New House, New Challenges

I have been SO, so busy. Since the middle of May we've moved into a camper, then bought 49 acres with another fixer upper house, fixed up enough that we can sleep in the house... and then my Dad, Mom, and youngest brother and sister moved into our camper. Never a dull moment! My family is here to help us out with our enormous project, and we're providing them a place to live while they're waiting for their next rental to become available.

So, what have we done to our new project house so far? Well, the biggest thing has been to have the house jacked up and put a full basement under it. With the extremely wet summer we've had, that has been a challenge.

The basement was finally fully enclosed just Tuesday, just in time for the heavy rains that caused a lot of flooding in our county. It's so nice to feel like everything is nice and tight again... minus the windows that don't have decent screens but we still need to have open!

Upstairs all we've done is take out the disgusting old carpet and put down all new laminate flooring, and added ceiling lights to all the bedrooms since they didn't have any. We'll paint later, when other things aren't so pressing. On the main floor we're tearing out walls and changing doorways and adding a stairs to the basement, gutting and completely redoing both the kitchen and the bathroom, putting down new flooring, and will be repainting everything. It's going to be amazing when it's done, but meanwhile.., we have 10 people living out of a camper kitchen and shower. Fun stuff, and making lots of memories!

We are into our second week of school now. Jaron is in Fourth grade, Eliott in First, and Leanna is doing Kindergarten. Candice's specialty is keeping us all hopping with her busy little self into everything and then some. Tundra presented us with a surprise litter of 11 little fluffballs, so that has a way of helping keep us busy too...

Candice and a puppy checking each other out.

But Mom, it's MUDDY!!!

Before and After

Before I get all excited about pictures of the new place we're buying, I'd better take the time to do as promised and post before and after pictures of the house we just sold! It turned out SO nice, I loved it once it was all done!

Outside--before it was moved onto our property.

After!

Living room before.

And after.

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Mudroom before

Mudroom after.

Laundry before...

...and after.

Main floor bathroom before.

After.

Office before.

Office after.

School room before.

School room after.

Girl's room before.

Girl's room after.

Boys' room before.

Boys' room after.

Master bedroom before.

Master bedroom after.

Upstairs bathroom (this is already after we tore out the tub, which was in the middle of the room).

Upstairs bathroom after.

So there's a sampling of what we've done. I decided to use empty pictures from after we moved out to showcase the work we actually did and not just our stuff and decorating skill (or lack thereof). We sure loved it while we had it, but we're really looking forward to new adventures too!

We're moving!

So I haven't been very faithful posting lately. Like, at all. I finally decided I needed to post again, pictures or no, just as an update. Hopefully someday I'll have time to take pictures and show you what's up! But I just don't seem to have any spare time whatsoever these days.

But for now, we have sold our home. In three short weeks we need to be out of our house. We have looked high and low for another place to buy, and God has just not opened the doors. So while we wait and hunt, we will be living a mobile lifestyle in a 39' travel trailer. The kids are SUPER excited as we prepare to condense our 3 level house into a camper. We're slightly less excited, knowing it won't all be easy, but life is an adventure and we'll take it! We have a couple of different options for where we'll be parking during the weekdays, but during weekends we'll be trying out various campgrounds and enjoying not having a huge project looming over our heads like we've had in the last 3 years since this house arrived.

Our new home the day we picked it up.

This camper has two sets of bunkbeds in the the front, and a master bedroom in the back with the living space between. It has two slide outs, so that helps tremendously with the space. I'll be posting more pictures once I have a few spare minutes of breathing space!

House for sale!

Yes, it finally officially up for sale! Not officially finished, as there are still a spot or two that need a touch of paint and a pane of glass to be replaced on a warm day, but our purposes it's done enough to be for sale. It's exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. One of these days I hope to compile all the before and after photos to one post so you can see how far we've come. Meanwhile, it's time to finish cleaning... and trying to keep things clean in an already muddy "spring" with 4 little children who vacillate between the great outdoors and the comfy indoors. Well, all except the littlest, but she is already learning how to keep Mama busy!

Speaking of Candice, she is growing and is maturing at an incredible speed. She lost a little time at the beginning of January when she was dealing with teething and an ear infection at the same time, but now she is trying valiantly to make up for it all she can. She has SEVEN teeth in already! After spending a good portion of the day eating to make up for lost time, she spends her time crawling around the floors and pulling up on anything she can get a handle on, which is leading to trouble already. Mostly yet having to watch that what she's pulling up on won't land on her head as did a wooden stool and a laundry basket yesterday, but it won't be long and we'll be having to rescue things from her little grip! At only 6 months old, we think she's pretty impressive.

The last of our litter of puppies went to his new home yesterday, but we replaced the puppies with a brood of new chicks who will become our laying hens. Never a dull moment around here. Ever. The laying hens we do have are starting to pick up their laying again now that things are warming up around here, which we're very glad for! And it's almost time to wean last summer's calves so the mamas can fatten up for their new babies this spring. And for other news around the farm, I have also started some seedlings in preparation for the garden this spring. We'll see how fast the house sells as to if I ever actually get to enjoy the fruit of my labors, but it's worth a try at least!

Back in late summer we purchased 2 wrecked vehicles and had Jere's brother fix them for us, intending to sell one and use the funds from that to pay off the other. Well, after driving them both some through the winter we decided they weren't for us (or maybe I should say I didn't care for them at all) and have been working at selling them both. We finally sold the one last week, and so are beginning to keep our eyes open for our next family vehicle. I'm looking forward to settling down in to one vehicle again!

So it seems life has a way of keeping us hopping! If anyone would like to volunteer to come help me clean house I'm taking applications...

6 months old! And wintertime stories...

I can't hardly believe our baby is 6 months old already. And what a big bundle of joy she is! Though I must admit the last month has had its challenges. Starting out the month with a cold wasn't fun, but then about the time she got over the cold she started crying at night. A LOT. I attributed it to teeth, of which she had 2 and three more on the way in. But one morning she woke up with ear drainage, so we took her to the clinic and here she'd had an ear infection, complete with a ruptured ear drum! No signs at all--no fever, no pulling at her ear, only the very explainable crying at night. She's been doing better since then, despite poking two more teeth though and one more start swelling. For a total of 4 teeth in and two almost. Yes, she is ahead of schedule! As is usual for her. The official report from the clinic, a week before she turned 6 months, was she weighed in at 20 pounds, and was 26 inches long.

Over the past month Candice's physical abilities have been blooming as well. She is ever so close to crawling, easily crawling backwards with reciprocal motion, and has gone forward just a bit a time or two. She rolls both ways, and pushed up to sitting. Using all these modes of movement, she travels quite a bit! And gets herself stuck. Thankfully she has big brothers who love to help her out!

Our winter is a real Wisconsin winter. Which is different than a real northern MN winter, which makes it hard for me when people are fussing about the "blizzard" we had recently. I didn't see any blizzard, just for the record. (Nevermind we probably couldn't get out the driveway right now even with the truck due to blowing snow...) But anyway, I'm happy with the winter we are having! We have enough snow to make it fun to have an all wheel drive vehicle, and it's not super cold, barely getting below zero. The children all have been thoroughly enjoying sledding, skating, and making a snowman. I'm so grateful it's warm enough for them to enjoy the snow, AND that they're all big enough to pretty much bundle themselves up!

We have been busily getting our house finished. Almost there, and it's such a joy to see final details being nailed in place. To see pictures of the rooms as they're getting finished you can check out my photo album here. I put new pictures in it as we get each room done. Hopefully we'll have a few more to add by the end of the week!

Another project we have going at the moment is another adorable litter of Alaskan Malamute puppies. We have 7, and they are all sold. Two more weeks and they should be gone! We enjoy them, but it will be nice to have our chores cut down on again.