Christmas 2009

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with their families! We certainly are blessed with a loving family and are grateful.

Seth had a much more exciting Christmas. We'll try to sum it up briefly in photos:
Our Family – December 2009 in our new house

The view on Christmas morning

The look on Seth's face as he came downstairs and saw everything

Trains from his stocking

Having a "ball" in his Ball house/tunnel

Pausing a moment for a picture

Opening a present

It's a car garage! His favorite!

Petty Christmas with Santa. Notice Seth's location in lower right. Totally could care less. ha!

Seth's turn on Santa's lap. Giving the jingle bells a shake!

Tackle It Tuesday: Living Room

Well, it's taken nearly a month of random nights and weekends working on our living room...but it's finally finished. We still have some final touches left to do, but overall, it's complete.

Let's start the before and afters:
The room was a light gray done in the ragging technique. Ugly. The trim was an off white which looked old and drab next to the white windows. The mantle had a large, old mirror from end to end and up to the ceiling. It was huge. It was already taken down when these photos were taken. We hope to replace the brass fireplace cover in the future, as it is also very ugly. Now, we had to work around the burgundy carpet. It's not in the budget to replace right now and we figure as long as there are little ones around spilling things on it, we might as well keep it. So we chose a nice, warm, neutral tan for the walls.

Vacation to North Myrtle Beach

This post is long overdue. I keep forgetting that some people don't see our Facebook photos, so I need to put them here as well. Here are a few pics from our trip starting with the view from our balcony:

Tackle it Tuesday: Weekend Landscape project

Though work has been keeping me pretty busy lately, it does come with its benefits: a little money to fund projects around the house.

This weekend we tackled the landscaping in the front of the house. It wasn't hard to make it look better considering there was nothing there, just some old mulch and weeds. So, on Friday we went to a couple garden centers and took advantage of the discounted shrubs/plants. Evan got everything planted on Friday and we finished Monday (since we were out of town on Saturday and Sunday).

Here are the before and afters:
Before

After

Seth's 2nd Birthday

Well, Seth turned 2 on August 30. We had a small family party. It was so nice to be able to host and have enough room for everyone! Seth got many nice gifts, so thankful to all our family!

Well, here are some pics from the day:


Seth waited patiently to dig into this chocolate cake! He was doing the sign for "more" like crazy as he waited. ha.


Yes, we bought him a drum. He loves the drums so much, we just had to. Every Sunday he makes a beeline to the drummer as he practices for service. Needless to say, he loves his drum and took the sticks to bed with him that night. In the last photo, his cousins were holding the little cymbals and Seth was rocking out going back and forth between the drum and cymbals. :o)

Tackle It Tuesday: Front Entrance

Our next project has been sprucing up the exterior front entrance to the house. There still are some touch-ups left to do and we will still eventually replace the entire door and sidelights...but until then, we made it look better.

OK, now for the BEFORE and AFTER photos:
Let's start with the exterior shot. Notice the posts were very cracked and the metal brackets that bolted them to the concrete were exposed. You may have to click on the photo to notice. I had to use the original photo of the house (not very good).


Now the posts are looking brand new, complete with molding at the bottom to give them a finished look. We added brand new house numbers (old ones are above the door and very hard to see from the road). The screen door got a new coat of white as well.

Next, a closer look at the front door:

Before the door was burgundy and white. It was very dirty and appeared that a child (not mine) had taken a pencil to it and made their marks. The before photo shows where Evan had started to fill in and patch bad areas of the door. We decided that blue made a better accent color. Hope you agree!


Even the handle got a scrub and polish...looks like new!



So, that wraps up this tackle...more to come!

"Said No"

On Monday night, Seth kept repeating "sedno, sedno"...finally Evan and I figured out that he was mimicking us saying "I said NO"...guess we're saying that a lot to Seth lately! Well, he says this all the time now. I'm just glad he's starting to say some words...even if it is "Said No". :o)

Tackle It Tuesday: The Awning

My sister-in-law Tina often posts a "Tackle It Tuesday" job that she accomplishes. I thought of that today as I thought of a recent accomplishment here at the new house...and how many more I can do in the future as we fix it up.

So, here is the first big tackle for the house: remove old, ugly, tattered awning from the front of the house. We think it made a huge difference. Here are the pics before and after. Enjoy!

BEFORE

AFTER

Just like his mother

I baked a cake today and had whipped up some chocolate frosting from scratch. So, of course, I had two beaters with frosting. One for me and one for Seth. Everyone that knows me well knows that I can't turn down cookie dough, cake batter, etc. Licking the beaters growing up was a real treat. I thought I'd get Seth started today. He is still walking around with a frosting-free beater...he won't give it back for me to wash. Ha!
Planning his attack! :)

The packing continues…

This week is the marathon week. We are to get the keys today and slowly start the moving process. Our phone/internet service is supposed to be disconnected on Wednesday, but reconnected on Monday (29th)...so posts on the move progress may not happen. It will probably drive me insane to not have internet access, but I guess it will be a cleansing of sorts. ha. If you email me, sorry, I may not get it until next week.

And so, this will be the last post from our duplex. The 'plex has had it's value: made it possible to pay off our debt and allow me to stay at home with the little one. But it's time to move to a place all our own (while still maintaining the duplex). I'm definitely looking forward to that!

Moving day is Saturday. Seems like Evan has lined up some buddies to be the muscle behind the move. My mom (THANK YOU!!) is coming to help with Seth. Huge blessing for me.

Oh! And we met this guy who offered to help us move. Seems like he's certainly qualified! :o)

We're Moving!

That's right, we're moving. We're staying in Lakewood but will finally have a home to ourselves. We're excited, though there is A LOT to do! We will have our work cut out for us for quite sometime in order to get the home looking the way we want it. But, the potential outweighs all the effort. We're supposed to close on June 22 and Evan wants to start moving in almost immediately so we can get our current apartment rented. Here's a photo of the front...so many changes we'd like to make.
Our soon-to-be new residence

A Very Noisy Concert

Seth has taken quite an interest in drums lately. At church, the drummer has a hard time practicing for service when Seth is practically in his lap trying to bang on the drums. At home, he takes anything he can and beats on the coffee table...which now has several nicks and indentation marks from him.

Today he took it to another level. While I was making dinner, he one-by-one carried the mixing bowls, colanders, and glass measuring cups into the living room...to make his OWN drum set. With metal measuring cup and pastry brush in hand, he beat the heck out of the bowls for awhile. VERY NOISY which I'm sure our downstairs tenant enjoyed immensely. But Seth was happy as a clam...as you can see in these photos:

Like father like son

Had to take a photo of Seth and Evan hanging out, dressed in their plain white undershirts.

We will miss you, Grandma!

Easter 2008

Today is a sad day. My grandma passed away this morning in her home. She had been declining for quite sometime and we last visited her less than a month ago for Easter. She got to see us as well as Seth and we had a nice visit. I'm so glad we had that time and to tell her we loved her for what would be our last time.

I will think of her every time I sing one of her songs to Seth. She taught me so many when I was little. You couldn't ask for a better grandma. She'd play games with me from the moment I arrived at her house to the time I went home. She lived right next to the hospital where my mom worked, so I was there every snow day, sick day and most of the summer until I was old enough to stay home. She demanded a hug and kiss upon every arrival and departure. She loved us so much and we loved her...still do. We love you Grandma! We'll miss you so much!

Enjoying the Weekend

Beautiful weekend! Thought I'd capture it through Seth...enjoy!