We may have lost our minds

Normal people go out for a nice dinner date on their anniversary or take a weekend getaway.  Not the Brays.  :)  We closed on an 80 year old dumpy, abandoned house yesterday which happened to be our 9 year anniversary. 

These first couple pictures outside were taken in April before the trees really bloomed

Our friend from church first told us about it in the middle of April.  It went back and forth on whether or not it would happen.  At one point we walked away, but two weeks later the guy made us an incredible offer we couldn't refuse.  The two main reasons we decided to get the house was it will be a cheaper house payment, and the location is beautiful.  We have 4 acres and the east side of our property is connected to 40 acres of new bike/walking trails Rogers is currently putting in. As you will see in the pictures below there is a TON of work, but even after we fix it up we will still have a house payment that will be about $200 a month cheaper than what we currently pay.  

 

Front of house facing main road.  Basement only goes halfway back.  It's where the kids' room and bathroom will be.

Back of the house is built into a hill and the garage is up next to it.  The garage is "newer" than the rest of the house.

Living Room.  There is Zac and David - the guy that told us about it.  He works for the parks department and is working on the trails and park next to our property.

Yellow room was a child's bedroom on main floor, but we will use it as an office/sewing room because our master room is pretty small.  The pic on right is our master closet. :/

Zac heading to basement and the right is a formal dining room, but we'll probably do something else with that space.

Oh the kitchen.  I don't have a current pic, but Zac completely gutted it.  There was some leaks that rotted out a lot of the wood subfloor and lower cabinets.  So everything but the upper cabinets are gone...including a huge hole in the floor.  The right pic is the dining nook to the left of the kitchen.

Before and After of the mudroom/laundry room.  Although now it's even more gutted.  Tiles and wood paneling are gone.

Bathroom also had to be completely gutted due to water damage.  Yes that is more holes in the subfloor.

Before and After in one of the basement rooms.

Other room in basement.  Boys will probably be in this portion.

 

I didn't take a picture of the basement bathroom.  It is covered in pink tile.  Would like to replace it if we have room in the budget.  Mason would probably love to keep it since he tells me almost every day that pink is his favorite color. 

here is more of our property looking at the back of the house  Also taken in April

Here is a picture from today of the house from the bottom of the driveway.  Love how it is hidden in the trees.

So we are pretty excited!  It took us a full month to close because of having to get land surveys and stuff done, but the seller let us go ahead and start demoing it.  We've probably put in around 100 hrs of work over the past month just clearing out junk and demoing.  We are hoping to be able to move in about 2 months.  Say a prayer for us...it's going to be crazy up in here.  Not to mention that we are trying to catch and keep out the vandals and thieves that keep coming up to the property, but that's a wild story for another day.

 

My baby is 4!?!

Man has my life changed in the past 4 years!  Zac and I wonder what in the world we did all evening and weekend before kids.  Those first five years of traveling and doing whatever we wanted to do as a couple were awesome, but I am so thankful that our world was rocked by this little guy!

 I didn't realize how much I could love someone until I had this guy. 

We did a joint party with his bestie from church.  They decided on Ninjas.  Mason wanted his ninja to be pink so I went along with it.  It will be fun to tease him about that later. 

We did a simple walk-in party at Chuckie Cheese on Monday - their actual birthday.  Thankfully there was hardly anyone else there, and the boys seemed to have a blast.  Can't go wrong with presents, cake, and games.  I haven't got the pics from AJ yet, but here are a couple Zac took on his phone.

Paxton snuck 2 candles in on the corner.  So Zac went ahead and lit them up for him too.

Mason's big thing is still bad guys.  He loves to be the bad guy and play with swords, nerf guns, etc.  I was talking with one of my good college friends at church in OKC last weekend, and I looked over to see Mason and her almost 4 yr old were wrestling and playing "bad guys".  Mason has only seen him once -2 years ago- but apparently they hit it off!  First time Mason has found someone as into bad guys as he is.  The funny thing is Paxton felt he had to come to Mason's rescue so he lunged and tackled W also.  Boys! 

Other tidbits about Mason...He is still an early riser and is awake around 6:30 every morning.  He gives the best kisses on the cheek.  He will sometimes whisper to me, " I have a secret to tell you.  I love you."  When I ask for a good morning hug, he says "Sure!"  Now if I were to ask that after he wakes up from his nap it would be a much different response.  He likes to sleep with his bunny along with the blue blankie every night.  He got the bunny when we was a baby, but he didn't really attach to it until about 8 months ago. 

His favorite color is pink.  Mason told Zac "I want my next bike to be pink."  Z "no"  M "how about pink and white?"  Z "no."  M "how about white with pink stripes?"  Z "still no."  I said maybe we could put one pink sticker on it.  Speaking of bikes Mason learned to ride  his bike with no training wheels last week.  I was shocked that after 3 days he was able to ride like a champ.  He is so excited about it!

He is a precious sweet boy, but is also pretty ornery, likes to push the limits, and argue!  His big thing right now is to tell Paxton to do naughty things in hopes that Paxton will get in trouble instead of him.  He likes to dig in the dirt, throw rocks, build things, explore, and just be busy being a boy. 

Love this sweet, silly 4 year old that is growing to fast!! 

Birthday Bash part one

From now till the end of my life this will be a crazy time of the year for our family.  Not only is it time to get the garden and yard planted and ready, but it is the celebration of birth/life for all three of our wonderful children.  We definitely didn't plan to have 3 birthdays in 19 days (Paxton and Mason's are only 5 days apart), but we are getting used to crazy. 

First we celebrated A's birthday on April 24th.   It was an emotional day for me.  We had envisioned her being home before her first birthday before all the craziness happened over there.  It was tough knowing she was on the other side of the world probably unaware of what a special day it was.  It made it worse that we still have no idea when she will be able to come home.  The boys were at MDO for the morning so I cleaned the house and ran some errands.  On the way to pick up the boys I got some stuff to make her cake as well as balloons.  The balloons were in the car when it was time to get the boys.  I should have made sure they were tied down better since it was a really windy day because the fancy silver one blew out Mason's door while he was getting in.  He was devastated and took off running across the field trying to catch it, but the wind was blowing to hard and fast that day.  I was so emotional that we both ended up crying over that balloon!  Luckily Zac went and got another one on his way home. 

Some of my sweet friends here had a beautiful flower bouquet delivered which was so thoughtful.  On a positive note we found out Friday that our judge has FINALLY set our final court date!  By the end of May she will officially be a Bray!  She still won't be able to come home yet, but we are excited about some much needed progress.
 
Next up was Paxton's birthday.  I can't believe he is 2!  He has definitely started testing the boundaries and getting a mind/will of his own, but he is still my sweet baby.  A few things about him....
He likes to take toys in bed.  It often varies, but I'd say his favorite outside of stuffed animals is a yellow bus, ball, or Nerf gun.

Since A isn't here we still have Paxton sleeping in toddler bed instead of the bunk beds with Mason.  Had I known she still wouldn't be home  I would have waited longer to make the room all girly.  Now that it's done I can't get myself to put it all away.

P has always been great about staying asleep in his bed, but last night we found him asleep like this at 10.  Looks like he grabbed the nose sucker from the table and took it to bed with him.

He loves to say a prayer before every bedtime and meal.  He has recently started saying them himself.  His first independent prayer was "God, mommy, daddy, eesh (mason), Jesus, amen".   He sleeps with a paci at night and for some weird reason he prefers the blue one. 

The crazy thing is the blue one is really rough on the outside - either he or the dog chewed up part of it - but maybe that's why he loves it so much more than the others.  He still loves sucking his fingers and twirling his hair (especially in his car seat or when he's being held).  Another funny thing about Paxton is he just grew out of was knocking on his bedroom door.  He's known how to open doors for a long time, but when he would wake up from nap or bedtime he would knock on the door until you opened it.  It wasn't until a couple weeks ago that it dawned on him to open the door himself. 
The past couple weeks he's finally started stringing words together.  I feel like he was a little more delayed at speaking, but I know he understands what we are saying.  Often Zac and I will be talking, and he will add in a word or two that relates to what we are saying.  Up until last weekend (beginning of may), he still said "Lo" for water.  I knew he could say water if I would have corrected him a long time ago, but I didn't because I thought it was cute.  I wonder how long he will say "Eesh" before he figures out...I'm not going to say anything to him yet.   A few more tidbits - he is great at puzzles, his favorite thing to watch is Frozen or Lilo and stitch, his favorite books are Napping House and Freight Train, and he loves to play in the dirt...actually both boys love to play in the dirt.

 

 I haven't been as diligent about working with him on his numbers, letters, shapes, and colors like I was with Mason.  He knows most of his colors and basic shapes, but he still gets mixed up counting to 10 and we've just barely touched on letters.  I've got to be more intentional about including these things in our conversation.  He is great at throwing and kicking balls, but somehow seems to trip a lot.  My parent's put me in gymnastics for a year in elementary school because I was so clumsy...we may need to do that for Paxton.  Mason seems to have the opposite problem.  Other breaking news is that Paxton has pooped and peed in the potty all on his own this weekend!  I haven't even tried potty training partly because he didn't seem at all interested in it and because I knew it was going to be a lot of work.  I have been dreading spending all my time and energy tied to a potty and cleaning up accidents.  Yesterday morning he said poo-poo twice, and both times I checked his diaper nothing was there.  So I asked do you want to poop on the potty and he said yes.  I ran to the attic to get the baby potty.  (we have put him on the big potty several times before, but he doesn't really like it...I think it's hard for him to relax on it enough to do anything).  I plopped the potty in the living room with the tv on.  After a minute or two I went back into my room for something while he stayed there with my mom.  Next thing I know I hear my mom cheering.  Sure enough there was a huge poo in the little potty!  We were gone much of the day, but when we were home he asked to get on the potty several times.  It was always a minute too late...I could still feel the warmth in his diaper by the time he said it.  This morning before church he mentioned it again.  I was getting ready for church so Zac put him on there and he actually peed in the potty!  So proud of my little guy!  I am trying to get myself psyched up for the task because I should probably take advantage of his interest in it.  Looks like it's time for pull-ups around here.  For Paxton's birthday I let the boys pick out a special sugary cereal - Fruit loops- a snack for the party - cheese balls- and a box cake - strawberry.  I didn't have the energy to make it from scratch this year, and they probably like this just as well.  They definitely loved the fruit loops and cheese puffs since I don't typically buy junk food.  That morning we went to some friends house for a birthday play date.  It was a gorgeous day so they played in the sprinklers, kiddy pool, and painted.

 

That evening we did presents and another cupcake with Zac and my mom.

So blessed God brought this sweet little boy into our life 2 years ago!! 

Yea for spring!

Just a quick post to let you know that we are alive and doing well!  This is my favorite time of year.  I've been busy with the garden the past month or two.  There are few things I find more fulfilling than picking and eating stuff straight from the garden.  This year we bought insect covers to drape over the beds.  I had asked some people last summer at the farmers market how they grow organically without losing their minds over the bugs...their response insect covers.  I'll probably take them down in a week since my snap peas need more height to grow, but it does seem to be helping.  Here are two of the main beds. 





  Took this pic today of bed 1

This is bed 2, but it's from last weekend.  So now it is a little fuller

 Today I picked my first bunch of radishes.  Two got eaten by grubs, but the rest looked great.  We like our radishes sautéed in butter with garlic and salt.

I have no idea why this pic is upside down

Tonight we had salmon and a huge arugula and mizuna lettuce salad freshly picked.  This was our first time to grow this type of greens and make the salad.  Zac and I loved it.  It was just the greens, fresh parmesan, tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic, garlic, sugar, and salt.  Had to bribe the boys a little bit since it was a strong salad, but they ate it.

I'm excited to see how the garlic does.  I planted it for the first time in the fall, and it should be ready pretty soon.

Another thing we've enjoyed doing the past couple months is watch Mason play soccer on Saturday mornings.  He's getting better and enjoying it more with each week. He seems to be more excited to see all the dandelions, but who can blame him.  Here are a few pics from the past couple weeks. 

 

The hardest thing has been keeping Paxton from joining in.  He wants to play so bad, and surprisingly he is a good ball dribbler.  We'll have to put him in next year.  It may be a little late, but happy spring!    

 

Country boys

We had fun visiting a lot of family the past couple weeks.  Oklahoma's spring break was the 3rd week in March.  Brittany came the first half of the week, and Patty came the last half of the week.  Sorry ladies - I didn't get any pictures of you here!  :(  But we did have a great time!  The following week was our spring break so we spent the week at my parents.  Yes, I know it's only mother's day out, but if I am paying for them to be there I don't like them to miss much.  These boys are country boys!  They always love playing and exploring out at their place.  I can't wait till we can move and get at least an acre for us to spread out on.  

My dad took off a couple days that we were there.  He needed to rebuild their old chicken coop so he and the boys were busy most of Thursday and Friday working on it.  It was cute because when he came in the house for a minute he told me he had to go back outside because he had lots of work to do.   He loves building, doing yard work, and is always eager to help.

 

We had to leave before it was finished, but it looks good so far especially with those handsome fellas inside!