Our New (to us) Home

This summer has been quite a ride. We closed on our first home 2 days before Benjamin was born, started renovations on it 5 days after he was born, and moved in when he was 3 weeks old. Not to mention, Alex started Kindergarten in there too! I will post about that soon. So cute. Anyway, we are still unpacking (very slowly), and trying to get things in order in the house. It's a little harder than I thought it would be to unpack a house with 4 little kids. Go figure.

Per request of the best in laws ever to walk the planet, here are some before and afters of the house. It looks worse in the befores than it really was, because the before pictures were taken at dusk and the after pictures were taken in the late morning. We love our house. Love it. We live in North Central Phoenix, which was the first part of Phoenix to be settled, so most of the homes here are pretty old and almost all of them have additions (which are often sort of weird)....but we love it here because the homes have so much character and there are TREES and get this......GRASS!! Plus, it's a very short drive to work for Joseph, and best of all, we are now next door neighbors with a family in our ward and two doors down from another family in our ward...both of which have children our kid's ages. It's been really fun.

BEFORE

These were taken the Sunday after I had Benjamin when my parents were here and Jarom and Charla were over for the afternoon. Look at the old single pane windows and the lovely ORANGE trim everywhere. Sick. Who does that?

This is the outside of a strange addition they did which included a creepy water feature and an entire wall of glass. 

This is the inside of the addition where the water feature is and the huge glass wall.  This is the Master Bedroom.

Look at all that orange. That is not brick people. Nope. Someone thought orange would be a fantastic color to paint an entire addition, patio, etc. 

AFTER

We put in all new windows, and painted all the trim white and the exterior non-brick walls a cream color. We also removed the metal security door and painted the regular front door. Eventually we would like to add exterior shutters that match the front door. The color is a Dunn Edwards paint and is called Modern Navy. I get giddy every time I see it. There are closer pictures further down where you can see the color better. 

That is the wall that used to be a mismatched brick addition with the water feature.  Oh and do you see that?! A GARAGE!! Oh happy day. 

I just love all of our trees. There will be a video at the end of the post where I will tell more about them. They were in bad shape when we moved in, but we found a great Arborist that has been working hard to make them pretty and happy again. I wish I had clearer before pictures of the trees so you could see how different they look now.

The house has a lot of planters and Rebekah and I are excited to get some pretty flowers in there someday....you know after we unpack, get pictures up, etc, etc.

There's one of your Carob Trees Mana. Start researching what we can do with that stuff okay?!

And here is my gorgeous front door. I love it. So. Much. We always said we wanted an American Flag flying on our home someday. It was one of our first purchases. Alex has learned the Pledge of Allegiance at school and recites it daily there, so when we got it up, he insisted that we all stand out there and say the Pledge. It was fun. 

Had to add this cool shot. This is in our front yard. He loves to climb the palms.

Video of the House

And Just because Mana is also wondering how the kiddos are doing.....

Thank You Mana and Papa for the early Birthday gifts! We Love Them!!

 She especially wanted an update on this little chunker. Isn't he delicious?

Look at those thighs...that belly...those chins. Love him. More updates to come. Soon. I hope.