Wednesday, September 30, 2009

"Chick" update


I've been, "nose to the grindstone" every day this week, during naptime, working on the pinwheels for Allegra's Chubby Chick quilt. I officially finished the chicks this weekend, and I know you were waiting with baited breath, but I decided to go ahead and put on buttons for the eyes. I hemmed and hawed for a very long time, but then I just decided that there was really no substitute. So, to make it safe, I bought a heavy duty, high quality thread and sewed those puppies on there so tight that I don't think I could get them off. Of course, Ryan said that in order to really test it, I'd have to gnaw at it for about 10 minutes.
I'm a little over halfway done with the pinwheels. After that, the next step are all the borders (there are 3).
FYI...That's my belly labeled "Allegra". Ryan said he didn't know!



Sunday, September 27, 2009

Be Still My Heart...

I'm looking forward to having sweet little baby things around the house again! This week, a package came in the mail from Dave & Carolyn. Are these not the most adorable things you've ever seen? Honestly. So stinkin' cute, and the softest leather you've ever laid your hands on.
Thanks again guys...you made my day!!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Back On The Market

Monday, I spent all day cleaning and taking pictures for the real estate listing. I thought I'd share some of these with you as I'm kinda proud of the job that we (we is used pretty loosely as I didn't really do much of the work) did on this house.


For the before's you really need "smell-a-vision"
But this room is now Wyatt's bedroom!

Cool huh???
Wanna see some more?

"The Bathroom"

Pictures just don't do how structurally unsafe this room was, I mean, these people were one potty break away from falling through the floor. And I mean that very literally, no exaggerations. In fact, we think they may have been going in their motor home or something...there is just no way.

Anyway, it's pretty narrow, which makes it hard to take pictures of, plus the fact that for the listing it had to be a horizontal picture.


"The Dining Room"

And isn't that desk adorable? I just love it so much!



"The Kitchen"

I wish I had better "before" pictures of this kitchen. Honestly, I really don't think I remember exactly how this kitchen was. I know that we have video of it somewhere...I should dig it up and watch. But, again, if only there was "smell-a-vision", and these cabinets were 1000 times worse than they look, with old food and flies buzzing everywhere.



"The Laundry Room"

This is the room that Ryan was feverishly working to build for me before we moved in. Well, it didn't get done before we moved in but after the move, a week long vacation, Wyatt being sick, me being sick, and Grammy (Ryan's 88 yr old grandma) doing all of our laundry TWICE, it is now in working order. It's not finished yet, we still have baseboards and shelves to put up. The laundry is in the basement which before this room was open to the dank, dark, dirty, smelly old unfinished basement. Now we have a clean place to take our laundry and not a concrete floor. It's going to be so cute when we get it done....he did such a good job.



And this gem...this my friends, is our bedroom. Unfortunately it's been pretty shy lately and un-photogenic, but after a few more touches, it should be ready for it's "after".


BUT, rest assured, the Pepto Bismal pink is gone, that wretched carpet is gone, rusty heater...GONE, and cigarette stained ceiling and walls....GONE.

So, while we have re-listed this back on the market, this little house is really getting comfortable. I don't know what God has in store for us, but if he decides to keep us here, now I know that we'll be able to make it work. It's going to be a challenge and take some creativity to find places for all of the things that come with having a baby in the house, but we will.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Of all the things I could be blogging....

...has anyone checked out the new Jay Leno show? We've tuned in a couple of times and last night he had a couple of goofballs on that tickled my funny bone. I think it brought me back to my high school days of memorizing Billy Madison and Tommy Boy word for word. I was thinking it...really I was, but Ryan looked at me last night as we were laughing and said, "this reminds me of Dave Johnston". I laughed because I was thinking the exact same thing...so here is some insight into the chemistry of my sense of humor. This is so weird, but it totally cracked me up and took me back....



Happy Thursday!

Monday, September 7, 2009

New Hair Doo...

My hair has been pleading with me to cut it for some time now. My problems is that I wait until I can't stand it another second and make an appointment with the first stylist that's available.
I've been wanting to chop it all off again, but have been looking for just the right style. Yesterday, I found it...I couldn't wait a day longer. So armed with all the pictures that Pioneer Woman supplied, I made an appointment at Toni & Guy and headed on out. My stylist was a cute little young lady. Come to find out she'd only been working there since May and that was her first job...gulp. I do really like it, I just don't think she followed the pictures that I gave her very well. I think I might like it more if the back was a little bit shorter.
Ok, I realize that the girl in the sample picture probably has much thicker hair than mine. But I'm wondering if there is a certain product that I can put in it to help seperate it and make it look chunkier. So ladies with short hair...what do you use? She used some BedHead stuff on me yesterday and I wasn't too impressed with how it held up. The thing with me is that I have fine hair and alot of it...so it gets weighted down alot. The thing that made me go marching into Toni & Guy immediately was this quote from the blog... "Brandi says this is a cinch to style. She just blow dries the sides straight—takes a couple of minutes—then she just lets the back do whatever it wants to do."
The back is what I hate to style...I can get the front looking pretty ok and just fizzle out on the back. To be honest, I haven't even tried to style this myself yet, but I can tell that by how long she left the back, it's not gonna be like Brandi's.
So I thought I'd share some pictures and take any styling hints or product advice that y'all might have. (I'm really not fishing for compliments here...I need help!!)

My pictures were taken from the webcam on my computer, Brandi's pictures were taken by PW. Nuff said.

But you get the point.

By the way, did I mention that this haircut took almost 2 HOURS?

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Wasn't It Just Yesterday???

My friend Jackie's baby girl, Natalie, turned 1 year old today. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was taking pictures at the hospital for them.

And it WAS just yesterday that I was over at their house taking pictures to mark her first year. Unfortunately I wasn't on top of my game. Sheesh...halfway through our little photoshoot I realized that I had my ISO turned all the way up to 1600. That makes the pictures really grainy. And my flash was almost out of batteries. Miss Nat has just learned to walk and really wanted to show off her new skills. And on top of that Wyatt and Luke were wreaking havoc... (they turned the hose on outside and managed to spray it through the kitchen window spraying the ceiling and richocheting onto the counter and the floor) AHHHHHHH!!! Anyway, all that to say "Jackie, I really really want a do-over" But after looking through the pictures these were a few that I liked...
So,
Happy Birthday to you....
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday Dear Natalie...
Happy Birthday to you....
....And MANY MORE!!!