The kids had their first taste of showing at the county fair this year. Each of them entered a bucket calf to show and it was a really good experience for them!
With their new halters
Sawyer took care of a little bull calf named Buttermilk.
Sawyer and Buttermilk
Wryder showed a little heifer calf named Baby Wanny. 🙂
Wryder and Baby Wanny
Daddy fed them most mornings but they helped feed them every evening and worked on breaking them to lead – not an easy feat. At different points in the process, they both told me this was a lot more work than they thought it would be. If they only knew…Sister helped, too…If this isn’t cute…Working on their walkAnswering questions for the “judge”Gettin’ good
They were both overly excited the day of the show and did an EXCELLENT job in the ring with their calves and answering questions.
Goin’ showin’!Just waiting for the show to startWryder keeping Baby Wanny in checkEntering the show ringHe stopped so I could take a picture. Love this kid!Ready for the judge!They got ribbons, bubbles, candy and new halters – what could be better?!An old pro…
Daddy loved showing cattle growing up and these kids are fourth generation cattle showmen! We are so glad they had a good first experience! Here’s to many more years in the ring…
Sawyer turned 6 this week! Where, oh where, do the days and years go? She is such a sweet thing. I mourn the loss of her baby days but there is such beauty in these days, too. Her independence allows us to do more than before and she’s just growing up to be such a pleasure. She is – truly – one of my favorite people to hang out with!
On her actual birthday, we went out for Chinese and ice cream – her choice and then opened presents when daddy got home.
She’s 6!New bed for babyBarbie Veterinarian!DANCE!She’s gonna love it!
She doesn’t have the most crazy, expressive personality so she didn’t really say just a whole lot regarding dance lessons, but as the night wore on, she tried on every outfit and danced her heart out for over an hour. She’s gonna love it!
Today, she had some little friends over for a Robin Hood birthday party! We LOVE that movie! Why, oh why, don’t they make little kids movies like THAT any more?! I made the mistake of taking the kids to see “The Secret Life of Pets” earlier this summer. I did my homework beforehand and read reviews and really thought it was gonna be fine. The first 15 minutes were REALLY cute. What wasn’t cute, was pets that band together to KILL their owners. Yes, that’s right. My mind was blown. Are there really no creative individuals out there that can think of a better storyline than that FOR CHILDREN?!
*Ahem*
Back to the party. It was really fun! She invited 4 of her little friends (and brother, too!) and we made Robin Hood hats, shot arrows at balloon targets and watched the Disney classic! She had a great day, as evidenced by her never-ending smile, even at bedtime!
Here are a few pictures from the day!
Helping get the house clean
I am a sucker for last minute projects, I guess and made her this little shirt last night to wear today.
Mr. Hood
She looked as cute as a button!
Ready for the party!
She wanted to wear braids so her Robin Hood hat would fit well. 🙂
Good gravy, she’s cute!The mantleSweet little fox!Love all of these imagesEntry wayOh yes – that’s Sir Hiss!Farthings for the good boys and girlsRobin HOOOOD!Golly what a day!One must wear a Robin Hood hat at a Robin Hood partyTarget for our arrow shooting – LOVED this!Maid Marian’s milk bar – these kids could put away the milk!Put our sweet little milk bottles to good use!Lots to eat!She wanted a big carrot/spice cake!And we had cupcakes…because who doesn’t like cupcakes?!Sheriff of Nottingham’s ‘Nut Butter SandwichesSir Hiss’ Salty Snack and Friar Tuck’s Fruit SkewersLook at all those sweet faces!Modeling their hatsShooting the (cross)bow!They had so much fun!Miss A always had a good aiming face!Miss H was always quite intense – a good shot!Time for prezzies – such generous friends!Cake time!
She had a GREAT time. And my feet hurt. Must’ve been a pretty good day…
You all have been so kind regarding our sweet little home – thank you! All of your comments have brightened my day, no doubt!
We’ll finish up today so we can move on to bucket calves tomorrow. The kids are showing at the county fair and – oh my word – are they cute!
So off of the kitchen is the great, big living room/den/family room – whatever you prefer to call it. This room has a LOT of wood going on but it’s quite pretty!
Living room before
I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this room or not but it turns out, I do! It’s just a big, cozy space for the fam to hang out and play games and wrestle around… We’re dying to host our first pitch party/game night!
Living room afterLiving room before
We replaced the cowhide with something a little brighter against all the wood!
Living room afterLiving room before
And in these built ins, we put a pretty paper on the backside to give a little pop of fun…
Living room afterLiving room afterLiving room after
More pretty windows…
Across from the living room is the laundry room and a half bath/mudroom bathroom.
Wrexy built me a sliding barn door for the laundry room and I love it! I wasn’t sure I wanted because it seems EVERYONE has one these days, but it’s really functional and it fits the house well.
Laundry room
The previous laundry room door wanted to whack the washer. If we moved the washer to where it didn’t hit, then I had no room to fold clothes and with as much laundry as we do around here, I NEEEEEEDED a place to fold clothes!
Laundry room
The appearance of the mudroom bathroom was one of the biggest changes in the house. It was wall-papered, but yellowing and peeling. Would you believe I don’t have a single picture of it before?!
Alas, we painted it (and LOVED the texture the wall paper gave), put in a utility sink (so Wrex could make messes here as he mixed milk or whatever instead of the kitchen sink), and gave it an updated, clean look!
Mudroom bath afterMudroom bath afterMudroom bath after
This bathroom comes right off the garage door and is so nice for washing dirty little hands when they come in from outside. 😉
We didn’t do much work in the basement except for some touch up paint. We just used what we could to make it feel a little more homey for guests.
Basement before
And, yes, we took down that HUGE mirror!
Basement afterBasement afterBasement after
We turned the small room in the basement into the perfect sleeping galley for kid visitors! (This is the kids’ favorite room in the house – ha!)
Basement afterBasement after
There’s also a really good sized storage room that we chocked full of party supplies, winter coats and what not. I LOVE having a basement in case of severe weather – tornadoes and I are not friends – and this one is quite cozy should we ever have to hang out here for a while.
In case I haven’t said it before, we truly do love this home. We feel so grateful to live here and hope to use every square inch for His glory!
Thanks for humoring my little home tour – it’s been fun!
You guys sure know how to make a girl feel loved and appreciated! It was so fun to connect with so many of you yesterday…Facebook is good for something, yes?!
So today, let’s look around downstairs. The entry way of the house was painted a pumpkinish orange. It really just reminded me of the Texas Longhorns and I just. couldn’t. do. it.
Entry before
As you can see, we painted it a dark, dark grey and I like how it toned down all of the other wood in the kitchen and dining area.
Entry afterEntry afterEntry after
So the right is the kitchen, and right in front of you is the bar we installed.
Entry after
It’s the perfect little space for breakfast and such…and for the kids to sit at because the rest of the official dining room has carpet. When I swept after the first meal, I knew we had made the right choice with the bar!
Our previous home did not have a dining room and I’ve never grown up in a house with one, yet my heart looooonged for one. I love family dinners…I love the breaking of bread and feasting and raucous laughter that comes with sharing something yummy with people you love. This place has a great dining room…
Dining room before
and my sweet husband filled it with the perfect table…
Dining room after
Isn’t he amazing?! We kept our old chairs and used the same table base, but he built the table top and the benches! We can get a solid 12 people around this thing. My heart is racing just thinking about it!
It’s my favorite room in the house, truly, because I love all that it represents. My other favorite thing is the fireplace guard. Another gift from the brother-in-law. It was an old stock rack that you’d sit in the back of a pickup to haul livestock and it fit PERFECTLY in this space – it was made for us!
Off of the dining room is the school room – a close second for favorites! We didn’t do much in here except paint the pumpkin the same dark grey as the entry way and replace the light fixture…
School room before
Are you ready? Seriously? It’s divine! We spend so much time in this room and school hasn’t even started yet!
School room afterSchool room afterSchool room after
We ordered our curriculum last week and got our approval letter in the mail and we are ready to REALLY use this room! Off of this room, is sweet little patio area with a good view of the neighboring cows…peaceful and sweet.
Ok, so back to the kitchen. We didn’t do anything to it besides paint. The walls were a light yellow and, again, we went with a grey just to tone everything down a bit.
Kitchen afterKitchen after
I love the brick, I love all the storage. It doesn’t look huge but it has far more room that our previous kitchen. The only thing I’m missing is my gas stove; electric just isn’t the same!
Off of the kitchen is our room and bathroom; two of the less “wow” rooms of the house. We didn’t do anything in our room except upgrade the ceiling fan that threatened to fall on us in the night.
Master bedroom
It’s sweet and simple and easy to keep clean. And? It has a nice sized closet – something else we’ve never had before!
The master bath is one of the more dated rooms, but we did our best at making it look at least nice enough.
Master bath beforeMaster bath before
We changed a lot in the room, starting with the color. We put in new lighting, new mirrors, new fixtures…a good head start without ripping the thing to shreds and starting over…
Master bath afterMaster bath afterMaster bath after
It’s better….
Off of the kitchen, is the stairway leading to the basement, the laundry room, a mudroom bathroom and the living room…but I’ll do those another day.
Today, we’re headed to Mullen to see the original WD Phipps and the kids are fired up! Wryder has his “cowboy clothes” on and Sawyer is dressed to the nines…their great-grands are pretty lucky!
Oh, sweet friends! Were you wondering if I’d ever return?! Life has been crazy and GOOD – crazy good!
To catch you up in one, simple run-on sentence, we had the opportunity to sell our house, rent an upgraded (read: bigger, newer, central air having, more-than-one-bathroom-and-an-actual-dining-room) home that answered all of our prayers…so we packed our things and cleaned out barns and buildings and took way longer than we ever imagined to move in because apparently we have a lot of stuff and like things just so…BUT we are in and feeling settled and LOVING. IT. HERE. The Lord blessed our socks off and we feel this is exactly where we are supposed to be for the here and now – not much better than that!
And? Apparently, I have some of the sweetest, most encouraging friends on the planet who want to see pictures of the place so what better day than today to get me back in the saddle of blogging. I’ve missed it so!
Moving had been on our minds for a while for lots of reasons, one being that we had bought our home on what we had called a five-year plan. It suited us well and we loved that sweet, little 100 year old farm house but with the addition of two other children, things started to feel a little tight. (And, I know, that is definitely a first world problem. We have never felt anything but blessed to live there – remember that awesome story!? – but we felt the Lord prompting us towards something different and we were ready to go!)
We had heard about the house from friends from church. They told us where it was so we drove by just to see if it was even something was an option for us. Whoa. Nelly. It was like dream-home material!
Yes. Just YES.
A month or so later, we took a tour, prayed our faces off, sold our home and moved in here! We LOVE IT. I’m afraid, no other home will ever compare – truly! Obviously, there are things we might change if we owned the place but for now? It’s perfect for us! The Lord answered all of our requests and desires and then some!
From the moment I walked in, I could SEE us making memories here. I could see myself in the kitchen, cooking with Sayble while looking out the window at the other 2 playing outside. I could see Bible studies and card parties in the big ole family room and loud family dinners in the dining room. I could see kids playing for hours in their big kid rooms and looking out over the pastures from their windows – I could just see us here!
Some people probably think we’re crazy for renting but for us, this was the best option for now, for several reasons. (And just so you know, I don’t feel the NEED to explain myself, but if you don’t know that I’m an open book by now…)
1) We had reached a point with our old home that we felt we had maxed out or profit potential without doing something drastic…and we weren’t up for drastic. 2) Moving is always on the table when you work for a company 3 states away. While we love this area and home we never have to, it’s always an option. 3) Building costs mega $$ these days! I don’t know if we built what we’d like and then had to move, if we’d ever get our money out of the place. 4) There aren’t very many farmsteads in the area that AREN’T either a modular or a 100 year old farmhouse and we’ve been there done that. 5) It was the Lord. All Him. I won’t argue.
So, to recap…moving with 3 small children is hard. Moving with livestock is harder. Moving 112 chickens is hardest. We love our new home and can’t imagine life anywhere else!
Here are some pics of the new digs!
We’ll start upstairs. The stairs come up out of the dining room, up to the kids’ floor. All three of their bedrooms and their bathroom is up here, which is so nice! They’re all together and it’s REALLY quiet for them…which means good sleep for them, so good sleep for mom and dad!
Don’t knock the paneling – ha! We weren’t gonna mess with that!
Upstairs – emptyUpstairs – emptyUpstairs after; top of the stairs
Now, why did I start with that picture?! The bookshelf. Sigh. I have visions of it being artfully arranged…but then I remember that I have 3 small children who I want to LOVE to read so I’ve given up the fight on the perfect bookshelf and have gone with the “we use it all the dang time so it’s always disheveled look.” You should try it, too!
Upstairs after; truly a happy place!
My brother-in-law got me that dreamy pew last year and I was so happy to have a place for it in our new home! I started out like this:
Pew before
and after a good sanding and a fun color, it’s one of my favorite things in the house!
Pew after
The kids’ bathroom isn’t huge but I think it’s perfect for them! I’ve been so impressed with how clean they have kept it!
Since then, they’ve gotten a new faucet, as this one bit the dust about 2 weeks in, but it’s just a fun, sweet little bathroom – I love it! (It was the first room that was completely finished in the whole house! Gotta love small rooms that didn’t need paint – ha!)
Wryder’s room DEFINITELY needed paint. It’s hard to see in the pictures but the walls were in pretty bad shape as far as scratches and dings.
Wryder’s room beforeWryder’s room beforeWryder’s room before
We painted it a pretty, neutral grey and I love how it turned out!
Wryder’s room after paintWryder’s room after paintWryder’s room afterWryder’s room afterWryder’s room afterWryder’s big closet!
Sayble’s room is the smallest, but it suits her needs just fine for now! I love how it turned out…so sweet and cute – like her!
Sawyer got the biggest room. It was an easy choice for us as far as layout goes…and? The girl’s got a lot of stuff. There’s a hoarder gene on the Phipps side and by golly, the girl’s got it!
Part of why she needed the big room was for this:
LOVE LOVE LOVE
There’s just something about a cute farm house with two twin beds in a room! I bought those headboards at an auction one day for $5 each. They are vintage 20’s and just cute as a button and I’ve been storing them for this room!
Headboard beforeHeadboard after paint – Sweet Caroline, to be exact!Sawyer’s roomSawyer’s room
Her room is so sweet and so totally her. She loves her double beds; she loves the little table for tea parties and such and she loves using the toybox as her desk/office. And? She has a huge closet – a must for a girl with a penchant for cute things!
Sawyer’s room and a few of her fun things!Sawyer’s roomSawyer’s closet
And, yes…that is exactly what you think it is! She has a “secret room” behind the bookshelf in her closet! We turned it into a toy room for her and all of us love spending time in there.
I wish I had taken before and after pictures of it because we did the works in there! New carpet, new lighting, boarded the walls…
Sawyer’s toy room after
It is so fun and the perfect place to store all of her Barbies and babies and doll house things. And? Wryder has one, too. How did we luck out like that?!
Wryder’s playroom beforeWryder’s toy room after
We put in new carpet, painted everything and put in new lighting. I LOVE this space and he does, too! I love having the toys out of sight, too, I won’t lie!
Wryder’s toy room afterWryder’s toy room after
And? Sayble has a little crawl space in her room that we can turn into a playroom for her one day. But we’re tired. And she’s still a baby. So we’ll wait.
Thank you for humoring my little house tour with my awful iPhone pictures. 😉 We’ll hit downstairs tomorrow. Maybe, all of my pictures will have uploaded by then. Oh, how we miss our good internet service!
