Emily Dawn - 2 years and New House!

I know it's been a long time since I posted, but things have been hectic to say the least. But, the good news is we made it through the kids' birthdays and we closed and moved into the new house! I wouldn't say we are settled, but we are in!! We love it and the kids love it and the dogs love it.


Emily started off her Fifth birthday with....a pink frosted donut. Noah got a chocolate covered one as well for Emily's birthday. I lit a candle in her donut and Noah and I sang Happy Birthday to which Noah wanted us to sing to him and kept saying "Noma Birfday". No Noah, you had yours already, this is Emily's birthday!

This is her chosen cake for at home - strawberry (pink) with strawberry frosting (pink) with pink sprinkles!

Emily had her birthday party at the Kid's Clubhouse in Clayton. She picked a Hannah Montana cake so we went with that for the "theme." It's a bounce house place with 3 air jump/slide things. A lot of her friend's from her class came and a few other friends and a good time was had by all.

The Friday after Emily's party we closed on the house. Breaking ground to close was 4 months! So, we survived the apartment with only being there 6 months and finished out the lease and moved all the apartment into the house in one weekend. We were exhausted. Mike's parents and his Sister and her husband came and helped so that was a blessing. We still have the storage unit until the end of March so we have been slowly getting things put away so we can empty that out and hopefully be organized up front and then we can maintain instead of fix later.

Here is the finished product - our house!!!

Here is a picture of the finished kitchen.

Here is a picture of the finished bonus room. This will be the guest room and the kids' play room. Noah loves to just run around and say..."carpet". I guess going from a cramped and small apartment to this room - open and nothing in it makes him go nuts. We have plans to add a bathroom up there soon and eventually maybe 1 or 2 rooms in the later projects category.

Finally, the finished fireplace! We let the kids climb in there, well, because we could and they could and now that we have moved in, we've had several fires in there and they cannot get near it :).

As always, we hope and pray that God continues to bless all of you as he has so abundantly blessed us. We built this house on a leap of faith and God has really worked inour lives. Seeing Him in action has been nothing short of humbling. We are so happy to recieve His grace and to be in our new house! We hope you are all well and staying healthy.

God Bless!

Gretchen, Mike, Emily, Noah, Nikki, and Elsie.