Faucet drinking and dog washing.

To say we are busy around here is a huge understatement.  My brother is in town for 3 weeks, I've been putting him to work around the house (him, my dad, and hubby put in a fence in the backyard last week!)  and he is going to be working on projects around the house for a few more days such as planking our living room ceiling, power washing the driveway, and laying down baseboards to name a few.  Don't worry, we went to the beach today and I have been feeding him well while he's here!

Also, Winslow has a new BFF.  Like, he LOVES his uncle G. The second he wakes up, he says "Uncle G play cars!"  and loves running and hiding from him.  It's so funny how much he loves him and it's super cute to see them play together.

We are having my brother, mom, and stepdad over for Christmas and then right after, my other brother and his girlfriend are staying the week here too! So much fun, I am so happy our kitchen is finished*.

*I say finished because although the cabinets and countertops are in, there is a small piece missing that was "lost" twice in shipment.  Let's just say I have NOT been happy with my cabinet provider, and I will be leaving them a not so hot review once the final item comes in.

Anyway, I am waiting to post before and after photos until the darn piece comes in, but I am SO in love with my new kitchen.  We got new appliances, granite counters, and beautiful Shaker style cabinets with oil rubbed bronze hardware.  Also, my FAVORITE part of the entire kitchen?  The 70/30 style undermount sink.  Oh my, I can fit so many dishes in there and it's perfect for giving millions of babies their baths.


 I keep telling myself I need to blog more, but being 32 weeks pregnant (oh yeah, i need to do an update soon!) when W naps, I usually find the time to do so myself.  Third trimester is exhausting me.  Hard to believe we have less than two months until baby brother joins our family!  We are so excited.

Since Uncle G has been here, W has learned two very important things:

1. How to drink from the water hose.

 2. And how to wash our dog.

My new career path.

I have decided I am going back to school to be a plumber.  I just paid one almost $600 to repair what we thought was a "simple" valve replacement.  YIKES.  Those guys make MONEY.  Thank goodness for Dave Ramsey and his emergency fund advice. Comes in handy for stuff like this!  Here's the status of our kitchen...

So yes, the house is coming along with only a few minor setbacks.  The cabinets were ONLY a month late (UGH) and so we are working on getting those installed this weekend.  I LOVE them, but am just irritated they took so long to come in.  There are also two small parts missing that were supposed to be here two weeks ago.  Let's just say I am not happy with our cabinet people right now.  at all.

I was supposed to have our entire kitchen remodeled by halloween.  And Christmas is in two weeks..so yeah, thanks a lot, cabinet people.  The granite template is being done this next week and if everything (please pray that it does) goes smoothly, we will have our kitchen finished the week before Christmas.  My brothers, mom and stepdad are also spending Christmas here, so I'd love for it to be finished. please oh please!

The floors looks awesome, we love them.  For those who don't know, we replaced our entire house with TILE that looks like wood! I was hesitant at first because tile is so hard, but I love the cold feel on your feet ( hello, we live in South Florida) and W hasn't had a bust yet. We have carpets in every room so that makes it look nice and cozy and gives much needed softness.  I keep saying I'm going to take photos, but we always have projects! We currently have no closet doors in our house, the new cabinets are assembled but siting in our dining room, and the kitchen table has EVERY content of our kitchen on top of it.  yep.  true life of living through a remodel.  oh yeah, and I'm 7 months pregnant!  I'll be 30 weeks next week!  Time is flying with the holidays coming and going.

I went to the doctor this week and that scale was NOT nice to me.  I've gained just shy of 7 pounds less than what I gained the entire time with Winslow.  and I have ten weeks to go.  Yikes.  I better slow down on the m&m's and frostys.

Speaking of Winslow, he is potty trained during the day! I am so proud of this little guy.  He did great.  The first few days were so exhausting for me but after about a week, we both got it down!  He never has a tee tee accident, we go run errands like we normally would, and just this week he has made lots of progress with number #2!  If you've ever potty trained a little one, you know that poo can be scary sometimes.  So we are taking it slow and he gets lollipops for going #2 in the potty.  And lots of high fives and fist bumps!

What's next for us?  Baseboards still need to be reinstalled in the bedrooms, nursery and W's room painted, closet doors put back on, new kitchen...yeah. our to do list hasn't shrunk much.

Hopefully it will soon!

I am feeling okay, I keep getting good reports at the doc, which I am so thankful for.  I just feel like a whale most days.  Two "nice old ladies" told me I was going to have my baby next week.  Nope, not really.  Thanks for making me feel HUGE.

Anyway, off I go!  Nap time is over, the plumber is almost done and next up: the tile guy is coming back to cut a few places in the kitchen so the cabinets can fit correctly.  It never seems to end.  ;)

And because Christmas is the best time of year, here's our tree! Hopefuly I'll post about our trip to Texas for thanksgiving soon, and some holiday decor!  I love Christmas!  

Checking in...and potty training.

Y'all.  I'm 26 weeks pregnant.

wow.  it's really flying by now.  I am almost to third trimester! YAY!

Also, moving into a fixer upper is exhausting..especially when you're pregnant.  I promise to do a post with photos but for now, I'll list what we've done so far!

We've been in the house since Nov 1. So far we have:


-Painted the living/dining/kitchen/master/hallway/entry.  Still have the nursery and W's room to go.
-This time when I was pregnant with Winslow, I was almost done with his nursery. Haha...now? I haven't done ONE THING. #secondchildprobs
-All new floors.  Which I LOVE.  We did TILE, believe it or not, in the entire house. It's wood look tile, so it looks like wood! I love it and it's perfect for Florida.
-Chalkboard wall in the dining room.
-Ordered new kitchen cabinets that are 2 weeks late. ARGH.  I am pretty sure that's how cabinets work..they are never on schedule.  So hopefully by December we will have our new kitchen. They should be here next week and then we will order granite.
-Removed a "small wall" in the kitchen to open it up. OMG, i love the difference. I can't wait to post photos.
-Did landscaping outside
-Painted the garage door and shutters. it looks so much better.
-Repainted ALL the baseboards. We will replace them this weekend.  It's going to be like a huge puzzle...NOT FUN.  We did label the back of MOST of them, but not all.
- Got new wood blinds for the house.

Hmm..I think that's about it for now! We have a few more "bigger" projects to do, and then it'll be small ones from here on out.

As far as pregnancy goes, it's going well! I'm exhausted most of the day with my crazy little man but that's normal, I think.

Little brother does have a name, but we are waiting until birth to share it. ;)  I know, i'm one of those people.  We will tell family but probably won't do a formal announcement.

He's busy kicking around and keeping me awake at night. I never try to get annoyed because I longed for this day for so long.  I know the blessing and miracle of carrying a child and never want to complain.

Oh yeah! Did i mention how we are POTTY TRAINING?  We are on day two and this is one of the hardest parts of parenting so far! Sheesh, it's so draining.  Asking "do you need to go tee tee?" Every 20 minutes, running to the potty, sitting in the bathroom all day...it's not something I love doing, but I will be glad when he is done! He's done awesome so far, just a couple small accidents.  I am so proud of him.  He gets rewarded with "ya ya pops" (Dum Dums) or M&Ms and homeboy LOVES them.

Alright...off to bed! I feel like an 80 year old woman, but these days are LONG for me.  :)

Will update soon!

Halloween 2015

Just a few photos from our Halloween. Yes, yes I did dress up as Jerry Jeff Jones.  Resident redneck of the neighborhood.

Pumpkin Patch

We are smack dab in the middle of MOVING, PTL, so I've not been on the computer much but this past weekend we went to our local Pumpkin Festival and I have to share the photos.  Winslow LOVED riding the horse and had his first bite of cotton candy!  Too bad it was 93 outside and didn't feel like fall, but hey I pretended it was 60.  And check out my little man's hilarious "smile" face.  He does this scrunchy nose smile that is so so cute. 

And can't forget the cowboy boots!

 

Why is my little man so big! 

Next year, we will have an 8 month old in tow too!  :)

Moving along...

So as long as I've been married, I have always told hubby that I wanted a fixer upper one day.  He would always say "okay sure" and then talk about something else. haha.  Well when we bought this house, we didn't realize how much of a fixer upper it was going to be until now.  It's not a bad thing, but I also dreamed of fixing it up when i'm not 5.5 months pregnant. ;)  It's okay, I am making it work, and hey, it got me out of removing 600+ square feet of hardwood floors that took two weeks to finish.

So, let's see a small update on what we've done!  The ceilings have been scraped of the popcorn, re textured/painted, the main area has been repainted, a small part of the kitchen has been demoed, all the floors have been removed (there were FIVE different types of flooring in this house), the garage door and shutters have been repainted, and we landscaped the front.  It looks so awesome and all of our neighbors are so happy we are fixing it up. ;)

So before, the green paint on the house was extremely faded and worn looking.  I repainted the door and shutters with a Minwax Gel Stain.  It was so easy and I love the way it turned out.  It looks like wood and really makes the house pop. We also cut back the trees so you can see the front more.

 

If you look at the before photo, you can see the three big green bushes in the front.  They were not pretty and blocked the porch, so my stepmom and I went to the local nursery and got these gorgeous new plants!

f

My dad and her were here for a long weekend and they helped us so much with the house!

They also gave us a date too!  We went to a local breakfast place because ALL i ever want is breakfast food.  For real, I am OBSESSED this pregnancy.  Biscuits, sausage, eggs... YUM. Oh and chocolate milk.  Gotta have a glass every single morning.

 

So this is before the flooring was all taken out..look how horribly messy.  Gives me a headache just looking at it.  We also removed the two foot "head blocker" as I call it, above the bar area.  It looks so much better without it and opens up the kitchen a ton.

I am in love with the paint color I chose.  It's the perfect gray and called Colonnade Gray by Sherwin Williams.  They just had 40% sale and I got paint for the whole house! That's what is next on our list.  Oh yeah, and floors are going in as we speak! YAY! 

Will i survive these next few weeks?  Lots to do, lots to do, but I cannot wait to see it all done.  My new kitchen cabinets should be here next week.  FINGERS ARE CROSSED.

Bump Date

Here's a small bumpdate for yall! I feel like I haven't talked much about this pregnancy at all!  I should update more.

 

how far along? 21 weeks 6 days
how are you measuring? Right on schedule

size of baby? A papaya!
heartbeat? 148 bpm
total weight gain/loss? I think I've gained around 8 pounds.
maternity clothes? Oh yes! 
stretch marks? No new ones.
sleep? I've been sleeping pretty well. I still miss sleeping on my stomach, but I've gotten used to it. The first trimester I slept horrible, and I'm finally sleeping better now.
best moment this week?  Rocking Winslow to sleep, working on the house renovations, and my dad and stepmom are coming to visit this weekend!

movement? All day long. I LOVE IT!  I love feeling little baby kick.  It never gets old. Such a miracle.
food cravings? Chocolate milk. EVERY morning.  and any breakfast food.  Sausage burritos have been pretty awesome lately.
gender predictions? A boy!
what i miss: Sleeping on my stomach, turkey sandwiches, bending over easily, picking up Winslow easily.

what i'm looking forward to: MOVING into our new house.  Two more weeks.  We still have to paint, put down tile, and get a new kitchen. ha.
how are you feeling? Feeling pretty good.  I've been sicker for a lot longer this pregnancy and JUST got off my prescription meds a couple days ago for nausea.  I hope it's gone for good.  

The truth about moving.

This will be our sixth move in our five years of marriage.

IT STINKS.  There is nothing awesome about the process of moving...except maybe getting rid of things you haven't used/worn/seen in a year.  Since we closed on our house, we have been up to our necks in projects.

Here's a few big ones we are tackling:

-Scraping the popcorn ceilings- hubby just finished this week.  It was not hard, but super time consuming.
- Priming and painting the entire house.  The owner before us liked dark colors on the walls.  Think: Navy blue and maroon.  NO. NO. NO.  not my style at all. So i've been priming and repainting.  This is no easy task for a pregnant momma with a two year old running around.  I have been painting every single day almost and finally have the living room, foyer, and hallway almost done.  It's no joke getting up and down when you have 10-15 extra baby pounds to lug around.  My back is hurting, my arms are sore...but we have a major deadling (Hello, we have to be OUT of our apartment by the end of the month) so I must go on.  And hiring professional painters is not in our budget.  BECAUSE
-NEW KITCHEN- yes.  I am getting to pick out my own new kitchen.  Which is SO fun! I decided on white cabinets because they were cheaper than gray and it's timeless.  It appeals to more buyers when we decide to sell in the future and I love white.  I did a shaker style cabinet and they have soft close doors. Get out.  Also, i picked out the granite for the countertops, the undermount sink and the old style farmhouse faucet.  I was going to do a farmhouse sink, but the cabinet lady talked me out of it, for reasons I'll share later.  The not so fun part? Handing over the check.  HA!
- ALL NEW FLOORS.  yes.  We tore up the carpet and laminate in the bedrooms and are tackling the hardwoods in the living area this weekend.  They are bowed up in almost the entire space and severely scratched so we decided to choose a flooring that we could put in the entire house to make it look all the same.  Will share what we chose later! I am having 3-4 contractors come out to give me quotes and that is keeping me insanely busy trying to be here and there and everywhere.  Ah, i am tired just thinking about it.
-New ceilings-  As mentioned earlier, hubby scraped all the popcorn off and we are having someone come out to texture the ceilings.  It not only adds value to your home, but it looks awesome and updated when it's done. Hopefully that will be completed next week.
-Repainting all the baseboards, doors, trim, and closet doors.  UGH.  by the time we move in, i will enver want to paint anything ever again.

those are just the BIG projects we have going on right now.  Add packing up our entire apt and the 12038 smaller projects to the mix..and you have a crazy pregnant lady ready to scream.

I will get through it, and it will all get done.  I hope.

I can't wait to document the whole process and show you too!! I took before photos and man, the after is going to look AMAZING.  if it all ever happens. haha.

So. I may be absent a bit these next couple weeks, but I will have my camera handy and promise to update you as much as I can.

Let me share a few inspiraction photos and paint colors we have chosen so far!

So the cabinets you see below are the same ones we have on order. They are shaker style and I just love the white.  I am planning on getting oil rubbed bronze pulls and faucet.  I also used this same photo to pick my granite.  It's called Kashmir White and is so pretty.  It will look awesome with the gray paint color we chose for the main areas.  

We chose collonde gray by Sherwin Williams as our main paint color. I love it. It doesn't really have any blue or green in it, so it is the perfect gray.

 

What's a house project without spilled paint?  I couldn't even blame my toddler, since he was in the other room.

 

So I will be back to update you on our progress,  say a prayer that I dont turn into a nutcase before the end of the month!

 

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

So yesterday was a BIG day for us!  We closed on our house! Yay, we are so excited and I've already got my new kitchen cabinets, countertops, and floors picked out! Meeting with a design specialist to order the floors today, ordering the cabinets tomorrow, and then once those are installed, the countertops! Hashtag ONIT.

We are so happy to finally have a space that will be our own, have a yard, and a nice quiet cul de sac to play in!  We are not actually MOVING until October 17th or 18th, so that way we have time to do the renovations that we want to get done.  Well, for the most part.  

Anyway, yesterday was overall a good day but it was also a very strange day for me.  My due date with baby #2 was yesterday.  If you didn't know, I had a miscarriage earlier this year.  I shared my story here and if you want to read it, feel free.  I felt like I needed to share because so many women go through loss and never talk about it, therefore they don't have support.  I wanted to be able to talk openly about my feelings and thoughts so I could seek advice, help, and support from friends who have gone through this.

This whole month is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.  Hopefully it will help you learn a little about how common miscarriage really is, how most of the time, you did nothing to cause it, and how you can cope and move forward after experiencing it.  

So, more than likely, I would still be pregnant today since I was 9 days overdue with Winslow, but now I have an angel looking over us in heaven.  I am thankful that I have another precious growing baby in me right now,( I was also 20 weeks pregnant yesterday!)  and that has definately helped to lessen the sting of the loss, but it still doesn't make me stop wishing for that little baby in heaven.  I would've loved nothing more than to meet him this week, but I know God's plans are greater than mine, and without that loss, I wouldn't have this little baby boy growing in my belly now.  

1 in 4 women have miscarriages, so it's not an uncommon thing.  It's great that we have this month to just bring attention to the fact that many women do experience it, and it's never easy, no matter the circumstance.  It not only affects you physically, but emotionally as well.  

So, I hope you'll just remember that if you've been through this, you're not alone.  You can seek support and help from me or some of your close friends. That is what got me through.  

Bye weekend.

Another weekend in the books.  They always seem to go by so fast.  If you would have asked me about weekends a year and a half ago, i would tell you I hate them.  That's when Seth had to work the most..he was a supervisor at Polo Ralph Lauren retail store and never got many weekends off.  It was no fun, so I am very thankful our move to Florida has allowed for him to be off every single weekend.  We can spend the mornings cuddling and then go to church together on Sunday.  Ahh, it's so wonderful.

Soo...in two days we close on our first Florida home!  Yep! I've not talked about it much because I wanted to make sure the loan went through and all that, but it's official on Wednesday! I am SO excited to have our own backyard and a cul-de-sac to let Winslow run around on.

The best part?

It needs a mini-overhaul.  As in, new kitchen, floors, fence outside, paint throughout...my DIY dream.  So yep, I have 234789 projects to do in the coming months..and oh yeah, have a baby in between!  We are so excited for our little Florida home and it's even better that it's 15 minutes to the beach.  We are spoiled.

So the first thing on the list to do is new cabinets and countertops!  We have a small kitchen and it's bascially a galley style so the good news about that is smaller kitchen means less money to update it.

Here's a few inspiration photos:

















Gray. that's all i can say about that.  i LOVE white kitchens, but this is just LOVE for me.

Pair those cabinets with white subway tile, a farmhouse sink, maybe a couple glass front cabinets or open shelving.  Oh yes.  This is good.  very good.

So the day we close, we are high tailing it up to Lowes and Home Depot to get quotes on the costs and such.

oh yeah, we are also painting throughout, maybe new flooring, and scraping popcorn ceilings.  Lots of stuff and I will be updating and showing y'all throughout the whole process!

Let's take a poll:  Do you like the gray kitchens or are you a white kitchen kind of person?  Or maybe darker cabinets suit you?