Katelyn

Katelyn is 12!

Katelyn got a new outfit to wear for her birthday party, skinny jeans, shirt, vest, hat, and a shawl!

Our friend Nikki made this cake for Katelyn! She made a bed because it was a sleep over:) Isn't it beautiful!!

Katelyn's table spread. Chips, goodie bags, torilla roll ups, veggie tray, sodas, and the pizzas weren't here yet when I took te picture.

Katelyn's friends at her party (minus one who came late).

Katelyn and her frends painting their fingernails, a must at a girl party!

We love Katelyn so much, and we are so proud of her. She is a sweet, thoughtful, caring, loving, generous, and just plain fantastic young woman. (AAAAHHH she's officially a young woman now!) We are so lucky she is in our family. She is literally the BEST daughter a mom and dad could wish for!

Alexander

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest, so I copied it:) It's a couple months late from his bday, but better late than never. We love you Alex!

A few sneak peaks at our home

Not the greatest pictures because my camera died and I'm using my phone for all of these pictures. But this is the boys' room that is painted. There's still some organizing and decorating to do in there.

I just had to throw this in because Ben made a big mess with the packing material and I was cleaning it up, and he came running up the stairs and said, "That's my mess, I'm going to clean it up!" Then he took the vaccum from me and cleaned it all up!

This is my garage floor. This floor was a lot of work. We used my dad's pressure washer and he got most of the old gross paint off the floor. Then the guys putting in our new carpet let me borrow a scraper tool and I worked for over 2 hours on my hands and knees scraping off the stubborn paint. Then my dad came back, pressure washed it again to get it all sparkly clean. Scrubbed it clean. And then he and Joel painted with the apoxy paint for a beautiful garage floor. Now if only we can find the time to go through all of the boxes that are still in the garage so I can see the pretty floor again:(

Our front door needs a lot of work. We need to put the screen door on. Paint the front door, can't decide what color yet. I like this color, it matches the trim of our house, but we'll see. I also made the curtain in the front window, and didn't even realize that it matched my door!

Our downstairs bathroom is in the middle of a remodel. We got a new toilet. Ripped out the old countertop, put in a new counter and faucet. Now we have to put in new baseboards, and repaint the walls, and I'd also like to paint the cabinet.

We had a door on our master bedroom, but it had a huge hole in it and there was no door knob, and no way to put one in. So we bought a new door and new door knob. I love this door and slowly we are going to turn all of our doors into these doors!

An eagle eye's view of our front room and beautiful new carpet. Since this picture I've moved things around a little. I put bookshelves on the wall where the halltree is, and moved the halltree to the wall on the bottom left of the picture. I'm also going to add in some nice chairs. One of these days we're going to buy a new sectional sofa. But that's probably a little ways off.

This is the kids' bathroom. We put in a new toilet. We bought a new curtain and a new rug that's not in this picture. Also we hung hooks on the wall instead of a towel rack because my kids have hooded towels and I'm trying to get them in the habit of using them instead of using a different towel every day, leaving them on the floor all over the house. It's halfway working, and my laundry pile has already showed improvement. Now if only I can get them to stop putting clean clothes in dirty hampers and vice versa!

Katelyn's room. It has gotten a lot more done to it since this picture, like she actually has a bed frame instead of mattresses on the floor. And she has a bunch of pictures on the wall.

Well, that's it for now. We have lots and lots of projects, and it's kind of overwhelming. But I'm trying to tell myself that we'll be here for a very long time and there's plenty of time to get it all done!

Father's Day

This Father's day was pretty crazy, we had lots of visitors, and we were right in the middle of buying our house. But we still managed to take time out for Dad. We spoiled him with treats, and we gave him a day of rest and relaxation. He even got massages! We love Joel so much and are so grateful for all that he does for our family. He is our rock. (Especially mine!) Somehow he managed to stay out of the camera's way the last couple of months, so no picture:( Happy Father's Day!

Happy Birthday Alex!

Alex receiving his Wolf award at Cub Scouts. He moved on to Bears!

Alex's first time holding the flag.

Alex and his cake pop cake. This year we just had a family party with presents, cake pops, pizza, and soda. Yummy!

Alex turned 9 this year, right in middle of all the crazy moving. He also got his Wolf award in Cub Scouts and moved up to Bears. He really loves scouts.

Alex is a great brother, and is always willing to help out. He is the first one to the scene when somebody is sad. He loves to play video games. He is very charitable and tries to spend his money on everybody else. We love Alex so much and are so lucky that he is a part of our family! Happy Birthday!

Our Home

I don't have any pictures for you on this post because my camera is packed somewhere, and I can't find it!

We got the keys to our new home on June 28. Got new carpet on June 28. And moved in June 30. We've already done some fun projects around the house and I can't wait to show you pictures. We are just so in love with our new house, we feel at home here. And really, we can't believe that this house is ours! Just a couple of years ago we thought we'd never be able to afford a house here in California. And here we are in a house we never thought we'd be able to afford to rent, let alone own!