FRIDAY 5's

Ok so I'm a little late for last weeks Friday 5's but I was working all day then left for the weekend with Amber Jean but this is the subject:



5 Pictures of your house



Now, I could put pictures on here but I really don't want to look through everything to find them. It's 930pm and I'm not going to take any so if any show up on here, it's pure luck. :) I would rather describe to you some of my favorite things about or in my home and there may be more than 5...



1. When we brought Evan home from being born in Atlanta, he was about 6 or 7 days old. This was sad to me as I have always wanted to be a mother and with that idealized the "It's a boy" sign sticking in my yard (amoung other things), when you come home from the hospital. Well, I can be a martyr sometimes and just wished inside that certain things would be there when we got home but I wasn't willing to ask (even though there were plenty willing to come to our aide). He was born 2 weeks early and we found out Courtney was in labor, packed and left all in a 3 hour time frame, leaving our house a disaster. Here are the blessings that followed that I will never forget: A friend, Tara, gave us her hotel reward points so we didn't have to spent $100+ a night while in GA. Our friend Marrion, offered before hand to stay AT and watch our house and pets at a moments notice and it was, a moments notice. :) When we drove in, I wanted to cry because the most generious, thoughtful and silly friend I have, Lindsey had got another friend Katie to make us a "WELCOME HOME" Evan sign and it was HUGE across my porch! It was perfect and so so so so so touching. When I got inside the house, Marrion had staightened things up, made a Welcome banner inside and displayed the flowers that Kathy and Loretta had sent. MMM they smelled good! In the babies room Marrions gift of a changing pad was in it's place (whew! we had NO baby shower yet cause he was early and had ZERO things for him but an empty crib and a dresser - now holding a changing pad). There were gifts from L & K and from my wards Primary there was a huge poster board signed by all the kids with balloons saying congratulations thanks to my friend Beth. It was amazing. I always imagined my Mommy would be there to help me but I didn't need her cause I had so much 'family' here in my Ward and community. ( I'm SURE I forgot to mention others just now but the love is there for everyone)

2. I have this old framed picture of the Los Angeles Temple where Michael and I were sealed. It used to be my brother Wade's and his wife Lisa's but I'm assuming they got an updated one. They asked who wanted it and it's mine (although I'd really like an updated one myself and have considered drawing one... in my 'free' time. lmbo!). Anyway...

Something funny we did with it is cut our image out from our Open House (at the Neely's here in TN) and put it on the picture. It always gets a laugh when people find it. We have grand plans of how we will encorporate our children on the picture as well but as will everything in my life, it has been procrastinated. :) Still, this item in our home gives me great joy.

3. I love my back yard! It is just big enough for our house, it's privacy fenced except for the back which is a 'farm' type open fence so we can still see the woods behind our house. It makes it feel much more expansive and I'm so glad I'm not looking at someone elses house. I also love my trees although, the ones on the line of property between our yard and the 'forrest' are dangerously dropping huge branches and I wish the tree line could be taken care of (by someone else of course). What I really love is my cropping of trees off center to my yard. they create a great landscape and texture. Evan loves playing in it too so it's all validated.

4. I really like my purple walls in my "Great Room". It's quite soothing and it turns out to be a great back drop for art and etc. I also LOVE Evan's room colors how they turned out; a silvery grey that registers blue and a brown accent wall.

5. I love having wood floors and would love it even more if there was not pet hair or kitty litter to step on (some day), lol.

6. I love that I live outside of town. I have always lived outside of town and it sorta reminds me of home. I have a peaceful neighborhood and have hard working neighbors so they seem to appreciate what they have and take care of their homes (for the most part). Once you own your home, it's surprising how much you care about whether your neighbor keeps up their yard or parks too many cars outside. lol. So I have to say I feel blessed (knock on wood) that my neighbors are pretty neat. I do have dreams of one day posting a challenge in our neighborhood to have a landscaping competition to make our street beautiful as it IS called "Royal Garden" you'd think we ought to be better gardiners, right? ;) It would be a fun way to talk to everyone anyway.

Ok, that's it I guess. With all this said about my house, I still want more space so I can empty my garage and have a place for those things inside my house. Hopefully that dream can come true sooner rather than later. :)