Posts Tagged ‘renovations’

Allora Handmade Winner, plus EVERYTHING ELSE from my brain

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

The winner of Giveaway Week Day 1: Allora Handmade is…

#49 Majestic Domestic aka Bonnie!

Congrats!! I will forward your info to Jessica so she can set you up with your shop credit. I advise you to spend it on yourself and not try to do the nice thing and buy anyone a Christmas present. You’ll just resent them later because they’re wearing YOUR rosettes.

Yesterday, I had a friend tell me that although I am very very pregnant I am “all belly”. It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said and definitely goes on the “appropriate to say to a pregnant woman” side of the list. I’m not even going to evaluate whether or not it’s true. I certainly feel very belly-ful and can also still get my non-maternity pants on – I just can’t button them. Or zip them. But my butt fits!

The glider we ordered from Babies R Us came in on Saturday. Of course it wasn’t until we got it home, up the stairs and right side up that we realized the gliding mechanism is TOTALLY defective. One of the screws is rubbing against the metal frame, making a terrible noise and preventing any sort of gliding from taking place. No, it cannot be bent back into place – trust me, we tried. E spent ALL DAY Monday trying to get a hold of the company, because it says in GIANT ORANGE LETTERS on the packaging “DO NOT RETURN TO STORE – CALL 1-800-BLAH BLAH”. So of course when they FINALLY called him back they said “Oh yeah, you should return it to the store.” Luckily, Babies R Us was willing to do an even-exchange and get us another (hopefully non-defective) one in 7-10 days. You can bet your ass we’re opening the box right there in the store to make sure it’s not all screwed up too. No way we are dragging ANOTHER chair home again just to drag it back.

(Side note: It took three different people almost a full hour to figure out HOW to do the even-exchange. One cashier literally just stared at the receipt for five full minutes while I stared at her staring. I *know* retail computer systems can be confusing but SERIOUSLY? CALL A MANAGER. OR SOMETHING. I have four different pieces of paper that show how much I paid and I don’t even want my money back.)

The new master bedroom is closer to being done than not done but we’re trapped in renovation limbo until the carpet goes in on Thursday, which means my clothes are in one room, E’s clothes are in another, there’s a banister in our guest room, bed rails in the nursery and we’re sleeping on mattresses on the floor of the 3rd floor. And by “floor” I mean bare plywood. BUT! My new closet organizer is in! I haven’t had a real closet in 3 years and am using this bedroom move to viciously edit my wardrobe down to stuff I actually wear and by actually wear I mean wear on a regular, consistent basis and not just for a couple of hours once every few months so I can feel less guilty about not giving it away.

I’ve started having nightmares about giving birth. I had them last time too, but figured since things went pretty well with Baby Evan I’d be a little calmer this time. The dreams never involve the actual BIRTH part, just weird hospital frustrations and baby mix-ups and birth certificates with “Special Snowflake Davis” on them. But they’re the kind of dreams that you wake up from just as exhausted as when you collapsed into bed after chasing around the world’s fastest toddler all day.

And because now that it’s November no one really cares about Halloween costumes anymore, this is where I share pictures of Little Evan in his costume(s).

He still thinks tiny gourds are delicious. Even ones he originally called "BALL" and threw at passersby.

I taught him that monkeys scratch their armpits and say "Oooo ooo ooo!" This is his best try.

There are pants that go with that costume too, but considering THIS is the meltdown that occured when I tried to get him to take a picture with me, the fight over the pants was totally not worth it.

Yes, I DID buy a second costume to dress Evan in for answering the door. There are a limited number of years you can dress up kids without their input and I'm taking FULL advantage. (Also: He is not holding a candle. Tiny LED candle-like light)

Despite this face, he actually LOVED the outfit. Except for the hat part. Why don't they make costumes without hats?

P.S. The rest of the giveaways are still open but Uff Da closes tonight!
Day 2 is open until November 2nd! Uff Da Designs
Day 3 is open until November 3rd! Taradara
Day 4 is open until November 4th! Peggy Ann Design
Day 5 is open until November 5th! aPearantly Sew
Day 6 is open until November 6th! Gussy
Day 7 is open until November 7th! A knit Phoebe Mouse…by ME!
Day 8 is open until November 8th! Hugs & Kisses Designs

My Week(2) in iPhone Photos

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

Monday:

We started the week off happy!
And took our pretty new diaper bag to Stroller Strides (From the wonderful Hugs & Kisses Designs – come back Monday for a better look + a giveaway!!)

Tuesday:

Our new stroller came! Can you believe that turns into a double? Expect a LOT of pictures coming soon.

And I struggled to find my feet.

Wednesday:

Little Evan stopped making a mess long enough to practice his jumping, thanks to Super Why (I think? We don’t watch much kids tv)

Thursday:

And we made a VERY BIG NOISE with an air compressor

Friday:

E did a lot of painting (with a lot of help from Mom and Dad)(and very little help from me)

All that work made Evan tired, so he relaxed with Mormor (Grandma), his milk and his tape measure.

Saturday:

Dad and E wrestled a 6 foot mattress up a 4 foot stairwell, just to make sure we could actually FIT our bed in the new bedroom

And now we are all exhausted and paint-covered and going to eat an obscene amount of pizza to celebrate getting 80% of the work DONE (with 15% to do after dinner and 5% left for E and I to finish before the carpet guy comes Thursday.)

Hope you had a great week! You still have time to enter all the giveaways, but Day 1 closes Monday, Day 2 closes Tuesday, etc. so check it out SOON!

Whoa oooah, we’re half way there…

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Ok, so maybe not quite half way, but the old carpet is up, the new carpet is ordered and we’ve got all day Friday to paint. every. single. surface. of this stupid room. But to truly show you how much progress we’ve made since we bought the house three years ago, I had to track down my ancient LiveJournal account and steal these pictures.

This is the wallpaper I found under the OTHER wallpaper. Sadly, it was just on this one wall or I might have kept it. Jungle animals are so hot right now.

I *intentionally* painted that futon orange. You know, to match the room. Yikes.

And then in the past three years, we’ve thrown out most of the furniture, dragged a guest bed up there and turned it into a giant junk hole.

I also painted the walls a color that should have been called "dirty band-aid" and hung up dark polyester curtains. Because who wants to really SEE a room that ugly?

Since Wednesday afternoon, THAT has turned into this:

Ugly room, now with less stuff!

Which now looks like this:

That's my dad, who ripped up all that carpet entirely by himself. Before I had finished breakfast. No, he is not for sale or rent.

Next up, paint ceiling, paint trim, paint moldings, replace electric baseboard heaters, repeat all of that in the stairwell, buy new closet doors and THEN we can paint the walls.

The carpet guy comes Thursday.

And then we get to move all our bedroom furniture UP.

I need to go lie down.

Don’t Leave Me

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

TOMORROW!!!!

I wanted to let you know that although the next week is going to be INSANE at the bebehblog residence (my folks come Thursday to start new nursery/master bedroom renovations) and here on the blog (giveaways every day) I’m going to keep up posting regular Little Evan and Baby Sandy type updates too. So even if you’re not interested in giveaways please don’t delete me from your reader just yet.

Because, trust me, you’re going to want to see if we can make THIS…

…into livable space.

Also, if you’re local and have any need for:
1. End table shaped like a dock piling with burn mark on top
2. Giant Stonehenge style speakers
3. Former radio console with all the speakers and doors ripped off
4. Size 5 black satin pants covered in sparkly black mirrors
5. 400 square feet of orange carpet that may be soaked in cat pee

LET ME KNOW! IT’S ALL YOURS! I CAN DELIVER!!

18 Month Stats (and some other stuff)

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010

Little Evan had his 18 months check-up yesterday, and since this blog is my baby book I should probably record his stats here, rather than lying to myself and pretending I’m going to hold onto this “Baby’s Health and Growth Record” they gave me at his first visit and I shove in my purse before each appointment.

Height: 32 inches
Weight: 24 lbs 3 oz
Head circumference: 47.6 cm

All of that puts him somewhere between the 25th and the 50th percentiles and back on the kind of “healthy curve” the doctor is happy with and doesn’t require coming in every freaking month to make sure I’m not starving him to death. They made me schedule his next appointment on the way out, which is his 2 YEAR CHECK-UP. I was not only mentally unprepared to think of him as being 2, I am incapable of picking a “good” time and day for an appointment in April, when I will have 2 babies. My day planner doesn’t even go past December, because that’s when I figure my whole life will just turn into chaos and won’t ever leave the house anyway.

In “things that make my life easier news”, we also went to Best Buy and bought this:

HUGE. But useful.

Our current TV stand (which, if you REALLY need to see it, is the in background of 85% of my pictures) has solid wood doors, which means when you close them you can’t control anything with the remote. Design FAIL. We took one of the doors off a long time ago and that was a workable solution for a while…until we had a kid. A kid who likes buttons. And knows which button turns the TV on and off. And thihks pushing it is HILARIOUS. Our new stand will prevent the button-pushing and cord-pulling, as well as give us a lot more storage for E’s giant electronics collection and free up space on our bookshelves for, you know, those things with the pages and the words. Oh yeah, BOOKS.

We also ordered this:

Nursery Glider

It’s the Newco Serenity Classic Glider to go in the new nursery/playroom. You can’t see the fabric closely in the picture, but it’s a chenille corduroy that is very soft AND very stain resistant. I was torn between buying the chocolate brown and ordering it in the green version, but when the sales guy said the green was “special order”, which meant it would take 10-12 weeks AND I couldn’t use my BRU 20% off coupon, the brown won. Easily. It will work just fine with beige and orange and if I end up hating the color I’ll just throw a blanket over it.

Also, if you read all the reviews of the chair they’re split between people who love it and people who hate it because it squeaks, and although squeaking is annoying the cheap Target glider we have already is INCREDIBLY squeaky and it never ever bothered Baby Evan. Comfortable is really my only concern.

Next weekend starts our new master bedroom renovations and also the start of fourteen bazillion posts featuring MORE crap I want to buy. I know you’re already excited.