new room

In an effort to not let Piglet make the connection between a new baby and getting kicked out of her room and bed, we have been planning her new room together for the last two months.  When I first asked her what color she wanted for the walls, she said “black”.  I convinced her that was too dark and asked her again.  “Purple” was her next choice – I can live with that (and Russ is learning to).   Since then, whenever she is wearing something purple or sees something purple, she gets REALLY excited and says, “it matches my new room”….and I mean REALLLLLLY excited.

So today is the day that she officially moves into her new room after months of anticipation.  Her old room has been stripped bare so that it looks unappealing until July when it’s time to decorate again (who am I kidding, we’ll be good if I can wait until April to decorate once I know whether we are going for pink or blue this time).

Her “new room” (which is what she calls it every time) is really cute and all grown-up.  Russ is slowly getting accustomed to the extremely girlie nature of it, but he did play a part – he panted the walls purple.  So I give you the former guest room AKA Piglet’s big girl room:

The first place Piglet went when she got home from school was her “new room” (which she has apparently been talking about nonstop at school according to her teacher today).  I think she likes it!

We’ll see how her first night in her new room goes.

child labor

If you live in this house, you have to earn your keep.

Cooking Dinner

Clearing Limbs

But at least it was fun and she looked cute

Helping daddy carry a particularly heavy limb

MedSchoolMonday(on Friday): Heaven…I’m in Heaven

It’s less than a month until school starts back up, but I’m actually getting excited about cranking back up.  And a lot has been accomplished this summer–deck, finished sun room, painted house trim, etc.  A least the boss is happy.  Speaking of the deck, I now know what heaven will be like.  A couple of weeks ago, after the deck was completed, we splurged and bought a big bag of boiled peanuts and a gallon of tea from McAlisters.  We did up some of Dorothy and Russ’ make-you-wanna-smack-yo-mamma burgers and threw them on the grill.  Then all three us sat on the deck and ate peanuts and drank sweet tea.   We enjoyed the smell of cooking burgers and threw our peanuts shells into the backyard.   The little tater tot LOVES boiled peanuts and sweet tea; her daddy is so proud.  She couldn’t get enough.   We took pictures to document:

  

Daughter and proud daddy.

Yummmmm!

Where a foretaste of glory divine took place.

Hallelujah for boiled peanuts, sweet tea, and good company to throw shells in the grass. 

my husband is THE MAN

It’s been a while since my last post because all “free” time has been spent working on our house in super speed mode.   We finally got carpet installed in our office after our hot water heater flooded three months ago, so the weekend was spent moving back into that room (and trying our best to declutter so that the room was not as overcrowded as before).

Then Piglet spent the week at Grammy’s house so we could finish the sunroom addition without her making handprints in wet paint, stabbing herself with nails, or eating drywall.  I’m so glad it’s (almost) done!  Here’s our three year journey:

When we moved in three years ago, we had a horrible screened in porch off of our living room.  I use the term “screened in” loosely because the screens were all torn, probably by these two dogs that prevented me from going out onto the porch during the inspection and getting a good picture of the nastiness.  It was incredibly dirty and dingy – definitely not a place you want to hang out.

This is the view of the porch from the outside.

We decided, somewhat foolishly, that closing in the porch would be a great easy way to build some sweat equity…plus we wanted a playroom for Piglet since her bedroom is so small.

We started the process a year ago with the hopes that it would be finished before Russ started school in the fall.   That obvisouly didn’t happen.  The room looked like this until Christmas break.

After Christmas break, it was liveable so Piglet’s Christmas loot moved in.  But since it wasn’t completely done, all the tools hung out on the shelves.  Then when the hot water heater broke, all of the office contents got moved into the back half of the room.

Then this week, we (mostly Russ) put the finishing touches (caulk, painted trim and doors, installed door hardware).  And voila:

Use your imagination to put cabinet doors on the lower half of the built-in and groovey decor on the shelves/walls and a snazzy new tv in the large opening – one day, maybe.

It took a long time, but Russ BUILT A ROOM – installed doors and windows, designed and created a built-in unit, brought the floor up to be level with the rest of the house, put down tile floor, installed remote control fans, hung siding, etc, etc, etc.   I’m impressed.   For my part, I cleaned up his messes – which were many.

So I guess if he gets to a point in his life when he can’t use his BA in History and English, his Master of Divinity, or his Medical School degree, he can fall back on being a handyman…because we all know he is not allowed to go back to school again.  ever.  

yard work

Lately, I’ve been wishing we hadn’t bought a house.  We bought right before the bubble burst and there were SO MANY more things that had to be done than we originally thought.  Money Pit.  It would also be nice for our free time to be free and not working on the house.  And the chaos that is our house stresses me out even more than usual. 

But yesterday, we worked in the yard on a beautiful sunny afternoon.  It was fun, and it felt great to see such a big improvement in just a few short hours.   And it’s something that Russ and I both enjoy doing together.  So yesterday, I was glad we have a house.

And Piglet was a big help as well.  She was good at picking up the string that held the pinestraw bails together, eating the dirt, running into the street, using the little gardening shovel as a spoon, and running through the water from the hose as I tried to water the plants.  But she was most helpful as Russ was trimming the tree.  She had a great time watching him work.  A limb would fall and she would laugh.  hard.

To keep her safe, I put her in her stroller so she didn’t run into the street as Russ and I tried to figure out which limbs to take down and so she didn’t get hit by a limb.  My plan, however, was almost foiled since Russ almost took her out anyway.   Can you see how close that limb in by her front wheel?!

But she just thought it was funny.  She was such a cutie, sitting and watching.  And when I got my turn using the pole saw, she applauded (with just a little nudging from daddy) – that’s good encouragement.  She makes a pretty good audience.

We started out just taking out a few limbs, but Russ got a little carried away with his fancy (borrowed) power tool.  Our pile was pretty impressive 20 minutes later. 

All in all, a successful afternoon.  Trimming a tree.  Spreading pine straw.  Buying some decent $1 azaleas on sale to go around the newly trimmed tree.  And installing 6 solar landscape lights for $27 (with a 10% off coupon).