Home Tour...Back Entry, Laundry Room, Pantry

I wanted to show you my home...I hate that we live so far from family and friends, so if you aren't able to come visit, I will show you our new home!

We were so excited to be able to design and have a home built that was perfect for us! So many people talk about how they hated building, and how it is so stressful, and they will never do it again. This was NOT our experience!! I loved it so much! It was so fun. I loved every part. It was so exciting to meet with the draftsman, tell him what we wanted, then see him bring that to life! It was so fun walking through it when it was just studs and picture what it would finally look like. And it was so fun picking out all the details for it...the colors and the sinks and cabinet hardware and lights...I loved it!

Of course, there are always things you can find that you wish you would've done differently. But my changes are minor....things like more lighting on the outside, a pocket door for my closet, more lockers at the back door. But overall, I LOVE IT!!!! If money were no object, I would have loved 5 bedrooms so Noah and Eli didn't have to share. I would have loved a huge porch. A big bonus room. A 6th bedroom for guests. But, of course, money IS an object and I think we did very well using what we had to spend to make our home absolutely perfect for our family!!

There are still things we need to do. Curtains. Hang stuff on walls. Landscape. Pour a sidewalk to our front door. But they will come. So just know we are a work in progress.

One thing I will let you in on before we get started...my house is colorful! I love color! At our last church, we lived in the church pastorium, and everything was beige and neutral. I determined that when I had my own house, I was going to fill it with color. And I made good on that!

Anyway, come on in....we will be coming in through the garage door into our back entry. Ya know, back door guests are best! :)

Here is your view when you walk in my back door. Straight ahead, the master bedroom. To the right, the kitchen. And to the left, the laundry.

When you close the back door, on the wall to the right, is this little message board. I am proudly displaying 2 coloring book pages and Sam's report card (all A's!). I have been changing out the verse monthly. The January verse was Jeremiah 29:11...For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.

And to the left, we have our "mud room" area. One on side of the wall we have some pictures.

 2 paintings I did...

And a grouping of pictures of the kiddos. For this, I bought $3 wooden frames from Wal Mart and painted them to match the canvases I had done.

And on the other wall, we have lockers.

We knew with 4 kids and all their "stuff" this was a big need for us!

Ideally, this would have 6 lockers, so that Eddie and I could have one, too. But we share with the kids! :) Each child has their own space...

I plan on adding more hooks to the sides. They have lots of things to hang up. In Sam's, he has 2 lunchboxes (which 95% of the time he eats in the lunchroom, but here are 2 just in case he gets REALLY hungry one day!) and his Awana bag. He also hangs his backpack in here and a coat if he needs one. In Meri Hobbs', she has a lunchbox, her dance bag, and her Awana bag. She also hangs her backpack and coat. So, you can tell why I need more hooks!

Eli has his diaper bag and a lunchbox (which he used when he went to Mother's Day Out, but he doesn't use it anymore). And Noah has his diaper bag in his.

Below the locker part we have cubbies for shoes. These stay full!! I have a "clean out" every now and then to try to get everyone's shoes back in their closets!

Above the lockers we have cabinets for whatever we need to stash. It usually (well, occasionally) holds my purse. Right now it has an outfit Noah has outgrown that I need to pass down to another Noah in our church.

Past the lockers is the laundry room.

I need curtains in here. I think I have some from my old house that will work. I need to get in the attic and check that out!

We have a counter with a sink and some cabinets. I painted myself a reminder to hang above that sink.

 Do everything without grumbling or complaining, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault. Philippians 2:14-15

We also have our computer stuff on that counter...modem, router and printer. It doesn't look the best there, but we didn't have a whole lot of choices. I stuck all the wires in a basket in the corner. Any other suggestions? That's kind of an eyesore, but I wasn't really sure what to do there.

 Past the counters are our appliances...freezer, washer and dryer.

On the other wall, my husband's gun safe.

I also need to figure out a place to store off-season wreaths. So they're here for now...
On the wall opposite the counter is another group of paintings I did to display pictures of the kids.

As we leave the laundry room....

here is a little piece of furniture of love. This is on the wall between my back entry area and my kitchen.

I am going to make a menu board to put above there, I just haven't done it yet.

And the last thing in this area is the wall leading to the master bedroom.  On this wall is our pantry. (I am mortified by how messy it is, so please overlook that!)

To the left, we use those shelves as an actual pantry. (Well, besides the bottom shelf...I keep my bill paying stuff and stationary stuff down there). The back wall is cookbooks, things we like to keep out of reach of little hands...movies, Wii games, Playstation games, and serving pieces. We keep our medicine in the shelves on the right. And the floor houses an array of things. I see cake plates, binders with house info (paint colors, etc), wrapping paper and gift bags, vacuum cleaner, Bona mop, steam mop, and who knows what all else?!

And finally, on the wall between the pantry and the bedroom is a gallery wall. I took frames I already had and painted them black, so this was a cheap project!

Whew! Sorry that was so many pictures! Next up, I'll show you my favorite room in the house...the kitchen!!

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Chocolate Bundt Cake

Y'all, I wanted to share this delicious recipe with you! I got a new printer this weekend, and wanted to test print something. So, I opened a document that was on my desktop. It was this recipe. I have no idea where it came from, but it looked good so I decided to try it out. So good!!

OK, I obviously need to work on my photography skills, and I didn't add enough milk to the icing, but it was seriously so good!! Here's the recipe:


Cake Ingredients
Butter, for greasing the pan
1 3/4 cups flour, plus more for the pan
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee


Icing ingredients
1 stick of butter softened
Confectioner’s sugar, to taste (start out with 3-4 tablespoons and add to your desired level of sweetness)
1 teaspoon good-quality vanilla
Milk–just a little bit to thin it out
Method
Combine the first three ingredients together using a whisk. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar, if desired. Add milk to thin it out. Set aside.


Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a bundt pan.
Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack and cool completely.
Drizzle with icing.

Enjoy!

Birth Story - Meri Hobbs

So after the time we had getting pregnant the first time and again with Sam, we didn't think we needed to get on a birth control after Sam was born. We moved to Georgia right after Sam turned a year old. I found a new doctor, told him our issues, and decided what we wanted to do.

Just shy of Sam turning 2, we decided we were ready to start trying for another baby. My new doctor said that since we knew combining Clomid and Glucophage worked for us, let's skip all the other stuff and get straight to that. So we did, and we were pregnant on month 2 of trying that! Woohoo!

When we found out we were having a girl, we were beyond excited (and scared!).  I ended up having gestational diabetes with this pregnancy, which was not really that big of a deal. I had to meet with a dietician weekly and check my blood sugar 4 times a day. I also had to have non-stress tests every other week, then every week, then twice a week as the due date got closer. I never had any issues, though, until the very end when my sugar would get a little wacky. So they put me on a pill that took care of it.

It was an uneventful pregnancy, and I again loved {almost} every minute of it! Because of the diabetes and the fact that we lived an hour away from civilization my hospital, we were gonna be induced this time.  Which meant that, again, I got to experience the wonder-drug Pitocin. We got to the hospital about 5:00 am to get things rolling.

I progressed very slowly, and that night about 5:00, the nurse came and checked me and I was still at 6 cm. She said they were changing shifts, and the new nurse would come and check me again in about an hour. My parents, Eddie's parents, and our honorary parents (who Meri Hobbs is named after) had all driven over for the big event.  When they saw how long this was going to take, they all decided to take Sam and to go eat supper.

A few minutes later, I start feeling really uncomfortable.  I was telling Eddie that I was feeling a lot of pressure. Something was going on. I called the nurse to come check it out for me. She got in there...oh yeah! This baby was coming!!

Eddie called his mom's cell phone, his mom's husband's cell phone, my mom's cell phone, my dad's cell phone, Big Ben's cell phone, Mrs. Brenda's cell phone....NO ONE answered!!! We knew the restaurant that his parents were going to eat, so he tried to call it. It was a Japanese Steakhouse...they had no clue what Eddie was trying to tell them!

So, after 13 hours in labor, Miss Meri Hobbs was born on May 18, 2007 weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces, and was 20 inches long.  She was born about 10 minutes before all the grandparents arrived!!

By the time she arrived, we had a digital camera, so I can include pics in this one!

Sam was a little nervous to come see his baby sister!

Now he decides to check her out!

Here's the big brother waiting for us when we got home from the hospital!

Our verse for Meri Hobbs was 2 Corinthians 9:15...."Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"

We are still thankful that God sent us this precious gift. The joy that Meri Hobbs has brought us is indescribable! Our prayer is that Meri Hobbs will grow into a Godly young woman who seeks to be holy as He is holy.

Product of the Week

Today I bring you another installment of Aly and Tiffanie's Product of the Week....

 

Today my product is a sippy cup! (I was gonna do another hair product. But, really, if you have seen my {lack of} style, are you really gonna take product advice from me two weeks in a row?! I'll postpone that til next week!)

So, until then....the Nuby sippy cup

I am always losing sippy cups, or the plastic stopper things and it seems I never have all 3 parts I need. So, I'm always having to buy more. And, they are getting expensive! The ones I usually buy are $8 or $9 for a pack of 2. This cheap-o is not ok with that! So, last week, I was putting some in buggy and I happened to glance down and notice these Nuby ones in some bins on the bottom shelf. One of these was $1.42!  That, I can handle. And Noah and Eli don't seem to mind that they are cheap! :)

Encouraging My Daughter

Something I am trying to reconcile in my mind is about my daughter. I know, for right now at least, that I am the biggest influencer in her life. I don't want to get this wrong! My question is how should I influence her??

This weekend after I got dressed, she said she wanted to be my twin and went and got matching clothes from her closet!

I want her to know and to believe that she can do anything she wants to do. Can be anybody she wants to be. OK, Meri Hobbs, you want to cure cancer? You can do it! Want to own your own company? You got it! Want to fly a big airplane? No problem! Want to teach 5th graders how to conjugate sentences? Easy! Want to perform complicated brain surgeries? Piece of cake! You can do whatever you set your heart and mind to do! I believe in you!

But here's where the flip side is. What if God wants her to be a wife and a mom? What if that's her heart's desire? I think that's awesome!! But how often do I encourage that?

I don't want her to think that just because I chose to quit my job and stay at home, that's what she has to do. I want her to find her own way. And I know that a lot of people think that staying home is the only thing a Christian woman needs to do. (See my thoughts on that here). 

I don't want to encourage her so much to be a successful businesswoman that I discourage anything else. I mean, let's face it, it would be harder for her to quit a job as surgeon than it would to quit a job as a teacher. (Harder because of the money she would lose is a lot more...harder because the years she invested to get her education would be a lot more...)

So here's where I am in it right now. I am trying to, sort of, balance my encouragement. I will encourage her to do her best, succeed in school, get involved, find what she loves and pursue it. But I'm also trying to find those moments that's she's doing wife and mom things, and encourage those. For example, when she's helping her little brother zip his coat...."Oh, Meri Hobbs, you are such a thoughtful sister. You are going to be a great mom one day!" When she wants to help unload the dishwasher...."Meri Hobbs, I love how eager you are to help in the kitchen. One day, you're going to have a husband who appreciates the things you do for him." I also need to model to her how to be a wife and a mom. She needs to see that I view my "job" as a joy, not a burden. I need to show her that serving my family makes me happy, and that it makes God happy. She needs to see that I am not less of a woman or less important than working women because of my choice to be home.

More than anything, though, I want Meri Hobbs to learn to seek what God wants for her. I want her to learn to pray through her decisions. To search the Bible for answers. To have a peace that she is following God's heart in the choices she makes for her life. In the end, if she's doing that, it won't matter if the only thing I ever told her was to become a circus clown. She will do what God wants, and that is what this mom wants for her!

How do YOU encourage your daughters?

Product of the Week

Today I'm linking up with Aly & Tiffanie to share with you my product of the week!

The product I'm loving this week is the Rockaholic Dry Shampoo.

My hair is wavy. And really thick. And it takes a really long time to dry it and straighten it. So when I do, I want it to last! I love this Rockaholic Dry Shampoo. Now, when I straighten my hair, I just use this the next day and I get 2 days out of my fabulous 'do!