Happy 11th Birthday Jacob!

I am a little behind on blogging so I am spending the evening catching up on photos and family updates :) Here is Jacob's birthday photos. He loves his guitar. He has been teaching himself how to play. He is so talented and smart. I love how he is so naturally driven and know he will be successful in life. I love you Jacob! You are such a sweet young man.,

Katie being Katie - She makes my heart happy

During Josh's halfway through college session Katie wanted me to take a few photos of her and I couldn't resist :) I love that she loves the camera.

Madison and Katies Playhouse - Before and After

When we rented this house in Moscow Idaho one thing that really appealed to me was the playhouse that was included in the rental. It needed some love and some color but I knew I wanted to do something for the girls so we tackled this project together this summer. It took us a long time to get it finished. We had to do it off a strict budget so that was challenging but being a pretty frugal person we kept our eyes open for some deals.

We found a bucket of white paint left in the garage of the rental that we used to spruce up the inside of the house so that was free! My husbands used to be a plumber so I used left over caulking, dollar store paint brushes to paint the inside :) Then we went to Goodwill and found a broken TV console for $5 and sanded and painted that white and then Josh screwed it into the playhouse. I used an old metal mixing bowl we had in the kitchen and had Josh cut out a sink hole and we glued that into the sink and then used a free kitchen faucet we got that was broken and was going to be thrown away to use inside! (I LOVE FREE STUFF!)

Being a photographer I have endless amount of fabric I have used for sessions that I may never use again so I sewed up some curtains out of old fabric. I used some old curtain rods I used to have n my photography studio in Boise to hold all my newborn hat and installed them inside the playhouse since I had no use for them. Josh found a piece of plyboard in the garage to make a seating bench and I decorated it with two clearance Ross pillows that were $2.99 each!

We also found some frames from Goodwill that Madison painted and glued buttons and stickers onto. We also found these birdhouses that we hung from the roof that we found at Habitat for Humanity that were donated to them. We got them 4 for a $1!! We scooped up about a dozen of them and just hung them randomly on the ceiling. The rug was actually another prop I used in sessions that happened to fit perfectly and even matched the color scheme as well and we just used it to help keep the floor clean. The colorful containers we already had from Madison's old room before redoing her room in purple so we put them into the playhouse. Seriously all said and done I wouldn't be surprised if we were into this project $30. HA! Even the towel ring and broken old fashioned phone we got at Goodwill for like $2!

So with exception to many many hours of hardwork we really were not out any money and Madison and Katie have their own little home away from home :)

The before and after!

Happy halfway through college degree Josh!! :)

Wow it has already been two years!! We are halfway through to finally grounding our lives to a better future. It's funny how you begin your life believing you are grounded and building a solid foundation to find that ten years later God has another plan. This change has been a huge sacrifice to the kids and they have been such great sports about it and in full support. Daddy has worked so hard to get his chemical engineering degree and doing something he is passionate about. It makes me happy to see him happier then when he an his own plumbing business.

In the process we have really enjoyed moving to a new place and getting to know new people, explore a different part of Idaho a little more and planning our future home and where we will end up. We love dreaming about the opportunity we have and how many doors will open up for us and our family!

Josh took me around campus and to all the buildings, locations and meaningful places he has on campus and we photographed him in some of his favorite spots :)