New House in Fredonia

As you know, Ben and I were living in a small guest house outside of Ben's parent's home.

It was a one bedroom/bath/kitchen-livingroom area. The girls slept downstairs in the bedroom. Ben and I had our bed upstairs or the "up-ladder" (loft/crawlspace/storage) area since there wasn't any stairs, but rather a ladder. Once you made it to the top of the ladder we had to duck and walk/crawl about 12 feet to get to a small space where we could stand...and that is where our bed was stuffed. It was working and we were super grateful to have a place to stay. But as I am getting more and more pregnant and my nightly trips down the ladder to the bathroom were getting more frequent...our concerns of adding our little one to the mix were growing. I certainly wasn't excited about climbing the ladder multiple times a night when I was 9 months pregnant, and where were we going to put the little one? I didn't want to have to climb the ladder with a new baby....or have to up and down after just having a baby.

We were planning on making it work, and would have done it with gratitude, but when this opportunity presented itself, we knew it was a blessing which we are SUPER grateful for!!!

One of Ben's cousins inherited a house from his grandparents in Fredonia, AZ. He is living about 6 hours North and wasn't sure what to do with the house. He didn't want to leave it vacant, and wasn't super excited about renting it out to strangers. He called Ben one afternoon after being told we lived in the guesthouse in Ben's parents yard. Anyway, he called and asked if we wanted to stay in the house and keep it up. When Ben told me I almost teared up! Another answer to prayer!

However, there was a lot of hard work involved to get the place ready to move into. The house is a 3 Bed/2 Bath home, on a large lot. It was fully furnished and you can use your imagination, but it had 5-6 cats living in it and the young couple who lived in it just before us smoked and did drugs. It was left in quite a mess. We didn't let Kimber or Holdyn come down for awhile....not sure what they might find in the filth! We moved everything out, painted most of the inside, and had the carpets professionally cleaned. We also had some help from the awesome Andrus family on putting tile down in the bathrooms (Yucky carpet in the bathrooms before) and helping clean out the kitchen cupboards. We owe them big. Ben and I did the painting and scrubbing of walls/curtains/etc. It was TONS of work but it was a good project to do together! Plus, it has been well worth it! I wish I would have taken some before and after pictures, I'm a slacker... but here is a shot of the front of the house.

We've been having so much fun working together as a family....yesterday we did the yard work. The girls are so excited to be able to rake the leaves and jump in the piles. They are also happy to have room inside to run and play!

One of our favorite features in the whole house is the master bathtub. The girls LOVE to take their baths in here because the water comes up to their shoulders and they can turn on the bubbles! So FUN!