Where Does the Time Go?

I have a confession to make…


Please, pretty please, don’t hate me for it…

My Christmas tree isn’t up yet.

And I have three kids.

Yeah, no Mom of the Year award being given to me this year! I meant to get it up one night last week. Really, I did. And to give Brent his credit, he did get it out of the storage unit last week. But it’s still in the garage.

I just didn’t have time last week. Between getting stuff ready for Jenna’s Christmas party and our weekend trip to my Dad’s house for our Christmas with them…time got away from me. So I promised myself and everyone else that we would leave early and get home in time to put up and decorate the tree last night.

Yeah, that didn’t happen either.

So I’ll try again tonight. Maybe today will be my day. I mean, I’ve only got 4 more days…surely one of these will work?!?!

We did the same thing last year…I was pregnant and feeling bad all the time, so the tree went up the week of Christmas. I swore that I’d never do it that way again…but here we are…

Anyone else running behind? The good news is that I’m done with all of our shopping as far as I can remember…gifts just need to be wrapped. But what’s the fun in wrapping if you don’t have a tree to put the gifts under?!?!? Maybe tonight…wish me luck!

The Rest of the Story...

...Man! Did anyone else have a Paul Harvey flashback or what?!?! I sure did...

Anyway, so I promised to let you see the results of the rest of our evening of hard work yesterday, and despite evidence to the contrary I try to keep my word.

Unfortunately, you won't get to see as much evidence of my insanely great photography skills since I was getting the "evil eye" from my hubby at the amount of pictures that I was taking. In fact, to be honest, I think that I actually got asked this question: "You're NOT going to take as many pictures of this one, are you?" Except that it wasn't really a question, if you know what I mean... :)

So here goes. We also purchased the Expedite bookshelf while we were at IKEA the other day, like I already mentioned...and here's what it looked like out of the boxes (yes, there were THREE boxes for such an uncomplicated bookshelf!)... And the parts, such as they are... In fact, that's all of the pictures that I have until the final steps. (Insert sad face here) It looks REALLY big laying on the floor! Then Brent used his big man muscles and stood it upright... Just double checking his work... So once we slid it into the right spot and got it all in place, this is what it will look like walking into our room... Minus the couch with the tired-looking boy sitting on it, of course!And then to round the end of the bookshelf, you'll come to the "entrance" of Jax's room... We actually had a few more parts left over from this installation, just because we chose not to anchor it to the wall just yet. I want to be sure about where it's going before doing that step! And the next day, the kids helped me unpack the four boxes of books that I had in our bedroom and load up the shelf, so this is what it will really look like. I'm actually still looking for some maroon-colored curtains to hang on the back of the bookshelf to make it more like a wall...but BB&B didn't have anything that I really liked when I checked there tonight. Of course not, that would be too easy, right? Yeah, but it works like this for now.

So there you have it...most of Jax's nursery is put together and all. Yes, we still need to paint the trim in the room, redo the baseboards and hang the crown molding...along with the artwork and blanket that came with Jax's bedroom set, but the really big hard stuff is done. After my shower this weekend, I'll start washing all of the baby clothes and putting stuff away into the dresser and making it ready for him to come home to. I can't wait!

...So We Took Their Doors!

Yeah, that's the punch line that I'm using for the title. But I promise that if you stick with me on this short rant that you'll laugh your a** off along with us!

So we have two kids. And another one on the way...and yes, there are days when I question my own sanity. Especially if it happens to be one of those days where people remind you about their friend who had three kids and the third one broke the mold...yeah. So I think that the hormones are really kicking in during these last 30 days because I have been on a tear lately. If I'm not crying about something then I'm probably annoyed or ticked off about something else...and I REALLY hope for everyone else in this house that it's just the hormones. (And yes, I know that they'll get worse after the birth...but please keep that to yourself and don't tell my husband or children that! I think that they don't know that yet...and I'd like to keep that a secret for now!)

Anyway. So we have two kids. Two kids that have become somewhat "spoiled" shall we say? They are just being normal kids, but they really need to be taken down a notch or two in our opinion...and yes, this is something that Brent and I are totally, 100% on the same page about. We are in perfect agreement in this. They've been pestering us lately, but I really mean just me, and things have just come to a head in the last two or three days. I'll moderate my comments here and stop and say that they're good kids. For the most part...they just need a little reminding about how good they have it.

They've become accustomed to things. Things that we buy for them. Things that we do for them. Things that we don't have to be doing. And I'll stop right here and take full responsibility for the "monsters" that we've created. Putting a child through a divorce and living in two houses is hard on a kid. It's also hard on the parents too. For so long we wanted to be the parent that did fun things, that spent time with their kids, that took them cool places ALL THE TIME because we could. And now, just like would be expected, they've gotten used to that life. They now expect those things from us all of the time.

It's got to stop.

But the last few days, the problem has been more that they don't listen. Yes, I know, just another normal kid complaint...but when you're 9 months pregnant, it's a big deal. I don't want to repeat myself 4,376 times just to get the towel picked up off of the floor of one of their bedrooms. I don't want to have to ask 792 times for some peace and quiet in the afternoons while I'm trying to rest and follow doctor's orders for them to be quiet. And today...I didn't want to tell them even ONE MORE TIME to stop slamming their bedroom doors.

While I was trying to nap.

Me, the 9 month pregnant woman.

Whose hormones are starting to rage out of control.

When I was woken up for the 3rd time from the catnap that I was trying to take by a knocking on one of their doors, or a slam of the other one's doors, or a whiny little "You aren't supposed to use the locks!" I sort of lost it.

I calmly got up out of my bed. I put on my flip flops and walked downstairs. I managed to not even glare at them on my way past their rooms to get downstairs. Then I saw Brent trying to take a nap downstairs on the couch and I went completely postal. On the kids, not Brent. I told him that I wanted their doors taken off the hinges.

He just looked at me.

Then he said "I've tried to keep them quiet so that you could rest and I've asked them repeatedly to stop playing with their doors..." (Like he was the one in trouble)

And my response was "Yes, I'm sure that you have. But just like they don't listen when we tell them other things, they're not listening now. And the only thing that I can think to do to teach them a lesson is to remove their doors."

I took a deep breath along with a long pause...and then I said "So, please go upstairs and take care of that."

Then I went into the kitchen and made myself a sandwhich. (This is another lesson for them - until they can learn to appreciate the fact that they get to eat out for dinner/lunch and not to expect it, we're ALL eating nothing but sandwhiches.)

Brent happily got up from the couch, went out to the garage to get some tools...and he went upstairs and took their doors off of the hinges.

You might think that I'm mean. Maybe someone out there will think that I'm a genius. But I have a responsibility to raise my kids with some sense of manners, respect and responsibility to take with them out into the world towards other people, themselves and the things that are in their lives. And I feel that I haven't done much of that lately...and since we don't beleive in corporal punishment to any extreme, this seemed like a logical solution. Because it was either that or strangle someone...I think that I took the high road...

And yes, when I went upstairs after eating my wonderfully yummy PB&J sandwhich with pretzels and sweet tea for dinner...I laughed. I laughed out loud and hard to see them both in their rooms without any doors. I know that it was a little mean...but it was really hard not to laugh at the situation.

And when I say that I laughed, I really mean that I laughed so hard that I almost peed my pants...which isn't hard to do when you're 9 months pregnant!

Starting on the "Nursery"

Yeah, I get it...we're running a little behind on the whole starting to fix up the nursery thing...you don't have to rub it in!

But in my defense, we don't really have a nursery for Mr. Jax...which has presented all sorts of dilemmas in the first place. You see, our house is a 3/2 and there are already three of us that need rooms...Brent and myself, Tanner and Jenna. We're pretty sure that since there is such a large age gap between all the kids, we would like for neither of the older kids to have to give up "their space" to share with baby Jax. Even though we don't have either one of them all of the time and we'll have Jax 24/7...yeah, I know.

But still...so that presented the first problem. It was "easily" solved by us agreeing that for the first few months (no longer than a year) Jax could live in our sitting room. Luckily our house plan has a rather large master suite that includes it's own sitting area. Now, I know that the sitting area doesn't have it's own door...or even a sliding wall of any kind...and yes, I understand all of the logistical problems that we're not going to want to deal with for too long of a time period. But what's that old saying - when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right? That's what we're trying to do here. We understand that with the birth of this new one, we've outgrown our house...but for the next 6 months or so, we're sort of stuck here. It is what it is...

The second thing holding us back on starting the nursery was that since it is our sitting room/area that we don't use as a sitting room/area (we use it as a junk catch-all corner) it really needed to be cleaned out before we could start anything. So, like I said a few days ago, we rented a storage space and started working on clearing out all of the extra crap that you tend to accumulate during the course of your "grown up" years...and it's a slow process, people.

But we finally made some space...and yes, I hear you, I'm within 6 weeks of giving birth...but we started painting yesterday. And yes, Mom, I'm using the word "we" while I really mean just Brent is doing the painting. He doesn't want me painting anything at this late date and I have been threatened with bodily harm if he sees me with a paint roller in my hand. He's not even sold on the idea of me helping "trim out" the room...but he's thinking about it. It IS a large room after all...

I posted here the other day about our paint color choice...and then I changed my mind about it. I decided that that one was too dark and it would probably close in our room quite a bit once all the walls were painted that dark. So we tried two other color samples, decided on one and bought the paint the night before last. Then the paint took a field trip with me to my office the next day...instead of staying home with Brent, who needed the paint more than my car did...but oh well. A quick rendevous for lunch and a transfer of all Home Depot packages from my car to his truck fixed that problem, and when I came home from work yesterday afternoon, this is what I saw: And just so there is proof that Brent did ALL of the work by himself... Feel better, Mom? And Brandi? And all of you others who have threatened to hurt me if I do too much these days? I hope so, because it's harder than you think to "rest" and "take it easy!"

This color has a bit more blueish tint to the grey color, which will go with my bedspread nicely, don't you think? We love it! Now we just have to pick a good trim color and all decisions for our room will be finished. Brent did Jax's corner of the room first so that we could put the crib together ASAP and start washing/assembling the bed to await his arrival. My next shower is here at our house, so I'd really like to have it all put together and ready by the time that happens...and Mom would really like to see it all together too!

Random House Projects...

I don't know WHAT was wrong with Blogger this morning...but this post would NOT load...sorry for the delay!

Do you know what happens when you get told that you’ve got less time before the baby’s arrival than you anticipated? Well, let me tell you – your butt gets kicked into HIGH gear…which is in direct opposition to the “slow down”orders that you got from your doctor…but what’s a girl to do?

I’ve got two pretty big projects that I’d like to have finished before the arrival of baby Jax. #1 – getting our bedroom painted and #2 – getting those blasted kitchen cabinets finished up. So I made some progress towards both of those this past weekend, in addition to doing some necessary shopping for the little one. Which leads to me going into Monday morning feeling VERY productive about my weekend!

Here’s some pictures of what I’m thinking of doing for those paint problems…the room. I’ve known for a while (I’ve even had the paint color picked out for about 6 months) that I wanted to paint our room a nice light grey color. On a trip to Home Depot this past weekend, I actually bought the little sample can and slapped some on the wall yesterday. Here’s what it looks like:Sorry for the crappy iPhone picture…that’s what happens when your real camera is DOWNSTAIRS and you’re 8 months pregnant! Due to that, the color’s a bit off…but it’s still a really NICE color. I love it, even if it’s a bit darker than I was thinking that it would be. So hopefully, Brent is going to start painting that LARGE room all by himself this week, since I probably shouldn’t paint at this late date. Yes, surprisingly, I’m exercising caution…I know, it’s shocking!

And then here’s the deal with the kitchen cabinets. Since our living room opens into our kitchen, I felt like it would just be easiest to paint the kitchen the same colors. Lazy, right? Anyway we LOVE those colors…but it’s brown on brown. And our kitchen cabinets are stained a honey shade of brown currently. So they would need to be painted. No problem. But our appliances are all black, except for the stove, which also has white. Are you getting around to my dilemma? If I paint the cabinets brown, then won’t it look weird against the black appliances?

Yeah, that’s what I thought too…so first I tried a green, like an olive/army green. (Sorry - I can't find the pictures that I know that I took!) But with the dark walls, and appliances I could quickly see that it wasn’t going to work. Unfortunately I figured this out AFTER I’d already painted three random cabinets/drawers around the kitchen at various spots…LOL! Then my Mom suggested a cream color to brighten it all up a bit. I hemmed and hawed and then decided that she was right. So this weekend, while getting the sample can for the bedroom paint, we also selected a cream color and bought a sample can of that. And then I proceeded to paint more random cabinets… Do you see the problem that I see? Yeah, the cream color looks great on the upper cabinets, but on the lower cabinets, it really blends in well with the formica…is this a problem? I think so, but maybe you can give me some help on this one…maybe it doesn’t look as bad as I think that it will once they’re all painted. I also bought some hardware (knobs) for all the doors/drawers in the kitchen that we LOVE and they really pop against the cream since they’re a darker metal color…so just insert them into the above pictures since I am too lazy to go back downstairs and put one of them against it to take another picture…

What should I do? Go with another color completely (that would make three colors on various cabinets around my kitchen!)? Brent suggested painting the cabinets one color and the doors/drawers another color, if that makes sense…but I’m not too sure about that either. Help, please!

Floor Remodel

A few weeks ago, I posted that we were doing some home remodeling. And when I use the word “some” I really mean a LOT of home remodeling. Aggressive might be another way to put it. Taking a really big bite of the pie might be another way to think of what all "we’re" doing. (And when I say "we're" doing all of this in the presence of my husabnd, he gives me THAT look...)

And don’t get me started on the aches and the pains...and those are just mine! I’m not even the one doing the hard stuff...my handy-dandy hubby is the busy one...with some help from a cousin. I can only imagine how they feel in the mornings when they get up!

But let me tell you...it’s SO worth it. If you thought that the paint on the walls was a big step, just wait until you get to the end of this post! You’ll be amazed, and maybe a little jealous that I have such a talented husband...I’m not opposed to hiring him out for your own project though...wink, wink. Just kidding – he’d probably murder me for even thinking those thoughts!

I wish that I’d taken some pics of the carpet...no, then I’d be too embarrassed to post them...it’s best just to use your imagination. I guarantee that it’s probably not the worst carpet even seen, but it was in pretty ragged shape. But we had carpet down over the whole living room and some tile in the entry-way and kitchen/laundry room/half bath.

This is what we started with.

It’s not bad tile. It’s just ugly, in my opinion. It’s not something that I would choose to put down, but it’s something that was here with B bought the house, and it worked.

First “we” ripped it all up...down to the cement foundation, which was in GREAT shape! Great news when you live in Texas, and in an area known for shifting foundations. Then we started with a small section, from the center of the living room. I tried to convince B that no one really started in the center...that in such a big room that it would be ok to start along a wall with whole pieces, but he does things the right way, there will be no cutting of corners for this guy! Here's a close up of the tile that we chose - 20" x 20" - BIG tiles!Once the method was perfected, and “the workers” found their rhythm they moved along at a steady pace. Knowing that our house would be a wreck for a few weeks while everything downstairs got moved upstairs was still not enough preparation for the mess that our house has been for the last two weeks. The work went by fast though, slowing only for inclement weather (you can’t lay tile if it’s under 50 degrees outside) and arranging schedules between the workers so that one person didn’t do it all alone. After just one week, this is what we had. Everything was done except for the edges of the room...Doesn't it go well with our wall/trim colors? All but the cuts were done...So B and I spent a LONG night the weekend before last and put in the grout on what we had down. I really thought that the grouting portion of the process would be easier and something that I could help with...yeah, not so much. I mean, I did it. I sucked it up and dealt with it, but bending down on hands and knees or trying to crouch down when you’re five months pregnant doesn’t lend for a lot of grace. And I didn’t start out with much to begin with...so you can imagine the laughter that we had that night! I have no actual pictures of ME doing any of the work, but trust me...laying grout is NOT easy!

I was also really worried about washing my jeans right away...it was easier in the end to just sit on my butt and slide across the tiles. I tried REALLY hard to sit on the tile squares and not on the grout lines, but I knew that I had not been 100% successful. And since I can’t fit into “work” jeans that it’s ok to trash, I washed my maternity jeans immediately upon finishing. It all came out – never fear.

Once the main section was grouted, it was time to start on the cuts...and finish out the room.

After the grout set and cured, "we" sealed it. And then my participation began again with trying to get it cleaned up and all the “tile dust” off of the tiles so that they were pretty. I lost count of how many times the floor was mopped, steamed, stripped and washed. My back probably knows the number, but my head does not.

On Friday/Saturday, B cut/painted and installed the new baseboards, rounding out the look of the living room. Once those were in, we were able to put our living room back together, which was exciting for both of us! It's hard not having a place in your home for the family to congregate...

Just two weeks after starting it all. Not bad considering that two guys did most all of the work. Two guys who had not laid tile ever, or in a long time. Isn’t it beautiful? Our new recliners will be here at the end of this month, which we cannot WAIT to get, and our new TV console will be here sometime in May. Then the room will be re-organized and “finished.”

They started on the kitchen/laundry room/half bath this week...stay tuned for those pics!

My Man Works Hard!

He thinks that he doesn’t work that hard right now. You might remember, if you’re a long-time reader, that I posted right before our wedding about B getting laid off. We both worked for the same company and we each made it through the first round of layoffs that happened in April of last year. Then B didn’t make it through the second round that happened in August. I’m still here, but sit on pins and needles some months as we’ve gone through two more rounds of layoffs since August.

Luckily for us, the timing hit just right. Well, I thought that it did. B was free to help with the last minute errands and running around that inevitably happen before a wedding, and then he had time off for our honeymoon, our friend’s wedding in CA and the holidays. Right after the holidays, he buckled down and started really searching for a job. He’s gotten a few nibbles, but only one offer and it wasn’t worth taking. So to say that he’s had some time on his hands is probably the understatement of the year.

For those of you that are married, you understand the concept of a “honey do” list. Well, we’ve had one started since before the wedding. B bought his house a few years before I moved in, and had done nothing to it. And when I say nothing, I really mean nothing. And apparently the previous owners didn’t believe in the whole making-your-house-your-home concept either, because when I moved in last year every single wall in the house was still white. Yep, you read that right. The house was about 7-10 years old at this point, and every single wall in the house was still the original flat white. Except that since 7-10 years have passed, they’re more of a dingy white with brown corners...since we have kids who run through the house, grabbing onto wall corners to skid around the corner. Yeah.

To say that the house needed some “love” would be another understatement. We started talking about things to do before I moved in, but realistically with the wedding that we wanted to throw and pay for, we knew that home remodeling (even just painting) would have to be put on the back burner for the time being. That time is now. Ever since the wedding, the talks about what to do with the house to make it our home have turned more serious. Since B is out of work right now, there is a slight cash-flow problem, but we had purposely saved the last chunk of his severance to work on the downstairs of the house. Between that savings and the generous gifts of friends and family from the wedding and/or Christmas, we had accumulated another few hundred dollars to spend between Lowe’s and Home Depot.

We finally started two weeks ago. And let me tell you – there are places that I hurt that haven’t hurt since I started P90X workouts before our wedding. Seriously. Home remodeling is hard work. It’s totally worth it, but totally draining. Add on top of that being pregnant and you’ve got some serious zappage to the energy levels...which could explain lack of posting?!?! Maybe?!?!

So I thought that you might be interested in seeing our progress so far...or maybe I should say B’s progress so far. I’ve helped, but mostly just on the weekends and with the concept of what I wanted and how things could be. He’s the worker bee, the executioner of my grand designs...and he does DARN good work! See for yourself...

Some before shots of our living/dining room...which opens to the breakfast nook/kitchen making the downstairs mostly one big L-shaped room. See those white walls? Yeah. I don’t think that I need to say more...

And the carpet? The original carpet from the house...once again, 7-10 years old. That’s being torn out this week...of course, you can't SEE the carpet...but trust me. It's in bad shape. You'll have to forgive the clutter taking up most of those shots...that's all of our living room crap shoved out away from all walls... So here’s what we did in stages. First comes the painting... And more painting... And still MORE painting...did I mention that it’s a LARGE room? You probably didn't think so since I forgot to take the Before shots BEFORE we actually started painting, so they were all taken from just the side that wasn't painted!We even took the color up the stairway... Next comes trimming out the top of the room with some thin crown molding...a far off shot...

We went with a smaller crown molding because our walls aren't that high. Crown molding comes so wide these days, and it looks great, if you have the wall height to carry it off. I was worried that with our standard height walls, that using a 3 or 4 inch crown molding would "shrink" our room sizing down, so smaller it was...

Here's some close-ups...

Check out the corner work that he did!

B had never hung crown molding before last week...he taught himself with the help of Google...yes, that’s Google-able...I think that he did a FABULOUS job!

And then some more trim work that I did this past weekend on the window sills...

Eventually, all of the trim downstairs will be the darker brown color...And look how lovely our color scheme goes with our Christmas present from Main Britney last year!

Perfect! And it wasn’t even planned that way!

So that’s where we are. We spent this past weekend painting most of the kitchen the same colors as the living room and hanging the same crown molding in there as well. I forgot to take pics of that...so maybe I’ll grab some in the next few days. We didn’t finish the area right around the sliding glass doors, the window above the sink or the space of walls between counter tops and underneath the cabinets...so that’s why I didn’t take those shots yet.

B was in a hurry to start demo-ing out the carpet and old tile floors...hopefully I can make it home today before he gets too much of the old tile out so that I can get some before pics! It’s a constant work in progress, but I’ll keep you updated.