Our New Roommate

This weekend we welcomed the newest member of our family into our house. Bekah, the grad student that has become a part of our lives over the past few years, has moved into our spare room. She starts student teaching in the fall and needed a place to live during that time. We are looking forward to having her around – seriously, a third adult to keep an eye on the kids is always a welcome addition to a home.

I can’t even begin to describe how much she’s blessed our family. It is an honor to be able to help her in this way. Welcome home, Bekah!

Can You Go?

This is a song that our friend Joe wrote for his son, Evan. It’s super catchy, so while they were here a few weeks ago, Matt decided to film a music video to go along with it. Enjoy!

Carlsbad Caverns

We took the six oldest kiddos to Carlsbad Caverns the other day. It was a great day full of adventure, discoveries, and hiking. We went on an hour and a half long tour that took us deep into the caverns. While we were 850 feet under the ground, the tour guide turned off all the artifical light to let us experience true darkness. It was truly amazing! Even the kids enjoyed the darkness.

After a short break, we went back into the caverns using the natural entrance. It was so interesting to note the temperature change as we descended the twisty paths.

By the end of the day, the kids were beat, but not too worn to stay and watch the bats fly. Unfortunately, it began to lightening, so we were forced to leave.

It was a long, great day. We can’t wait to go back.

Family Movies

We are on our third week of houseguests. I loving having things to do and people to do them with.

I am not sure what other families do when they are together, but I like family movies. Not regular movies depicting a vacation, but those in the tradition of the many that Matt and his brother made – full on movies with a script, costumes, and direction. Okay, Matt’s lacked plot, but you get the idea.

Today we filmed the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I can’t wait to see the final result.

T-Ball

It’s that time of year again – t-ball season. For the first time both the kids get to play on the same team. To celebrate this fact (and because no one else would volunteer), Matt signed up to be head coach. This is amusing only because we are known for our lack of athleticism and sports knowledge.

I’m most excited because the team is filled with kids from our church. It’s fun to cheer for kids we’ve watched grow up with our own kiddos. This is going to be a fun season.

Visitors

This will probably be my favorite month this year – it is our month of visitors. We have the joy of playing host to some of our favorite people for four weeks straight and I am loving every minute of it.

Last week our friends Joe & Suzanne were in town with their kids Evan and Maren. We hadn’t seen them in a year, but slipped right back into old conversations and rhythms within minutes. I guess that’s what 7 or 8 years of history will do. To add to the fun of having the Thomases here, the Gassiots tried to absorb as much of their visit as possible, so they were over a lot too. For a good part of the week there were 6 adults and 7 kids in our house. I couldn’t imagine having more fun.

While they were here we took pictures of the kids (I hope to have those soon), shot a music video, and spent lots of time talking, reminiscing, and wishing we lived closer again.

The Thomases left on Monday. As they pulled away, the kids wanted to know why Kim and I were crying. I tried to explain that when you love someone and they go away, you miss them. Fortunately, the easiest way for me to remedy the sadness of missing a friend is to have more company. That’s why I’m so glad that my mother-in-law came into town Monday afternoon.

I am truly blessed to have Teri for a mother-in-law. She’s fun, funny, quirky, and she explains so much of why Matt is the way he is. The kids love her, too. Bill will be joining her this weekend for even more fun. I can’t wait.

After they leave, my mom, sister, and her three kids are coming for two weeks. I have so much and so little planned for the time that they are here. It is going to be a great month.

Big Day

Today was a monumental day at our house. Look who doesn’t need training wheels anymore…

Our House – Upstairs

To complete the before & after tour of our house, I will show you around the upstairs today.

School Room

So besides replacing the banister that hit just below our hips with a half wall that was much taller, we didn’t have to do much in here. This second-floor loft was the perfect place for our school room – it already had a built-in desk. Perfect!

Upstairs Entry

This is the view of the entryway from the schoolroom. Matt scraped all the grass wallpaper, textured, and painted in the first few days in the house. We also replaced the sconces on the wall and the entry light fixture. Replacing that took renting a 14 foot ladder and getting two other guys to help us out.

Girl’s Room

Can you notice the biggest change in this room? Anyone? Yes, it is Pepto Bismol pink. We also hung new curtains and installed a ceiling fan. In addition, Matt is going through each room and changing the outlets and switches from nasty old-looking cream to white. It makes a huge difference.

Boy’s Room

I had my doubts as to whether all his furniture would fit in this room, but it worked out really well. This will be his room while our friend Bekah lives with us for the next year. After she finishes school and moves out, he will move into the room that she is in.

The last two rooms in our house are not complete yet. Bekah’s room lacks, well, Bekah. She is bringing all her stuff, so right now we have very temporary furniture in there to accomodate the guests that we have visiting this summer. The other room is the upstairs bathroom. We are working on that this week, so hopefully I will get to post before & afters by the end of this weekend. That room needed a LOT of work to come out of 1989. You’ll see…

Our House – Downstairs

The biggest excuse I have for my web-absence is our new house. We obviously liked it when we bought it, but we knew that it needed some cosmetic updating. So, that’s what we’ve been doing – in addition to unpacking boxes, we have been using a little elbow grease to make it pretty.

I thought you might want to see some before & after pics, along with a description of what we did in each room. The before pics are courtesy of my MIL who was here to help while we moved in (I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t even think about picking up my camera then). I will start with the first floor and post on the second floor tomorrow. Of course, since most people have given up on my blog, I don’t expect anyone to really read this, but here it goes:

Entryway

The first thing we had done when we moved in was have the banister replaced. The wrought-iron banister was too low, and was only attached in two places – out of date and unsafe.

Dining Room

We stripped the wallpaper, textured, and painted the walls and the inside of the cabinets. I painted over the faux-finish and flowers painted on the cabinets and changed the pulls. We also took a horrible gold chandelier from the living room, spray painted it black and added shades to hang over the table. Many thanks go to my mom for helping me out so much with the room.

Living Room

The thing that bothered us most about the house when we moved in was the RED carpet. The previous owners claimed that their interior designer said that it was a neutral, but we disagreed. We recarpeted the entire house before moving a stick of furniture in. We also took out that chandelier (in the living room? Really?) and put in a ceiling fan.

Master Bedroom

The distinguishing feature in the bedroom were the two hanging lights that illuminate the nightstands – a great idea, but impractical in real life. The only sources of light in the room were controlled together by a switch across the room. We got new fixtures and Matt installed the “Lightening Switch” (as seen on TV). Now we each have a control for our own light on our nightstands.

Master Bath

Oh, that horrible brassy-gold. It was all over this house! In the master bathroom we got rid of it all – we replaced the faucets in both sinks and in the shower, got all new towel rods and drawer pulls, and hung cabinets in the shower area. We also stripped wallpaper, textured, painted, and got rid of those awful sliding glass shower doors.

Office

In the office, we painted the walls and back of the bookshelves, put in new cabinet pulls, and installed a ceiling fan. (Seriously, what did the previous owners have against ceiling fans – there were none when we moved in.)

Kitchen & Backyard

I’m not doing befores & afters for these two areas, because we really haven’t done anything to them. The kitchen is big and had been updated with granite counter tops and new pulls about 6 months before we moved in. The back yard is narrow, but is host to an herb garden, roses, a hammock, and two huge pecan trees. The only grass is in the front yard, which Matt finds delightful.

No Apologies

Yes, we have been absent from the web for a long, long time. Part of the delay has been the burden recapping all the things we have been doing over the past few months, so we’ll skip that. Instead, we’ll jump straight to today and hope for consistency from here on out.

Today is the kindergartener’s last day of school and the kids have been invited to participate in a talent show. When we asked him what he was talented at, he said, “Putting together LEGOs.” Easy enough. Here’s his submission for his class…