It took 7 years....

We have lived in our house for almost 7 years. 7 years on August 28th. In that time, we have done a lot to our house. We have updated, changed, and made this place our own. When we moved in, I wasn't happy about all the blue. Hated the blue carpet, blue linoleum, and the ugly red shutters on the house.

See ugly red shutters. (we had replaced the front door here... it used to have bars on it)

Nice black shutters. See aren't they pretty. Much better than the red.

Ugly old kitchen floors. Who picks out cream floors with light blue flowers?

Old cabinets. Not that bad, but still not what I wanted.

New floors that we put in and nice newly painted cabinets. The cabinets were a pain to get done but I think it was worth it.

Ugly blue carpets that I can't stand. So thankful that we have gotten rid of the ugly carpet.

You can see the new carpet in this picture.

We have also had a new deck put on. We used to have a small slab deck and now we have a nice large deck. Dan has also completely redone the landscaping out front. It looks great and he did a wonderful job picking out all the plants.

We have also painted every single room ourselves. That feels good to know that we have put our house together the way we want it. It's been a long and slow process but it's finally coming together.

We still have the ugly cream with blue flowers, linoleum in the upstairs bathrooms, but that will hopefully be replaced soon. We also need to paint the half bathroom downstairs and the boys' bathroom.

But, I am proud of the work that Dan and I have done on our house. The house is a home and it's a place that I love to be.

Dance Party

Owen and I have regular dance parties. He LOVES to dance and well it's a fun way to keep him busy while I'm making dinner or doing the dishes.

Epcot

Epcot. It's my favorite park. It's wonderful and fabulous. We spent our first day at Disney there and maybe that was part of it. It was our first day of magic. We were excited, so of course we woke up early and gobbled down a quick breakfast. We made it to Epcot before opening, so we were able to see the characters come out and count down to the official opening. That was fun.

After, they let everyone in we decided to go see the characters. While, the park seemed packed b/c everyone was around the gates, it spread out pretty quick. We had a 3 minute wait to see all the important characters. So wait we did and Ethan was excited! Owen was not as you can see by his face. He was TERRIFIED of Mickey Mouse! LOL Wanted NOTHING to do with him.

But, then we saw Pluto and well he thought he was okay. He was doing some funny dog things and I guess he wasn't quite as scary as a mouse trying to high five you.

He was still kinda gripping me tight when we saw Minnie Mouse. But, when we walked away he said "I need to kiss her." So cute!

Then we got to Donald Duck. Donald was a HIT! Look at him run right up to him and give him a hug. See he just needed to warm up a little! (we saw Goofy next and he was TALL)

I think that I loved Epcot because it's so big that it doesn't seem crowded. We were able to walk around and just enjoy everything. The boys even really enjoyed going to different countries. Ethan really thinks that we have been to China! Ha!

This is Ethan in Morocco.

Ethan really liked going to the kidcot stations in every country. He was able to talk to people from different countries and see them write his name in their language.

He looks happy, doesn't he? Ha! Don't let him fool you! Owen was great on this trip and the fits were few and far between. He really only had a couple. This was right during a fit. I got him to smile, somehow and snapped this picture. But, he was not a happy guy. He didn't want to sit in the stroller (but then he never does) and he didn't want to walk. Oh, wait.. that's wrong. He wanted to walk where Owen wanted to go, not where we were going. He finally got over it and was distracted by something, probably a duck, and all was right in the world again.

My favorite place to eat was in Mexico. They have this wonderful outside seating area above the water. We had nachos, tacos, and the boys were content to eat and look at the water. We would watch the Disney boat go by and feed the birds that would come over. The weather was gorgeous, not to hot, and there was a wonderful breeze.

Epcot was a blast. My favorite park and I think all the boys enjoyed it also. We spent two days there after we had such a wonderful first day.