3

It's a picture of Russ and I after worship practice yesterday. We were both craving slurpees. Trying to find the 7-11 that carried the crystal light slurpees was difficult and finally when we did find one they weren't ready (not frozen yet). I ended up caving and getting the full sugar slurpee (which I did share with Russ) and Russ got some diet soda.

blogopic

These are pictures of the kids yesterday after church. Penelope is in love with having a dog. So much so that when we went to the pet store to pick up a couple of things and saw other dogs she was begging me for another one. Ya, not going to happen. One is enough for this family right now.

Lucy isn't house trained yet. We learned that yesterday. But she is a quick learner and we are getting through it. We are starting to teach her tricks too. But of course right now we are starting with the basics. Overall Lucy is really good with the kids and both kids love her.

Russ' best friend

Well, we took the plunge. Yesterday we decided to get a pet and after walking around the pet store and then visiting the local dog rescue shelter camping in the store we decided to get a dog. Penelope has been asking for a pet for quite a while. She's asked for a turtle, chameleon, bunny rabbit, fish, and even a pet snail. So after some deliberation our family of 4 is now a family of 5 with our addition of Lucy. Lucy is a catahoula, which is kind of like a hound dog. She will be a medium size dog. Right now she is the size between Austyn and Penelope. She is about 5 months old now. So she will get bigger but not too much (or so I was told). All the kids are very excited about our new addition. Penelope the most, obviously. Russ is completely embracing the idea of having a dog again. And I am looking forward to the running partner. She is going to be a great dog for that.

This I guess is the start of Blogopictionary for the month of May. I plan to take pictures everyday and post them up here for a month. What better way to start then Lucy.

Easter and stuff

Above are some pictures of our Easter. Aren't the kids cute! We gave them some chocolate they got in the eggs from church to get them to hold still for the pictures. And you can see the mess and the chubby cheeks in some of the photos.

My sister and my mom came up and visited me on for Easter. We had a great time with them. We enjoyed a Easter dinner and Penelope and Cherrella colored some Easter eggs and Cherrella hid them for Penelope to find. (This all happened during Austyn's nap time.) This was Penelope's first time getting the idea of "Easter bunny" introduced by her Aunt. The other Easter egg hunts were purely just grabbing plastic eggs with chocolate inside. While my sister explained Penelope just pretended it was a game of hide and seek and proceeded to start counting...1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Oh Cherrella isn't ready yet. She ended up counting with Grandmama up to 50 before it was time. It was hilarious to watch. I wish you guys were there.

An update on our house hunt: The previous house I show you we ended up not going for. Well we went for it but for a variety of reasons pulled out. Partly because of the price and the layout, but mostly because of God's leading. We went and looked at some houses with the Realtor and found some really nice houses. None of them were the "right" one. Not yet anyway. But the Realtor knows what we want and as June comes closer ( when I'm off the new hire probationary period) we should be able to see how things advance. The most important thing is that both Russ and I have a peace about this process that we didn't have before. I thank God for His leading.

Below is a picture of Penelope practicing her name the other day. I am so proud of her.

This might be the one

Ok you guys know how this goes. Opinion wanted! Tell me what you think. Here's the pictures. The house has been sitting for about 6 months. So that gives us so availability in wiggling room. Plus as you will see there isn't any flooring done. We get to pick our flooring still. And the sinks aren't in and stuff like that.


one of the side yards. There is about equal size on both. And a tree on each side. One side we can decide to pave it and make it RV parking.

the front of the house. It's an off-white color with a dark brown accent. I think it adorable. There was actually 2 houses to choose from this size and I liked these colors better.

the stairs

this is one bedroom (2nd bedroom) probably Penelope's



This is the area in the kids room that would have the tub/ shower and the toilet would go where that disk is.

it's not tile in the bathroom. It's linoleum. But it shaped like title and I don't have to worry about scrubbing the grout.

Penelope smiling. She likes it too. But she says she wants us to buy a pink house. I don't think that is going to happen.

This is the 2nd bathroom. They still have to put in the sink and counter top. It will just be one sink though.

another bedroom. Notice it's just cement floors right now. So we get to pick our carpet.

another bedroom. One of these would be the guest bedroom and one would be Austyn's.

A little dusty but in the hall there are some cabinets.

a cubby area in the laundry room. We will probably put a laundry basket.

the washer and dry. It is upstairs.

hole for the toilet. LOL.

light fixture for the bathroom.

master bathroom will have double sinks.

the master bathroom tub and shower. The shower still needs the glass around it.

walk in closet.

master bedroom.




down stairs powder room. It comes with a pedestal sink

2 car garage



stairs again.

living room

living room. No fireplace, instead we just have a whole for our tv

from the kitchen looking into the dinning room into the living room
kitchen

pictures of the backyard. It's around a 6500-6800 sq foot lot. But because it's 2 stories it has a decent size backyard.








ok from the last house it's in clovis schools! It's closer to things. It still is in a developing area, but as good as we can do for our price range. It's a good starter home. We are going to try to get them to include grass in the back for us.

Ok this is the thing about price. The housing developer is offering us a better interest rate then we could possibly get from an used home. That is a significant saving. Plus the energy efficiency of a new home vs even a home that is 6 years old is significant. Heaven forbid we get a home that is 20 years old. We would have a high electric bill. But at this house they usually get 50-100 a month electric bill. So maybe it is worth going a little over what I want in cost if it is going to save us money other ways right. Especially when you are talking about interest, right? And electric bills can be $400 or more in a home that isn't energy efficient.

the issues
* is still in a developing area
* living room is normal size. But it's not large.
* 3rd and 4th bedroom are a little on the small size, but nothing we can't work with