Kitchen-week 1

 Week 1-We left for Iowa on Spring Break on Sunday and demo started on Tuesday. We didn't really want to leave and not be able to oversee everything happening at the house, but at the same time we didn't really want to stay and have 3 kids in the middle of demo either! It ended up working out just fine, but we were curious the whole time about what was going on at the house, so when we got the picture above from Pavy, we were thrilled!! The tile was gone! Cabinetry gone! There was lots of work being done in our absence. Whoohoo!

When we returned, this is what the living room looked like. Dust everywhere!

I don't know WHY it didn't dawn on me that the living room would be off limits too, but it just didn't! I had envisioned no kitchen, but not no living room, too!! YIKES! In addition to everything being covered in plastic and the floor being covered with dust, there was no electricity in there (duh!). Some of the outlets and the closet in Henry's room are w/o electricity, too. SO, we have been confined to the bedrooms and playroom, but I can honestly say that so far it has worked better than I could have hoped. The kids really do great. They just want to be where we are, anyway, so everyone is happy all huddled together on one side of the house-ha!

Both doorways from the kitchen were taped off with plastic. They were constantly shop vaccing the LR to clean up the dust. Much appreciated!

This is what the inside of kitchen looked like when we returned!

This is the wall that will partially come down.

Everyday after school we come in and check out what they progress they are making. Henry is a curious little guy and very interested in their work. Next up was all the electric and plumbing (week 2). More on that to come!

Kitchen

We bought our current house in December 2014. We didn't have to move, but always knew that our wonderful house on Chesapeake Blvd, which we lived in for over 7 years, wouldn't be our "forever" house. So, we had fun searching for other homes via the Internet and driving by neighborhoods for several years-even meeting with realtors for several tours of ones we thought we were interested in and then even making an offer on one that didn't work out.
We had some things on our list for our new home that were negotiable and some things that weren't. So when we found our current house in October, it fit enough of our non-negotiables that we were willing to make a voluntary move.

Some of these items were the lot (large-1.5 acres and flat-ours backs up to woods rather than other houses), pool (which it had!) or spot for a pool (I grew up with a pool in the backyard, so my hot, Southern yard just feels lacking without one), location (close enough to both of our jobs that we could commute without frustration. We don't mind driving a bit, but the traffic is where we struggle, so being able to hop on the interstate and MOVE rather than just sitting still on poorly laid out back roads was our goal), storage (there's a 2 car exterior garage with storage above), natural light (lots of windows and even 2 skylights which I love!), and size (4 bedrooms which we thought would be enough for our family plus a guest room, but we had a surprise baby since then that will eventually get that 4th room, so I guess it worked out either way!). I also didn't want anything too big that I couldn't keep clean, so our square footage is pretty much exactly what we had before (2,000 sq ft). I didn't know it at the time because I've always lived in 2 story houses, but a huge bonus (in my opinion), is to have a 1 story house-who knew!? I LOVE all the rooms being accessible and it is just so much easier for me to clean and keep straight (even though the sq footage is the same, for some reason the layout just lends itself to more ease for me in these areas). So that has been so awesome and an added surprise.

The main things I felt I was negotiating on were exterior aesthetics (the yard is beautiful and exactly what we wanted, but the single story ranch style just isn't real pretty in my opinion), the kitchen and bathrooms (more on these later!), having only a laundry closet rather than an actual room (which has worked out fine since the closet is right beside the kids bathroom and bedrooms, I have only a few steps to gather/deliver everything anyway! And the guest bedroom is right there, so that is my folding room!), and the interior aesthetics (our other house was really cute and had a lot of charm that this one doesn't (yet!!) have...the previous owner at our other house was a really handy guy who had added so many things to the house to give it the charm that this one is missing...BUT I was excited to eventually add some of that charm back in myself!). I was more than willing to temporarily give these things up, but wanted hubby to know that these were things that I WOULD want to upgrade if we went with this house. We both agreed that we would start saving, planning, and scheming to do some of the facelifts as soon as we were able to after purchasing the house. And while it does require patience, it is also fun to plan and pick what we want. AND the cool thing about living in a house for over 3 years before getting to do anything to it is that now we really know what we want for changes!

Don't get me wrong, when we moved in, we did a ton! The couple before us built this house and it is almost 30 years old, so it was certainly dated! We replaced every light fixture, added recessed lighting, replaced the interior hinges/doorknobs and every vent cover, painted every room, had the ceilings scraped prior to moving in, removed wallpaper, removed a mirrored wall in the dining room (yes! ha!), and so much more that I can't even remember! Someday I will blog on that bc I know we took pictures along the way! But the first major thing we wanted to tackle was our kitchen (a biggie!!).

Below are a few pictures of the kitchen prior to us moving in.You can see the terrible 80's beach house tile that shows EVERYTHING. I am SO, SO excited to replace that. At first, we thought we would be happy just to give this kitchen a facelift (paint cabinetry white, get new flooring/granite counter tops and do most of the work ourselves just like we did in our old house). BUT after using this kitchen for several years, I began to really dislike the layout. I thought the butterfly corner sink would be great, but quickly grew to hate the bottleneck it created between the trashcan and the dishwasher. I couldn't open the door to the trashcan while the dishwasher lid was down, so we would just make a trash pile beside the sink while I was doing dishes and throw it all away once I was done-gross and inconvenient! Being unable to get to that spot easily also meant that the giant cabinet under the sink is not really used like it should be. I wasn't putting much in it because I couldn't easily get it out! And it's huge under there!
Another issue with it is that while loading the dishwasher, there is only a tiny spot to stand to do the dishes, and in reality it only allows for a small portion of the sink to be accessible (like 1/4th of it). In addition, the corner sink means my back is always to everybody, which I hate! I really wanted a  more open feel to the kitchen so that I could be part of what was happening in the living room and not have to turn the sink off and yell back and forth at each other from the kitchen to the LR.
The third thing I struggled with was the spot right at the fridge and the bar. This is such a high traffic area, and with the fridge door open, no one could get through. I despise this! People just tend to stand right there in front of the fridge, too, so we were always having to squeeze past or ask people to move...it was just a very inefficient spot. But I loved the bar and didn't want to loose that! 

SOOOO....I began slowly presenting my ideas to Steven, who is a major planner and does not generally like change. But I am the dreamer, and he is the realist, so I really appreciate him because without him none of this would actually get done, and it would all just be a dream in my head. It took a LONG time, but he slowly warmed up to the ideas. I wanted to switch the location of the sink and the dishwasher and take down (partially) the wall that separates the kitchen and the LR. A big, lengthy, pricey endeavor that we didn't even know was possible! I also wanted the current bar completely gone and for a counter top to extend into the living room for the bar area to be there instead of right beside the fridge.
We met with AB in June at our house and they determined that the wall could come down, but would have to have a header because it was load bearing. Not the exact look we wanted, and a little more money, but still much better than a closed off wall. If we were going to loose that wall, we would have to put additional cabinetry in the dinette to make up for it. So, we came up with a design for that as well.

 We pretty much kept the kitchen like you see it above except that the ceilings were scraped, the door that separates the dining room and the kitchen came down. We painted, put new bar stools in and replaced the fan with some cute schoolhouse lighting. But for the most part it stayed the way you see it above.

Finally, on March 13, our kitchen renovation began! Almost a year ago we started talking to AB Stone about our ideas. We had some other folks come out, too, but eventually decided to go with AB. We met with them several times and they drew up our plans, we tweaked them over and over, and eventually decided we would be able to start in the Spring of this year. The project is supposed to take 4-6 weeks, barring no complications. The weekend prior to them doing demo, we cleaned everything out and Ben helped Steven remove appliances. Where does all the stuff come from!?!? Geez! Our cabinets were packed. But we were excited and nervous to get started.

Goodbye dishwasher!! This one is old and does not work well, so I am pumped to get an upgrade! You can see Henry is right in it...he is excited to see everything coming together.

I boxed up a bunch of stuff for the garage, but also loaded our dining room table with some of the kitchen junk and covered it with plastic.

Goodbye, stove! Same story as the dishwasher...can't wait for an upgrade! From here you can see some of the lighting Steven put in when we  moved in.

We removed the microwave and put it temporarily in our bedroom as part of our make-shift kitchen.

I moved all of our food into the bedroom and bought paper products for the meals we would eat at home. We knew we would be eating out or eating simply for the most part.

Below is the kitchen all cleaned out and ready for demolition! 

Above is the dinette. There will be a built in cabinet to the right for extra storage and Steven's dad is building us a rectangular table with benches that can be slid under to hopefully save on some space. Until now we have had a vintage square metal table in the center, but now that we are a family of 5 that table doesn't fit our  needs anymore!

 

And this is our make-shift bedroom kitchen! Nothing like waking up to a highchair, crockpot, and table to one side of you...

And a fridge and microwave on the other side of you! Midnight snack anyone?! Ha, ha! It's fine. Just kinda crazy. I emptied our armoire and filled it with our food for a temporary cupboard. It works.

And here are the kids eating breakfast on our bedroom floor the next morning....they think it is great and an adventure! The first few weeks we had crummy weather, but now the weather is really nice and we can eat outside and just play after naps.  There is MUCH MORE to come.....stay tuned for updates as we renovate our kitchen! Whoohoo!

 

17 months

Ruby turned 17 months on December 9th. She's a busy bee for sure! She's changing and growing like a weed. Here's a bit about her over the past month.

-Ruby is talking so much. I may have mentioned these already, but some of her most used words are bubba, dadda, key-key (what she lovingly calls her blankie), lovie (luh-bee), hair bow, pretty, ear, eyes, nose, splash, apple (babow), cracker, yogurt (whoa-goo), Cheerio (chee-oh), cereal (eee-oh), I want cup, eat (hard t), I want eat, go go!, uh-oh, ball, jacket, feet, toes, nigh-night (nigh-nigh), milk (muck), trash (when she finds some on the floor), "bye bye Daddy". There are so  many more, but these are some highlights!

 -She is not walking, but is getting around much more. She is gaining strength and courage. She will now dismount the furniture on her own and does not fall. She figures out how to shimmy down on her tummy and lands on her feet.

 -She's getting to be a pickier eater, but I can always scramble eggs and she will eat them. The other food she's been crazy about this month are raspberries and blackberries. I've been able to give her those a ton, so at least she's getting good nutrients from them.

 -When she really wants something, she will say it over and over really fast and with some serious passion-it cracks us up. Henry imitates her at random times and makes me laugh. So its...Iwantcup, Iwantcup, Iwantcup, Iwantcup, Iwantcuuuuuup!!!! (same with I want ball!). She has also learned cookie and gum (no, she has never had gum), and associates these with all treats. So she will see the big kids with some kind of treat and will say, "gum?' and I will say, no you can't have gum. Then she will say, "cookie?" (nice try). She says it cooo-keee, drawing out that first syllable.:) She associates cookie with the grocery store, and the other day we were in Walmart and asked, "cookie?". I told her this store doesn't have cookies. Then she said, "nana?" which I got a kick out of because at the Madison Target they give fruit instead of a cookie. She was trying to figure out what they offered at the store we were in! Anyway, weird memory, but I could just see her making connections and communicating.

 -She is learning to shake her head yes and no. No comes much easier than yes. She was playing hard one night and started to fuss a little (maybe got hurt or something), so Steven asked, Do you want me to pick you up? And she gave an emphatic "NO!" shake of the head. We both cracked up. I think it looks more dramatic bc of all her hair or something.

 -She found some dried up leaf in the kitchen and picked it up and said, "wuck. wucky". I couldn't figure out her work, then it dawned on me she was saying yuck and yucky! She then handed it to me and said "trash". Ha! Yes, dear, get used to it! She has been using wucky a  lot since then.:)

-In the pic above you can see she picks her toes!:) She will just be playing, then all of a sudden she will notice something between her toes and she will work and work on getting it. It is so funny and makes her look like a little monkey! Annie did the same thing and still does sometimes.

 -She loves wipes and tissues and will pretend to blow her nose (above) and will use the wipe to wipe her belly and whatever is around. Maybe she will be a good housekeeper someday!

That's all for now! You're such a sweetie, and we love you so much, Ruby! It's hard for me to believe that you'll be 1.5 next month! Time is flying!

16 months

Ruby turned 16 months on November 9th. She is growing like a weed...She went to her 15 month check up on 10/16 and I forgot to put her stats in her last post. She is 32 inches tall (95%), 24.5 lbs (90%), so when I say she's growing, I'm not kidding! She got 3 shots at her check up and was a trooper. Daddy took her and he was a trooper, too:)
Below are a few things going on with baby girl over the past month.

-Quite the talker! She's saying more and more, and her current phrase is "I want_________" (fill in the blank with what she wants), so we hear I want cup, I wanna eat, I wanna ride, I want ball..... all the time. She is also starting to be attached to her blankie/lovie and calls them her kiki (sounds like blankie). We put the blankie on our shoulder and hold her, and her head is like a magnet going to lay down on her blankie. It is funny and sweet! She's also says "ear" now along with nose and eyes. She faces away from me in her car seat, but will crane her neck around to look at me and will say, "hello" when I am driving.

-She loves to talk about her body parts and will say "tickle tickle tickle" and show us her belly when asked "where's your belly?" She also makes that same sound when she sees someone else's skin or side showing and she goes to tickle us! She will also show us her teeth (bite teeth together), tongue (poke it out), and lips (put them together and apart, together, apart). She says a few animal noises (quack for duck, meow for cat), but she mostly just listens to us when we do them right now.

-She just loves the water. Bath is probably her most favorite thing, and she also had a blast this month when we went to an indoor water park. She crawled all over the place and her knees got all red and scratched. She does not mind getting splashed and loves to be in the water. She also loved sitting in the duck ride at Dollywood this month when we visited friends and was all smiles, but when the ride actually took off, she cried the whole time!

-She loves her daddy and when he walks in after work she squeals with delight from across the room and speed crawls to greet him and the door. When he picks her up, she lays her head on his shoulder for the longest time then is thrilled to be carried around by him for as long as he is willing afterward.

-Ruby really is such an easy going personality. When I think of all the things we drag her to and all the running around in the car we do, it is pretty amazing how chill she is. She sleeps her normal 2.5-3 hour afternoon nap wherever we lay her and always sleeps through the night without waking up, and she is the best car rider ever. Seriously-not a peep. And it isn't like she's just kind of fussy but we ignore it because we still have to do what we have to do. No, she is truly happy and easy going. She's a joy to be with, and I'm so thankful!

There's much  more, but I better stop for now! Evidently I forgot to take a pic of her in her pjs this month, so below are a few from around the 9th time frame. We love you, Ruby Jane! 

That's ice cream on her face...hence the pleasant look!

I'm including this one of her with her siblings bc she's in her pjs at least!! She thinks she's one of the big kids and will sit on the sofa beside them and watch a Saturday morning cartoon for a bit. She's started with TV way earlier than the other 2...oh well! :) Perk  of being a 3rd I guess!

15 months

Our little cutie turned 15 months old on October 9th. We had a busy start to fall, so she got to experience lots of firsts! She was around this time last year, but she was itty bitty, so it feels like we are getting to introduce all the fall fun to her this year. See below for a few highlights about the month!

-We got to go to the beach over fall break with my folks, and I was surprised at how much she loved it! Ruby's siblings did NOT like the sand and brightness at this age, but she LOVED it!! We could  not believe how busy she stayed out there. She crawled around and explored the entire time-never fussed about sand all over her (like literally stuck to her face and all in her mouth). She crawled so much that her knees were red and she even had blisters/sores on top of her big toes!! One of her games was to crawl as fast as she could to the water, then we would have to grab her out of the waves before the totally overtook her. We would take her WAY up to the sand, and she would start the process all over again! She wore us out, and she just laughed and laughed!

-We also got to do lots of fall pumpkin patch, trunk or treat, Halloween type stuff this month, and it has been a blast! Like I said, it's all new to her so it is fun to watch her experience it. Let's just say she knows what candy is now and begs for it when she sees her siblings with some. Sheesh!

-She's gotten lots of teeth this month, poor baby! She's gone through phases of her shirt being soaked and drool just dripping from her mouth! When I lay her down to change her diaper, I can see the big swollen purple spots on her gums, and I can't imagine how that must hurt! It has effected her eating some.

-She is getting more and more mobile, but isn't walking. She stood up at the coffee table at the beach, at her music table, and at the playground slide which are not normal things for her to do. She's getting braver! Still funny to me how slow the girls have been at becoming mobile, but I'm trying to just enjoy it! She gets around just fine, though, and one day I looked up and she was sitting up on the hearth holding a little pumpkin in her hand like she was posing. And another time I was doing dishes and looked over to see her sitting on the lid checking it all out! They said they had her walking behind a shopping cart at school, too, and I saw her take like 2 steps doing this.

-She says a lot-said "here ya go" to Steven when handing him a hair tie. Says "go go!" when we get into or out of the car. Says eyes (sounds like ice) and nose and points to both-on both her and us. Also blinks her eyes to show us her eyes which is just adorable. She has learned how to yell "get out" from her crib. She learned this from Annie who yells "I wanna get up/out" when she's done with her nap. It is funny and cracks us up. She also says "bye bye!!" as soon as I walk in to nursery to pick her up at the end of the day. She says it over and over really loudly...just letting everyone know she's done there. :)

-She is so affectionate and when I carry her facing out in the ergo, she twists her neck around to look up at me and give me a kiss. She does it over and over. She still scrunches up her nose and says "muah!" when she kisses, too. Sweetie!

We love you sweet Ruby Jane! You are one awesome baby.

Another trick-We ask her, "How old is Ruby?" and she holds up one finger and we say, "One!" She's pretty proud of it!

We see her scrunchy nose face a lot!

Halloween 2017

Trunk or Treat #1-Go Vols
Trunk or Treat #2-Squid Henry, Gnome Ruby, Princess Annie
Halloween Night-Donuts!!
We had so much fun and now we have way too much candy at our house.

14 months!

Ruby turned 14 months on September 9th! She's changing everyday!! Below are a few notes about what she's been up to the past month.

-Going "rogue" in the bathtub...finally not sitting in a ring, but able to crawl around and she LOVES it! The bath is one of her favorite things for sure. We ask "do you want to splash?" and she makes her own noise for "splash" and swats her hands in the air like she's splashing water. She also stood to her feet to look into the bathtub this month which is rare! I guess she was willing to do the work for something she loves! She also stood up to her feet at her music table. Starting to get a little braver!

-She got to ride in a boat on the lake 2 different times this month and loved it. She just smiled and smiled as the breeze blowing in her face and sat so still. The giant life jacket around her didn't bother her a bit-she just totally relaxed in it and kind of fell over while riding. So funny!

-She also makes her own noise for "eat" and simultaneously signs "please" when she wants to eat a snack. She also puts her hand to her mouth for the eat sign. She loves to put her sippy in the cup holder part of her high chair tray. She never throws it down, but wants it in its proper place.

-She tickles her own belly when she can get to it and makes the "tickle, tickle, tickle" sound while she does it. She does a lot of pointing these days and will point to what she wants and emphatically lean to tell us what it is she would like. She also sometimes points while we are holding her as if she is saying which way she wants us to take her.

-She loves dogs and cats! She gets so excited and starts to babble with excitement in her own little language when we see one out and about. She doesn't get nearly that excited about our own Maggie, though! There was a frog in the skimmer the other day and she had such mixed feeling about it. She was scared to death and didn't want Steven to put her down, yet she kind of wanted to touch it, but then she would pull back and cry right after she leaned in to take a closer look. She was fully conflicted and I was laughing so hard watching her that I cried!

-She got another tooth this month (started last month, but it is officially in now) on the bottom right, and I think it caused her some pain. She had times of being upset for no reason, so I think this must have been why.

-She says "rue-bee!" for her name now and it is so cute! We got a video of it so we can remember it forever! Some other words she says are baby, diaper (bye-puh), weee!, uh-oh, splash (her own version of it), eat, ball (bah), shoe (oosh), bubba, repeats 3, cracker (crah-kah), papa, dadda, daddy (dah-deee!! She says this way more than mamma!).

There's lots more, but I better stop. We love you sweet Rubes.