a much needed update...

I feel like the last few weeks (well, month even...) has been such a whirlwind -but in a good way! It just seems like the beginning of summer brings on so much more to do. I love the summer, but it always seems like I have every week and weekend planned out before it even begins! This summer is certainly no exception. Much of that has to do with our latest and greatest project: our new house. We sure love it there, but it has been a lot of work (and we're only getting started!). It all started last weekend when we closed on the house. My parents came up Friday evening to begin painting. I knew painting was a lot of work... but I've never really painted an entire house before. Plus the kitchen cabinets. Thus, the fun began: I started with Miriam's room -a very lovely shade of yellow. We ended up painting the ceiling yellow, too, since it needed to be painted and that seemed to be all we had at the moment. It looked quite bright at first but is finally starting to tame down with some furniture in there. Then, my sister and brother-in-law began painting our red room. It was after that coat that we realized we'd need two more. Oh boy. Then, we moved onto the living room (which I hadn't intended on painting until I really looked closely and decided I didn't like the current shade of brownish tan that it was. I had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up darker brown paint at 8:30 on a Sunday morning where no one knew how to mix paint. That was about a 30 minute process when all was said and done). From there, we moved into the kitchen. Meanwhile, my dad has been taking off the kitchen cabinets, sanding them, priming them and beginning to paint them. Black. I love it. The kitchen is green. I loved it at first... but then became overwhelmed with green when it was covering the walls... and now am beginning to love it again. I need to see everything put together before I can fully come to a conclusion on it. My mom said she could tell I've been living with white walls for the past 8 years. I guess I missed having some color! So anyway, that was all last weekend. During the week, we've been attempting to pack up some boxes and move little things here and there. Then comes today: my brother and sister-in-law offered to come up and watch Miriam so that Matt and I could get more work done (THANK YOU!). So, I was able to finish the last two coats on the kitchen cabinets and spend some time actually cleaning and unpacking what we do have over there. Currently, Matt and his dad are working on putting in our new countertops. We discovered today that the cabinets were probably built by the original owners of the house (in 1954) and also decided to attach the countertops TO the cabinets. Apparently that slightly complicated things... and I honestly have no idea how things are going with that. When I last left, there was a lot of pounding and tearing off of the current countertops. I'm still just shocked that no one has replaced the mustard yellow countertops in 55 years. Who knows... maybe I just missed the yellow countertop fad for the past 55 years? So with all of that, we plan on hopefully moving all the rest of our big furniture in tomorrow and will actually begin living there! We're so thrilled. Of course this doesn't mean any of these projects are entirely complete and that I don't have a whole lot of work ahead of me with unpacking and organizing. However, we feel so blessed to have our own home that I think that will help us get through all of the disarray for the next few weeks. I will have pictures sometime soon... when I can find the box that contains the cord that connects my camera to the computer. :)

busy

I'm actually not even completely sure what we've been busy with lately... but it just seemed like sitting down and writing a blog entry would take up a lot of time, so I've been putting it off. I need to make it more of a habit to do this at least weekly! Anyway, we've been doing lots of random things since Easter, so I thought I'd make a list:

1) Miriam and I spent a week in Owatonna to relax and prepare for a garage sale.

2) Matt and I spent a day in the cities shopping for things for our house. We came home with two ceiling fans... I was hoping to try and find at least something more.

3) We met up with Sam & Marlea while in the cities. It was wonderful catching up with them!

4) Miriam has officially probably quadrupled her vocabulary in the last few months. I often have no idea where she picked up many of the things she says. In the last few days, she's also been filling in words of songs I sing to her often with whatever comes next. She's so smart! :)

5) We've been on many walks and many adventures to parks. Miriam loves parks... well, she actually seems to enjoy just being at a park more than actually playing on the equipment. Either way, she loves it.

6) I've started a new Mom's Bible study at church... we're going through "The Power of a Positive Mom." It's great!

7) I packed my first three boxes for moving today. Some would say I should probably be a little farther than that by now... but oh well. I packed up an entire house pretty much on my own in one week with a 4 month old last time.

8) I've started a new hobby... crocheting rugs! It's a lot of fun! I re-picked up crocheting in the last month thanks to my sister-in-law (who also has a wonderful collection of boutique items for sale here), but then she also suggested making rag rugs. I am using old clothes and am currently attempting a massive rug for Miriam's room at our new house. If all goes well, this could save us the price of a new area rug!

9) Matt's mom has come to visit us... she's been here off and on throughout this week. We enjoy having her and Miriam sure enjoys her time with her.

10) Matt has joined softball and had his first game last night. The church formed a team together and they'll be playing throughout the summer. We look forward to living within blocks of the fields so that we can catch parts of some of the games!

11) Garage sales! The season has officially begun and I am more than thrilled... I probably go to way too many of them, but you never know what you can find! So far we've come away with everything from a set of Fiesta dishes to a kitchen sink!

Well, that's about all I can think of right now... even though I'm sure there's more we've been up to. I'll get some pictures up soon, too. We still haven't gotten any of the house yet -that may have to wait until we close (next Friday!). Until next time...