We've got our rainbow

Yes, I'm making another home improvement blog.  I promise to stop soon but the progress we're making is unbelievable and I had to share.

Last week a few friends came over and we've concurred the paint jobs with kids to tote.  I must say I'm super proud of it all.

Girls room before paint job

Girls room in progress

 Does this remind you of any 80's era cartoon?

baby Brother's room before

baby Brother's room in progress

Notice the floors are being refinished in this pictures

 The man behind the refinishing job.  

Sanding the floors 

James and Jason sanded until 1 am Saturday morning and then James worked all day on Sunday to get them finished.  They look amazing! yet I forgot to get pictures of the finished project.  

Saturday Gwenevere and Grace helped me paint the basement

We had a lot of fun.

Taking a brake from painting

And the best picture of I have of the Master bedroom in Progress

Master bedroom before

 I was almost complete done with the basement when Grace decided she wanted to help be paint some more.  I turned around and found her painting green on my freshly painted white.  

My shock of surprise made her cry, she was just trying to help.  

It was so cute. 

Thanks Grace for your help.  I'm so glad this was the only time this happened.  

The kitchen is coming along nicely

Before

In Progress

Our new counter-tops won't be installed until May 27th (it's a long story) so James put the old one back on for the time.

Another funny adventure was getting this sweet fridge from craigslist.

Let's just say a 9m fridge pickup took a few hours to complete.  hehehehe

Over all, it's coming together.  Carpet will be installed on Thursday and there are lots of little odd jobs to finish but James was luckly enough to get tomorrow off so we have an extra day to complete some more work.  Yippee 

The best part is we've even manage to start packing.  LOL

Three more days.  

Can we make it?

YES WE CAN!

Thanks to the help of some awesome friends.

Thanks everyone!

Meet the newest member of our family

After a busy and crazy week we had a chance to enjoy some family time together while at my ultrasound appointment this morning.   The ultrasound was awesome.  I can't stop talking about how much I love the Franciscan Maternal Fetal Medicine Center.  Probably because the only time I go there is when I have my ultrasounds, but still I love it.  They are so thorough with their ultrasounds and I like that they take the time to investigate the baby's complete health.  From head circumference, heart chambers, kidneys, fingers and toes, to examining the cerebellum and other nervous system structures  I love watching it all.   
   
It was also nice to see that my placenta is attached on the left side and is not abstracting the view of baby's heart beat.  But yet again, it was tricky to get a good heart beat from this little one,  Baby is a wigglier and wasn't going to give the technician any slack.  Baby raced around my stomach faster than the technicians fingers could keep up, and she was fast.  It took a good 10 minutes before she had a recording of baby's heart beat that was clear enough to give to the doctor, later on.  We'll see if it gets easier to listen to baby's heart beat later on in my pregnancy as baby grows and isn't able to wiggle so much.  

It was no surprise as to what we saw today, this little one is definitely a boy!

Yep.  That's right! We're having a boy, or as Gwenevere would say "I was right again."  

Gwenevere knew Grace was a girl before we did, and she's been calling this little one a boy since she found out.  Now she's telling me there is still one more boy to come.  LOL  That girl, I don't know how I'm going to keep up with her.  (and just so you know, we take everything Gwenevere says with a grain of salt.  Gwenevere has also told me that I'll have six babies come out of my tummy just like puppies, so take it for what it's worth.)

Grace enjoyed sitting on Papa's lap during the ultrasound and tried every hard not to fall asleep.

Back to baby brother:  We are excited to have a little boy in our family.  The look on James' face was priceless, we've always wanted a little boy but have always enjoyed having two cute little girls, we where really excited and happy with the idea of either outcome.  Yesterday before we even knew "for sure" that Gwenevere was right, we've painted Baby brother's bedroom yellow.  Moments after leaving the doctors office I reflected on his room and immediately I could see the way I want to his nursery.  I'm not sure it I'll be able to pull it together but it's fun to think about and imagine what the perfect nursery would look like.   I'm getting so excited for a little boy.  yippee!

So there you have it.  

Welcome to the family Little One  

the wishget list

Ever since Christmas, whenever Gwenevere sees something she wants she simple just says.  

"I'm putting that on my Wishget list."

And that is that.

I love it,  we don't ever argue over buying new toys, or flowers, we just simple know it's going on her wishget list.

the name she invented herself.

The Thinker

Mama to Gwenevere:  "Good thing you're a thinker."
Gwenevere:  "Yeah,  I think a lot.  I think all day long!"

Home Improvements

Hello there,  yes, we're still here.  Moving along little by little on our home improvement list.  Actually things have picked up and the house is looking more like a house these days.  

After a long process of taping the ceilings.  James began the process of texturing EVERYTHING!

The texting only took a day and made a huge difference in the appearance of the home

I was able to prime the kitchen, the ceiling in the pantry and part of the girls bedroom

While James textured and I painted, the girls played

It was a very long busy day and both James and I found it funny that Grace fell asleep on the way home like this.   

While the girls and I went down to Portland, James spent the last weekend painting ceilings, water proofing the basement, taking out the carpet and prepping the kitchen floors for flooring 

When we returned home from Portland we spent Monday afternoon at the house working some more. I continued to paint the corners and details while James worked some more on water proofing the basement.

To keep Gwenevere and Grace entertained I gave them my camera to play with.  I have over 100 pictures of some of the funniest things, but I decided to spear you the time it would take to look at all of them.  

Here are a few of my favorites.

Today (Wednesday)  I went back to the house while a friend of mine watch the girls for a few hours and painted the final layer in the kitchen.  

This next week we have scheduled carpet measurements and ordering, 4 new windows to be installed, James plans to finish the kitchen floor and possibly the pantry and laundry room, and hopefully measurements and ordering counter tops.  

The Kitchen, pantry and laundry room flooring arrived on Monday and here is preview of what we hope it will look like.

As for counter tops, we've decided to go with a man made acrylic counter since the cabinets we ordered wouldn't hold up granite very well.

We love the idea of blue counter tops.  

This picture below is a terrible picture (if you happen to go to home depot and they have their white and blue kitchen display that is what this counter top will look like.  It looks lighter in person than in this picture and would add a little color to our black and white design.

But we've also played with the idea of a white counter top (I like this idea).  The kitchen is connected to the dinning room which is connected to the living room.  We've talked about painting the area green and I think the green coming right up to the black and white kitchen would clash with the blue counter tops.  Hence the white counter top would be more neutral.  And keep the kitchen looking larger especially if we go with black appliances.   

The third idea would be to do a black counter top, it would still give the kitchen a pop (like the blue counter top) but go well with the green paint.  We could then use white appliances to and contrast if we want.

  If we go with the blue counter tops we could use a yellow paint instead of the green in the living room but I'm not 100% sure if the yellow would look good with the pine floors.  

Anyway,  we have to some color expert friends who will come help me visualize the entire design all together.  I'm so excited.  But until we make a final decision (which will hopefully happen by middle of next week.)  What are you thoughts?

Thanks for viewing our progress.  Stay tuned for more updates.

Still to come:

James laying the flooring down in the kitchen and pantry areas,

Picking out carpet,

painting, painting and more painting

refinishing the hardwood floors

and 

installing carpet

Move in date estimated for May 4, 2013

Portland Fun

The girls and I made our way down to Portland to visit Grandma and Grandpa Thomas who where in town for a wedding.

We drove down Friday morning and met Grandma Thomas and Aunt Tessha at Ikea for some lunch a little shopping.

I bought the girls some cubical for dressers, a dolly bed, and some dishes.  (Ikea is so cool, but it can take forever to shop.  I still want to get some more things but it will be at a later date.)

We then went back to Tessha's house for a visit and then off to the hotel to check-in.  We ate at Panda Express for dinner and then went back to the hotel for bathtub swimming and bedtime.  It was a fun and busy day.

Saturday morning we enjoyed a wonderful continental breakfast before getting ready for the day.


We went to Target to pick up jackets for the girls since I forgot to pack them.

We then went to the Temple to see my cousin's son's Wedding photo shoot and visit with family.  It was very cold but it's always fun to visit the temple even if it's just for a short time.

After the temple the girls played at Tessha's house while Grandma Sharolee and I went to Costco to buy for stuff for the home.  (I took advantage of the no sales tax while I was down there.)  I bought 3 storage shelves for our pantry, and garden hose and a camping chair for Gwenevere.

After Costco I picked up the girls and headed back to the Hotel to pick up Grandma and Grandpa Thomas.  We then drove to the Tulip festival and had a wonderful time.

The Sun was shinning and it almost felt warm.  Gwenevere got go on a tractor ride around the tulip field while Grace, Grandma and I took pictures of the beautiful flowers.  We then played a few festive games and took some fun pictures.  Grandma Thomas bought me a beautiful tulip book mark and Grandpa Thomas bought Grandma a beautiful tea pot to remember this wonderful day.

I gave Gwenevere my camera to take pictures of the tulips while she enjoyed her tractor ride

After the tulip field it was time for dinner.  Gwenevere wanted to eat crab and lobster with Grandma Thomas so we went to Tessha and Patrick to Red Lobster for dinner.  Yumm Yumm.  It was AWESOME!

 After dinner we drove back to the hotel where Grandma Thomas put the girls to bed while I went back the Patrick and Tessha's house to play some games.

Sunday morning we ate another wonderful continental breakfast.  Grace loved the sausage and eggs and Gwenevere enjoyed the waffles.   We then got ready for Church said our goodbyes to Grandma and Grandpa Thomas and then drove to Rebecca and Max's house.  

We got to see the progress they are making in their home and in the home they are getting ready to rent.  They have done a ton of work and it was fun to visit with such awesome people.  We then went to church and unfortunately weren't as reverent as normal but we manage the best we could.  Gwenevere went to Primary and Grace and Charlie tested out the amazing Nursery program.    I took the girls early from Church so that we could go visit Grandma Sharolee and give Grace a little nap before another busy evening visiting family.

At Grandma Sharolee's house we made mash potatoes and visiting with Uncle Austin and Uncle Daniel. Gwenevere and Grace enjoyed chasing the cats.

Then we went to Red Grandma's house for a Wilcox family gathering.  Kim and Chloe came into to town from back East and it was to see everybody again.  Gwenevere and Grace enjoyed playing with cousins and eating lots of yummy rolls.

Finally around 8pm it was time to get jammies on and drive home.  We got home around 11:30 and it felt great to be back home with James.

James had a productive weekend working on the house.  It's coming together nicely and we plan to be moving in May.  Yippee.

Grandma Thomas took a lot of fun pictures and I'll add them to this post as soon as I can.

Thanks for the amazing weekend family.  We had a wonderful time.