Sunday, December 28, 2014

house update

our house is getting prettier and prettier
and also
harder and harder to deal with.
we take two steps forward and one step back,
so we ARE getting somewhere,
but not as fast as i would like.
the upstairs is completely painted,
as well as the kitchen cabinets.
its so pretty.
i swear, paint makes all the difference.

 kitchen cabinets - avocado

 brette's room - regale blue

 trim paint - westinhouse white

 walls - realistic beige

guest bathroom - sea salt
(all sherwin williams colors)

carpet was laid on friday,
but the guy we ordered it through didn't order enough
for both the master bedroom and the guest bedroom.
(one step back)
but he thinks he can have more in by tuesday
and laid by wednesday, so that only sets us back
by a few days.
over the weekend we painted grates,
changed out the electrical outlets and switches to white,
hung most of the doors,
added the shelving back to closets and 
hung light fixtures.
those are all small jobs that add up to a lot of time.
we also moved on some furniture.
wahoo!
its nice to see it coming together and i swear,
as soon as the last room is carpeted i will take you 
on another video tour so you can see all the improvements for yourself.

in the meantime, i'll be slaving away on the next project:
our master bedroom accent wall.
we wanted to do a cedar wood wall,
but it would be over $300 so now we're looking into cheaper options.

the only things we have left before official move-in is:
1 - lay the wood floors downstairs
and
2- finish the walls in the kitchen.
(we decided that the kitchen needs to be completely done
because it would be a pain to try to eat or cook in a construction zone.)
we have the wood floors in.
the boxes are laying all over the living room floor.
and i have to say, i was kind of pissed when i saw them.
they are not the color i thought they would be.
i was hoping for a lot more blonde,
but ronnie dug through and found some,
but the majority is not as light as i was hoping for.
oh well.
add it to the list of things not perfect.


the move-in date keeps getting pushed back further and further
but i'm optimistic that we'll be in by the end of january.
dear god, please.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

brette: 18 months

  ronnie and i are waiting for B to wake up 
before heading off to our last family christmas.
so i thought i could use this extra time to 
f i n a l l y 
get around to her 18 month update.
i stopped doing her monthly updates at a year
but so much has changed in 6 months.


growth:
brette weighs 25 lbs.
she's actually lost a pound since she started walking.
but no worries, our tubby tiger is
still quite tubby.
i'm not sure how tall she is,
but she's in 18-24 month clothing.
she's still in a size 4 diaper
although i wish we were done with those.
i plan on hitting potty training real hard again soon.
she WILL be out of diapers by june,
hopefully before.
 i can't even tell you how many teeth she has,
but i know she has a lot.
she's even eating peanuts now
(under supervision) because
there is literally nothing this child can't chew up.
she keeps getting more and more teeth.
and her hair has gotten so long!
of course the back is a lot longer than the top
so she still has a pretty sweet mullet.
but we are able to put in ponytails, pig tails, pebbles hair,
but mostly she just sports bows to help keep the hair out of her eyes.
and of course the best thing that's happened since she turned one
is she started crawling and then walking.
its been a big six months for her gross motor skills.
i only wish i had known about the shoe inserts
a long time ago.
oh well.
she's now walking everywhere and tries running.
she gets along really well and can get up on her own without holding on to something.
we see improvements everyday.


sleeps:
our sleep schedule has been the same since august.
and when the time changed,
i didn't change her schedule.
so in the summer she went to bed around 8 - 8:30
and now its around 7 - 7:30.
she sleeps 12 hours and takes one nap a day
that can vary between 1.5 - 3 hours.
   
  
eats:
brette eats anything and everything
and sometimes she's super picky and 
just throws it all on the floor.
one day she might love eggs
and then i can't get her to eat them for two weeks.
its just trial and error to see what she wants
and if nothing else, i'll make her a pb&j and call it a day.
she gets three sippy cups of milk a day.
one in the morning.
one when she wakes up from her nap.
and one with dinner.
the rest of the time its water OR
(blah) water mixed with juice.
we gave her some juice when she was sick and now
she asks for it.
big mistake.
i wanted to hold off on juice for awhile,
so i make sure she only gets a little bit a day.

  
talks:
she talks all the time.
she still signs for more and drink,
but mostly everything else 
she can communicate what she wants.
my mom and i tried to make a list of all the words
she says and we came up with 40 but
she's getting better and better at repeating what you say
so i know new words are added everyday.
i love having her talk,
it makes things a lot easier.

   
plays:
brette is in love with elmo
and mickey/mini mouse.
she likes any toy that lights up
or sings.
and she loves dancing.
its hilarious to watch her dance to music.
her most favorite thing is to play with our dogs.
she chases them, feeds them, kisses/hugs them, tries to sit on them.
she. loves. animals.
firsts:
crawling
walking
talking


and i'm sad to say that our green chair we use
for monthly pictures is still packed away
so i didn't bother with the white onesie pictures.
but this is a picture of brette on the 12th,
exactly 18 months old.
my little christmas beauty.


Thursday, December 18, 2014

let it snow

i made a salad and then my world stopped.
well, at least on here.
i have been super sick.
again.
this time its the kind where
your skin hurts,
you're hot, you're cold,
you puke every 2 hours
and you run a fever for three days straight.
its been awful.
but i lost four pounds! bonus?
thank god for my parents.
poor brette would have been neglected this week otherwise.

i have lots to share.
brette's 18 month update.
exciting decisions at the house.
a little christmas breakfast with my bff's
and cookie day is saturday.
i promise to get around to writing about it all,
but for now,
i'll leave you with a few pictures from this morning.
we had our first snow and even 
though brette was technically around last winter,
i'm considering this her first experience with the stuff.

ps- she thought it was a snack.
go figure.





Thursday, December 11, 2014

who wants some salad?

so i am obviously a huge fan of pioneer woman.
did anyone else record her christmas special?
looked super fun.

we recently whipped up one of her recipes.
well, i don't know if i can actually call this a recipe
because you don't really make anything.
just some chopping is all you do.
so here is the easiest, 
most basic,
super good
salad ever.
 
my mom had to make a salad for a christmas party
and i told her about the seven layer salad i saw on pioneer woman.
we looked it up online.
literally the hardest part is gong to the grocery store.
the rest is just throwing it into the bowl.

but if you need a salad for a party,
or just to be a little bit more healthy over the holidays,
i suggest this.

you're welcome.

and yes, ours was just as pretty.
TPW_3012
(ree's pic)


Wednesday, December 10, 2014

bathing beauty

when we last left off
everyone was sick.
that is STILL true.
what. the. heck.
brette is the only one that feels a lot better,
but pretty much my whole family 
(including aunts, cousins & grandma) is laid up.
i guess a bug made the rounds on thanksgiving.
and not to keep complaining,
because even though brette is feeling better 
she is now dealing with a little bit of diarrhea.
that's fun.
i only know this because
last night she stood up in the bathtub and crapped everywhere.
do you know what's really hard to clean up?
watery poop.
then this morning i was taking a shower
and she normally plays in our cabinets
but this time she wanted to get in,
so i let her.
little did i know she had just gotten done with
another full diaper.
i pick her up and put her in the shower with me,
poop and all.
its been a fun couple of bathing experiences.


ps- i'm pretty sure all potty training went out the window
when she got sick.
now we're s t a r t i n g  o v e r... 

Thursday, December 4, 2014

cough, sneeze, sleep

we're all sick.
brette and my mom have it the worst,
but i'm pretty sure my time is coming.
i was running a fever today,
so i'm thinking tomorrow might be worse.

poor baby brette has had a horrible cough,
so congested, 
fevers off and on
and a double ear infection.
she's not eating anything,
but we're keeping her full of fluids.
oh, and she only wants her mama.
that's fun.
i'm exhausted from trying to comfort her
and get up every four hours to 
poke more medicine down her throat.
she's on an antibiotic now so 
hopefully we see some turnaround soon.
dear god, please.

question:
when everyone is sick,
who takes care of who?

someone send a nurse.
i'm over this.

http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/7Ta/KpG/7TaKpGrEc.gif

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

november 22

she's walking.
finally.

last saturday was a big day.
we finished taking down all the wallpaper,
while brette hung out at my friend, shannon's house.
she has two kids of her own 
and they love playing with brette.
i did feel a little guilty leaving her because
shannon is also pregnant.
 i'm sure taking care of three kids
AND being pregnant is exhausting.
but is was such a big help
 and shannon said she was perfect so that made me feel better.
she even kept brette way longer than i expected
because she literally would not let me take her.
yay.
i guess she leaves her attitude and dirty looks just for me.
that night when we all got home 
brette gave us an extra special surprise:
she started WALKING.
just like that.
it was exactly one week after getting her inserts
and after spending the whole day with big kids (ages 3&5) 
who walked her all over the place.

thank god.

and i was especially happy because
ronnie has been working out of town
but she saved her special moment for when dad was here.
and he caught it on camera.