christmas card 2010

Many Memories Tree Christmas 5x7 folded card

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We have a kitchen backsplash! Yeah! At first, we were going to just paint the backsplash for Thanksgiving and tile it later. After Eric painted we decided to look again at some tile and maybe we could just do it ourselves. We found a glass mosaic that Eric and I both liked. Then we had to agree on the design it would have on the wall. The hardest part was deciding on what to do on the wall behind the stove. I had visions of what I wanted, but the tile doesn't exist unless you have it specially made of course. So we just bought a bunch of different glass tiles to mix and play with. Before Eric put it up, it seemed too dark and I just didn't know if it was going to work. However, once the tile started going up, it lightened up a bit, especially once it was grouted! Eric did a great job! We saved about $700 doing it ourselves! Now I can stop worrying about getting the walls wet behind the sink.

Eric has also been continuing his work on the molding for the doors and windows. We bought some molding awhile ago that has been sitting in the hallway to put on top of the window and door moldings downstairs. I had to convince him at first to get the moldings, and I'm so glad I did. They look fantastic. He was worried they were going to be difficult to cut, but he said they actaully weren't bad. He did however almost really hurt himself when the project was almost done. He tried to cut a tiny piece of what was left for the edge and the piece of wood shot out at him. Luckily, it didn't hit him in the face. (wearing no goggles, no gloves, that's a no no) It wacked his finger pretty hard.

There are still sooo many things we need to work on. Step by step... we are making progress!

Here is an update:
We have all been sick and are thankful that we have all recovored! Being pregnant, I still have a bit of congestion along with headaches, but feeling better each day. Yeah! I am still super tired, so getting things done is a bit tough.

Now that we are officially living here, I'm trying to establish some sort of routine. Haha! What's a routine? Trying to cook more in my new kitchen... and eat at home more. I finally found my pots and pans! Honestly, with all these sicknesses... I am kinda sick of being home! (I know that probably sounds crazy, but I do like to get out sometimes!) However, as often as I get tired, I am happy to be home too. I am starting to figure out where my kitchen "stuff" is.. and getting rid of boxes here and there. We still have a room full of boxes and a garage full of STUFF. I've discovered that we have way too many toys! But the kids are having fun pulling them all out and leaving them everywhere!

Eric is still trying to finish the wood planks on the kids bathroom walls so we can have one more bathroom to use. He is just about done and now he will paint the wood. He finally hooked up the water on the fridge so we can have ice. That is very exciting for me because the biggest thing I crave is water with lots of ice!

We finally picked out some ceiling fans, so maybe we'll have some light soon in the family room. Although, I like the family room dark at night so people can't see us through the window. We haven't decided on window coverings yet! Should I just put sheets up?? Just kidding! No way!

Well that the update! I'll try to post some pictures soon too!

Moved in!

Our range is in! Yeah. Now our kitchen looks more complete. Just needs a backsplash and then it will be all done! We have a new idea for the backsplash. It is different, but I think it could be really cool.

We officially moved in! We moved in some furniture a week ago. Then, we moved our beds in over the weekend. So we are officially living here now. It has been tough because I caught a really bad cold that just really got me. I have been so tired and winded! Moving our "stuff" and walking up and down the stairs over and over is hard when I can barely breathe! I am feeling a lot better now. I still have major congestion going, but at least I can talk a little now. (I lost my voice on Friday.) We still have tons of boxes to go through and we are still working on moving our things from my parent's house.

Upstairs, we still have not finished the bathrooms. There is one working toilet still hooked up upstairs if needed during the night, but showers and sinks are only accessible downstairs. Hopefully Eric will be able to finish the kids bathroom this weekend. He is working on adding wood to the walls to give it a beach house effect. Then we just have to paint it, and get the vanity, counter and sink in.

Here is a shot of Eric's 1st tile job in the kids bathroom. He did not want to do it. But it turned out great! He just didn't like the amount of time it took him to follow the correct steps and of course he was extra careful and checked the Internet several times to make sure he was doing it right. Good job honey! You did an excellent job as always.

AND... thanks to our friend Matt Holmes, Eric and Matt worked on the pantry last Saturday so I now have a place to put food and misc. items! Yahoo! I will be stocking up and going to Costco this weekend!

Today, We had the pest control people out to spray for ants and spiders... since the house has been such a construction zone for sooo long! Now I just need to continue cleaning up the dust and etc. so the house is a bit cleaner!

Do we still have painting to do... of course! MOldings, finishing touches, and decorating to do.

We have carpet! Yeah! Here is the living room and staircase. We still have to finish the molding on the stairs... The carpet is very plush!!!! Super nice and super soft. It looks great. The kids had a great time running around on the new carpet. They were making up all kinds of games upstairs and then they turned on some music and danced danced danced! They were sooo excited! There is still a lot of work to do... but we are going to move in anyway.

I can't believe I haven't blogged about the house in sooo long!
We are getting our carpet installed TODAY! Yeah! I will post pics when its done. Here is a picture of the stairs before carpet. We aren't done yet.... as we need to add more ballisters and molding, but the stairs are now painted up the sides and kickplate too.

The first picture is of the entry way ceiling. Eric added the shiplap and "barn" lights.

Here is the staircase in progress. On the wall we added the wood to appear more beach like. We will also be adding bullnosed wood pieces to the end of each stair so some of the wood will have to be re-cut. I've been working on filling the holes from all the nails and staples from the carpet. When the carpet comes in, it will only be on the top of each step, and the "kick-plate" or back of each step will be white. We also need to add another ballister (how do you spell that) in between each pole that is already there to make it safer.

This picture shows one side of the laundry room. We finally put the washer and dryer in their place. Eric has been working on the water heater which is also in the laundry room. He changed the overflow drain to go outside, and changed the fittings on it. All the little things are taking a long time! He has been working on the plumbling for the kitchen sink and bathroom sinks. He's hoping to get the kitchen sink running tonight... but we are going to take a break for dinner!

Here is how the master bedroom molding turned out. Our own version of bat and border.

Makaya and Cambria are enjoying dancing on the new wood floors! Makaya is teaching Cambria a new trick here.

Wood Floors

Our new wood floors! It looks really good! We have new wood floors in the kitchen, laundry room, entry way and "office/craft room." Now we can start getting out appliances in. (Just need to get some plumbing done)

We have counters

Our counters were installed yesterday by So Cal Stone in Corona! Yeah! They look great! It still looks a little bare without the applicances and backsplash. The counters are "Cambria" Quartz.

The cabinets are done! Ya-hoo! They look fantastic. Here are a few pictures. We should be getting our counters in next week! Eric is going to work on the moldings this weekend if anyone wants to join in and help!! Even if you can't help... come by and check out the progress.

Now, we are trying to decide on our backsplash..leaning toward glass tiles.

Also on the list of things to do:
-Decide on showers and master bath sinks/vanity
-Think of and input creative ideas for the girls bedroom. Makaya wants a Hawaiian theme - Cambria's "stuff" is brown and pink with retro toys ... how do I fit that together? Do I start all over? (they are sharing a room)
-Finish painting rooms (office, kids bedrooms and one wall of master)
-Closet organizers for master

Just to name a few...

The laundry room cabinets are done! They look great! Can't wait to get counters and floors! Yeah! The laundry room has a bench seat, laundry hampers, laundry chute, sink and plenty of drawers and cabinets.

Cabinets are white!

Cabinets are almost done! John "the painter" has another coat to go (clear coat) on the white and the doors can be put back on. The distressing (rub-thru) looks really good. The black island still needs to be sanded. We are still trying to decide on the counters... but I think I know what we will choose.

Eric took apart the upstairs bathrooms over the weekend. We now need to decide on new showers and vanities. Any super new or creative bathroom ideas? We are willing to try new ideas. We have an amazing "trough" sink for the kids bathroom. But we need new sinks for the master.

Cambria counters

Countertops:
Eric and I went to the Cambria warehouse to see the slabs... now we are more confused about which color to go with. I still like the Bradford... but I found a new one that looks better with the white cabinets. What do you think? The one on the top is Bradford.. it has more brown tones. The one on the bottom (Sheffield) has more black/gray but looks more blue and better with the white cabinets.... hmmmm. The rep is supposed to be bringing a bigger sample for us to bring home on Tuesday. It makes a big difference when you see a bigger slab. Our cabinets are being painted right now. The island is getting painted black.

Cabinets Installed

We now have kitchen cabinets! (and laundry room) Yah! They look really good. The island looks huge. They still have to paint them, but they are almost done with the installation. We had our cabinets done by Armstrong Cabinets. I'm anxious to see what they will look like when they are painted!

Even Cambria is helping paint!

We have been prepping the house all week to get ready to paint all the shiplap Eric put up on the ceilings. Eric finally painted on Saturday and it looks really good! He painted the family room, kitchen, entry way and laundry room ceilings. He also painted the staircase, some doors and upstairs moldings. He was all decked out in his painters gear and painted for about 9-10 hours. We were up very late...got to bed around 3AM. We have a few more things to finish before the cabinets come in. The cabinets are supposed to be installed on Tuesday! Woo Hoo!

Here is the flooring we decided on. We are going with a darker color because all of our cabinets and ceilings will be white and we decided the color contrast would look really good. Can't wait to see it!

Pool Fence

We have been debating on what to do about the pool. Whether to get a fence or empty the pool and cover it. Eventually we hope to put in a new, bigger pool. But, right now we are just trying to work on the house. My dad volunteered to put in a fence. It was a task that took much more time than he had hoped. His friend, Dick Runyan, volunteered to help him. They started early in the morning but had many obstacles. My mom convinced the Kellys to come help my dad later that night. Thanks to all who helped with the pool fence. My dad who worked on it all day. Dick Runyan who inspired my dad and had some great male bonding as they worked on it. Chris, Pam, and Casey who stepped in to help when it was really needed. It looks good.

Here I am sanding the Big Beams in the Dining Room. Eric did most of the sanding, I just jumped in to finish it while he worked on the ceiling. It looks pretty good. Most of the ceiling will be painted white, but these beams will be stained.

FOUND: SMELLY CAT

There has been a terrible smell the past 2 days. We knew it was some type of dead animal, but we weren't sure where. We narrowed it down to under the house. Eric and Cobian, with their jeans, masks and long sleeved shirts, headed under the house to see what it was. Cobian was very excited about this adventure. They crawled around, and found a good sized cat. Poor kitty cat! They put it in a trash bag... and Cobian brought in the bag to show the rest of us and his proud find! EWWW! Little Cambria said "Oh No" ... so adorably! I tried to capture her on video, but she didn't do it quite as cute when I began to record her. She just started saying CHEESE and kitty. Anyway, the poor smelly cat was found, not alive... and apparently used up his 9 lives. Makes me think of the song from "Friends" when Pheobe used to sing, "Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, what are they feeding you?"

Counters

Here is the color of the counters we plan to get. This counter is made by the company CAMBRIA. (just like our little girl) We picked this color because it reminds us of the rocks at our favorite camping beach San Elijo. It is quartz.

Wood Floors

In the pictures: A example of the wood pile.. one of them and Nate getting serious about the wood floor removal.
We have to get the wood floors pulled out before the kitchen cabinets put in. The wood floors were in the entry way and dining room of the house. We decided to take them out because we wanted to put wood floors in the kitchen too, and we wanted to have the distressed wood with a different color. We were going to try to salvage the wood, but soon found it easily split when lifted. However, as the wood came up, it was easier to get other pieces out without as much damage. We were able to get some of it out without completely destroying them. I don't think it will be enough to put in Jim and Dixie's house, but I think we will use it for a playhouse or something small.
Last Saturday, my new brother-in-law Nate (Amy's new husband) came over and helped us pull out some of the wood floors. That was very helpful, as it is a very time consuming and tiring thing to do.
During the week, (this week) Eric and I continued pulling out the wood whenever we had a chance. It is now almost out. My dad and I worked on pulling nails out of the wood (which I was not very good at) and finding a place to stack it nicely if we do re-use it. There is still a huge pile with nails in the backyard of ones I thought we'd get rid of. But, I think we may be able to save some of those to and just cut off the split parts.

Bat and Board

Here is a picture of my dad helping me with the moldings in the master bedroom. Eric and I decided to do a "modified" bat and board style in the bedroom. Last week, my car was broken into in the middle of the night... so my dad had to pick me up to get my car window fixed. I asked him to drop me off at the house, I needed to be there for the electrician. He ended up staying for a little while and helping me with the moldings. I was thankful that he helped me. This weekend, my friend Niki helped me finish the molding while my Eric, Nick and my dad worked on the kitchen ceiling. Now, I just have to finish the caulking and we can start painting the room. This room was floor to ceiling wallpaper, including the closets. With the help of a wallpaper steamer, I was able to get the wallpaper off. Underneath the wallpaper was a pretty light blue paint. There was a lot of spackle needed where the paint was chipping off and/or bubbling up.

Thank you Nick for helping Eric on Saturday!!! Nick and Eric put molding up on the ceiling on top of the shiplap. (where the shiplap meets the beam) Eric had to have assistance because the pieces were 16 feet long.

My dad came over and tried to put an alarm on the pool. After many attemps, the alarm was still not working properly. However, it did entertain the children. The bucket my dad was using to check the alarm became a "fishing" bucket. It was also used to dump water on the cracks so the boys could attempt to "kill" the ants. Cobian and Ryan had ants crawling all over them! They thought it was great fun.. until I reminded Cobian that he literally had ants in his pants. Yuck!

We can do it!

Saturday was a productive day!! Yeah! Girls, Girls, Girls...We can do it too! With the help of my friend Niki, we started the shelves on the pantry. Most of my time goes to watching Cambria... but every once in awhile... she gets busy playing with the older kids and I get a chance to work on a project. I asked Niki if she wanted to help me... and she said YES! So, Eric gave us a little instruction on the proper way to put the "Cleats" up, using the saw, finding studs, and using the nail gun. We cleared out the pantry (the electrician was storing all his stuff there), and got started. We measured, cut, painted, and nailed the cleats up.



We also moved a very large pile of firewood from the driveway. I forgot to take a picture "before"....but it was a ton of firewood and there were many large stumps in the pile. Alysa also came to help! We started out with a big wheelbarrow that developed a flat tire... then just transported by hand.. and finished off with the dollie. A lizard, a black widow, some spiders, an ant farm (which Alysa almost picked up).... and we still accomplished our task. I really didn't think we'd move it all, but we did. Big, huge thanks to Niki and Alysa. It is so much more fun and faster with friends!

The next day, Alysa helped me pull the carpet and wood off of the staircase wall. This wall will have wood planks wrapped around it...

Eric also got help from his friend Nick... I'll post pictures in the next blog....