New Carpet!

Guys don't hate me for this because its just a post Full of pictures of empty rooms but i am just SOOO excited!
We bought our house knowing we needed new carpet but it was below a lot of other expensive fixes on our list of home repairs (our house was a short sale) but we finally got new carpet!
I love my whole house more,
Also it is cleaner... basically I love the carpet

We took out that carpet ourselves and moved the furniture to save some money and my fabulously amazing brother and Father helped Mitch with that process. I did not get a single picture because I was banned to my moms for that. Thank you thought to all of you, especially Michael who drove down from college to help- Mike, seriously, you rock!- also Thank you Mitchell my man!

Christmas Tree

Wow i blogged thanksgiving and was so excited to jump on to Christmas and then.... well things have been busy and i just never sat down at the computer to do it. Today I am back tracking to the 1st when we put up our Christmas trees!
WE have 2 trees, one is white lights and mommy themes, and the other is colored lights and the kids put every ornament they want on it!
SO , even though I do my tree themed I do let the kids help with the decorating. I took a few pictures this year and I would love to share them here. I get so many fun picture ideas but so many of them I just have not done! Fail.:(

Refreshing the home

We (well mostly I) have been on a home refresh kick of late. Trying to get things all clean and organized, getting rid of things we don't love, replacing things that are old and grungy (our old bath towels- ugh), and freshening things up a bit.

I love finding some great store that has west elm and pottery barns leftovers or  monogrammed goods and finding something perfect for our house. I also really love IKEA. *sigh*
moving on. What i love most is creating a beautiful and functional space for our home and family. I want our home to be a  place where the spirit dwells that is most important.
I tend to get distracted easily and overwhelmed quickly, it is important for me to keep my home clean and organized so that i can focus on what matters most. I Feel better in a clean clutter free home and when  my house is attractive I feel that it is more welcoming. I want our home to be a place where we all feel safety and peace.

On a side note- our old carpets are SOOOO gross I just go crazy some times no amount of scrubbing or vacuuming seem to help! Grrr. I keep telling myself i can patiently wait ( but its really hard).

Back to fun Its been nice I have been really purging our house and begin much more careful about what I bring into our home.

My mom came over and was surprised I had not put any pictures of the updates on the blog, so here they are.

This room is a mess in the picture- but you might notice it is a mess... without wall paper! Oh Yeah! I finally took it down!

Painted

We repainted the living room. Finally. For a long time I have regretted the color on the walls, it was a great color I have just been longing for something neutral.
We used sherwin Williams Kilim Beige.
Happy day!

The little things

(pictures of us at our home)

Saying thank you an goodbye

I have been working on blog post here and there this week but have gotten distracted because I have been really working on decluttering and deep cleaning.

My sister and I are doing a 30 day home cleaning challenge and in addition I am really trying to objectively- that hard for me- declutter.

Our house is a unique layout. Very old style separate rooms- the opposite of open floorplans. Because of the layout and small square footage 4 of us can feel like too many for this house.

In the next year we are really hoping for and expecting so major changes so in anticipation of these coming or potential changes I am really trying to downsize. Basicity I am doing a virtual move. Trying to get rid of anything I would get rid of in a move.

I have gone through cabinet’s drawers, closets and my cedar chest. I am also selling a ton of my furniture. I am kind of sentimental so it has been hard but I just think about the potential stressful changes coming and continue the purge.

 Here is a silly collage of some to the lovely things that I might miss but am thinking of selling. See the sentimental side of me wanted pictures to remember these things

by!

An Expensive fix

So remember how our AC unit has never worked?

And remember how our furnace gave us a big time amount of trouble last winter?

We are finally fixing those things.

$$$$ Ouch money.

But I am SO EXCITED about the AC. The last 2 summers have been.....

Really, really, hot.

I mean really. We have a lot of windows and they get full sun.

 Our thermostat is down stairs- not by a window just to show you how miserable we got, it read at or over 92 degrees buy the early afternoon for almost the whole summer. And stairs people made downstairs seem cool. We opened the windows at night but it just didn't get that cool at nights last year.

Don’t worry we had our kids laying down buy windows with fans, and we didn’t put them to bed until it was cooler-is. (And we all drink lots of water)

Anyways, I am SO glad to get it replaced even though it’s expensive because I don’t think I cold handle another summer like that.

Yard work

We are fixing up the yard this spring break and it has been so fun to work outside as a family. Call me crazy but when we are all outside kneeling in the grass planting flowers, weeding, mowing the lawn or fixing landscaping I just feel so happy. Our little family, all outside working together. It doesn’t get much better.

... Well Mitchell actually dislikes yard work but I just ignore that fact and soak in the sun!

When we moved in there where a lot of overgrown and half dead bushes- mostly rosebushes. We took them out and began to try to fix up the over grown flower beds and try to add landscaping to the virtually bare backyard. As we began these projects we quickly realized that when whoever did the landscaping put the decorative rock down- they did not put that black tarp stuff underneath it. So over the years at in rained and snowed the rocks began to sink down into the soil, this makes it crappy, almost impossible to dig to work with! Hugh!

So finally we are painstakingly taking up the rock - digging out the parts of rock that is sinking down into the earth with grass growing all around it, and we are fixing the problem.

We are putting down the ground cover and recovering everything with bark. We are reusing the rock in the back yard.

I am planning the garden, $$ and time means that I will have to do a little at a time over several years but I am so excited!

I forgot to photograph the actually work but we watered the plants on Sunday and I took some pictures then.

new shoes!

Easter is coming!

I have been busy getting ready for one of my favorite holidays! I love all holidays, but Easter is always so nice a colorful!

We have set up our "Easter tree" on the mantle and since our ceramic Easter bunny broke last year I got us a new one.

I got out the Easter eggs and everything!

I love this happy colorful holiday the most because it reminds us to celebrate the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ!