most wonderful time of the year

christmas celebrations have been going on for 6 weeks.

lets just say, this christmas season feels like eternity. 

it's good, because i love this time of year, but i also

feel like i've been going and going and going.

my company has THREE different holidays parties.

the first for our trades, the second for our team and 

the third for our department. 

i also had our annual christmas breakfast with my besties.

it was switched to my house but ended

 up being really low key and fun.

i'm so glad we do it.

any excuse to see my friends, is fine by me. 

i drove to st. louis for a one-nighter to see my sorority sisters.

its been a long time and miss hanging out with them.

shan and i are the only ones in kc so they get together and

we miss out on a lot. 

it's one of my resolutions to make the time more often.

my family had our famous christmas cookie day,

which technically is more of a christmas candy day

because everyone's cookies are already made.

since this holiday is with the in-laws, we went ahead

and did our christmas that night. 

can i just say that reid is the best thing that's ever

happened to christmas.

she jumps around and is so excited over literally everything.

you could give her socks and she would be like,

oh my god, i got the cutest socks. 

plus she's just super sweet and gave everyone hugs. 

christmas day was very low key this year.

just ronnie and i with the girls.

my parent's were in texas with the turner side, 

brian was with kristine's family

and my aunt's and grandma went to marceline. 

ronnie's sister decided against celebrating this year and 

we actually leave tomorrow to see his mom. 

we're doing christmas with my parent's and brian on new year's day.

so like i said... christmas is lasting an eternity. 

it was weird to be by ourselves on christmas. 

it was ok, but not my favorite. 

i can't wait for big family christmas next year. 

just call me clark griswald. 

i will say that we made the most of it.

we made sugar cookies with marra.

we went to see santa and visit the magic tree.

we also made it to christmas eve mass. 

ronnie and i were up to 11 wrapping gifts and 

the girls slept together in brette's room.

they were up at least three times and checking on noises.

it was very cute.

reid woke up at 4:15 (not kidding) but i threw her in bed

with ronnie and i went and slept with brette.

it worked because they both slept in until a little after 7. 

a huge christmas morning win.

they had so much fun opening gifts. 

santa brought them a barbie dream house and a kindle.

(which brette calls an ipad - i let her think that. lol)

they spent the day playing, watching christmas movies and eating 

popcorn and hot chocolate. 

i was pretty proud of myself for dinner.

since it was just us and lets be honest, the girls

eat less than a mouse, i went ahead and tried to make a better meal. 

rotisserie chicken, twice baked potatoes, broccoli & cauliflower casserole with rolls.  

i made a pie the day before, but i gave it to ronnie's sisters family.

we settled for christmas candy and left over sugar cookies we made for santa. 

i hope you and yours had a very merry christmas too.

think of me in a week when i'm STILL celebrating. 

smile

every few years we go to our professional photographer

that took the girls newborn photos.

let's be real:

this shit is expensive.

like, i don't even tell ronnie until after it's over.

thank god, i have my own job now, because

i can just say - don't worry, i paid for it. 

but i keep going back because i always,

always L O V E them, so to me, it's worth it. 

take a look. 

can we talk about clothes for one second.

i ordered us new outfits FOUR weeks in advance.

unfortunately, the girls stuff was coming from china and 

didn't show up in time. 

(please see my thanksgiving post to see reid's adorable dress that she didn't get to wear.)

so i borrowed reid's outfit from shan, ronnie borrowed my dad's sweater, 

brette actually had this dress, but it is a little too big and of course,

my freaking outfit was chosen in the last 20 minutes.

it's not my favorite, but i try not to dwell on it.

it's just, when you're paying for these pictures, it would

help to like your clothes. 

and can i just say, the clothes i ordered would have been amazing.

blah.

good things i'm still obsessed with these pictures.

november recap

well that went fast.

bye felicia. november

kassie had henry. (insert heart eyes)

i was gone on a work trip so i met him 3 days later.

ronald and i went to our first gay wedding.

our dear camper friends, matt and josh.

it was a blast and ronnie and i managed to take zero pictures together.

 #twogroomsarebetterthanone

we went to the turnbow's to see BOB SEGER. 

it was eveything i ever wanted and 

this will always be one of my favorite songs.

and then thanksgiving with my side of the family.

we met at my parent's house for a big turkey dinner.

i love that we're only 10 minutes away. 

it makes it so easy.

and there you have it. 

our novermber.

and now we're ready to start the christmas season!

finally, the before and after

we moved in this house in july.

J U L Y

but we still had a few things left to complete

before i wanted to do "before and after" photos. 

well, it's november and VERY close to being 

december, and we still don't have a master shower.

so what the hell. 

here's our photos, minus a master shower. 

and it's also void of decorating. 

this is my house right after i took down fall decor and 

before i put up christmas. 

but you get the idea. 

we kept the vault in the entry even though

ronnie and jason tried to talk me out of it.

i had cale trim it out and put up a new light.

i love it.

new floors, we wood planked the walls,

added wood to the tray ceiling and centered the fireplace.

ronnie then put up a new mantle and stoned the fire place. 

you can see better below.

 

a huge deal breaker with this house was the wall that 

separated the kitchen from the living room.

i told ronnie, if we couldn't open it up, then we couldn't buy the house.

cale added a huge beam in the attic to support taking out the wall

and it was so worth it. 

you can tell from this angle that we removed the door into the front bedroom.

we relocated it to the hallway instead of the entry way.

it ended up being brette's room and i'm so glad her bedroom door isn't right

by the front door. that would have made me nervous.

we relocated the oven and the microwave and had paco

build us new cabinets and cabinet fronts. 

we added hats to all the doors and again,

had paco build us new cabinet doors so we didn't have

to replace this side of the kitchen. 

another angle of the wall we removed.

i freaking love it. 

white makes a big difference.

you can't tell from the picture, but the kitchen floors were tile

but we added wood.

this is a better shot of where we closed off the door

to brette's bedroom from the entry way.

there used to be a laundry closet in the hallway,

but since we built on a mud room we now

use that space as brette's closet and closed off

the doors from the hallway.

brette's room.

we still have nothing hung on the walls, but 

our goal is to have it done before christmas.

another angle of brette's room. 

i am now standing where her door is located.

this is the best angle to show how we turned her closet into 

extra space in the hallway, made the laundry space into 

her bedroom closet and closed off the door to the entry. 

reid's room.

nothing crazy done except for new paint and carpet.

you can tell the hallway was long and narrow.

i love how removing brette's closet allowed us to open it up.

this was jason's brilliant idea and a huge game changer.  

we even had enough room to add a little broom closet.

this bathroom was gutted. 

everything felt very USED.

 gross. 

new floors, new tub, new toilet, paco built us a cabinets,

we put granite in for a countertop,

added wainscoting and paint.

mostly this was just new carpet and paint in the master, but i 

did have them add wood to the tray ceiling again.

its a little thing i picked up from working at summit homes 

and i just love what it does to a room.

there used to be a little fireplace in the master, 

but we removed it to have extra space in our closet. 

plus, i couldn't figure out a good layout with the fireplace taking up 

one of the only free walls. 

again, we gutted this bathroom.

we removed the tub and this is where our new 

walk-in shower will eventually be.

paco built us new cabinets and i love the big

stacked linen shelf. its not crazy organized right now,

but the space is amazing. 

you can see here that the tub is now the shower and 

the shower is now ronnie's closet. 

 here's our incomplete shower.

it's only been sitting like this since july. :(

 and the new closet that used to be the shower. 

the old closet is still my closet. perfect size.

we added all custom built-in's instead of the wire rack, but 

i don't have a picture of that.

and we used the extra space from where the fireplace used to be

for a huge wall of shoes. 

wahoooo!

this used to be the door to the garage and the

door to the basement. 

we used a part of the garage to add a mud room/laundry room

and opened up the basement stairs. 

 here's a better shot where you can see going out to the garage,

which is now our mud room.

and the closed up basement step that felt like a dungeon.

we removed the wall at the bottom of the steps as well,

to try to open up the space better and again, try to avoid the

dungeon feeling. 

we didn't do a whole lot to the basement.

new carpet, new paint, new back door and new tile by the door.

before

after

before

after

before

after

the basement bedrooms are a really good size and

our plan is to move the girls downstairs when they're older.

you can tell the wallpaper was a specific taste.

this room is massive and is connected to a full bathroom.

we turned it into the girls playroom for now and will

most likely be one of their bedrooms when they're older.

however, for now,

i refer to it as my "monica closet" (a Friends reference).

it's a damn mess and it is one of my goals to get organized, but

my three year old is a tornado and i don't have the motivation.

i close the door and pretend it doesn't exist. 

#reallife

this basement bathroom need gutted and to be reconfigured.

that's a project for another day. 

so for now, we just added a fresh coat of paint. 

and there you have it.

this little remodel ended up taking over half of the year and

almost killed poor ronnie.

he spent most nights and evening working on it, to the point where

i would drive out around 1:00am and make him come home.

for anyone that has been to our house, you know that this

has ronnie written all over it and i'm so proud of what he did.

it's not completely done and i always have a list of "to-do's" but, 

but we love being back home in the burg and i'm excited 

to raise our girls here, be around family and have amazing friends so close.  

stay tuned!

after the master shower, we take on the exterior.

new siding, new paint, new deck!