For sale by owner

Yes, it's true. The sign is finally in our front yard! I'm excited and sad and scared in so many ways. While I couldn't be more thrilled to be moving on to the next phase of our lives, the non-student one, part of my heart will always be at 3212 S. 211th East ave. This was our first home. The home that took us through the amazing and tough journey called medical school. This is where Samm learned to ride a bike. This is where we brought Macy home. This is the home that we spent countless hours painting and fixing up so that it could be a home. And while it's no where near being perfect, I still Love it. And I will miss it. That is if someone else ever buys it. Oh, it's sooo scary!

OK, as promised here are the before and after pictures...

The living room really wasn't that bad, but the carpet was soaked with animal pee. We didn't dare take our shoes off until it was removed. Oh, and the orange doors. That's a better shot for you of what the front door looked like.

The living room today. Keep in mind though that we didn't get these pretty floors until this past Christmas, and I didn't have that pretty tree or mirror until last week. Which reminds me. Everyone needs a fake tree in their house! My sister Jenn showed me that. And the mirror was only $40 at Wal-Mart. Killer deal!

The other side of the living room looking into the kitchen.

A lot of you have already seen this before shot of the kitchen, but just in case you haven't, here it is again. I don't have a before shot of the dining area any more, but it had really ugly wallpaper on the walls, and a dead bird stuck in the window.

Five minutes after I took the picture, the table was once again covered in gold fish crackers and juice.

I think white cabinets are much nicer on the eyes than dark flat grey.



This is James' room. It was by far the ugliest room in the house. Just look at the ceiling fan with only 2 blades, the streaky blood red walls, the black trim, and the checkered floor. Somebody was a fan of Nascar! Really, we know they were because there was a Nascar sticker on the closet door.



Because his room was the worst, it was the first place I started, and I've loved it ever since.

Samm's room wasn't quite as bad, but it was orange.

Are you feeling a little bit of pink overload from looking at her room now? I couldn't help myself, I was so excited to decorate a girls room.

The hall bathroom, sporting the same ugly wallpaper that was in the dining room.

This room has gone through several paint jobs, but I do love the color that it finally ended up with.

Our purplicious master bedroom!

It's now my favorite room in the house!

Our master bathroom was so bad that we didn't even use it for almost 2 years.

And while it's been functional for a while now, we didn't put up the mirrors until last month and I'm kicking myself that we waited so long. It actually looks like a nice bathroom now.

And I know I already posted an after shot of the outside of the house, but I found the before picture that I was looking for so I'm going to post it one more time. The poopy brown before.

The nice light beige color now.

So, that is our house. Our house that has been our home for four great years.

You'd think I would learn

After the last time Macy got into my nail polish I should have moved it to a different location, instead I just cleaned it all up and put it right back where it was. In my defense though, we had a child lock on the hall closet until just recently so I forgot she could get into it. And like Josh has pointed out many times, Macy is a girly girl. She loves dresses, make-up, high heels, and apparently pretty nails.

This time though she took it up about 4 steps higher. Not only did she paint her nails, but she also decided to paint her hair, face, pajamas, and James' bedroom carpet. The carpet that we just had cleaned 2 days before. And guess what. Red fingernail polish does not come out. I have it down to a light pink stain, but that's as far as it will budge. My next step is to try and bleach it out.

I have such a love/hate relationship with the 2 year old stage. I still don't understand a lot of what she says, which makes both of us severely frustrated and Macy usually ends up crying. She wants to drink juice and eat treats all day, but I won't let her. This also ends in crying. And of course she wants to play all of the games that the older two are playing, but they would rather she didn't, which results in not just crying but screams of rage. But then, two year olds can do some of the cutest stuff. Like the other night when we thought she was sleeping, until her little head poked out from the bedroom door and she said "Boo, Mommy Daddy! I waking up."

Macy also loves/is obsessed with Dora. Which is pretty much all she has done this week. Josh is out of town during the week for the next couple of months, the kids are on spring break, and I am still trying to put the finishing touches on our house. Our goal was to have it listed by the end of February. I'm really praying that with Josh home for the weekend we will finally have it done. I have a whole before and after post planned so I don't want to spoil too much of it, but I just have to show off my one of a kind art work. I had some empty wall space in our bedroom that needed to be filled and my sister told me that when they were fixing their house up to sell she went out and got a big leaf from her back yard and stuck it in a frame. Unfortunately, we don't have leaves outside yet, so I bought a big fake flower instead and stuck it in a frame. I'm pretty much tickled about the way it turned out.



I also had a small space in the kitchen that needed to be filled so I got out my box of decorative stuff that wasn't being used and found a picture frame hanging thing that my other sister had brought back for me from her mission to Argentina. It is actually 3 picture frames hooked together with a rope that hangs vertically. Unfortunately though, during her flight home the glass for the middle frame got broken. When she gave it to me I had every intention of getting a new piece of glass cut for it and hanging it up, but, like with most things, it sat on the counter for a while until I finally just put it in a box.

I was pretty excited when I pulled it out again because I realized that I didn't necessarily need to have glass in the middle frame to make it cute. I dug around in all of my crafting/sewing/scrap booking/jewelry making stuff until I found everything I needed (I didn't have to buy a single thing for this one) and then I put together this little ditty. The letters are vinyl. I had a big roll of the alphabet that I bought at Hobby Lobby ages ago, and the flower in the middle is actually one of the very first vintage brooches I ever bought. I also added one of my Grandma's vintage buttons to the top.

In the end though I decided that it was much too cute for the kitchen so it is also hanging in our bedroom.

I still have to figure out what I'm going to do with the space in the kitchen. I would just leave it bare, but there is an ugly phone jack that needs to be covered.

Wow, this post is now much longer than I intended and I should be in bed. Have a good weekend. We are supposed to get snow tomorrow. Yuck!

We'll play again when the work is done

When we were kids my Mom came up with a little song that she would sing when it was time to clean up. It was a clever little song really, pre-dating the Barney clean up tune. I'm not sure how I felt about it as a little kid, but I can tell you that once I got older I HATED hearing it. And I'm pretty sure that I swore in all of my teenage loveliness that I would never sing it to my own kids. And to this day I have actually never sung it out loud, but without fail, whenever I am doing house work, it pops into my head.

"It's pick up time right now. It's pick up time right now. We'll play again when the work is done. It's pick up time right now."

I've been hearing it a lot these past few weeks. So much to do to get our house ready to sell.

When was the last time you cleaned out underneath your sink? Mine needed a serious paint refresher.

Our laundry room, which is more like a laundry closet has been on the top of my to do list every year, and some how I manage to avoid it. It was easier just to close the door and pretend that it didn't exist. Both sides looked just like this. No doors on the cupboards and all kinds of junk piled on the shelves. Along with four years worth of dust.

The door from the laundry room to the garage was ridiculous. mismatched trim around the whole thing and a home made cat door. (We didn't do that!)

It's so pretty now! If I had just buckled down and done this when we bought the house, maybe I wouldn't hate doing laundry so much. OK, I would still hate it.

And I know there is still an ugly hole in the door, but it does look better.

Our biggest project by far was to paint the outside of the house. I actually started this myself about 2 years ago, but after painting the garage door and the front door, I discovered wood rot and stopped. Josh did replace the wood rot not long after, but I had lost my motivation. I wish I had a good picture of the front of the house before but I can't seem to find one. So just imagine all of the trim and the garage door in this lovely brown color, and notice the front door is orange. I'm not a design expert by any means, but if you already have a house made of ugly orange brick, why in the world would you paint the front door orange? Someone really liked that color too, because they used it to paint the walls in one of the bedrooms.

A pretty blue door looks so much nicer don't you think? Actually, it's Gotham grey.

After painting non stop for three days straight, it finally looks like I always imagined it would. I'm so glad someone else will get to enjoy all of our hard work.

In fact, the whole house is finally coming together perfectly. Sigh! I'll have more pictures of the inside later. Right now I have to go re-paint the kitchen cabinets where I took off tape and it ripped off big chunks of the white paint. Cheap painters tape = bad words!

March 10, 2010

I am up and moving today. Hurray! Still not moving at 100%, but moving none the less. I tried really hard to make up for lost work around the house so I stayed pretty busy all day. Macy stayed pretty busy too. And dirty.

Samm and James were Loud, Loud, Loud, from the moment they walked in the door after school. And even louder when I sent them to get pajamas on and instead they came out wearing Josh's old football jerseys. Wrestling matches ensued. Don't be frightened by James' demon eyes.

Does your cat sleep in the sink?

More work to do tomorrow. And Laundry.

Momma. Sick. Yucky.

That is what Macy walks around the house saying. And it's true. After my last post when I mentioned that Josh had strep, He and I both ended up in bed for two days with the flu, and now I have strep. If you have been lucky enough to not be hit with the stomach flu that is going around, than I suggest you lock your doors and board up your windows because it is everywhere.

We did have three days in all of that though of gorgeous weather when no one was sick that Josh and I were able to get the outside of our house painted. No more poopy brown color. I intended for my next post to be some fun before and after pictures, but I forgot to take any after pictures on Saturday when we finished and today it is raining. Not to mention that I spent from 9 am to 4 pm on the couch today, so there wouldn't have been pictures taken even if it was sunny.

Instead I decided to post the family pictures we had taken with all of my family over Christmas. I've had the CD for several weeks now, but I kept forgetting.

Me, sister Krista, sister-in-law Natalie, and sister Jenn

The Grandkids

Macy and my Mom.

All of the boys

The whole Morgan family

All of the girls

The sisters

My brothers and sisters

My super cute family!

I love this one of Samm and James

Samm pulling cousin Ava on a sled

Family snowball fight

I think my sister's friend Stephanie did a great job! Especially since it was snowing that morning and she had to edit out every single individual snowflake.

It's THE event of the year

The only thing that could probably get Samm more excited than the Daddy Daughter dance is Christmas. Not even her birthday comes close. As soon as she hears the announcement in church, it is all she talks about. Imagine how distraught she was when Josh ended up with strep throat the day before! Good things for antibiotics and lots of rest.

When the day finally comes, she puts on her fanciest dress, we curl her hair and paint her nails, and then she tells her Dad exactly where she wants him to take her for dinner. This year it was Panda Express. That girl LOVES Chinese food.




Daddy always buys her a corsage.

and she tells me how she wants to take pictures.

At the dance Samm got her wii groove thing on.

I love this picture of them! When Samm saw it she got really excited and said "I look like I'm really dancing like that."

Maybe next year Macy will be old enough to go too! This year we painted our nails and headed to McDonald's.

Then, after we got home, while I wasn't paying attention, Macy decided that she wanted to paint her toe nails too! All by herself, on our brand new wood floors.

I did have to make a trip to the store just to get non acetone polish remover, but it came off just fine.

I sure hope they have Daddy Daughter dances in Michigan or we will have one very upset girl next year.