Random September

Nothing like being a few months late, right?

Here are my silly kids. The camera happened to be out and they wanted pictures taken, so I seized the opportunity. Alex LOVES doing crazy things and then seeing what he looks like on the screen. So he was posing with his sandwich here. Isn't that band-aid awesome? He had a small scrape on his nose, but INSISTED on a band-aid. Whatever kid.

Our stair railing got all finished! My dad had never done iron before, so he had a guy come and help him put it in. It went really fast and looks awesome! The only unfortunate thing about not having a wall and door there is that the basement noise tends to float right up the stairs and into Kaitlyn's room when she's napping. This leads to a lot of movie watching and playing with lots of shushing during nap time.
Overall, we love the improvement it's made to our house and everyone that sees it loves it. Our hall feels so much more open, which is nice!
We plan on eventually taking out the hall carpet and refinishing the old hardwood all the way down the hall.

I did a few new mermaid tails this year.
My good friend Lynsey and I contemplated how to make this one for a few hours. I had a customer who wanted a mermaid tail for her preschooler, but didn't want to worry about her tripping on it or holding it up all day. So we came up with this mermaid tail/skirt. It turned out really cute and I will probably make a few to stock this year.

I also made a mommy/daughter set. This lady's tail ended up being SO long. I made it according to a pattern that I have for the measurements the lady gave me and it was still big. She knew it was the first time I had ever made an adult tail and she was great. She said that it was fine and that she'd rather have it too big than too small. That is what I figured as well, so I'm glad that all worked out.

If only I could snap my fingers...

...and have my time consuming projects done! I don't mind the little things, but I get impatient for the big stuff.

My room makeover is getting closer to coming together and I can hardly stand the wait!

Last Saturday my dad came over and we discussed and planned making my new bed. Super excited about that!

I happened to hit up HomeGoods the other night and found THE perfect coral pillow for my bed. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find coral colored stuff? Especially pillows? Well I found one. It's fluffy and flowery and wonderful.
Kaitlyn saw it sitting in the pile of pillows the other day after her nap and insisted that it come up on the bed with her while she watched Nemo. She is such a girl.

My fun pillow pile (phone photo)

On Monday my mom was over helping me organize clothes (more on that later perhaps) and we laid out my duvet cover and pillows to figure out if I needed to take any pillows back. After seeing it all laid out I am SO excited to get it all put together!

Here is my list of things left to do for my bedroom. I have most of the small stuff and just need to do the big things.

• build and finish my bed
• paint the bedroom
• find a duvet that is fluffy enough for me (totally hitting up macy's etc. tonight after dinner)
• possibly paint my dresser. Or just get a white one. 
• do a room switcheroo. Moving closet contents will be a project for sure!
• find (or make) some curtains
• build a new nightstand (because it's easier to build everything at once)

AND I want do have it all done by the end of April. You know... that whole nesting thing. And the fact that it will be much easier to do all of these things when I am not engrossed in those lovely newborn days full of sleeping and eating (for all parties).

Also on my project "short list" (aka want to have it done in the next 6 months) is doing the nursery.
I know newborns don't need a nursery, but I want to work on the room either before the babe is here (to avoid the crazy) or in the few months after when the room doesn't really need to be used as baby will be in our room. Point is, I want it to be done and ready for when we are ready to kick the baby out of our room.

The thought of getting a nursery ready doesn't seem all that big of a deal, but this room... it's a big deal. This "little" project involves board and batten and paint and painting the crib white (I told my sister that we're pretty much going to turn that room into a spray booth, so if there was anything she wanted painted white...{I could totally paint my dresser white!}... bring it on over!) on top of all the little touches. Painting involves either taping off or removing the carpet and at least partially taking down the fan (undecided on if we should replace it or paint it) along with taking everything out of the closet and spraying in there.

AND since Alex and Kait will be sharing a room, I want to get their room done as well. This one is admittedly not a huge priority, but it would sure be nice to have all of my bedrooms done and happy. Then I'd only have the front room to finish up!

Decorating and getting your house to where you want it is such a process!
Currently, my kitchen is the only room that I've put any effort into decorating. We have been here for 1.5 years and I have hung all of eleven (eight of which are plates in my kitchen) things on my walls. Wait, I also randomly hung an iron thing in the bathroom on a nail that was already there because it mostly worked. So twelve things technically.
Decorating this house isn't as easy to decorate as my last house and I think my style is a little bit different. I also bought specific things for our house in TX that I'm just not sure where to put here. Moving is kind of a pain in the butt.

I don't know if my style has changed or if I have just become more picky about what I bring into my house. If I don't love it, I don't want it. I figure it's good common sense. If I don't love something I'll be constantly looking at it and wishing for something I like better. It's better to just save my money and get what I love.

Unfortunately, this also means that I don't like this or that about major pieces and don't want to buy something just because it's close or it will "work". I have to do a lot of searching, and often times in the end decide that the only way to go is to build some pieces (like my bed). The obvious con to this is the time factor. I can't just bring something home and be done. BUT I do get to save money and I get something that I love, which are both wonderful things.

We shall see how the next six months go project wise around here.

Not like we'll be busy with putting in a yard/fence and a newborn on top of being emotional (have I mentioned I'm due 10 days after Isaac and Evan's Angel day? And that Mother's Day and Memorial Day quickly follow that day?) or anything.
Either we have to get the projects done so we can be a little less crazy at a crazy time or we use the projects as yet another distraction.

Either way, I hope that my house will come together a little more in the next 6 months. Even the very slow progress has me quite excited for what's to come!

Picture Recap

Since posting pictures is easy and I need easy, this is my blog post.

In all honesty, it's weird to post about the little happy things we do when I still feel so sad all the time, thus why I haven't been around.


The other day I was thinking that I could liken losing Isaac and Evan to winning the lottery. It would be like getting the phone call and them letting you know that the money would be in your account in X days/weeks. Life couldn't be more sweet. Your family would be set for life. You wouldn't have to worry about college for your kids. You could take some fantastic vacations. You could buy a new car. You start making plans and dreaming about all the fun things you will do and how perfect life will be.
But just about as you are about to book your dream vacation etc., someone knocks on your door and takes you to a building where you are put into a small room with lawyers. They say that maybe something can be done and make a phone call. You wait in suspense and they come back and say sorry, we can't do anything. You're not getting the money.
All of the dreams come to an end. You have to tell your kids that they don't get to go to disney world. You're back to worrying about college and how you are going to get enough money saved in order to go on that dream vacation one day, knowing that it likely will never happen.

Of course all of that sounds easy to me after experiencing the thrill of twins and then losing every hope of that chance again in this lifetime.

Sorry, I guess I couldn't do a fully happy post after all. But to happy it back up, here's some pictures of our happenings.

One of our favorite things to do this summer was to bring dinner to this park and eat and play. 

We've been doing a lot of eating out as cooking is one of those normal things I'm just having a hard time getting back into. This is Jon and his very loaded pastrami burger (he commandeered my tomato and onion and alex's lettuce)

Kaitlyn loves glasses. My mom got her these ones (the lenses even flip open!) and she was loving them.

We finally pulled our outside toys out for the kids to play with! Looking forward to having more of a flat surface to put them on next year!

We had an enjoyable weekend in Bear Lake with my family and took the kids canoeing. I wouldn't say they loved it, but they liked it well enough.

I went on a big (at least 4 hours) ride with my cousins, uncle, and dad. It was super fun and super dirty!

This is Swan Lake

See? DIRTY! Thank goodness for helmets and goggles!

We were walking down to the park with the kids and found this guy on the road. Alex and Kaitlyn loved being able to see a dragonfly up close. He was BEAUTIFUL!

Kaitlyn usually likes to play with the dirt and the water table. Not a great combination.

Working on our stair railing finally!

In progress...

FINISHED! It is so nice to have this done! We love the open space it's created. Next step will be to take out the carpet in the hall and refinish the old hardwood that is under it. One day...

We've had to start keeping the markers up high. Kaitlyn is a lover of alternative mediums and tries to color on everything. The next day we discovered she had colored on pillows and the couch. Two days ago I looked at my wall by the stairs and discovered new crayon marks on it (I've already washed crayon off the walls twice in the past 3 months). She's not grasping the paper thing quite as well as Alex did at that age...

Kaitlyn loves to do whatever Alex does. She loves trying to ride his scooter and bike, so of course she had to try out his helmet as well. 

On the 15th, we went on a night canoe ride down a very calm river (like no current at  all)  with about 15 other canoes all with pumpkins on the bow and stern. It was fun, but the kids didn't like it as well as the last time we went canoeing (which could have been due to the fact that it was during a time where they would usually be going to sleep). This is our angry bird pumpkin which while it looks like it worked here, I didn't thin the skin enough so the light didn't really shine through anywhere except the parts that were cut out completely. Oh well. 

We went to a pumpkin patch and corn maze for Alex's preschool field trip. Both kids loved doing all the stuff there. I failed to bring snacks/lunch/water, so we left earlier than Alex wanted to- mostly because it was super hot that day and I was dying from heat exhaustion from walking around so much with out water. Lesson learned.

Kait with her pumpkin

Typical.

They had a "corn box" that Alex and Kaitlyn thought was great. (that's not Kaitlyn in the foreground. Just a random kid.)

Since we had to leave earlier than Alex wanted and he had a free pass to come back, we went back a couple of weeks later with Jon. It was one of the most enjoyable Saturdays we have had in a long time. 

Is it even possible to get good pictures of kids? 

Kaitlyn was of course very into walking by herself. We learned to bring snacks and water this time around so we were able to stay for a good long time.

Alex LOVED this huge slide!

I, of course, spent much of my October making mermaid costumes for my Etsy store. This was a plus sized costume that I made. It used LOTS of fabric and was a great learning experience. Both the mom and daughter loved their matching costumes. 

I had a lady request tulle on the open side, so I obliged. I thought it turned out really cute!

Since I needed to find a replacement fabric since the fabric like is shown in the above picture is discontinued, I found this stuff which turned out really cute as well. 

This is a not very effective traffic pattern since it's covered in costume madness.  I am happy to report that I have a much cleaner crafting area now. 

I was finally able to get piggy tails in Kaitlyn's hair. I probably could have done it long ago, but her hair on the outer parts is much shorter than it is in the middle, so it makes it tricky. She had these ones out about 20 minutes later. It may be a hopeless cause. 

Alex turned 5 and was over the moon about his Mario guys. I love that he'll pretend play with these guys instead of playing the Wii! His choice of dinner for his birhday? McDonald's of course. 

Here's Kaitlyn "dressed to the nines". So silly.

We cut down all of the crappy elm tress on our south property line so that we can put a fence up. I can't wait to do a detailed yard progress post as we've had a tractor and landscapers here this week!

House Projects 1 year later

Remember my post last year about all of the things we've done so far and the LONG list of things yet to do?
I thought you'd like a little update! Plus it makes me feel happy to see that we actually have been making progress on our home.

And so you don't have to go back and forth, here is the DONE list from last year:

• put in a tankless water heater (and thus pulled the old water heater out),
• new furnace and AC (was formerly swamp...so that was a project...)
• painted the bedrooms (and the molding in them) and 2 exterior doors
• totally retextured the walls and painted in the front room
• pulled out the last of the gross carpet that was downstairs
• put in new basement windows
• pulled out old sprinkler pipe, various debris, and HUGE dead trees in the backyard
• took down a ratty old over grown chain link fence from 3 sides of our .46 acre lot
• tore out and poured a new driveway
• pulled out various bushes and creeping jenny that was taking over the fence and trees
• regraded the dirt to slope away from the house in the back
• dug some trenches for future sprinkler pipe
• and added insulation to the attic.

Not bad.

Now onto what else we've finished!

• went tractor crazy on the yard and moved a LOT of dirt to give us a better back yard. We got some Adriondak chairs the other day and plopped them down where we can sit and look at the dirt and plan. It's kind of beach-esque. And I'm sure kind of amusing for everyone that drives by and sees them.
• FINISHED the basement!!! We hired someone to come put all of the molding in, hired someone to paint (umm... no, we didn't want to prep and paint a 3 tone paint job in 1000 sq. ft. of living space), and Jon picked out some fabulous carpet (which only took us about 3 weeks to decide on). 
• And since the basement got finished, we got to UNPACK!!! Yes, that counts as a project. I fully admit there are still boxes down there that haven't found a home (and a lot of it is seasonal stuff anyway), but having a room that you can actually walk into and around in is marvelous.
• Painted the baseboard and door trim in the family room
• Took out a freaking load bearing wall, re-textured the whole hallway, and did a 3 tone paint job. YAY for white doors, ceilings, and trim. So so wonderful.
• Put in a stair railing. This wasn't supposed to happen for like 5 years. But we love it and we love our sectional, so it was nice that I didn't have to wait 5 years and that I got a fabulous couch.
• Pulled out MORE fence along the back of our property and had our property surveyed and learned that we have a little more space than we thought.
• Planted some bushes in the front. Grew weeds everywhere else. 
• Finished the art room and made plans for the future bedroom/bathroom/closet/storage room that will eventually take over that space. 
• Organized my new crafty space and hung the first things on the walls. Still haven't hung any other pictures/decor. Moving and trying to find places for things that were bought specifically for spaces in the old house is hard.

So what's left?

• Kaitlyn's room. I'm itching to get started on that. I have the paint all ready and waiting. I just need to convince Jon that cutting mdf is fun. And really... we need to do that before it gets cold. 

• The yard. Oh the yard. We still need to level it out and get a final grade on it. We need to figure out just what we are doing with the massive elm trees that are riding the property line (next door to a rental). After that is a fence (next door to a rental on a .48 lot...). Then planning out where all the plantings are going to go so that we can plan out the sprinklers. And if we're digging for that, we have to consider landscape lighting. Until then, Alex and Kaitlyn like the dirt. Kaitlyn likes to sit and dump it on her legs which makes Alex freak out that she's getting dirty and putting it all over herself.

•  The storage/bedroom/bathroom downstairs. We'll get around to this when we decide we're tired of not having a bathroom downstairs.

• Hanging pictures and general decorating. It took me 3.5 years in Texas. I have plenty of time to get things right.

• Texturing and painting the kitchen. And doing SOMETHING about my cabinets.

• Taking out the hallway carpet and refinishing the original hardwood. The mismatched carpet which was fine when there was a wall and door separating the 2 was fine. Now it's a little weird. We'll see if I get crazy enough to want to refinish the bedrooms too. (shh... don't tell Jon I said that.)

• Rework the laundry room into a more usable space. Plans right now involve some wall removal, a utility sink, and possibly a shorter counter and bench. I need to use it for another year or so before I figure out the best solution.

• Texture and paint the bathroom. The drywall patching in there is horrible. And not quite sure what the deal was with the primer, but we have major paint bubbles (due to moisture getting under the paint) and paint chipping off. It's pink underneath. Bright 70's bubble gum pink. The built ins will also be painted white and may possibly be reworked. The drawers are old and don't work super well. 

• Eventually figure out how I'm going to have a bigger/more open kitchen and still have a workable front door with an actual foyer area.

• And of course a garage one day. It may start with a single by building in our carport, but eventually we'll have a real 2 (or 3...) car garage again (though it's totally going to have more clearance than our garage in Texas had so we can actually park 2 cars in there and have storage space.)
  
• And the master bath and closet are definitely on the list, but that likely won't come until we're making garage plans, so we may move downstairs into the suite that we are planning for down there before we get to the garage and possibly adding on.

What's funny is that when we moved here we thought that maybe we'd just do a total remodel/addition/total house encasement in 10-15 years and have our dream house, but I'm actually really liking my house and the house that it will be. I wish that there was a better place for my front door and a way for my family room to have large windows to the backyard without totally having to rework everything, but that's okay. I have many many years before I have to decide if I even want a huge remodel/addition/encasement.

1 year later, still writing at 2 am, still loving our house and it's awesome potential.

Yard improvement!

Our awesome neighbors donated some boxwoods to us that they were taking out (because the old lady they bought their house from had them EVERYWHERE and in weird places). I finally got the little hedge I was wanting in front of my porch. The bonus is that I don't have to buy tiny plants and wait for them to grow.
We also were able to fill in our front planting area a little more. I think that planting area is going to be shrinking eventually. It's just so big and a little out of scale.

Anyway, we are loving the end result and think that the new bushes look fabulous!

Before:

After:

Other exciting yard news: we had our lot surveyed. We have a bunch of crappy (minus their age/height/shade factor) elms right on our property line. We wanted to see just how much they were on our side or our neighbors side so we can start figuring out a fence. Good news for us is that our existing fence to the side of our driveway is about 2 feet onto our property at least at where the stake is- we still need to string it to get a full line) and it appears that most of the trees are on our side with maybe 1 big one riding the line.
So we may not have any issues with taking them out without the consent of the neighbor (which is actually a rental property). We do need to see if he is okay with putting the fence on the line instead of very much on our side of the line though. Hopefully he'll agree since it will be an improvement to his property (we doubt that he will pay anything for it because most of his lot is just weeds).

The other cool thing with the property line being 2 feet over is that we could actually extend jon's little parking spot over there. That extra 2 feet would make it so that we could probably close in our carport so that we'd have a garage (!!!). As it is, his door opens into the open space in the wall. He wouldn't be able to open his door if there was a wall there, so that 2 feet would give him that space.
Just add that to the list of projects...