The Dining Rooom

The dining room is one of my favorite rooms. I love the tall windows and the tile floor. We don't have anything to put on the far wall. But that's OK. I'm enjoying the space for now, since we lived with it crammed with all our extra furniture for 5 months while Sean redid some of the floors in other rooms. The piece in the corner is an English Conservatory. We make jokes about it while playing clue. But eventually, it will have some pretty plants inside it, Lord willing and husband approving! I found it at a garage sale too just up the street.

Our fall centerpiece. Normally we fill the cornucopia with gourds and little pumpkins. But I haven't been able to get any yet this fall. Evan really wanted to set out the fall decorations, so we make do with what we had. I think it turned out rather well and now maybe I don't need the gourds after all.

We found the buffet off Craig's list and it turned out we knew the person selling it! That was fun. My mom painted the beautiful painting over the buffet. And Sean brought me the roses. He said it was to say thank you for taking care of everybody who was sick (including the horse). It looks like Sean and the kids may have had the swine flu. If not, they had a yucky one. The girls were sick with viral meningitis before that. I don't think we've gone much of anywhere for the last month. Praise God, I was spared and didn't get sick. Evan thinks it was because I've been drinking green smoothies. Emily says it's because I've been exercising. Whatever the means, I'm grateful for God's mercy. And I really like the flowers!

The Kid's Bathrooms

The girls are very happy with their muted purple bathroom. It's actually the same paint that we had at our old house in the guest bath. We had a bit left over and this way they can use all my old decorations.

And we got a few new ones as well. I found the cute green accordion hanger at a garage sale and the flower print at a different one.

Evan went for the more sophisticated jungle theme. A friend of ours had the same cute jungle theme in their bathroom so we gave them our towels and bath rugs.

The jungle stuff that we had in the kids bath at our old house from Africa goes really nice with the new updated theme. And lucky for Evan, jungle is really popular right now so it was easy to find new towels that went well and were a little more masculine.

Sean found this great bamboo screen for the window.

We put the mirror from Emily's bedroom in his bath. I think it looks really good!

Up next, the dining room...

The Girls Room

You can see the before pictures here. This was the first room we painted (actually the only room we painted). It was such an awful purple and yellow before. Now it's a very pale pink. The same as Emily's room before.

Sean put up some fake wood blinds that look great even though I don't think you can see them in the picture. The girls are doing really well sharing a room. And it's nice having two closets: one for toys and one for clothes.

Up next the kids bathrooms.

Weighting....

Emily: "What's this mom?"

Me: "It's a weight bench."

Emily: "Oh, to wait your turn?"

Happy Anniversary, Sean! I hope you like your new workout room! One more project complete!

Enjoying Life in the Country

Driving new toys...

Baking cakes...

Decorating cakes...(With a neighbor's flowers)

Painting fences...

Shooting squirrels...

Before...

Evan's "pink" bathroom. Eventually, it will be replaced with a wild African Safari theme. We already bought the zebra stripe towels at Target and my mom brought some cheetah skin fabric to cover his window seat. We laugh that he got such a girly bathroom.

The girls room, which we promptly painted a lovely shade of pale pink. The rest of the house has very interesting and expensive Venetian Plaster on the walls. But for some reason the previous owner decided to paint over it in this room with Laker colors. Bizarre. The girls have a bathroom off their room too, but I don't have a picture of it.

Our bathroom. The toilet and tub are around the corner. It's huge! Apparently the original owner liked pink. The tile is high on Sean's list of things to improve.

This is the guest room. Our room looks pretty much the same.

The upstairs loft in between Evan's room and the girls room.

Evan's bed room.

The kitchen. It's so much bigger than our previous one. I love that. I'm also really enjoying the double wall oven that Sean bought me for a birthday present! The cabinets are really nicely made but it's a bit too much oak for me. Painting them an antique white and adding some hardware is high on my list of improvements.

The mud room. There is so much storage here, it's really nice. And there is a bathroom off the mudroom. It's the only one with a functioning toilet. So realistically, no matter how much we dislike the pink bathrooms, or the oak cabinets, they will have to wait. Getting things up and running will probably take the better part of a year.

The dining room. This is my favorite room in the house. I love the tall windows, the Spanish tile and the color of the walls.

Our two story fire place in the middle of the living room.

Looking down from the loft on the fireplace. I really like that the loft is open with a half wall.

The view from our back porch looking out at the back pastures. The little building in the distance is a shade structure of sorts for horses. The fence behind it is our property line.

Our back porch. Emily has been having a lot of fun playing here. And Evan is having a lot of fun shooting squirrels from here.

It will be a while before I post any after pictures. Things are still pretty disorganized. But we're having lots of fun while we work hard!

A Blessing

One of the first things people notice when they come over to our new house is what they hear. If you stand still outside, all you can hear are the birds. We are in a valley that muffles the noise of the world. It is one of the first things we noticed too. It was such a contrast to where we lived before. And it's one of the reasons we loved this house and property.

Today Al Mohler writes about noise and children. It's a very interesting article.

"Our culture now assumes noise and the constant availability of music, electronic chatter, and entertainment. In many homes, there is virtually no silence -- at least during waking hours. In some homes, family members live in isolated environments of independent sound, with iPods, televisions, radios, and any number of other technologies providing a customized experience of noise.

The life of the mind and the shaping of the soul require the ability to hear, recognize, and understand what would be lost in a cacophony of sound. "

Read the whole article here.

It reminded me again what a gift from God this house is for our family. We took the kids to see the movie UP (very good, by the way) and while the kids liked it, they had their hands over their ears almost the whole time. I didn't realize how sensitive they are to noise. It was so loud for them. However, I would rather it be a bit of a shock for them to be in a movie theater, than a shock for them to be outside, where all they could hear would be the birds.

In the article he makes a quote about the quietness needed for children to watch a lady bird crawl up a leaf. I laughed because just last week, Emily and her friends sat for 15 minutes watching a snail move. They were fascinated watching it leave a trail across the driveway.

We still have so much work to make this house our home. Boxes need to be unpacked, carpet needs to be replaced, toilets need to be installed, and pictures need to be hung. But I am glad to be reminded of another reason why this move and this house are a blessing.