Happy Mother's Day

This was a bittersweet mother's day for me. For the past 5 years I've taken a picture of my girl, then girls, by this tree holding yellow french tulips. This will be the last year that we take the picture by this tree. I dug up the tulip bulbs today and replanted them at the new house. If I had time, I would've pulled out all 5 years of pictures, but I'd have to dig for them right now. Maybe next year.

The Tulips and the tree are not the only things we'll miss. I will miss my neighbors more than anything. The house is just a house, but you can't buy neighbors as great as ours.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Everything's in Bloom!

I took some pictures of the fruit growing at the house today. I'm pretty sure of most of them, but not quite sure what all of my trees are. I haven't been able to look on the internet yet to find out. I should be doing that instead of blogging!!

Here is a look into the garden area with the little pond. It needs cleaned, but it is so pretty.

Can you guess what these little guys will be soon?
WINE!!

I think these are apple trees. There are 3 of them.

I'm not sure on this tree. I'm guessing a cherry.

Wild raspberries! They'll make great jam and pies!

Old Home, Old Problems!

So while removing the wall between the kitchen and dining room I mentioned to Matt how I was

able to see outside once I removed the lath boards.

Hmmmm. Why would you be able to see out side? Let's push on the wall to see what's up. It seemed sturdy, but how odd that there was severe water damage there and the plaster basically just fell off!

Well, after removing the rest of the lath boards, we were able to push on the wall and I kid you not, the exterior wall was no longer attached to the studs. I guess 100 years of rain through those holes pretty much rotted out the nails till they were no more!

So, the wall is now attached again. We are in the process of cauking the heck out of the holes. Soon, we'll add insulation and drywall! Eventually, we'll wrap the house and side it. That should take care of the unwanted rain sneaking in!

The wall with no lath boards or insulation. All of that white stuff is daylight!!

If you look at the picture above you'll see this plastic shopping bag, below, that was shoved into the hole on the outside to patch it! Whatever works I guess. There was one section patched, or filled, with an egg carton!

Here is a close up of one of the cracks. You can see outside! And at night, you can see inside!

Demolition Derby!

This past weekend we went to town on demolishing our kitchen. I already posted the work we completed on Friday night. Here is what we had done by bedtime on Sunday. Matt and I did the majority of the work. Doug helped us on Sunday. It was a great stress reliever!!!!

We are huge fans of Holmes on Homes on HGTV. Boy would he have been upset with the previous owners!!!

Here is an example of the wiring we discovered in the kitchen. Pretty "shoddy" if you ask me! This outlet was a train wreck. This is exactly what we found inside after we unhooked the outlets. It ran beside the kitchen sink. There was another wire behind the sink, under the window, that had been submersed in water several times. It is a surprise that this house hasn't caught on fire yet.

Here is the second half of the kitchen. On the left you can see the built in ironing board. It is behind the birdhouse painting. Directly behind that is the pantry. See the hole in the wall behind that. Remember it, you'll see it all changed in a few pictures! On the right side is a lovely knotty pine built in island thing, that I hate! It takes up too much space. Directly under it is the basement steps. That is why it is so big. It originally had a set of service steps that went up to the second floor from the back of the house. They removed them in 1986 and put in this island.

Well.....

IT'S GONE!!!!

You can see the steps behind it. However, when they put the island thing in, they removed the bottom half of the steps. No since in saving the rest of them now! We are looking into putting in a set of spiral steps to the basement underneath the current steps, in a closet, in the second living room. We will use the basement for storage mainly. There is an outside entrance that we will use for now. We plan on keeping the door to the basement steps, but making it a broom closet.

Speaking of gone... So is the wall between the kitchen and the dining room! It is all going to be open. Remember this picture from Friday???

Here it is now!

There's one more wall that is coming out too! You can see from this picture that the window that looked into the laundry room was removed. I did it and I'm so proud of myself!! Notice the trim that is removed from the door. It goes into the kitchen as well. This room is like a second living room. We plan on using it as a computer room/toy storage!
This is what that wall looks like now. Soon, you'll be able to look directly into the kitchen and there will be a much larger opening. That hole you saw earlier, is now much bigger!

I didn't work on the house tonight. I left it for Matt & Doug. I'm curious to see what they get done tonight! I mowed here instead. If you happen to drive by this week, we are getting the barn painted. It will soon be "rustic red". There's something about a red barn!! I love it:)

Pictures of the House

I thought I'd share some pictures of the house the way it is now. We've been working on gutting the bathroom and the kitchen. The pipes had busted in the bathroom upstairs. We had to tear into the kitchen ceiling to get to the pipes. We ended up taking out the awesome jacuzzi tub that was in it so we could put in a shower and a tub up there. We are also putting in a larger vanity and moving the toilet.

As for the kitchen, last night Matt and I began demo. I ripped into those cabinets like it was my job. It was a great frustration release! Unfortunately, we were unable to save the cabinets, because they were all built in. We are going to try to save the built in island thing that is in the kitchen. We are ripping out two walls and removing the basement steps. It will totally open up the kitchen to the other rooms. Currently, there are two three doors into the kitchen. If you've been in my house now, then you know how open it is. The doors to the kitchen make me hate it, because it is so closed in, unlike our house now. Soon, that will all be gone!

The kitchen Before

That Same Window After

Meet Bella. Harper got a kitty for her birthday. Bella is staying at the new house. She is such a cutie. She follows us everywhere. Last night while Matt and I were working, she just hung out on a towel and watched. Parker and Bella

Parker being silly

The front of the house. Notice the one light bulb is burnt out!

The girls look like doll babies up next to the house.

The Barn. It's in pretty good shape. Just needs painted!!

The Chicken Coop. It's a pretty cool play place too. I forgot to take a picture of the Shop. It is on the right side of the picture. It will be a perfect place for Matt to work on cars in.

This is the tranquil garden! It has a little goldfish pond and stone walkways all throughout. It leads out to the raspberry patch, grapevines, and fruit trees. (I'm thinking about turning into Betty Crocker or Julia Child this summer!) I'm hoping to plant a garden out back too!

Another picture of the deck side. It needs painted bad, but we are just about finished with painting on our house now, that the thought of it makes me cringe! I'd rather replace the 6 windows that need it and put siding up!

Feel free to stop by if you want anytime. We'll be working on it from now until the end of June. We have exactly 2 months from yesterday to be out of our house now! Our renters will move in July 1st!

Parker Lives in a Yellow Submarine!

Last week, Parker's pre-school had their spring program. It was an Under the Sea theme. Her class sang, "Yellow Submarine" and they did a little dance after. There were close to thirty kids in her class alone! They combined the morning and afternoon classes and did songs together.
It was too cute. The props were amazing. The kids did awesome. It was Parker's first experience up on the big stage!

Pardon the mans head in the picture! Parker is to the right of the tall kid. (our right)

She's the first scuba-diver in this picture.
She hated that thing on her head! Their costumes even included empty 2 liter bottles on their backs to look like air tanks!

For two weeks now I haven't been able to stop singing Yellow Submarine. My hope is that now I can pass the song off to you and it will leave my head!!!

Happy Birthday Harper!

Harper Rose a.k.a. Harper Hose as she calls herself, turned 2 last Saturday. We decided to hold her party at the new house, which we got possession of last Friday. So, on Sunday all of our family and some friends, congregated on the front porch. We had to look like a bunch of hillbillies when you drove by. There were about 25 people on the front porch! It was a rainy day, but she enjoyed every minute of it.

Everyone was singing to her. She was a tad bit shy.

Opening up her presents.
Parker and her two Great-Papaws. Papaw Ross and Papaw Maier

Harper on her new bike.

Blowing out her candle.

Time flies. It seems like yesterday that Parker was blowing out her candle on her ice cream cake! The scary thing was, I was pregnant when Parker had her second birthday!!! People keep asking, and my answer is the same...I'm DONE! (for now:)