The first floor

Allright, I know I said I would do the first floor a lot earlier than this, but...... yeah....So here they are. They are a bit backwards but you get the idea. This is the Laundry room, of course :) On the otherside is floor-to-ceiling shelving. It is a little smaller than I would like, but still really decently sized.

At the end of the hall is the guest bath. The only room that is semi-decorated.

Our extra bedroom. right now all it holds is my craft and school things.

When you come in the front door, the stairs to the second floor are on the right. The hallway leads to the spare bedroom, the bathroom and the laundry room.

Our kitchen is a great size as long as we never get a longer table, which is looking inevitable. It is the only space on the first floor that is tiled though and I don't want to put the table on the carpet for reasons you can all imagine. I do love this space though.

This is the living room. We spend a lot of time here as well. This winter when wind storms knocked out power all over Western Washington for two weeks, we slept on a mattress in front of the fireplace.

When you first enter the house this is the front room. Yes, there is nothing in it. I don't want to fill the house until we are out of debt and can afford to pay cash for whatever we want. I am also to the point where I want to buy only what I really want and not second hand or used, or cheap furniture anymore. so, this room may stay empty for quite awhile!

All said and done we love this house. It is a very open floor plan with lots of open spaces for the children to be children. There are a few things we would like to change, but then there always are. It is a tad to big though. I finish cleaning one floor and it seems that in the meantime the other floor has managed to become a wreck.

It's still home sweet home.

Our home

Some of you (Sarina) have been asking to see pics of our new home (well, not so new anymore I guesse). So I have quite procrastinating and taken the pics. These are of the second floor, I am too tired now and on my way to the bath. I will do the first floor tomorrow.



This is my favorite room in the house. When you come up the stairs you come right into this room. It is huge and open, has three windows and lets in a ton of light. Besides the kitchen, most of our time is spent in here.

The stairway. To the right you see the door to our bedroom, to the left is the boys room. I forgot a pic of their bathroom that is on this floor.

Our master bathroom.

It is way too big, which is nice in some respects, but it just seems so big and empty. The two sinks are on one wall, the toilet is in the little alcove on the left and there is a linen closet and then the shower/bath, but in the middle there is just cavernous space. Matt says if we own the house he wants to put in a big soaker tub right in the middle and take out the carpet (which he hates having in the bathroom) and put in heated tile (oh, the things we dream :)

The closet is definetly big enough. It is thin and very long. The children call it the bowling alley. Notice Matt's clothes are at the end, so he is the one that has to walk that far :)

Our camera is horrible so here is a very dark pic of our bedroom, not that there is much to look at anyway.

The boys room. The boys are in one room and Ser has another, but just like alwyas they would all rather sleep together. We pushed their beds together and this is where they sleep, all three of them every night.

All the closets are walk-in which is very nice.

Seri's room which is typically just the play room.

Michael's baptism

My boy just turned eight and in our religion this age is seen as the age where a child is able to discern for himself and be accountable for their decisions. Michael choose to be baptized and was baptized by his father.
It was a pretty crazy day, we had invited friends and family and were excited since this is the first baptism where we have lived close enough for them to come. However the week before was trying for many of them and everyone ended up with someone being in the hospital. My Grandmother was diagnosed with cancer awhile before and was having a chemo treatment, my uncle was not doing well health-wise, my cousin's husband had a relapse of his MS and was in the hospital, my best friends partner also has cancer and was in the hospital with a chemo treatment and some good friends of mine from when I was growing up had just found out that the mother has cancer and she went in for pre-op. Pretty scary coincidence.
Aside from a lot of people having illness there were a lot of other things that went wrong. We were under the impression that the baptism clothing would be at the church and it wasn't so the guys had to drive to the house of the person who keeps them and pick them up, meaning we started a half hour late. Isaac and Seri were both supposed to give a talk on baptism, however Isaac absolutely refused and so I had to quickly re-write the talk so that Seri could give it by herself. But with all that went wrong, it was a very special and sacred moment. The ceremony was intimate and we were able to reflect on the importance of the ordinances that were being performed rather than on worldly things.

Random events

Mom had a booth at Alki beach for "pirates Landing". Unfortunatley Matt and the kids got there to late to see the pirates actually land on the beach, but they did get to see the fire boat in all it's glory! Bubble Bath!!

Our lawn was getting a little high and for some reason our push mower was doing just that, pushing down the grass and rolling over it but not actually cutting it. So my dear husband went into the house and then came out and handed each child a pair of scissors and told them to get cutting. Unbelievably they did. Isaac however was the first to catch on when after five minutes he said "Dad, this isn't really any fun", handed him the scissors and went into the house. The other two were diligent and kept at it and sure enough after awhile the lawn did look like it had been cut, literally :)

Our new summertime favorite treat is to go get slurpies from 7-eleven. Sariah loves them also and it is hilarious to watch her, after a bit she really starts shivering and we all just sit around and watch her and laugh, cheap entertainment.

One of the Homeschooling families we are aquainted with teaches guitar lessons for free each Saturday to anyone who really wants to learn. Matt has been taking the classes for about the past seven months and is really enjoying it. Every three months or so they invite all of the families to a "concert" to watch the students show what they have learned. Here is Matt and his class. He actually played the required song and then learned and played "she's everything" just for me. Awww............... Others laugh when they learn he takes guitar lessons with kids, but I am dang proud of him for wanting to learn and for being committed to learning a new skill. Heaven forbid we get complacent in our old age :)

My favorite Holiday

The fourth of July is by far my favorite holiday. It is warm and sunny and usually involves water, barbecue and fireworks!!! There is no pressure like at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter. You just get to have a carefree day and get a chance to legally be a pyro. We had a great 4th this year. Mom had a craft booth at the Auburn festival and so we went with her and spent most of the afternoon there. They had a ton of things to do and we were kept busy the whole day. From there we went out to Whidbey Island. One of my longest and dearest friends has a family house on the waterfront and invited us out, we are so glad she did!!!! The kids got to ride on a ferry and then run around on the beach for a bit while waiting for it to get dark. Granpa Frank and Aunt Mem made hamburgers and hotdogs and then the kids got to start with the little fireworks. The great thing about having a beach house is that the neighbors are rich!!! The ones next to us must have spent a few thousand on their fireworks. They went for about two hours and none of them were the small kind either. Across the water we saw the whole coastline lighting up and got to see Everett's big firework show as well as a few other cities. It was such a great day and I am so glad that we got to spend it with family and friends. Sariah was teething and had a fever so she was kind of out of it the whole day until we got some tylenol into her.

The children got to ride on all the inflatable toys at the fair. Ont his one Seri is on the other side and they are attached by the rope coming out of the middle. The goal is to make the ball into a basket at your end, put you have to pull the person you are attached to in order to do it. Mike was having a bit of trouble and so in this pic the guy that was running the booth jumped up and held on to the rope for him so that Seri could not make it to her end. It was great to watch!

Matt and the kids has a great time playing fetch with Olivia, Aunt Mem's dog.

Sariah enjoying the sand which she must have ingested too much of because the next afternoon she had a diaper full of poop and sand!!!!

Isaac takes a break during a long day.

Sariah inspecting the fireworks.

Of course, no 4th is ever complete without sparklers!!!!

The children intently watching Aunt Mem light snakes. When Mem first asked if the children wanted to see the snakes Isaac went in the house and asked me where the snakes where so he could see them, too funny.

Not to be left out, it is Sariah's turn to watch.

My sweet baby at the end of a very long day. Jenni decided that Sariah's head was probably cold and so gave up one of her bandana's.

Hanging with Jen and making faces.

Happy Fourth of July!!!! This was one of the neighbors displays.

Jenni's legs got cold and so Mem sat in front of them to warm them up and eventually all of the children gravitated to Mem's legs to keep them warm for her, I think the fact that she has a blanket may have had something to do with it. That and the fact that they adore Aunt Mem.

Sariah's first fireworks. She slept through the first part and then woke up to enjouy some of them, but promptly fell asleep again and slept through the rest.

Our first planted letter box!

The hitch hiker. Almost all stamps are hand-carved and this one was really impressive.

Our first carved stamp.

At the park where we hid Michael's box there was this. Not sure if this is what you are supposed to do with it or not. but Michael held on while we "pushed" his legs around.

Some guys just never grow up. Matt was not about to let Michael have all the fun. Such a dork :)

The tree where at it's base, Michael's box is hidden.

In honor of Michael's birthday we decided to plant a letterbox. Daddy carved a stamp into the shape of three balloons with an eight tied ot the bottom. We got the box ready and tonight for family home evening we went and planted it. for those of you nearby here are the links.

http://www.atlasquest.com/lboxes/showboxinfo.html?gBoxId=45690

http://www.letterboxing.org/BoxFind.php

We had a great time hiding it and writing up the clues and then playing at the park.

Our Letter Boxing addiction continues to grow.

Saturday we went searching for a few. The first one we didn't find although we know we were at the right spot. It is either missing or we somehow missed it. From there we went on to find two others at a nearby school. the first one had us stumped for awhile untill Matt found it. I was ready to abandon it and move on, but I am so glad we didn't. In this box there was also a hitchhiker that had come from MS. It had a goal to get to San Fransisco, made it there and then started it's way up here and we found it!! Such a rare find. It is also one of the most beautiful stamps we have seen yet. We are going to take it on our trip this summer and plant it along the way.

There is also a letter box in our area that we have been looking at the clue for. it is in the form of a riddle and has a math equation in it (which that in itself is enough to deter me) however it had never been found and the thrill of a challenge was more than we could take. The title was "All things Irish" and it did not tell you exactly where to go, but Matt suggested I look up names for the parks in the city. Sure enough there was one named "lake Killarney" and I knew we had stumbled on something. Turns out the park is exactly across the street from where we go to church! Through a series of misadventures our dilligence paid off and we found it!! The first to find it out of 98 views!!! I was elated!!! We so need to go on "Amazing Race". Matt and I work so well together.