Welcome Home!?!?

I found all the stuff to move pictures from my camera to the computer! So I can finally put up some pictures of our new (well new to us) house...and eventually of our finished renovations. :0)


We have owned the house for just over a month now and I can honestly say that we absolutely LOVE it!  It needs A LOT of cosmetic updates, but it has such good bones.  Once we finish our renovations it will be an amazing home for us!! 

I'll walk you through room by room and try to tell you the changes we are making to them.  One thing I can say is that EVERYTTHING was green.  Seriously.  The walls.  The trim.  The ceilings.  The cabinets.  The carpet.  Everything.  The previous owner had a serious love affair with a light sort of celery green color.   

Anywho.. Here is the front of the house:

Here is the cute front porch.  Ha ha it even has new fake grass carpeting on it....that we will probably rip out sometime next spring so that we can put down some tile instead. 

Here is the front door.  It has leaded glass in the middle of it that is really pretty.  I think I will eventually stain it a darker color. 

Here is the living/dining room:

We have already painted all the walls and the ceiling.  We also ripped out the carpet to get to the hardwood floors under it.  We are still in the process of switching out the light fixtures.   

I love this built in cabinet by the front door. 

In all honesty this kitchen was almost a dealbreaker.  It was cramped and very green.  We managed to start a fire in it the very first day we owned the house.  Jay turned on the stove and caught our pizza box on fire.  Needless to say, the stove was one of the FIRST things to be ripped out.  

Most of our budget has gone into this room.  We moved the water heater that was in a closet to my right when I took this picture.  The water heater is now in the garage and our fridge sits in its place.  We painted all the cabinets white and all the wood a khaki color.  We bought a new stove, new sink faucet, new dishwasher, new microwave, and a new grabage disposal.  We still have to rip out that green linoleum and put down some nice neutral tile, but we're probably going to do that over labor day weekend.   

This is the second living area.  We're going to use it as an office and play room.  We are going to paint all the wood my favorite color of all time: Pecan Sandie by Behr.  We are also going to switch out the light fixture and put down the same tile that we use for the kitchen. 

This picture is looking out of the doors of the office into the sun room.  The sun room is really going to be great when we get it fixed up!  We are going to use it as a breakfast area and a second living area.  It will have tile floors and probably some roman shades by the time we get done with it. 

This is the second bathroom.  We are going to leave the ivory and brown tile for now, but we'll probably reglaze it in a few years so that it is white instead.  We have already painted the walls and the cabinets.  And we still have to take the wallpaper off the ceiling.  I am not quite sure why there is wallpaper on the ceiling...but there is....for now.   

 

This is part of the hallway.  It is "L" shaped and leads to all the bedrooms and bathrooms.  I really love the built in bookcase.  We have painted the walls, ceiling, and bookcase and we ripped out all the carpet. 

This is Mr. Jay's room.  It is SO much bigger than his room at our last house.  :0)  Um...and we have redone everything in it.  We patched and painted the walls and ceiling.  And we ripped out that lovely lime green carpet in favor of the hardwood floors under it. 

This is the middle bedroom.  And I know what you're thinking: Wow finally a room that is not green!  Well before you get too excited.....the ceiling was green.  Seriously.  So once again we painted the walls and ceiling and ripped out all the green scary carpet.  

Here is our padded room...I mean master bedroom.  But it was padded.  And covered with an aweful celery green fake silk fabric.  The fabric was stapled to the walls with literally THOUSANDS of staples that had to be removed one by one.  We spent days and days ripping staples out of these walls.  I owe my mom and Aunt Sarah something amazing after all the time and hard work they put towards this room.  Seriously.  Amazing.  Not to mention the fact that the stuffing material behind the fabric was apparently a great habitat for spiders.  Did you know that I hate spiders!?  Well I do.  And now I hate them even more.   

Here is our master bathroom.  It was scary.  And creepy.  We are fixing it. 

The walls will probably stay pink for a few years, but we plan to eventually reglaze them so that they are white.  I think the pink and turquoise is really awesome but Jason is not such a fan. 

So do you think we've lost our marbles yet!?  It needs a lot of work huh!?  Well, here is a picture of my number one criteria when we were house hunting:

 

I wanted a big yard!  And we certainly have one!  :0) 

This is the area that will be my garden next spring.  I think that just this garden area itself is the size of our entire yard at the old house.   

 

 

So now you've seen our new casa.  :0)  Keep checking back to see all the renovations as we get them completed. 

My Cousin's New House!!

Jay, my mom, and I were able to visit my cousin and her husband in Louisiana for a couple of days this week. It was a very exciting and eventful trip! My cousin and her husband found out they they are going to have a baby boy this November!! So far everyone in my family has had boys (5 of them total!) and we are very excited to welcome another one!! :0)

They are also in the process of buying their very first house! We were able to go see it while we were there, and it is seriously adorable! We are so happy for them, and I can't wait to see what it looks like after my cousin adds all of her personal touches to it. I was able to snap a few pictures of it while we were there. They're not the best, but they'll give youa general idea. Jay was very tired and very grumpy...so all the pictures were taken one handed while I held my wiggling two year old in the other hand...
Here is a picture of the street from the front yard:

Here is a picture of my cousin and her hubby (and Jay) in front of the house:

Here is the kitchen.  The door that you see at the far end leads to the garage, and the washer and dryer sit on either side of that door:

Here is a dark view of the dining room.  It is at the opposite end of the kitchen from the garage door:

Here is a view of the living room.  I didn't have the chance to snap a shot when there were no people in the room, sp please excuse the picture.  Everyone was talking...

Here is the fire place:

There is a hallway that has all of the bedrooms off of it.  This is the hall bathroom:

This is one of the smaller bedrooms.  (There are three bedrooms total)  I thought I had gotten a picture of the other one, but somehow I missed it.  Oops! 

This is the shower and toilet area in the master bathroom:

This is the sink area of the master bothroom.  It is right across from the shower and toilet area. 

Here is th master bedroom itself.  I love the green color on the walls!  I want it in my kitchen (hint hint Jason)  :0)

This is a little rose garden area behind the swimming pool in the backyard.  The couple that owned the house before kept the yard in pristine condition.  It is very cute! 

Here is the backyard.  The wood lattice that you see in the side of the deck and above ground pool area.  There is also a very nice storage building, but somehow I didn't get any pictures of it either...

Anyhow, isn't this just the cutest house!?  We are very excited for them, hopefully they'll get the guest bedroom set up soon so we can go visit them again!!  :0)

Happy Birthday To Meeeee!!

For my birthday last week we decided to go to the Fort Worth Museum of Natural Science and History.  It wa really fun!  If you haven't been since they remofled it, you should definitely check it out.  They have a large children's area with tons of different things to do.  You can play blocks, go shopping, design rooms, play with water, and build train tracks on all sorts of crazy wooden platforms. 

Here is a pic of Jay and I about to go into the childrens' area:

  They also have a neat dinosaur exhibit.  Most of it is designed for older kids, but they have an outdoor area where kids can dig for dino bones.  It was hot, but fun! 

I tried to get Jay to stay still long enoough for a picture:

They also have an exhibit called Sea N Recycle done in honor of the Plastiki boat (a boat made out of plastic grabage)  It was sad to think of all the trash in our oceans, but the exhibit was pretty neat to see.  

 

Here is Jay very focused on building a train track on one of the round tables:

It was a very fun (and air conditioned!) way to spend my birthday!  And we definitely plan to go back to the museum!  Next time maybe we'll even try to take Jay to see one of the Omni movies...

Moving Time...with a Pod

Our Closing date, May 14th,  is looming ever nearer, so we're working to get our old house emptied and cleaned up.  I have decided that we seriously have entirely too much crap.  Ha ha So I am looking forward to some major purging when we find our new house! 

Anywho...we decided to try using one of those Pods to move with, and I am very impressed with it.  The Pods company has been very polite, and everyone I have talked to has been wonderful.  They delivered the Pod and placed it exactly where our neighborhood association said it had to go.  And thanks to my awesomely wonderful brother in law, we were able to get all of our furniture into it!  Here is a picture of the Pod:

This is the largest size pod they have, the 16 foot one.  We managed to get all of our furniture into it...but if we had needed to get an entire house worth of stuff all into pods, it would have taken two of the large pods and maybe a small one.  (Again, we have a lot of stuff!) 

And I just couldn't resist throwing in a few pictures of Jay helping Papa take the table legs off one of our tables:

Jay learned how to use a wrench!!  :0)

Four Years!!

Four years ago we tied the knot...got hitched...took the leap...became one...

Well, you get the idea. I am happy to say that four years ago on this day Jason and I became husband and wife. Our wedding day was the best day of my life, and I am so grateful that I get to spend each and every day with my very best friend, and the absolute love of my life! Jas you are amazing!!

I wanted to post some pictures from our wedding...but Jason has them all on an external harddrive.  And that sort of technology is just way beyone my skill level.  So here are a few pictures from our family website.  This one is of my side of the family:

And here is one of us with my serioualy adorable nephew:

And I just can't help but throw one in of Italy.  :0)  We spent two amazing weeks there for our honeymoon...which led us to the conclusion that we are Italian...we may not look it, but we are.  Trust me!   

So here's to hoping that these are the first four of many many many more happy years to come!! 

Daddy picked out a night light...

With our recent move, Jay has started asking us to leave a light on for him at night.  I am not sure if he is scared or just still a bit unsure of his surroundings.  Either way, we decided that he needed a night light.  And I agreed to let Jason pick it out.  Here is what we ended up with:

Yep, thats right....a fish tank. 

A ten gallon fish tank to be exact. 

A ten gallon fish tank, five guppies, three zebra fish, 3 ghost shrimp, and a plecostomus.....

Not quite what I had in mind, but still pretty neat.  And Jay LOVES it. 

Here are our guppies.  Jay named then all Sully. 

Here is our plecostomus.  Jay named him Walter.  And he is by far Jay's favorite!

Here is one of our ghost shrimp.  You can barely see him, but he is peeking out from between the bottom leaves. 

And here Jay grinning from ear to ear.  Want to know how the front of his shirt got wet!?  (And please excuse the lack of pants.  We are in the middle of potty training.  :0))

Easter Eggstravaganza

We had our Easter Eggstravaganza at church today.  There were all sorts of activities for the kids and of course the usual Easter egg hunts.  Grannie and I took Jay and my parents met us up at church.  Jay had a blast!  Here he is making a nbeaded necklace with Nana and Papa:

He also decorated a butterfly shaped sugar cookie:

Papa must have looked like he wanted some icing from the cookie, so Jay helped him out:

The little kid egg hunt was on the church playground, and Jay was very excited!  His Easter egg Basket this year looks like an elephant! He was so excited when he saw his "Easter Bobo!!" Here he is waiting to start the egg hunt:

Let the hunt begin:

Jay saw an egg hidden on one of the slides and just HAD to climb up and slide down the slide to get it:

Success!  At this point Jay decided that playing on the playground was much more fun than hunting for eggs.  :0) 

Jay also dyed an Easter egg and had a glittery white dove painted on his face.  He thought the glitter was pretty awesome!  By the time we got back to Grannie's house, he was one tired little boy!     

Church Newsletter

Our pastor writes an article for our church newsletter every week.  This week he talked about Jay leading the Palm Sunday Processional in his article.  I thought I'd share it with you guys too:

PALM SUNDAY

You might be a

Methodist if you

like Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday at RHUMC is always somewhat out of

the ordinary. A few years ago, in this column, I reported

that we had a bona fide jackass in the church

on Palm Sunday. Several women asked if this was

a veiled reference to their spouses. It was not, at

least not on that particular Palm Sunday. The Donkey

was here again this year, along with a dozen

colored chicks, a miniature cow, ducks, rabbits,

goats, pigs and something that resembled a unicorn.

I’m sure it was not a genuine unicorn although it had

a pink tail.

The procession was led by Jay Travis, who was

baptized in this church on Easter Sunday 2008.

This palm parade was the first of many to come for

him. I reported to the congregation that no animals

were harmed during the Palm Sunday procession

but it seemed that I was mistaken. We had a baby

chick, purple I think, that was grasped too tightly and

appeared asphyxiated. But as he was returned to

the animal trailer he resuscitated. Someone commented

that he was a highly intelligent infant

chicken. I concur with that assessment.

The Gospel of Luke comments on the Palm Parade

by saying, The disciples began to praise God joyfully

and with a loud voice...saying, “Blessed is the

King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in

heaven and glory in the highest heaven.” And that

is what we did in worship and that is why I like Palm

Sunday.

 

Shalom,

Howard

Palm Sunday

Our church has a fun tradition for Plam Sunday.  It has gone on for as long as my husband, who was raised in the church, can remember, and is something that the kids in our church and the surrounding community look forward to every year.  The church hires a local petting zoo and the children parade down the center aisle of the church holding, leading, and sometimes dragging the animals.  The people in the congregation wave palm leaves and sing.  It is a really wonderful way to begin our church service and to celebrate Jesus. 
This year Jay held a little baby chick that had been dyed red.  I worried that he would be too rough with it, but he was so gentle.  He kept his hands cupped around it and proudly paraded through church.  He ended up leading the processional and everyone said he looked like he had practiced for weeks.  Here is a picture of Jay with his baby chick:

After church the petting zoo stays in the courtyard for a while so that the kids can go back and pet all the animals again.  Jay found a little rabbit that he loved.  I seriously thought we were going to have to take it home...

The petting zoo had a miniature horse with a pink mane and tail...and purple hearts painted on its coat.  The sad part of it all is that this is a male horse...poor guy! But he sure looks cute:

   
They also had a miniature cow that Jay just absolutely loved.  Jay has decided that we need one named Tinkerbell.  Can you tell we just watched Peter Pan!?   

It was a fun day, and something I am glad that Jay will grow up being able to do.  :0)