Parks and fun on our day off of school.

Since this winter was more mild than some, it didn't feel like we had as much of a park hiatus as in some years, so the "first day back for the year" was less monumental/harder to measure, but spring temps are coming and we are loving being outside more and getting to parks more regularly! Yay for more light, warmer temps, and time outside! I will take all the park trips we can get while the girls are still young enough to enjoy them, because time is flying and these beautiful girls are getting older! So thankful to be their mom and watch them grow up.

Three monkeys climbing away- trying to treasure both their bigness and smallness in this parenting stage. 

We had a Friday off of school after conference week and we headed to our closest big town for some fun! We visited the Launch Pad children's museum with cousins Will and Gerrit and enjoyed playing, then headed to lunch and a park, and closed the day at Target. The best! What a fun day with my three favorite girls.

We had a day earlier in the week too where we visited the park after school and had supper with my grandma! Strange and sad to not have grandpa there (he went to Heaven in January), but so glad my grandma is close by and we can continue to see her!

Love these three so much! :)

House tour- main living areas.

Our new house has been such a blessing to our family and we are very grateful! We do enjoy inviting others over, and the open, larger main living space in this house has been great! We love the openness and all the windows. We moved in June 2023, a few houses down from our old house, so we are loving still being in the same neighborhood. It was built in 1962, but was flipped in 2021, two years before we bought it.

I have limited pictures from before the flip, but here are a few pictures before it was even flipped. This was the front living room area. There was a wall going all the way across before, and the kitchen was through that door on the left.

The back side, behind the fireplace/wall- kitchen and dining area.

Tearing down the wall to open it up.

Another view of the front window in the living room.

Another view of the back part of the home off the kitchen- I think this was used for dining?

The other angle of the back room. You can see a tiny bit of the old kitchen, and they they opened up this side wall a lot.

Here are a few photos from move in day- this is the view from the front door. Both of the owners previous to us had this area be more of a sitting room/living room and had the dining area behind, but we flipped that and are loving that decision. This front area is our dining room.

One of the biggest things we've done in this house is to change out almost every single light fixture. They were pretty modern looking, so we went with something we liked a little more. The lights below were pre change- nothing wrong with them, but just sold them and picked something we loved! We also changed the backsplash in the kitchen right away to something we liked more.

Here is one of the listing photos where you can see the backsplash before. We are enjoying it being brighter!

Back office area. Before the flip, this was a wall and this room was like a three season porch area, and they added it as part of the house in the flip and finished it off. We love having this area! Kley's computer/desk is back here, as well as our piano and most of the toys.

Back area (behind the big fireplace wall you can see in the picture from the front door angle). We made this our living room with our big sectional.

Here are some pictures from recently, what it looks like today. Here is the front dining area.

Love the big windows! Another big house project we did was curtains/blinds, none of the rooms had any..

There is a pantry door behind this kitchen too on the right side, so nice! We didn't have a pantry in our old house.

The mudroom is probably the area we made the most change. The back half was all original and the drawers didn't work well and weren't very fresh, so we redid everything in the mudroom and are loving it! We added the upper cubbies in the front part too and the bench/lower cubbies, where beforehand this was just open space. This makes much more functional, we think, because now everyone can have their own coat hooks, bin for winter gear up top, and shoe bucket on the bottom.

Here is a photo from the listing of the mudroom before.

Office/toy/piano area.

We also added a mantle above the fireplace (there wasn't one before) and we are loving that! It's fun to decorate seasonally, and especially love it for Christmas to hang stockings from! It makes the room feel cozier.

Living room.

This house also has a really nice yard for the girls to play and for hosting too. Our old house had a single garage, and Kley is especially loving a triple in this new house. We are so thankful for this house! It has been a blessings to us in many ways.

House tour- Bedrooms.

We have lived in our new house for almost two years, so it's about time to get these house posts done! Thankful for how this house has worked so well for our family and to still be in the same neighborhood (we moved a few houses down from our old house). Our house was built in 1962, but was flipped almost entirely in 2021. It was super great to buy it with many major projects completed already. The family we bought the home from had bought it from the flippers, then lived there for two years and moved, so we bought it in June 2023.

Here are some pictures of the bedtrooms on move in day. There are three bedrooms on the main floor- master, Norah's room, and Lucy and Ellory's room.  The picture below is Lucy and Ellory's room. The room has two closets, so that works out nicely that they can each have a side! Each of the girls rooms also has a built in desk, so we put Norah's desk from our old house in here also, so Lucy and Ellory each have their own desk. That works out nicely for room sharing that they can each have their own closet and desk! 

In our old house, they were sleeping in full beds (which were their cribs that converted into beds), but unfortunately those didn't fit into this room, so we got a cheaper bunk bed for them. When they are older and probably get their own rooms, we will look into a bedroom set for each of them, but for now this works nicely!

Norah's room. She also has a built in desk and a nice size closet. Both of their rooms only had a rod in the closet, so we did put in some shelving units in their closets and I'm so glad we did. It makes the space much more usable and functional. 

Master bedroom.

Here is what the bedrooms look like today. I know the lighting isn't incredible, but I just needed to snap them and move on! I kept waiting for the "picture perfect" moment to take house pictures, but when is that? So I just decided to go for it one day. Here is Norah's room below.

The girls' bathroom. We did replace the vanity in this bathroom and I'm so glad we did. The old one had been painted and had a new counter, but we didn't love the flat rectangular sinks and the vanity was original, so the drawers didn't work well and smelled musty. We are enjoying the new one.

Here is a before picture of the bathroom from the listing when we bought the house. It was certainly fine and we could have lived with it, but the new vanity is really nice to have it be fresh and the new mirror/light fit our taste more.

Lucy and Ellory's room.

Our room- we love it!

Here are a few pictures of what the bedrooms looked like prior to the remodel, so before 2021.

This used to be Norah's room. We actually know who owned the home at this time and they go to our church. They are a great couple. She did ventriloquist shows and library readings with her dog, so it fits with her personality that the bedroom wall would look like this! So fun and thankful we get to know them!

There actually used to be four bedrooms upstairs, and this bedroom is no more- they enlarged the master and this bedroom is now the master closet and bathroom.

This used to be the master- it used to have a half bath, and I think the other side was a closet? So they opened up those spaces to make the room bigger and then added the new closet and bathroom off the other side.

This used to be Lucy and Ellory's room.

So fun to learn the history of our rooms- we are so thankful for it!