Friday, December 23, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Our Special Visitor
This year we have a special guest in our house, straight from the North Pole and sent by Santa himself. While we were decorating our tree a few weeks ago, a special package arrived at the door and inside was this cute elf with a note about where he came from and how he was here to watch Hannah and Reagan and report back to Santa. He has been getting into some mischief at night and is always in a new hiding place in the morning and Hannah and Reagan love looking for him first thing in the morning. They named him Cookie!
Hugs with Cookie!
Don't tell the girls....but he was really made by Mommy....
On one of Cookie's more mischievous nights, he played in the flour jar, left a trail on the floor and ended up on the Sit N' Spin with Rudolph enjoying a banana.
Breakfast with Santa
We have been SO busy getting ready for Christmas! Love this time of year but it can be pretty stressful, so needless to say I am a little behind on the blog. A few weeks ago we had Breakfast with Santa at the Chimney Springs Clubhouse. The event went well, we had a great turn out, nice weather, a warm fireplace to sit next to and Santa was there! I love that we do this here in the neighborhood, mostly because the kids can sit and talk to Santa pretty much for as long as they want and it is free! None of those crazy expensive Santa pictures from the mall for us! Reagan was a little scared and would only go near Santa when Daddy was holding her. Hannah just loved Santa this year and told him what she wanted (Barbies) and then they chatted for a few minutes.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
It is hard to believe that we have already been in our new house for 6 months! It seems like it was just a short time ago that we going to the open house and making an offer. We have been so unbelievably busy working on projects pretty much nonstop since we moved in, in an effort to make it feel a little more like our own place. I thought it would be fun to a do a little run down of all the things we have accomplished so far, even though our list of projects still seems to have no end! Glad this is a house that we plan on being in for a long, long time because we sure have a long to-do list!
Here is my first project list that we started when we first moved in....notice most everything is crossed off!
Here's what we have been working on since we moved in on June 1st:
Wallpaper removal:
In the living room and the hallway we removed the lovely painted grass cloth wallpaper. We are currently working on removing the TWO layers of wallpaper in the dining room, which is proving to be very difficult.
Painting:
The kitchen, living room, Hannah's room, Reagan's room, hallway, and currently in the process of painting the basement.
Ceilings: Removing popcorn texture from ceiling, sanding and repainting ceiling. We have done the living room, downstairs bathroom, hallway, and currently working on the dining room.
We installed smoke alarms throughout the house (we had no working ones when we moved in).
Installed a new programmable thermostat
Installed a garage door opener
We have replaced numerous outlets and light switches to white instead of the mixed assortment of off-white and brown that we had.
Installed a new light fixture in master bedroom closet (we just had a bare light bulb in the ceiling previously).
Replaced doorbell.
Painted dresser and shelf that was left in the house when we bought it.
And I am sure a few more things that I am forgetting...
But by far the biggest improvement has been outside of the house. My AWESOME husband has been working so hard on the yard every chance he gets. He fenced in our entire yard all by himself, saving us over $3000 and it looks awesome. He also had a swing set installed that he got from a job site. He has cut down some trees in the back and front yard and gotten rid of a ton of ivy. Here are some pictures to remind of what the yard looked like when we moved in.....hard to believe that was really our backyard!
Here is my first project list that we started when we first moved in....notice most everything is crossed off!
Now we have a new list....
Here's what we have been working on since we moved in on June 1st:
Wallpaper removal:
In the living room and the hallway we removed the lovely painted grass cloth wallpaper. We are currently working on removing the TWO layers of wallpaper in the dining room, which is proving to be very difficult.
Painting:
The kitchen, living room, Hannah's room, Reagan's room, hallway, and currently in the process of painting the basement.
Ceilings: Removing popcorn texture from ceiling, sanding and repainting ceiling. We have done the living room, downstairs bathroom, hallway, and currently working on the dining room.
We installed smoke alarms throughout the house (we had no working ones when we moved in).
Installed a new programmable thermostat
Installed a garage door opener
We have replaced numerous outlets and light switches to white instead of the mixed assortment of off-white and brown that we had.
Installed a new light fixture in master bedroom closet (we just had a bare light bulb in the ceiling previously).
Replaced doorbell.
Painted dresser and shelf that was left in the house when we bought it.
And I am sure a few more things that I am forgetting...
But by far the biggest improvement has been outside of the house. My AWESOME husband has been working so hard on the yard every chance he gets. He fenced in our entire yard all by himself, saving us over $3000 and it looks awesome. He also had a swing set installed that he got from a job site. He has cut down some trees in the back and front yard and gotten rid of a ton of ivy. Here are some pictures to remind of what the yard looked like when we moved in.....hard to believe that was really our backyard!
Here is what our yard looks like now! Check out that awesome fence Sam built. We still have a lot of work to do back here but at least now we have a great space for the little ones to play!
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