first moved into the house.  We stored all of our coats, hats/mittens/scarves/etc, our luggage, and all of our board games/similar items there.

Then our furnace died.  And it was in the attic.  And the furnace guy said that the new furnace had to go in the coat closet.  Cue dread from Jackie.  

I had to find new places for all of the things in the closet.  And these aren't random we-don't-need-these-things items.  I'm not a hoarder.  I get rid of so much stuff on a continual basis around here.  Josh accuses me of not having a sentimental bone in my body. 

So, we currently have 3 bedrooms plus an office (doesn't have a closet {of course!}, so it's not considered a bedroom).

When we decided on the addition, we needed an entryway to the existing house.  The most logical place was our current office.  However, if we enter through the office, we can't use the office as an office.  

The current office is hardly usable because it tends to be the "catch all" room in the house.  It currently houses two desks (one for each of us), a huge utility shelving unit that holds pantry-type food/our canning jars/old photos/etc, a bookshelf, our safe, random Christmas things that can't go in the barn, my nice cooler, and 126 other things that are randomly piled everywhere.

It is a disaster.  I organize it once or twice a year, and it never holds because it's just a catch-all.  Horrid.  I just keep closing the door.  

Okay, so with this being our new entryway into the house, we needed a new office.  What else are we lacking?  Storage.  

Josh cannot stand the thought of adding on to our house and not doing it right.  We're already spending the time, money, and energy.  No regrets.  We're planning on staying here forever.  No regrets.  Storage room, it is!  

One thing that I've always disliked about our current house is the entrance and entryway.  It is small, tight, awkward.  I could go on...I'm whining again, I know.  So, we're getting a beautiful new entryway.  

Our current office will be converted into half entryway, half pantry.  I am so spoiled.  

Do not let me complain about anything house-related again...ever...I mean it.

The new entryway meant that we needed a new driveway to the new side of the house.  

Can I take a moment to completely brag on my amazing husband?  He designed all of this himself.  This man continues to impress me with his skills.  How do you learn how to do things like this?!  I have no idea, but I'm beyond thankful for it.    

And here is where we (finally!) begin with the photos, which are in chronological order...

This is our current driveway.  It continues forward, then curves around to the left.  This will remain the same...we're just adding the new driveway there on  the left where you see the dirt/opening in the trees.  This photo was taken pre-construction, and you can see our house back there on the left.

The concrete guys pouring the foundation!!  They were supposed to start at the end of January.  This was the beginning of October.  Patience, patience, patience. :)

Josh even got in on the action.  The foundation is being poured!

Foundation complete!  This photo was taken from the back yard.

This is the opening for our new driveway.  I love it.  I'm standing right in front of our future garage looking down to where the current driveway crosses.  We are considering connecting them in front of the house, but our septic system sits near that location.  We'll see if we can make it happen.

This is kind of a hard one to see, but this shows what is already there.  House in the middle, barn to the right, the new addition is going out the left side of the current house.

The builders came early on a Monday morning.  These TWO guys were incredible.  It was amazing to walk away for an hour and come back to see what they had accomplished.  

This is after Day 1.  This is our new entryway: porch, front door, a window on each side.  The garage is on the left (not pictured).  The office is behind the entryway.  

This is after Day 2.  Sorry for the crooked picture.

The backside after Day 2.  The opening that you see is one of the windows in the office.  The remainder of the wall to the right of the window is the storage room that goes across the back of the garage.

Day 3.  Eek!!  The design of the roof makes it look ginormous.  It's all aesthetic (plus attic storage!!).  

Day 3.  See those big tire ruts?  Yeah, a large delivery truck got stuck there for a couple of hours during Day 3.  

Another view.

Backside.

Day 5.  Amazing.

Up close.  

They did everything in 7 days.  It is now roofed and wrapped as well.  Once all of our doors arrive, they'll come back and install them.  

Now comes the hard part.  The DIY part.  We've barely picked anything inside the house...lots of ideas just nothing in stone.  There will be plenty of decision making to do over the next several months.

We are super excited to use these new spaces. I can't wait to have a garage!!  

lumberjack josh

Josh and Brian purchased a log splitter this spring, and Josh has turned into a complete lumberjack over the last month.  

He even has a helper:

The best part is that Claire is finally at an age where the term helper actually means helper and not just "helper".  :)  He commented several times how great of a worker she was.

Lumberjack Josh now has two full wood stacks out back along with a couple of smaller ones in other places.  There have been rumors that a wood stove is in our future.  I think we're ready for it!

b.i.f. twenty-six

The dinosaur has left the building.

Josh and I haven't ever been "techie" people.  Seriously, between the two of us, I think we had one old television when we got married (even older than the one in the picture!).  Nothing else.  At the time, someone gave us an old VCR, and we used some wedding money to purchase a surround sound system which served us well until a few months ago (it will be replaced in the near future).

Josh has been itching to get a flat screen for several years, but he just couldn't bring himself to spend the money. The dinosaur was beginning to act up to the point where we had to smack it on the side to make Tinker Bell show up correctly.  We're classy like that.  It was definitely time to make the transition to the flat screen, and it has been a good one.  We're never turning back...good riddance.

summer in pictures

Two boys with their new toy.  There are benefits to having your friends as neighbors.  (And I just love how Josh and Brian are dressed alike...so sweet.)

{new mirror}

Look at what my awesome hubby made for me!! We made a slight rearrangement to our bedroom a few weeks back, and it freed up an entire corner of our bedroom.

Josh said, "What should we put there?" I said, "How about a full-length mirror!" He loved the idea. We don't have one in any other part of our house, and I kind of miss having one. Our cheapy one broke shortly after we moved into this house...I can't even remember what happened to it.  Although, busted glass in the entryway on the tile floor needing cleaned up is suddenly coming to the surface of my mind.

Anyway, so he was working in the barn on a "surprise" for a couple of weeks, and I came home the other night to find this beauty in our bedroom!

I'm absolutely in love with the one from IKEA that costs $125. This one? It cost Josh a total of about $10 because we already had the wood in the barn as well as the mirror!! When we purchased our house, there were mirrors EVERYWHERE...and I mean everywhere. It was kind of creepy, but that's another story.

The mirror that was in the barn was too big, and the glass shop in town only charged $7.50 to cut it to the size that Josh wanted. How awesome is that?!!  Add a couple cans of black spray paint and you've got yourself a project.

We've been wanting to do a total bedroom makeover for quite some time, and I'm so excited that this mirror is the beginning of the process! The new headboard is designed, and hopefully it will be built yet this spring. The dressers are going to get a coat {or 6} of black paint and some new hardware. Heck, we'll probably even hang some stuff on the wall. {Ok, that's definitely happening.}

I want to thank IKEA for the idea, Pinterest for the DIY post that got me thinking about it in the first place, and my super handy hubby who thinks he can build almost anything. Yay for perfectionists with classic style who like to please their wives...you're the best! :)

$4.wreath

Can I brag on my hubby and his skills again? (Hunting skills, nunchuck skills, computer hacking skills...for all of you Napoleon fans out there.)

Check out my wreath! Josh just threw it together a couple of weeks ago. Why buy a wreath when you can make one out of the branches that you cut off the bottom of the Christmas tree? Isn't it great?! I'm mean, for free and all! :) (On a side note, I saw one at the grocery store on sale for $14.99, it was 1/2 the size, and it wasn't nearly as pretty as this one.)

Another view....

It needed a little somethin'-somethin', so I headed to Target and bought some red ball ornaments in the dollar spot ($1...with 5 left over), and a cute little "Let It Snow" ornament for $3. Yay! Just what it needed for a whopping $4.

Thank you, honey, for your wreath-making skills. Our front door looks so festive! :) Merry Christmas everyone!!

playroom.makeover

Can I tell you how excited I am about our playroom makeover?!  I have been wanting to seriously organize everything for a long time, but I just couldn't figure out how I wanted to do it.  

I started to doing some research, and I decided to browse the Container Store for some ideas.  Have you seen their prices?  Yikes!  So, I sent Josh this picture:

You know, it WAS on sale for $350 (and it was just the shelving and that container on wheels...no containers)...now back to the regular price of $450.  What?  You think that's too much?  I do.  I figured my handy-dandy hubby could figure out how to do it for much less. 

And what do you know...totally happened.  Thankfully, we had 4 of those shelves in our barn already that weren't being utilized.  That saved us a pretty penny in itself.  We had to purchase one extra shelf (which hasn't arrived yet...it will this week and will be the highest shelf), the brackets, and the containers.  There will also be 3 larger brown bins under the shelving that will house toddler toys, dolls, and stuffed animals.  The store where we're buying them has them on order, but they haven't arrived yet.  SO EXCITED!

On our girls' weekend a couple of weeks ago, we hit an IKEA, and I purchased all of the other containers!  Love them.  Love them.  Love them.

We'll see if our organization lasts.  I'm hoping so because I love it!

Now, I just have to talk my sister into working her publisher magic and making me some labels for my bins! 

mushroom.huntin'

The end of April/beginning of May is prime mushroom huntin' season! Josh wandered out into the woods and found a few really nice morels this past weekend. He was soooo excited! I'm sure this will be an annual tradition!

some.spring.cleaning

Ok, so I didn't get my spring cleaning done last week...not all of it anyway. I had poison ivy which was a blessing and a curse. Poison ivy: bad. Prednisone: good. I had lots of energy! :)

I did get a little spring cleaning done, but more importantly, I finished up an apron...pictures after she gets it....and made birthday presents! And I spent a TON of time with my kids.

Honestly, I'm kind of starting to dislike my computer. So, I'm definitely going to try to blog less (especially during the day) and says lots of yeses to my kiddos when they want to play. Hey, I'm a poet and didn't know it. (And some of you are wondering why you're still reading my blog!) :)

Ok, so here's a little spring cleaning action...this is my catch-all drawer that has the can opener/ice cream scoop/garlic press/chip clips/pot holders/oven mitts/pizza cutter/pretty much anything that doesn't go in any other drawer. You get the picture.

I hate this drawer. There seems to be a major lack of organization in there. And it's not even so much the disorganization that I hate...it's that I can't get it closed sometimes AND there's a ton of stuff that I don't use for 11.5 months out of the year (see the turkey baster way back there??? I've never even made a turkey in my oven.)

So here are the before and after pictures:

So, Jackie, what did you do with half of the stuff that was in there??? Drum roll please.....I give you the kitchen box that has stuff that I really do use just not very often:

I did this at our other house, and I'm not quite sure why it didn't make the transition over here. What happened to that box? It wasn't labeled...that was the problem!

I took out all of the medicine droppers that really should be with the medicine. I took out the tongs that I never use unless we're having a party. I took out the heart shaped cookie cutters (most of them!) because we really only need a couple to cut heart shapes out of pancakes or bologna. We don't need our corn on the cob handles in the middle of winter, nor do I need that turkey baster just taking up room.

These things were cluttering up my drawer! I DO use them, so I didn't want to get rid of them, but for cryin' out loud...how have they been living in my drawer for this long?

Ok, I'm all better. And you'll find my extra kitchen utensils under my bed. Labeled. In a box. Yes, I said under my bed....it's accessible and I'll remember and I can't think of a better place for them for the time being.

I've also cleaned my refrigerator, the coffee pot, the microwave (although I noticed that it's dirty again), my front entryway, and 1/2 of the main bathroom. I'm getting there, but we're having fun again this week.

One of my other new mottos? "A clean house is the sign of a wasted life." :) Well...just kind of...it can't be disgusting!

spring.cleaning.day.3

It should be days 3, 4, and 5, but I'm pretending that I got it all done in 1 day.  Having 3 kids in the house and home schooling doesn't make for a lot of time in my day that I feel like spring cleaning!

But, I do have a renewed spirit because I'm seeing progress!  Here are before and afters of my kitchen counters!

Main area:

Stove and area to the left of the stove (which is a catch-all location of the kitchen...1 of 3 hot spots):

And the mail/phone/calendar area (one of the hot spots).  And how crazy is it that my wall colors look so different??!!!  Lighting, lighting, lighting:

So I pretty much did the following:

1.  I put everything AWAY that didn't belong on the counter.  That took care of a ton of it! 

2.  The mail holder needed to move, so it crossed the kitchen to the other side of the counter.  I hate having it in the kitchen, and Josh tells me that we can move it to the office once the office is in workable condition!  Yay! 

3.  Our keys, phones, and Josh's knives/wallet/watches always collect on my calendar.  It drives me crazy that it's all sitting out there.  So, I headed to the local dollar store and found that cute little blue container (2 for $1!) so those items have a place to land.  It will be Mod Podged to coordinate with my box soon!

The kitchen feels soooo much better these days!

spring.cleaning.days.1.and.2

So here's spring cleaning days 1 and 2. You're not going to be too impressed because our family room is already pretty well childproof/minimalist/plain. There's not much to it because our kids would break things. And we don't have any shelving. Or toys in this room. Or anything to make it look overly cluttery (when it's tidy).

You will be happy to know that I woke up Monday morning and didn't pick up a thing! I walked all around and took pictures of each room/space just so you can see how messy my house really gets when no one has picked anything up for 3 days.

And even my "after" pictures of the family room don't show a lot (other than me having put the laundry away), but I did CLEAN everything. The fan, the t.v. stand, the windows, the trim and base, vacuumed under the cushions, washed all the throw blankets.

And now we come to the inside of the t.v. stand. Again, not overly messy or unorganized, although everything was crammed in there.  Here's what I did to organize:

• took everything out
• divided everything into piles: ours/theirs
• divided those piles: keep/give back (borrowed)/donate
• our movies/CDs went in the back of the top shelf (we only have a few and don't watch them that often)
• most of the girls' DVDs and CDs were put in the ladybug disc holder (this encourages them to just pull out the ladybug instead of everything in the cabinet!)
• the cases for those items were put in the back of the bottom shelf
• the VHS tapes (yes, we have a few!) were put in the front for easy acess, as were the more often viewed DVDs that didn't fit into the ladybug holder
• ahhhh.  much better.

Now, nobody touch anything or bring anything into the room!!! :)

The kitchen is next, and you'll definitely get some good contrast of pictures!

spring.cleaning

A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded Simple Mom's Spring Cleaning for Normal People.  It's $7...that's it...and you download it right onto your computer.

I haven't even read the first page, but I'm so excited about it.  I think I'm going to start reading it tonight during the commercials of the basketball games!  It's only 68 pages (and they're short pages...not full length); it's not overwhelming at all!

I would l.o.v.e. it if a few of you downloaded it as well and we could be spring cleaning at the same time!  I'm going to be doing mine starting the weeks of March 29 and April 5.  I'm not sure how long it takes to spring clean, but I'm going to do it. 

Not only that, I'm going to post some before and after pictures!  You all might think that my house is clean all the time (because I clean it before you come!), but it's not...just ask my mom.  (She has horror stories about my master bathroom trash.) 

Here is a sample of a before picture that you might see:

I wish I had an after picture for you, but I don't.  Thankfully this was last year and my counter doesn't currently look like this!  But I'll be taking pictures of what's *inside* my cabinets.  Ick.  I don't even want to think about it right now.

Let me know if you think that you might clean along.  We'll all be in this together!  Anybody with me???

UPDATE:  I have officially read the entire e-book!  It only takes about an hour.  Several of the pages have cleaning supplies lists, checklists, etc.  AND the best part is at the back of the book where she shares simple homemade cleaning supplies!  I'm definitely going to be making a few of them. 

Christmas.tree

Our Christmas tree is decorated! I love it so much that I had to make it my header. Plus, the pumpkin was just SO last season.

The girls loved decorating it so much! So, if you see ornaments on the same branch or bulbs that are right next to each other, we're just going with it. I was going to even things out, but why?!! I find it rather adorable! :)

the.painted.bathroom

The bathroom is near completion!

Mirror, lights, counter:

Toilet...this picture and the last picture are the most accurate pictures of the color (the other ones make it look tan, but it's Valspar's "almost gold"). And we've had people look at it and say, "Well, you know, it's almost gold." Yes it is!

Linen cabinet, lights (you can see the shower curtain in the mirror.

Shower curtain rod. Endorsement here: if you don't have a curved shower curtain rod, you should consider getting one. You get so much extra space in the bathroom!

I'll post some before and after pics in the near future!

baby.shower

Oh my goodness did we have a good time at Jill's baby shower! I cannot wait until this baby girl arrives...I'm going to be such a baby hog. That is, if I can steal her from my mom.

Here are some pics from the shower. These are just the detail ones...I'll have some fun ones of Jill and me and the girls later! Enjoy!!

You're driving down the road, and of course we live in the country and not too many people have been to my house. And even if they have, they just might miss the driveway...I did several times even after we moved in. So, I made little signs for the end of the driveway...

And then one in the middle of the driveway where ours splits with the neighbor's. If you've not been to my house, you don't know which driveway is ours!!! I wanted our guests to go the right way!

On a side note, I totally scored with those pumpkins. I wanted to get real pumpkins, but you can't find pumpkins once Halloween is over. What a crock. Anyway, because it was almost Thanksgiving, I got those puppies at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago 80% off! No joke. Originally $16.99 each...got them for $3.40 each. What a deal...and they are awesome looking.

Not like you couldn't figure out which door was the front door (yes, there was a time when you had 3 to choose from), but I really wanted a pink fluffy wreath for the outside.

Some yummy cupcakes.

And chocolate covered peanuts for favors. My big girls filled the bags...they were so happy to help!

Can't wait to meet your baby, Jill!