Baby Steps

No, Nicholas isn't walking, I'm just finally exercising my blog muscles again. Gotta start slow so's not to strain myself.

This has been a busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy time. (No exaggeration!) It's also been very good and exciting. But let me stress the all-consuming busy-ness of it all. Such busy-ness is not to my liking. But we've also been busy due to my huge desire to enjoy the great outdoors before the dreaded humidity/mosquito combination comes to town. So the park and our driveway have been almost as big a part of our life as Home Depot. Almost.

Jacob is working to understand pedaling. A surprisingly challenging skill!



















Nicholas is enjoying finding rocks, dirt, and leaf debris and trying to shove it in his mouth before I get it. Darn you, pincer grasp! Darn you to heck!














And we're all trying to eek all of the fun out of our long, flat driveway for as long as we can. (And yes, Jacob's lawnmower does blow bubbles.)

Enough about the house

and more about us!

Just a pair of cutesie-tootsies.














They are way cooler than our house. (Although our house is still very cool and on the market!)

Ta da: Part 2 or Freedom

We did it. We finished all that we needed to do to show this here house. This week has been incredibly challenging and also a lot of fun. I grew up working on our house and yard. A lot. I won't bore you all with my "I roofed the house" or my "I installed a sprinkler system" stories (I'm far too modest), but working on my parents' house was a constant in my life. It hasn't been such a constant in this house. We've been a little too good at making do. So, this week has helped me remember how much fun and how much work it takes to really make a house shine. We could not have done it without Grandma Jan. She painted, edged, trimmed, cleaned, organized and did just about anything else we needed. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I also have realized how great our house is. Serious, what's not to love?

I love you, slanty house.















I love your big ginormous living room with the cute guy walking through.















I love your bar for serving lime rickeys and shirley temples.















I love your kitchen with beautiful appliances and ugly wallpaper.















I love your freakishly large master bedroom.















I love your slightly garish yella' room.




















I love your very minty mint chocolate chip room.




















I love your deck. No words. To pretty.















And most of all, I love your bathroom that finally isn't unbelievably ugly.

Before (see if you can spot all of the different materials used in the hardware):




















After (it looks way more beige in this pic, but trust me...it's gorgeous!):




















Sorry about the unexplained underlining. Too tired to figure it out.

Ta da!: Part I

Check out the preliminary fruits of our labors here.

Doesn't the house look extra pretty not covered in toys? As we've been working I've been falling back in love with the house all over again. I have to leave this for student housing? Goodbye dishwasher. Goodbye yard. Good (sniff, choke) bye.

Anyway, we're having an open house this Saturday, April 19th from 5 -7. If we do have any readers who are interested just comment here or contact us via our craigslist info to get directions. Imagine if we could sell our home through blogging! Ah, blogger, is there anything you can't do?

We will be working more throughout the week. Thankfully Grandma Jan is coming to help us get the final things together. We're really grateful she's willing to sacrifice the time to come. But really it's just payback for her. Kidding! (I'm pretty sure she'll be working a lot harder here than we ever did there.)

Look forward to more exciting pictures of our bedroom, Nicholas's bedroom and (the real excitement) the guest bathroom!

STILL Under Construction

We're going to post pictures of our amazing house recovery program soon. We've realized that the biggest "uglifier" of this house is really all of our kid junk.

Dern kids.














You shall see.

Under Construction

My blog isn't under construction (it's already perfect)...it's our house! We really are moving to Chicago in the fall and so we REALLY DO need to sell our house. (Anyone interested in the cheapest house in Simpson Elementary? In lovely, desirable Peachtree Corners? A quaint 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom ranch? Just moments from Trader Joe's?) In order to sell our fabulous home we need to reverse the years of cosmetic abuse this house has received at the hands of various homeowners with dumb ideas in their heads and beer cans in their hands.

It's not all that horrible. Nothing that a few hundred bucks and some hard work won't set aright. But I have learned a few lessons (based on the previous owners' mistakes) that I'd like to impart to you all.

1. Don't go patching walls without knowing what you're doing.

2. Don't paint without taping first. And if you're too stubborn to tape, please just pretend you care about baseboards and door frames.

3. Use a drop cloth.

4. Don't use wooden towel racks, brushed nickel cabinet pulls, a brass faucet, a dark matte metal light fixture and a bright shiny metal tub faucet IN THE SAME BATHROOM.

5. And don't decide to decorate a bathroom in a seaside motif complete with lighthouse tiles and a seashell sink. Please.

Thank you.

(And please, buy my house!)

9 Months

9 months ago little Nico was born.

And he looked a little bit like Babe Ruth for the first 5 hours. Not ugly like the Babe (no offense), but he just had a wrinkly, stretched sort of look that first day.














Then things like this started happening. Gasp. Those cheeks!














Then the dark part of his life came. (Colic.) Mommy and daddy were lined and wan pretty much all of the time and Nicholas was pretty testy himself. But when the Colic devil wasn't dancing on his shoulder he really seemed to be a relaxed, sweet little man. And so he was. He's been a model baby and a real delight. Check him (and his hair) out through these last nine months!





















































































































Happy 9 months boy. We love you!