First Snow!

 Before naptime...

After naptime....

We are ready for winter!  

Renovation Report: Week Three

RENOVATION REPORT:

"I WONDER WHAT IS UNDERNEATH THERE?"

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED....

Just wanted to warn you in case you did not want to see what is lurking behind the wallpaper....

That is the ceiling of the toyroom/school room downstairs.  There are two areas that had some original wallpaper, and here is what we found.

Yes, I was a bit shocked as well when I paid Jordan a visit after a lovely lunch date with a friend and shopping.

More wallpaper coming off

Our new master bedroom

I was so excited that I begged Jordan to open the paint can and try it out.

I haven't had a chance to post pictures of the outside so here are some.    This is the bottom tier of the deck.  They had an above ground swimming pool off of the deck.

View of the backyard

I believe our property line includes all those trees close to their shed.  I am not sure though.  Okay, Jordan confirmed it for me.  It does.

We have a dry creek beyond the playground set.

View of the back of our house

Just wanted to include pictures of some new statues in our church.

St. Joseph and Baby Jesus will go outside.  I believe Jordan should received instructions on that project sometime soon.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Father just obtained another Sacred Heart of Jesus for the front of our church so the Holy Family one that is coming soon will go near the baptismal font.

Immaculate Heart of Mary


I have been talking about the statues to my sisters so I thought I would include them in this post to update them.

Happy Thanksgiving family and friends!!!  We are thankful for your love, friendship....and help!

Please May I Have a Chandelier?

Seriously, I think I want a gorgeous chandelier to go in the dining room.

Here are some contenders:

Jordan thought these looked like a zoomed in image of an earring

Jordan didn't mind this one. I am trying to figure out where the actual light comes from it.

Jordan's first thought, "It's upside down. Tiffany had bad taste. Tiffany didn't live in Iowa."

Jordan: "At least this one has lights." My thought, "Boring. Not enough bling."
**But it fits the home the most.***

Jordan: "That's it."


So far this is my favorite.

Renovation Report: Week Two

The recent snowfall definitely changed our plans this weekend with getting the house ready for painting.  Jordan had to shovel our place, sidewalk at church, and then at the house in Nashua.  It was a long shoveling day for him.  When we did make it out to the new house, Jordan patched up areas, took down wallpaper, and we even started to paint some walls in the master bedroom.  

I think week three will involve more painting!  We have such kind family members who have generously offered to help in that area.  My sweet mother-in-law is going to help with the kitchen.  I am so excited to see how it turns out.  

Theodore has been part of our remodeling process, but the time has now ended.  Daddy will be going without us to fix areas of the house that babies shouldn't be around.

I was afraid when I saw the paint color in the can.  "Mint...oh no.  What did I do," were the first thoughts that entered my mind.  Once we got started, I saw the beautiful color that I imagined it to be.  Pale jade.  Sounds royally beautiful!  

Please Read

Paris terror attacks: from compassion to reality

November 20, 2015 

District of the USA

A news commentary that shows how only the Social Reign of Christ the King can effectively conquer modern terrorism.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks that struck Paris during the evening of November 13, 2015, Fr. Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Holy See, condemned this “new manifestation of insane terrorist violence and hatred.” “In the Vatican, we are following the terrible news coming from Paris,” he said in a statement released in the middle of the night. “We are faced with an attack on the peace of all humanity, one that requires a decisive and united reaction from everyone to oppose the spread of murderous hatred under all its forms.”

In a statement published a few hours after these bloody attacks, Bishop Georges Pontier, president of the French Bishops’ Conference, condemned them as being

of unparalleled barbarity. Together with the Catholics of France, I express my profound sorrow at this extreme violence that has taken the lives of so many and wounded so many others. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, those dear to them, the police and the military, the medical responders, and those who govern us, on whom weighs a heavy responsibility. In such difficult times it is on them that we rely."

On Sunday, November 15, during the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis expressed his profound sorrow and restated that “the pathway of violence and hatred” will not solve humanity’s problems. “The name of God cannot be used to justify such actions; that is blasphemy!” he exclaimed.

Such barbarity leaves us aghast and makes us wonder how the heart of man can conceive and carry out such horrible things—that have shaken not only France but also the entire world."

More realistically, Fr. Christian Bouchacourt, SSPX District Superior of France, issued a statement on November 16th, saying that

such an attack requires without any doubt an immediate response from French public authorities in politics, the police and the military. But will this suffice to reestablish long-term order, peace and safety in France? We affirm the contrary. Indeed, Pope Pius XI in his beautiful encyclical Quas primas on Christ the King saw the clouds gathering over the world in the early 20th century and proclaimed, ‘…these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and His holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of Our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations.’

Only Christ, the Prince of peace, is able to restore the reign of justice, love and peace to the heart of human society, broken as it is by sin and by the rejection, both public and private, of the Law of God. This is why we must work each day to establish 'the peace of Christ through the reign of Christ,' that is to say the fruitful union of Faith and Fatherland, of Church and State. These tragic events are the dramatic consequence of the divorce that tore apart France and the Church over 200 years ago, and which has led our leaders to reject Christ from society and to allow our country to slide into a slow apostasy.”

In Aleppo, Syria, Bishop George Abou Khazen, Apostolic Vicar of Latin Catholics, condemned the so-called “Islamic State”, who laid claim to these bloody attacks, pointing out that its fighters “are financed, armed and trained by major political powers for purely economic and political reasons.” In an interview with Vatican news agency Fides, he reminded Westerners that in Syria, “for years now, we have been undergoing massacres and living in terror.” This is why, he says,

unity of action is paramount; we must stop financing, arming and training terrorist groups who operate in the Middle East and now in Europe is well… We express our sympathy and our solidarity with the victims of the Paris massacre and with all of Europe. Terrorism is an ideology that spares no one. The Syrian people are well able to understand the painful situation in which European citizens find themselves today."

On October 29th, in an interview with news agency Apic, Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, S.J. stated forcefully,

When Daesh, the Islamic State, burns Jordanian pilot Muadh al Jasasbeh, shot down near Raqqa in Syria, to death locked in a cage, or beheads 21 Coptic Christians in Libya, no one can say that this has nothing to do with Islam, claiming that Islam means peace and non-violence. It’s a lie!"

In fact, Fr. Samir Khalil Samir is a professor of Islamic studies and a specialist in Arabic, and he points out that violence is omnipresent in Islam, in the Koran itself and in khabar or hadith, which contain the traditions relating to the actions and words of Mohammed and his companions.

Everything that they could want can be found in tradition, and they can take what suits them depending on the circumstances. Everything the extremists do has its justification in a surah of the Koran, in khabar or in hadith. They have only to choose a passage to justify such and such an action. Each group of jihadis has its own mufti, who issues fatwas, religious decrees founded on the holy writings."

To justify the extermination of kafirs, the unbelievers or infidels, there is no lack among the founding texts of Islam. Violence is present in many of thesurahs of the Koran, for instance Surah 5, 33–37:

The reward of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger […] is only this that they be slain or crucified; their hands and their feet shall be cut off on alternate sides; they shall be expelled from the land."

In Syria and in Iraq, according to Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, the Ba’ath parties (Party of the Socialist and Arab Resurrection, founded by Michael Aflak, a Syrian Orthodox Christian) in power with their socialist, pan-Arabic and secular ideology had limited these Islamist movements. Now the terrorists of Daesh, ISIS, who receive financial and political support from the monarchies of the Gulf and from Turkey, would establish a Sunni caliphate in the region. “If the money is mostly coming from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, then the armaments are mostly coming from the West, because they are not manufactured in Arabic countries!” These Islamist movements aim to depose President Bashar al-Assad, especially because he is an Alawite, a branch of the Shiites, a minority group in Syria.

Even if they were dictatorships, Ba’ath governments in Syria as in Iraq were neutral towards religion. Christians, if they did not get involved with politics, could live in peace and practice their religion. This is not the case under the jihadists, who leave Christians only this 'choice': pay the jizya, a per capita tax for non-Muslims, convert to Islam, or leave! Otherwise, they must die…

Christians, who were only a few years ago 9% of the population in Syria and 2% in Iraq, are leaving en masse.

For now, the Russians are giving hope; they seem much more effective than the West at putting the terrorists to flight, whether they belong to Daesh or al-Nosra, the local branch of al Qaeda. All these jihadists, the majority of whom are foreigners, are 'moderate' in nothing. On the ground, there are no 'moderate rebels,' as certain Western governments would have us believe!"

"Let It Snow!"

Girls' Bedroom

The girls will have a St. Therese inspired room mixed with Rose Petal Place.   It will be a peaceful, little girl room.  We hope to create little corners in the room for each girl to have a reading corner.  In the reading corner, there will be a canopy and a decoration that suits their particular interest at the moment.  I was originally going to do a canopy for the bed, but I saw some pictures that changed my mind.

Canopy reading corner


Bedding with matching curtains

I am trying to reuse some of our curtains, and so far, I just need to purchase curtains for the girls' room and living/dining rooms.

Woodland Theme for the Boys' Room

I don't know why I must have themes for everything.  I can't remember when this started in my life, but I enjoy doing it so much!!!

For the boys' room, the plan is doing a woodland theme.  I hope to find some of Jordan's old antler mounts from his childhood to place on the walls.  I even found these cute rugs.....I can't take the cuteness right now!

Deer rug


There's a bear one too for our little Teddy bear!

Cute decoration for the wall.

Cute decoration

This would make Tobias so happy to see on the wall.  I even found a height chart with a similar theme.

Here is also some bedding that is quite affordable.

Bedding

Update to Flooring

The flooring will arrive in Rochester December 14th......

We have plenty of time to paint then!  :)

Renovation Report: Purchase of Flooring

We found a very good deal on laminate hardwood for the downstairs excluding living room and extra bedroom.  We initially wanted to finish the original hardwood flooring upstairs, but it would just be an extra project to do right now.  It might look more uniform to just extend the flooring in the bedrooms as well.  

Here is the new flooring:

Santo Andre Brazilian Cherry Laminate

You can't go wrong when your flooring is named after a saint!  

Renovation Report: Week One

Jordan is working on patching a few areas, ripping out carpet and kitchen flooring, ordering new flooring for the downstairs and stairwell, and getting the house ready for painting.  We decided to take out the carpet on the stairwell as well, and run the new flooring all the way to the bedrooms.  It's exciting!

We have bought all the paint colors so painting should happen soon!  We decided to try out the paint in the kitchen, but I think we will need a couple of coats to hide the current wall color.

If you didn't get a chance to see our photos from when we first got into the house to look around, here is the link to that post.  Before Photos

This is the beautiful door they left behind (worth almost 400 dollars).  It will replace the old door near the front porch.

Guess what!  We tested it out.  Our big van Spencer fits in the garage!

This is the breezeway/mudroom.  Right now golf turf is covering the floor.  We plan on replacing the flooring with the laminate hardwood that we will use through the downstairs.

My inspiration for this area comes from Pottery Barn.  I remember babysitting for the nicest family in Michigan, and she was always so organized.  She also had great taste in decor.  I hope to find or have Jordan make an organizer for this area to hang coats, place shoes in baskets, etc.

This is the closet/storage area in the breezeway.

Stairs leading to the basement

This is the half finished basement.  The other half is for storage and the utilities.

We didn't get a chance to arrive during daylight, but I will post pictures of the outside the next time we are there.  There is a two tiered deck.  The upper part has a lock for the gate.

All the paint cans!

Welcome to my best friend!

I had a gas stove when I lived in California.  I can't remember what the advantages and disadvantages of a gas stove are, but I will learn quickly.  

Climbing stairs....I am not ready for this!

Testing out the new paint color for the kitchen.

Prairie sage....I hope it looks nice in the end.

Our front porch

The door from the outside that leads to the breezeway

View of our home

I am on the hunt to find more dining room chairs that will match the set left behind.  They are gorgeous!