All blogging should be done at 2 am

Because apparently when it's done at 2 am, it actually gets done.

Between having 2 kids and a husband and trying to get them all dressed, fed, and napped every day (and having SLOW tethered {aka phone} internet), taking the time to blog has not happened.

But since I was up sewing tonight (big surprise there), I thought "why the heck not". So here I am.

So what have we been up to in the past who knows when since I last blogged? A lot.

We bought a house. It is marvelous. It will be more marvelous at a much later date.
Here it is.

I've told so many people about the house projects that I don't remember if it's been blogged.
And since I don't feel like looking it up, if it's been said, it will be said again.

We are currently living in 1370 square feet (our house in TX was just over 2100). Suprisingly, we are doing okay space wise!
Granted we have a whole room of boxes in the basement, but we're not really missing too much of the stuff that's down there.

Okay- I lie. I am missing all of my crafting stuff and having a home for my fabric etc. But for the time being, the countertop desk in my small laundry room is functioning as a good enough work space (hooray for having the sewing machine off of my kitchen table!).

Alex's room is serving dual purpose as the toy room and his sleeping space. He has more space in there than he knows what to do with.

Kaitlyn's clothes are small enough that her closet has tons of storage space. The 4x4 Expedit is also taking up residence in her room as it wouldn't fit down the stairs (it will be taken apart eventually and taken downstairs once the basement is finished).

I miss my walk in closet. A lot. It was a wonderful, wonderful thing. Thankfully I have a fabulous dad who built in shelves and different rod heights so that our closet is much more functional. And amazingly fits most everything (minus my winter sweaters). I must admit that I covet Alex's closet. It's a foot bigger and has 2 banks of shelves. BUT his room only has 1 window and is 3 ft. shorter and the closet doors swing out into the room (which I don't love). So I'll make do with my single bank of shelves.

I do love having 2 sets of three drawers in our bathroom though! It's been a little weird going from 2.75 bathrooms down to 1.5 (and barely a .5 at that!), but having the main bath as the bathroom with all of our stuff in it gives me extra motivation to keep it clean.


So there you have a break down of our rooms. Even with being okay with the space we have, it will be nice to have the extra space once we get the basement done.

When might we get the basement done you ask? I do not know. All of us have had a lot going on, so house projects got bumped down on the list. And then there is the eternal question of which house projects need to be at the top of the list (*cough* painting the molding)

So want to know what we've done since we moved into our house in July? SURE you do!
Here is the running tally (it makes me feel good to have a list of all that we've accomplished... makes what we have left somehow less daunting)

• put in atankless water heater (and thus pulled the old water heater out),
• new furnace and AC (was formerly swamp...so that was a project...)
  
• painted the bedrooms (and the molding in them) and 2 exterior doors
• totally retextured the walls and painted in the front room
  
• pulled out the last of the gross carpet that was downstairs
• put in new basement windows
• pulled out old sprinkler pipe, various debris, and HUGE dead trees in the backyard
• took down a ratty old over grown chain link fence from 3 sides of our .46 acre lot
• tore out and poured a new driveway
• pulled out various bushes and creeping jenny that was taking over the fence and trees
• regraded the dirt to slope away from the house in the back
• dug some trenches for future sprinkler pipe
• and added insulation to the attic.

We did all of those things while they were ripping up and working on paving our narrow little road. It was awesome.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is our yard in it's present condition. Except the weeds are actually taller (on the list to be weed whacked ASAP).

We still have a lot of work to do. Pictures to hang, more molding to paint, a whole basement to do finish work on (paint, molding, carpet), putting up faux board and batten in Kaitlyn's room (which will probably be for the next baby by the time we get to it) planning out a yard (kinda fun!), planting some trees/bushes (and then sod down the road), sprinklers, and hopefully planting a garden next year.

Needless to say, we have plenty to keep us busy. I can't wait for it to all be done and be able to sit back and enjoy it... at least until the next minute when another project comes up.

Besides just liking our house, we're liking pleanty of other things about being here.
We're really liking our neighbors. Alex really loves talking to anyone who walks down our street, which is a lot of people as our street is pretty gorgeous and everyone loves to walk down it.

Here is a picture of our road. It is awesome.

We're loving being able to walk to church.
It's also handy that the elementary school (and playground) is in walking distance as well.
It only takes Jon 15 minutes to get to work and not a single minute is spent on the freeway. We LOVE not having to pay $40 in tolls every month and he doesn't use as much gas.
Speaking of the freeway, it takes less than 5 minutes to get on/off the freeway. Did I mention no tolls?
The weather is MARVELOUS. Even though we have AC, we've only used it for about 2 weeks. The nights have been cool enough that we can open the windows and we can get away without turning on the AC for most of if not all day. Actually having dry air as opposed to that humid Texas stuff is wonderful.

Obviously, we love being right where we're at. I think the only thing that would make this house perfect was if it was all done. But then we would have had to pay a lot more.
We plan on being here for a very long time, so we've got time to get our projects done (and add new ones on as the years go by).

I promise we'll have a party one of these days so y'all can actually see our house! Ha- It just may not be until this winter when we get the basement done!