Tour of the House-Part 2

Part 2 pictures consist of the living room/sitting area, kitchen and hallway/entryway. Here is the huge living room window. I didn't open the curtains all the way because I am not good at taking pictures, much less taking pictures that involve glass that can reflect light. It is a bay window and takes up a good portion of this wall. Part of the living room area.

Here is an area we are still working on what to do with it. The former owners had a very fancy (and expensive) chess table sitting here. The chandelier is too low for our kitchen table( which is now downstairs), and too small an area for our dining room table. So for now, it will be a sitting area. At some point I plan on purchasing a small table to go next to the rocking chair.

We purchased this fireplace from the former owners. It is not real, but we wanted it more for looks than anything. It does burn the gel cans.

This chandelier is so sparkly. Everyone knows I like sparkle. Let's hope I can keep it clean enough it will continue to sparkle!!

My kitchen. It is very roomy and without my big dining room table it would be even bigger.

My Crate&Barrel bargain from the former homeowner.

I have a double dishwasher, which I am not too keen on. It means you can do much smaller loads, but I can't fit as much stuff in.

I do like the double oven. It is perfect for cooking 2 different things at different temps at the same time. As silly as it sounds, our favorite thing of all is the icemaker on the refrigerator. It also dispenses water, so we are all willingly drinking more water.

The view from the kitchen into the living room. It is very open and we liked that aspect of this house.

The entryway from the front door.

I really liked all the light fixtures the former owners put into our house. This one hangs over the stairs into the basement.

More pictures coming tomorrow.

And the Arbor Came Tumbling Down(Sigh!!!)

Remember the arbor that leads to my backyard? Unfortunately, as the title says, it came tumbling down. We had a really bad storm yesterday. The winds were extremely high(70mph). We thought we came through the storm with lots of debris, then saw something laying up against the door leading to the garage. It was my arbor. It broke apart in several different places. After inspecting it, they had not firmly put it in the ground, but just 3 inches, no cement, nothing. So, my father-in-law says it would have been a matter of time before it came tumbling down anyway. I am thankful it didn't fall on someone or put a window out and hurt my dogs. I will miss it though!!

Terry took it all apart before I had the chance to take a picture. Our fence will now go here and we are hoping the vines will grow on the fence. Only time will tell.
You can see on the right side where it broke apart. It came apart in several different places. We enjoyed looking at it and enjoying the privacy from it the past few weeks. The one over the patio made it through just fine.

Tour of the House-Part 1

I finally feel my house is in good enough condition to post pictures of it. My in-laws are on their way here as I am blogging. That was good motivation to get it into shape quick. I know they don't care if there are boxes everywhere, but I do. Not to mention I couldn't take one more minute of looking at boxes in the house. There are still some in the garage, but they are few. We want people to know we still have plenty of room for guests. We no longer have a 4th bedroom, but instead a whole basement they can have all to themselves. The only bad part is they have to walk up the stairs to use the bathroom. After living in a house of 3800 square feet, we knew that was way too much house for us. We wanted something like FW, as far as style goes, but housing here is much more expensive. Out of all the houses we looked at(all 17), this house was the nicest. It looks much smaller because it is 1 story, but actually has more square footage than our FW house when you include the basement. The FW house had no basement. Here is the comarison: FW=2100 square feet Here:2800 square feet. Below is our master bath. Notice there is no vanity, which I miss, so that is scheduled to be put in sometime this fall. The master shower, done completely in slate tile. Even the floor is completely in slate tile. We had to put the shower curtain in since there are no doors or anything on the shower. NONE of us were interested in standing there with no privacy!!! There is also no door on the bathroom itself. We will figure out something for that later. It just means the door to our bedroom remains shut if necessary!!

I thought it would be hard to share a closet with Terry again, but it is not that hard and I am temporarily sharing it with Dalayna. The master closet is very large.

These doors lead out to a patio. We never sit out there because there is no shade. But it provides plenty of light for my bedroom. Notice at the bottom of the picture the hardwood floors. They are floating floors and they are in several rooms.

Our bedroom is not huge, but just makes things cozier!!

Looking down the hallway from Colby's room.

Colby's closet. He is temporarily sharing with Terry.

Lots of room for sitting and playing his guitar.

See the wall behind the dresser? That wall wasn't there as of the day we closed on the house. It had to be put in to make the bank happy. I would go into detail, but it might get me mad all over again.

The fan in Dalayna's room. I think it looks so neat!

Dalayna's room is not the color of her choice. She would prefer pink of course, but I was able to talk her into leaving it this pretty peach color. It was painted not long ago. Since there are brown tones in her ceiling fan and peach on the walls, we went with a brown comforter and curtains. I think it looks really cute.

This is why Dalayna is currently sharing a closet with me. They took the doors off and made a study area here complete with shelves and a table. The closet doors are going back on in the next couple of weeks. I am hoping to put a rod under the shelves for her clothes, but keep the shelves because they fit plenty of toys!!













Dalayna and Colby sitting on her long awaited big girl bed. We have been telling her since we moved from St. Louis that we would get her a twin bed, but she would fall out of her toddler bed, sleep walk, have bad dreams, and we were worried she would hurt herself. She finally began to sleep better, plus her toes were hanging off her toddler bed, so we knew we had to move forward with the twin bed. So, the night we moved everything into this house, we went straight to the store and purchased the mattress/box springs and came home and set it all up. A thank you to Ron and Angela who gave us the headboard!!

More pictures coming soon!!

Happy Father's Day!!

Here are a few pictures of my kids with their dad, grandpas and one with their uncles for a special Father's Day blog.

I just wanted to say Happy Father's Day to the men that have been a part of my life, also to my cousin T.J. who isn't in the picture!! Thank each of you for your dedication to our family. Also, to my uncle Clancey, who took the time to be one of the 1st visitors to our new house.

To my dad, who is always there for me, especially when I call crying that I need help moving. He has endless energy when it comes to his grandkids and gives selflessly. He serves God with everything he has to give and shows true caring and compassion for others. I love you, Dad!!

To my husband, who goes to work every day so that I can stay home with my children, and even in a time of job loss, absolutely refused to even think about me going back to work. He loves his kids, spoils his wife and desires to serve God in whatever way possible. I love you, Garris!!

To my Grandpa, who is such a cornerstone of our family. Grandpa, you have always been there for me. You have set such a godly example my entire life. You have taught me about being a patriot to my country, and taught me to appreciate the sacrifice that others made for my freedom. I love you so much!!

To my father-in-law, as we call you, Terry's "special" dad. You are yet another example in my life of giving and caring for others. You have a very special place in our hearts. Your phone calls each week just to see how I am doing mean so much. You have always been there for us, too!! We are thankful for you and we love you!!

Mother-Daughter Banquet

May was just a crazy month for us. The first week started out with play practice for Colby, the play itself, Awana awards and a Mother-Daughter Banquet. I was blessed to have not only my daughter and my mother for the banquet, but my Aunt Jan too. Since it was such a busy week, they were able to come to the play, awards and banquet. We had a wonderful time while they were here. I appreciate it so much when people take time out of their busy schedules to come visit us. We shopped, ate good food, visited, laughed and went to the candy factory. There were no moments of boredom for sure!! The pictures below are from the banquet. The guest speaker at our banquet was a painter. She paints pictures with Christian symbols in them, then uses the pictures to share the gospel. They are beautiful paintings. At the end of the banquet, everyone got to take home a print of one of her paintings.