For Sale!

 So, a lot has happened since my last post.  Let's see, I went and got myself knocked up (don't worry, it was right on schedule), suffered through morning sickness and fatigue (my initial excuse for not updating this old blog), arrived into the second trimester which somehow kicked off early nesting, then frantically started getting this house ready to sell (my second excuse for not updating) and looking for a new place closer to Pat's work.  The last five months have been an absolute whirlwind!  I can't even believe it's May.

Deets for the baby:

• Estimated due date: October 7
• Boy or girl:  We're not going to find out 'til delivery.  SIKE!  We'll find out next Wednesday, because I loathe secrets.
• What do we want:  A healthy baby.  (Duh)  But we're both kind of leaning girl, probably just because Madison is so great!  (And in my personal opinion boys can be quite gross.)

Preparing to sell our house has consumed so much of my mind (not to mention time and energy) that I haven't been able to focus much on the coming baby.  Every once in a while, I'll forget that I'm pregnant.  But then I walk past a mirror.  By the way, the whole "showing early the second time around" is SO true.  We waited until like 13 weeks to tell people, only because I was hoping for inspiration for some sort of cute announcement, and I was already getting sideways glances at church and family events.  By 14 weeks, there was no denying it!  At 15 weeks, while Madi and I were walking Bella around the neighborhood, we saw my neighbor about 25 yards away, working on his roof from the top of a ladder.  He hollered (he's a true redneck, "holler" is definitely the appropriate term) "Uh oh, you pregnant again?!"  So yeah.

Fortunately, my weight gain is on track so far.  With Madison, I gained 60 lbs (and only lost 55, dad gum it).  It wasn't pretty.  Hopefully, this time I'll gain no more than 30 and will still lose 55.  A girl can dream!

But enough about me and my rapidly expanding waistline.  Let's talk about me and my (hopefully) rapidly disappearing old house!

The big we-can't-live-in-a-one-bathroom-1100sq.ft.-house-with-two-babies blowup of 2013 happened the day before I started my second trimester.  It was just as much of a shock to Patrick as it was to me, but it resulted in us composing a list of things to finish in the house that, each taking up one line of college ruled notebook paper, filled a page and a half.  And most of the line items weren't little.  One example?  "Repair, sand, and refinish countertops in kitchen."

$500, a month and a half, and seven years off of our lives later, the house is ready to sell.  It's going on the market this afternoon.  In honor of the occasion, I thought I'd share some before and after pictures, taken from listing photos on the buying and selling end.

 

 

 

 

 

Phew.  House finished...check!  Now it's time to sell this sucker!  Any takers?  :)

-Kelli

My Macklemore Challenge

I've been absentee for awhile.  Sorry!

Anyhow, today at Young House Love, they're having a thrift store challenge.  You're supposed to take a $20 to a thrift store and see what you can score with it.  Here's my take!

Madi and I hit up our local thrift store last Friday to get this thing done.  She wouldn't cooperate for pictures, probably because she didn't want to be seen with me sans makeup.  She's 19 months old, and I'm already subjecting the poor child to public humiliation.  : )

 Here's what we scored for $2:

This thing is HUGE.  The inside of the frame is 2' X 3'.  I knew I wanted to spray paint the frame ORB, but I didn't know at first what I wanted to put inside the frame, so I hit up Pinterest and found this:

Source: etsy.com via Kelli on Pinterest

It's for sale on Etsy for $16.  I liked it a lot, but it was only an 8X10.  And, like I said, it was $16.  So of course, I tried to DIY.  First, I tried using Microsoft Word.  What a joke!  Then I pulled up GIMP (a free but not very intuitive image editing/generating software) and played around for a while.  Once I finally figured out how to manipulate text, I was able to put this together pretty easily:

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for us, for now.  And if it's good enough for you too, feel free to take it/print it/enjoy it.  Especially if you give me credit.  Or money.  Money is even better.

Anyway, blown up as big as it is on our wall, I can see imperfections (like how "protects", "trusts", and "perseveres" don't line up perfectly on the left side *shudder*) that would probably put me in the loony bin if I let them, so I try to only look at it from at least five feet away.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I had it printed by Shutterfly for $8.64 after a $20 discount that came in our latest box of diapers, and was shocked at how quickly it arrived.

After spray painting the frame, I used the original "art" board to make a mat.  I just cut a rectangle out of the middle about a half-inch smaller both ways so there would be room to attach the poster on the back. 

Normally I love crisp white mats, but since the word art was printed on plain white paper and used a very plain font, I thought it needed some interest.  So I covered it in some fabric I had laying around from Madison's 52 week photo project.

I ran out of painters tape halfway through (I would have used something cheaper if I had it on hand, but I wanted to finish before Madison woke up that morning), so I switched to electrical tape, which was a complete pain in the boat to work with.

Thar she blows!  And yes, that is a fat joke.  This thing is HUGE.  I hung it to be centered behind our love seat/on the hallway. 

We are still in dire need of art for over the couch, but I've got plans.  For Patrick.  (Oh honey, did you really think I was going to let you watch the Superbowl?)  JK.  He can work on it during half time.  : )

So the total cost for this sucker was around $11.  I'll take it!

Happy flippin' Friday!
-Kelli

PS- I linked at these blogs:

young house love 

Christmas...A "Better Late Than Never" Recap

 I have no excuses for how very very late this post is, so let's skip that part and just get to the good stuff...pictures!  These were still on my camera's memory card right up until about fifteen minutes ago.  It was fun going over them after all this time!

This first group of pictures is from an event Patrick took Madison to at the community center, breakfast with Santa.  A few of her cousins also came.  That morning I was helping with another event at our church, so I missed out on this one. 

First, she bonded with a few inanimate objects:

 Then spent some time ignoring her cousins (and one of the unjolliest Santa's I've ever seen)...

 Then crafted an ornament!

The next group of pictures is from Pat's family Christmas, which we celebrated the Saturday before Christmas in Huntsville, at his mom's house.  We had a blast there, and Madison got WAY too many presents.  Not that we're complaining!

 We attempted a cousins picture.  lol

 For Christmas Eve, we attended our church's service then went to a party at my aunt's house.  Madison wore such a cute dress, but we forgot to take any pictures but this one!

 And that's the last Christmas picture I have, because I forgot the stinkin camera there.  I didn't bother to get it back until a week into the new year.  I can't even imagine how the me from a year ago would feel about that.  Oh well. 

 Regardless of the picturelessness (shutchermouth, squiggly red line...it's a word if I say it is), our Christmas (day) was pretty good.  It was definitely low key; we spent the majority of the day at home, but also went to my parents house for a bit.  Our "big" gift to Madison was a mirror for her room ($10 at Walmart) so she can see herself when she plays dress up. To keep it safe, we drilled right through the frame to screw it to two studs.  I put all her dress up items (necklaces, boa, hats, bunny ears, purses) in a box under her crib for easy access and cleanup.  She loves it!

Typically, I'd end a post like this with "Merry Christmas", or at least "Happy New Year", but I'm kind of late for either one.  Umm, have a sweet Valentines Day?  Yeah, that works.
-Kelli