Jack's Blue House - September Progress

September was a busy month. We worked hard and played hard, and thankfully, most of the month was ant-free, so we were able to get back into the swing of working on our new house. 

Despite his face in the picture, Will loved playing in our baby pool on our back deck on hot days during September.

We built some shelves next to our kitchen door in the garage, to put jars and other storage on.

I gave Ryan and the boys a housewarming gift - a firepit from Walmart's end of season clearance!

Despite Jack's face in the picture - he LOVES having fires. We had a family home evening on the Holy Ghost and how He's like a fire. It was a great object lesson - Jack remembers the Holy Ghost every time we see or talk about a fire :)

We got tickets to a Illinois home football game. Jack loved it and Will mostly slept through it :)

Will wakes up earlier than I would like in the mornings. So we go in the family room, and he plays on the floor while I lay on the couch. The chairs keep him from wandering down the hall and getting into things :)

Will turned one on September 10th and got some presents!

Will's first birthday cake 

He loved it :)

Happy Birthday, Will!

For those who have heard we have a creek in our backyard - this is what it looks like. This is from our back fence line. The creek is down the hill a ways. But it provides a nice "forest" that makes us feel less crowded by neighbors even with a small backyard.

Cedar chest boxes make the best Will-sized playhouses

The "before" picture of our kitchen - pre wallpaper removal

Jack helped me take the squeaky cardboard out of our box springs. Our bed is now creak-free.

Will likes to climb in things - especially cabinets

We went to the Indianapolis temple - it took all day and we swapped childcare with a few other families who went on the same day

Lisa came to visit the second to last week of September, and we had a great time with her and also got a lot done. It was great to have someone from home to see and talk to - sometimes when we FaceTime with family it's hard to see everything going on back home and not be able to just jump right in the screen and be there with them. But we love being here and we're grateful for visitors, we'll have several of them this fall!

Jack and Daddy went ice skating - and Jack LOVED it

Our kitchen after the wallpaper was removed and the walls were painted

New light and curtains from Lisa - we love them!

I'm grateful that things keep going well with our house, and I'm grateful for all the work it gives me to keep me busy and feeling like I'm accomplishing things. We've done several things with ward members (playgroups, ward parties, Sunday dinner, game nights, etc) and while we love the people in our ward and are making friends, friends take time, often more time than I want them to, so I'm grateful for the home-related distractions in the meantime. Busy is good sometimes :) But overall we've had a great two months here in Jack's blue house. School is going well for Ryan, it's very busy but he is surviving, and so are we!

Things I've Learned as a First-time Homeowner

Disclaimer: I wrote most of this post a month ago, but have been so busy I never actually posted it. However - it still applies :)

Things I've Learned as a First-time Homeowner

• Never tell the seller to leave whatever they don't want. You might end up with some great free stuff (i.e. a handsome plaid couch, leaf rake, push brooms, electric blower, miscellaneous yard tools, brand new frying pans, and a fantastically weird fist-shaped flagpole holder), but you will also inherit piles and piles and piles of junk. 
• Neighbors who offer to let you fill up their garbage can with all the junk you inherited and even help you load it, in their nice clothes, no less, are more valuable even than neighbors who bring you cookies. 
• Ivy is a beast. Why anyone would ever voluntarily plant a creeping, crawling, highly invasive leafy plant that is super hard to remove is beyond me. 
• Ivy is also WAAAAYYYY easier to pull out after it's rained. 
• Crawlspaces aren't as scary with lights turned on.
• Blogger should come up with some kind of sync-to-my-brain feature, so I can write blog posts while doing tedious things like pulling out ivy.
• It's really easy to make friends. I have hundreds of friends wanting to be my friend every day. Trouble is they all have six legs and like to crawl on my counters and eat my food. I don't want to be friends with those kind of friends. 
• Mice are really cute when they're in books and movies, wearing sweaters and talking about Copernicus. When they're dead on your driveway or smashed in a mousetrap they're a little less cute. 
• Brand new carpet is basically the best thing my toes have ever experienced. 
• Clothes left in dryers in a humid climate smell like damp socks the next day. 
• Turns out that refrigerator doors aren't actually supposed to swing shut on their own, like ours in Provo did. Who knew?
• When building a kitchen, always consider the following important questions: Where is the garbage can going to go? and Where is the microwave going to go? and If I install this giant island in my small kitchen, will the refrigerator door still be able to open?
• Fire pits go great with houses, but fires in August when there is NO BREEZE are actually a little uncomfortable.
• Bird feeders are just squirrel feeders in disguise.
• Always install the security system controls next to the most frequently used door - not next to the door all the way around the corner in a different room. 
• Grass is sort of a fluid concept. If it's green and soft and grows, it counts as grass, right?
• Good neighbors are just as important as a good house.
• House stuff is expensive - but hey, we anticipated that, so really, that's not something we just barely learned.
• Always be on the lookout for GIANT spiderwebs when walking between tall objects.

All in all we are loving our new place and are confident we made the right decision. We have lots and lots of work to do and have definitely had some ups and downs so far, especially when it comes to the ants that have been a semi-recurring problem over the last two months - but things are going well and we're enjoying being here. Our neighbors are so nice - we had three offers to borrow a lawnmower, one of which offered us their spare mower for the rest of the season. Ryan's bus stop is literally a hundred feet from our porch, but only one bus route comes through so it isn't too busy. There's a great creek behind our property that leads to a little bridge Jack loves to throw sticks off of. We have a great shed we can store things in - once we repair the door - and we're loving all the space we have to spread out in.