New House Sneak Peak!!

We have been busily nesting in our new home this past week.

Sorry for the lack of posts this summer, this house buying and moving process has been quite consuming.

But, I am getting back to normal again and we are beginning to feel like this big house is becoming our home. Some of you have mentioned anxiously awaiting photos, and I know our out of town family has been curious too...so I did not want to make anyone wait much longer. Here is a sneak peak of some of the spaces in our new house!

 Our kitchen has seen an amazing transformation.

When we viewed the house it looked like this:

 Don't you just love that floral rug and wallpaper?

Yeah...me too.

They were using the space as a kitching/living room.

Well, we saw right away that the "breakfast nook" would not fit our 8-seater kitchen table:

  We came up with a solution to make the family room our dining room and it could not be more perfect.

We had painters come tear down the wallpaper and put Sherwin Williams "Latte" on our walls and I could not be happier.

For the first time in my life I have a kitchen island *LOVE* and space to walk around our kitchen table. 

 

 Plus, I was able to create my favorite space in the room,

the long desired:

 "Family Message Center"

Oh how I love how this turned out.

 I purchased the 4 piece set from Kohls and our real estate agent bought us the iron sign from Hobby Lobby. 

I already had the iron basket we will use to collect mail in.

My love of polka dots has been replaced with chevron.

I plan on decorating with this pattern as an accent in several rooms of the home.

I found a really cool double sided clock and Billy made me a clock tower!

Now I can see the time when I am cooking and dining.

This has turned into my dream kitchen.

Replacing the appliances to black or stainless steel will happen over the next couple of years as they break down.

The fireplace being in there makes everything feel warmer and added a unique feature to our house:

So to solve the problem of losing a living room, we are using the "formal" as our family room. We have never been into having unused space in our house anyway.

 As you come down the stairs, you enter the foyer and our living room.

This large space also holds our piano room in what was once their dining room. (Again...no unused space for us...plus, who wants to have 5 children dining on carpet anyway?)

This is what the whole living area looks like from upstairs.

My plans down the road are to replace those window treatments and update the brass chandelier and hanging lantern in the foyer with black iron ones.

That is all for now, folks.

Tomorrow I will reveal my pride and joy of the house,

The Brothers Bedroom, 

decorated in vintage Carnival theme.

Stay tuned...it is adorable.

We Have Moved!

We are moved in to our new house!!

This weekend was a whirlwind of moving and unpacking and cleaning.

Billy and I said we are feeling our age for sure now. 

It went off without a single hitch except for a couple of exhaustion/extreme body pain/sweaty & too hot crying jags I succumbed to. (Just keeping it real)

 Everything went very smoothly, so I really can't complain.

I do have some photos to share via my cell phone because my DSLR is somewhere in the mess.

 The night before our move. Boxes EVERYWHERE.

Oscar wanted to make sure we didn't leave him.

 All of our stuff got moved in within a couple of hours.

Always hire movers.

This is where my anxiety got high. 

I don't do living out of boxes or suitcases well.

I can't handle bare walls with nothing on them.

And I detest wallpaper.

Which brings me to the next photo.

 We spent the week leading up to the move tearing down wallpaper in the kids bathroom and painting.

(The big reveal will come after I decorate)

The wall paper in this room was something out of a

 90's skating rink. 

It was bad, people.

What this endeavor taught us is:

1. We hate taking down wallpaper

2. We are really bad at painting

3. We will be contracting this out in the future.

The painters come on Thursday for the kitchen and master bath.

'Nough said.

But when it was all done and we saw the paint bleading on the ceiling and the drips on the wall that dried before we noticed, I said this: 

I do not care if it looks like a 4 year old painted it. 

Hallelujah, Jesus...the wallpaper is gone!!! 

And I mean that.

So we are making progress slowly but surely.

We feel VERY blessed by this home. It is everything we needed it to be and more.

And on a side note, Keishun got his first job.

Woohoo.

We gave him a week or so of training before we came in for our bean burritos and Fresca tacos.

This photo got some fun comments on Facebook.

• Megan Burgess Racca What did he think about his mom taking his picture at work?

  Saturday at 6:59pm via mobile · Like
• 

  Heather Gardner Moore Did you get a discount?

  Saturday at 7:04pm via mobile · Like · 1
• 

  Chesna Coker Ellis We live *there* now, so we'll do that if we eat there!

  Saturday at 7:35pm via mobile · Unlike · 1
• 

  Sonya Villafranca Rodgers awww i can tell my uncle! he's a vp in corporate office

  Saturday at 7:54pm · Like
• 

  Korey Scott Looks like he about to get a tough customer.

  Saturday at 8:15pm · Like
• 

  Maile Srader Love this picture.

  Saturday at 9:04pm · Like
• 

  Robin Rachel Thacker Did he die of embarrassment when you insisted on taking the picture??

  Saturday at 11:21pm via mobile · Like

  
  
  No, he didn't die of embarrassment. 
  
  He is used to me by now. ;)

  But I DID do the receipt survey and gave the cute cashier glowing reviews on his customer service and accuracy. 

  I did not mention, however that I was his Mom. 

Busy Weekend

We closed on our house!!!! Woohoo!!!

(If you are wondering where the rest of our peeps are...

it is summer. The older boys have a lot going on)

This weekend we spent taking some stuff over there. 

Next Saturday is the official move-in where we will be in there for good. I cannot tell you what a blessing this has been for us. The space this house will give us is more than we have ever had in 10 years of marriage. 

With 5 children now, it is time.

It is time.

And as a side note, the day we closed I also spoke to an adoption subsidy worker with child protective services. We requested re-negotiating the monthly money Isaac gets for having been adopted by the state. We had been receiving half of the amount allowable and after I told the negotiator how much our lifestyle has changed adopting TWO of his biological relatives as our sons...we were offered the max amount a month beginning in July until he turns 18. 

Oh. My. Goodness.

Our God's provision is always there for us, but sometimes it feels like He shines down a special blessing. Friday was that day. We got our house and we will be getting more money to help us pay for it. 

Thank you, Jesus...Savior and Friend. :)

Also, a giant gift this weekend was that I co-hosted a baby shower for one of my very best friends 

(who happens to also be Terrance's Mama)...

The beautiful, Maile:

I was in charge of decorations...which was so much fun of course.

Did I ever tell you the story behind this pregnancy?

No?

Well you have got to hear this one. :)

So...last summer I contacted my friend Maile about Keishun's brother Terrance needing a permanent home. She and her husband Jeremy were licensed foster parents at the time. They prayed for a family for this 11 year old boy and kept coming back to the same conclusion that God was calling them to be his parents. So after taking lots of initiative on both our parts to advocate for this very outcome, Terrance came home to live with them in July. 

This past Fall, Maile and her husband chose to have a vasectomy, with the intention of keeping room open in their house and family for adoption, by having no more biological children. 

They are also the parents to this adorable 4 year old, James.

So... lo and behold several months later, Maile gets the biggest surprise of her life when she takes a pregnancy test and gets a positive. 

She texted me. 

I called her. 

We sat in shocked silence. 

Then we said things like, 

"Oh my gosh. I know! What on earth!"

 

It was awesome and so exciting to be a part of that day. 

 Just as special as it was to stand in court with them the following month as they finalized Terrance's adoption:

 So now we move onto a new chapter in my sweet friend's life.

I have already called dibs on staying over with her in the hospital when baby brother is born.

She is due in August during my birthday month. Yay!!!

She is a fabulous Mom.

Selfless, patient, organized, intentional.

I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Can't wait for this baby to come.

Summer Eatin'

 One of the things that makes me nervous about the summer days, is having to feed the kids 3 meals a day 7 days a week. During the school year, their school provides a free breakfast in the classroom to all students each day and they often eat cafeteria lunches too, because I have been impressed with the fruit and vegetable choices. So now that school is out, my groceries will have to be focused on lots and lots of meals. 

The great thing is, the produce this time of year is so affordable. Some of the things I will do to make a life a bit easier is:

~Hard boiling eggs for easy lunch and cooler packing.

~Pre chopping and washing fruits and veggies.

~Buying small water bottles and 100% fruit juice boxes for our pool cooler.

~Making up cold pasta salads and chopping meat for chef salad.

~Freezing loaves of bread and cheese slices for mid week needs.

~Stocking up on frozen fish, rice packages, pasta, and steamable vegetables.

~Getting frozen waffles, pre-cooked turkey sausage patties, smoothie ingredients, yogurt sticks, whole grain english muffins, eggs, and cereals for breakfasts.

~Scouring Pinterest and other sites for easy summer meals.

~Getting Billy to grill on the weekends to give me a break!

I would love your input on how you are going to feed your kids during the long summer days.

First Day of Summer Break

Our summer started off with a bang today with a festive breakfast table.

Terrance spent the night so he was able to spend the day with us. 

You can see Keishun is always in a great mood in the morning. ;)

 Then Keishun went off to the rec and the kids and I headed out for the library to sign up for the summer reading program.

I chose summer themed books for the girls and Vivi picked up a couple of Spanish books that Keishun can read to her.

One of Isaac's favorite parts of summertime is being allowed to stay up late listening to audio books. He adores the Hank The Cowdog series every year.

After the library we went over to a free spray park 

in a neighboring town.

The kids had a blast for two hours.

Jasmine ran and screamed in delight of all that water.

The area has a large park and lots of well manicured grass 

to relax on. 

We ate lunch and played until Jasmine was done and ready for a nap.