Trunk or Treat

We are in the middle of Missions Conference at our church; it's a busy week.  Today, we girls stopped by work, went to Harris Teeter for Super Double Coupons....by the way I scored BIG! Paid $16.05 & SAVED $79.80.  This is the best I have ever done! We then headed to church for a ladies missionary tea.  Home. Naps & then to Chipotle for our boorito.  Here we are dressed up for our $3 supper.

Captain America sucking her thumb.

Captain America not sucking her thumb.
We're working on it.

After Chipotle, we headed to church for missions conference & Trunk or Treat.  All the kids were told to dress like superhero's.  Here is Lily & her friend, Jordan - the Avengers!

hand me downs

Have I said lately how much I love having TWO girls? Especially the same season! It is so fun having Ella wear the same things Lily wore.  Remember THIS?

Above is Lily in December of 2011 (18 months).

Below is Ella today (17 months).

Today for dance class the girls could dress up.  We went through our limited dress up stuff in the lockers & Lily came out a ladybug.  Perfect since we call her Lily-bug!

 It's super hard to get a non-blurry picture....both girls are rather active.

Lily's friends at dance class.

new windows

This past two weeks we have been having new windows installed in our ENTIRE house....21 windows.  Yay!  We decided to contract this out.  Jake is back in school & it would have taken him a l-o-n-g time to do all the windows. There isn't lots of spare time right now. The house still had the original single pane windows from 1970.  They were rather drafty last winter. 

Front of house BEFORE:

Notice the bay window on the right, being held up by a post....as well as the huge aquarium window on the left, that is in the master bathroom.

AFTER with new windows: 

Disclaimer: We are NOT doing yellow.  The painted yellow wood siding was original & behind the vinyl siding around the front door.  We had new wood plank siding installed on the other additions.  We are planning to PAINT the siding & the brick.

Inside view of where bay window WAS in living room.  Lily misses that bay window.  She loved sitting & playing in there.

BEFORE of the right side of the house:

 This originally was a garage, that was then turned into a den, now it is our playroom.

Inside view BEFORE with the huge "front" door:

Inside view of the new window...we still have painting to do.

Aquarium window on its way OUT!  This window had major termite damage. We also took out the octagon window.

Without the aquarium & octagon windows....

Inside view of the new window....we haven't touched this master bathroom yet.  Hoping to remodel it over the winter.

We added the cute little rectangular window on the left.  That is in our laundry room.

This still needs some work - HA!.  There was termite damage here.  We had it treated as soon as we purchased the house. This is the addition that was a sunroom & is now our dining room. 

Inside view of the NEW windows:

THE pile....windows & doors that were ripped out....vinyl siding, etc...

In Progress:  This is the far left hand side of the house.  It was a double garage that the former owners then turned into a salon.  This will eventually be our master bedroom.  We took out a pair of french doors on the left & walled it up.

AFTER....walled up, new windows & siding. 

The windows we tore out....I am re-purposing them!

for our family who is TOO far away

The last few months, I have been rather delinquent in posting regular pictures of the girls.  So this is for all the Grandpa's, Grandma's, Uncles, Aunts & cousins.  We miss you!

And another sweet baby boy was born so we made this for him.

checking things off of the TO DO list

We have been working on big house projects for a long time & I have been waiting to start on some of the little stuff that I have had on my TO DO list.  Fun little projects that I could get done in an afternoon...these make me happy!  Well, I have been tackling that TO DO list the last couple of weeks....HERE & HERE & HERE.... I love crossing them off! I also love how small touches can make a house a HOME.

This week we decided to tackle some more of those projects.  We have a big wall behind our island in the kitchen area.  I had been thinking about doing some type of chalkboard, but hadn't quite figured it out.  Then I saw THIS on Pinterest & knew that is what we should do. I showed Jake the picture & we decided to do our own version.  What did we frame it in?  Pallets, of course!  

I also ran across THIS which was the perfect tip for buying the chalkboard piece instead of making our own or painting straight onto the wall. It was inexpensive too!

I used a glass jar I already had & an eye hook for the chalk.

 Jake left me a message on it right away Sunday night - LOVE him.

My workspace (ie - the dining room table).  More projects in process.

I finished up recovering my existing outdoor pillows last night.  I used the same fabric I bought in China 7 years ago. Ella helped me put them on the adirondack chairs this morning after breakfast.

My old wooden bottle holder & my little collection of glass soda bottles.

Ella's CHEESE-ER

After breakfast, Lily pulled up a chair & started drawing. She loves it!