Home Updates

We moved into our new home in May of last year. When we bought our house, we thought the wall colors and all was just our style, and couldn't be happier.

And then we moved in all of our stuff. We realized the beige and tan colors and greenish-brown trim that we either hadn't noticed or hadn't cared about were going to start bothering us soon. We noticed that the living room is north-facing and doesn't get a lot of light. We noticed that the stairwell railings and spindles were outdated, ugly, and even a little wobbly. This is not a criticism (exactly) of the previous owner, she really did a nice job on a lot of the things she did around the house. But she had more of a nice, romantic, elegant style, and when we started wanting to pin up our kids' tacky pictures on the walls, they didn't quite fit into the house's elegance.

So we set about making it our own! A little younger and hipper, more modern, and more kid- and light-friendly.

1. First off was the dining room wall. We painted it from beige to blue, and eventually added a decoratative plate mural. 

 Before: 

 

After:

And one picture for in-between, because it's kinda fun:

2. Next, our beautiful south-facing dining room needed to bring in more light, and be a fun, cheery place to put up kids pictures and eat dinner without destroying the carpet. So we took down the elegant burgundy wallpaper (which I actually really liked), and painted it light blue, added a fun rug and bright tablecloth, and pinned up kids pictures all around the walls.

Before:

 

After:

And another picture for in-between (after the wallpaper was ripped off):

3. Our biggest/most expensive project, of course, was the stairs. We hired a professional to take out all the spindles and put in rod-iron. We liked the black-white contrast, and feel likes it really updates the look of the home.

Before:                    

After: 

 

4. The trim and mantle/fireplace. I realized soon after painting the dining room blue that the deep red accent fireplace had to go. The trim throughout almost the entire house was this brownish-greenish tobacco stain that I don't know who selected, but it is not at all attractive. So I painted all the downstairs trim white (HUGE DIFFERENCE!), and even painted the mantle all white as well. We painted the previously red accent fireplace wall the same grey as the rest of our walls- Agreeable Grey (Thank you, Sherwin Williams!)

Before:

   

 After:

5. Decor: It took me a long time, a lot of shopping, and a lot of help from my home-decor-savvy friends to decorate a few of our walls. Here's our wall right above the couch. In the bottom-right corner is a window-shutter with an ultrasound picture of our soon-to-be new edition!

And here's our new, colorful gallery wall in the entry hallway:

We painted the living room grey, and here's a picture of that process:

We've got plenty more work to do. We haven't touched the paint upstairs, but when it got dangerous for me to paint and be on a ladder, and when I couldn't properly ventilate the painting area (that was around November), painting stopped. I'm really pleased with most of downstairs! We'll tackle the "blood-spattered" wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom some time this year, and probably paint a mural on the vaulted wall in our living room.

Christmas: Presents and Outings

Merry Christmas from our home to yours! This year we have a mantle with a real fireplace for the first time in our married lives, and it sure makes Christmas more cozy and festive.

We got some cool stuff for Christmas this year, and for some reason I feel the need to document it? Don't ask me why. But here goes.

We got a teepee!

And those cool water balls thingies that inflate in water.

An astronaut costume,

And a police lego set that Tanner earned himself over SEVERAL months of doing chores (and a little help from mom and dad). P.S. This thing came with 6 books of instructions, and10 bags of legos, yet he had this thing all assembled BY HIMSELF within a day and a half. Future engineer??

I got plates for my future plate wall!

Sam got a pilot costume, which Tanner helped pick out. And what did he say? "It's JUST what I ALWAYS WANTED!"

We got big, comfy, big-butt barstools that are SOOO comfortable to sit in!

As far as Winter Break outings, we went to Crown Center,

Kaleidoscope at Crown Center,

and Science City!

Home-Made Santa and overdue One-Liners

The holidays are such a fun time, I love getting together with family and friends and prepping for Christmas!

First off, our nephew Adam has a November birthday, and what did he want to have? A swim party, of course! So his obliging parents rented out a party room at a local community center with a pool and invited his class, and cousins.

The "most fun" part I didnt' get a picture of. That was the part where I was the only adult in the pool because Sam was under the age of 5 and I needed to stay within 5 feet of him at all times. So in my maternity swim-suit that was mysteriously missing a strap(???) I got to hang out with 20+ kids in the shallow end of the pool while all of the other parents watched from the side. *Awkward*

My parents visited us for Thanksgiving! This is me eating at Cracker Barrel with them one morning. We went swimming again at their hotel, but it was much less awkward as we were almost the only ones at the pool, and other adults were swimming too, and the pool did go deeper than 3 feet.

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. Here's Jason's side of the family that came.

And here's my side of the family!

Apparently my kids love swimming in the winter (are you noticing a theme?) because one of Tanner and Sam's favorite things to do lately is swim in our spa bathtub. Can you see how much fun it is??

We got our first snow on December 7th, which meant the boys immediately wanted to play with legos out on the driveway while it was coming down.

And then of course they wanted to jump on the trampoline afterwards. You know, for the Freezing kind of Fun.

Santa has been a HUGE part of Tanner's December. He is OBSESSED with Santa this year. He has asked me so many questions about Santa, I can't even keep them straight. "Was Santa at the First Christmas when Jesus was born?" "Do reindeer get speeding tickets?" "Zach's dad looks like Santa, so did Zach grow up in the North Pole?" and so on and so on . . .

(In fact, here's a picture he drew of a Lion Police pulling over Santa's reindeer and giving them a speeding ticket. After all, they MUST be speeiding to get to everyone in the world's house in one night):

I could have taken hundreds of pictures of his Santa games all month, but I'll spare you. Here are just a few. First off, our coffee table became the sleigh, our unassembled bar stool became his seat, and his backpack became his bag of gifts:

He's making a list, and checking it twice . . .

He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows if you're awake. . .

Santa Claus is coming to town:

(excuse the living room mess, that picture was just too good to pass up).

They insisted I take this exact picture. Wasn't even my idea.

I attended my first "tag" party- making and exchanging Christmas tags. That was a new one, but the party was enjoyable and I had fun making my tags.

Great time of year to add cranberries to our green smoothies! So Christmasy!

And to end today, I have gone too long without putting down some random funny quotes from the kids (mostly Sam, since he's three, and half of what comes out of his mouth is hilarious),

 so here are a few:

1. Sam: "I can do whatever I want!"

    Tanner: "No you can't. You can't shoot people with a gun."

    Sam: "That's because it's not my job. My job is to put away the silverware!"

2. Sam, eating spaghetti: "Look at my BLOOD!!!" (way funnier with his voice)

3. Sam, as we're backing out of the driveway to go to church, and Frankie the dog is watching us from out our front window: "Frankie wants to go with us! But he's not wearing his church clothes."

4. After my explanation about things that Fugetts do and don't do, such as: Fugetts Flush the toilet, I wanted to clean off Sam's face- a task he DREADS having me do. So he runs away, crying, "Fugetts don't have boogers on their faces!"

5. Excited Sam: "I got pizza! And it's long! And it has ham on it! And it even has a point on it!"

6. Sam, after Tanner bowled him over in the living room and they're lying in a heap on the floor: "Tanner, you forgot to stop!"

7. Sam, after telling the kids that there's a baby in mommy's tummy: "And if you lift your shirt, it will escape!"

8. Confused Sam, after being told that there's no such thing as Fire Truck Day: "But I wished upon a star! " (except it sounded more like "But i wissed upon a stow"- like he was shocked that his dream didn't actually come true just because he wished upon a star.) Also note that he has a rotating star/universe night-light so he has numerous stars to wish on as often as he wants, so lately whenever he doesn't get what he wants, he makes the same confused statement, "But I wissed upon a stow!"

And finally, a couple from Tanner:

9. After watching the Sound of Music, which he LOVED, "Can we watch the next episode??"

10. This one is more of a story, that requires explanation. So Jason is the only one who can get Tanner to take a nap anymore. So one day Jason put Tanner down for a nap and Tanner was just crying and kicking the floor and having a fit, so I went in there, and Tanner growls, "It's just that I like taking naps with my pants ON!" I looked down, and sure enough, the kid had no pants on. Tanner explained that Dad took them off. So I questioned Jason about it, and Jason said, "Well yeah, doesn't everyone like to take naps without their pants on?"