This Old House

This house is our house, our home, our thorn, our blessing. I bought this house before we married, but Lee has always been the muscle behind it.  From day one, he's helped with all the renovation, projects and improvements.

But this house is more than the roof over our heads.  This house is where Lee and I discussed our future.  Its where Lee proposed and afterward, where we sat together and called our friends and family to share our excitement.  This house is where we planned our wedding and discussed our pre-marital counseling. After our wedding, this house is where we came home to.

It was in this house that Lee announced he wanted to go to medical school, and this house is where we lived for aaaaaall the years of his school.  It was in this house where we laughed and cried with so many friends, and with each other.

We bought our first piece of furniture for this living room, our first (and second) replacement appliance, our first Christmas tree for the first of many family celebrations.

This one, very small bathroom is where we waited for the results of so many pregnancy tests, and where I woke Lee up early that one morning when it was finally positive.  And it was this small bedroom where we set up a nursery.

It was here that we brought Esther home from the hospital.  And it was this house where we rocked and fed and fell in love with a beautiful baby girl.

It is this front yard that I've mowed countless times, planted flowers that have died and died and died.  The back yard is what inspired this blog in the first place, with my first and second attempts at a garden (both failures...0-2 on growing vegetable provisions for my family).

Then the Walker men built me a deck in the back yard, which only increased the guys' nights, afternoons of reading and mornings of playtime.
   This house, that totally shifts every few years, causing deeper splits, new wall cracks, and a continuously steeper downhill slope. This house that is so small sometimes I can't spread my arms without knocking something over.  This house that has one, VERY small bathroom.  All - er, both - our faucets leak and at least one part of the floor in every room creaks.  You have to pull out and out and sometimes put some shoulder muscle into shutting the doors.

The closets are more like slightly deep doorways, and the ceilings are so low that I can touch them.  And I'm pretty short. The front lawn has a dead patch where nothing grows, not even transplanted grass. The yard on both sides of the house grows weeds but no grass, and seems to be a magnet for clay, standing water and dead leaves.
   This house, this yard - these walls and floors and windows and doors - this house has contained our lives for these 9 years. If it had a soul, we could call it a witness to our lives.  I hate this house on days, and I love it on others.  But no matter what day it is, I am grateful for this house.  I am grateful for our one bathroom, for our creaking floors and cracked walls, and for our patchy grass.  I am grateful for our door that sticks, our cozy living room and the "study" that got Lee through med school. I am incredibly grateful for this house, this old, lovely house.

Family Christmas

This year was the year to celebrate at Mimi's house.  Before Karla and Joel and Abe came into town, we all had a lunch at Mimi's house, where Mimi wanted a picture of the grandchildren.  This is about how that went:

It was too close to nap time and/or lunch for everyone to smile all at once.  So Mimi decided to jump in, and then Rob.

Then the Sarmientos came into town, and things only got better.  We ate together and played together.  On Christmas Eve, we all met at Mimi's for breakfast snacks, lots and lots of gifts, and a massive lunch.  It was chaotic, fun, and priceless.  There were little excited people everywhere, and their joy was contagious.  Of course, it was too hectic for us to remember to take ANY pictures...but it was wonderful.  Mimi and Papa Rob are the "hostess(es) with the mostess!"

Vintage Christmas Party

The Sanfords decided to throw a vintage Christmas party this year, and it was...amazing.  Aimee did a fantastic job with the snacks and drinks - and she pulled out all the fancy dishes and recipes:

They even had special drinks for toasts - just like in the good 'ol days!

The best part (for the girls anyway) was that we all got to dress up vintage, too.  Everyone went the extra mile, obtaining or fixing dresses to make them look old fashioned.

We even played a fun game of "3 in a cup," a mixture of charades and word games.  So fun.  Especially with this group.  We were busy playing, so we didn't get many pictures, but Lee managed to capture a couple of good moments:

It was such a good night, and the Sanfords were wonderful hosts! It was a fun idea, and Aimee made it real.  I love our friends.

1st Birthday Party

So...this post is WAY overdue.  We threw Esther a 1-year-old party (a while ago), and despite the promise I made to Lee to not get carried away...I may have. Whoops.

Before the party, we had a min-celebration the actual day of lil bit's birthday.  We started with blueberry muffins for breakfast, which she ate so quickly she promptly threw them up.  That evening, we had a special birthday cupcake for the birthday girl...which she didn't hesitate to dive into.  So. Much. Fun!

The birthday party was focused on rainbows and bubbles, and since it was in July, it was all water-themed. The weather turned out cloudy and rainy...which wasn't a total disaster, since it was water-themed anyway.  I tried to do a rainbow of snacks, which we put under a tent to protect from the drizzle: 

We welcomed guests with a bubble maker...which was then turned into the favors table afterward (jars of bubbles for the kids and bubble gum balls for the adults):

We had swim diapers available for anyone who needed them, and decorated with rainbow candy!

Outside, the deck was decorated with a fantastic banner made by my sister, with "bubbles" of pictures of Esther.  That's also where we had the watermelon, cold and ready to be cut, and drinks iced for adutls and kiddos:

The yard supplied our entertainment.  Lee made some awesome pvc water spouts, decorated with sponges.  We borrowed several kiddie pools for the younger children.  Mom helped me make the sponge stars - a cheap and easy option of things to throw, put in your mouth, etc.  Lee also blew up a fun tunnel water slide, and then put together a large slip n' slide on the far end of the yard.

Esther had SO much fun, thanks to Lee's tireless efforts:

The BEST part about the entire day was how many people showed up.  My dad came up, all of Lee's family came, family, church and community friends showed up, lots of Lee's co-residents from UMC, even my bff from the coast came up to help - we felt so loved and had so much fun celebrating Esther!

The birthday cake was AMAZING, made by Teresa Sones - who also delivered the cake to us that morning!   It was delicious and perfectly decorated!

Esther dug right in without hesitation, probably thanks to her "practice" cupcake on her birthday:

 Everyone got a little wet, thanks to the games and the rain.  But I think everyone had fun, too.  We have wonderful friends who chose to celebrate this blessing of life despite the weather.

 After all our friends left, we opened gifts surrounded by family.  Esther had lots of help unwrapping:



 The best part of it all is how much fun Esther had, and how long her nap lasted that afternoon.  Happy birthday to our little sweetheart!!  (And sorry this is months late.)