Outside and laundry room

Front of house.

we have an extra "house". we plan on making it a guest house type thing. Right now it's got stained concrete and tons of toys dumped in it.

yard

laundry room...very pink, but I love it (it was already painted this way). The floor is black and white checked.

Dining room, kitchen, great room

dining room...was purple, even the ceiling. we painted it, but haven't done much more.

Great room...my favorite room and where we spend most of our days.

The kids can run and play...so much room.

kitchen. the area on the right leads to pantry and then dining room.

one day we plan to replace the counter tops and backsplash and update appliances. For now we're enjoying not worrying about it!!

Master Suite

When I say suite I mean suite and sweet! Here's our closet and bathroom:

closet is awesome. It's huge and full of the container store organizers!

It needs to be repainted...maybe one day.

Our bathroom still needs some updating, but I am really loving it.

Our bedroom is too big, but it works! We have 7 doors in our Master.

This is my craft room right through the french doors. Right now it's disaster area.

back to master. 2 doors lead to the balcony.

nothing on the walls...yet.

Miscellaneous

Yes, we have miscellaneous rooms...lots of them! The kids bathroom...

one side is orange (not painted by us)

and one side is purple. Instead of repainting I just bought a shower curtain and went with it. I actually like the bright colors here and there. The actual bathroom is a light brown color.

The loft/future game room/extra space for a king bed and big shaggy bag.

This upstairs between Marley and Shepherd's room. One thing I like about this floor plan is that none of our kids bedrooms share a wall. So...it makes it a little harder for them to hear each other screaming and crying (if they did that...).

Loft...looks over entry way, across to Master. Another thing I like about this floorplan is that all the bedrooms are upstairs including the Master. We like to be close to our kids...atleast right now.

Kids Rooms

Owen's Room...long and skinny

His room was completely blue...including the ceiling. We didn't want to repaint the ceiling so we added the high chair rail (is that what you call that?) and painted the khaki below. I like how it turned out.

He has 2 ceiling fans...weird. And he has access to the balcony. Need to get a high lock for that! Navy chair in corner will eventually be hanging.

Shepherd's room: we've done absolutely nothing to it. Random things hanging in random spots on the wall. He has nails everywhere (from previous owners). Don't you love the black trim (hear sarcasm). He has dark wood floors which are some of my favorite. This house sports about 4 different shades of wood laminate. real nice. not a stitch of carpet.

Oh, and the faux leather curtain...that was there when we moved in!!

Marley's room

Such a big miracle in such a little girl. couldn't be more true.

We also put the high chair rail in her room. that was to cover up all the holes from the train track that used to be hanging there. I love how her room turned out...and I don't think I spent a dime on decor. Thanks to hb for the bedding, sb, morrison and candace for the pom poms, carla for the letters and bow holder and joy for the fabric.

Perfect for a princess...

The Office

It's right off the entry way. Nothing on the walls yet.

Desk is from the Floods, the 2 chairs we bought at a garage sale for 6.50 each and had them recovered with upholstery grade fabric we bought at another garage sale!

House Pictures!!!

I keep meaning to put up house pictures...and I keep meaning to get a little more done so that the house will be picture worthy. Haaa. well, I'm just going to post pictures no matter what the house looks like!

Here's the playroom. It's about the only room in the entire house that we didn't have to paint or fix anything. I love the color, the size and feel of this room. Thanks to Ikea for furnishing it!! The playroom is right of the living room and kitchen.

back wall looking into the kitchen area.

Looking into the playroom.

Next...the office!!

How I've missed you

It's so hard to organize photos on blogger. Sorry about the random order.

Laura's play

Oh, Blog, how I've missed you. But not enough to take time away from my sweet growing babies. Seems that it's hard to get a spare moment these days. And no, Lauren, my energy has not increased since having 3 children, you just get a little better at pretending. I don't complain about lack of sleep anymore, uh, usually. I'm just realizing that's part of it. I'm loving these spring days. I had forgotten how wonderful it is to let your kids play outside all day. The boys enjoy it so. Some days are a little too windy for Marley, but she hangs in there.

Let's see...since I last updated: I ran a 1/2 marathon, traveled to DC with Nate and Marley for Nate's coding conference, had a week away from the boys which is the longest ever that we've been apart (they were in LR at the Grandparents), and bought a house (long story b/c we were planning on renting). Ah....life. You just never know!

So...the half marathon first. My first goal was to finish it. The more I trained my goal changed. I decided to run more than I walked. And as the training continued my goal changed again. I decided I wanted to run the whole thing...slow or not I would not walk. Well, I achieved my goal!!! I did not walk, I ran the whole long 13.1 miles!!!! It was awesome. Nate and I split up at mile one and he beat me by 3 minutes. My finishing time was 2 hours 19 minutes. I'm so proud of that. I didn't cry at the end but got a little emotional. When we met up with our families I told the boys I did it for them. Shepherd said "we go to Arkansas now?" They didn't have a clue.Thank you to our families for supporting us and being there at the end. I actually went running yesterday "just for fun". It was a short 3 miles. How easy is that?!?

Marley's first plane ride. She was an angel!!!

DC was wonderful. Nate and I desperately needed some time without having to discipline. It was so good to just focus on each other, oh yeah, and Marley. All the sudden one kid seems really easy. We did some sightseeing and then 3 days Nate was in conference. He would come back to our hotel room for his 9:30 morning break and Marley and I would still be snoozing! Sleep when the baby sleeps...right?

So after our half we ate lunch and then headed to look for our rental house. We wanted to rent for various reasons, including saving money, seeing where we ended up doing life, church etc. I had arranged for us to look at 8 or so rental homes. Well, by Sunday about half of those were still left to rent. One was a dump and the other 3 were just okay. We found ourselves saying "maybe we should just pay $100 more a month for somthing better". And still there was nothing we felt good about. We were so discouraged. We laid in bed Sunday night and Nate suggested we look at something to buy. We hadn't even thought about this since we WERE going to RENT. Nate said it'd be "perfect if we could find something move in ready that we could update as money and time allowed". God honored above and beyond that idea. By Monday night we found "the house" and were ready to make an offer. Our new house is preforclosure and we are getting an AWESOME deal. (and you know I love a good deal) It's clean and move in ready, but has some wild paint colors and gold accessories that need to go. It's 4 bedroom, 3,466 sq. feet. All bedrooms are upstairs. We are so excited. It's on a cul-d-sac which is perfect for my boys.

To see more house pictures go to www.ellingtoncourt.blogspot.com

I'll be posting more pictures of our fun life as I get time. stay tune.