Decorations

So as I stated in my previous post, I get sad when the Christmas decorations go down, and I needed a project to work on. It's early for it, but I am impatient and wanted to do something NOW. You know, I was never really into doing a lot of decorating at all. I wanted to, but I never did. I thought it took up too much space, and I never felt like I could do much in our rented apartments anyway. I never felt like we belonged there enough to really make it "homey". But now I can do whatever I want to! And I have space to store things. So here it is. First I had Will cut some blocks out for me:

At first when I asked him if he could cut me a few blocks with scrap wood and route out the edges, he wasn't sure. I couldn't figure out why on earth he wouldn't be able to, and when I finally explained exactly what I wanted, it made sense - he told me he thought I wanted him to cut baby blocks out and do letters on them, or something like that. I have a lot of faith in my husband's woodworking abilities, but really, I don't know if a router could do that anyway.

I painted the blocks white and cut out pink fabric to fit them. Then I free-handed some letters on black fabric and ironed them on to the pink with applique paper and glued those to the blocks. I put a few layers of a mixture of Glue-All and water (basically, a cheap version of Mod-Podge) on them until they got hard and smooth, then a quick coat of sealant over the top.

Ta-dah! Nothing too special, but I think they're cute. Of course, I'll have to put them away until, like...February 12th, but whatever. ;)

Just some randoms!!

Kaylee absolutely loves her doll she got from Grandma G. for Christmas this year. She sleeps with it all the time. I've been helping her learn to sleep better with noise, light and in different places, so I was finally able to take a sleeping picture without worrying about waking her up! I don't know if it would have awakened her before, but I was always too scared to take the chance.

She woke up very happily later when the cat came and sniffed her face. I don't know if the cat enjoyed this part or not, but I thought it was cute.

Will cut me some cute blocks to use for a decoration I want to make. I always get really sad when we put the Christmas things away and I needed something new to work on. I'll put pictures of it up later. :) Kaylee was very interested in the blocks. I'm thinking she really needs some wood blocks to play with!

My second pizza stone attempt! It was better than the first, but my yeast didn't work for some reason and it came out a bit tough - no big deal, it was still delicious, but I'm sure I can do better.

So, I may or may not be a bit obsessed with taking pictures of Kaylee's eyes. They're always so big and full of expression that I can't help it. And she always comes up close to the camera, so I don't have much choice. I am biased, I admit, but isn't she beautiful?

Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year we went to Will's parents' house. As always, it was a bit chaotic, but that's half the fun! Although, I can't say I'm a fan of all the tantrums, but you know, with 5 kids under 7 I think you can't really help but have a bit of that. We left early on Christmas morning so we could go to our ward and sing in the choir program. I was so excited to finally be able to sing in the Christmas program. It has been NINE years since I have sung in one. I've always played the piano. So I insisted we go home early to be able to do that. But it was a mistake, I think - at least kind of. We were all rushed to get there in time, and then Kaylee went completely crazy. I mean really crazy. She refused to behave at all and was just screaming and screaming her head off. She didn't want to sit with anyone else, which she normally would love. When I went to get her, someone took my seat up in the choir stands, and sat on my music, so I couldn't go back up with her once she calmed down like I'd planned. I was extremely disappointed about it. But...there's always next year! Then we'll have two kids to deal with instead of one. That'll make it easier, right??

So when it came to gifts I was very, very spoiled this Christmas. I got everything I really wanted, plus of course my amazing camera from Tim (which I wanted, but would never even think to ask for), and...diamond earrings from Will! I have to say, I was a bit shocked when I opened them. I wasn't expecting anything like that AT ALL because money has been tight with all the house projects we've done lately, but he must have had some secret stash hidden away. Here I was trying to be really frugal! I think he wanted to make up for the earrings he bought me for our first anniversary. I loved them and wore them all the time. Unfortunately, one day, the backing came off of one and I lost it (they were not diamond, thank goodness, but I was completely heartbroken). These have screw-in backs so I think I'll be safe now. I don't think earrings can fall out when they're bolted into your ears.

I was going to put a few pictures on here, but there were just too many. So instead, go here. :)

My new camera!

So I got a bit spoiled this Christmas. In our family name exchange, my brother Tim had our family. Apparently he had some idea how much I have wanted a nice camera for years. I mean, probably since I was 12 or 13. I have always been really interested in photography, and while my regular little point and shoot was great, I felt so restricted by it sometimes. So, he bought me a Canon Rebel. (EOS T21i, to be exact.) Yup, basically my dream camera. The one I've been drooling over forever. Just the right balance for me - simple enough to pick up and use, and yet advanced enough to really do some fun stuff. Oh, and he included another lens as well, which I actually have been using most of the time - I prefer it over the standard one for a lot of shots. I think I'm going to start a separate photography blog soon, so I can talk more about it without boring everyone that reads this one. Probably more for my benefit. So I'll stop this writing nonsense and do what I know you all really want me to: post some pictures.

This first one is a little orphan girl we found on the street on Christmas Ever. Er, okay...it's my daughter. I was so busy figuring out my new camera that she got neglected a bit. Luckily her aunts took over and cleaned her up. But I can't help posting this picture - look at her eyes!

 

I can't believe how much more expression I can capture easily with this camera. I love how much more natural everything looks.

Will took this one. It shows my absolute number one favorite thing well: the ability to focus on one distinct object or area. I did a lot of it myself before I had this camera, but you know, Photoshop can only go so far. Not to mention the ridiculous amounts of time it would take to get close to how I wanted it to look.

Anyway, I am super excited about having this camera. I wish Tim could have been there to see me open it! I'm going to post about our Christmas now and upload some more pictures...

New oven!

I've been planning on posting this for a while but have had trouble with the pictures so it took forever. Anyway, we moved into our house and the oven was the only appliance that came with it. And it was no surprise that they didn't want it. The oven part worked pretty well, but the stovetop was another story. It was nasty! Something ate through it and left it such a mess that the burners wouldn't work well at all. The back left one worked okay, but the other ones had two settings - on, and off. They would either burn my food or not cook it. So, so obnoxious. The handle on the door kept falling off and was stripped, so it would never last long when Will would put it back on. The side of the glass door on the front was falling off, you can see in the picture some lovely duct tape meant to hold it on. It obviously didn't work very well. One time the glass door fell out when I opened the oven. Yeah, basically, we REALLY needed a new one. We had to wait a couple of months though. We got a gift card from Sears for $625 for doing our new furnace with them, so we used that. We wanted to get it on Black Friday to get a good deal, but it didn't work (of course) because something went wrong with activation and it never went through. It ended up not being a big deal though, because the deals they had weren't great anyway. We went to a bigger store, and they had a good deal on one we liked. And then since they had to order it in, they gave us $50 off! Totally worth the wait, in my opinion.

And our new oven! We love it. (I was making caramel popcorn in the picture...)

Troopers

These kitties are troopers. They put up with being chewed on, picked up by the head, sat upon, used as pillows, pulled around by their tails, and other things that I probably haven't seen. They take it in stride and still love playing with Kaylee. They literally follow her around (and vice versa...) and play with her all day. It is so funny! Here they are playing in her dollhouse (that she dragged out of her room and into the hallway all by herself).

Pregnant!!

Well, it must be official now because it's on Facebook. Here is a picture of me at 16 weeks:

I already have a little bump. Not enough for people to really tell but it's definitely there. I had an appointment with my midwife yesterday evening. The nurse looked at me and said "Oh, you must be barely pregnant, right? First trimester?" and I said that no, I was 16 weeks. She looked surprised. But then my midwife felt my uterus and I can't remember exactly what she said, but something along the lines of me having a large uterus. Not sure how to take that one. Is that a good thing?? Hope that doesn't mean it's just a really big baby! Then she used a doppler to listen to the heartbeat, like they do every time to make sure the baby is doing okay. Normally they have to kind of "look around" a little bit to find it, but this time, she literally just set the wand on me and it was right there, and very strong. Either they were lucky, or I have a ninja baby. They did change my date when I had an ultrasound last month, I'm a week and a half ahead of what I thought...although, it's confusing. They told me I was due May 26th, and 17 weeks today. Well, if I'm 17 weeks today, then I'm 40 weeks on May 23rd. It just doesn't add up. So who knows where I am.

Either way, I can't BELIEVE I am almost halfway. It is flying by so far. Taking away a week here or there helps. ;) There will always be the people who say "Ohh, just wait till you're huge and miserable!!" but I hope that never happens, like it never did with Kaylee. The night before I had her, I was planning on going frisbee golfing and I was still running up the stairs two at a time. I felt great, and I would love to have that again. We'll see though! This pregnancy has been a bit different, so I don't know what the rest of it will be like.

Wedding preparation...

My brother-in-law is getting married on December 22nd, and it's been fun getting Kaylee's outfit ready. I originally wanted her to wear a teal dress that I found (their color is teal, and in the pictures the color looks really blue, but it's actually got a hint of green). However, they wanted her to wear black like the rest of the grandkids (they are all boys, wearing black suits). So, a black dress it is.

I had lots of fun creating her outfit, but had a few difficulties along the way. In fact, every piece of her outfit gave me some sort of trouble! My first dilemma: her dress. No one had a black dress in her size. I basically only shopped at Jolene, because I don't think anyone else would ever have a black dress that size, at least not the kind we were looking for. The first store had a billion newborn sizes, and then like...8 and up. My mother-in-law checked in Provo, not there. I went all the way to Sandy, and nothing. Finally, I checked back at my local store here, and THEY HAD ONE! They also had another one, new, just in...a plain black dress, with a removable sash. That was EXACTLY what I wanted!! But of course, none in her size. Every. Single. Size. Except for Kaylee's. *sigh* So I bought the other one with the built in black sash, and took it apart, took out the sash, added loops, and sewed it back together. I was determined that she have exactly the right dress. And it worked.


My second dilemma: what for her feet? Tights wouldn't work. Black tights would just be too much black for me. I HATE too much black. (It nearly killed me a couple of years ago, when Aveda took over my cosmetology school and I had to wear all black every day.) White would stand out and look weird, and good luck finding teal tights anywhere - at least, I never had any luck, especially not ones that were the right shade. So I finally decided to make frilly teal socks to match. I had never done anything like that before but I LOVE how they turned out!



My third dilemma: the sash. Normally that would be no big deal at all. However, the only ribbon I could find that was the right color was not wide enough for a sash. I bought some fabric to sew one, but thanks to my ability to lose things, I can't find an absolutely essential piece of my sewing machine. Actually, I think Kaylee took it off the table and ran off with it, but I can't really blame her because I did not witness it. One foot still works without it, but there is something wrong with it where it gets caught on itself and "jumps" up and down, making it extremely difficult to sew straight and even stitches. It's bad. Especially with silky, slippery fabric. But I gave it a go anyway, and here is the result! It certainly worked. I had to iron it past the seam a little bit so you can't see how crooked it is, but I am quite pleased with it. The only other problem was the ends of the sash. I have never been that great at hand sewing, and I didn't know how to do a hidden seam. I tried one side and it looked absolutely horrible. I mean really, REALLY bad. So bad that I showed Will and he just busted up laughing. And you know when Will just laughs at something I made, it's bad. It probably helped though, that I was laughing at it first. The other side, I tried something else, and it was perfect. I couldn't believe the difference. I should have taken a picture to compare them, but I was too embarrassed. Anyway, I took out the first one and re-did it, so they both look great now.

The last dilemma: the hair bow. I am horrible at making hair bows. Some people have this knack, and they can just whip up adorable bows like nothing. Mine always end up twisted, flat, crooked, too bunchy...just never very good. I don't know why. I mean, I'm a fairly crafty person, and pretty good at nearly anything I want to do. Even frilly socks. But bows? Eh, not so much. So this one is not perfect but I think it will do!

The finished product!

Okay, so my daughter is not really a product, but you know what I mean. I am so happy with how everything turned out. Hopefully the bride will agree and it will pass her inspection!

First snow!

Okay, so technically it wasn't the first one. It was really the third one, but the first one that Kaylee actually had a coat and could go outside and play!

She was scared at first. You can see in the picture she really just wanted me to hold her, because she couldn't figure out how to walk in it without tripping.

But, she got the hang of it pretty quickly and took off down the street.

I helped her make a little snow angel, then she was so wet we decided to go inside! She had a lot of fun but was still not completely sure what to make of it.

Some Randoms...

Here are my finished shelves and decorations in the dining room. My husband is awesome and made very nice little shelves for me, from scrap wood we had lying around, and he routed the edges and everything. I painted them black with acrylic paint and then put a clear varnish on them. I love them.

Goofy cat in the cupboard:

This cat sleeps in the WEIRDEST positions. This is not the weirdest I've seen, but the only one I've managed to get a picture of.

So, we wanted to get our backyard in at least decent shape before winter, because it's sort of turning to just dirt and we're afraid if we don't do anything, it'll be a big mud pit next spring and we'll have to really re-do everything. So we put a sprinkler out. Oops...left it on all night (that's gonna be expensive). This is our backyard now.

We've been working a LOT outside in the front yard this week. We planted four bushes, dug everything up for our garden (easier said than done, because it's kind of heavy soil with quite a bit of clay and a few rocks...also, extremely dry). We also made this awesome little corner in our yard. Isn't it great? I'm so happy with it. We planted dwarf daffodils around it as well, so we'll have some color next spring.

That's all for now!! Things are getting better and better every day.

House pictures: One month

One month later we have made so much progress. Everything is going great and I'm so happy with it all. Out of all the rooms, the kitchen and dining room have had the most attention.

We put in a new chandelier, filled in all the stucco walls, painted and added wainscoting to the dining room. Will helped me make the cute little shelf next to the picture on the wall, and there will be a matching one on the other side (hopefully tonight).

In the kitchen, we replaced the window and sill (now we just need to tear out the little addition so LIGHT comes through the new window), installed new countertops, changed the faucet, put in a tile backsplash, and fixed the gross hole underneath the sink. We still need to work on trim and edges, as well as a bit of paint touching up, but it's looking pretty good so far!

 I did the tiling almost all by myself. This corner was a bugger - I had to cut a LOT of tiles to make it work. It doesn't look so great in this picture because it was not grouted yet.

We pulled out that huge ceder bush in the front of our house, cut the rosebushes down to size, planted a little cherry tree (not in this picture) and started planning out our garden/landscaping for the front yard. And we lost one number on our house...well, I accidentally pulled it off and never put it back on. We didn't really lose it.

The living room. It's not even close to how I want it yet, but it's functional and not too bad!

I would post pictures of the two bedrooms upstairs, but the only real difference there is that they're painted. They're pretty boring, so I'll post those when we get a little farther along.

Lots more exciting changes coming up. :)

"We are Siamese if you please...we are Siamese if you don't please!"

One of the first things we wanted to do when we bought a house was get a kitten! ...Or two. About three weeks after we got the house, we went to the shelter to see what they had. We went in the evening, and it was too late to actually adopt a cat, but we found two that we really liked, so we decided to get them. The next morning, we went in again to get them, and there was a lady there with two tiny Siamese mix kittens. She saw us walk in and asked what we were looking for. We told her we wanted two kittens, and the ones she had happened to be her foster kittens - they had never lived in the shelter. They were found alone somewhere, biting and hissing, just a couple of weeks old. The foster "mother" took them in for the Humane Society and nursed them back to health. She said within 2 days of taking care of them they stopped any signs of aggression and became very friendly, cuddly cats.
We love them so much! One is a boy and one is a girl. Their names are Mia and Moe, but usually we call them Boy Kitty and Girl Kitty. I have no idea why. Kaylee loves them too, but they're not completely sure about her yet.

This is Moe. He's hard to get a good picture of, because he's very jumpy.

And here is Mia. She decided a mudding pan would be a great bed.

Yippee!!

The washer is hooked up!!!

...the dryer is not.

When we moved in, the laundry room (or what we were planning on using as the laundry room) was a kitchen, with no laundry hookups. We tore out the kitchen right away, but didn't get to hooking things up until later on. Will was able to turn the old sink connection into a washer connection. It took him a while and two trips to Lowe's because nothing would fit right, but he got it and it's great! There were washer and dryer hookups outside in a little addition on the side of the house. (They sure did a lot of weird things with this house.) The addition is right in front of the kitchen window, so we're going to tear that out as well, as soon as we get to it. Problem is, when they put the hookups out there, they also tore a big old hole in the brick wall. So not only do we have to get all the electrical lines back down to the basement, but we also have to patch the brick, which hopefully won't be too hard, but who knows.

Sneak peak:

This is the wainscoting that we're putting in our kitchen. I LOVE it! It's going to be so pretty when it's done.

Our "new" house pictures: Before

Will and I are officially homeowners as of three weeks ago. We bought a fixer-upper in the South-West Salt Lake area. I am SO excited about it! Sorry for taking so long to put pictures up - I just haven't been able to until today. Honestly, I have always wanted a fixer-upper. I love home projects, and turning something old and ugly into something beautiful. If you've ever seen any shows like "Flip that House", that is my favorite type of TV show. Our house is around 2200 square feet, with 6 bedrooms. (Yes, that is a ton of bedrooms for 3 people. BUT...there will be more people eventually, and I've always wanted a place for sewing!) Unfortunately there are a few things that have to wait to be fixed (such as the flooring) because we have a limited budget. Here are some pictures of the house:

This is the front of the house. Notice the 7 or 8-foot-tall rosebush.

 Here is the backyard. Nothing too special. Of course it needs work, just like everything else. There is, however, an apple tree that I am very excited about! I hope the apples are good for some pie making this fall.

This is *going* to be the master bedroom. They obviously didn't use it as one, but we've got some big plans for it!! (Tractors not included)

This is the bedroom right across from the master, and it will be Kaylee's room.

This is the living room. Lovely black marble flooring...in the living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway and bathroom. What were they thinking?!?

The kitchen left a little bit LOT to be desired. Greasy DISASTER. I don't know what these people did, but it was a mess. Everything was covered in grease. The countertops were falling off from rotting wood underneath.

Water damage? That's what I thought it was at first. Nope...grease stains.

This is...a chili pepper. Stuck to the ceiling.

The kitchen window - half broken out, covered with a piece of drywall, the other half covered in cardboard and spray paint.

This is the cupboard underneath the sink. There was a drip, and it certainly caused a little problem down there - tons of rotten wood, mold and mildew, and cockroaches. Gross!

The dining room. Should I keep that chandelier? The walls in the kitchen and dining room are all a lovely green stucco. Don't know why they wanted stucco inside their house, but whatever.

You know those little buckets of spackle? This was one BIG bucket of spackle - or at least what we used AS spackle, sort of. We used two of these buckets (5 gallon buckets) plus a box of top coat to fill in the stucco kitchen and dining room walls. That was a lot of work.

The ceiling in the living room was like a cave. Not because it was dark, but because it had hundreds and hundreds of stalactites.

 Here I am sanding them down!!

Will and me after an exhausting 3 hours of scraping and sanding.

This is a stain on the wall after 2 coats of primer and 1 coat of paint. It was fascinating - I would paint over it, and it would be gone. Then it would slowly reappear right before my eyes. Finally a coat of oil-based primer did the trick!

And of course..can't forget my little helper here. She watched me scrub the floors and then she decided to take a shot at it.

These last three weeks have been great! We have gotten so much done. No more pictures for now though, you will have to be patient to see the "one-month" pictures, then in a few months (maybe years...) the "after" pictures.

We love the neighborhood here. People are so friendly and nice. We're the worst house on the block and everyone is so excited to have us move in and start fixing it up. The ward on Sunday was especially welcoming - I have literally never felt so "wanted" before in my life! It's kind of an older community, but plenty of babies and kids as well. I think it's a good mixture. I really think this will be a great place for us to live! Stay tuned for more updates...