Monday, December 12, 2011

The House!

So many of you have asked to see pics which is so so sweet!  So here is a little tour of our new home!  So wish I could have each of you here for some hot chocolate and cookies and get to catch up so please consider this an invitation.  We are loving it here so so much.  The view out back is breathtaking and we daily watch the beautiful wildlife come to our pond....deer, coyotes, ducks, geese, horses and even a blue heron!  It is amazing.  Our porches truly are my favorite part.  So when the weather turns warmer and the days get a bit longer, drop by anytime and come rock with us!
So here we go....
Kitchen...
I so desired to find a fun, antique door for my pantry but decided to make one work for a while until I could find one...made it a little more fun with chalkboard paint!


One of my favorites...built-in armoires with chicken wire...all of the upper small cabs will get chicken wire as well as soon as my hubby can get to it!

Eating area....


Living Room...LOVE our tongue and groove walls.  This ended up working because we did it directly to the framing and did not sheetrock this area.  My sweet hubby and his buddy did this in one, LONG, HOT 12 hour day!




Entry way...



Master bath....


 LOVE our tile but was sad they sent white grout...wanted dark grey/black and I think I forgot the mention that to them.  Oops!  Oh well....it is getting dirtier by the day and will be there in no time!

Love the way this finish turned out!


Another view of living area....



School area...


Kids bath...did not LOVE this color once it was finished.  Hope to wallpaper it with rustic, barnwood wallpaper sometime soon!



View of pond from my desk area

Brooks room...still have a few things to hang on the wall.  Vintage pennants and a huge vintage poster of the St. Louis Cardinals in their dugout while playing the Cubs.



Guest bath...
Front porch...can't wait to fill this with rocking chairs and a swing!




My desk area...LOVE that is right off the kitchen so our kids will not ever be on the computer without what they are looking at being in full view!
So there it is!  There is still SO much I want to do but have settled in for now.  I didn't include pics of Abby Kate's room because it is still not finished and Bo was asleep so I couldn't take pics!  And our bedroom is still a mess and the one I hope to replace furniture with very first.  Everything in there matches and I can't wait to toss the matchy look and replace it with fun, vintage furniture and a great, old quilt!  We built this house in complete "our style" that has evolved over the years.  We are getting rid of literally half our things and have repurosed/painted a ton of the remaining things and have agreed to just wait until we sell the rest to add new pieces.  Our philosophy is to fill our home with old things we adore and to NEVER go into debt.  This house is new but we so wanted it to feel old.  We both love antiques and are anxious to replace so much of our "new" pieces with antique (or better yet, junktiques!) some day.  Love old, chippy things so much!  Thanks for joining me on the tour!  Please come visit soon!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Wow...

March?  REALLY?  I cannot believe it has been that long since I updated.  Time has flown!  So much yet so little to update.  Mundane days yet packed with sweet lessons and memories.
So first up, yep, I am going to have a baby super soon.  I have been dilated to a 3 and 50% effaced for 3 weeks.  This is the story of my pregnancies.  A LOT of quick action and then an even more heaping portion of wait.   Which I am NOT good at...With this one though, it has flown and I have felt so unorganized and unready.  I had a list of "to dos" 5 miles long and as of this past Saturday, my biggest item was checked off (celebrating my precious son's 2nd birthday which is actually Thursday but in case new brother arrived, I wanted him to have his shining moment) and I felt more ready.  As of Monday, I returned to the doc with little progress so now I am REALLY ready.  I am also feeling a little on edge because I start back teaching my 2 classes at our community college on the 17th and I REALLY want a little time between birth and starting that again.  My syllabi are ready so I have nothing really to do, just don't want to have a baby and then go to standing in front of a class in a weeks time.  And I CANNOT WAIT to have everything out of storage.  You take a true blue nester, throw in a new baby, 95% of everything she owns in storage 1.5 hours away, a new house that is taking a dear forever and having been living with her poor parents for a year now and you can see a smidge of stress.  And impatience.  And irritation at silly little things.  So you also see one throwing herself daily on the mercies of her Savior!
As for the house, we figured it the other night and granting everything goes perfectly (it never does) we have 10 weeks until we finish.  We are finishing sheet rock on Thursday and the wood floors start going in on Friday.  We will do tile next week and then start trim which includes cabinets and countertops.  Then paint.  Then heat/air, electrician, plumber coming back to install fixtures.  Finally, wood floor guys back to finish, stain and seal and carpet installed and voila!  Finished!  We are finally to the fun part!  Thank the Lord I had my mind about me when I found out about this pregnancy and got everything picked out early.  I have NO stinking clue how I would do all that running around with a 5 year old, 2 year old and a newborn.  Gosh.  Thankful.  We are just giddy excited about the house.  I cannot wait for ya'll to see it.  I was telling my sweet Daddy the other night, who is out there EVERY night working on the land, that it is so surreal.  We were given SUCH a precious opportunity to build our dream house at such a young age and have picked everything with the thought, God willing, that we will be rocking on that same front porch when we are rocking grandbabies.  The view from our back porch is breathtaking. But it is so amazing to have picked everything.  I look at the windows, which I knew diddly squat about before this and just LOVE them.  Everything I have picked I have tried to reflect traditional farmhouse.  I want it to feel like it has been there forever.  And I want everything to be as classic as I could find so updating will be minimal over the years.  I just cannot imagine the first night in that house.  I know I will feel like I am dreaming and on vacation for a loooonnnggg time.  It really takes seasons like these to evoke such deep gratitude for such daily mundane things.
Did I mention I am homeschooling Abby Kate this year for Kindergarten.  No?  Oh yeah.  Another biggie.  We aren't starting until September 1st but we are SO SO excited.  I need to do a whole post on that and will sometime.
So here's to a busy end of summer and fall.  Oh fall!  How I am longing for you!  This 100 degree weather while carrying extra weight is for the birds.  :)  Hope you are each doing so well!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

In, well....forever

So many of you have been so dear to call or email, asking how we have been.  I literally feel like I have fallen completely off the blog bandwagon...for numerous reasons...the biggest being that Abby Kate no longer takes a nap nor has she been having quiet time while we have lived here so I have very, very little time to myself.  Night falls and I try to prop my eyelids open to spend a tiny bit of quality time with my hubby before I fall asleep promptly at 9.  So, I will attempt to remember the vast happening in the lives of our little fam and share a bit, which will probably be the last time for weeks...or months.  I feel the worst about neglecting the kids blog.  Seeing as I don't scrapbook and have not been journaling faithfully, I have very little to show them by means of pictures and words.  I have always heard you take thousands of pictures of your first, a hundred of your second and 3 or so of your third.  I NEVER, and I mean NEVER thought I would be that Mom.  However, you never know what awaits you in the next stage of motherhood.  And in my case, I could not fathom not having a bit of quiet time every day during nap/quiet time for the kiddos.  But it is upon me.  So, my blogging has suffered.
So to cover such a vast array of subjects, I will just jump in...
The house....oh the house.  I never thought weather would become an obsession.  And I never thought a forecast of rain could cause depression.  I absolutely LOVE spring in our fair state.  I LOVE storms.  I have always anxiously awaited March and April and loved the days it would thunder and lightening outside while we were cozy inside.  However, this spring has been ruined, I mean RUINED for me.  Each small amount of rain has set us back weeks.  We closed on our construction loan in January and it is the end of March and we STILL have no foundation.  We do have our footing poured which was huge and we got our road (our house is 700 yds of the main road) finished so the weather delays should be minimal from here on out.  My biggest anxiety was not finishing before Brooks was born.  But we have longed since passed that desire and now I just wonder how in the world I will find all our baby gear.  We have three storage units in our old town and a garage full of boxes here at my parents and I have no clue, NONE, as to how in the world I will find all I need for him.  I just feel overwhelmed at moving with a newborn.  And adding to what my parents (and we for that matter) thought would only be a month and is now going on 9.  It is just a mess and I am praying with all I am the rest of the process will move at lighting speed.
Pregnancy...has flown.  Truly.  I am 21 weeks pregnant and really am feeling great.  My body feels it more this time.  More pressure, more weight, just all of it.  But it has gone SO SO fast.  Our ultrasound last week showed him already weighing 1 lb 10 oz and he is measuring almost a full 2 weeks ahead.  I am really thankful for this though.  I had really been nervous that we would have one hoss of a boy and one skinny man.  But looks like we might have two linebackers (however I would prefer two centers or two pitchers)! With them being so close in age, I know God will make them uniquely perfect but I did not want there to be any obvious wedge Satan could use between them.  His original due date was August 10th but the ultrasound said July 31st.  I say, let him stay in as long as he can.  At least that is what I say right now.  I always am losing it at the end of my pregnancies!
I am loving teaching.  For those of you that don't know, I am teaching two classes at our junior college here.  I truly have loved it.  I have great students and it has been really fun using my brain in this way again!  They are when Bobby is off so it is also great one on one time for the kids to have with their Daddy and he loves it too!
Speaking of Daddy, we finally have him home.  The 4 month absence was SO SO hard and I am just beyond thankful to have my partner home.  We knew his training was so necessary, it was just hard.  The kids are delighted and I am amazed at their relationship with him.  He is SO SO proactive with them and SUCH a great, loving disciplinarian.  I am so, so thankful for him.  He adores his job as well.  This alone has SO changed our quality of life.  It is just a PERFECT fit for him and uses his gifts to the core.  I love seeing him putting on his gear for work, knowing he is so energized by what he does.  I pray so hard for him and know God uses him mightily.  Now his shift has changed (2pm-2am) I get a bit more nervous but it just sends me to my knees more often which is so, so good.
There are a few other BIG things for us right now but we are still praying through them.  But I will be excited to share them with you in the future!  Right now, we just would love your prayers!
SO, so pray all is well with each of you and your sweet families.  May God be blessing you more than you could ask or imagine!

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

What's in a name....

One thing I had secretly dreaded about having another boy was to come up with a name that Bobby and I BOTH loved.  We already decided on a girls name YEARS ago that we both still adore, so that part seemed easy if that was what God chose to give us.  When I heard boy, my mind immediately spun to his name and hasn't quit spinning until we finally decided this past weekend as we had some time together away.  We decided on Brooks Haylor Qualls for our son.  We both adore it.  One of the things we love most about it is that it gives all THREE men in our family the same BHQ initials.  I really believe that will be so special to them some day.  Bobby has many engraved things that will be fun to pass on to BOTH sons and not just the one that bears his name.  And of course, one of the sweetest things to me is that it gives this son the namesake of my precious Grumpies (Haylor) who you all know I adored.  And Brooks will share the middle name Haylor with my precious brother and nephew.  I just LOVE family names and names that bear meaning.  So, we are SUPER excited for Brooks to make his arrival and to be able to pray for him, BY NAME.  Now if we could just get this house built in time....

Friday, February 04, 2011

It has begun! (For real this time...)




So here we are, 3 months after my last post and we are FINALLY getting started on our house.  Holy moly what a process.  I knew everyone said it was a LOOOONNNG process but I had NO IDEA!  I am a get it done yesterday person so this process has been painfully refining.  My patience has had to mature quickly.  But I have continued to praise God for the opportunity to build...and for the opportunity to get my ducks in a row so as building progresses, there will be NOTHING on my end that holds the process up.  We really are giddy excited and I never in a million years thought I would get teary at the sight of dirt being moved.  But I did.  I so did!  When we went out to look at the pad that night, we saw the most beautiful sunset and was reminded of the simplicity of true beauty!  Now of course, this ridiculous snow has yet again stalled our progress so we are praying for 50 degree temps so we can pour our slab and get going!  Our goal (well MY goal) is to be in by June so I have a month to get good and settled by the time number 3 arrives!  My nesting instinct will be in overdrive and it will be SO magnified seeing as I will not have nested in a year!  SO SO ready!
So heres to many more, and in lighting-quick time, pictures to post to update you!  Thanks so much for your sweet comments and emails!  Can't wait to show you it all finished!