Fall Festivities

Pumpkins, pumpkins, everywhere you look it's pumpkins.

What a great day we had at a local farmers market.

Noah had a pony ride, fed the goats, picked his pumpkin and tasted the pumpkin jerky.  I must make some soon.  It was delicious.  Have you ever tried it?

Before and Afters of our House

Who remembers the Cedar Rapids floods of 2008 in Iowa?

These events were life changing for many Iowans.  

It was a very devastating experience for many.
The waters crested at I believe 23 feet.  It was crazy to say the least!

Fortunately we were still living in an apartment when the floods occurred.

Once the water had subsided, there were many, many damaged homes that were beyond repair.

The house we bought actually had water that filled the basement and made it's way onto the first

floor and rose until it reached about 18 inches.

Our home was built in 1900.

Shawn and I just love the character of older homes.

Here's what she looked like post flood.

We lived in this house for a little over three years.  We did much of the work inside of the house before we moved in.  The outside of the house was a different story.  It was not until we decided to list the house for sale that we decided to re-side the house.  Our intentions weren't always to re-side the house, but you know, life gets in the way.  It just always seemed to be pushed to the back burner.
Siding this home was quite the feat.
Here are some of the photos during the renovations.

   The first side of the house is done.  The porch has just had the old siding removed and is waiting for blue board (a type of insulation) to be put up.
 

We found these original scallops when we took off the old siding.  

It was a lot of work to restore these babies, but well worth the effort.

They turned out beautiful!

This is the back of the house.  We also built a deck on the back.

Here is an after picture of the back of the house.

Are you ready for the reveal of the front.  Would you like to see again what it looked it?

Here's 

BEFORE

We also removed all the windows and opened up the pouch.

And here is

AFTER

WOW, HUH?!?!

What do you think?

Stay tuned, more before and afters to come.

~Kate Anne

Catching Up...

I would like to begin by saying that there is no way that I am ever going to be able to catch up on the months and months of blogging that I have not done.  My world has been turned upside down, shaken, and gently set back down since my last post.  My life was just set down in a little bit of a different area...Central Point, Oregon.  Whoa!!  That's a long ways from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  About 1,930 miles. So this is what has been going on...

Shawn and I sold our house on Mallory Street.  Can you believe that we sold our house after only nine days of being on the market.  Praise the Lord and may His will be done in our lives.  And if you can believe this, we got asking price and the buyer bought all of our furniture.

On another date I will have to post the amazing transformation before and afters pictures of the house.  It turned out incredible. 

September 11, 2012 finally came and I graduated Kaplan University with my Licensed Practical Nursing diploma.  Wow!  And my final semester at Kaplan I achieved straights A's.  This was a major accomplishment for me. 

And November 15th I took the NCLEX-PN and passed my boards.



In October, Noah celebrated his 9 year old birthday.  He enjoyed a day of all things Angry Birds.  That's his new obsession.

Love the Polka Dots!

Make a wish sweet 9 year old boy. 

See, I told you.  It was an angry birds kind of day.

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone.  I got to host Thanksgiving in our new house this year.

Everything turned out amazing.  It was delicious.  Here are a few pictures of my homemade pies.

I made homemade apple and pumpkin apple butter pie.

Shawn and I also celebrated our 10 year anniversary this November.

This was Shawn's gift, but Noah wanted to get in on the action too.

I got a beautiful ring.

And for the not so exciting news, my grandma Shirley went home to be with the Lord

November 16th.  Although she was ready to be taken home she will be sadly missed. 

Its very sad to think that I've been gone for the past 14 years and when I finally return home

to be near family, a member is taken from us.

Life is so precious and so short.

~Kate Anne