Projects, Projects, Projects

The first few weeks home we had family and friends bring us food and help finish some projects around the house. We've realized, looking back over the past several months, that we are the king and queen of projects. As I was writing in Ty's baby book it became very clear that we had spent a lot of time during the pregnancy doing one project after another. I think it all started with going to Haiti (which is right when we found out our family would have a new addition). Once we got back we managed to build a TV cabinet and bookshelf with the help of Grampa Dude's expertise.  

Making sure it's square to add the back piece.

The inside. Looking good!

Now we can take our movies out of the closet. Yay for storage!

The finished product! 

We also made additions to the outside of our house by changing out lights, adding flowers to our garden, paving the sides of the backyard (to help with flooding and add some extra storage). Sometimes we do projects on our own...just the two of us....but a lot of the time we have some helping hands. I think one of the best parts of working on a project is having fun with the people you're working with. When we added the paving stones to the backyard it was a whole family project. The Carrolls came to celebrate Ian's 26th birthday and their gift to him was to help out with this project that he'd been wanting to do for a long time. Now he doesn't have to drag the mower through mud and Mia won't have dirty paws as much!

Keep those weeds out!

This was the first side that was tackled. It's almost done!

Byron is guarding all the materials.

Ian and his dad measured out the next side.

Even though this was part of the birthday celebration, of course we had to celebrate with opening presents, eating some ice cream, and just hanging out and relaxing.

Some other things we've worked on the past nine months have been: adding new lights in closets, adding shelving to our garage and laundry room, installing an organizer in our closet, and fixing up Tytus's room. 

our closet before

Ian and I both almost took a few spills off these step stools.

All done! Everything has a place!

Ty's room

Many of these projects were based on the fact that we needed to get organized. If there's one thing I love it's organization. I love looking at a mess of stuff and finding a way to give it all a place. It's so rewarding in the end. Over the past three and half years of our marriage we've still managed to keep most of our college things - some still in their old boxes, drawers, and shelves from our dorm rooms or apartments. There needed to be major consolidation and a cleaning out of what wasn't necessary or useful to us any more. I find great symbolism in sorting through things. In this case I think it showed us how God orchestrated certain events for us to experience separately so that today when we look back we can see how those events shaped who we are and gave us wisdom today. One day we sifted through a box of many of my old education papers, projects, and books, and Ian's Fish Camp and RA paperwork and binders. We got to look back and remember stories and people from those groups and how they've affected who we are now. Even though a lot of those memories we actually participated in together (because we were dating) it's still fun to look back and point out just how different things are now. Praise God for how He works...and for an organized home.