Arizona, Our New Home

Well we made it to Arizona and finally closed on our house last week.  We are still in a vacation rental while we move our things into our new home from the storage unit and have the floors redone.  It's hot, but there is plenty of A/C everywhere and I think the heat feels good, unless we're working outside, like lifting boxes, then we're sweating like pigs.  We miss Washington and everyone we left.  The boys get a little homesick, missing their cousins and friends, but they are enjoying their cousins here and they're making new friends.

Our House Story:

We really love our new home.  I just can't believe what a great house it is.  Jason searched for a house while me and the boys sold the house in WA and packed up the house.  Jason saw many houses in Arizona and I searched hard online for houses for him to go look at.  We kept finding houses that already had offers on them, or there would be something we didn't like about a house.  When we found "our house" I really liked it and we prayed about it and felt like it was the right house for our family and the right location to raise our boys.  But we weren't the only offer and then...we DIDN'T get it.  I was so sad!  Jason kept searching, but I kept hoping the other house would go back to us.  Jason told me, "You need to move on, it's gone", I said, "I know I just really wanted it."  Well to make a long story short, I did pray that if it was the right house for us we would still be able to buy it.  It was hard to move on but I tried even though we still couldn't find a house that I liked (yes, I'm more picky than Jason, plus remember I only have pictures to go by).  Anyways, it had been a couple weeks and we made an offer on a different house that was nice, but I wasnt' in love with it and it was more expensive.  The sellers wouldn't budge on their price, so we decided not to make another offer because I kept getting the feeling that this was NOT the right house for us.  Then, just a couple hours later Jason gets a call from our realtor that "our house" was ours again.  The other buyers has something come up and had to back out.  Wow, I was estactic, I was on cloud 9!  Now just for the record, I didn't wish anything bad to happen to the other buyers, but this house was meant for us after all.

The Floor Story:

When we saw the house again the Travertine floors looked like they were in worse shape than we originally thought.  Jason had called someone before and asked how much it would cost per sq. ft. to have them restored.  It was expensive, so we thought we might be better off tearing out the floors and putting down porcelain tile instead, which wouldn't need any maintenance, but it was even more pricey.  We were just a day away from the floors being torn out, when Jason and I looked at our porcelain tile samples on the Travertine floors and said what a shame we can't save these floors they are so much prettier than the porcelain tile.  BUT then a tile salesman came over and said it looked like the scratches and dullness on the floor was from some kind of wax coating put over the floor.  Which is a big mistake on a natural stone floor, because they need to breathe, someone didn't know what they were doing.  It was the coating on the floor that was causing it to look scratched and dull, not the actual stone.  So we canceled the floor removal and called another floor guy to give us an estimate on restoring the floors, which was a fraction of the cost of the first bid we got, so we hired him and he started restoring them the next day.  We are so happy with the floors now and thank our lucky stars we didn't tear them out!

Before:  notice the dullness and scratches.

After:  Shiny, new and beautiful.

Before:  Kitchen, it felt dirty to me.



After:  Clean and fresh.

Before:  Master Bath

After:  Master Bath

Before:  Ugly scratches.

Now, Beautiful!!!

Another Floor Story:  to be continued...



Backyard Update

Here is an update on our Backyard Makeover.  We now have a stepping stone path and stairs up to the playhouse and the pathway along the wall. 

Jason and his brother Lynn built the stairs and they turned out PERFECT.  We added some pea gravel and they look and work wonderfully.

We placed the stepping stones to connect everything together.

It looks complete now!  I only wish it was like this when we moved in.  The kids would get so dirty climbing and falling trying to get up the steep hill to the playhouse, now it's so easy.

Backyard Makeover

 I want to show you our progress with our backyard from when we first bought our house, until now.  We have slaved, and slaved, and slaved over this backyard, but I think it has paid off, especially now that we will be moving to Arizona and need to sell our house.  I would never had predicted we would be moving so soon, when we moved here it was suppose to be forever, but a job usually has top priority and so that is why we are moving.  I really LOVE this area, the house, neighborhood, schools, church, family, and our old and new friends.  This is going to be a hard move for me.  But I love my husband more and I want to be where he is!

This is what our backyard looked like when we first moved in.  The hill was out of control, but I saw potential there.  The apple tree needed pruning, and there were lots of weeds and briers.

We moved into our house in October of 2010, so most of the apples had already fallen off the tree.  But we were told they are very delicious apples.

We began our makeover, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, etc.

We promised the boys we would build a play house for them, so it was one of the first things we did.  It's a nice size, 8ft x 8ft.

More digging!!!

Still digging!

Oh yes, more digging!

My friend, a wonderful gardener helped us prune our apple tree.  Now it has lots of apples growing, which also makes me sad to move because we didn't get any last year.

We start to build the retaining wall we call, "The Great Wall".

And we finally finish the wall, add some new bark and weed block.  Tah Dah!!!

The pathway along the wall has pea gravel.  Now the top half just needs some new plants and bark and it'll be more beautiful.

This was a huge landscape project that we undertook on our own.  We first got a couple bids from landscapers, who both said $8,000, which was mostly for labor.  That's a lot of money, so we did it ourselves and worked hard together as a family and did it.  I think we are all proud of what we accomplished, and we love the outcome.

Family 2012

 Finally we had family pictures taken!  It's been 4.5 years since the last time we had our family pictures done, pretty sad.  Anyways, we did it and I'm so happy we did.  My good friend Tawnya took them for us and did a great job.  I saw on Joel Dewberry's blog their family photos taken in an orchard and I loved that.  So I really wanted to do ours in one too.  We have some friends who have an apple orchard and let us take them there.  It was perfect timing because the trees were in bloom.

Watch out girls for those bad boys!



Jason and I will be celebrating our 15th anniversary in a few months.  I picked a winner! 

Spencer, 12 (almost a teenager, scary)

Tanner, 11

Logan, 8

Preston, 6



 I just love my family!  By the way, I was sad that Picnik had closed, but I found a new favorite website for editing photos at PicMonkey, infact I like it more.

Riley Blake Fabric

 

I'm excited to add Riley Blake fabrics to my shop.  There are some really fun fabric collections that are rolled up or in stacks of squares.  The above fabric is "Apple of My Eye", I just love the cheery colors and patterns in this fabric.

 Another great fabric collection, "Millie's Closet".  I love this fabric collection too and the fun color combinations.

Paris & Company is another line now in my shop, it has nice neutrals, browns, blues, and fun little ice cream cones.  Then below are two fabrics perfect for little boys.  Finally some boy fabrics!  I think we are going to see more boy friendly fabrics.  

 

The above fabric is Scoot and the fabric below is Peak Hour.  Check them out in my shop.

 



Raggedy Ann Dolls

Here is the last of the handmade Raggedy Ann Dolls that I have been making.  I've made over 20 of them since Christmas time as gifts or special orders, but it's time for me to move on to new projects.  They really are fun to make and I think they are so adorable.  My favorite part is picking out the fabric for the dresses.  You will find these seven dolls in my Etsy Shop.  These dolls make great gifts for any girl, young or old.  But you should know these dolls are for decoration, not a toy, as there are small pieces that could be a choking hazard.  They would be perfect to display on a shelf in a bedroom!

Two Fabric Shops

My fabric shops are filling up.  I now have two shops where you can find my fabric for sale, at my website Fabrically Delicious and now in my Etsy Shop.  There are some beautiful pre-cut fabrics right now.  Here are some of them:

First here is the newest fabric line by Bonnie and Camille, Vintage Modern. It has beautiful colors including red and aqua, of course.  You will find Layer Cakes, Jelly Rolls, Charm Packs and Fat Quarters in Vintage Modern.

Fat Eighths bundles of California Girl by Fig Tree & Co. and Charm Packs too.  I love these happy colors. 

Fat Quarter bundles of Urban Cowgirl by Urban Chiks.  The perfect feminine cowgirl color combination.

Hello Luscious by Basic Grey, Layer Cakes and Jelly Rolls.  Any girl would love this.

Half Moon Modern Charm Packs, very colorful.

Bernenstain Bear's Bear Country Charm Packs.  What a cute childs quilt this would make.

Thanks for stopping by!