Christmas Spirit

We love Christmas time, so despite being buried in boxes, we put up our Christmas tree during our first week in the house. 

Alex is still 'photo resistant', so he refused to sit in front of the tree for a picture.

We took a break from unpacking one day to make Christmas cards.

I'm planning to spend this whole next week doing Christmas activities with the kids.  I don't feel like I have a lot of other things hanging over my head now, so I'm excited to have a fun week with them.  We all need it.  Then my mom arrives for a visit on Saturday, and we'll have a week and a half with her.  Yay!

Farm Cat

When you live rurally, a good mouser is very helpful to keep the rodent population down.  I'm allergic to cats, so we don't have one, but it seems we've been adopted by one already!  This kitty has been appearing on our porch almost every day that we've been here.  She's (we think it's a girl, but I'm not about to pick her up to find out...hives!) actually a very sweet cat.  We're wondering if she belongs to the neighbors because she is very tame.  The kids have enjoyed playing with her outside, and I can't complain about her hanging around if it helps keep mice away.  We're going to take Christmas cookies to the neighbors this week, so we'll ask then if she is theirs.  If not, we've decided to start feeding her and consider her ours, but she'll still need to be an outdoor kitty because my allergies are so bad.

Whenever I'm in the kitchen, she hops onto our barbecue grill and watches me.

First Weeks At Home

 We had a very exhausted boy one evening right before the move.

Annie and I were invited to a girls' night the day of our move.  She was SO excited, so we left Jim to assemble beds and went to a little party.  She had fun dressing up with the other little girls and having her nails painted.

Our first morning in our home was Sunday.  Abby was a happy girl before we headed to church.

Alex had a little stomach bug during our first week in our new house.  I was a little worried about the carpet, but he did a great job catching it every time, and he felt better after just a few hours.

We've been pretty laid back about baby food with Abby.  She's been eating cereal for quite a while, but I've mostly been nursing her still.  Interestingly, she's my biggest baby so far.  Now that we're re-settled, she's been having tastes of all sorts of things, including softer table foods.  She's handling everything so well, that I'm in a debate about whether or not I'll bother making any baby food.  This girl may just go from nursing to table foods.  :)  

I'm discovering the advantages of older siblings with my baby this time around.  When Abby wakes up, they can't wait to play with her, so they rush to her side.  Often they get her out of her crib and entertain her until I come.  It gives me all sorts of time.  This particular morning they did just that, but then they abandoned her before I came into the room.  I heard her start fussing, so I came to the rescue.  This is how I found her: undressed and sad.  Poor baby girl.

She was happy minutes later.

 She was looking beautiful on another Sunday morning.

The three older kids have been fantastic throughout these crazy weeks.  They have played so well for the most part, and have spent hours reading every day.  They've made it so easy on me.

Every baby needs a bath picture.  :)

Annie LOVES clothes, especially when she gets to match Abby.  They are so cute.

I found this in the toy box one day.  It was very hard; I wonder how long it had been there.

Alex was following me around whining, "Momma!  I'm freezing and cold!"  Yet my suggestion to get dressed was totally unappealing.  He eventually found a blanket and sat over the heater.

We introduced Abby to the bouncer now that we've moved.  She's a fan.

Alex rarely wears clothes.  When he does he inevitably gets them wet (because he constantly finds water to play in), and strips them off, so I haven't been fighting that battle much at home lately.  On this particular day, Alex couldn't stay out of mischief.  He'd been better than usual for a few weeks, so I guess he was making up for it.  By lunch time, he'd emptied packed boxes, made a mess of Scentsy wax, scattered orange peels all over the house, made water messes in both bathrooms, poured his own cereal AND milk (messy and a no-no), stripped twice, unloaded the school store bubble gum and math books/ papers, pulled down curtains, and dumped LEGOs right after I'd said no LEGOs.

My handsome Logan wanted to pose for a picture.

Annie thought that was a good idea, so she joined in.  I love these kids.

Kids Say

Annie, "If Hannah (Annie's friend) and I were born in your tummy that would be neat because we would be sisters."

Logan, "Mom, when I'm a grown up I'm hoping my wife will let me buy one chicken each year as a special treat."

We were talking about Primary classes and Logan was telling us what class he'll be in year after next, "I'll be in VIOLENT 8."  (He meant VALIANT 8.)

Alex to me, "I want to eat popcorn with you and Annie and Logan, but not Dad!"

Alex was asking me about when I was little, "Was you in Dad's tummy?"

Alex, "There's no dad in the family.  He went to work!"

We have a cat that has been hanging around on our front porch.  After seeing it almost every day for a while, we realized that we hadn't seen it on any Sundays.  Annie, "Maybe it's a Mormon cat.  I read a book about cats that says cats go to church on Sunday.  When they stay home that is their church."

Alex as he was studying Jim's engineering textbooks, "Mom, we need to make roller coasters."

Before and After

We moved into our new home 20 days ago.  I've been working hard to arrange and unpack so we can finally feel settled.  It's not totally finished, but it's finally at a point that I feel I can relax.  Phew!  Here's hoping life can go back to normal again.  (We'll work on our many little house projects, and unpacking the boxes in the attic gradually.)

I've shown some of the work we did on the house in previous posts.  The next few pictures show some of the unpacking work.

I was pretty fried from four weeks of nonstop work towards our move, so when this was my view on Monday morning after the move I was quite discouraged.  

Still that Monday morning...

Another angle...

Another room, same morning...

I finally began on the kitchen and the kids watched.  The ladder continued indoors (with no purpose) for at least a week.

There was no turning back at this point!

By Friday (which was the day after Thanksgiving) I'd made some progress, but not as much as I hoped.  I just told myself to be patient.  Jim helped me with the books this day.  It felt so good to have our books out again!

Book mess...

More book mess...

More book mess...

Sometime in the next week I unburied the office.

I also had a rather ironic fortune cookie.

 

NOW, it's time for the before and after pictures.

Kitchen: BEFORE

AFTER: The walls are a slightly different color, but otherwise it looks about the same.  What you can't see are the hours I spent scrubbing grease off of the cupboards/ counters, black grime off of the fridge, and dirt off of the ceiling fixtures.

 Dining room: BEFORE

AFTER:  I love this room.  We were afraid the paint color would be too dark, but it ended up being my favorite.  

 Living room: BEFORE

AFTER: As predicted, paint and carpet went a long way in this room.

 

 Behind the living room radiator: BEFORE

AFTER: Our couch sits here now.

 Behind the parlor radiator: BEFORE

AFTER: We're going to build some shelves in the corner.

 Parlor: BEFORE

AFTER: This room isn't finished.  The big piano and I are parting ways soon, the closet needs doors, and I have a lot of boxes to unpack in that closet still.

 Our bedroom: BEFORE

AFTER:  I'm not satisfied with this room yet, but for now it's clean and functional.

 Boys' bedroom: BEFORE

 AFTER:  This room has the best contrast.  Paint and carpet are awesome!

  Girls' room: BEFORE

AFTER:  My camera made the walls look sort of blue, but they are a lighter shade of the purple in the girls' bedding.  This room is totally cute; now I just need to find some cute butterflies for the walls.

s.

 Upstairs bathroom: BEFORE

AFTER: All we did in here was give it a good scrub and a different shower curtain.

Extra bedroom: AFTER.  I failed to take a before picture of this one, but it looked a lot like the other rooms.  It had the worst walls, though.

Office: AFTER and still in progress.  It's functional for now.

 To be complete I wanted to include some outdoor pictures.  BEFORE (ha ha)

AFTER:  It's been a crazy three months since we first saw this place.  The first time we entered the house we were suffering from super hot weather.  Now we're experiencing snow and freezing temperatures.  The snow really is beautiful.  I didn't want to actually go outside to take a picture, though.  :)