Accomplished

Mom and I felt quite proud of ourselves once we finished our latest project!

BEFORE:

THE PLAN:

Build the headboard up to add 12 inches to the height (got the idea from here although I didn't follow her instructions); pad it and cover it in this fabric.

IN PROGRESS:

AFTER:

Do You Remember ...

... what my old stovetop looked like? I'll refresh your memory ...

And, yes, that child or one that looks similar, but with shorter hair, is usually in front of it.

Well, thanks to Dave's hard work yesterday, I have a NEW stovetop! I can't even tell you the first thing I've cooked on it because I haven't used it yet!!! I'm so excited. Dave is, too. After we went to bed, we stayed up discussing what should be its first job. Eggs and pancakes seem to be the plan ...

Rearrange

I mentioned on my Facebook that I was rearranging the living room today and Jamie requested pictures. I didn't do much, just flip flopped the play area and "dining" area. The main reason being that with the toy box under the window the kids would play with the curtains. And I don't care what kind of bolt and anchor you use, not much is going to hold a curtain rod in the wall if two thirty-pound little ones are swinging from it.

So, here you go, Jamie. It may not stay this way for long. Depends on what David thinks when he gets home, but for now, this is what our space looks like ...

Using Gifts

For Christmas, the kids got some cute name plaques from their great aunt and uncle. I was just going to hang them on the wall, but ended up stealing a fun idea from my friend, Annalisa, and turned Julia's into a hair bow holder. I don't think Dax's sign will turn into anything extra ... maybe a pacifier holder?

The signs are in the corner next to the window.

After Pictures

I almost waited until Saturday to post these so we could see Christopher and Jamie's amazement in person as they looked upon a miraculously clean garage. But Dave doesn't want those "Before" pictures just hanging out on our blog making our garage look all ugly. He did a heroic job these past few days getting everything put together, sorted and put away. (I helped.) So, if you only comment on one blog post ever, send a bit of "Good Job, Dave!" on this one. And if you visit our house any time in the next ... three years or so, we expect many oooooo's and ahhhhh's over that garage! :)

It's amazing what a difference having enough shelving makes!

Now that Dave's tools are stored on the shelves, he has a clean workspace to use! He still wants to get the middle section of his tool chest and a new workbench. So I guess the garage isn't completely finished yet. But it is much more usable!

Exhaustion

Dave and I spent the WHOLE day yesterday working on our garage. The mess had grown to rather embarrassing proportions and needed to be dealt with soon. We found really nice shelves at Sam's, and Dave's friend from work was nice enough to make a trip in his big truck to help us get them to our house.

We started work around 9:30 am and kept going until it was too dark to see. The kids played outside for a bit, but their medicine kicked in around 10:30 am or so and they headed to bed for several hours. Not that I want my kids to be sick, but this turned out to be a really nice opportunity for Dave and I to work uninterrupted for about four hours!!!

Julia is in love with the Radio Flyer wagon my grandparents bought her for Christmas last year. She insisted on being pulled around every fifteen minutes or so. Putting her stuffed animals in the wagon and letting her pull them was not acceptable. She had to be the one in the wagon. And I can't blame her. It's much more fun to be pulled than to do the pulling. She also spent a bit of time throwing gravel in the air so that it would land on her head and eating gravel. Bright kid we've got. :)

Here are the before pictures. I don't have after pictures because we're not done yet!! This is a huge job. I wanted to let you know that if you call today and no one answers, it's not because we're out or don't want to talk to you, it's because the phone is too far away and we can't move fast enough to get up and answer it!

What Dave Did

While we were gone, Dave didn't have quite as much time to work through his "Things To Get Done" list as he thought he would. Having to go to work everyday really cuts into your available time. I did get two big surprises on my return. The first I noticed as we drove up. It's pretty easy to spot the two enormous, overgrown bushes that went missing. Our neighbors helped Dave remove two of my least favorite bushes from our front bed. I have no pictures of that accomplishment yet.

My next surprise was this:

He built me a platform! For those who have never been to our house, the door from our kitchen to the garage has a big concrete step down into the garage. The door from the garage to the laundry room also has a big concrete step. You have to go from kitchen to garage to laundry room in order to reach the prize: hanging out on our deck. I would always have to make several trips for a simple half hour outside since I would have to carry Julia across the steps. (I also worried about her falling off one step and smashing her noggin on the other step on the way down.) Now, I just open the door and Julia can run straight outside while I follow at a more leisurely pace with Dax and my glass of iced tea. I love it!!

Thanks, Dave!

Bouldin Parenting Philosophy Part 73

It is generally less frustrating to allow your child to play with an unopened can of soda on a day when you plan to mop the kitchen floor anyway.

Some Bonus Food Philosophies:

Vacuum the rug every day and you'll feel less guilty about allowing your child to eat off it.

Dogs are great "helpers" when cleaning up food that has been thrown on the floor.

Behind (Again)

The old story of many pictures, little time :) Fortunately my friend, Laura, is much more up to date with her pictures and you can click here to see some super cute pictures of Julia's visit to the zoo with Mekenzie (Laura's little one).

We now have access to our attic thanks to Dave and Christopher working hard all weekend ... no pictures of that, though. Just a happy Jo ready to whittle down her pile of "Things To Go In The Attic" :)

A Labor Day List

1. We've also got Julia finger-fooding American cheese (which she loves to squish, hates to eat) and banana (which is too slippery, but fun). We strap her in the high chair, stick it in the kitchen, and give her bits of food while we fix our breakfast/lunch/dinner. In fact, we found out this weekend when we were in a hurry and tried to save some time, we've created a monster. If you try to feed her baby foods without letting her eat finger foods first, she throws a fit! She cries and screams and tries to throw herself sideways out of the chair. Silly girl.

2. I've been complaining about our bath towels for so long, I don't remember when I started. Poor David. But it turns out Labor Day weekend is a fantastic time to buy new bath things! I found some fabulous towels at Kohl's and we replaced all our bath towels, hand towels and washcloths for less than we would have paid for the bath towels regularly! They are so fluffy and beautiful. We bought all the same color (Provincial Blue), and they look great in both bathrooms. In our bathroom, the towels match our "newly dyed" bath mats nearly perfectly! Hee.

3. We maybe should have spent our time posting pictures. Oops. I have over two hundred on my computer. Most of them aren't worth posting, but I promise to get the others edited and posted this week. They may not have cute captions or tags, but they'll be up where you can see them and that's all that counts, right?

4. Julia's officially our little cruiser. She's getting quite skilled at travelling the length of the couch standing up. Echo and I sit at opposite ends of the couch so she divides her time between the two of us.

5. No new teeth for Julia. The two on the bottom keep growing and growing, but there don't seem to be any others eager to make an appearance.

6. I'm starting to feel a bit better (Yeah Second Trimester!). I'm still taking the Promethazine and I still crash around 6:30 or so every night. As long as I get all my chores done in the morning, I do okay. If I try to leave any for the afternoon, forget it! I'll be glad when I can start cooking again. I did manage to make it to the grocery store this weekend and even walked by the deli meats without feeling sick! Progress!!

Household Tip #274

Do not wash two grey bathmats with two blue bathmats.
Unless you want four blue bathmats.

Open Drains, Open Bar ...

We are proud to announce that as of around 4:00 pm yesterday, we have TWO functional bathtubs, TWO functional bathroom sinks and TWO functional toilets. Yes, we finally had the plumber out to the house to dislodge the gunk that had accumulated in our drains. Gross.
He's also going to give us an estimate on replacing the pipes underneath the house which should really help our water pressure issues. Dave has to call him to explain what we want done because I had no clue. I basically just requested an estimate for complete replacement of all the pipes and then nearly fainted when he said it would be around $3700!!! Eek!
We also went to a Christmas Open House given by a company here in town. We always RSVP a big YES for free food. It was a pretty impressive bash. They had vendor booths set up showing off various building products, but I just ignored them. I concentrated on the buffet: pasta bar, cheese and fruit tray, stuffed mushrooms (two kinds!), spring rolls, spinach dip, chicken kabobs, and a carving station with roast beef! Plus about a dozen different desserts were up for grabs. AND a very well-stocked open bar. There was around two hundred people there which meant no one noticed how often you went back for more food! :) My type of party.

I like lists

It seems like forever since the last post, but it might just be that we've had a bit going on.

1. We've been hard at work on the nursery. It's still a work in progress so I'm holding off on pictures. We've got most of the wall "art" hung up and hopefully will have all our junk cleared out of the closet this weekend. It will be the only room in the house with matching furniture and decorations. Echo and I hang out in there on lazy afternoons.

2. My friends, Diana and Shara Tonn, came by two weekends ago for a visit. They were out of town the weekend of my shower and wanted to say hello and see the baby bump! We had a great time talking with them.

3. A friend of Dave's from high school, Claire, stopped by this Saturday to crash for the night. She is moving back to Texas from New York. It's always fun to see Claire even if she still calls my husband "Davey" :)

4. Nannie and Pa are coming to Knoxville for Thanksgiving! We're very excited to have them. We weren't sure when my doctor was going to decide to keep me from traveling, but had just assumed we'd be on our own for the whole holiday season this year (except after The Peanut arrives, of course!). Now, we'll be able to show off our house and the work we've done on the nursery as well as spend some time with family!

5. Dave and I went to the breastfeeding class at the hospital last night. It was a disappointment. I'm not sure what I expected, but spending the first third of class having the teacher tell us the benefits of breastfeeding was not it. It just seemed a waste of time preaching to the choir. And maybe we're just fortunate, but we haven't had anyone question our decision to breastfeed. In addition, the teacher didn't seem to have any opinions about anything ... except how awesome breastfeeding is. Every answer she gave was preceded by "Well, there's as many ways to do that as there are mothers and babies ... " Not exactly helpful advice.

6. I have another doctor's visit scheduled for Wednesday (tomorrow). I'm hoping it's with my regular doctor this time. I haven't heard otherwise, so I'm optimistic!

7. Echo seems to be adjusting well to all the baby paraphernalia that's popping up in her house. We set up the Pack 'N Play in the living room, and she now just ignores it. She also ignores the various mobiles set up. At first she would bark, growl and try to bite the mobiles whenever we turned them on. Then she decided to just tuck her tail and run from them. Now she just looks at us like she's thinking "That's old news, you guys!" We've been spending a little time each day with her in the nursery and trying to teach her that roughhousing is not allowed in that room. We are experiencing minimal success with that. She's given all The Peanut's toys, clothes and linens her sniff test of approval. The only problem came when I accidentally bought a toy that has a squeaker. We'll have to be careful with Henry the Hippo since he sounds exactly like Echo's favorite toy, the Heffalump Elephant. Oops! She's still not a big fan of the strollers, but we're working on it. I think we've got all the big stuff set up in the house so she can get used to it. We'll see how she reacts to the car seat that is soon to appear in her car!

8. It snowed here yesterday. Nothing that would stick. Basically, it was drizzling, then turned to teeny tiny sleet and then to snow flakes. It was pretty to watch while it lasted. The forecast calls for temperatures back up in the sixties for the weekend, though.

Two out of three ain't bad

Now I'm sorry I made all those extravagant promises of pictures yesterday. Even though I'll be caught up on laundry and grocery shopping by the end of today, I still feel overwhelmed by the stuff left to do to catch up from the weekend.
The Weekend Recap:
Mom and Dad drove in with Lady on Thursday. They arrived that afternoon, and we tried to make our dogs be friends. Turned out to be a poor decision. Lady was still a little frazzled from her trip and took a hunk of Echo's nose fur in retaliation of Echo's repeated attempts to sniff her rear end. We decided to just let the dogs split time roaming the house for the rest of the weekend. I will say that for a dog that "never barks" [quoted from both Mom and Dad], Lady sure raised a racket whenever she saw Echo!! We were happy to see that Lady apparently learned how to play from watching Echo and Dad wrestle with each other that first day. She enjoyed hopping and pouncing around the carpeted room and on the living room rug. Very cute. Hopefully next time the two dogs meet, Lady will be feeling a little more secure, and they can be friends.
The Bouldins (David, Jackie and Christopher) arrived Friday afternoon. Dave took the afternoon off work so we could all eat lunch together and have some time to hang out. We spent the evening getting things shifted in the living room to prepare for Saturday's Furniture Rearrangement Party.
Saturday was the shower. Jackie and Mom went to Carole's early to help out. I stayed home and got all the lunch stuff ready for the guys. Grandma Steele and Aunt Bev also dropped by to see the house and eat.
We had a great time at the shower. Carole throws a mean party! It was great to see everyone and to open presents for The Peanut. How cool to have all these people show how much they love her before she even arrives!



The food was delicious. Perfect shower food.








Look at all those gifts!












Silly Meredith






Um, I didn't find myself at all attractive in any of the pictures, so I left those out. Blogger's prerogative.
While the ladies partied like it was 1999, the guys put together the crib and dresser. Well, first they moved the couch and other furniture out of the nursery! By the time I got home, the nursery furniture was arranged and ready for the little touches (clothes in the dresser, wall hangings, bedding, etc.) No pictures yet. I want to wait until it is all set up. Give the full effect all at once!
Mom and Dad left at 5 am on Sunday. Whew, that's early! After brunch at The Creamery with the Bouldins, they headed back to Texas.
Dave and I still had to attend our Infant/Child CPR and First Aid class, but after that, we came home and crashed. Everybody was pooped!

Echo does enjoy the new furniture arrangement in the living room. She has a much more comfortable view of the yard.

The Kitchen
Last month, my dad stayed with us while my mom went to a quilt show in Nashville. Dad spent three days repainting our kitchen for us. [THANKS, DAD!] Dave and I painted the cabinet doors and replaced the hardware. We've finally got everything put together and back where it belongs.
And just so you can get the full effect, a few before pictures. These were taken just after we moved in. I had already taken the doors off because I found the barn door-like hardware too hideous to even look at.

Now, one year later ...

I don't know

I'm not sure what's going on with the Comments. I've had trouble getting my comments to post, and other people have told me their comments aren't showing up, either. I'll see what I can figure out. (That makes it sound like I actually know enough to identify AND fix the problem. HA!)
Dave and I had a good time last week seeing my parents and Grandma Steele. Grandma and Mom brought us tons of goodies for the baby. Once I get caught up with my housework, I'll take the time to take pictures and post them.
Dad spent all his time painting the kitchen. It looks GREAT! I'm so excited about it. I won't take pictures for a bit because I want to show off the finished product, and Dave and I still have doors to paint and hang as well as returning all the food and equipment to the cabinets.
The Peanut is moving around all over usually just as I lie down to sleep. I told Dave that I'll be glad when she's out and can kick him for a change! :) I love feeling her moving around in there. (Still no name ... )

Can't remember what's stored in your kitchen cabinets?

Try our easy fix!
Simply move everything out of the kitchen into the living room or dining room. This will allow you to see all your food, utensils, equipment and Tupperware in one quick glance.
WARNING: Do not attempt this method if you actually want to cook in your kitchen. It gets very frustrating.Yes, I was so completely grossed out by the idea that mice could have been ANYWHERE in my cabinets that I had to empty them all out, wash everything and bleach the cabinets. Since we were making a mess anyways, Dave and I thought it would be a good time to go ahead and paint the kitchen.
Sorry Grandma! This will probably be how the house looks when you visit. At least I can promise that it will be clean.

I am not the Energizer Bunny

Whew! Just thinking about what we did last weekend makes me tired. But I have good photographic proof of some of our efforts that I hate to waste. Therefore, I will be using my favorite form of communication: the list.

1. Dave mowed the grass.
2. I cleaned up parts of the garage while he mowed.
3. We worked on the bush that threatened to take over the air conditioner. (Dave cut things down, and I dragged the branches to the brush pile for pickup.)

4. Dave cleaned the gutters of the muck that the previous owners had left.
5. I cleaned the grill.
6. My brain quit telling my body how to do the job at hand and started just sending signals of how nice a shower would be, so I went inside.
7. Dave cleaned the sidewalk because when I powerwashed the grill grates, I had set them on the sidewalk and we then had a nice set of white stripes on our grungy sidewalk.
8. Dave did some weedeating until he got tired of having to fix the weedeater every ten minutes.

Dave was the real hero of the day. He started working at 10 am and didn't quit until after 6 pm. And it was hot! I did make him a yummy lunch and made sure he kept drinking water. I laid down for about 20 minutes after my shower and then couldn't get back up. For the rest of the evening, I hobbled around like I'd had hip surgery. It hurt.
Dave had to work all day (and night) Sunday, so I took lunch, my book and Echo up to his office and we all hung out together.
Oh, I also took pictures of our crepe myrtles. Last year Dave had to cut massive branches off and remove the extra bushes that had grown up through the middle of them. This year, they look beautiful.

I TOLD you mousies to beware!

We knew we had at least one other mouse roaming freely amongst our kitchen cabinets because all the peanut butter had been eaten off the traps Dave had set. Sneaky mousie.

We went to Lowe's last weekend and bought pre-baited traps and sonic pest repellers. The pre-baited traps were my dad's suggestion, and we figured they would be great in the garage, attic and crawl space since we wouldn't have to worry about replacing moldy or missing bait. The sonic pest repellers we saw and decided to give them a try because why not? They might work.

Dave plugged in the repellers, but we hadn't set the pre-baited traps. Instead, just to see if we still had mice inside, he set three traps: one baited with peanut butter, the other two empty. Then he set them side-by-side at the back of one of the drawers with the baited trap in the middle. This morning, Echo came in the kitchen and started barking at the drawer. I didn't think much about it until I remembered the traps. Then, for some reason I can't even think of right now, I opened the drawer and saw we had caught us a mouse! I slammed it shut and went yelling for David to get in there and do something! More girly than I ever imagined myself to be. I blame The Peanut. :)

So, the sonic pest repellers don't work.

Weekend

Dave worked really hard this weekend getting the house ready for his party. He had a list of things (written in February) that he wanted to accomplish and finally got around to most of them. :) I provided project supervision and emotional support. Indeed, it is a hard job, but someone has to step up and say "I'll take care of that!" Hee.


This picture of Echo wins the award for the best photo of the weekend. No, she hasn't been crushed by the gate. She's just trying to see how far underneath it she can squeeze herself.

Oh, yeah, we did stuff this weekend

Actually, quite a bit. On Saturday, we finally tackled the back corner of our yard. There are two innocent, rather pretty trees that had been overtaken by honeysuckle. I like honeysuckle. The smell, the flowers and the yummy juice inside. Yum. There's a honeysuckle tree I pass each day when I walk Echo that looks really cool. I would have liked our honeysuckle to look like that. But it didn't. It looked like this:Not pretty at all. Dave went to work with his chainsaw, and I dragged branches to the brush pile. After five hours of work, we have made progress:It's getting better. You can see a tree now.
We had to stop because our brush pile was getting out of control. Every two weeks, the city has a brush pick up. You can have a pile of brush 6'x6'x6' for them to load in their trucks and take away to the dump or recycle or whatever they do with it. Our brush pile was a bit over the limit this week. They took it away anyway.
We also had to stop because we had Jacene and Clay over for burgers. Showing off the grill again. I think we convinced them to go refill their own propane tank and get busy grilling!
We went to see Akeelah and the Bee after dinner. It was a cute movie. Not great, but entertaining. My favorite character was her friend, Javier. Too adorable. It was totally sappy and unrealistic, but it didn't give me nightmares and none of the characters I liked died. I don't necessarily have very high standards for movies these days. :)
Sunday we spent the day recuperating from allergies. I took some Sudafed, and it knocked me out. I don't think I changed out of my pajamas the entire day!
And on a totally different note, I like the new Mac ads. The iLife one is my favorite. Plus, I loved watching Justin Long (the Mac guy) on Ed.