This Old House!

A few posts ago I talked about finding a bunch of our old pictures and wanting to post some of the pictures of our first house. These are all the "before" pictures. So for those of you who have seen the after will appreciate all the work we did. Those of you who have not seen the after I will try to wrangle a few after pictures and post them soon... but hopefully I will be in the hospital and won't. We will see. But for memory sake here are some before shots of our first house.
This first picture is the front of our house. Cute right.... never mind the fact that there are giant bushes that we ripped out, and it was right on Hwy 99! The second picture is just the other half that I couldn't fit in the picture. The "garage" they had started to turn into a "bed room" or storage room of some kind but was never finished and was some what falling off the house. It was torn off the first few days of us owning our new home!

This is a side shot of our house. Notice how they had put nice siding on the front of the house. Then if you look you can see this old green wood siding. We loved this pear tree that was a good 30 plus feet tall. It gave us so many pears that we usually were sharing them with our ward after we had canned and dried all we could! The grapes had grown up into the pear tree also! These grapes were ready to pick when we bought this house and I was canning grape jelly and grape juice off of it that season. I think I must have done it at our apartment the first week or so before we had moved in because the house didn't have electricity or water.
The second picture is of the "bonus room" we used it mostly as a storage/work area for the first couple of years we lived there. It had the really ugly striped carpet and black chimney in there!!! But eventually we painted it beautiful yellow, had really nice carpet put in and had a really great play room up there. I also had my elliptical up there and a tv. We loved that play room!!!

This one is of our "master bedroom." The closet thing was so awesome we ripped it out right away. Which was replaced with a walk in closet off the back of the house along with a master bath! We also sheet rocked this room due to all the construction done. We closed off the door to the right that led into the kitchen. Oh and we also updated those light fixtures you will see in many of these pictures with the shoe strings to pull them off and on! There were only 2 light switches in that house when we bought it. We had more then that in the living room alone with the remodel!
The second picture in this group was of the "nursery" we didn't do a lot to this room other then fix the closet, rewire all the lights and plugs, new windows,carpet, and paint! It was a very pretty soft green.

This is another picture of our Master bedroom. You can see these awesome shelves that they had in EVERY ROOM of the house. I am not joking they were in every room! Living room, kitchen, bonus room EVERYWHERE! They were all mismatched hangers hung with huge screws or 16 penny nails (that is a very big nail!) And they didn't have nice pretty shelves on them most of them were just old pine boards, many of them very ugly wood that they had painted weird things on one side... What were they thinking?
The second shot is of the living room showing the 2 bedroom doors from the living room. It also has a picture of our awesome heater. More on that in a minute.

The fist one is more of the living room going into the kitchen. It shows that awesome heater again. I call it awesome because it was a gas furnace that worked even with out electricity. It didn't have a fan but it would heat that living room, which is what we needed. We moved into this house the day after Thanksgiving. The great part about that is that we had torn off half of the house and many of the doors and windows that lead out to the torn off part that we were rebuilding were only covered with plywood! We lived in the living room. We set our mattress on the floor right in front of the heater. It was our only luxury. We had no lights, or running water! I was 5 months pregnant with Ethan when we moved in!!!
The second photo is of the stairway. It was right in front of the door. If you hung a coat on the post at the end you couldn't open the door all the way. We also loved these posts because one morning while we were laying in bed we noticed that they were colored peach, pink, peach, pink all the way up the stairs! This was funny to us, as well as most of their paint choices. But they were eventually removed and replaced with a beautiful oak that Larry built! He also took out the little cupboard under the stairs and built in an entertainment system there. We loved it!

This is a picture of our kitchen showing the door into the bathroom and the back door. The backdoor lead to a "mud room" that was falling off the house. The bathroom was so ridiculous I don't know how they lived with it. The plumbing was beyond ridiculous! Both were ripped off the first weekend we owned the house. In their place was a new wonderful bathroom, although the entrance was off the hall from the kitchen, a pantry for all our canning/food storage, and a laundry/ mud room.
The second shot of the kitchen shows the kitchen counter tops. For those of you who don't know those counter tops were "low." That is to most people standards. I remember standing at them one day doing dishes in the sink and realizing that I could do that with out having water run into my arm pits! (Which happens at tall kitchens because I am reaching UP to reach the sink!) But these were just the right height for me. When Larry was ready to tackle the Kitchen remodel I asked for the counters to be the same height! Because he loves me and it was "my" kitchen he did and I always loved it! Although when we did remodel we had to make the counter that went over the dishwasher bump up about 3 inches. Still looked great! We also closed in a few of the windows that looked out into the mud room but kept the low long one. I loved the light it let in and it made a great place to put plants.

This last one is of the kitchen cabinets. They were so ugly with the gross green and grey paint that was everywhere in the kitchen. But when Larry redid the kitchen and I had all oak cabinets I loved them! I also loved that they were "low" and I could reach the second shelf easily. It was like the kitchen was designed for me even before Larry redid it. We were able to just leave everything the same size just put new ones in that weren't smelly and dirty and falling apart! Larry did a wonderful job making that house beautiful, new and fresh! It was hard to let go of all we had put into it but we knew it was time to get off the Hwy, and move our kids to a quiet street. We love our quiet dead end street! What a great adventure that house was!

100 club!

Last summer I set a goal to fill every jar we own with home canned something! We just about made it. There were a few pints left... (which honestly I only use for jam, and relish and I made PLENTY of that!) So all my quarts were filled though. I was pretty stoked! Then this spring I looked in our garage, (6 months pregnant) and thought hmmmm look at all those empty jars. WHO ate all that food!?! Great now I am going to have to fill them up again and be pregnant while doing it!!! I was actually kind of sad. I decided it was good that we had emptied so many because that means we were using it and that was the purpose right? Right? Ok so I thought well I will just do the minimum to get us by for next year. Then we got started. Larry has been more help then I think is even fair for him but he has been amazing!!! Although at times I wanted to punch him when I would say bring home 3 boxes and he always came home with 4 or MORE!!! But when he would do most of the work and I was basically giving directions and helping I couldn't complain. So this year we have not only refilled our jars but ended up getting some out of a hidden storage in Larry's shop. And we bought a 3 boxes of 4 oz jars because we tried something new Jalapeno Jelly. Which is FABULOUS! So now I am just about to deliver a baby (I hope!!!) But really could be any day now, but tonight Larry and I surpassed my hopes from the beginning of the season and finished our 100th quart of spaghetti sauce!!! One sister from our ward said something in Relief Society about me canning 900 quarts while I am 9 months pregnant on Sunday and I have had at least 3 sisters since ask me about it. I kind of laugh and say no no it wasn't 900 jars this summer!!! Really I didn't can 900 quarts. I asked Larry where this sister might have gotten that number. (Thinking he said something while cleaning the church Saturday.) He said he told her that we have about 900 jars. So yes I probably do have 900 filled, but I didn't fill them all this year. But probably we filled more then 300. Thanks to my wonderful husband who helped a ton and would massage my feet when we were all done! The funny thing is that we aren't done. We still have some tomatoes in our garden to can and we have a neighbor tell us he was going to bring us some too. I keep hoping we can finish this up so we can clean up the mess, put stuff away so that I can finish my "nesting" but I am ready for the baby to get here so I guess I can wait and let Larry clean it up if the baby comes before we finish. Hoping for this weekend!

M&M's and Homework

Last year the few times Brock would have homework it was worse then pulling teeth to get him to do it and to get him to do it correctly... So yesterday he brought home his first homework assignments. Hayden just happened to be eating some M&M's and shared a few with him. I told him he couldn't just eat them that he could have one each time he finished a problem or did one of his spelling words. He thought this was a great idea and asked if we could do it this way every day!

 

Today this was what homework time looked like! It was so cute and he stayed on target a little better, and was excited to get to it. It was a little funny when he was all done he told me that he had a little rush from it. What a sweet boy! I think his math skills will improve this year!!!

 

Opening day of Soccer!

Last weekend the kids had placement day for soccer and this weekend they had their first games! It was a pretty crazy week getting all three of them to their practices at all different ends of town but we managed. It will be the same way for the next 6 weeks! Oh and throw a brand new baby in the middle of it! But I am sure some how we will manage it all. Today started with a bang. Amelia's game started at 8:30 (which means getting to the field before that for a warm up) Thankfully it was also our ward's big cleaning day at the building. We always do a deep clean before we hand it over to the other ward, that was today! So Larry and I did some divide and conquer. I took the 3 to soccer and he took the grumpy little one to the church to help clean. This made my life easier getting 3 kids to their different fields and be able to watch most of the game much easier. I know Brock's picture is on here first but that is because I am having a problem seeing my pictures while I post, which means I can't move them!!! AAARRR! So they get stuck in what ever order I can get them to even down load....

This was the best action shot I could get of Brock because his game wasn't until 11:30 (the last one). And by then Larry had to leave for work and had dropped Hayden off and I kind of had one eye on the field one on the play ground. He did a great job staying in the game and following directions. I was very proud of him. They only lost by one point.

This is one of Amelia with her coach. This is the first time one of my kids hasn't had one of the parents coach their team. He is a student at Western and is doing a great job keeping it on their level, encouraging them, making it fun. The whole thing. She really likes him. At one point she bonked heads with another kid and got a little teary and he picked her up and brought her to me, then once she fell and got her hands dirty and I saw him hold his shirt out so she could wipe her hands. It was pretty funny. I don't know this guy by I think he will make a good dad some day. He seems to have little kids down. The other one is my favorite shot of her in action. She is smiling so big and going for it. She gets disappointed when she doesn't get the ball but she tries hard. It is pretty cute to watch her kind of skip and run at times. Her team won!

 

Ethan is number 53! I was really happy with how well he plays. He really watches the ball and goes for it. When he was on defence he stayed back but tracked the ball as it came down to them and helped his team keep it away from the goalie. He played goalie for a short time (his coach really rotated them well). He did great there too keeping the ball out and paying attention. It is amazing to me how far they come. I remember when he did pee wee soccer wondering if he would get it...

 

I like this picture of him going for it also. He really stayed in the game and as you can tell from the picture it was raining. It rained about half of Amelia's game, then rained ALL of Ethan's game and pretty hard too! Finally it let up for Brock's game! It had to rain it was opening day I guess! But the kids were all good sports through it. They only cancel games if there is lightning.

 

 

This last one of Brock #30 is pretty cute. He and Amelia are both #30. They think that is cool and Ethan is #53. Brock informed me that they all have a 3 in their number! Boy is it going to be a busy month!

While Momma's away....

 

Thursday night I went to a book club meeting and while I was out Larry was finishing up one of our canning projects. He let the boys stay up a little while to "help" I hear they actually did some helping but when I went to down load my soccer pictures this afternoon this is what I found. Funny boys!!! At least I got an evening out, and made it home to watch the new episode of "The Office."

Nesting and Memories

My due date is technically October 16th. That being said, I haven't once made it all the way to my due date. In fact the closest I got was 38 weeks. The other three were born either exactly on 37 weeks or a day or two into week 37. So you can guess that I am starting to do a lot of prep work as I will be 36 weeks this Friday! I can hardly wait. But also feel the strong urge that there is so much to be done that I need to work like crazy to get things ready, which means I may not be napping even when I really need to or want to, plus I haven't blogged any of my canning like I did last year. So I don't get to brag about a lot of the things I have done thus far. So you will have to imagine pictures of peaches, peach jam, pears, speghetti sauce (still in the works), whole tomatoes, jalapeno jelly (a new one for me!)... Much to still be done. If I had time there would be beats among other things. I think there will be prunes done this week as well! Anyway canning is being done and I am also working on getting the house ready. I know babies don't care if there is mess in a house but I want to not care about anything once the baby get here. So I am going to get things organized and in order so that if there are messes they don't bother me quite so much. Well that is the thought anyway. (I am not an imaculate house keeper typically but I do like some order so we can find things!) Anyway I am taking this project one room at a time. Unfortunatly (or fortunatly depending on who you talk to) I don't nest like Allison. You can see her nesting experiance on her blog to the right. I just want to get things organized and clean. Although if I had the money I would paint the entire down stairs I think!!! But I don't have $500 laying around for that. So I will just make everyones room clean and reorganized every container in the house. In the middle of this organizing I have found some treasures! While cleaing out the Nursery I found a box of old pictures. Most of them are from when Ethan was a baby (99% of them are just Ethan laying on a blanket drooling.) But we found some great pictures that I have wondered where they were since I never scrapbooked them (shockingly enough!!!) About 3 rolls of film that are of our 1st house from when we first bought it and it was a total DUMP and then quite a few of the remodle phase. I know there are more somewhere... We will find those I am sure in another room. Only one bed room to go but it is the worst one! (THE BOYS!) That one might take me till this baby is born! I plan on starting tomorrow!!! Amyway bellow are a few pictures I found in that same box.

I am wondering if anyone guessed that these are pictures of Amelia. I showed them to my 3 youngest kids and said who is this. All 3 of them said, "Amelia!" I chuckled and said, "Nope this is mommy when she was a little girl." The instantly wanted to know where the stroller was and could they have that. I told them I was sure it was broken and in a dump somewhere. I could see Brock's head working wishing he could get it and craft something out of it. (I am not joking that is what he does! He finds garbage and makes something new out of it. Then when I go to clean his room toworrow I will throw it all away AGAIN!) I don't know how old I was in the first picture.... I am guessing 3 or 4. Maybe my mom knows? The baby picture was taken on Chirstmas so I was only 6 days old. The last one is Christmas time when I was probably 5 or 6 I am guessing... Mom any clue? My kids thought they were great and it made me kind of laugh because they all thought it was Amelia, just like when we see kid pictures of Larry and they all think it is Ethan.

Maybe I will post some of our old house pictures if I get some time later. But for now I need to get back to laundry, then cleaning! We have a full week of soccer, extra kids, and cleaning and if I get behind now it will never get done! So off to the races! Oh and yes I will keep things updated enough that people will know when the baby arrives, please don't ask me every day if the baby is here yet, or if there is anything happening!!! I will drive myself crazy enough!

Kindergarten Girl!

 

Amelia was so excited for her first day of school! She hopped out of bed and got ready quickly this morning. She even held very still while I did her hair. She is typically very good while I do her hair but this morning was probably the most still she has sat in a long time! She wanted me to do her hair in what she calls "Princess Hair" I start with 5 pig tails on top and then split them and make 4 then 3 then 2 then 1 at the bottom and it ends up looking like a net. It is cute and she always gets lots of compliments on it.

 

 

After we got to the school I could tell she was a little bit nervous she didn't really want me to leave. She didn't cry but she held on to me a little. I told her she would have lots of fun and I would meet her at the bus stop. I knew she was worried about the bus because she had asked several times about how she would know which bus to get on and when to get off and all of that. But I have told her several times that the teacher would make sure she got on the right bus and I would be waiting for her at our street. So there was nothing to worry about. They are doing slow start for Kindergartners the first week which means only a few from each class goes each day (Tues-Thursday) then on Friday they all go. Today was her day and she only met half of her class but I know she will love it!

 

When she got of the bus she was very happy and told me that she got to paint with her hands, read stories on the carpet, and play. She also reminded me that I forgot to pack a spoon in her lunch for her pudding so the school had to give her one, so next time I needed to remember to pack one. Over all it was a great first day! She loved it and can't wait to go back.
While she was gone Hayden and I went to my Doctor's appointment. I am almost 35 weeks and have gained 12 lbs. Which doesn't sound like a lot but I started heavier then ever and was hopping to not gain so much since I am now about 8 lbs heavier then I have ever been!!! But the Doctor says my weight is great and is not worried at all. (She doesn't have to loose it all though!) The not working out during this pregnancy is probably what is getting to me. Not that I work out a ton while I am pregnant but I do usually walk regularly. But I have been more "lazy" or easy going this time around because I get contractions very easy and didn't want to push it. But now that we are getting closer I am going to put my walking shoes on next week and see what happens... The baby is getting big (for me) and very active. Last night around 3 am I was laying awake (as usual) and the baby was jogging back and forth across the top of my belly. It made me kind of chuckle and I almost woke Larry up so he could feel it but I decided against it. It was really funny though. I love feeling the baby move and I really don't mind being pregnant but I have gotten to the point where I am uncomfortable, can't move, can't sleep, have heart burn all the time with out mega drugs, and am tired and crankier then ever... so it must be getting really close for the baby to come out! Maybe in a few more weeks!!! We will see. It feels good to be on the count down though. Now if we could just get the names picked out....

Back to School!

 

Back to school!!! It's the most wonderful day of the year! I know some mom's cry when they take their kids back to school, and I have to admit that when they start Kindergarten I get a little bit teary. I will miss having Amelia around, she is such a sweet girl and a big helper. But I know she is so ready and very excited... Her big day isn't until tomorrow though so I will blog that later. Today just the boys. They were up early because they were so excited! Ethan kept posing like this because he said he thought it looked cool! Funny.
Brock was very excited also! New year new clothes, new teachers, new rooms, new friends! He picked out his very favorite shirt (yellow big surprise!) and his new backpack is yellow (shocking!) The only other choice would have been dinosaurs! Love this kid who is a little OCD about somethings!

 

Ethan was thrilled that this year they got their own desks! This is his first year not being at tables. Very big step!

 

Funny thing we took Brock to his class last and he gets a desk this year. He was pretty excited to get a desk this year too! Big deal!!! They looked so cute sitting in their desks this morning as I dropped them off.

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Of course after school I had their fresh home made cookies still warm from the oven for their 1st day of school snack! This is a tradition at our house that I like and think is just fun for them. They kind of expect it now. I have done it since Ethan started Kindergarten. I had one mom tell me that I am putting other mom's to shame but I don't think of it that way. I think that I just love to have little traditions with my kids. I fail them in lots of other ways, the least I can do is have little traditions with them that they will remember when they are grown up. Things like cookies on the first day of school, red dinner on Valentines day, green dinner on St. Patricks day, and other little things that really aren't hard just fun things that I hope my kids look back on as fun. Maybe it will make up for my short comings... We will see. I do love them and love having them back into school and into routine. It will give me time to get ready for baby! The Nesting is on!!! Larry and I cleaned the garage, our room, and I am working on living room today! Next will be the kitchen, then the kids bedrooms! Bring it on!!! We will be all set when this baby gets here.

Prayers of a 9 year old

Many of you know that we have 2 rabbits, Marshmallow, and Hopscotch. My kids love these rabbits. During the summer we let them roam free in our yard so they can munch the grass, and play. They enjoy this as do our kids. Occasionally they get out of the yard when someone leaves a gate open. But typically they still stick to our yard because they know where food and water are and are pretty territorial I guess. So usually they are quickly found and chased back into our yard. In the evening Ethan's job is to get them back into their cage for safety at night. (As some of you know we also had one of our rabbits eaten by a raccoon last year while they were still bunnies and we replaced the first hopscotch). Anyway Sunday night Ethan was sent out to put the rabbits away after dark because we had forgotten and couldn't find Hopscotch. (Our black rabbit). We looked every where! We think she might have dug into the garden and then into our neighbors yard but weren't sure as to we couldn't see her anywhere.... Ethan was very worried that a raccoon would get her and I told him not to worry she was a big bunny now and could run away from danger. We would look for her in the morning when we could actually see. I heard him very early Monday morning and asked him what he was doing and he was already dressed and ready to go look for her. He said "Don't worry mom I said a prayer that I would find her alive." He walked to our back door and I heard him say, "Holy Cow!" There she was sitting in the middle of the yard. He chased her back to the cage so she could get some water (she had been locked out of the cage all night.) I told him to make sure he said a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for helping him find her and keeping her safe, and he said I already did! What a sweet boy.