Fresh Paint

I am FINALLY done painting the main area's of the downstairs and the hallway upstairs. It took me forever.
I am excited to share all that we are doing in the house but have decided I don't want it posted on our family blog. So unless it involves the family I will be posting all the fun home stuff on my new blog www.revivaldecor.blogspot.com  Make sure to check it out and see how we take this great house and give it some new life.
Here is a little of what we have been up to

See how we took our back splash from this                           Before

 To this                                                                 After

 With a can of spray paint.

And our latest project                                        Before

                                                                        After

Make sure to stop by www.revivaldecor.blogspot.com because there is lots more to come

GGOOAALL!!

This season Whitney has a coach that will allow her to dribble the ball up the field. In the past her coaches have told her to stay in her position in defense. So in one of the first games when she almost scored a goal it quickly became her goal to score a point this season. She has been so close a few times but on Tuesday night she did it. It was awesome and she was SO excited! I just so happened to be filming so I am trying to figure out how to download it and I will post it here.

This last week Grandma Susan came for a visit. It was fun to have her here. We did plenty of shopping and she was able to see all the kids play in their games.

A Valentine tradition

 Every year while the kids are at school my sister, mom and I would get together and make sugar cookies. I continued on this year but had the kids help me. Grandma Susan was in town and also helped.

Valentine's 2007

Snow Day

What? It snows in Austin?!?!

Looking out from our front porch

 
 
OK people did warn us that every few years it actually does snow here and they did warn us that when it does the city closes down. They were not kidding. School was canceled, work was called off and it was a bit like a ghost town. We found out because I thought I still had to go to work so Mike drove me down to the duplex to shower (day 3 of no water) and it was a bit like ice skating in a car. To the defense of these Austinites it is a little crazy because below that snow is a thick sheet of ice. There are no snow plows and no salt trucks so really you just have to wait until it melts.  And I am beginning to think that people actually pray for the snow because everything gets canceled but within a few hours the snow is gone and then you all got the day off. Target was busier then I have ever seen it today. ;)

Looking out my front door

Out the backdoor

Laurie

I am a little behind with everything that is going on but HAPPY  BIRTHDAY  GRANDPA    LAURIE!

The freeze

Last Sunday and Monday we were almost to 80 degrees here is Austin. It was great. The smell of BBQ was in the air, kids were running around barefoot, I was in heaven. Then the storm hit. Tuesday we dropped down to 17. That is very cold for Austin. People don't even own coats. After being in our house 3 days we woke up this morning to no water. After double checking that we had actually remembered to call and hook up the water we realized our pipes were frozen. They don't build houses for that kind of cold here. The only thing to do is wait until it warms up. They say it should get warmer in a few days. Lets hope it doesn't take that long. The good thing is we still have the duplex, just wrote the check for the vacant place this morning. So we are back to showering and getting ready over there.

Change of address

We have officially changed residences. Last Saturday some members of the ward came and helped us move all the big things over to the house. We still had a lot of stuff over at the duplex but we decided to sleep at the house since that is where our beds were. We gathered all the things we would need to get ready and go to church the next day and soon realized we had to gather everything from soap to shoes. Needless to say we forgot toilet paper so the one roll that was already left at the house just got passed around a bit. 
Over the last few days we have finished moving everything over and got the duplex all cleaned for the next renters (we just haven't found them yet).
The house is a huge mess with boxes and bags waiting to be unpacked. But, the missionaries came to dinner last night and we are having relief society presidency meeting there tomorrow, life goes on.  Oh and no I have not finished painting so we still are walking around ladders and paint brushes.

A few weeks ago I came across a quote that said  "the bank will give you a loan once you prove to them that you don't really need it" -Bob Hope. Between that and buying a house from Fannie Mae this has been a real experience. But I am happy to say we finally closed on the house last Wednesday and it is officially ours.
So what did we do? What any other family would do, we started painting.

I have to be honest I climbed up the ladder to the top and kind of freaked out. Which is so crazy because I painted our last house in the entry way with those tall ceilings and didn't even mind. So Mike took one for the team and went up the 20 foot ladder and got it all taped.  Just FYI he hates heights. So I spent the next few days getting so mad at myself until I just got up there and worked it out and am back to doing the painting.

 That must be a very nice mom that lets her kids graffiti the walls.

We have been working on it for almost a week and we are half done, half moved in and half crazy!