Homeownership 101

Remember way back in December when I told we bought a house and I would post soon about it?! Fear not!  You haven't missed the house tour, because here it finally is.  Maybe, I'm not sure what pictures I have.  For now, the sweet baby is asleep and the crazy boy is reading to his animals in the pack and play.  I find myself trying to type slowly and softly so I can hear his sweet voice reading aloud.  For all of the times we fight about staying in his room during rest time, today I find myself wanting to rush in and read with him.  Alone time though, is hard to come by, and good for us both.

At any rate, we are now homeowners of a cute little house on a small tree lined street in college park - only 4 blocks from overbrook.  Sweet paradise.  Paradise with lots of lizards, and a nice black racer we call Sam the Snake.  Hold for a moment while I try to find pictures....

This fun event happened as we were unpacking some kids things and discovered Peter's johnny jump up.  What a great toy for Lucy! Until P started pushing like a swing and it quickly became an accident waiting to happen that actually happened.  But this is in the door frame of L's room which looks right into the kitchen - so she hangs there from time to time when I need to be cooking or cleaning - which is a lot.  A lot of cleaning.  We painted the entire house before we moved in (Benjamin Moore for those wondering...a nice Smoke Embers most places and some Nantucket Fog in some bedrooms.  The fog looks exactly like the shade of blue /gray that is all over my moms house.  Unintentional.  I am my mother - I'm so proud.).  And we put in some new carpet - because honestly, no matter who lived here before - you want to be laying on nice new clean carpet.  Its stained already.  I love babies.  Anyway, the next one is L in her new room.  So far it is my favorite, but I think that is because she has never had a room of her own and I finally got to hang all of her Lovely Lucy art and signs, and Bible verses from our special friends, the Aunts, and she loves it.  She goes in to read often and throws herself against those pillows you see in the background.  She also LOVES looking out her window and acts so surprised every time she sees the flag blowing in the wind.

And these are the babes playing in P's new room.  They really are loving the freedom of being able to run around everywhere and find their way to their rooms.  I love it too, I can see or hear them wherever there are from just standing in the kitchen, or living room.  And lets face it, I can hear them wherever they are because they are loud.  And then you see P man having story time in his room with his animals.  

Aunt T was gone for such a long time!!!  This is our backyard....I'll post the after pics in a few weeks - BML and others have put in a lot of work to get this yard kid friendly and fun, stumps ground and sod is coming on Monday!  I can really hardly stand the wait as I love the idea of just playing in the back all afternoon long.  And really, I don't mind them being complete pig pens in a mud pit everyday - but its tough to get the stains our of their clothes and we're operating on a budget here.  But i did find a bunch of terra cotta pots in the back - where the snakes were living.  So I have been "tapping" on www.tapiture.com (the new and totally awesome website from CMD) all sorts of ideas for container gardening.  Next time you check back in I might have made my own rain barrel, compost pile and be growing  strawberries.  Be aware, I am also tapping make your own granola bars, neosporin, laundry detergent, and cleaning supplies.  So far I haven't made it too far since you have to spend money to save money apparently.  Anyway.

And now the boys are cleaning off the porch with their "pow pow" machines and thought it was hilarious that L was stuck in the middle so she got caught in the wind tunnel.  She thought it was awesome.  P loves doing "chores" around the house so he is in charge of vacuuming and sweeping the concrete porch.

More backyard befores....we're really excited about that tree you can barely see but is enormous.  In the coming months we'll have someone come and check it out, trim some limbs and try desperately to care for it a little better then its previous owners....some people have told us it might be dead, others are sure it is alive and well, we're determined to clean it up!  Someday....

We have lots of helpers around here who fight over the best screwdriver.  Here is everyone reconstructing our ikea shelves for the 6th time.  BML and I continue to be impressed at how well our Ikea furniture has held up in every single one of our moves.  I love that place, I'm embarrassed about it.

And lastly, I finally cleaned out our guest room for you!!!  Separate entrance, full bathroom, converted from the garage so if you visit in the summer it will be nice and cool!!!

One day soon we'll have start having some friends over for playdates, happy hours & cookouts.  Not at the moment though or they will end up coming home looking like this.

We love her.