Moving Day

At 4:00 pm, we signed the papers and got the keys to our brand new house.

Across the threshold.

We'd like to thank our awesome friend and realtor Dorothy for everything she did for us. We are also so appreciative of my dad who flew out to help us move this weekend. We couldn't have done it without his help.

And I need to thank the local liquor store for sponsoring our move. What can I say, they have the best boxes. Our neighbors were getting a kick out of how their Mormon neighbors move.

Morse Drive

In 2001, we bought our first home. We were fresh out of law school, leaving home for the first time with a nine-month old little boy. We loved our house.

Doug built this deck the summer James was born.

We were so blessed to live across the street from this awesome park.

And our kids ran up and down these sidewalks on scooters, bikes or anything else that moved. If I had to describe myself in a few words, one of those words would be loyal. I hate to change doctors, hair stylists, etc. because I'm...well, loyal. I feel that I am betraying this sweet little house, and I hate to hurt its feelings. The only problem is when we moved in eleven years ago there were only three of us. We've doubled in size and it's time to get a little more space. Good bye, Morse Drive. You've been so good to us.

Spring Party

I got to help with James' spring party today right before the kids left for spring break. I was in charge of the sugar cookie station.

Spencer's reached the age where I don't really do much with his class, so I guess I better enjoy these parties while I can.

Luck be a Toddler Tonight

It's Bingo Night at the school tonight so we went to try our luck and check out James' self portrait that made the art gallery wall.

Spencer was the big winner tonight. Faith cried the whole way home because she wanted money to buy the prizes.

Hope was such a helpful Bingo player.

Animal Fair

Today I took the girls to the school for James' Animal Fair. He did his project on the Mountain Lion.

The girls LOVE the stuffed dog mascots at the entrance to the school.

Tiny Tutus

At the end of every three-month session, the teacher lets the parents come observe what the little ballerinas have learned. I love this day when we can watch and listen to what is going on; we usually have to sit outside the room.

Faith's favorite part is the fairy wing dance.

Hope dressed the part as a ballerina want-a-be. We love Tiny Tutus.

The Bad News Girls

I've loved playing with the women at church on our basketball team this season. We didn't win a single game, and the closest we ever came was within 20 points. Spencer asked why we kept getting killed. He said, "Don't you know how to play?" I guess not. Doesn't matter if we lost, though, because our socks made up for the scoreboard.

Preview

We have grass!

This is my favorite room in our new house. We are getting close to moving day!

What a Week

With two days this week in the 80's, we were outside a lot.

DIY Dress Up Station

I have been searching and pinning a way to store all of the dress up things that seem to explode all over our house on a daily basis. When I saw this dresser out on the curb for garbage day, I knew I had the makings of my dress up storage project.

And to give credit where credit is due, my cousin Jeri did A LOT to help me with this. I would still be staring at the dresser on my deck if I didn't have Jeri's expertise. OK, so here's what we did.

1. We cut out all the insides of the dresser.

2. Went to Home Depot and bought that cute paneling to go inside. We used a dremmel to cut the paneling to fit perfectly inside the dresser, and by we I mean Jeri.

3. Since we are going to use this upside-down, we cut a new top from a piece of wood at Home Depot and we used liquid nails for the new top and the side paneling.

4. Calked, sanded (not very much) and primed the whole thing.

Since this is the bottom of the dresser that is now the top of my dress up case, I had to do something about this ugliness.

No problem, I just bought a piece of wood to cover the sides up at Home Depot. I painted the whole thing with several coats of bright white paint.

The hardest part was screwing the mirror onto the door. I turned it upside down and lightly pounded nails to make sure it would stay where I wanted while screwing the mirror onto the door.

I bought a curtain rod at Home Depot for $7 and installed it inside.

A little vinyl to add the pink that is a requirement for anything Faith owns.

And here is my dress up station. The door was a bigger challenge than I anticipated. At one point I was hacking away at the frame trying to pry it off so I could recut the dang door for the hinges. Luckily Doug figured out a way to hang it as is so I didn't have to rebuild it (just fix the spot I ruined). I absolutely love this door. I got the door as a piece of leftover wood at Home Depot for two bucks. The moulding was pretty cheap as well. I got the mirror at an antique store a couple years ago just waiting for the perfect place to put it. I'm planning on putting cute baskets on the top to hold more of the girls' stuff.

The door knob was $5 from Home Depot.

And Voila! The perfect place to store dresses, tutus, glass slippers and everything else lying around our house. I am going to put hooks inside the door to hang jewelry, but other than that it is done. We love it!