Living

Can't believe we have been in Reno for almost 3 wks! I thought the day when we would be together again and in our first home would never come, quick update for those of you who weren't in the loop: Brady got a Job at UNR, we had our 4th boy, Daxton Ivar Edwards 9lbs 12 oz August 1st, less than 2wks later we moved out of our apartment in Orem, the boys and I moved in with Brady's parents and Brady moved to Reno to start teaching. Six weeks later we bought our first house and moved to Reno to be together again. While it was a hard six weeks without Brady and living from suitcases, it was a good six weeks. We had a great time getting to know Oma and Papa better and now we miss them terribly... The boys loved being ever so close to so many cousins and being spoiled and loved my their grandparents. I couldn't have done it without so much family around, Daxton was 12 days old when we moved in, a time where you really need a husband around. I am so grateful for the family the filled in while Brady was away!
So now the "fun" part that I have been dreaming of for what feels like forever... We have a house, a house that needs cleaning, painting, weeding, and a little fixing to make it our own.
Brady and I came for 4 days back at the end of June looked at maybe 10 houses... prayed... then picked one we thought was best for us. It was a short sale unfortunately... which meant we had to wait, and wait we did right up to the 90 day limit that Nevada has set for short sales...
I was so thankful that my mom was able to come help as we CLEANED(!!!) and unloaded our stuff to the new house. The house is pretty, has lots of the stuff that we had wanted in a home and it's only 6 years old. The issue with the house was the family that lived in it burned A LOT of incense and when I say a lot it means there were black smoke lines all over the walls. We assume that it was religious, they were Indian. IF my mother hadn't been there to help I think I'd still be just staring at all that had to be done... if you remember we only saw the house once for about 15 mins... with all of their nice stuff in it, it didn't look bad, then you add in the 6 wks I had to just think about it and how I thought I remembered it... anyway I was shocked at how dirty they had left the house.
3wks later I am over the shock and excited to do everything the way I want. We literally need to paint every room... So far we have painted the halfbath downstairs and this weekend we worked on the loft (I want to call it the library but it's not sticking... yet)... just needs some touching up. I love it! The loft, I mean, library had the worst smoke stains on the walls... and with them gone it feels sooooo much better! I'm so excited to get to the decorating part I can hardly stand it... but sadly the only thing I have put on the walls is a clock in the kitchen... but because every wall needs a good scrub and some paint there is just no point.... yet.
So now I need color ideas for my kitchen/family room area... nothing crazy but something cute... any ideas... its the one area I'm stumped in...

THE HOUSE!

Just wanted to stick a picture of my super cool fridge that I love... got it off craigs list... after wheeling and dealing with them I got it for $650... this is a $1500 fridge and its only 2 years old!

This is the halfbath... half done... we had to do it first because it smelled like smoke... had to special paint it with stuff that made the stink go away... I'm VERY happy to say that it now smells great in here! I painted the vanity because that was stinky too but I like how it turned out... till want a new faucet and need to put our new lights in and the mirror back up but you get the idea... ps my camera takes really crappy pictures

Brady painting the ceiling in the *library*
The walls are not done here and if you look close you can see blackish lines going down the wall... no sure why the smoke stained it where the studs were the most....
Here is a corner done... Brady said earlier that my mom is the only other one that can really appreciate this view... to everyone else it just looks like a wall... to us it looks clean!

Here are my cute boys! (before the room was painted)


I painted my table, well the bottom half and stained the top... just couldn't bring my self to put my old ugly table up in my new pretty house the way it was... I've been wanted to do this for a long time and now here it is... notice I now need pretty chairs!

This is my kitchen! it is currently yellow... not really a bad color but it, like the rest of the walls look dirty... and if you look to the left they changed to green for the family room area, and I hate that line there so we will be going with one color for both rooms...


But what color? this is the counter top... something to go with this? It's just kind of black and brown and light brown and cream...

This is us... at Daxton's blessing before we left Utah...

Now I will go to bed and lay there thinking of all the things I want to do, I love this and I love my life... my life is not perfect and it continues to be hard but I have people that I love and the gospel of Jesus Christ to fill me with hope.