Packing and Painting

When we first approached the girls about moving there was a HUGE concern about what goes and what stays.  They were afraid that they would have to leave everything.  We talked about how the things inside the house were ours, and that we could take them with us.  Even the pictures???  Yes, even the pictures!

We sat down numerous times and talked about what would be nice to leave behind...maybe the grass would be nice to leave for the new owners...but we can take the trampoline and the swing set!!  How about the lights...we should probably leave those too so they can see.  The carpet would be nice to leave, but how about we take the dishes?

The cupboards are so much fun when they are empty!

Lots of jobs cleaning to make it nice!

Silver with one of Paca's puppies

Then we started boxing up our belongings and moving it into the horse trailer.  The girls helped out, making a hundred trips back and forth.  

Through this all we learned the value of "We finish what we start."

That is my saying that they hear oh so many times whether it be doing dishes or folding clothes, or cleaning up.  Even when we're tired and don't want to do it anymore, we need to finish the job.

Popsicle breaks are a must!

as are impromptu games.

Silver packing herself up!

Moving our bunk beds.

The nice thing about replacing everything was that you didn't have to tape very much while painting, we replaced all the trim and the carpets, so it was very convenient!

Silver and River painted their own room!  I was very proud of them, they stuck with this job until it was done!  They decided to paint the top part white with the bottom pink (they completed the pink themselves) and a horse border in between.  They can look out their bedroom window and see horses!  Definitely a MAJOR plus about moving here :)

We painted the girl's bathroom peach

And the dining and family rooms white. 

We decided we wanted a suede-look for our room and the front room.

It turned out to be harder than we thought it would be - our neighbor had a neat texture on her walls that we tried to duplicate.  It stays wet for awhile, but then you need to act quickly before it completely dries to smear the colors together - working at just the right time, if it is too wet, there is too much smear, and too dry, it doesn't blend as well.  You can only do one section at a time, and we couldn't get our sections to look like each other.  We eventually figured it out and had a fun time working together on our painting project.

 ....To Be Continued

Farewell to our Beautiful First Home

When we first talked about moving it made me cry.  

We had a beautiful home that had served us well for 6 years.  It was an absolute miracle that we got into it in the first place.  Colt's Dad saw his neighbors moving out of their house and went over to ask about it.  We got a call that it might be available and to come and see.  We walked through it with the realtor and that night asked each "Do you think we could actually get that?"  We put earnest money down first thing the next morning.

It was amazing that we qualified for financing - of course this was back in the day when if you had a heartbeat and some income they would consider you.  We were self employed for only 1 year in a commission-based business and had nothing to put down.  We had just started our insurance business and River was a 2 month old baby - but living in a studio apartment, we were wanting something a bit bigger.

We felt very blessed and very thankful when they called to say that it was ours!  It was a modest home that we got for a very good price and had low monthly payments.  Exactly what we needed.

So when we thought about moving....it made me cry.

6 years of being a stay-at-home mom here....lots of memories....lots of projects done together outside and in.......3 babies and toddlers and little girls......

As we talked about it, I knew that it was right for us to move on, so we embraced it and made it a grand adventure.  But before I show you our adventure, lets take one last walk through our beautiful 1st home:

It was a good house to us. 

So on to the new:

Definitely a fixer-upper!!

Colt has a FABULOUS gift of being able to see things as they can be...not as they are.

I got overwhelmed at what it was...and all the work that went into it.  Colt juts rolled up his sleeves and went to work.  We followed his lead and had such a great and grand adventure working as a family on this house.  

We spent 6 months working on this house before me moved in.

The number one, absolutely must-do first thing was to get rid of the foxtails and plant a flowerbed.  

Silver with Daddy in the BobCat.

It was really cute, Silver was SO excited to get her turn in the Cat with Daddy.

As they were going along, Colt realized that Silver had fallen asleep!

River and Daddy

Somehow I don't have Summer's picture with Daddy, but she got in there too and had such a great time.

I moved over some of my flowers from the old house - a small rose bush and some of my irisis.

I would like to try starting rose bushes from starts of my old bushes come Spring.

We actually moved just across the way, and Sam still finds his way to our house occasionally.

 Big helpers helping Mom move the iris.

We did lots of work, and the kids pitched in amazingly well.  They took ownership of the new home and rolled up their sleeves to help out.  They also had a lot of fun.  

Here are all the cousins:

Summer, River, Silver, Rain, Mesa, Echo and Judd

Silver the Monkey climbing up the mattress.

It took her quite a few tries over several days to master this, but she has an amazing will and determination.  She is also very coordinated and athletic and can figure things out!

...to be continued

Quote Board

Colt: Sieze life by the horns....you only get gored occasionally! 

Silver and I were looking through a book saying the sounds of all the farm animals - when we came to the farmer I asked her what a farmer says. Silver: Howdy Folks! 

Every morning Summer asks: Santa Come??? 

Silver was so excited one morning as we were driving to library time that there was snow everywhere!! She asks me if it will stay for awhile. I answer probably not - our snowman didn't make it to the next day - life expectancy is not very high for Arizona snowmen. She was very disappointed. Then near the end of our ride she noticed some snow!! Silver: "Hey Mom!! This snow forgot to melt!!" 

Silver singing "Old McDonald had a farm EiEiO and on this farm he had a flower EiEiO with a (Big Sniff) Aaaahhhhh here and a (Big Sniff) Aaahhhh there. 

River has a love of the scriptures. She finds comfort and Christ in their words. She went through several days where she was having nightmares every night. I found her reading my scriptures one morning ~ writing down her favorite verses. They were ones that said that the Lord is with thee, and that the Lord blesses thee and knows thee. They brought her a lot of comfort and peace knowing that he was aware and loved her. She knows that that is a way that Heavenly Father speaks to her, and answers her prayers: through reading his words of love, peace, joy and comfort. She says to me "I like to look through the scriptures because I know I'll find something that matters to me." 

River: Mom ~ Look at the Snow!! It reminds me of Jesus! It's kind of like when you sin and then you repent...that's what it looks like. 

Summer: "Daddy phone hollering!"

Summer loves to pray with her hands clasped together. She asks everyone to clasp their hands before prayer "Like This!" holding out her little hands. If someone is folding their arms during the prayer she will still say "like this, like this!"

Summer: "Silver bodrin me!" (bothering)

We had the girls in bunk beds and since moving we've had enough room to put their beds side by side. We enjoy this very much as I now lay with each girl every night after our stories, teeth brushing, and prayers. We sing and I talk with them about anything they would like as well as their sad things and happy things that happened through the day. It is interesting to find out what stood out to them every day. Summer always asks me to "Talk-a-me!"

Silver's Prayer: "Please bless Mommy and Daddy serve a mission see the monkeys" We've had a lot of chances to see the Sister Missionaries lately - they came to our house to eat and I've played the piano at a couple of baptisms that our girls have gone to. They LOVE the missionaries. They decided they want to go and Mommy and Daddy too. Colt has a mission picture with a monkey on a wall with him reaching up to touch his tail - that's where we think the "see the monkeys" came from. Summer has now picked this up, they've dropped the monkeys part, now each and every prayer from Silver and Summer includes "Please bless Mommy and Daddy serve a mission."