Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Better all-at-once than never!
I am fully prepared to admit to being the world's worst blogger, which is unfortunate since I love very far away from everyone who loves my family! However, instead of beating myself up for being less consistent and clever than April, and less funny and keen than Heather, I am determined to live by my life's new motto. It may sound familiar to many of you, but I am making a concerted effort to actually live by it. "Do your best and leave the rest to God." I have spent most of my life wishing I were more amazing like everyone else, regretting the things I was not good at, longing to be "as good as. . ." Well, thanks to my wonderful husband and a talk by Elder Neal A. Maxwell entitled "Meekness—A Dimension of True Discipleship" - Ensign Mar. 1983, (I don't know how to put a link in, but if you care to cut and paste it, here is the link
http://www.lds.org/ensign/1983/03/meekness-a-dimension-of-true-discipleship?lang=eng ) I have turned a new leaf. I have come to realize that I can always be better than I was today, and that that will always be true. Beating myself up for my weaknesses does not make me better, and more importantly, it does not allow me to recognize how much the Savior has already helped me be better. I can take no credit for those things I do well; every talent I have has been given me by a loving Heavenly Father. But I also have come to realize that (as Ether 12:24 states so beautifully) in recognizing my weaknesses, I recognize how much I need a Savior, and I turn to Him even more. I don't think I am capable of explaining exactly what I mean--it has been too gradual and subtle a change--but I am happier than I have ever been, even while I am most aware of my faults, because I know that because of Jesus Christ I can try harder and be better tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, into eternity. I don't have to be perfect at everything right now, and I can admire all of you for your amazing strengths, and love myself at the same time. I wish I could translate all the thoughts and feelings I have more clearly into writing, in the hopes that someone else who struggles with comparisons and guilt can learn what I have learned. All I can suggest is that you take the chance to read and study Elder Maxwell's talk and the scriptures that go with it. The point of this whole tangent was originally to say that I recognize I am not a great or prompt blogger, but I have posted some catch up pictures in an effort to give you a small picture of what has been going on with us recently. I love you all!! Enjoy the deluge!!
Our Newest Red-head
I don't think in my wildest dreams I ever imagined I would have a red-haired child. I know Dad has(d) red hair, but the idea never really crossed my mind. Then along came Blake, and I love his crazy red curls!! (This picture isn't very clear, but I love his face--he had been combing his own hair, trying to make it look like Alan's, and I asked him to pose for the camera. (:)
When Claire was born, her hair was so fine we couldn't really tell what color it was. In some light in looked brown, but in any bright lights it looked quite red. As it has grown in and gotten longer, there can be no doubt. We have another red-head!! It is a darker variety of red than Blake's, but it is definitely red. Yeah!! Now it just has to get long enough to see if it will be curly. . .
The unremodeled portion of the house
I forget that posts go on the blog in opposite order (the last one you write goes first), so I just realized I need to repeat my warning that you will read again on the last of the house picture posts. Oops!
WARNING!! Many house pictures follow, but if you don't want to see them, there are also pictures of the kids after, so skip ahead.
The home we purchased was built in 1979 (if you can't tell just by looking at the kitchen (:). It has four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, family room, and rec room. There is only one bedroom, one bathroom, and the rec room in the walk-out basement, and then a very large unfinished portion that we will use for storage. It is a HUGE home (the finished portion is just over 4000 square feet), and we got a really good deal on it because it had been on the market for almost a year, the owners were desperate to move, and honestly, it needed a lot of work. The home is structurally in really good shape, but it needed a lot of updates, as you will see from the following pictures.
I am including pictures of the kitchen and dining room just so you can have a picture of the portion of the house we are living in. These rooms obviously need updating, but we decided to work on the bedrooms and flooring first because they were not really livable, and thanks to a lot of cleaning from Mum, these rooms are. I haven't put in any pics of the basement because we don't really use it.
Family Room
This is my favorite transformation.
Before. . .It was like a giant cave. Can you tell they really like their cat?(:
After. . .so much better!! In the morning, especially when the sun is shining through all those windows, I love how bright and happy this room is.
Incidentally, it is about the same time of day in the before and after pictures. Can you believe how much brighter it is!! Sorry, I know I am gushing. . .just blame it on my heritage!!
Living room and hall
Before. . .The living room is actually painted a light mint green, but the dark brown carpet dims the light so much, you can't see the color.
After. . .Yes, it is the same furniture, which the previous owner was kind enough to leave behind, and after much vacuuming and cleaning, we will use until we can afford to replace it.
You can see the untouched dining room through the open doorway.
I included the hall pictures just as an illustration of how dark the house was and what a difference a little (or a lot) of paint makes. And a note--painting that much wood paneling is a paint and takes a long, LONG time!!
Master Bedroom
Before. . .It won't be as obvious from the pictures, but this room is by far the biggest transformation in the entire house. My dad deserves major praise for all the time he spent in this room tearing out carpet and subfloor that had been soaked for who knows how long in cat urine. We didn't realize until after we had purchased the home how bad the damage was, but it was pretty bad. Thankfully, the cat seemed to use the master bedroom as its bathroom fairly exclusively, so the other rooms weren't as bad. The wallpaper was also VERY reluctant to come off the walls, and Dad spent many hours scraping and scrubbing.
After. . .I am very grateful to say that you cannot small cat urine at all in the entire house. Thank you< Joe for the hint about that cleaning enzyme!
Robert is standing in the master bath, which still needs to be redone (blue toilet and sink with pink walls, anyone?(:)
Alan and Blake's room
Before. . .observe closely and you will see what we fondly call the "vomit" carpet. No offense to anyone who likes it, but really?! Brown, green, and orange shag!?!? WHY???
And after. . .We had a hard time convincing the boys that an entire room of that color of blue would be too much. They finally agreed to one wall, on the promise that the dresser will eventually be painted blue with white drawers. We felt that allowing the kids (within reason) to choose the colors of their rooms would give them some immediate ownership in the house. They seem happy so far, but it might also be because they finally have room to play!
One of my favorite features of the house is all the closets. Each of the three "smaller" (in parenthesis because none of them feel that small (:)bedrooms have these double closets that connect, and the master has a walk-in. I finally have somewhere to put everything away!! Now if I could just figure out how to get it all put away at the same time ;)
Lindsey's Room
Before. . . (she really loved the pink, but it was a bit much on the walls and the floor)
and after. . .I think it is amazing how much lighter floors, a little white ceiling paint and not solid pink walls can brighten up a room and make it look bigger (why you would ever paint your ceilings gray is beyond me!)
Our New house
Warning!!! Many pictures of our house follow, so if you aren't interested, skip past this to the pictures of the kids that are also new as of today.
I have promised several people pictures of the home we bought two days before Claire was born (yes, wonderful timing--that is also why you are just seeing pictures now (:), and we have actually done a lot of work on it with the help of both of our parents, so these are also before and after pictures.
This is the front of the house--observe all the trees and my following post about fall leaves will make a lot more sense!
The front entry before. . .
and after. . .You can't really tell, but the ceiling was gray and the walls were white, and we (I should say Robert's mother) painted the ceiling white, and the walls a very light tan. Robert, his father, and our Bishop/Robert's boss/neighbor laid the laminate floors.
Halloween
For those of you who don't know, we live just over two hours away from New York City. Superstorm Sandy blew through our area on Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 29-30) and we lost power Monday afternoon. Ours was one of eight homes that lost power in our development (what are the odds!?!), and our power came on again Wednesday afternoon, just in time for the kids to get costumed up to go trick-or-treating. All in all, it was not our best Halloween ever, but we just felt grateful that no trees fell on our house and our power was restored very quickly compared to our neighboring states.
After taking one picture of Blake, we realized that we couldn't find our charger for the camera battery, and it was running extremely low. Thus no close-ups of any of the other costumes. Claire is a penguin, Alan is a cowboy riding a horse, Lindsey is a witch again, and Blake is a lion. I stayed home with Claire to answer the door, and Robert and the kids ventured out into the post-Sandy freezing rain to collect a few goodies. Everyone was thoroughly chilled, but grateful to come home to a house with power and warm water for baths!!
Washington, D.C. Temple trip
We took a trip to the D.C. temple for a Stake meeting on Oct. 20. It is a beautiful place, made more so for the work that is done there. We will be going back soon, and hopefully this time we can also catch up with Bonnie and her family!
A lovely self-portrait, if I do say so myself!
And More Leaves
Did I mention we moved into a house with a lot of leaves? Our township (which is Wright's Township, even though we live in the municipality of Mountain Top and have a Mountain Top address--don't ask us, we're as confused as anyone by the whole PA system)comes by and collects leaves once every fall. So we and all our neighbors blow all the leaves to the side of the road every few days (or they are too heavy to blow with even the best leaf blower) and make spectacular leaf piles until they finally come and suck the piles up with a giant vacuum hose attached to a dump truck. My boys have never had so much fun going for walks as they have the last few weeks!
Every street looked like this--I honestly don't think I've ever seen so many leaves in my life! And this is after Sandy has blown through!!
I tried to take some pictures on our way to the Washington D.C. temple, but we didn't have time to stop, so this is my lame attempt to capture the beauty passing by out my window.
I have never seen such beautiful colors. Everywhere else I've ever lived, you see a few trees that have these colors, but here it is virtually every tree. I think it is safe to say that fall will continue to be my favorite season!
Fall Fun
As you know, we moved to Pennsylvania this summer. An unanticipated benefit to our move has been the fall leaves. Our house has an abundance of trees, all of them oak or elm, and as the weather has turned colder, the leaves have begun to fall. These are pictures of our first "gathering of the leaves." The kids played in the pile until they were forced inside by the sun going down.
Making it rain leaves
Cute Blake
Slightly bewildered Claire
Smiling Lindsey (a.k.a. "Queen of the poses")
Adorable Alan
Claire's blessing day
One of the hazards of getting out of church in the middle of the day--the sun is in your eyes no matter where you stand. Unfortunately, that means we didn't get a great family shot after Claire's blessing, but at least we are all standing together. (:
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