We had a great Christmas break in Utah this year, thanks to the Putnam's for the plane tickets. I will do a post about the whole trip later. We also need a post of all the stuff we did in 2012. It has been an amazing year.
The kids saw their rooms first. The pictures tell all. I don't have really good before pictures but my neighbors documented their family service project so I will post their pictures when I get them.
Jordan was on a little toddler bed that fit him, but not me. I used to snuggle up next to him on this tiny bed to help him fall asleep. The walls were a yellowed with time flat white. The trim was plain wood. The walls were dirty and scuffed in lots of places. Max had wanted black walls. I was not going to do that so he settled on blue. I planned to paint one wall blue. Max loves baseball and blue works well with a baseball theme. We needed some way to fit 3 boys in this room so Dan and I were going to build a loft bed. All this was going to happen some time after the new year when we had enough money. The girls room was going to wait until a long time later. My jaw dropped when I came home to this:
 |
| I love that the bed has storage space. |
 |
| I was also going to add baseball stitching to one wall but they saved that for me to add later. It will look great by the baby crib. |
Fresh painted walls, new beds with sheets, comforters and a mattress, curtains, baseball decorations. They lovingly stored all the old furniture in the shed but I would have been just as happy if they sent it all to Goodwill. We won't be needing them. I can easily fit a baby crib away from the drafty window. I never put baby cribs by windows. I didn't even tell her that detail! Their whole family got in the act with their grandpa and big sister helping too. I don't even know all the work and planning that must have gone into this. Really one of the best gifts we've ever been given.
 |
| Asleep in his new big bed. I can fit next to him now! So much easier than snuggling in a toddler bed. |
 |
| Max loves his own space. He gets to add some shelves and pictures. |
As if that was not enough then I saw the girls room. Amelia had wanted to have her room painted robin's egg blue since we moved in. Her walls were a mess. They aren't even drywall. Dan and I are basic do it yourself-ers. We were stumped about the girls room and had planned a costly knock down and redo with a professional. Our wonderful neighbors loaded 3 pounds of dry wall compound and fixed them as good as any professional. Todd was a master at hiding the patches. I can't even see where the seams were. Here are some before pictures taken long ago before we gave up on fixing them ourselves:
 |
| Anyone who saw these walls in person knows about how awful they were. I am so amazed at what they were able to do with them. When this picture was taken, I had all the furniture moved to the center to try and fix the walls. I had completely given up. |
The girls room had old dusty green carpet, flat yellowed paint, lots of holes and seams coming up, nail holes all over the window trim. No matter how I fit the furniture in it always seemed crowded. Here is what our amazing friends did:
 |
| The girls had already added their luggage to the beds. Grandma Jills hand made quilts look so nice on their beds with the blue walls. |
 |
| They added in a matching frame for her dresser.
Amelia has been adding decorations and planning stuff to put on the walls. I am so nervous to put anything on these walls. I will use only non-marking sticky pads to put up pictures. I want to add a bright green rug to the floor. I didn't get a good shot of the floor but they took up the old carpet and the hard wood looks great underneath. The amount of drywall dust and carpet mess must have been huge! They did such a good job of cleaning up! We only found one small spot of drywall dust that they missed.
They left a note for us and let us know God's hand was in this project. They worked together as a family to give service to us. We feel so blessed to have such good friends. When we moved here we felt this is where our Heavenly Father wanted us. Our church says they "prayed us here." I think they did! We love living in our quiet neighborhood. The Griffins live just around the corner with kids Amelia and Max's age. Our next door neighbors have kids Shauna and Jordan's age. The sweet elderly couple next door are Tennessee grandparents for our kids. We even have a school teacher across the street who also loves our kids. We have made so many friends at church and school. As much as I love Utah it was so nice to come home to such good friends.
|
Comments