Saturday, January 26, 2013

House updates

Last weekend we shipped the kids off to Nana & BB's house (Matt's parents) for a LONG weekend!  Nana came on Thursday night to get the kids and then brought them home on Monday about noon.  The plan was to for us to re-do the half bathroom downstairs.  When we bought this house, we said that was going to be the 1st thing that we did.  Well, almost 2.5 yrs later, we are finally updating the bathroom!  Better late than never I guess!  Really, other things just needed to be done sooner...windows, VERY leaky gutter needed to be repaired/replaced, new deck, add a baby to the family, and the list goes on.

Old bathroom with hideous wallpaper!
Bad wallpaper, light, and mirror (which was plastic!)
Matt took Friday off and started stripping the wallpaper off.  Thankfully, the wallpaper came off without too much of a fight.  The wallpaper had to know that it's time was almost up and not to fight the removal.  It was HIDEOUS!  I got home in time to help with the last of the wallpaper removal, mainly because Matt ran out of wallpaper adhesive removal spray and he couldn't get his dad's truck to crank so he had to wait on me to have a car.  It actually was sort of fun pulling the old stuff off.  Not that I would want to do a big room of it, but it wasn't that bad.  On Friday night, we patched all of the holes and smoothed out the drywall as best we could.

Wallpaper removal well underway
Saturday morning the plan was to sand the walls well, vacuum/clean up all of the wallpaper mess and dust, then start painting.  It was relatively warm on Saturday plus the heat in a small space helped the paint dry really quickly.  We got 2 coats of paint on the walls by noon!

Paint is going up
Matt pretty quickly & easily switched out the light fixture, mirror, replaced the toilet paper holder, towel rack, and started in on the vanity.  That was where things got ugly.  After some discussion, internet searches, a wasted trip to Lowes, more looking/thinking, some molding cutting, a nice dinner out (along with a glass of wine and 2 beers) and another trip to Lowes, Matt figured out what the problem was with the vanity and was able to pretty quickly get the vanity installed. 

We got the sink faucet from my dad on Sunday and Matt installed that on Monday afternoon. Long story on the faucet...we have this same faucet in our master bath which we bought at Lowes about 1 year ago.  The weekend before our bathroom project, we went to Lowes to purchase everything.  They didn't have the faucet in stock so we drove to another Lowes.  Same thing.  So we asked if any Lowes in the Raleigh area had this faucet...only 1 did and it was on the other side of town.  I looked online to see if I could just order the thing and not waste time & gas driving across town to get it.  Of course, it was available on line.  I placed the order...except that I had a $10 off coupon that I wanted to use.  The online website wouldn't take my coupon.  I called customer service & was told that they couldn't take my coupon either (it was a Lowes coupon sent in the mail) but that they could offer me 10% off (not the same thing but whatever...I needed my faucet!).  The order was placed with a guaranteed 1-3 day delivery (it was shipping from a store about 2.5hrs away).  This was all on Sunday evening, so I figured that I would have at least heard something by Wednesday.  When I didn't hear anything, I called to check on the status of our order.  Customer service called the store who wasn't even sure if they had received the order, even though they certainly had already charged my credit card!  I was promised a call within 24hrs by the store manager.  I never received that call so I called back on Thursday.  Again, the store wasn't sure about the order.  At this point, I decided to try a different route.  I asked my dad to check out the Lowes in Albemarle and sure enough, they had the faucet.  My dad got the faucet for us, I called and canceled the online order and we were back in business.  Of course, by the time I called back to cancel the order (no more than 2hrs after being told that the store wasn't sure about my order), the faucet had already shipped (and it was delivered to our house on the following Tuesday!).  Now, I have an extra faucet that I need to take back to a Lowes Store :)

Finished product :)
The final two things to be done are touch up trim painting & to get some art work above the toilet.  I have plans for the art work and just need to get a few more items to be done with this. 

The half-bathroom looks SO MUCH better now!  I am glad that we took the time to make these updates to our house.  We have a few more things planned for down the road...master bath, master bedroom needs paint, and the kids/guest bathroom needs new paint.  But those can wait a little while!

Monday, January 21, 2013

Brayden's recent artwork

Cats

Top...food truck (boxes inside are food) complete with smoke and a ramp to get everything out of the truck with

Tow trucks

Dinosaur with grass to eat, clouds, and sky

Christmas Day (part 2)

After a quick lunch of soup and sandwiches, we packed up and headed to my parents house.   We ate dinner and let the kids play for a little while before getting them to bed. 
Brayden was allowed to open 2 gifts Christmas night.  (It was late when we got to my parents so we were going to do gifts the next day)

A new NCSU shirt from Paw!
And a remote controlled bulldozer!
 The next day we opened gifts and had our Christmas lunch together with my grandmother, Buh.   Once again, we all got way too many gifts.
A new little table & chairs just for the kids!  The bought it unfinished and my dad finished it (perfectly as always). They LOVE this & both kids enjoy sitting at the table & drawing.

4 generations

Lilly found another rocking chair that is just her size.  She LOVES these little chairs!

My grandmother (Buh)



Cali...the new kitten playing under the tree.  The kids love Cali and she tolerates them very well.

Lilly was getting tired

New hat!

Another favorite...Baby doll and stroller.  She pushes this stroller all over the house and picks up stuff in it.  You never know what you might find in the stroller!

Being silly!

Cali found a box to sleep in

The kids wearing the silly hats



Finally she passed out on the couch.  Poor baby couldn't take it any longer!

Playing Lincoln Logs and/or trains with Grammy.  The train was mine when I was little and the Lincoln Logs were my moms.
Brayden got a new floor rug with roads on it for his room. 

After a wonderful Christmas dinner, we hung out and let the kids play for a while.  Then I went with my mom to take Buh home and after another quick dinner, we packed up and drove back to Raleigh.  The kids went to daycare the rest of the week while Matt and I got the house straightened up and did some projects around the house. 

We had a wonderful, blessed Christmas this year and enjoyed spending time with all of our family and friends!  We are building some wonderful traditions and love teaching our kids about Christs' birth.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (part 1)

We hung out Christmas Eve day as a family, did a few last minute errands, and then went to church together.  Our church does a Children's service at 4:30, including a manger scene.  Brayden's Sunday School group (3, 4, 5 year olds) also sung at the start of the service.  Brayden was supposed to dress like a camel, but he wasn't very interested in that and he refused to go on stage to sing.  We did eventually convince him to wear the camel costume but he insisted on wearing the hat (head) backwards.  The manger scene was not your traditional but it was very funny and interesting to watch.  Brayden's Sunday School class learned all about the different characters in the manger scene this year.  He now knows all sorts of stuff and when in the mood, can tell you all about Baby Jesus and why he was born.

Brayden dressed as a camel
Ready to go to church for Christmas Eve Service
After church, we headed home to meet Nana and BB who were going to spend the night at our house.  We all had dinner together, Brayden put out cookies and hot chocolate for Santa, and Reindeer food that he made a school for Rudolph before heading to bed. 
My sweet babies on Christmas Eve

Putting out reindeer food!
Putting out hot chocolate and cookies for Santa

After putting the kids to bed, we watched a movie with Matt's parents and then Matt and I headed back to church for the 11pm service.  Matt ran the sound and I ushered.  It was nice to be able to go back for a "real" service without the kids so I am really glad that Matt's parents stayed at the house and allowed us to do this.

Christmas morning came at its normal hour (7ish) and we all went downstairs to see what Santa had brought.  Brayden got a new Lightening McQueen bike and Lilly got a dollhouse.  At 1st Brayden was not sure what to think but then once we got him on the bike, he was very excited about it.  We let the kids play for a little while and then got dressed.  Uncle John and Aunt Dana arrived and we ate breakfast (breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls).  Then we opened way too many gifts.  We are all so spoiled and very blessed!
Santa left Lilly a dollhouse!
Brayden got a new Lightening McQueen bike from Santa!


Banana & strawbetter candycane (morning snack for the kids since we ate breakfast later than normal).
Trying it out...kind of hard to do on carpet
And...he is off!  He figured it out on the hard floor!

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Christmas with the extended family

We were able to spend some time with all of our family this year which made for a busy, but fun Christmas Season!

Starting in mid-December, we had Christmas with both sets of Matt's grandparents, Aunt Lynn, cousins (Ron, Mamie, Will, Charity, and Sid), Uncle John, Aunt Dana, Nana, and BB.  We went to Buies Creek for the day and had brunch with Papa and Grandma Nita.  It had been a while since we had seen them, so it was good to see them both again.  

Nana and BB
Will and Christy
Brayden and Sid playing
Lilly enjoyed playing with the boxes :)
Papa and Grandma Nita with the Great-grandkids (Brayden was in "a mood")
Papa and Grandma Nita opening their family calendar

Grandma Nita and Lilly
Oma and Opa
After all of the family activities, Matt and I went to his office Christmas Party in downtown Raleigh.  Matt's parents kept the kids at their house for the night so we didn't have to get a sitter which was an added bonus!!