Project Restoration Reveal Part 1

I realized the other day that we have been living in our house for almost five months now and I never showed any "finished" pictures. So here are a few of the living room, dining room, and kitchen....

dining room before

dining room after

living room/kitchen before

kitchen before

farmhouse sink...sigh...I love this thing. Perfect for washing babies in.

living room after

living room after (sign is made by my sister)

living room/hall after

So this is part of the redo. I will try to upload pictures of the kids bedrooms sometime in the next five months! (smile). And I do have a picture frame for Anne....I just haven't found it yet! :)

Someone also turned ONE over the weekend....one. My baby is growing up!!! And I think she kinda likes lemon cupcakes! :)

our sunshiny lemony girl!

She is growing so fast and it seems hard to believe that the patter of little hands and knees on the floor, and the pinching of my arm while she's nursing are coming to an end. Time is just slipping by and all I can do is slow down and try to take it in....

a few things I am thankful for....the gifts that never end....

* watching the sunset as a family

*kids pointing out the stars as they pop out in the night sky

*going around and naming what we are thankful for

*warm sundried clothes

*napping children

*keeping up with the laundry

*girls going running with their mom (grin)

*lemon cupcakes

*Turkey Hill Raspberry Tea & Peach Tea (yes! even in Arizona)

*ballet recital

*baler in the morning

*roses in ironstone pitcher

*kiss goodnight

*catching up on office work

....and the list goes on......

Spring

Here is a little taste of what's been going on around here. April we have two birthdays....Charlotte turned 6 and Larissa turned 9. The last year of single digits for her.....Nate and I are starting to feel older.... May also brings birthdays. My husband turned a year older and our sweet baby Anne will be ONE next Saturday. I don't know how that happened. It doesn't feel possible that it's already been a year. She has a mouthful of teeth and crawls around like no one's business. Soon she'll be walking...and then it will feel like my baby's grown up.

Now that our commitments are starting to lighten up, we are potty training in more earnest. My goal is to have the boy done by the end of June. One in diapers.....I can hardly wait. He does pretty well...it's just the #2. As you can see, we added some new members to our family. We have our pony, Autumn, our dog, Doc Holiday and now we have two pups. Blue is our two blue-eyed pup, and Scout is our black/blue eyed pup. They are super cute and the kids love to play with them. We also got goldfish to eat the algae in Autumn's water tank. I jokingly told my husband the other day that we have more animals then children....it feels like it's been a while since that's happened. The last time was when we had chickens and we haven't had any for a few years.

We also built a bigger area for Autumn. She has lots more room to wander around and explore. She seems much happier since moving over to the bigger pen. We also got one of those cute barn sheds which reminds me of my native Pennsylvania. It's lofted, so I have storage space. We are using half of it for tack and the other is the kids' play area.

We have been blessed with lots of amazing sunsets these last few weeks. There have been clouds in the sky in the evening which gives the evening light a different look. I love the mountains.

The guys are cutting and baling hay. I am looking forward to them cutting and baling some here by the house later this month. I love the smell of fresh baled hay. And Nate has started planting corn.

 Spring is always a fun time of year. Planting hopes and dreams and waiting to see what comes up.