House Improvements

 I was woken up Saturday morning by Tommy saying that rocks had fallen down and broke everything on our desk.  I thought he was telling a tall tale. 

 Then I came downstairs and looked out the window to see this. Our poor rock wall had collapsed.  We almost thought we had an earthquake because the clock fell off the wall in the toy room too.  But that was a random coincidence. Turns out, we had too much water and lots of wind and down came the wall.  Bummer.

But Andrew got to work and made the rock wall as good as new! Nice work, AT!!! Looks great!

House Renovations

 We decided to do some renovating in our house.  Are we fixing the drywall from the flood in November? Ah, no.  But we are working on the floors in the kitchen.  Ugh, we have wanted to do this for SO LONG. Three years I think? Pretty much since we moved in.  It was never first priority but we decided to make it so. Finally so here we go. 

 Our fridge and stove were in the living room, along with our kitchen table and our trash can for over a week.  It was lovely.  So eating at home was difficult. 

 The first day we decided to just go out to eat.  We went to Applebees so the kids could burn off some energy at the mall. 

 Charlotte loved her chicken quesadilla.  It was a big kids meal and she ate the whole thing! Her appetite is incredible.

 Tommy's appetite is the opposite.  He has always been such a good eater until he turned 4.  Now it's a battle every night. But he enjoyed his chicken a little. Mostly just the fries.  That kid could live on fries, fries and more fries.  He practically does. 

 Then we went to Red Mango for ice cream.  Yum!


On Tuesday, Tommy said he wanted Wendy's (his new fave place, too bad there's not one on 26). So we decided to head over to Toys R Us so the kids could burn off some energy (sensing a theme here?) and then headed to Wendy's.

 Charlotte picked out what she wanted... two of what she already has.  Two Charlotte-sized Minnie Mouses.  She. Adores. Minnie. 

Charlotte also liked the ride-on cars! Tommy was the only one that went home with a toy though (Second-child Problems).  He got a super cool stegosaurus.  

 The rest of the week we brought home food and ate it in the living room.  Blech.  But it worked!

 There was not a lot of room for "burning off energy" so it was a difficult week. 

 It wasn't done by the weekend so we still had to eat out on Saturday and Sunday.  Where did we go? Applebees again.  Ha! We were eating good in the neighborhood. Charlotte was excited!

Off the table, silly girl! 

So anyway, it was finished today.  HOORAY!!! It's awesome.  Ready for Renovation Pics? Here... We... Go....

 We love our tile guy.  He's so organized. 

 We chose a 12x24 inch tile.  Very cool looking. 

So went we bought the house in 2011, this is what the kitchen looked like.

 Then we painted and replaced appliance and cabinet handles...

OMG, look at that hanging lamp! I totally forgot about that! 

 

Then we re-did the backsplash and countertops...

 

And now... drumroll please... the finished project!

Hey Charlee Bean! 

 Hey Thornburg! Lookin' cool in your new kitch, dude!
So there's a couple more things we might do like replace the fluorescent light and the scalloped bar over the sink.  Annndddd..... maybe take out half that wall to the dining room.  We shall see.  But we are so very pleased with our reno.  Wowzers.  It makes such a difference!!

 Here's a different view.

Hi again, Andrew! 

Charlotte loves her new kitchen!

We loooooovvvveee our new floor.  What a beautiful update.  

So I wonder what we should work on next.... Hmmm.... ;-)

Evolution of a Deck

 We needed a new deck... so we got one! Here are some pictures of the old deck back in 2011.  It was getting old and needed resurfacing due to old rotted wood and lack of care (our bad). 

 Look at all those leaves!! Closing in on 3 years ago.  Wow. Crazy how time flies.  We were just figuring out Tommy's food allergies at that time.  Sheesh. 

 So we really like our deck.  We considered adding square footage.  But then we would have to file a permit and spend way more money and blah blah blah... we ended up deciding against it. 

 But we did change the design a little.  We decided to add bench seating instead of a railing and open up the steps a bit.  

 We kept the same structure underneath and built on that. 

Since we didn't expand it, we could keep all the rocks and landscaping around it.  

This is the deck before the bench seating was added.  It already looks way bigger.

 Finished product! (Besides the stain) 

We already absolutely love it.  Tommy is a big fan too! Lots of room for basketball dunking. :)

Funny story: After the deck was done, we had a man from the city stop by our house with a big red violation sticker. 
"Um, sir, we see you built a deck without a permit.  Do you mind if I take a look at your deck?"
Andrew had to explain that we didn't build a brand new deck nor did we expand the existing square footage so we didn't need to file a permit according to the company that built it for us.  So he took a look at it and looked at Andrew's pictures.  Then he went and talked to our deck company.  We were cleared.  Phew! But it sounds like someone told on us.  Grrrr.  Jerks.
Oh well.  We didn't break any laws and we have a beautiful new deck. 

Now... what color to stain it? Brown? Reddish? Natural wood? What do you think?

House Update: Baby Applesauce's Room

On Sunday we decided to FINALLY finish up Applesauce's room.  I haven't posted anything about what we've been doing so I have a lot to catch up on.  

Let's go back to where we started... all the way back to the day when we bought our house (two years ago this fall).  

 So this is what our house looked like when we bought it.  Ugh, that's a LOT of white paint. :-)  You can see railing of the stairs extends to the open area at the top of the stairs.  We decided we needed an extra bedroom upstairs so we closed that part in.

 This is how it used to look from the open area looking toward our bedroom.  (Look at how little Tommy was- 10 months).

 So back in APRIL, we started construction.  Well not WE but the people we hired.  Frame is up!

 Drywall too!

Now the paint! It really fits in well in the house, like there was always supposed to be a bedroom there. Wonderfully perfect.  

 So now it's a baby's room! We hope Applesauce likes it!

 Curtains from Target... because we don't know that other stores exist.  The trusty ol' boppy is from when Tommy was little.  She does have two new pink stuffed toys waiting for her in her crib that will be ALL HERS.  No hand-me-downs there!

We moved over all of Tommy's baby furniture.  Tommy got a new set.  We'll have to show you that in a future post.

 I made the pennant banner from different ideas on Pinterest.

 I found a couple of posters also on Pinterest that I totally copied and plan to hang on the wall somewhere.  For now they are sitting on the dresser.  You can see the Star piggy bank that a friend of mine got for Tommy.  We already had a blue pig piggy bank for him so now we can use the star for Applesauce.
Also I got a little hat rack when I was shopping on Saturday for all the headbands and hats that Applesauce will wear.  Whee!

This is the new view when you go to exit the room.  The closet is on the right.  I hope Applesauce can handle having a small closet for awhile.  

Another hand-me-down that worked out almost too perfectly is this calendar.  We received two calendars at Tommy's baby shower(s).  Again, we used the blue one (just like the piggy bank) and the yellow and purple one will be used for Applesauce! Nice! Crazy how well it matches.  I did NOT do that on purpose either. 

The star hanger is something I picked up at a resale shop while shopping on Saturday.  

Hope the baby likes Wi-Fi! 

So the final touch is that we have to move the Wi-Fi and router out of the baby's room and into a more open space.  As much as it really adds to the decor of the baby room, I will be so excited to get it out of there! :-)  

So that's what we've done so far.  We'll have only a few minor updates from here on out but we wanted to get all the big stuff done now.  Only 6.5 weeks to go!  Getting excited! 

Discovering a Creek

Today we ventured down by the 'crick'.  We live by a nice creek (which has a winery named after it) so we decided to check it out. I didn't bring my phone so I had to use Andrew's to take pictures.  The shutter on his phone (who would have thought I'd ever use that sentence) is insanely slow (or maybe it has something to do with the software, no clue) and it drives me crazy.  The pictures might have turned out a little better if I had my phone. Or maybe not. :)

 This year has been especially dry so the water level is very low.

I think Andrew enjoyed it as much as Tommy did.  

Tommy's favorite part was throwing rocks.

Some parts of the creek were deep and some were super shallow. Tommy's shoes got soaked, of course.

The water would run through the rocks and make the coolest designs.  

 We found out today how good dada is at skipping rocks.

 Aww, sweet moment between father and son.

We absolutely loved adventuring around the creek.  We can't wait to bring people with us next time.  It would be a great place to just hang out and play in the mud, rocks and water.  Great for kids! Who wants to come??? :)