Bye bye trees...

The scouts in our ward come out to our house and removed the dead and mostly dead trees out back, as well as weeding the flower gardens in the front. I didn't get a head count but my guess was that we had a party of 15 young men, and not-as-young men working in our yards.  We are so thankful for their service, and amazed at how quickly those awful trees disappeared.

They felled a tree before I could even get a real "before" shot of the backyard.

The trees were really dead and really light. They had 2 chain saws going at one point. We had them take out the green ones too, they were dying,  it was kind of an all or nothing deal. 

The one with the chainsaw is my Uncle Ron.

The young men carried the trees out front.

And they all fell down.

Down to stumps now.

They were able to get up 3 or 4 stumps... but the stumps killed 3 shovels first.

They were finishing up to a gorgeous sunset.

Some of the young men attacked the front garden.. at least 3 inches thick with grass and strawberry plants.

Weeding out next to the house.

I had sweet neighbor girls help me plant some bulbs from Mom & Dad's. (Gladiolas I think, we'll know for sure once they bloom)

The damage... that pile of trees and other assorted things they found hidden in the trees, plus 10 or so bags.

The next day I grabbed a picture of the yard, sans trees. 

This is the picture I put on instagram and Facebook.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all that came out and helped us, I wish I could thank you all by name...I'll learn them all, eventually. 

Some before/ afters

We are slowly ever so slowly settling in, so it's still a work in progress. And most of this pictures are a little out dated already. And we still don't have much on the walls, I think because of the hours spent filling in the holes it's hard to want to make new ones. Anyway, here you go...

Living Room Before:

Living Room After:

Family Room Before:

Family Room After:

 (but now the cube organizer is in our closet and the chest is under the TV.

Office & Spare Rooms Before: (1 pic, they're basically the same)

Afters:

Office

Spare Room complete with Futon. (thanks Debbie for the futon)

Master Bedroom Before:

After:

(I need to update this, yes there is furniture, this was just after painting)

Kitchen/dining Before:

After:

Main Bathroom Before:

After:

Laundry/ Utility Room Before:

After:

I want to paint something fun behind the washer and dryer. (Thanks Craigslist for great washer & dryer deal, with delivery) 

Steps into the house/ laundry Before-ish:

After:

Thanks Dad!

Well that's it for now. 

An Army of Help.

Working on our home...we had sooo many amazing helpers!! 

Our driveway after the cousins/ neighbors got to it!! Loved it! 

Mom painting the master bathroom

Dad painting the master bedroom. 

Always have to add some hidden art when we paint. 

 Landan helping to move some rocks. 

Nikelle and Abrie weeding. 

Paisley helping "paint"

Cadence also "painting"

Jake painting our bathroom. 

Nikelle and Abrie cleaning windows. 

Lauryn cleaning the cupboards.

Aunt Jodi and Mom painting. 

Michaela and Naomi cleaning out window tracks. 

All the girls "making" the bed. (We went to the movies and saw Cinderella as a thanks helping us.) 

My parents painting the family room. 

Dad painting the the ledge I scrubbed. 

Dad in/on the ledge painting. 

Dad removing the garage steps- he was worried about how Joseph was navigating them. 

The landing and steps that he made for us. They're amazing!!

We're so blessed to have family that's so helpful. 

We are home owners!

As of March 27th 2015 we own a beautiful little home in Pasco Wa. Coincidentally it's the same day that Sam and Kaelee became home owners too! No, this was not planned. But I love that it happened that way. 

We have decided to call our home "Mecham Manor".

After we got the keys, and locked up our home for the first time. 

Now for some before pictures, because within 24 hours of ownership we painted. 

Kitchen/ dining area 

Family room

Looking into the living room

Master bedroom, I didn't get a picture of the master bathroom- but it was brown..

Main bathroom

A bedroom, the other bedroom looks the same

Utility/ laundry room & entry from the garage. 

We love our little home and feel so incredibly blessed to finally have a home of our own. It took nothing short of a whole string of miracles to make it happen, and we are so overwhelmed with gratitude for those who have helped make it possible. THANK YOU! 

We're still here, I promise.

Life has just been so crazy, insane really. But in a good way, an avalanche of blessings. 

We got a new car, on January 10th, it's 2011 Honda CRV. Why did we get a new car? Well it's hard to get the wheelchair in and out of our small car and then it takes up the entire trunk... and we were going to have to replace the struts and timing belt soon. So instead the $$ we had set aside to do that was used as a down payment on our new car. 

Her name is Luna.

And.......

we're buying a house!!!!!! 

Here it is! In Pasco Washington, roughly 4.5 miles from work or about 8 minutes travel time. 

This is the mirror image of our houses floor plan. 

We got pre-approved on Wednesday February 11th then we found the house on Valentine's Day, and BEFORE it was put on the market. So we negotiated via text and we will be purchasing the house for $12,000 less than they originally wanted + a 1year home warranty, and they're paying up to $4000 in closing costs. (Just to be clear this is not the 1st house we've looked at)

Everything is coming together so quickly it's hard to keep up.