What we've done so far...

Well, we've been in the house for almost 3 weeks, but only owned it for 2. We've been quite busy with various projects. And the shopping! Good heavens we've done a lot of shopping. Between new clothes, school supplies, food, furniture, tools and such, and other sundries, we've spent more hours in retail outlets in the last 2 weeks than in the previous 2 months.

Here's a rundown of what's been accomplished so far.

Painted A.J.'s room for his birthday. (Pictures later.) Curtain fabric bought, but not made yet. That's a project for this week.

Bought desk/table surfaces for the office and put them together. Finally got the computer off the floor. :)

Opened and put away most of the boxes. Only a few left in the office and the master bedroom.

Bought, installed, and improved some used laundry appliances. Only $500 for both!

Set up the furniture, more or less where it will stay.

Got lawn care equipment (weedeater and riding lawn mower) and tidied up the lawn. Good grief it looks so much better.

Bought and assembled some garage organizing/work bench pieces. And put up peg board. And then actually put the tools away!

Scrubbed (with Soft Scrub and a brush) the grout lines in the kitchen. Well, I've started, but I sure haven't gotten anywhere near finished. WHY WOULD ANYONE USE WHITE GROUT IN THE KITCHEN?!?! If you happen to be grouting in your kitchen in the near future, do not choose white. You will regret it. At least it's coming mostly clean.

Scrubbed our shower. Eww. That's all I got on that one. And got a bench for it, since there's not even a soapdish!


De-cobwebbed the upper corners on most of the first floor.

Signed myself up to help with the garden at the elementary school. I figured that's in my skill set. 

Got both of the boys through the first week of school. They're both making new friends and enjoying their classes. Levi is excited that his school has music, computer, and art classes, and that he gets to have PE three times a week. A.J. is thrilled to have PE every day, and that he's doing really well in his Honors Math class. And he gets to see his teammates. They're all 6th graders, so he has no classes or lunch with them, but he sees them in the halls frequently. It's a pretty small school. :)

Up to bat for next week:

Get Aaron to his new office.

Sew curtains for A.J.'s window.

Actually get all the stuff off my kitchen counters that doesn't belong there.

Vacuum and use a Rug Doctor on the carpets. It's not particularly easy to tell, but they had two dogs. And they weren't imaginary.

Get some mulch to put around our poor trees. Especially the ones in the front of the house. They're younger, and taking the heat and dryness a little harder than the mature ones in the back.

Get Levi out to his first practice of the fall season.

Have the missionaries over for dinner and Family Home Evening Monday night. And then go to Levi's curriculum night at school.

Stop eating so much fast food!!!

Find a pediatrician. They're up for their check-ups in a few weeks.

And just enjoy being right where we belong. :)

It's finished!

We finally, finally closed on Monday. That was awful. I never want to do it again. Good thing I like my new house!

 And, finally some pictures!

 First, the front: The house faces south, and we have no western windows. So, it doesn't heat up unnecessarily every afternoon! :)

Next: the music room. This was originally the dining room. But, the boys aren't allowed to eat over carpet, and the breakfast area is huge. And we needed a place to put the piano!

The kitchen, breakfast area/dining room and living room are one long room, which I love. Bring on the friends! And, I now have possibly the largest kitchen island ever.

Here is the living room. Yes, we already have a Texas star. It's an unwritten law around here that you must. (The master bedroom is through the little hallway on the right. And the boys' rooms are upstairs. Score!)

 The entryway. Music room is to the right, and the study is on the left.

The guest bathroom. It's small, but beautiful like all the bathrooms. 

This is the boys' homework/art room. The girls that lived here before left some magnetic boards and some cork boards. We're going to paint the dormer wall with chalkboard paint for some more art space.

Levi's room. He wants blues and greens for his paint colors. 

 A.J.'s room. There is a bed under there, I promise. :) He wants Cardinal red on one wall. Of course. Notice all three upstairs bedrooms have window seats. We love them. It's time to get cracking on some good comfy pillows!

Obviously, it's still a mess. Once we get some paint, and some pictures on the walls, it will really start feeling more like home. It's a beautiful house, and we feel really blessed to have it.

Lots to catch up on

I think I'll do this in a more or less random order. I'm not organized enough in my brain right now to do it any other way.

First up, we have a contract on a house! A gorgeous house, even. Never thought I'd have one so nice, especially that I can move right into. A couple of pictures for the curious, but no interior shots yet. It's still not mine, after all.

It's a 2-story house. The boys were thrilled. They've been begging for one for a couple of years now.

And, it has a nice, long backyard. There's room for a big garden, and lots and lots of baseball.















There's a shed in the back. Nothing terribly fancy, but the girls that live there now have been allowed to spray paint one end to their hearts' content. They're actually quite good.

Up next, my brother Jared's wedding to the best girl ever.

Operation Lone Star

Operation Lone Star is our next family project. It will involve a lot of work, from everyone. There will be packing, and purging, and patience. There will probably be tantrums, there will definitely be some tension, and it will all end in the state of Texas.

We have requested, and been granted, a transfer to the Ft. Worth office. This is a really exciting time for us. We'll be able to own a house, rather than rent. We'll be able to have enough space to spread out. We won't have to hear when our neighbors turn on their Wii, which we can now. Hopefully we won't be able to smell if our neighbors smoke a cigar every night, like we do now.

We've narrowed our choices to a couple of communities. They are both far enough out of the city to have large lots, and smaller schools. But they're not so far to have terrible commutes.

We are lucky enough to have some fabulous friends nearby already. The Johnsons are a great family. Gail was A.J.'s first babysitter when I went back to school. They have boys about the same ages as our boys, and all of them are good friends. We are very glad to be moving close to them again. We won't be next door, like we were in Columbia, but close enough for lots of barbecues and other get-togethers.

And, it puts us much closer to almost all of our family. I have some cousins in TX, one near Houston, and one in San Antonio. We'll have to have our own family reunions, since none of us have been to the "big" one for several years.

We've got a lot to do, and it will be stressful, but by the end of the summer, we're hoping to be in a place we can really call "home."