ta da! house pics

i am finally going to put up 'before and after' photos of the house

but i would really prefer you think of them

as "before" and "in progress" pics.

lets be honest,

there's still quite a bit to be done.

BEFORE: living room

 

AFTER: the only thing changed is the wood floors.

 BEFORE: dining room

 

AFTER: knocked down wall, wood floors.

new light fixture is next on the list. 

oh and see that white refrigerator?

its for sale on craigslist. 

spread the word.

 BEFORE: kitchen

AFTER: painted cabinets, wood floors, new ceiling, can lighting

(that rug is not staying.

that's a linda turner quick fix.)

 

BEFORE: family room

 

AFTER: wood floors

 

BEFORE: family room

i don't have an after, 

but i promise to take one next time. 

 

 BEFORE: master bedroom

AFTER: wood planked wall, trim paint, wall paint, new carpet.

 

BEFORE: bedroom two (guest room)

 

AFTER: trim paint, wall paint, new carpet.

 

BEFORE: laundry room

 

AFTER: trim paint, wall paint, new light fixtures

BEFORE: bedroom three (brette's room)

    

AFTER: trim paint, wall paint

 brette's closet - no before pic

BEFORE: bedroom four (playroom)

  

AFTER: trim paint, wall paint

AFTER: guest bathroom. (brette's)

i can't find any before pics 

but everything basically got painted.

it still needs a new tile floor,

but that will come later.

and there you have it.

nothing is decorated or hung on the walls,

but i figure i can work on that slowly

and when i do,

i'll make sure and take some true

"AFTER" photos.

house update: 4 months

DONE DONE DONE

kind of done.

lots of things happened in the last few weeks

and our house is finally ready to move in.

that's right people.

move-in happened last weekend.

can you believe it?

the last room of carpet was installed.

the painters came back to do finishing touches.

we hired our friend to lay the wood floors downstairs.

ronnie and my dad are done with the 

master bedroom wood planked wall.

we still need to buy a dishwasher and

we're busy cleaning the heck out of everything,

but all in all,

i'm super excited.

we already have furniture completely moved in upstairs

and we've spent the majority of our time setting up the kitchen
and hauling all our clothes in.
i did make it mandatory to get our dining room table in
just because i was tired of eating all our meals on the floor
propped up next to the fireplace.
so we even ate a meal sitting in chairs.
its the small things.

we still need to move in our living room furniture,
but that shouldn't take long.

things are looking good.

just to be clear,
even though we're living there,

we still have a lot left to do.

the downstairs walls need work.

some wallpaper removal.

some skim coating.

some walls are getting wood planked.
we need a kitchen island.
light fixtures need hung.

and of course, everything needs painted.

including trim.

so we are far from finished,

but i think it should go a lot faster since

we can cut out all the travel time.
however,

ronnie made it clear that he needs a two week break.

we won't be doing a thing to the house until february. 

believe me, he needs it.

but on our inaugural night there ronnie thought
we should burn all our trash
so we had a little big bonfire. 
this is why ronnie loves this house.

i'll snap some pictures of the house too
soon so you can see it in all its (partial) glory.


ps- my friend, dana, thankfully watched brette for me
while we moved in all our crap,
so brette had a little girls day with charlotte.
how cute are they?

big book of boo boos

unfortunately,

we're adding to brette's list of injuries.

on sunday, we spent the day working on the house

and after lunch out with the family we took

brette over to brian and jaime's for nap.

we thought she was asleep but instead

she was playing quietly in madeline's room.

sneaky little booger. 

so when i picked her up at 3:30 she had not slept yet.

since i had more to do at the house i thought

maybe she could rest and watch an elmo dvd.

we don't have living room furniture up

so i put her in our bedroom

and since ronnie was working in there

i told him to keep an eye on her in case she wanted off the bed.

ronnie said he saw her just in time to log roll off.

wah wah wah.

parent fail.

she cried,

but nothing crazy and she landed on carpet

so we thought she was ok.

that evening i noticed that she would not let me put her down.

at all.

i thought it was because she was tired from no nap,

so i wasn't overly concerned.

the next day i had meetings for work in overland park,

so my parent's watched her.

i told my mom to make sure she was walking fine 

since she never did after her fall.

sure enough, not even 30 mins later

i get a call from my parents that brette was awake and not walking.

not even standing.

great.

i called the pediatrician and they made an appointment for her.

i met my parents in lees summit and got her checked out.

the dr. said she couldn't tell if it was broken or not,

but she was concerned about her hip, thigh and knee.

so she referred me to the hospital for x-rays.

luckily, ronnie's sister works in that department at the hospital 

and came out to meet us.

they also let her be the one to hold brette down on the table which

i think was a lot less traumatic on B.

don't get me wrong,

she still lost it,

but at least she had a familiar face with her.

a few hours after that,

we got the results that it was not broken

(thank jesus)

but she most likely has a bruised muscle and a sore hip.

and as of yesterday she was back to walking, 

but with a limp.

the dr. said she should be fully recovered by friday.

ps- its sucks having to explain to everyone that your child 

might have a broken freaking leg because you let her fall off a damn bed.

seriously.

nom nom nom

let me start this out by saying,

i'm not one to judge someone for their love of desserts.

i mean, lets be honest,

i'm right up there with them.

but we might have a future member of 

cookie-aholic anonymous in our midst.

while i was at work on friday 

ronnie was standing in front of the 

refrigerator holding brette and talking to my mom.

when he looked down, 

brette was eating an oreo.

weird. 

then he realized that its my mom's oreo magnet.

not kidding. 

we always thought it was plastic,

but our little cookie monster led us to discover

that it is actually, in fact, a real oreo,

just covered in polyurethane. 

so brette might have eaten a small portion of a 

20 year old oreo covered in polyurethane.

delicious AND healthy.

ronnie was freaking out,

my mom was dying laughing 

and brette was demanding her cookie back.

i'm assuming this will be her lead story

at her first meeting at CA. 

2015

i hope everyone rang in the new year

with big plans in mind.

or small plans.

whatever works for you.
since i'm consumed by my house,

my plans are really just to move the heck in.

i'll consider 2015 a success once we do that.

we rang in the new year at a hometown party

with ronaldo's side of our friend circle.

it was chill and i didn't have to get dressed up

so that was nice.

and it also included a buffet style of smoked bbq

so lets be honest,

i loved it.

their was a craps table, four-wheeler rides and beer pong,

but unfortunately since i was the sober driver

i didn't get to show my sweet beer pong skills.

people would have been amazed.

maybe.

actually,

i probably suck considering i'm now 31 and 

don't quite get the practice i used to.

and if we're being completely honest,

the fact that ronnie and i planned a sober ride home

just shows how much we've grown up.

great, 2015 is already showing our age.

hope you and yours are looking forward 

to the best year yet.

right?

right.

(it's all about your outlook)

 

christmas all inclusive

so normally i break down our  

christmas celebrations

in several different posts, but this year

i'm so far behind that you're going to get one giant post.

our first event was a little christmas breakfast 

with my bff's and their kids.

it was so cute and santa even dropped off his bag with

a few christmas books to start the season right.

the homemade cinnamon rolls helped too.

 

next we had christmas with my mom's side.

cookie day, gifts and dinner all in one day.

we did a toned down version this year and 

only made christmas candies instead of the 

18 dozen cookies we normally have.

we also went through catholic charities and found

several kiddos that needed gifts instead of getting each other something.

it was a nice change and i think it takes the 

stress out of shopping when its for a good cause.

ps - i got no pictures of this whole day and

i'm completely bummed about it.

on christmas eve we did christmas with my immediate family.

its become a tradition to get together the night before, 

open gifts, eat pizza and go to mass.

only this year with three girls running around,

we got a little carried away opening presents and completely missed mass.

mom was not impressed.

but seriously,

you lose track of time when running after these three.

  

 (B is wearing my dress from MY second christmas!)

instead we piled in our vehicles and made our way to the magic tree

and down christmas alley to see the lights.

brette just said "pretty!" over and over.

it was cute,

until she got thristy and i forgot to pack a drink.

dear lord.

on actual christmas day we opened gifts at my parent's in the morning

and had a big pancake breakfast.

 

 

 

then we drove out to ronnie's 

sister's and celebrated with her family and ronnie's mom and grandma.

it was nice they made it back to town.

we hadn't spent christmas day with them in several years.

we followed up the weekend after with ronnie's dad side.

so no worries, 

we made sure and see everyone in our family this season.

and. it. was. great.

hope you all had a very merry christmas

and the happiest of holidays.

here's our xmas card for those of you

outside my address book.