Nine Months!

Here are some of my favortie pictures from our (multiple) nine month photo shoots!

FINALLY!

So we FINALLY have a room completely finished!!! Ok, so its actually not completely done, but it's close enough to show you. We started this project the day we moved in our house about six weeks ago. I guess I was excited for Sadie to have her own room (a little late, I know) so I wanted to finish her's first.

Here are a few BEFORE pictures:

Looks pretty icky, doesn't it? It was. Sadie was even ready to get rid of that stinky carpet :)


So after some hard work and many weeks, Sadie's room is finally (almost) finished!

Drum roll please. . . .

Are you ready???





Here it is!

So I just need to put the curtains up (I seriously can't find them anywhere! Packed somewhere. . . ) and find knobs for the dresser.

I have to let you all know. . . we were very thrifty in finishing Sadie's room. I pride myself in saving a few bucks (or deal-slashing as Bethany and I call it!)

1. We cleaned the walls, woodwork, and floors and gave them a new coat of paint! My handy husband installed the wainscotting.

2. I purchased all of the cream colored frames at an auction (two dollars for the four hanging in Sadie's room, plus extras I haven't used yet!), pulled the 1970s floral prints out, spray painted the frames, and cut the mats for my own pictures. It's so so so easy to use a mat cutting kit and it saves TONS of money! The green floral pictures are from IKEA-- very cheap :)

3. The dresser was free (thanks mom!) and just needed a new coat of paint. The little rocking chair was Kaleif's when he was little.

4. And for my favorites. . . the rocker/recliner was fifty cents. . . seriously, fifty cents at an estate auction. And that very cute baby buggy-- fifty cents as well! I love the buggy and it works great as a toy box :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sadie really loved her first Thanksgiving! She had a great week in Montana visiting Nanna, playing with her friends and cousins, and most importantly, eating. If you know Sadie, you likely know how much she loves food. And when she's crying, it's almost always about food. She just takes eating very seriously. . . she always has.


So I didn't doubt she would love her Thanksgiving dinner. And she definitely did :)

P.S. I've been meaning to post pictures of our remodeling projects for weeks. Don't worry, they're coming. . .

Happy happy birthday!

Happy birthday mom!

P.S. Thanks for letting us live in your house for the last five months. Love you!

Home!

I'm sitting on Sadie's crib mattress and drinking water out of a grape pop can at 4:30 in the morning. It's our first night in our new house and I thought I would sleep so soundly and feel so settled. Instead, I spent six hours laying in bed listening to Kaleif snore next to me. And listening to Sadie snore in her playpen. And thinking about paint colors, trim, refrigerators, living room art, and closets. I finally decided to give up. And what better to do at 4:30 than sit on a crib mattress, which is apparently made by Sealy (seems pretty fancy for a baby) and blog. Good thing the mattress is water resistant-- I just spilled pickle juice on it.

We've really been in transition for five months. Looking at houses. Waiting for other houses to go up for sale. Looking at the same houses. Trying to move a century old farmhouse (if we could've just found somewhere to put it). Looking at the same houses (for the third time). And finally. . . we decided to go with one of the first houses we looked at. In May. That's ok. I guess the journey was. . . interesting. And I sit here now in the living room, drinking water out of a grape pop can (the glasses are still packed) and thanking God my husband is a carpenter because I think this house really really needs him. So its not our dream house. But its ours. Our home.

Missing. . .

My uncle Jon passed away almost a month ago. He was a great man with a wonderful sense of humor who loved his family more than anything. Someone who I, and many others, will miss so much.

Please keep praying for his family.

Believe in Miracles!

I'm posting to ask you to please pray for my Uncle Jon. He is fifty-three years old, married to my mom's sister Deb, and father to some of the best cousins around (Katie, Em, and Nick). He's been sick this summer and was referred to Mayo Clinic about two weeks ago for some further testing. On Monday, September 14, he had a liver biopsy. During the biopsy, the doctors cut his hepatic artery and he bled for about twelve hours before they could find the source of the bleeding and stop it. Because of the massive amount of blood loss, he went into cardiac arrest. He's been in a coma since (but is starting to wake up!) and was just activated on the liver transplant list. During his hospitalization, he's survived some major surgeries and proven over and over again that he's a fighter! He has a long, hard road ahead of him, but we believe in miracles! Please pray for continued healing for Jon and strength and peace for Debbie and the kids. Thank you!

If you would like to follow his progress, check out https://www.carepages.com/carepages/jonlenzen. You have to become a member to view the page, but its free!