Laundry Room & Siding

Making changes with two small children running around takes a while, or at least it takes us a while. But, we've managed to make a number of changes in our house in the 2 years that we've lived here. The list includes painting the bedrooms and kitchen, finishing the basement and the following 2 projects.

The laundry/mudroom/entrance from garage room.
If you hold your arms out and turn a circle you can pretty much touch each wall. It's tiny and needs to be highly functional for us. Here's a photo of the laundry room from before we bought the house. But, after moving in we didn't change the room...


until now!


The boys are learning to hang their jackets and bags on the hooks.


The open shelves gave us more storage than we had before and the absence of a big wooden cabinet (now providing storage in the garage) also helps the room feel larger. I love the orange accents, I just love them. There is certain kind of joy that comes from using spray paint.




When we purchased our house, we knew it would need new siding in the next several years. Here's how our house looked before we bought it. Aren't the flowers pretty?

Again, pre-purchase.

Mid re-siding. Thankfully, the 2-man crew that resided our house was quick and cleaned up really well after themselves.


And, here's our house now, with darker siding, white trim and a red front door.





Next on the list of changes - paint the living room! Photos will be shared when that giant project finally gets tackled.

Farming + Raking Leaves

Fall harvest was in full swing last weekend and the boys got several combine rides with grandpa. With Ben gone to the Husker game on Saturday, the boys and I spent most of the day at the farm. We had a wonderful time raking leaves, hauling them to different locations, dumping them, raking them again, etc.

This ended with Levi hitting Noah in the head with the rake...it was lovely...

The Extended Schmidt Family

All of these people are in my family, did you know that?! And, that's not even everyone in the family!


This is my great aunt Dorothy, my grandpa Schmidt's sister who lives in Washington state. My entire life her visits have been an event. She's 88 now. These photos don't do her justice, she has a stunning glow. Her daughter Katherine often travels with Dorothy and shares an equally special place in my heart.

Goofballs!

These boys are such goofballs! They make my heart smile.

Arkansas

Halloween weekend my family took off for Bella Vista, Arkansas. Growing up, it seems like just about every summer included a trip to Bella Vista. Then in college and after we got married, Ben and I went with mom and dad several times. But, it had been 5 years since such a trip and finally it worked for my sister to too. Rylee made her first trip to Bella Vista, but unfortunately Sherri couldn't make it due to other commitments. We stayed in a big beautiful house on a quiet street with a golf course in the backyard. The weather couldn't have been better!

Knowing the boys would cry without their farm toys, we brought them with us.


The boys played and played in the leaves! We have very few leaves in our yard at home, so a yard full was a treat.










We explored the woods next to our house...

and found some really big leaves!




It was a true blessing to be able to spend quality time with Rylee. She's a dream of a baby, basically doesn't cry and just goes with the flow. Ben and I were amazed with how long she slept each morning! Our boys had been up for at least 2 hours before Rylee made a peep!




Grandma brought a scrapbook along to help us remember past Bella Vista visits.




There was a fair bit of running and jumping that happened...if you can imagine such a thing happening when Ben, Noah, Levi and ten pillows find themselves all in one room.


We took a morning walk on a nature trail. It was beautiful!




The waterfall was the highlight of the walk.








Skipping rocks with grandpa.


Asleep - I guess the walk wore her out.


Hey, that's me! I don't often make appearances on this blog. :-)


More leaves, which the human rake (that would be me) made into piles for Noah. He had a great time running and jumping into the piles!




It was a fantastic trip! We had comfy beds to sleep in, lots and lots of yummy food and quality time together!