Home Sweet Home adventures

It has begun.
The moving, that is....



The last couple miles to our new home is so relaxing.  There's no city, only a couple lights, no billboards calling out for my attention.  It's calming to pass the horses grazing in the fields and roll under the canopy of trees.  I know this will be the enjoyable part of Brandon's daily drive home from work, once he's gotten beyond the city traffic, the chaos of the parking lot highways and insanity of the 610 and beltway loops.  Ahhhhh.

We started loading things into my van Saturday morning. That afternoon, my friend Becky helped me do some work out there as our kiddos played together.  Boy, did our children have a blast!  Becky has five kids around the same age as my children, so you can imagine all the fun they have!

On the way around our soon-to-be-old neighborhood, we passed a garage sale, and I saw one of those little kiddo cars I've been wanting to get Evie for her birthday but didn't want to spend $50 on! She was so excited, and had a blast riding in it when we got out to the land.



Evie is getting used to the two Britney Spaniels the owners have. She's not really an animal person, but these dogs are incredibly sweet and not the jump-on-you, lick-you-to-death sort, so I think these will be just the pooches to transform our little Evie into a dog-person.

While Becky and I wiped down cabinets and put things away, our babies played on a quilt together.


Jubilee was pretty fussy as she didn't get a good nap the entire day (she kept falling asleep when it was time to go somewhere, so she'd wake up when I changed her diaper and put her in her carset... and didn't fall asleep in the car at all).  Joshua (who is a month older), did really well!

Side note- Molly Jo Jubilee is SIX months old today! Happy Half-A-Year Birthday, girlie!

The older girls helped load up my van with things for our craft room/library and then helped clean the shelving and put away the items once we got there. They were a huge help!

The boys had a blast romping outside. I see many adventures taking place here!


Becky's twins, Jacob and Joseph, with Nolyn



They found the little pond and were eager to cross the fallen tree that acts as a bridge.





They came running in to tell us they found a trampoline, and boy, was that thrilling! Everyone ran out to give it a try!



While we were out there, we met a couple of our neighbors. They are kind of hairy.



This one is a little mysterious with his masked face! I'm not sure if these are llamas are alpacas, but I'm thinking it's a llama, just because it seems taller than an alpaca would be and it's ears seem to be more... llamay. (New word there!)

Here's one of my favorite parts about the new place:


A big fire pit (burn pile, really) with plenty of seating for some great fellowship and fun with my favorite people.







This place really is a little (and big) boy's paradise.  Yesterday, the boys (hubby included) found a fallen zip line.  They can't wait to set it back up!

For now, we've only moved in small things- not major furniture yet.  We still have to do something with the walls, but we'll just wait to do that the hard way... after we're all moved in.



The new floors look fabulous!!!

It's so wonderful to hear the kids talk about what they're finding and exploring.  Nolyn found what he thought were tadpoles out in the pond yesterday.  "They look like tiny sharks mom!"  With a little more exploring, we found out they were tiny catfish!  I guess the pond has recently been stocked with little bitty fishies! That's exciting.  One day we'll be able to catch some big ol' whoppers!

We've seen some crazy looking bugs too... along with some big ants!

Well, happy Monday, y'all!  Thanks for stopping by for a peek into our life! Let us know you were here and leave a comment.  I'm sorry you have to jump through some hoops to leave a comment here. It's set up that way because, otherwise, I get a lot of spam comments filling my inbox.

Life in an Instagram

It's time to catch up on some Instagram posts!

Enjoy!

Love ya!

Oh, that husband...

He sure makes me smile and laugh! I love my handsome hubby!

Counting down!

You know that "too good to be true" feeling?  I'm totally getting that right now. I'm so excited about moving to our little "McCottage" on twelve acres.  I'm excited about putting our personal touch on the place- painting, new cabinet hardware, and such.  I'm excited about arranging our furniture, especially since we bought a few new pieces.  I'm excited about all the stuff we've gotten rid of too- which is (literally) half of our belongings.  Yesterday someone came by and loaded a garageful of our stuff onto a truck to take to their church garage sale. Saturday a neighbor bought some of our furniture and took it away. We're still looking for a new home for our beautiful sturdy pine bunk bed set (includes bunky boards and mattress and comes with matching "crate" shelving), but the rest of the furniture we want to get rid of is spoken for (our bedframe, headboard, and footboard, the beautiful blue armoire Brandon made, the piano...) or gone (thanks to our neighbors).

I still have about 8-10 boxes/bins to go through which have been stowed away in the garage ever since we moved here.  I'm really amazed by how much stuff we have managed to get rid of! I've just come to the conclusion that if I'm not using it, I don't really need it, and there's really no sense in keeping stuff just for the "memory".

We had so much stuff we held on to simply because we had the space, so that stuff had to go. It's easy to hold on to decor or children's outgrown clothing when you can stack it in a garage or closet, but every bit of space in the new place is needed.

Check out a pile of stuff we got rid of:

There was about 8-10 trash bags stuffed full, a bunch of boxes loaded up, and various other toys and such mingled in as well as furniture pieces. Now it's gone! (Not the bikes, though! We aren't getting rid of those!) Whew! I just need to go through those boxes behind Brandon, and I'll be done sifting through my stuff.  Brandon has A LOT of stuff to go through (which is on the right side of the garage, not pictures here). His tools have taken over half of the garage, and he also has to dig stuff out of the attic.

Packing the stuff inside the house should be a breeze. I've packed a couple boxes in each room, but now we're down to the final week before our move.  We don't have to be out until September 30th, but we're taking a week move and a week to clean up the place (repaint and have the place professionally cleaned).

I confess, moving used to create all sorts of anxiety for me because I was not very organized and was always easily overwhelmed.  We've moved so much over the last 10 years that I've become pretty efficient at it!

This time it's been extra fun as we filter out things we no longer need and shop for deals on things we'd like in the new place.  I'm really excited about having wood laminate throughout our home! Carpet is not a large family's friend, especially if you're living out in the country!

We did find this awesome rug at Lowe's the other day!

It matches the pillows I bought for our chairs a while back! It's such a soft rug, and the kids wanted to sleep on it!

I can't to show y'all progress photos of the new place! I have the befores and am ready to show you some "afters"! :)

Birthday Girl!

Evangeline hit the terrific twos on Friday! She was due on Labor Day 2010. My water broke at 11:30pm on Labor Day! I'm not sure if I ever really posted her home birth story because it wasn't something I was really thrilled about... but maybe some day I will.

Instead of birthday cake, we treated everyone to froyo.  Evangeline is dairy-intolerant, so she doesn't get this stuff a lot (although she loves it!). I gave her a tiny bit of yogurt and a bunch of toppings!

Molly Jo Jubilee hung out and watched us eat. She is such a roller now- I can't just set her in her carseat while I eat- she will squirm her way out of it! So she has to be buckled in! Such a stinker!  Don't worry, I adjusted the straps properly when we got back into the car.  Notice her tiny little toofer! So cute!

Houses and babies, what love!

I'm really glad we hosted a prayer meeting last night and didn't cancel due to my mood.  It was really uplifting, as I knew it would be, and I really felt like the Lord washed away a lot of my frustrations because, honestly, the majority or them were not based in reality so they would have never been solved had I tried to work it out myself.

I slept really well last night. I didn't wake Jubilee when I went to bed at around midnight even though it would have normally time for her to nurse.  I decided to just crash out, and if she woke up 10 or 15 minutes after I fell asleep, so be it.  As it turns out, she only woke up once in the middle of the night so I slept pretty soundly.  Thank you Lord, I needed that! She was ready to play when she woke up though, and I was definitely NOT, so I set her on my bedroom floor with various toys so I could catch a bit more rest, and after about 20 minutes she started fussing.



She had managed to scoot halfway across my bedroom and wasn't very happy about being so far away from her toys.  Goofy kiddo.  I can't believe she's on the move now.  Before long she'll be crawling! Yeeeeep!

Nolyn, Keagan, and Evangeline had donned their boots this morning to go "bug hunting".  Man, they are going to be so, so excited about country living.  Evangeline probably won't be as much of a girly-girl like prim and proper Merikalyn is!





The kids and I ran ourselves through the shower after breakfast, and managed to get out the house at a decent time. I wanted to hit up Garden Ridge which is basically a big warehouse (usually in an old Lowe's or Home Depot building) that sells all sorts of inexpensive home decor and such- beds, couches, chairs, pillows, rugs, baskets, linens, artwork, frames, candles, seasonal decor, outdoor stuff, and on and on and on.  I wanted to check out three things- their rug selection, baskets, and side tables.  We bought our previous rugs from there for a great price, but I really didn't see anything that really screamed, "THIS IS IT!!" I saw a couple rugs I liked, but I don't think they really go with our stuff so... bleh.  It's really hard for me to find a rug that scores in all three categories, meaning it fits our decor, fits our budget, and can hold up to dirty kids. I'd prefer something that is dark enough to hide stains, maybe has a pattern, but isn't so busy that it distracts from the room.  I checked out rugs for the kids' room and found a couple I liked.  One has the US on it with surrounding oceans.. which would be great for the homeschool room.  Another had a big bold gray and white pattern. BUT, I'm so stinkin' cheap. I don't want to spend $150 on that rug gray and white rug.  I will probably end up getting two smaller rugs instead.

I took a look at rugs for our kitchen (or mats, really- something to put a little cushion under my feet) as well as rugs for the front and back door (inside and out). I found some, but didn't really want to spend $25 a pop so I'll wait until they go on sale. I did grab some boot trays, which are these rug looking things will a lip around the edge- you can put muddy, soppy shoes on them when you come through the front door. They were about $4 each, so I could easily justify that purchase!
Best of all, I came across these side tables:



I wanted to replace our night stands because they're big and bulky (and the master bedroom at the new place is smaller than where we currently are).  The downside of replacing them is that their big and bulkiness is due to all the storage- a big drawer and a cabinet to stow away stuff.  But, they take up so much space, so I guess I can find somewhere else to store my many journals and reading material. Anyway, I saw these and thought, "Oh, those would be cute painted Navy," but remember, I'm ridiculously cheap so when I saw the $50 price tag hanging from the piece, I sighed. Then I noticed there was a sticker price tag stuck to the leg of each stand... with a red line through it.

Know what that means, y'all?  75% off.  That's right, I got each of these for about $12.50.  What a score, right? So I basically bought two for half the price of one. Yes, my friends, that is a good deal.  It pays to shop around and be stingy with your money. Ha!

Now I'll be watching their circular for sales on baskets!

I have a women's meeting tonight but... I'm really not sure whether I'll be going or not.  My body is hurting REALLY, REALLY bad. I need to go to the chiro because I know that would help, at least short term. A little relief is better than none.  Plus, I'm still battling the sinus junk, and I'd like to spend time with my family.  We're already going to be running errands once Brandon gets home, and I'd rather not spend the entire day in the go-go-go mentality.

This afternoon I packed up about 75% of the kids' clothes. We're going to be moving in about ten days, so I'm pretty sure they don't need their whole wardrobe, right?  I also packed up a good portion of their toys.  The house is going to be listed soon, so I don't want there to be a million toys to pick up at the last minute when I get a call that someone wants to look at the house.  I also had Nolyn clean up all his.... whatever you want to call that... in the backyard.  There's a bunch of bamboo sticks, tarps, old pieces of plywood and rope everywhere.  Figured he should probably get all that cleaned up for viewings as well.  All this work is making my body hurt even more, and I think the circulation to my arms must be hindered because they're feeling weird too.  That's a good sign, said NO ONE, ever.

It's going to be weird to say goodbye to this place, mostly because I've birthed two babies within these walls, but I'm ready to take the next step in our lives!

Speaking of babies-
Evangeline is two days away from being two years old! WHAAA???




Ah, pencil marks on the wall.  I see scrubbing in my future!

& We're moving... again!

Whenever someone asks if we're excited about the move, I say yes, and Brandon says no. Right now he has a list of to-do's going through his head, like tackling the garage and the attic. He's excited about the new place, but not about all the things that need to be done in order to get us settled in.

Yesterday morning we worked more on the children's bedroom design and layout- important to figure out how much space the cots and dresser will take up so we can figure out what else we can fit in there. I've used Pinterest to bring together the mental picture I have for their sleeping quarters. (The kids will be sharing a bedroom, but will also have a lounge room. We thought it best for all their beds to be in one place since the place is small and there are only a total of three bedrooms. I don't think the boys will be indoors much since they will have 12 acres to explore!) I think we have decided to use our bed side tables (which are more like cabinets) in their room rather than sell them. We're trying to plan as much as we can ahead of time so we know what we need to get rid of, and what we'd like to purchase (so we can keep an eye out for the best bang for our buck).  Btw, each square below equals one foot. It's a 16x10 room. Highlighted in yellow are the windows.

 

I'm keeping lists of things they need to be done, donated, sold, purchased, etc because 1, I like being able to check things off and 2, I might lose my mind if I don't.

It feels really, really great to be able to get rid of so much stuff. By the time we are fully moved, we'll have managed to get rid of at least half of our belongings. It's kind of hard to believe that I was such a pack rat several years ago because I've become fairly minimalistic these last few years, especially this year.

I can't believe we're already in September and in a few weeks we'll be completely moved in to the new casa!  Here's a list of what I really like about the new place (in no particular order).

1. Land, land, laaaaand. (You saw that coming, right?)
2. The back door opens into the laundry room.  Do you see how absolutely genius this is when you have stinky, dirty boys?
3. So many windows. My bathroom has two windows. My bedroom has a huge window. My kitchen has one over the sink.  There's a bay window in the dining and two double windows in the living room.  There's one window in the hallway, one window in the reading/toy room, and three windows in the kids' sleeping quarters.  OH&... there's a sky light in the living room.
4. Screen doors. That's right y'all. Country-living isn't complete unless you have a screen door or two! (And we have one on the front and back doors.) We haven't had a screen door in a long time.
5. Deer. I am really pumped about all the deer that will be hanging out on the land.  We won't be hunting (at least not deer), but I love to see them just.. yanno, hanging out, eating some foliage. I'm not so excited about the 'coons.
6. Bonfires and campouts.  This probably falls under #1, but it really deserves it's own spot. Seriously, I cannot wait to host some really cool parties throughout the fall and (mild-Texas) winter.  We can have BYOT parties (bring your own tent).
7. Split floor plan.  You know, my bedroom on one end of the house, the kids on the other. Love my children, but do not love sharing a bedroom wall when I'm super exhausted.
8. Laminate wood floors AND NO CARPET is enough to make me break out into a musical number.
9. The cottage-like feel. So super cute!
10. The land owners- I really like them. They are super nice folks, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them.

:)

And, hey, now that you suffered through my house-talk....