pictures of home

Think of all the places you have lived. Isn't it great that you can make anywhere feel like home?

No, I am not going to post pictures of every home I have lived in -- that would be a lot! (It was kind of fun this week that I had the opportunity to drive past where my family lived when I was age 7 to 17, but I didn't take a picture.) Growing up I lived in six homes; we were in my fourth when I started kindergarten.

Then, while attending an out-of-state university, I lived with roommates in two different apartments. I came back to my mom's (and I transferred to a local university) until my wedding day.

My husband and I are in our sixth home:

1. Tiny 1-bedroom apartment for 11 months
2. My dad and step-mom's house for 15 months (me, while my husband was in Iraq)
3. 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo for 2 years and 7 months
4. His dad and step-mom's house for 9 months (me and Shboogoo, and then L as well, while my husband was in Afghanistan)
5. Our first house -- 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms -- for 17 months and 10 days (the last 12 months of that my husband was living with us)
6. 2-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom apartment, 200 square feet bigger than the condo

That is a total of fourteen homes in ten cities. Below are my favorite photos of our two most recent homes but mainly the house. We don't have many photos of the apartment yet. We felt a lot of emotions about leaving the house, but not buying it was the right thing to do so that my husband will be able to get a full-time job in any location.

:: WINTER :: We loved looking at the backyard during every season, but we lived in the house for two winters. Being on the east side, we got a lot of gorgeous snow. We often got more inches of snow during a storm than our friends and family did who live in other cities.

I loved those two windows, and the garage.

Deer footprints.

Two neighbors serving me while my hubby was deployed.

Stairs looking down from the door to the
kitchen, and up to the door to the garage.

Looking out from the family room in the finished basement

:: MAIN LEVEL :: I don't think about it a whole lot, but one thing I miss now is that every room in the whole house (except for the storage room) had at least one window.

I love this moment with our girls, but also the quality
of the tile and its diagonal placement.

My husband getting into the attic to work
on the swamp cooler.

I loved the bead board, paint, and honeycomb shades.

The 3 bedrooms upstairs each had a mirror on the
back of the door.

This bathroom was nicely updated, and the 3 mirror
cabinets held a lot. My husband installed this new
faucet with the help of a DIY book.

:: OTHER PICTURES ::

Baby blessing day in January 2010.

Late autumn.

We used the thermostat-controlled gas fireplace very frequently.

Part of my craft room. As a surprise for me, my
husband cleaned up the room, bought the lamp,
the chair and a shelf, and upholstered the tables!

Our next-door neighbor mowing the lawn without
telling us he was going to (we always borrowed a
lawnmower from one of the neighbors).

Daffodils! before deer ate them.

Ward members doing our yard work two days before
my husband was home from his deployment.

A tree in our backyard during the spring.

One of the roses in front of the house.

Pretty tulips and a For Sale sign.

:: NEW APARTMENT :: Here are the two pictures we took of it before we moved in. It was built in about 1980 but they recently remodeled.

This looks like tile, but it's nice linoleum.

We are comfortable here in our new place. Among other reasons, I love that it has the perfect spot for my piano, that the bedrooms are big, and that we have a patio (where the kids love to play) and storage room outside. We like the diversity in the apartment complex -- and in the ward, where we serve as nursery workers together. We're uncertain of what our situation will be a year from now, but this is where we should be for now, and it is home.    

October and November {2012}

:: General Conference ::

Often my husband has not been able to watch it with me because drill weekend often happens the same weekend. It was wonderful that this October's LDS general conference he didn't have drill. During at least one session the girls quietly colored. These and other photos we took this fall are {HERE}.


:: Halloween activities ::

On September 27 my friend Laura L. and I had fun taking our kids to see the witches. I put my baby in a pumpkin and took pictures.


A couple of weeks later I helped the PTA do vision screening, which overlapped with the parent craft activity, but I was able to do both. I painted two little wooden pumpkins, cut and glued on the scrapbook paper, then finished assembling the parts at home.

I also made a wreath for Halloween. I like that it's unique. It's not any of the styles I saw on Pinterest. I tied orange, black, green, and purple fabric scraps around a $1 D.I. wreath and hung it on our front door with clear jewelry elastic (and a piece of packaging tape on the inside of the door). After I had taken it down I accidentally came across the other part I had wanted, so I and added it: silver chipboard letters to spell "BOO." I hot glued these on and decorated the borders of each letter with a black permanent marker.

The most important part of Halloween is the costumes! Like my friend Anne, this year I didn't get the natural light photo I wanted of all of us in our Halloween costumes. I don't know if I ever have; maybe next year. It was just the kids who dressed up this year. They were the three little kittens who lost their mittens. The tails were the challenging part to make; I only made one. I thought that soon after Halloween I'd make two more tails, get the better white clothes (which my husband had moved and I couldn't find them) on the kids, and take a picture outside. Now that it's been so long and there's snow on the ground and I keep forgetting-slash-having-other-things-I-need-to-do, I probably won't.

I thought of the three little kittens idea maybe a couple of months earlier and procrastinated getting the kids' costumes started. I ran out of time to make a costume for me. I was going to be a mama cat, with the mates to their mittens on a string around my neck or something

L is adorable. She always sings the song wrong: "Three little kittens, they lost their mittens and began to cwy and couldn't able to find them."

The kids and I went to our ward party the Friday before Halloween, and it included a trunk-or-treat. On Halloween day Shbogoo gave her class fruit leathers (instead of candy). We watched her school parade at the end of the school day. I let my girls play on the playground before we walked home, and then we headed over to the little party at our leasing office. All five of us spent some time at my mom's; my younger sister and her family came, too. The baby girls are always cute together. I really liked my niece and nephew's costumes. We didn't have our kids go trick-or-treating at all because we had accidentally left the kitten ears at home. For some reason it took us a while to realize this. My mom asked, "So what are their costumes?" It was fine that they didn't trick-or-treat. They had had plenty of candy and even cupcakes at the church, school, and leasing office.


:: Thanksgiving ::

We attended Thanksgiving meals with all of our parents this year. Actually, my husband was going to be able to come to half of them, but since he got sick he missed them all! Both he and the baby were sick Thanksgiving day, so I nursed her before going to Thanksgiving #2 (are you confused yet?), left her home with him, and nursed her right before and right after Thanksgiving #3. The first one (Wednesday night) and the fourth one (Friday at 4:00) he had to work and I of course took all three girls with me. Right now I only have photos of my mom's house and my dad and stepmom's house. The dinner on Wednesday night was the huge one, at my mother-in-law's roommate's parents' house. This was about 60 people, since they've been married a long time and have a lot of posterity. They're so nice to invite us. All four get-togethers were fantastic.


:: Other :: 

Shboogoo turned six and had a nature birthday party. She loves dinosaurs so I made sure to have a drawing of a brachiosaurus be part of the decorations. Probably our favorite part was the "cake": banana bread with a rainbow of top make of pieces of fruit, served with a little vanilla ice cream. Not a lot of friends came, and it was simple, but she kept hugging me and thanking me for making it such a fun party. I took a lot of pictures.

Among other things I don't have pictures of but that happened this October-November: two people I knew on my dad's side of the family (and one person whom I hadn't met) died of sad causes. I didn't know them real well, but I had known my cousin's husband Pete my whole life and I first met the other person -- their grandchildren's mom -- ten years ago. It was good to be able to see relatives at Pete's funeral, and to hear that he, a quiet man, had been living the gospel. That day I felt more grateful for my knowledge of Heavenly Father's plan of happiness for all of his children.

July 2011: holidays, water day, family day, bunkbeds, birthday

:: INDEPENDENCE DAY ::

On the night of July second I walked with the girls (my husband had to work) to a nearby high school that always hosts fireworks a day or so before Independence Day. We arrived just before the sky started to get dark. There were so many people sitting on the grass by then that it was impossible to get over to where my mom, brother, sister and brother-in-law were, so we just found a place and sat. Shboogoo thought the fireworks were pretty, but the two-year-old absolutely hated them (they definitely were loud, plus the songs were not what I would have chosen), so we left early. It was really late by the time we got home. I was so glad L could fall asleep right away in the stroller. It was kind of far for Shboogoo to walk, especially at that time of night, but we have not bought a double stroller. She was a trooper and even though it was tiring, I think it was a fun adventure for her. If I could rewind to that day, I think we would just stay home.

Here is our family after church on July 3rd. We actually had not planned to have all of us coordinating in red, white and blue, but I did choose L's dress based on Shboogoo's.

On July 4th my mom, the girls and I drove up one of the canyons. We got out of the car and really enjoyed exploring an area that was new to us.

 

:: WATER DAY ::

Later in the month there was a free Water Day for kids downtown, with this (which made my kids whine and cry because they didn't want to get very wet):

and a train ride that we didn't have the cash for, and bounce houses and face painting we couldn't participate in because they were only allowing the people who were already in line . . . but we did walk around . . .

The poor pigeon must have been hurt. It didn't fly.

And there was this (which really freaked out the little one, so we had to leave).

I decided that before having a real lunch at home we should stop for a little something. We found a delightful cupcake shop.

I read the Fancy Nancy book to them.

:: ANNUAL FAMILY DAY WITH MY HUSBAND'S ARMY UNIT ::

It's too bad that we didn't get other pictures of our friends there.

L was soooo sleepy.

Once we were back home we wanted to take photos that included him and me.

:: PIONEER DAY ::

Just like a few years ago, we spent the evening of Pioneer Day with my husband's mom and her roommate doing fireworks in their street. First was the "snakes":

Then we smiled and laughed a lot as we watched some Pixar shorts. 

I ended up taking a nice nap during the fireworks that everyone else enjoyed when it was dark outside. Again, L was not a fan of fireworks, so after a few minutes (?) someone brought her in the house and she slept cuddled up with me until we went home.

:: WE GOT BUNKBEDS AND A MINIVAN! (we feel old) ::

My in-laws were ready for a new bed for their daughter, and they didn't need or want their white minivan anymore. They pretty much gave the bunkbeds and the minivan to us; we paid them $750. What a blessing! (Now we need to sell our truck.) The girls were so excited the day these became ours, because we had been talking about them for a while. I just realized we have not yet taken any pictures of the minivan, but it is nice to have and we will need it once Third Girl arrives.

Our girls and their aunt with one of the beds. Shboogoo and her aunt shared them in spring of 2009.

:: MY BROTHER'S BIRTHDAY LUNCH ::

We went with most of my family to eat at Golden Corral for my little brother's 28th's birthday. My step-mom was there, too, and she took this picture. 

Those were the most significant days in July for us. It has been a fun, not-too-scheduled summer.