Just Us

I never would have pegged Mike or I as a gnome people, but he planted this guy
he'd bought to take a photo of in our yard the first day we got the key, and I love it :)

Well, this post has been a long time coming. We've been in our house over a month now! It's just us! And it's great to feel that everyone in the home totally supports and loves me! Such a great feeling!!! So, so can not even do it justice with words so insert dramatic pause here ........ We can do our thing, our way, without worrying about bothering anybody! ...So even though it's not our dream house, and we've had a lot of sadness about the decision to leave beautiful sunny San Diego... I'm really glad to be here right now feeling a little bit more like the me I was meant to be with each passing day. Finally growing up :D

We're in!

It's good, and scary, and life changing for sure! Scary because now we have a mortgage payment. Scary because now it is just us responsible for listening out to the bumps in the night. And this house makes a lot of noise we can't attribute to other people being here! Our fridge makes so many knocking sounds at times I've thought about taking videos of it to post --it's just so ridiculously noisy! ...It's been a transition - with definite periods of sleep deprivation. In some ways we miss bunking in with family... But over all it's really, really great that it's just us! I have danced wildly and freely in the front room with my 3 year old without fear of looking ridiculous to anyone in the house because it's just us!!! Our little family being out on our own has been a much too long time in coming so it's going to take us a while to get used to it!

It was like Christmas getting all the toys out of storage - they did not want to go to sleep the first night!

There are definitely more things to do when you move into a house of your own than when you are renting a space! More things to change and repair, and for us this time, more space to spread out in! We have always been pretty quick unpackers and were doing pretty well getting things organized in the house the first few days so I didn't really think it would take as long as it has to really get settled. But we had quite a few projects to do, and children to take care of and school starting, and all the moving and cleaning was pretty exhausting on our poor bodies!

Lily wanted to help give her Dad a back massage.

Stripping paint off and refinishing a table we were gifted took us a few weeks, but it turned out very nice...and after eating at a small folding table with our kids trying to take over the only 2 big folding chairs and tipping over in them all the time - it was super nice to finally be eating at a regular table again!

So glad to trade in this sweet set up for this one!

I didn't really expect to do much in the way of decorating for some time. Not wanting to spend any more money, and as artists we've usually had too many things to hang on the walls, but now having a whole house we have quite a few big blank spaces we still need to fill. I've been looking forward to finally printing some of our family photos to hang up. We never had any space for them before! I don't have a big budget, but I found some frames at Ross for great prices and made a family photo wall in our dining area for just under $100 prints included. I've kind of gotten in the habit of not buying anything to decorate because we just didn't have the money to spend or the space to store it, so now it feels weird to spend money on decorating! But whenever I look at our photos it makes me happy - so I think it's worth it :) You have to admit it - just doesn't feel as homey staring at a blank wall.

Earlier this month we had our first general conference in our own home. I made our traditional homemade cinnamon rolls and we decorated for Halloween. I'm enjoying having our little homemade decorations fill in the gaps and make it feel fuller in here.

Pumpkins by Sierra & Mommy

 Ghost by Lily

Lily helping me get out the Halloween lights we made before we had kids
with face paint leftover from her school carnival the night before

My littlest cutie hanging decorations in the window

I feel so blessed...so even though life is not perfect, and I could make a list of things that are lacking about our home and yard -- the goods outweigh the bads and I'm counting my blessings! Will try to post more updates soon!

First day of school 2015

Lily started school the day after Labor day. Much later than most kids in the country I take it. Personally, I was relieved to have a longer summer to settle in to our new home. I could go with a little more summer even, but alas - it is not to be...and the weather is turning on us. Hope our heater doesn't give out on us! We are so happy to be in our own home - finally!!! But I will expound on that another time. I have been too busy trying to make the house homey to blog much, but I wanted to share a few photos of the girls for my family. 

Lily's First Day of 2nd Grade!

 Sierra doing a little school with me at home

Lily started at a new school again this year. Her teacher seems very nice and she seems to be adjusting well. Lily rode the bus for the first time with a bigger girl friend from our neighborhood. She took it twice but decided to drive again this year for now as she's one of the few smallest kids on the bus. Lily bonked right between her eyes on a metal handle on our shoe cabinet the night before school started hence her little scrape. She had a big bump, but you can't even tell now. Healed up right in time for picture day :)

I've been trying to do a little preschool time with Sierra each day. The first was the most successful so far. Makes me look like a pinterest mom! Just adapted an idea from Lily's mommy & me preschool of yore. The other times have been even more thrown together. But I'm trying to get it consistent. We still have a few major projects to do around the house and the day just flies by before it's time to get Lily again. Hoping to step it up a notch once things get more settled around here. If things ever settle :)

I was going through deleting bad photos and came across these tonight from the night before school started. (That's a little stick-on ice pack on Lily's forehead.) Anyway, they made me laugh so I had to share them. I love these two so much! They are sweet little characters :)

Sierra's look kills me!

 Lily did the curlers. The whole time they were posing so I couldn't help but think of this old picture of me & luckily found it already on my computer. We look a little bit alike, eh?

 

Some things never change!

Unreal

This afternoon Sierra got a little splinter on her hand in the backyard. She was looking down at her fresh band-aid and her Grandma Elsie asked her if her hand felt better now. Sierra said no it still hurt, and Grandma explained that it would take time, but it would feel better. 3 year old Sierra replied: "When I go to sleep and wake up in the morning it will feel better...When we get to our own house it will get better." I had to laugh, but I also got a little bit teary eyed. We've told our kids so many times that when we get our own house we can do this or that thing we couldn't do yet where we were. It kind of made me tear up because I feel bad that they've had to wait for so many things that that's become one of Sierra's automatic answers, but also because - as unreal as it feels - we are finally so close to that long desired goal!

If you didn't know - We've been living with family for kind of a long time... Kind of a lot longer than most adult people can stand living with extended family or the extended family can stand letting them - especially when they are married with kids! I could probably write a book about how to live with multiple families in one house, or write long lists about how living with multiple families in one house makes life more complicated. Not that there haven't been blessings along the way! We are so grateful to our families for their love and support as we've been changing career directions and trying to make plans for our family. But it's been hard, and I am beyond excited to be starting this new chapter in our life, as difficult of an adjustment as I know it will be. 

We've been looking for a house that will suit our needs (as a family and a home business) for over a year. We've made several offers and looked at thousands of homes online and many many homes in person. We feared our wonderfully patient realtor would drop us. Especially after all the holes we dragged her out to. It honestly seemed like we would never reach this day! But today, as yellow smoke fills the skies of Eastern Washington from fires, we signed the papers for our new home! We get the keys tomorrow!!! Ahhh...can't wait to dance with my girls and stretch out on our living room rug! To organize my own entire home, to bake in my own kitchen! To have a full closet for clothes and keep the food and the cookbook in my pantry instead of my bedroom! To be a little more like regular people :) 

Tomorrow - commence cleaning! And praying for rain!

Just to round this post out:
A picture of a cute girl with training pants on her head.

Flip Books

The other morning I was making some Alphabet cards for Sierra while the girls colored and crafted beside me. Lily wanted to make a little swimming girl like her cousin Audrey had shown her the day before when they were Facetiming. A drawing on a stick with a girl on one side and a picture of water on the other - when you twirl it in your hand it gives the optical illusion that the girl is in the water. I thought it would be fun to show my girls about flip-books so I drew a little cartwheeling girl on some index cards to demonstrate. Of course Lily wanted to make her own, and did on the spot. We had a little trouble flipping the pages to see our drawings animate so I thought of ImageReady and told Lily we could make a little animated movie and post them online. She was very excited about that! So we scanned our images and here are our animations! 

Up The Hill by Lily (age 7)

Cartwheel by Lissy (mom)

Lily likes to party

Lily just had a birthday and I wanted to record some memories of her at this time in her life, but she wanted to write the blog post herself! She loves trying typing messages on my phone and computer. I guess I need to get her a typing program so she can really learn how! So far I haven't been able to get her to sit down with me. She would usually rather be reading Rainbow Magic Fairy books or playing with her little sister...even though she wants to be in control of what is said and which pictures are included! I will try to get her to contribute to this post before I publish it and just start off with:

The Party

This year Lily wanted a water party with all her friends. Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to let us have it in their backyard and let Lily invite all the friends she wanted to. This was quite a few friends, but knowing we will be moving her to a new school next year and that many people are often unable to come during the summertime we threw caution to the wind and let her invite all the girls from school, and some from church, and her new friend from across the street. We bought 2 inflatable pools, and a slip n slide to add to our wiggly sprinkler, and planned on water balloons and water balloon pinatas. We bought the pools and slip-n-slide early and enjoyed testing them out a few times. The weather this summer has been super HOT, but the week of Lily's party it looked like it might not be warm enough for our Saturday plans! I was just started to feel better after my root canal flare up early in the week and I prayed every day that the weather would be warm enough that the kids would enjoy playing in the water and not be shivering in their towels. The forecast got a little bit warmer each day. It wasn't as hot as it had been, but we set up and covered the pools so the cold water from the hose water could warm up in them the day before, and only added a few pans of boiling hot water to get the temperature more comfortable that morning. (Oh, maybe just...24 - up and down the patio stairs before I decided it would do :))

Luckily we decided to test out our water balloon pinata idea the night before. We put 3 little toys in regular balloons and filled them with water for each girl to break open like a personal, water soaking pinata. Such a fun idea, we thought, but kind of unbreakable...! First we tried filling it all the way with water... Mike and I held the balloon tied to a rope aloft from either side as Lily whacked at it with a bat, then a rough wooden stake, sat on it, and jumped on it as it lay on the grass, Mike jumped on it too, and that water filled balloon would just not give! Who knew regular old balloons would be so durable!? We stopped short of sticking anything sharp in the end of it the bat. I was already cringing every time Lily swung near me - I wasn't about to let a bunch of seven year olds loose in the yard swinging sticks with nails or push pins in them!! We tried filling the balloons with a little water and then air. The bat bounced off the balloon still without breaking and hit Sierra who came running up behind smack in the middle of her forehead - we decided it was getting too dangerous... So our water balloon pinata idea was a flop. But we'd already stuck all the little toys inside the balloons. We ended up just filling the balloons half with water, half with air and putting them in a big plastic tub and giving them to the kids to bust open however they wanted to! Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. :)

 

Lily ducked under the table for the funny face shot :)

 

The most exciting part of the party wasn't planned. I'm not entirely sure how it started, but the kids started chasing Lily's dad around the yard trying to get him wet. They got pretty into it, and even picked up the big plastic bins we had on the sides of the yards for water balloons and pre-party water warming and started filling them up in the pool and chasing after him with the heavy things. He ended up surrendering his wallet and keys to me and letting them throw him in the pool.

Life of the party! :D

We had a fun time with all the kids, and I think they did too! I look forward to having friends over more when we have our own home! At least I think I do! :)

Lily was so cute opening her gifts. She said thank you, thank you, thank you so many times it was almost too much, but I was happy she was thinking and caring about showing her friends she liked and appreciated their presents! (She always remembers the story I've told her about how I made a little girl at my sister's birthday party feel bad once when I was little by blurting out that we already had the Cabbage Patch Card Game she brought for a present. I still feel sorry about it to this day. I don't think Lily will ever make that mistake!)

My Girl
Lily is such a good kid. We are so glad to have her in our family and are so proud of what a terrific big sister she is. She is a wonderful reader. Her first grade teacher tested her at a 5th grade level and she is so quick and has a great expressive reading voice. Her favorite books right now are A to Z Mysteries and the Rainbow Magic Fairy series. She often tries to bring them with her to the dinner table. But though she does love to read, she usually picks playing with her sister first. She loves to plan parties and events - dance performances or circus shows, and she gets her little sister Sierra involved in the act. They (led by Lily) go all out with signs, and snacks, music, costumes, sets and props, tickets and programs. I've even heard them practicing their parts. Every single detail you can think of. Lily is very thoughtful and thorough. She is also a really great packer. She told me so the other night. She said she loves to pack and that if I needed help packing up to move into our new house she was my girl! Loving that volunteer attitude (more please)! She should be a good packer... She has lots of practice! Almost every night as they are getting ready for bed I unpack a new bag from a camping trip, or pretend sleepover, or trip to Paris that she and Sierra were packing for that day. And if she gets advance notice we are going to the Doctor's office or someplace - she usually packs a full bag with the snacks and entertainment she thinks she and her little sister will need for the occasion. She likes to be prepared - just like her mama!

Reading while out to eat - pulled this out of the pack you see beside her :)

A really cool map Lily drew of all the places we needed to run
errands to one day as we were getting ready for her birthday party

Lily loves amusement parks and was so cute helping
 lift her little sister up into many of the rides!

The pool water was so cold one day her tongue turned blue!

A friend to ladybugs and roly polies

 

Lily is still really shy with new people, but not with her inner circle. She's a bold performer for us. And she will lead whoever will follow! She can get very competitive at times. She can be so serious and so super silly. She loves to make her own craft projects and always impresses me with the things she comes up with on her own. She'd much rather do things her own way than follow other people's instructions, but she has a strong sense of how things should be done and doesn't hesitate to let others know how she thinks it should be. At the same time she loves to be reassured she is doing things right. She is a lot more like me than I usually realize!!! (That makes things hard sometimes so I need to remember that.) I am so grateful for her love and confidence in me! It helps me a ton to hear - even when I know I'm falling short - that she thinks I'm the best mom ever! Every night, my loyal girl! She is a wonderful, beautiful daughter and I'm so proud of her. I can't believe she's 7!

More random things I don't want to forget about Lily lately:

Her happy dance (Pointer fingers in the air in front of her face with eyes squeezed shut and the cutest shimmy with attitude) (..this has rubbed off on her little sister)
Going to the bathroom or down the dark hallway by herself song: "I'm not afraid of anything! (repeated 3 times and ending with) ..Because I am so brave!"
Her favorite bedtime song is still my own "The Bird's Night Song"
Being able to turn an occasional expression of her indignation into guilty giggles with a knowing look. -So hysterical! Death glare turns giggly and the tension dissolves :)
How much she loves every single member of her extended family and remembers them individually in her thoughts and prayers.

You bring us so much joy Lily-girl. We are so glad to have you in our family!!!

And I can't wait to have you write your own blog post another time!
(She really just wants a whole blog all her own)