Before and After

Just so you know...we really have been working very hard on our house so here is a little taste. I need to take some more "after" pictures so I will post more later.

First of all, here she is!! We have done NOTHING outside so we are surrounded by a jungle right now. As you can see, there is a strip of grassless yard in the front...one week before our closing the water company discovered a leak in the main water line. The previous owners had it repaired right away and paid for it! We were so lucky! Plus, the initial plan was to tear up the driveway, but thank goodness they found a way around that.

Pea's room BEFORE. Lavendar walls and lovely purple carpet! You can see the "after" in my previous post. We ripped out the carpet and had the hardwood floor refinished. We painted the walls and the woodwork. My brother is also currently working on some super duper cute valances for pea's room and I can't wait to see them! You may remember that he also made pea's crib skirt and a matching valance. We are reusing those in the baby's room.

Our lovely, lovely dining room...BEFORE! There were three layers of wallpaper, ugly paneling, and hideous carpet. We ripped out the carpet and had the hardwood floor refinished. It is BEAUTIFUL! We took down the paneling and all of the wallpaper. Painted the ceiling (including the beams), walls, and woodwork. Then, my brother worked his magic, yet again, by designing and installing the custom wainscotting. He is a genius. Seriously! He and my brother-in-law can do absolutely ANYTHING house related from custom window treatments to major renovations. They have been more than generous with their time in helping us with some of our projects. Oh, and the wall to the right will eventually be opened up into the kitchen. AFTER...we still need to paint the wainscotting (white), but it is already a huge improvement! (don't worry, the curtains are gone!)
There is still a lot of work to be done, but we are slowly making it OUR home. It really is a great feeling! Yes, the work really sucks and we are a little tired of it, but we have a lot of the major stuff done for now so we can slow down for awhile, especially when the baby arrives. By the way, the nursery is painted, the crib is ready, itty bitty onesies and sleepers are in the dresser...all patiently waiting.

FFF - Jump!

Okay, this is not a "literal" jump...but, our family is definitely jumping feet first into some big changes! We recently finished painting pea's room and he was finally able to "jump" up into his real big boy bed. He is very excited and even told me the next day I was not allowed in "his" room. What?? I thought that didn't happen until the teen years?!?!

Next is the baby's room! We will be painting that room this weekend and we have to get it set up ASAP because....we are officially APPROVED! Woohoo!!!! So, that means we could get a call any any time and that call could be "can you be at the _____(fill in the blank) hospital in 24 hours" or we could get a call to be matched with a birth mother due in 8-10 weeks. According to our adoption coordinator, there is a high probability we could receive the first kind of call so we have to be prepared. This process has been so completely different so it is a little hard for us to wrap our minds around everything! One question a lot of people have been asking us is if we can choose the gender of the baby and the answer is no. So it will be a big surprise! How fun is that?! Pea is convinced he is getting a sister...time will tell! Nothing like "jumping" right in with no idea what that next phone call will bring!

See more FFF posts at Hannah's blog HERE.

Bargain Hunter or Hoarder?

You all know from previous posts that I love a good bargain! So, I have been taking FULL advantage of some pretty amazing diaper deals to get ready for our newest addition! I have been carrying around all of these diapers in my trunk for about 3 months and finally decided it was time to take them out (the nesting has begun!). Pea decided to take full advantage and built himself a diaper house. I counted up the diapers and figured we are stocked up for about six months! Isn't that crazy?!?! Seriously, I got these diapers either free or under $5.00 a package. Who can pass that up?!

So, we are finally starting to settle in more at our new house. All of our floors are either newly carpeted or refinished (hardwood) so we have been able to start unpacking a little and arranging our furniture. Before the floors were finished, we were basically living out of one room! It feels so great to be able to spread out and really start to enjoy our house. We still have a lot of work to do, but we can relax a little more now.

Adoption news...we had our final home study visit last Sunday and we are almost ready to go "active." That means we will be ready to take a call at any time. Our agency has been informing us that we could be matched very quickly so we have to be prepared. Consequently, we had to delay our process a little bit due to our move (unthinkable, I know!). We could be matched with a birth mother who is due in 10 weeks (generally no longer that that) or we could be given a 24 hour notice to be at the hospital. This process has been completely different and the idea that it could possibly happen quickly is a little mind boggling! Of course, we all know that the adoption process is unpredictable so anything is possible. Even so, we are excited and nervous about the possibility of welcoming another child into our family in the next few months.

Pea is also starting preschool next week so that will be a very big change for him. But, I think he is going to love it!

This summer has been about big changes for our family...new house, new day care, and preparing for a new baby. Very exciting stuff!

Work hard, play hard

We really did not intend to buy a fixer-upper, but...that is what we fell in love with! And, it is A LOT of work. We will be spending the rest of our lives fixing up this house. Thank goodness I have a handy husband and some REALLY handy and creative family members! We have not really been able to unpack much, yet, but we should be able to settle in more over the next few weeks after all of our flooring is done. We also have our second homestudy visit on August 15th so we really need to get a bit more settled before then! Right now, our house looks like a construction zone.

Painting the living room.

Three layers of beautiful wallpaper in our dining room. (There were four layers in the upstairs hallway!)

Lovely, eh? All of this wallpaper is at least 50 years old.

In spite of all the work, there has still been some time for play! Pea loves his new backyard. Our yard is MUCH smaller than our previous yard so that has been a little adjustment, but we love it. Oh, the bike in the pool is what happens when daddy is in charge. :)

At the kids fest.
The highlight of our week....meeting PABLO!!!! I made the "mistake" of mentioning to pea that Pablo was coming to town and he asked about it several times a day, every day, for two weeks.

Coming up for air

The last few weeks have been caRAZY! Packing, moving, unpacking, ripping out carpet, tearing down wallpaper, and visiting with family! Oh, and throw a homestudy visit in there somewhere. :) We are TIRED and it has only just begun. We moved into our new house last weekend (FINALLY!!!) and we have A LOT of work to do. Jason's parents came in for the weekend to help out so Jason and his dad spent 12 hours ripping out carpet and then we had lots more help from my family the next day on the hottest day of the summer. It was brutal!

So, the next few weeks, months, years...will be spent working on our house. Even so, we LOVE it and we are going to be here a long time. Seriously. I am never moving again.

If you've got nothing to do this weekend, bring your scrapper and paint roller and come on over!

Ugly deer scene wallpaper...GONE!
Jason and his dad ripping up the living room carpet.
Pea running wild in the chaos.

A Rare Moment

A good head shot!! Very rare these days! Most of the time pea sees the camera come out and yells "CHEEEEEEEESE" as he's running by, so most pictures end up in a blur. Or, he turns his head right when I click. So this shot is truly a rarity! But, I admit, I had to work for it. I sat with the camera ready for quite awhile just waiting...on the hunt for a good picture. Patience pays off!

It was love at first sight...

three years ago today when I saw this itty, bitty sweet face for the first time.

I remember that day like it was yesterday! The long awaited call finally came. The call announcing the arrival of our son. At last! I remember trying to write down everything our adoption coordinator was telling me as my hands were shaking and tears were streaming down my face. Then, Jason and I took a deep breath and held hands as we laid eyes upon our son for the first time...in an email. Most people get to meet their child for the first time in a hospital room. They get to watch their child take that first breath and hold their bundle of joy within minutes of entering this world. We didn't have those first moments with pea, but his "birth" into our family was equally eventful and exciting. We instantly knew this was our son. No doubt about it. Of course, little did we know that this was just the beginning of an amazing journey that would change us forever and open our hearts and minds in ways we never could have imagined. It has shaped so much of how we view the world, how we parent, and our priorities in life. I wouldn't change a thing.

And, when I look at this face today, my heart still skips a beat and I sometimes wonder how I got so lucky.

3rd Birthday

Pea had a great 3rd birthday on April 11th. We celebrated with a family party at our house. In fact, it was the last party at our old house! I still can hardly believe he is three already! What happened to my baby? Well, he's still my baby, though a very big one! He had his three year wellness appointment a couple weeks ago and he is 40" tall and weighs 38lbs. This places him in the 97th percentile on US charts. It's amazing to think that he was only in the 10th percentile for the first 6 months of his life. I am afraid of what my grocery bill is going to be when he is 14!

Pea has such a loving, sweet spirit and is so full of fun and adventure. He is so inquisitive about everything and his imagination has exploded! I love watching him explore and come up with new adventures. He keeps us busy catching sharks, climbing volcanoes, fighting fires, fishing, going on train rides, and more. Who knew we could do so much in one evening?!?! What a fun, fun age (so far!).

One of pea's many obsessions is sea life. He initially wanted a Barracuda cake, but...thankfully he changed his mind to a whale. (Remember when he REALLY wanted to be a giant clam for halloween?!?!?!)


Pea and his boy cousins. They have so much fun together running wild.


Checkin' out the birthday loot.


A bike!!! Doesn't he look GIANT on this bike?!?!


The bubble maker was a huge hit!


Playin' some birthday golf.


And...my mom and her broken elbow. She actually broke her elbow a few days before pea's birthday. She was carrying pea and tripped on the sidewalk. They both went down hard. Pea was okay though he went through a period of shock after the chain of events (possible minor concussion) and my mom ended up in surgery the following week. She is on the mend, but it will be a slow process. Can you believe it? (Well, given that pea is already about half her size, it's really no surprise he could take her down!)

Life in a box

We are FINALLY done with move #1!! We are currently renting a duplex until we get possession of our new house, which will hopefully be in 6 or 7 weeks. So, everything you see in the garage is staying in the garage until move #2. We are living out of boxes and living simple right now. Hopefully move #2 will go a little smoother and a little quicker since most of our stuff is already packed. And, hopefully this will be our last move for a very loooooooong time. Pea has been amazing throughout this moving chaos! He has taken it all in stride and the transition has been virtually seamless for him. I think he is handling it much better than we are! Pea is a pretty laid back and easy going boy. I wish I could attribute these qualities to our amazing parenting skills (hehehe), but it is just his personality. He finds fun and adventure in whatever we are doing.

So now we are just going to take it easy until round 2 of the moving frenzy. We are also taking the next 6 or 7 weeks to get our adoption profile completed so we can move forward with the adoption once we are settled into our new house.

Hang in there with us! I may not be updating as often this summer, but I will do my best!

Crazy Times!!

Hello???? Hello??? Hello???

Is anyone still out there???

Please don't abandon us...we're still here!!! The last few weeks have been CRAZY at our house!! As you know, we sold our house and then I was presented with an amazing opportunity that would have meant a new career and relocating across the state. It was an opportunity we had been waiting on for a very long time, but...after much stress and deliberation, I decided to walk away from it. We were so excited about the idea of moving to a new place and I was very excited about this career opportunity, but the timing just wasn't right. After the initial waves of excitement, we started to think about what we would be giving up...family, friends, great jobs, our community, and more. Being faced with the chance to walk away from everything we have right now, made us appreciate and value even more the life we have built. We're just not ready to give it up. It was an extremely difficult and stressful decision, but we made the right choice.

After making this decision, we frantically started the house hunt! That in and of itself was nutty! Our realtor found a house for us that was not even on the market, yet, and it is PERFECT for us!! We made an offer last week and it was accepted. The catch...we will not have possession until the end of June and we need to be out of our house by May 1st. AAAACK!!! At this exact moment, we still don't know where we are moving on May 1st. AAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! We hope to have that all figured out in the next couple of days. If anything, we can always move in with my parents!

As if we aren't busy enough, we attended our state required two day adoption training this past weekend so we are well on our way! WOOOOHOOOO!!!! Life is crazy hectic right now, but life also feels better than ever. Life feels really, really good.

And...the highlight of our weekend...Pea turned THREE on Sunday!!!!

Happy Birthday, Eli!!!