Day 17: our house

I am thankful for our house.

(I think I need to take an updated picture. Our yard looks much better now, 2 years later.)

 A big thunderstorm came through our city today, and there were tornados nearby. We didn't get hit too hard at our house, but we were a little nervous for a bit. We had just gotten home from church/choir practice and finished eating some lunch. It was getting pretty windy outside. And then it started raining hard and we could see lightning. And then it got REALLY windy and I could barely see out of our windows. It almost reminded me of the time there was a small tornado by our house in St. Louis. When the sirens came on, Mckay and I looked at each other and we knew it was time to run for the shelter of our bathroom. Having no basement here, the bathroom is our safest choice. We've recently put together some 72 hour emergency kits, so I knew right where the flashlights and other important things were. I reluctantly grabbed the sleeping Connor from his bed and met Dallin and Mckay in the bathtub. Dallin was confused about what we were doing and was a little nervous. (Remember, he's good at sensing people's emotions.) I very calmly told him that there was a big storm outside with lots of rain and wind, so we were being extra careful and hanging out in the bathroom for a while because it was safe in there. Mckay told him that as long as we were all together we would be fine.

The rain and wind left almost as quickly as it had come. And we left the bathroom after 10 minutes. The sun was already coming out and there was no visible damage outside, no fallen trees. Other places in town were not so lucky. A Middle School had the walls blown off the gymnasium. The Elementary School where Dallin attends preschool (which is right next door to that Middle School) has some roof damage and broken windows. As a result, school is cancelled tomorrow. The Subaru Plant (which provides a large chunk of the jobs here) had some damage and has cancelled some shifts for Monday. Some nearby roads (like 2-3 miles away) are closed because of debris. Many of our friends were without power for some time.

This is a picture that a local man took from downtown today. This was about 5 miles from our house.

I am very grateful that we did not get any damage to our house. I'm grateful that we have a wonderful home to shelter us and keep us safe.

 Some cities a few hours away sustained a lot more damage and homes were destroyed. I can't imagine how difficult that would be. Beyond the obvious difficulty of not having your house to live in anymore, I would be devastated to loose everything inside our house.

I love the home that we've built here. I'm so grateful that we get to live in it. I'm grateful that we were protected during the storm yesterday.

Home Decor

Dallin brings artwork home from preschool nearly every day. Our refrigerator has reached surface area capacity and there is not space for even one more pipe cleaner, pom pom, or paper plate craft. So I made something that could hang in his room to display his artwork.

It was pretty simple, I mostly copied this tutorial. I painted two long pieces of wood and glued clips to the board.

The hardest part was getting them hung up on the wall. The boards sat in Dallin's closet for a few months waiting for a Saturday when a certain man of the house could hang them up for me. (When I hang things up, they don't look level.... because they aren't.)

I cut some letters with my Cricut :) and pinned them over the boards. Easy!

While we had a hammer and nails out, we hung up some pictures in our front room.

I know, we've been in this house for over 18 months and still haven't hung up all our pictures!? I have trouble deciding how I want to hang things and I don't like extra holes in the wall, so pictures usually sit for a while until I can make a decision.

I like the shape of the pictures. And I like that I can finally look at the walls and tell who lives here.

And while I'm posting about my creative endeavors, I'll share this card that Dallin helped me make for a birthday party he went to.

It was his first big kid birthday party at someone else's house without us there with him. I hear he played nice and participated, even with it being a My Little Pony themed party. 

Recently

We have finally moved into our new house! And we just got internet hooked up yesterday, hence the lack of blog posts. We are still unpacking and getting things settled in, so don't get too excited because this post will not be full of house pictures. I want to get things looking a little nicer before we do the big "house pictures" post. However, the following pictures were taken in the new house, so you will get a sneak peek of it here and there.

Ok, this is actually outside the house. This was how our lovely front yard looked on the day of our walk-through. Don't worry, it has grass now. Though I think Dallin preferred the dirt and rocks.

Just after signing papers, we ate our first meal in our new home - Burger King.

Dallin thought it would be fun to sit down backwards in the bumbo seat, until he realized it was trickier to get out of it that way.

He also thought it was a good idea to try to climb into the little space between the refrigerator and the wall.

After getting stuck, he's learned very quickly to not try it again.

Last of all, a picture of my ever growing belly at 25 weeks.

Little baby No Name is moving and squirming all over the place. Sometimes he thinks it's fun to play the drums on my belly. He's got some rhythm! And as hard as I tried to keep it from him, he's discovered that his home extends all the way to my ribs now. I'm not very fond of it.

Packing

We've been busy packing up all of our possessions. Even the cute ones.

I promise we were not torturing our child. He never once cried or resisted. In fact, he was laughing and smiling. Mckay has a way of getting Dallin to do anything by laughing and making it seem like a game.

We close on our house in one week, and we are so excited to be moving! Our tiny apartment just gets smaller when you stack a wall of boxes in the living room.

I think Dallin will be a big asset in unpacking boxes when we get in our house.

You should have seen how quickly he "unpacked" this box of crackers.

(Also contrary to what these pictures show, I do put clothes on my child. This happened to be a particularly lazy hot day.)

House Progress

This is what our house looks like recently.

The exterior is finished (except for a driveway and grass).

The walls are painted, vinyl flooring is in, and the doors and trim are up.

Here is our kitchen:

The guest bathroom is pretty much done.

And check out the "bulbous" shower head in the master bathroom.

If all goes well we should be moving in soon, in about 2 1/2 weeks!

New House

We're buying a house!

We found a house that we really like and we should be closing on it by the end of June.

Do you want to see a picture? Here it is:

Ok, so it needs a little bit of work, but it's gonna look amazing!

Seriously though, we're building a brand new house and this is the empty lot where our house is being built. They told us that it takes 3 months to build and should be done around end of June/ beginning of July, which is perfect for us because our apartment lease is up mid-July!!! (In case you didn't know, I'm super excited to get out of this apartment!) For about 3 weeks, the lot has been completely empty and looking the same as in the picture above.

But in the past few days they've actually started working on it! Here's what it looks like now:

We have a driveway!

It looks like so far they've just leveled the dirt and are starting the edge for the foundation. We're excited to see the progress the builders make and we'll try to post pictures as more of the house is completed.

If you really want to know what the house will look like when it's finished, you can look at our floor plan here.