This is our family room BEFORE Caleb was born, about 4 weeks before, actually.














THIS is the same family room, 2 years and 3 months later.














Me personally, well, I like a little color in my life. Thank you, Caleb, for the past 27 months of glorious color and mayhem. Hopefully your brother brings the same joy into our house as you have. :)

Labels: home, rant

It truly was--there were so many cool things about this past week! Where to begin?

Well, 1st off--the baby's room and our master bedroom are officially DONE! And they both turned out so good! Kenn got the transition pieces of pergo (the go-betweens from the pergo to the carpet/bathroom laminate) put into place, and they look perfect, and that was really all that was left. We are so happy, I can't wait to get all the baby clothes and crib and everything into the baby's room and really see it come together, and our bedroom feels like a hotel room, without the weird smell and uncontrollable room temperatures.

Wonderful thing #2--"Breaking Dawn," the 4th and supposedly final book in the "Twilight" series by Stephenie Meyer, came out Friday night! And being the geek that I am, I finished reading it yesterday afternoon and started reading it AGAIN last night. :) Yes, I thought it was that good. I love to read... :)

#3--I got baby gifts! The reason this is so especially wonderful is because I haven't really been expecting baby gifts, considering I'm having my 2nd boy. I already have tons of boy clothes and burp cloths and crib bedding and all that stuff, but my fantastic friends are very cool, and gave me things I didn't have for Caleb. My friend Nicole got me this super cool nursing cover (mine will be the kensington print) and my friend Carrie MADE me a baby sling! She and I went to this cute quilting store, and I got to pick the fabrics and she came to my house and sewed it together for me that afternoon. It's gorgeous, with a large-paisley print in a darker cream on a cream background on one side, and the other side is chocolate brown with a smaller cream-colored paisley print. As Carrie said in her blog, the fabrics are "neutral, but still have a girly look to them." That's what I go for. :) So yah, I've got some pretty fantastic friends here in Texas, I must say.

#4--We're finally cleaning our house! It's been a shambles since we started redoing bedrooms, and since we're done tracking sawdust and whatnot into the house, we finally started deep-cleaning everything, and I gotta hand it to my darling husband Kenn--that boy can vacuum like it's nobody's business. He doesn't just vacuum the carpet and call it good--he busts out the hoses and attachments and cleans off ceiling fans and under furniture, and corners, and baseboards and stairs, and...yah. He's amazing, and for that I am grateful. I don't vacuum like that even when I'm NOT pregnant, so it's nice that he does. :)

I'm sure there were a bunch more wonderful things this week, but these were really the top picks. The cleaning is still going on, as Kenn's best friend Jenn and her little boy Azure are coming to visit us this week from Las Vegas, but we should be able to get it all done and have the house looking spectacular. Then we get to go crazy and have fun for a few days, which I am really looking forward to. I can't wait to take Jenn to Rudy's for some sweet BBQ, and we might even finally take a trip to San Antonio while she's here. It's about time, right? We've lived in Texas for over 2 years now and still haven't gone.

So yah, that was the week. It was a good week. And it got me to write on our blog, so hooray for that.

Labels: family, home, projects

Did anyone catch that movie reference?? It's not supposed to be "flower," of course, it should be father, but then it wouldn't make sense with my post. :) I didn't plant daffodils! I am so silly! Once something bloomed, I was immediately reminded that I'd planted IRISES. Silly, Amy. But they do look gorgeous. So here are the pictures to show it. Hooray for flowers!

Labels: home, pictures

How can you not love it when you get a tulip growing in your front yard by the end of March? This picture is not a lame stock photo off Google, people--this is actually outside my front door! It's the first, and only, tulip that has bloomed, and although the daffodil leaves came up back in January and I thought it was a wasted effort on my part, they, too, are looking like they're preparing to bloom. The little bit of color next to the tulip is a snapdragon flower that was blown off in a thunderstorm, but the point is that I have snapdragon flowers again! I have about 3 or 4 plants that survived the whole winter and are blooming in gorgeous colors. I love it! Not that I'm a great gardener or anything, but it is nice to see those pretty flowers when we go out the door, and Caleb loves to look at them. He squats down as close as he can and calls everything "red." It makes us both smile, though. You can't beat that. :) I'm definitely enjoying our springtime.

Labels: home, pictures

Ladies and gentlemen, today is February 4th. I am sitting in my house, and the air conditioning is on. What's more--it is currently 8:40 PM and the air conditioning is on. It was quite warm today; can you tell? It got up to 80 degrees in our house. Am I supposed to be in the middle of winter? Cause for crying out loud, it does NOT feel like it. My sincerest apologies to anyone who had to shovel snow this past weekend. Texas is so weird.
But so is Arkansas. We'll explain that one once we get the pictures downloaded off my cell phone.

Labels: home, random

I'm a North, and as such I have grown to see the importance of "the right tool for the job." But the right tool won't do much good if you can't keep track of it. I decided to replace the timing belt in my wifes '95 Subaru Legacy. But to do so I convinced my wife, that I needed to install new cabinets in the garage.

The garage used to look like.
Now the garage looks much better. This is something this hack of a mechanic can work in.
Update: The timing belt went just great. The car runs much better, and I even replaced ALL the fluids in this beauty. It has just over 100k miles and I hope to get that much more out of it. The best part is that it's paid for.

Labels: home