Finally, the house update

I know a lot of you have been asking and waiting for before and after pics of our new place. Sorry it has taken so long, but I have been super busy with getting the farm part of the new place set up. I have been working on fence the past couple weeks. Anyway, it is pretty crazy how much the inside of the house changed with the renovation. It went from super crappy to pretty nice in 3 weeks. And I learned a lot about house renovation while doing it. Overall I really enjoyed it all.

So, here are a bunch of before and after pics. I will try to tell you what all I did in each set of pictures. Some things we changed throughout the house. I hired a guy to hang new sheetrock throughout the house. There was wood paneling everywhere and then 1-2 layers of wallpaper on top of the paneling. There were 11 different ugly wallpapers throughout the house. We did not sheetrock the closets or laundry room so you can still see a sampling of them in there. We also had new carpet installed in most of the rooms. And we had new windows installed. The old windows were single pane and the new ones are energy efficient.

Before: This before pic actually does not look that bad. But that bar thing was huge. It took up a lot of space and made the kitchen seem really small. It made it impossible to have a refrigerator and use that doorway on the left because it took up that whole space.

After: No more huge bar which left space for the refrigerator, microwave stand, and china cabinet. I also installed beech laminate flooring over the ugly and ripped linoleum.

Before: Living room

After: New carpet, new A/C return vent, new paint on the new sheetrock. Also I put a nice new light fixture in. This house has low ceilings and I would hit my head on all the fan lights.

Before: Another view of living room, front door.

After: New front door, new light, beech laminate in entry space.

Before: Kitchen. What can I say. Oak cabinets with fake oak butcher block countertops and fake oak butcher block laminate between cabinets.

After: New countertops, new paint between cabinets, new beech laminate flooring, new sink faucet, new stove.

Before: Ugly kitchen close up

After: Kitchen close up

Before: Laundry room. There was a section of floor under the hot water heater that was rotten that I had to replace.

After: New maple laminate floor, new hot water heater. I left the ugly wallpaper since this room is closed and no one beside us goes in there.

Before: Master Bedroom. Awesome pink carpet

After: New paint, carpet, windows, light (light not yet installed in this picture)

Before: Spare bedroom

After: (Actually the other spare bedroom but the effect is the same.) New paint, new carpet, new light.

Before Bathroom: It was bad, plastic tile on wall with a hole that had a rat's nest.

After: New walls, paint, removed broken shower door and replaced with curtain, new window, new bathroom fixtures. New light with a fan.

Before Bathroom #2

After Bathroom #2: New toilet, new sink and faucet, new over sink light fixture, new medicine cabinet.

There is tons more that we did that is not shown in these pics. There was a half bath that was in a weird place that I totally did away with and turned it into a pantry for the kitchen which has been awesome. This involved widening a doorway from 24" to 32" so we could get our freezer in. I also had to fix several plumbing issues and electrical issues. I did new baseboards throughout the house because most of them broke when I was removing them for the new sheetrock. New floor vent covers and blinds throughout house.

I really appreciate all the people (everyone in our community group, my dad, other friends) who helped me with the renovation. There were lots of people who helped do all kinds of stuff. And a really big shout out to my friends Evan and Rick, they came out for several days and nights to help on the house. I also want to give a shout out to the Lowe's guys, especially the plumbing guys who really helped me a lot. I did not know what I was doing on the plumbing but they totally explained stuff to me when I asked them and they helped me a lot. At one point I found a leak under the house and I jiggled the pipe that I thought was leaking and a whole big piece of pipe with connectors and a P-trap and stuff just broke off. I took it to Lowes with me and the plumbing specialist got every piece of it that I needed to replace that section and set it up on the floor in Lowe's for me to show me how to set it all up.

7 months!

Esther turned 7 months old on Tuesday. She has grown up so much in the past month.

She now sits completely unassisted. She will sit and play with her toys for long periods of time.

This week she started crawling. She was already pretty mobile--rolling, scooting, inching around. But now she can really go wherever she wants! She loves to pull the DVDs off of the shelf.

She loves baby food, and will eat a ton! She is such a happy baby and a joy to be around.

The Return of Learn to Farm

This could also be titled, I am doing a lot of hard work if anyone wants to help. This weekend is going to be all about getting fence up at the new place. This includes clearing fence line, moving some fence, taking down old barb wire, putting up new posts in places, and putting up new fence. If anyone is interested on learning about putting up fence or helping put up fence, let me know.

By the way, spring is almost here. I heard the peepers for the first time last night. Click here for a sample.

Happy Valentine's Day

From our sweet little Valentine.

Snowpocolypse Now

For those of you who don't live in NWA, we got a crazy amount of snow today. At our house, we got 18 inches. Some areas got up to 24 inches. It set the all time record for snow in a day and we should break the record for snow in a year also. It is amazing, and annoying. I thought we would post a couple of quick pics of us in the snow.

I know we have not blogged in a long time. We have had tons of people wanting to see before and after pictures of the house. I promise it is coming. It is just going to take more time than I have tonight. We are still working on finishing up stuff on the inside of the house and that takes up most of our spare time. As soon as the snow is gone, we will start on the farm type stuff. So, stay tuned for the house posting.

Now for pictures.

This is Margo's car.

Here is our dog, Jake.

And Macy

Margo stood Esther up in one of the truck tire tracks to show how deep it was on her.

Margo standing in the snow.

Me and Esther.

I also wanted to share a picture with you from last night. We went to a John Travolta themed skate party. It was lots of fun. Esther wore her CareBear shirt and a flower headband. We are not big fans of the big flower headbands on a baby girl thing usually. But this one is really cute and it kind of made her look hippyish I think so that was ok with us. I have to say, she was super cute and a hit at the party.

Moving Again

Well, we have our new house move in ready. So, tomorrow we are going to move our stuff from storage into the new house. If anyone out there needs something to do and feels like helping, come on over. We will take all the help we can get. I hope to post before and after pictures of the new house on here soon when we can get back into some normalcy of a life.

6 months!

Esther is 6 months old! We can't believe it, it seems like we brought her home just a few weeks ago! Here is what she is up to:


Rolling and scooting around like crazy. She isn't crawling yet, but she is fairly mobile. She makes progress in all directions, though she tends to scoot backwards more than forwards!

Getting better at sitting up by herself. She still topples over a lot, but she is getting more stable every day.


Still sleeping 9-10 hours at night!

Eating cereal (and loving it!). We'll be starting her on some other foods this week.

Starting to teeth. You can tell her gums/teeth are bothering her. She wants to chew on everything and drools constantly. Hopefully we'll see some teeth soon!

She babbles and talks all the time. I'm working with her on "mama"!

She loves to play in her exersaucer.


She is super smiley and sweet. I know I'm biased, but I think she has a great personality. She is generally very happy and content. She has been a trooper through all the moving, living with friends, remodeling, etc. She's been happy to play on a blanket or sleep while Josh uses the power saws and drill!


We go for her 6 month check-up next week. So we'll have her updated stats then.

Renovation Weekend

This weekend is going to be a big weekend of doing work on our new house. I wanted to let everyone know in case some of you out there might be interested in helping. The finished the sheetrock work today so the big thing we will be doing is painting the whole house. Other things to do include....installing laminate flooring, installing commode and sink, electrical work, plumbing, installing counter tops, and much more. So, feel free to come help so we can get it done and move in. We will be there all weekend (including Monday because it is a holiday)

Craziness

We closed on the new house last Friday, moved the rest of our stuff out of the old house and into storage, moved in with some friends, and started renovation on the new house. Needless to say, things are a little crazy right now. It is going to be super exciting to see the change in the new house. I can't wait to post before and after pictures on here. I am really enjoying doing work on it. The house is nothing amazing, just a small plain house. And it was in major need of an updating. Our hope is to move into it in a couple weeks but there is a ton to do before then. We got this house as a foreclosure for a really good price. Our plan is to live in it for a few years and save money towards building a house, then either rent this one out or sell it. Here is an picture of the outside of it....

As someone I work with said, it doesn't have a lot of curb appeal.

Farm Relocation

It is in the process of happening. We closed on our current house this past Monday. The Farm of Hale as we have known it for the past 4+ years is no longer ours. The new owner is letting us stay here for one week to get all moved out. We have moved a lot of stuff already but we are moving the rest this weekend. We are supposed to close on our new place on Friday. Then the remodel begins. We are doing a remodel on the new house that will take 2-3 weeks (I hope). We are putting up sheetrock on top of the wood paneling that is throughout the house, putting in new carpet, new windows, new hotwater heater, new countertops, and much more. Since we are doing all this remodel stuff we are not moving in until we are finished. So, we are putting all of our stuff into storage and living with friends for the next few weeks starting this weekend. Definitely not the ideal way to move but it will be for the best in the end.

If anyone is interested in helping remodel a house, we should be starting on it this weekend and working on it for a few weeks.

More Christmas

On Christmas day, we drove down to my (Josh) parents house. My whole family was there. We usually only get to see my sister and her family one time a year and this was that time. This was their first time to see Esther. We had everyone under one roof. There were 8 adults and 7 kids. Some of you who know family may know the children number seems a little high and that is because my brother had a couple foster kids with him. I can't put their pictures on here but they were really awesome girls and fun to have at our family Christmas. I hope we have more family gatherings with non family being a part of our family like that in the future, I really love it.

Here are a few pics I can share with you...

This is my niece Isabelle

And my nephew Patrick

Here are the 5 cousins

Here is the whole family. Starting at the back left: Joanna sitting on Zack's lap, Keylor sitting on my mom's lap, dad, Christy, Philippe, Margo holding Esther, me. Front: Isabelle, Lincoln, Patrick

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a great Christmas. I know ours is extra special this year.

Esther Update - Rolling Over

Esther is growing up fast. She is really starting to get a little personality. She is starting to react to us a lot more which is fun. It is really easy to get her to smile and giggle at us. That is pretty much all we do these days, try to get Esther to smile and laugh at us.
A big thing happened today with Esther. She rolled over for the first time!!!!!!!! She went from her back to her stomach and then kept rolling the same direction back onto her back. She did it today at home with Margo and she called me at work she was so excited.
I know everyone thinks their baby is the best but I really think we got the best kid in the world. Esther is such a great baby. 99% of the time she is happy and content wherever she is. She is good when we leave her with other people, we always get comments about how happy and easy she is to take care of. She is super smiley and super cute. And she sleeps through the night which is awesome. We absolutely love her and love being her parents.


One great thing about having a good friend watch Esther during the day is that she truly cares about Esther and is just not caring for her. And she is excited about all the new things that Esther does and all the cute moments. One amazing bonus about Kristy is she likes to take pictures and video. So, she has been sending us pics and video of Esther while she is keeping her. This has been such a blessing and a huge deal for us.


Now for some pictures. WARNING: Extreme cuteness that you may not be able to handle.


Here is Esther sleeping at Kristy's



Esther has started sucking and chewing on her hands all the time. Seriously, does it get any cuter.






Here she is checking out Kristy's Christmas tree



It was super cold on Sunday so we got to bundle her up in a super cute warm clothing thing.



Here she is today, being happy

Esther Update

Sorry that we have not been updating very often lately. We have been extremely busy with some things going on around here. More on that in the future. For now, I thought I would give you an Esther update.

She is growing like kudzu. She is starting to get a little personality. She coos a lot, grins and laughs, plays with her toys, and more. She has started doing this really cute thing where if you are holding her, she will smile really big at someone else, and then turn her head and bury it in our chest like she is bashful or flirting.

Last week was the first week with both Margo and I back at work. Margo is going to work part time (three days a week). We decided to leave Esther with a good friend of ours, Kristy, while we are at work. It was kind of hard/sad to leave her there for the first few days but we are getting used to it. It feels like there is someone else raising your kid and that you are going to miss something. But, I would much rather that person be Kristy than a random person at a daycare. I think she is probably getting tired of me calling a couple times a day though.

She had her 4 month doctor visit today. She weighs 14 pounds (50th percentile) and is 24.29 inches tall (40th percentile). She has definitely grown since her last visit.

Now for pictures!!!!!!!!!

Here is Kristy with Esther

Here is Kristy's daughter Sophie with Esther. Sophie started kindergarten this year so it worked out perfect for her to watch Esther.

Last week for Thanksgiving we went down to Waldron and spent the day with my parents and my aunt and her family. But, we made a little detour down to Mena on the way to see some friends. This is Esther being inspected by Audrey (daughter of our good friend Sarah)

Here we are on Thanksgiving

Here is Esther in a new shirt that was sent to her from good friends of ours, Dylan and Molly, who live in India. It is really cute.

Getting Old

I am not the only one getting old around here. Esther is 4 months old today.

Lots of Pictures

We are still trying to decide what the plan is for the blog and if it will be private or not. So, until we get all that worked out, I thought I would go ahead and post some new pictures of Esther.

Cute pumpkin hat

Seriously cute

Razorback cute

Esther has been doing a lot better at grabbing her toys and playing with them

This is her in her exersaucer, she laughs and laughs at the lion

Lots of big smiles these days

Yesterday we went hiking with some friends. I wore our moby wrap and put Esther in it and she did really good. She loved looking all around. After a while though she fell asleep and slept the rest of the time.

30!

Happy 30th Birthday!
We love you,
Margo & Esther

Privatization

Not of Social Security, but of this blog.

I wanted to let you all know that we are thinking about making this blog private. This is something we had always talked about doing when we had kids. I don't like the thought of random people that we don't know out there knowing all the things I put up on here about our Family. It seems like in a worse case scenario some creep could use the information to do something bad. I know that may seem like crazy thinking to some of you, but I just don't like knowing that any crazy person out there can have access to Esther's life through this blog.

If we do this, it means there will be an added step of signing in, in order to read our blog. And you probably won't be able to read it through a feed reader or rss feed (if you don't know what that is then that won't matter to you). I know this means that we are going to lose readers. Even I tend not to read some blogs of our friends because they are private. But I think it may be worth it. I will continue to have this blog even if we lose all of our readers because I think it is a great way to document our lives and have a record of it for the future.

So, let me know what you think. And let me know if you would like an invite to be able to continue to read our blog.

I will let you know later in the week when we decide for sure about this and send an invite to whoever requests one.

Orphan Sunday

Just wanted to let everyone know that this Sunday is Orphan Sunday. A few organizations that help orphans throughout the world decided to have a day each year that churches could focus on helping orphans. A lot of orphan organizations, adoption organizations, churches, and others are supporting it. It is a Sunday for churches to focus on orphans and promote helping them. It is a very important duty that we have as Christians (for those of you who are Christians) to take care of the orphans as the Bible tells us to.

There are approximately 143 million orphans in the world. Half a million kids in the U.S. live in foster care and around 125,000 are up for adoption. In Arkansas there are 7,000 kids in foster care and over 500 available for adoption. Arkansas ranks #1 in the U.S. in the number of moves a child will make while in foster care. They will move an average of 30 times while in foster care. 30. An even more shocking statistic is this....In Pulaski County (most populated county in Arkansas) there are 600 churches and in Northwest Arkansas there are over 300. So if just one family out of each of these churches from just these three counties would adopt that would be over 900 adopted kids which is almost twice the number of waiting kids in Arkansas. JUST ONE MORE FAMILY IN EACH CHURCH AND WE WOULD NOT HAVE WAITING KIDS IN ARKANSAS. And that is just 3 counties.

There are lots of ways to help. There is an organization in Arkansas that seeks to help these children in Arkansas. It is the C.A.L.L. which stands for Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime and their vision is to have no waiting children in Arkansas foster care but instead to have families waiting to take them in. On their website you can find all kinds of ways to help. But the best way is to become a foster parent or to adopt one of these kids.

I wanted to also post some videos about Orphan Sunday in case you are more of a visual learner.

This one is from the CALL

And this one will make you cry.

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for the orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:27

Halloween

Our community group had a Halloween party this weekend. We came up with some last minute costumes and decided on "things from the 80's" for our family.

Josh as Mr. Rogers (complete with the creepy King Friday puppet) and Margo as a Glamour shot.

Margo made a Smurfette costume for Esther.

And here is a shot of the whole group (minus Esther, she was sleeping).