Bella's Room

Bella's room is coming together...slowly. I painted her room turquoise which I LOVE. I wanted something fun but not too obnoxious. Abel would have selected pink, but honestly seeing pink and princesses all day long and then to see it at night is a little much. The color was a Behr color that I had them add a little more honey so it's more of a "custom" color. This little nook here used to have a desk and a shelf built in but the desk was HIDEOUS. Aweful. (Ignore the patch of popcorn ceiling that was underneath the shelf. I need to scrape that as well!)

So we demo'd the desk and were surprised to find a mouse hole (we've sprayed our house many times over...if that doesn't get rid of mice, don't tell me any differently.) and we learned that there was no carpet under the desk. We'll also replace all the outlets and switches to white. (Add that to the "honey-do" list.)

I salvaged the upper shelf and am painting it white. It'll serve as a bookshelf and will cover one section of missing carpet. I'll either put a rug and bean bag chair to cover the other section or put her dresser there. Either way, you'll notice that there's a little light on the wall (that we'll replace) and it'll be sweet as either a reading light or a light above the dresser (you know, in case she decides to change at night or something...sometimes things are more for decoration). I'll probably but a mirror below the light if I put the dresser there.

It's a work in progress. We still have to do the ceiling but hey, at least we're making progress!

Our New Couch

This is our new couch that sometimes I look at and think I should have gotten the other one--but every time I sit in it, I fall in love with it again. To me it looks a little formal right now, but I think it's because our other couch just looked so...sad. I look at our old couch now and think it's a surviver. It survived years with Abel in college playing games like "how many people can fit on this glorified loveseat", two infants and Bella learning to drink without a lid (Abel thought she could start that when she was 18 months...I still put the spill proof lid on her cup) and potty training. If there were a cancer/war ribbon for couches, this one deserves it. That's why we're going to move him into the play room or retire him downstairs. He deserves a break.

You'll have to excuse the mess in our living room. We're trying to figure out what-goes-where. Even though Abel has an office devoted solely to him, he still puts his two laptops in the living room. Eventually we want to get to arm or wing chairs and ottoman to put in front of the fireplace, but for now, we have the glider. It looks a little wimpy in comparison to the couch.

You'll also notice the paint colors on the wall. I'm pretty indecisive. I need the color to be perfect.

I still like this color (this isn't our house...just a picture I found a long time ago) but it's a benjamin moore color and I need it to be in Behr because I need the built-in primer for our walls (they were painted high gloss). Home Depot (who carries Behr) won't color match someone else's paint sample. So I just need to figure out what color that is in the Behr line. It's a process.

My Sewing Room

While Abel was away in Virginia on a business trip, I decided I would set my sewing room up. Since Abel loves the paint sprayer (which takes WAY too long to set up), I decided I would paint my room quickly before he got back so there would be no confusion on the best approach to painting.


I went with a color that I call Pistacio Ice Cream (I think Behr calls is celery sprig or something like that...Pistacio Ice Cream is a better description). At first I was a little put off by how bright it is, but now I love it. I feel so inspired when I see the room...that and I want to keep putting stuff on the walls. It's a little bare.


I still need to put in the new outlets, light switches, and reinstall the intercom, but that'll come this weekend in time.


I especially love my dress form. I FINALLY got to take it out to use display. It really makes it look like a sewing room. Kinda professional-looking!


When Abel was buying my furniture for the sewing room (two shelves, two tables, two chairs, and a filing cabinet for less than $100) he also saw this conference room table that we're putting temporarily in the dining room. It'll go in the garage in a few years when Abel builds us a new table. I *heart* craigslist!


Noah's two bottom teeth broke through this weekend, so he immediately fell asleep when I got home. Isn't he so cute?

Christmas Morning

Bella coming down stairs in the morning. It's hard to see her expression, but she was in total shock.


Bella showing off her toys from Santa.


Noah gets some love from Grandma. In hindsight, I really wish we would have taken more pictures of Noah. He was so content on Christmas and because this was the first time Bella really grasped the concept of Christmas/Santa/presents, we focused mainly on Bella. He's certainly due for a few photo shoots.


Even Mom loves Christmas.


Everyone was busy opening presents and we looked over to find Bella had climbed on top of her present to unwrap it (it was some shelves for the playroom).


This is a terrible picture of Bella, but she was trying to figure out what this present was for a long time. Uncle Josh and Aunt Amber always do such a nice job wrapping presents, so she was drawn to this one from the start--guessing anything from a Barbi to a ball. It was pretty cute when she finally opened it and found a game (and Strawberry shortcake none-the-less!).

Wrapping Presents

So we were wrapping presents and Bella decided she had to help. She got a DVD out of the cabinet and started wrapping. She said she wanted to give it to Mimi. That's what's so cute about Bella--she definitely thinks its the thought that counts. You could give her a box of rocks and she'd exclaim "how cute!"



What's really funny is that the box she's sitting next to really isn't that big...it's just that Bella is that small. I love our fireplace.

Christmas Lights

What's wrong with this picture? Oh to be three... Obviously we're having a pretty warm winter.



Here's the front of our house. It was hard to take the picture since I had to use a flash (or else the lights all came out blurry).



Here's a close-up of the train. We made train tracks using the sidewalk in our front yard. It's so cute!

Its Christmas Time

We're working on decorating our house for Christmas and it's taking some time. (Eventually we'll clear off the extension cords from the mantle and hang the garland.) We quickly learned that our Christmas tree is miniscule compared to our house. Once we clear out the remaining boxes, I'll take a picture so you can see it compared to the rest of the house!

Abel loves Christmas dearly, so its taking some work to hold him back. Although I'd like to do a Santa train, waterfall and pond, deer drinking from the pond, and lamp posts which point to the North Pole, unfortunately we need things like drills and light fixtures more so we'll have to tame things down this year. Maybe just the lamp posts and icicle lights (a hand-me-down of course).



And this is our Nativity set that we bought from Costco. I fell in love with a different one last year, but we have so much stuff to buy for the house, this one will do the job just as well as any other. I'm not sure if the baby Jesus should go on the bar, but this was the only counterspace we have that can fit the set. We need to get an end table to something...


Here's our bedroom...still pending the accent wall.

Under the Weather

The roses are from our yard...and they certainly have a LOT of thorns! Also note Noah's highchair (it's hard to see in the back). We can't wait until he's able to join us at the table.


I know our kitchen is ugly, but I have to say that I've really gotten used to it. It's so much bigger than our condo so I'm certainly loving it.


Bella's room in the works. We've actually already finished scraping the ceiling.


This is the hole Abel cut in the crawlspace of the server room while we were redoing the cable.


The fireplace is two-sided. Noah is temporarily staying in the room on the other side (you can see his crib if you look closely) but that room will eventually be the library/office.



No, it's not cold outside (at least not very), but I'm feeling a little under the weather. Stuffy nose, fatigue, sore throat, cough...not good. So I started up the fireplace and reheated some of the stew I made this weekend.

The star on the fireplace mantle was huge in our condo. This fireplace dwarfs it!


Ignore the boxes. We'll finish unpacking eventually.