Jamie's Appleseeds

We have been painting nearly every night the last few days and we are getting close to the finish line. We need to finish painting the walls in the rooms with hardwood so that we can get them refinished next week. Then, after that, its finish painting the other rooms upstairs and start moving in! Wow! Maybe I should be cleaning and packing...

We've had a lot of help both with the boys and painting at the house, THANK YOU!! You know who you are. It would not be possible without your help and we want you to know we appreciate it!

Here are photos of the living and dining room as of tonight. The color is funny, at night it looks really green but during the day it looks more brown. Its nice that it lends itself to being so versatile.

The new dining room looks amazing and has huge picture window at one end with a view of the Blues. (Mountains)

Opening up the wall made a huge difference in how big the area feels. Plus now we can arrange any number of tables throughout the dining/living room to accommodate big parties for the holidays!

I can't wait to see it with the finished floors and our furniture.
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Last saturday we drove up to Spokane to see my friend Joy & her family. She accepted a job transfer to Dallas, TX and they will be driving down this weekend. I will miss having them so close and wish I would have visited them more when they were only 3 hours away. I hope you guys have a safe trip down to Texas and y'all come back soon now ya hear!?

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We've had a lot of special birthday's recently. First was Frances' 1st birthday! (My friend Becca's little girl who decided to come 3 months early.) She is soo adorable! It didn't take long for Logan to pass up little Frances in size, even though she's growing steadily. (Here is a picture of the two of them together when Logan was one month. You can see Frances didn't stand a chance when hefty 9lb 12oz Logan came along.) He'll be a great protector of his sweetheart, Frances. ;o)

Next was Frances' brother Sam who turned 5. Hunter loved attending his knight themed party! I think his favorite part was getting cupcakes AND a slice of cake! ;) It was a fun party filled with lots of energy from the all the kids playing back and forth.

(Thanks for the color swatch Becca, you'll feel right at home in our house.)

We have three people that share a birthday on the 24th of January, my aunt Pam, my grandpa Art and Jared's grandma Lorraine. My family met for brunch to celebrate Papa's birthday where he exchanged new wedding rings with my grandma, Mabel. (Nana's birthday was just a month ago.) It was sweet to see them loving on one another and putting rings on each other's fingers like they did oh so many years ago! They even sealed it with a kiss! ( I loved my uncle Sam's comment," with this ring I give thee a hard time". Isn't that the truth!)

The next day we celebrated Lorraine's birthday among family and close friends over dinner at the winery. The dining room was set up beautifully and the family presented grandma with a gift of a "Journey" necklace for her 80th birthday!

Birthdays are a great reminder to celebrate our lives!