I have been working on this post since mid month so it is a little random because I sort of forgot what I was going to say about the pictures I had already uploaded. So bear with me if this post jumps all over the place.

I'm not sure why she thought this was a good idea, do you?

We had 8 yards af mulch delivered about 2 days before my back went out. So needless to say it sat in the driveway for over a week untouched. Nice.

Because my back was hurting hubby resorted to child labor.

Hmmmm, what is this thing for again?

Hubby and little miss did manage to get her custom swing (made by daddy) hung, which she has thoroughly enjoyed.

Front landscape bed of house before.

After.
Hubby and I let some professionals handle the beds. He hired 2 of the hardest working guys I have ever seen from who used to work with a friend of ours. They accomplished more in 8 hours than hubby and I could have done in a month. Well worth every penny!

Before.
Hideous dying dogwood tree.

After.
I need to take better after photos but you get the jist of it. I love that now the japanese maple is the focal point when you walk around the back of the house now.

Before.
Since we removed a tree in the back we added one in the front. Here hubby uses the truck to pull it into the hole. It was a big tree for us to wrangle on and off the trailer. I was a little doubtful it could be done but hubby managed.

It is a large crepe myrtle, we have no idea what color flowers it will have as it was a free tree. So it will be a surprise when it blooms.

Totally off topic but just had to throw this one in. Had a playdate at a local park this week and little man tried the swing for the first time. I think he liked it.
:)

I know you all are waiting on bathroom pics but hubby has requested that none be taken until it is truly finished. Hubby has now started the downstairs master bath and brought home a truckload of sheetrock last night to hang on the walls in there this weekend.  Pics to come eventually.
Have a great weekend, we are planning indoor projects to try to beat the heat. We will finish the landscaping when it it isn't 100+ degrees outside.

A little flashback...

I had a flashback to my childhood today while watching little miss out in the backyard. I let her use my ipod to listen to some music with headphones on. She was ecstatic because she figured out how to rewind and listen to her favorite Foster the People song over and over and over again, Pumped Up Kicks anyone? Any how it just made me remember how cool it was when I got my first Walkman. It looked a lot like this one.

Oh how awesome it was to be able to listen to my cool mix tapes I had made by taping songs off the radio. Totally!

So if you have a spare 42 seconds ...

Cracked me up!

We are still continuing to work on the house, that is never ending. We have several projects in the works but I have not have a chance to take updated pictures. We have been doing a little yard work, taking advantage of the nice but not yet brutally hot weather. Pics to come soon.

:) 

A little catching up

It's been a while since posting, I just have not had a moment in the last few weeks distraction free to sit in front of the computer and organize my thoughts. This is the third day in a row I have worked on this single post. I'm not sure if it was mine or hubby's bright idea to move, have a baby, buy a house, remodel and move again but seriously, what were we thinking?!

We finally got the new/old house in working order enough to move in so we have been slowly getting settled as the renovations continue.

Two days after we moved in hubby had the luxury of going to the Bahamas for "work."

This was his view for 5 days.

This was mine. I was just a little jealous.

Whoever invented shelf paper that sticks should be shot. This stuff took me several evenings to peel off the wood in the kitchen cabinets. I never want to see cutesy flower shelf paper again!

The kiddos are settling in. Little lady loves playing with little man, who much to her dismay has started rolling all the way over. He no longer makes a good snack bowl holder for her.

At some point I need to take updated pictures of the kids bathroom upstairs. The last pictures I took we were still waiting on the counter tops to be installed. Now I need to clean so you don't see the mess of four people sharing a bathroom before I do the big reveal.  :)



Making Progress

With our move out date of our rental house coming up quickly hubby has been working his tail off to get the house livable enough that we can move in.  The pressure is really on now that the owners of the rental house are moving back in, now there is no chance of extending our stay. On the upside however we no longer will have to pay the break lease fee. Whoohoo!

  

Hubby broke down and paid a carpenter to come and hang the bead board in the laundry room. Hell didn't freeze over like I think he thought it would. Hubby hates to pay someone to do something he can do but when you're in a time crunch...

Hubby installed the cabinets and the counter tops are being made this week.

I am excited about all the storage space these additional cabinets are going to give us.

The electrician will be coming this week to hang the light fixtures  and hubby will be madly installing tile in the shower this weekend. If all goes according to plan we should be able to have the bathroom up and running by the end of the month. 

Birthday Fun

Over the weekend we celebrated little lady's 4th birthday. We decide to celebrate with a day packed full of kid fun. 

Little lady was thrilled when she woke up and found this massive princess castle balloon floating in her room.

In her birthday dress and special princess party hat.

Little lady had requested an Ariel cake. We are all still wondering what she wished for though, she was so serious and really sat and thought it over before blowing out the candle. I am dying to ask her but then that would be breaking the cardinal rule of wish making, never reveal your wish.

Can't you just see the sugar rush kicking in from the butter cream frosting?

After getting her all jacked up on sugar we decided to take her to the indoor playground at Jungle Rapids. What better way to burn off some energy.

One of her favorite schoolmates happened to be there so the two of them had a great time playing together.

Bounce, Bounce

Aunt K tested out the kid sized chairs, I won't show the pic where it was stuck on her rear end!

A little clowning around with their mascot.

I have to admit that little lady had a great time there but I had to really suppress my want to completely wrap her in a germ free bubble. Especially when I saw her in the BALL PIT, AAAHHHHH! THE GERMS!

 All in all, I think we managed to spoil her rotten on her special day, so mission accomplished!

Monday, little man turned 2 months. What a difference 4 weeks makes. We will go for his check up early next week, it will be interesting to see what the official weigh in is.

One month old.

2 months old.

Quick Update

 The upstairs bathroom is really coming along. Hubby has been working night and day to get it all put together so we can move in soon.

Walls and ceilings are now painted. Shower is ready for tile.

View of other end of room.

This is most of the bathroom, unfortunately it is sitting in the living room. Tile, tile and more tile. Sinks and faucets all picked out and ready to be installed.

 Cabinets are being picked up today so things should progress pretty quickly.

More exciting than the bathroom renovation is that little man is starting to give some super sweet smiles which I just have to show off.

Nothing cuter than a smiling baby!

Where there's smoke there's fire, weekend adventure, and a little comparison

It's never a good sign when you look out your front door and you are greeted with the smell of smoke and more than one cop. Well any cop outside my door is bad news as far as I'm concerned but that's a story for another day. ;) Yesterday afternoon the woods a few blocks away from our home unfortunately caught fire. The worst part of the whole situation was that it was a very windy afternoon. The fire actually started across a 4 lane road and then the wind blew it across into the back of our neighborhood.

The police set up shop literally in our front yard. Our house was the cutoff for where they were asking people to evacuate.

The view down the block from our front yard. It was snowing big ashes for several hours. 

They had 1 helicopter and two planes circling and dropping water.

The fire department had it under control in about 5 hours, unfortunately three houses in our neighborhood were damaged. Today they are doing a controlled burn of the area to help ensure that what is still burning does not get out of control.

A little less exciting was our visit to the annual Azalea Festival.  



Hubby and I got a kick out of seeing the new nice marble benches the city installed on the waterfront. I guess beggars can't be choosers when it comes to business sponsors to buy the benches as the one hubby was resting his rear end on was bought by the local strip club! LOL! Not sure if you can make it out in the picture but their logo is a little pair of legs doing a high kick.  Nice.

Little lady was thrilled that she managed to sucker us into buying her a blow up monkey at the festival. Meet Snowflake her pink monkey. :)

I couldn't help satisfy my curiosity about the complete difference  in my two children as babies. Little man just seems so big. Last night I put him in some jammies that were little lady's when she was a baby.  Little lady shown on the right was 9 weeks old and was basically swimming in the jammies.




Little man shown on the left at 7 weeks 2 days is practically busting out of them. It will be the last time he wears them as his poor little legs were just barely able to fit. I also went and dug out little lady's baby book so I could refresh my memory on her weight as she grew. I was shocked to find that little man at 7 weeks out weighs her 3 month weight by 2 lbs! It's no wonder my back is aching! What a little bruiser!

Busy, Busy...

 The last two weeks have just flown by. I have turned the computer on several times to post and then get sidetracked until hours later I realize the computer is still on and I never even touched it! Little lady was on Spring Break the week before Easter so we were off our normal schedule and then this past week has been filled with school, swim lessons, tile shopping, etc. So here is a quick recap to catch us all up...

Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Little lady loved the super shiny eggs the Easter bunny left. I loved that they were super shiny so I could remember where I hid them.

This is what happens when hubby hires 5 guys to come help. It was amazing how fast they finished gutting the two bathrooms! They also did a wonderful job getting rid of this enormous pile into the dump truck Hubby brought. I would say that you could fit a car in the garage now but that would be a total lie. We have just managed to fill it back up with other mess. ;)

This dust has essentially coated the entire house, Hubby spent the entire day today mopping and cleaning so that we can bring the kids back in the house.

The upstairs bathroom is progressing. This picture was from a few days ago. Hubby had a guy come today to finish the sheet rock.

After removing a linen closet from the hallway and moving the door to the bathroom to where the closet once was the bathroom now has an additional 50sq ft. We finalized the choices for all the tile in the room but have not decided on the vanity, sinks and light fixtures. I need to get on it, this is where my indecisiveness becomes an issue. It is so hard to pick with all the choices out there these days. 

I did manage to use Hubby's leaf blower one afternoon on part of the backyard. It is just filled to the brim with all kinds of neat plants and pathways that we never even realized were there.

Little lady and I had a wonderful treat last week, a visit from a dear old friend, one of my college roomates and her family. She has a little girl who is just a little older than little lady. We took the kids to the aquarium and they had a great time. This was the best picture I got because the girls were so excited to play and be together that they barely could hold still.

An added bonus of that visit was that my friends daughter convinced little lady that the tree swing at the new house was indeed a cool thing to do so now little lady who was deathly afraid to try it is now begging for someone to put her on it. Monkey see, monkey do at its finest!  

The worst of the mess in the house is now done. The plumber, electrician and now the sheet rock guy have all done their stuff so now it is time for the fun stuff to begin. We hope to begin laying tile this week.