Team Edward vs. Team Jacob

New Moon fever has hit! My ticket was purchased the day they went on sale and I'm totally excited. I even designed a t-shirt for me and my peeps to wear. Oh ya, I am that big of a dork! Taylor is mad at me because I won't let her come along to the opening night but I have to sensor it first.
I suppose it's time to finally admit that after more than a year of pestering I finally broke down and let Taylor read the books. She wasn't allowed to read the first part of the 4th book for obvious reasons. Frankly she didn't want to, she's still young enough not to care about all the mushy stuff. She would skip ahead if it got to kissy for her. She's totally Twilight obsessed now, especially New Moon. She's read the book 3 times. She's in love with Jacob, the little traitor!!! So now we're a house divided. One for team Edward (ME) and one for team Jacob (THE TRAITOR). I love that kid! She's getting so old, how can it be that we're reading the same books and fighting over who's the cutest guy?!

Here's a little Edward yumminess for you...

My Mom

My mom had a stoke a week ago. I'm to tired and exhausted to go into details but it was a big one and it scared me. I saw her a few hours after it happended and it's something I'll never forget. I adore my Mom and I don't want to think about life without her so I'm happy to say that she's making a remarkable recovery. My dad emailed an update today and I though I would share it...

To My Family & Friends,
I thought I would give you an update on how Jeannie is doing. She is recovering rapidly. She was suppose to be in the ICU for three to four days but they moved her out the following evening. I was told she would be in the area where the stroke victims are for another four to five days. She was there two days and they moved her to the rehab center. I was told that she would be there for at least a week and maybe two or three. Yesterday the therapists told her she has made so much progress that she will be able to go home tomorrow with 4 days of occupational and physical therapy. I'm not sure if she was being seen by a speech therapist or not. She still slurs her words some but she is so much better than she was last Wed. when she had the stroke. I can understand most of what she says and what I don't understand is in part due to my loss of hearing. She has been walking on her own and has gone up and down stairs with someone with her. She won't be able to drive for a while which is probably a blessing for all the rest of the drivers on the road. She should be able to do about everything she did before but it will be at a slower pace. She will need to continue working on using her left side and retrain her brain. Thank you for your prayers on her behalf. I know they have made a difference. I also know that the power of the Priesthood is real and is the authority to act for God here on the earth. Our Bishop came to the hospital the night she had the stroke and we gave Jeannie a Priesthood blessing and she was told that through her faith and the faith of family members everyone praying for her she would fully recover from the stroke. Yes, I believe in miracles. The doctor in the ICU told me that it was the worst kind of stroke and that she may not live and if she did it would could take a long time to recover and may never fully recover.

NORMAN B. DILLE

...I want to add my testimony to my Fathers. I know God is real and that he hears our prayers. I know that the priesthood has been restored to earth. I have felt it's power in my life many times. I have seen it work miracles in my life as well as the lives of my loved ones. I am so grateful!

Memory Lane

So I'm spilling my guts here. After everything we've been through it looks like were going to loose our house in Georgia. We'll be enduring the big bad F word...forclusure. I know that's a little heavy for a blog but this is my journal so...
I thought I would write a bit about our house and what's happened along the way. We love this house and spent a lot of time and money making it a home. We lived there for 3 years which for us is a long time. Taylor was only 4 and Tanner was 2 when we moved into this home. I remember bringing Tate home from the hospital. My sister Michelle lived with us for 8 months here, good times. First day of pre-school, first day of Kindergarten for both Taylor and Tanner. Christmas. You get the picture, there are memories galore. We made the decision to lease it out and move into a house that we were going to fix and flip. When we moved it looked like this:






When our leasor jumped ship and took off it looked like this:






Alan and I flew to Georgia for 12 days over Easter and literally spent night and day trying to put it back to it's former glory. We also spent $15,000 that put is into debt and sucked all of our savings away. We did this so that we could put it on the market and sell it. When we got there we were shocked to find it in the condition it was in. The smell was sooo bad it would just knock you back. They had been breeding dogs in the house and it was just so foul. The damage was overwhelming. The flooring was replaced, every single wall was painted, every piece of trim was painted, I won't bore you with the endless list...Here's what we accomplished:










After all that work the house sat on the market for 11 months. 11 months that I had to work full time to pay the mortgage so that we never paid a single late payment. We had lost to much value in the real estate slump so we decided to risk it again and do another lease purchase. That didn't turn out to be a great solution. Our renters were always late paying rent and were full of lies galore. They missed months that I still had to pay the mortgage and my rent here in Puyallup. The final straw was when they didn't pay rent for 4 months. All while we were trying to buy our house here. We had to work and scramble to pay all of our bills so that our credit wouldn't be ruined and so that we didn't let our landlords down. It was one of the most stressful times ever. We had to go through the process of having the tenants legally evicted. They sqautted in that house to the very last second they could. Thankfully the lord blessed us and we were able to close on our house amidst all of this. We had hoped that we could rent the house out again but we have found out that it's been trashed again. So I'm afraid this is the end of the line for our Georgia home. We no longer have the money to do all the repairs nessissary, nor do we have the money to pay two mortgages. It's super sad and makes me want to cry whenever I think about it. It was such a beautiful house and I hope that someone will live there again that will love it and take care of it like we did.
Forclosure is scary and we don't know what lays ahead of us. We're trying to seek out legal advise so we can be prepared, I guess we'll see.

Photo update of the house

We've been here for 2 months now and we've made pretty good progress.



-Knocked down two walls

-moved plumbing

-MANY wallpaper boarders removed

-3 weeks were devoted to electrical work...yawn

-drywall is the worst invention know to man and my greatest nemeses (plural NE-ME-SES: a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent)

-the kitchen was dismantled then reassembled one room over

-an island was built and painted

-farm sink installed

-granite slab counters installed, all by Alan's big bad self

-cabinets (beadboard added,primed, painted, glazed, knobs and pulls)

-fireplace moved and framed

-flooring is a story of it's own (see below)

-24 knew light fixtures installed

-kitchen and family room painted

-my beloved hutch moved in, armoir and couches also moved in (we stopped working for a week after the couches were moved in, I'm not kidding, we couldn't get up)

-backsplash going in as I type

-undercabinet lighting going in also as I type








Ok, so the floors are a story. The flooring we wanted was going to cost $3,000 for the downstairs alone. We don't have said $3,000. What do we do? We convince our handy dandy husband to build us some floors. I have had this idea rolling around in my head for like 10 years. I never thought he would do it for me. It took some convincing and a few books checked out from the library but I won. I've always dreamt of having reclaimed pine floors like you would see in an old farm house. So we faked it! Alan and I ripped 1/2" pine plywood into 8'X8" boards. Alan then routered all 4 edges of each board. Alan picked black as the paint color and I agreed. So I painted the installed boards then took a sander and sanded over every sqaure inch to give it an old worn and weathered look. Final cost to do the entire downstairs $200...can't beat that!



Things left to do:

-stacked stone the fireplace and install mantle
-wood wrap all windows and doors
-baseboard trim
-kitchen cabinet crown & trim
-paint, paint, paint
-install the rest of the floors
-tear down hall closet
-new doors
-a super duper cool suprise involing barn doors
-powder room/total remodel
-upstairs bathroom/total remodel
-total makeover of the stairway and railing
-Build walk in closet in Master
-Build master bath (that'll be a few years away, unless someone would like to donate $)
-yard work, yard work, yard work
-paint porch and outside trim
-build a treehouse!

Are you tired, because I am?!

I love it here.

I was out scouting locations today for a photo shoot I have coming up and I just need to say that I love it here! We only moved 10 minutes away from Puyallup but it's like a whole nother world. Living in "the country" as everyone calls it is such a blessing. Every time I leave my home I have the most incredible views of Mount Rainier and sweeping farm land. I feel like the trees are hugging me as I drive down the windy roads out here. Sometimes it reminds me of driving around the back roads between Canton and Cumming in Georgia, which strangely makes me feel at home. After 3 months it hasn't gotten old, the sense of gratitude hasn't even begun to wear off. I hope that in 10 years I'll still be driving home from somewhere and feel that overwhelming sense that this is where I belong. I have lived in many homes and in many cities but I have never felt so at home and at peace before. It's good to know that this is where we have landed and we're staying for good.

These spots are only 5 to 10 minutes from my home. What you can't see in the shot below is Mt. Rainier, big and beautiful, hiding behind the clouds. I snapped these with my Iphone so I could remember these spots for future photoshoots.

Do The Puyallup!

It's that time of year again! I can start to smell the elephant ears and roasted corn a month early. I love the Washington State Fair! I've been going to it for as long as I can remember and it's a tradition I'm passing down to my kids. Last year we discovered Monday Madness, all the rides were $1. This year the price went up to $1.50 but it was still a great deal. We played hooky from school and work and spent 8 hours at the fair.
We filled up on scones, corn, BBQ and our favorite elephant ears. We rode ride after ride. Alan has finally turned "old" like the rest of us and got a bit sick this year. It was a first for him, I don't think he was so happy about it. Tanner on the other hand had his own first. He was brave enough to ride the BIG rides. Taylor was thrilled to have someone to go with since Dad was looking a little green!
I took Tate on all the little guy rides. As you can see from his expressions he was in HEAVEN! He is so fun to watch, full of pure joy. I made a slide show of the pics from my phone but I can't get the HTML off my phone so you'll have to check it out on my facebook page instead. Below is the slideshow of Tate, pics from my camera.

I'm already itchen to go again!!!

KINDERGARTEN

Well it wasn't officially the first day but Tate thinks it was. That's all that really matters! He did testing and I went with him to orientation. His official first day is Thursday...can't wait! This little man belongs in school, he loves it. He's been riding the bus to pre-school since he turned 3 so it's no new business around here but still, it's totally exciting.

P.S. Don't be judging me by my teal trim and my bird house doorbell. I'll get to it.

FINALLY...the first day of school!

This was the LONGEST summer of all time! For both the kids and I, school starting is a blessed event. Taylor and Tanner had to watch as all their friends from Puyallup went off to school last week, it was painful. They both love school and would be happy with 2 weeks off for summer break! With the craziness of moving into a vacant home and not having any video games, TV, or even any of their toys or books it was truly a tough summer. Things are slowly coming together and we can see a normal life on the horizon. First step, we've got the kitchen complete. 2nd step, kids back to school. Next step, drywall and paint. Then, oh glorious day...we can move our "things" in!!! I have never been so excited to hang a picture on the wall in my life.

Thank you first day of school for making life a little more "normal".




Stay tuned for Tate's first day of Kindergarten. He has testing and orientation today. He has asked me every five minutes "how many more minutes 'til we go". Only 2 hours to go which means I only have to hear that about 24 more times!

It's a miracle...

Tate has made it to age 5 without major injury or death. We've been saying since he could walk that we'd be surprised if he made to his next birthday alive. He's alive and kicking! He's my bundle of energy that just doesn't stop and is sooo fearless. He plays hard, fights dirty, loves easy, teases relentlessly and every night after all that he sleeps like a rock.
We celebrated his birthday all weekend but he insisted that he would not be 5 until he blew the candles out. Funny thing was, we couldn't find anything to light the candles with! The one lighter we had decided to give out on us and the rest are still packed. Between Alan, Uncle Scott and Uncle Nick they tried everything, finally after 20 minutes Nick's boy scout days paid off. He was able to light toilet paper on fire with nearly burnt out ashes from the grill. We had already dished the cake out to angry, hungry children but Tate was able to blow a candle out and turn 5! He was so relieved.
Today we picked up the registration papers at the kids new school and I'm starting to really freak out about sending Tate to Kindergarten. I don't think I've blogged about this yet. Tate has been in pre-school since he was 3 through the school district. He gets special services for his speech delay and sensory disorder. He looses services at age 5 unless we put him in school. So we had to decided whether to take a year off or to send him to school earlier than we feel he's ready. After counseling with his teacher we decided to send him. He will probably need to repeat Kindergarten but he just function better when he is in school. We don't want him to regress so off to Kindergarten he goes. I'm soooo nervous!

I apologize to all of you out there who think his insanely long hair is an outrage. I've heard it all before. I know he can't see. I've just been a bit pre occupied lately and he's SLIGHTLY overdue for a haircut! You will be happy to know that I cut it this afternoon and his eye's are once again visible.

I'M BAAAAACK!!!!!

I'm back and I'm no longer homeless/trespassing/squatting...whatever you want to call it. We are full fledged home owners once again. It was a looooong 7 month process of buying a short sale home (pre-foreclosure) and I will NEVER do it again. After moving 12 times in 12 years we have landed. Our grandkids will be visiting us here!
I will have to write out the full story of the MANY miracles that came about to get us here but for now, I'm just checking in to let you all know I'm back. My Internet got hooked up today and I can now rejoin the syberworld I so love.
Here are some pictures from my iPhone that show the first few days of demo. The main floor has been gutted and we are in the process of putting it back together. We've got the kitchen moved over, walls torn down, plumbing redone, electrical almost finished. All in one week. That's with Alan going to work then coming home and working. Ya, he's a stud muffin! Wait till you see what we can do, I know your excited!