Family Fix-Up

The benefit to moving into a fixer-upper while being 38 weeks pregnant is that everyone pities you.

We had a lot of offers of help.

So I sent out an email to all the family and friends that said, "Let me know if I can help!"  And told them our two-week game plan. Then they knew what we were up to, and if they had time they could show up and work on a project with us.

I was blown away by the support.

Chris spent several nights in our home.  Still had cat hair everywhere, and the heater didn't work.  She did non-stop detail painting.

Curtis helped Mark plot out how to make the kitchen functional.

Rachelle took my kids multiple times.

My family drove up several different times to paint, sand, and stain.

Danika moved in my boxes.

My young women from our apartment ward came and painted one afternoon.

Michael fixed my washer, dryer, toilet, thermostat ... and probably at least 15 other things.

Ben and Katie came with the whole family and sanded every ugly oak surface in the house.

And Matt helped Mark install our gorgeous fake wood floor.

Mark and I don't really like asking for help.  But there was just no way we could've done this without it, and we were shocked at the response.

So grateful, so humbled.  LOVE YOU ALL.

Halloween

Halloween was a complete after-thought this year.

We had just gotten the keys to our house and were scrambling to get things done over there.

Thankfully, Mac wants to be the same thing every year.  And Belle found a princess Belle dress at Costco she just had to have ... and I was okay with that.

Not knowing any of our new neighbors, we opted for a Gunn cousin Halloween.

Couldn't have made a better decision.

Trent's Farewell

The very weekend of the softball tournament, my family had planned my baby brother's mission farewell.

He was taking off to Oklahoma one week before my due date.

Mark and I debated a divide-and-conquor strategy verses a do-it-all strategy.  Mark was okay with picking one event.  He actually admitted a mission was more important than baseball ... which I appreciated, but given the face that this tournament had been planned for seven months, it just felt wrong to bow out.

So we did it all.

As soon as the boys lost their last game, we hugged all our Gunns and turned the car north to speed to the opposite corner of the state of Utah.

We made it late Saturday night to a house packed to the gills with people to support Trentles.

He gave the sweetest talk.  Just the right amount of funny and spiritual.  He dominated the sneak-a-Lord-of-the-Rings-quote-into-a-sacrament-meeting-talk-and-relate-it-to-the-gospel game my family has got going; he said it was a dangerous business to step outside your door, if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you'll be swept off to.

Brilliant.

Well done Trent, we knew you were worth the drive.

Gunn Control

In the midst of all this, we had planned a little trip to St. George.

Mark's oldest brother was turning 40, and his awesome wife planned a giant surprise party.  She began calling all the Gunn women clear back in March to ensure we could bring our families to a softball tournament.

Heidi was planning a softball tournament for Josh's birthday.

How great is that?

The weekend slipped into our insane month of October seamlessly; we filled out all the paperwork on our house just before we left, played ball, drove back to Logan for my brother Trent's farewell, and when we returned Monday ... the keys were ours.

The tournament was a blast.

Did we win?  Nooooo.  Our poor baseball boys never really played softball, and were in a tournament with competitive softball teams that played all over Vegas and Southern Utah year round.

But we sure had fun.

Mama Gunn seemed thrilled to plan a birthday party for one of her boys; she went all out.

One Snow Canyon baseball hat for each of Chris's babies.

Well hello, Freddy.  Fancy seeing you here.

A little pre-dinner beanbag toss.

And some pre-game chiropractic treatment from the birthday boy.

Soooo many cousins.  Too much fun.

Players-Only Table

"Let's go Gunn Control!" (repeated 63x)

Five minutes later I turned around ... and these two were naked.  Sitting in the puddle.

You guys are winners to us ... team Gunn Control for life!

Look at that Gunn family.  They are the greatest.

Gosh, I lucked out in the in-law department.  Thank you thank you Heidi, for making us all get down there!  Josh, way to turn 40.

Fall 2014

Between touring homes and washing Mac's old baby clothes, we spent our fall exploring new parks.

 And packing.

And being uncomfortable.

37 weeks ... praying this baby would stay in till we moved; dreading being pregnant much longer.

And escaping to the mountains with friends ... before sleepless nights returned to us once more.

I am thrilled to live so close to so many canyons and ski resorts.  Our kids will grow up with all the best things here in Salt Lake City!

Puff Ball, Miracle Worker

Just before we got our keys to the home, we reached a milestone worth documenting.

We filled up our puff ball container.

Puff balls are perhaps on the best moves I have ever made as a mother.  See, good deeds warrant a puff ball.  And it's completely vague; which is the real beauty of it.  Some things are puff-ball worthy, and others are just part of life.

Helping Belle get her shoes on?  Puff ball.  Brushing teeth?  Nope, sorry.  Part of life.  Brushing teeth without even being asked?  Definite puff ball!  The only rule is the good deed has to be approved by Mom or Dad.

This has made our home run so much smoother.  Our kids are now racking their brains to think what needs to be done, instead of me hollering at them all day.  

The kids worked their little buns off, and by the middle of October, we had filled up the puff ball container and earned a fun family night out.

Where did they pick?  Chuck-E-Cheese.  The place was having a wear-your-costume-and-get-free-tokens event, so off we went.

Home Owners at Last!

Well.  It's been five months.

I've never missed that much time on this blog.

So I guess this is proof that my life kinda crazy right now.

We bought a house and had a baby ... and are only just now feeling like we can breath again.  Not because everything is done, but because everything is livable and we need a break from projects.

We bought a real a fixer upper.

See, as the weeks were closing in on us and the arrival of our third little sweetheart came nearer, we felt the pressure to buy.  Our poor Realtor was running around the valley finding all sorts of houses for us to walk through.  East side of the freeway?  Or west side of the freeway?  Big house and a commute, or small home and more time with Mark?  More inversion, or more snow?  More young families, or more variety?  Spend money updating a cheap fixer-upper or spend money on something brand new?  Rambler?  Multilevel?

The list went on and on.  Three days a week we went out with our Realtor and walked through about 10 houses each day.  Belle was in the thick of her war against pooping, so I packed out gobs and gobs of underwear and wipies ... and we got to test out plenty of toilets in the homes we toured.

This went on for about three weeks.  Then we finally narrowed it down to two homes.  One immaculate rambler on the west side of the freeway, and a smaller but newly rennovated multilevel on the east side.  Mark was smitten with the rambler.  We put in an offer.  A really good offer.

We did not get the house.

Even though I felt a bit relieved (I wasn't sold on the neighborhood), going back to look at our multilevel felt disappointing.  It was just ... small.  We decided to look at another home in the same neighborhood (really wanted to live in that neighborhood), slightly bigger and definitely dumpier.

Literally dumpier.  It was like one big cat and bird dump.  (The owners were old and loved pets, but didn't believe in cages.  Or litter boxes.)

But ... I kind of liked it.  The main floor was much more open.  The living room could fit a sectional (one of our lifelong dreams) and there were three bedrooms upstairs and a completely unfinished basement full of possibility.  The layout made sense for a family of young kiddos; big enough for little people and small enough to be a typical starter home.  We could make it work; we could make it ours.

It just need some love.
A lot of love.

So we spent the day going back and forth from the fixer-upper to the rennovated home ...
And decided we'd kind of like to be forced to do our own updating.

Nobody else wanted that dumpy old home, so we didn't have trouble making an offer.  On October 27th, the house was ours, and we began the mad dash to get new floors, clean the ducts, and paint the walls before we moved in.

We had only two weeks before my due date arrived.