Word Frames

I made a couple word frames as Christmas gifts this year, and they were SO FUN to make. I am putting a picture up for two reasons: 1) My good friend Heather asked me to, and 2) I want to say thanks to the people who gave me the pictures. I didn't take the pictures...just played with them in Photoshop and put them in Target frames. I got them off an amazing blog full of wonderful people who contributed them for people like me who didn't have time to go out and find all the letters I needed.

I just have a picture of one of them...the one I made for Mike and Melissa. The other is "Cross," Patrick and Hannah's last name. I might post that one too if I get a picture of it.

Thanks SO MUCH to all of you who shared your skills with us. :-)

Caleb's Room

I finally uploaded a few more pictures to our computer, and so here is the one room we have finished. 

This is my favorite room of the house at this point.  It was really fun to do because I have wanted for a long time to use both magnetic paint and chalkboard paint, and Caleb's room offered the perfect opportunity.

I decided to go with a transportation theme in his room because he loves all things having to do with construction vehicles, planes, bikes and cars.  He calls construction vehicles "mo-mos" and planes "sky."  I find it quite cute, really. 

The transportation theme is actually mixed with the alphabet theme from his nursery, but I don't think he minds too much.  :-)

 

Brandon took down the wood paneling in the room.
He got help from some friends (Thanks, Joe, Joe and Phil).
He (they) did an amazing job. 

We also replaced the carpet in the room. 

I did the taping of the road and the magnetic primer.
My amazing husband did the rest.
The blue is supposed to be sky, and the green is grass.
I don't think I am going to take the theme much further,
but if you have any thoughts I would love to hear them. 

I love how much light comes in this room.
I don't even know if I want to put window treatments up.  I like the tree view outside too.  

I painted his closet door with chalkboard paint, and it worked so well.
It took three coats, but he loves it. 

The road is magnetic, and these are little painted wooden cars
I bought at Hobby Lobby and put magnets on the back of them.
Caleb loves these too, and I am planning on making some more soon.  

Removing the Paneling

As we are in Indiana, Brandon is busy working on things around the house.  This is a picture of the walls in our dining room with the wood panels removed.  The brown stuff is really old glue.  He says it is all going to be a lot of work.  I am excited to see how it turns out.  Thanks, husband.  :-)  We miss you. 

We own a house!

Well, technically we don't own a house.  The bank owns our house.  They're just letting us live here.  :-)  I guess we own a small percentage of it.  I decided tonight that it's the wood floors we own...and maybe a small portion of the backyard. 

Our closing happened today.  It was almost two weeks after our first closing date, but nonetheless it happened.  After signing a million and two forms, we bought a house.  It definitely wasn't as exciting as I am sure most closings are since we are already living here, but it was still fun. Now...we have some work to do.

But, my part of that work will have to wait.  Caleb and I are taking off on Thursday to go out to Indiana to see my family.  Brandon isn't traveling this summer, so he will remain home...and hopefully start taking off some of that wood paneling that's covering the walls of three rooms. 

NOTE:  All of the pictures were taken before we moved in.  I haven't taken any since...but I will.  

This is our dining room...eating area. It is part of the kitchen.  We are going to paint the panel-less walls a golden color...which I hope is different enough from the existing floors.  We'll see.  We already bought the paint, so there is no turning back. 

 

The above room is Caleb's now.  We are going to go out and order new carpet tomorrow, and I think we might paint the room green with blue and red magnetic stripes.  We haven't bought that paint yet, so who knows what it will end up as. 

The other picture is our backyard.  It is a great size for us, and Caleb is having a great time.  One carport will be taken down and removed by the previous owners. We're not sure what we are going to do with the other. 

 The picture on top is our living room window, and the picture on the bottom is the front yard.  Do you notice the GRASS!?!? And the wrought iron fence is so great for our little boy to play freely on the GRASS!  I am so excited about that green stuff covering our yard.  Have you noticed?  Now to just learn how to take care of it. 

I have taken so few pictures since we have been here, and we have yet to take a picture of the front of the house.  I will put some more up soon, but just imagine a 1960s ranch...with a porch swing that we (I) are (am) hoping to put up soon.  :-)

Our New Home

Talking with Hope (Brandon's mom) tonight, I realized that it has been at least two weeks since I have posted anything on here.  Things have been unbelievably busy around here...but oh so fun!  

We were supposed to close on our house on Thursday, and being the inexperienced first time homebuyers that we are, we had let our property managers know that we would be out by that Friday.  Our closing ended up being postponed for various reasons, so we ended up getting an early occupancy agreement and moving into our house anyway.  So, technically we have not yet purchased this home, but we are in.  :-)

And WE LOVE IT!  There are so many reasons why this is the perfect house for us, and we are so enjoying making it our own.   Let me list a few of those reasons: 

1) THE YARD!  In our three bedroom home we rented for the last 2+ years, we were so happy there.  The yard, however, was awful...full of prickly goatheads and just a mixture of rocks and weeds...and we couldn't do anything to it because it was a rental.  Our new front yard has beautiful grass and a wrought iron fence all around to contain our little boy. There are two huge trees, and we are planning on hanging a swing from one of them.  In the backyard, there is soooo much space and shade from three more huge mulberry trees, a few pomegranate trees and a pecan tree.  It needs some landscaping, which we hope to get to eventually...but our little boy is practically giddy as he plays in the dirt.  It has been so relaxing to spend time out there reading or talking while Caleb kicks his balls or marks his territory with a squirt bottle we gave him.  So fun!  (One thing you Midwesterners might not understand is that GREEN is scarce out here in the desert.  

2) THE LOCATION!   We are so super close to campus now.  The dorms are about a five minute walk or less, and Brandon can get anywhere really easily now.  I can even take my walks with Caleb on campus now.  Not only that, but it will be easier and more convenient for students to come over to our house.  And for those of you who know Cruces, now I can go to the new Wal Mart instead of the old Wal Mart...which was formerly too close to our home to avoid.  I had the most peaceful grocery shopping experience ever tonight after Caleb went to bed.  :-) 

3) The Size.  It is definitely bigger than our old home.  We could have student and staff meetings over here much more easily now.  It does mean I have more to clean.  I miss our old one bedroom apartment sometimes for that reason.  :-)

4) The Potential.  Our home is a 1960s ranch, and the previous owners took great care of it.  There are several things that we want to update, however, including taking out the wood paneling covering the walls of many rooms as well as replacing the carpet.  We will probably paint the kitchen cabinetry...and I want to make a mosaic in the tile entry when you walk in the door.  I spent hours watching HGTV last night while working...and I am so inspired.  :-)  We looked at new homes on the market that were great prices, but they seemed so boring compared to all the projects we could do in this one.  I just hope I am not being too ambitious.  I hope to put some before and after shots up here.  Yay!

Sidenote:  We have free digital cable for a year instead of our basic cable we had before...hopefully we don't get too used to it.  But hopefully it will get more people over here to hang out with us.  :-)  

5) THE PREVIOUS OWNERS:  This is definitely the reason we were able to buy the home.  The previous owners, Tim and Teresa, go to our church, and we have known them for a few years now.  When we heard they were selling their home, we were interested in finding out more.  We had been to their house once before, and I remember thinking that they had such a great yard and location.  When they found out that we were interested, they told us that we could do it all without a realtor and they would lower the home price by the commission they would have paid to that real estate agent...thus allowing us to afford the home.  

Not only that, but they have taken great care of it over the years.  It is wonderful knowing that the place that they called home for so many years we now get to call home.  They are also great to have around for a resource.  What a blessing they have been!

So, as you can see, our new home is a wonderful blessing to us.  We definitely feel that the Lord has led us here, and He has done much to provide for us.  We spoke with several friends to get their thoughts on buying this house, and our pastor was especially helpful as he sat down with us and looked at our finances.  He was very encouraging.  

Please pray for us as we continue to transition into life here.  We so want to see God use this home for His purposes.  He's already doing so much in my own heart in this place.  I can't wait to see what He has in store. 

We love you guys!  

2 weeks...

Our closing date is in two weeks.  We are in the middle of disorganization as we get ready for a garage sale tomorrow morning.  

So we won't be posting much in the next few weeks.  

But, I did want to get out another update on Brandon's health.  He is doing really well.  The clot is not bothering him anymore, and he has to go to the doctor less frequently to check his blood thinness level.  We're still so grateful to the Lord for the diagnosis...and grateful He is doing better. 

We found a house!

After much prayer and conversation, we have decided to move forward in purchasing our friends' home.  It is just way too great a deal to pass up!  The home is just a few blocks from campus, has a huge yard, and would be a great home for us.  So, assuming everything goes well from here on out, we will be moving sometime in the near future.  

Please be praying for us as we move forward in faith.  We are trusting that God will continue to lead us as we go through this process.  I get a little freaked out sometimes about the economy, but God is reminding me to "not worry about tomorrow" and seek Him first.  I don't know that I will ever be done learning that lesson. 

House Hunting

We started looking at houses on Saturday, and it was fun...and funny.  The only house we were interested in is under contract, and so we will keep looking.  We believe God has a place for us, so please pray in this process.  

Tomorrow we are going to look at a house that some friends from church will be selling.  It is close to campus but probably out of our price range.   We'll see.