Great Books!

I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately (at the expense of my household chores!) and thought I would share some of my favorites.....
-Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp- I would suggest this book to anyone who is a parent... Definitely eye-opening for me. Drew is reading it now as we start to discuss how we plan to discipline Evan.

-The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson- This book really opened my eyes to the awesome responsibility that I have as a mother in touching little Evan's heart for eternity. It helped reinforce to me that my role as a mom in today's society is so important and that my job responsibilities as a stay-at-home mom are just as important as those moms who work each day.

-Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver- I am reading this book with my Bible Study Group and we are all learning so much... It's all about finding intimacy with God within the busyness of life... Many times I have felt like the pages were written just for me.....


-Karen Kingsbury Christian Fiction- Karen has always been one of my all-time favorite Christian fiction authors. Although all of her books are excellent, I am partial to the 3 series about the Baxter family. The first series is The Redemption Series, the second is The Firstborn Series, and the third is The Sunrise Series. I just finished the last book of the third series (shown above) and am so sad that she is finished with the Baxter family. Karen uses modern day events and trials to make you feel like you're a part of each book... I would definitely recommend these to anyone who enjoys Christian fiction!

Family Fun!

Well, we've been keeping pretty busy at the Baker house... Drew has made amazing progress on our basement (with help from both of our dads)... The main rec room is all painted and the floor is about halfway done... We hope to have the floor finished this weekend and then we're ready for the light fixtures and pool table!!! It's starting to get exciting watching it come together.. I'll post pictures soon! And of course we've managed to spend lots of time together as a family too... We just love this fall weather and playing outside :) Hope all is well with everyone in bloggerland!!

Playing Grammy's piano...
Eating supper down at the park....

Picnic at the park...

Cheese!!

Bonfire... We've discovered that the baby monitor reaches outside into my parent's backyard.. So we can even enjoy a campfire after Evan is asleep!

Playing with his letters on the fridge.... These jammies are from Grandma Charna- aren't they so snuggly??

Fun Weekend!

We had a great weekend! Saturday morning we just hung out around home and got some work done in the basement and played with Evan. We went to the Fort Wayne Zoo in the afternoon with a family from our church. It was perfect zoo weather and we all had a great time! Thanks Tom , Jaren and Addie for the invite. We'll have to do it again sometime soon... Then Sunday Drew got the ceiling painted in the basement before Drew's brother and his kids arrived from Chicago. We celebrated Ty's birthday a little early and just hung out all day. Evan loves playing with his cousins! All in all, we had a great weekend of family and friends....

Evan and Daddy in front of the water fountain at the zoo... Those look like sleepy eyes!

Evan and his girlfriend Addison..... Aren't they cuties???Both kids were getting a little cranky at this point... Evan was rubbing his sleepy eyes and Addie was eating her sock!

Mommy and Evan on the carousel... He loved it!

I just had to add in this picture... These are my puggle boys... We help with the Awana at our church every Wednesday night and this year we all got matching Puggle shirts (A puggle is a baby platapus and that's what Evan's age group is called)...

Ty's birthday party....

Singing Happy Birthday to Ty....

Blowing out SIX candles! Look at those cheeks :) Thanks for visiting Hailey and Ty.... It's always great to see you guys!!

The Basement- A Work in Progress....

Ok, so these will all be BEFORE pictures... Needless to say, the basement needed quite a bit of work.... Drew worked pretty much every day in the last couple of months since we've moved in order to get the ceiling ready to be drywalled (electrical, insulation, demo, ripping up carpet, etc). The drywall is now done, but the basement is pretty dusty and messy. We hope to be painting this weekend and flooring the following weekend (in the main room), so I will post the AFTER pictures sometime soon!!

This is a view of the main room in the basement ... We will use this as a rec room (bar, pool table, furniture with tv, etc). There are three "usuable" rooms off of this room (the other doors are storage areas). The door straight ahead in this picture will be my scrapbook room/future office and there are two doors off to the right. One of these rooms will eventually be a spare bedroom and bathroom, and the other will be Evan's playroom. We have decided to wait a little while to finish these 3 rooms, but hopefully they'll be done within the next year or so...

This was the bar that was here... We're going to redo it.. Paint and put a new countertop on it...

Another view of the main room... The door at the left is the door that looks out into my parent's backyard...
The spare bedroom (We did have the ceiling and walls of this room drywalled- even though we won't finish it right away). The other two rooms will eventually have drop ceilings.
Looking into the bathroom from the spare bedroom....

The spare bedroom.... Still needs a lot of work!

Evan's playroom....

Evan's Room and the Office

The office before... The previous owners had two girls... Is that pink or what????

We decided to paint the office blue because it will eventually be Evan's room when we have another baby and we didn't want to have to paint it again (and no- for all of you who are curious- I am not pregnant!!)

The office after...

Evan's room...

Evan's room...Evan's room...

Upstairs Bathrooms

Master bath before...

Master bath after- We painted, replaced the carpet with tile, replaced all the fixtures, and bought a new medicine cabinet...

Master bath after...
Spare bath before...

Spare bath after- We painted, replaced the floor, and replaced all the fixtures... The green was a little of a stretch for me, but Drew wanted me to do something a little more bold than all the browns we were using in the rest of the house...Spare bath after...

Family Room and Master Bedroom

The family room before...Family room after...
Family room after... Not quite sure what show was on the tv?!?

Master bedroom after- For some reason I didn't take before pictures of this room... We have purchased the same wood flooring we put in the kitchen and dining room and plan to put it down within the next few months...

Master bedroom...

Master bedroom...

Laundry Room, Kitchen, and Dining Room

Laundry room before- This is the only room on the main floor we haven't done anything to since we moved... We plan to paint, replace the flooring, and update all the fixtures within the next few months....

The kitchen before- Notice the yucky linoleum that was here before we put the new wood floor down...

Another view of the kitchen before....

The dining room before...

The kitchen after- We still need to put the handles on the cabinet above the microwave and we hope to replace the microwave and dishwasher to match the new stove....The dining room after...

The dining room after and the door to the deck...