Farewell to 47th Street

Moving day is just around the corner and tonight is our last night in our first home.  A lot of people have asked me if I'm excited or sad, what I'm most looking forward to or what we'll miss most, etc.  The truth is, while we really can barely fit in this house for one more day, there are so many I'll miss and so many reasons I am feeling rather nostalgic about moving tomorrow.  I'm incredibly sentimental.  I really just realized this while we were de-cluttering and packing for the move.  If you've ever written me a card or if I have any kind of photographic record of knowing you, I probably kept it (at least, I DID until these last few weeks).  Since I am so sentimental, I've been really reflecting on some of our most memorable moments from the past 3+ years living here on 47th Street...
[warning...picture heavy post...]

Jed climbing up on the roof by standing on top of the garbage can and 3 bags of mulch...makes sense!

Kitchen updates round #1

Bringing home Simon!

Pulling up carpet to reveal hardwood floors

Leaving our house the day Lainey was born!

Decorating a nursery was pretty fun...

Lots of family pictures in the yard...

Celebrating Lainey's 1st birthday in our backyard

This might be my favorite house related picture from the past 3 years.

Bringing home Wyatt and snuggling my babies in my warm, cozy house was pretty special.

Fireplace paint redo

Wyatt's 1st Christmas, our first as a family of 4, was fun because we celebrated here at home for the first time.

Wyatt falling asleep all over the living room all of the time for the first 4 months of his life.

Lainey's 1st Easter egg hunt in the yard.

Lots of sandbox fun this summer

Puddle jumping

We bought this home just before we were married.  We opened our wedding gifts here the morning after our wedding.  We came home from our honeymoon to this home.  We hosted lots of friends and family and shared many meals in this teeny tiny home.  We shared 1 bathroom for 3 years,  I did dishes by hand for 3 years, and I lugged laundry up and down awkward stairs from our dungeon basement for 3 years.  We brought home 2 precious babies into this 2 bedroom home.   We enjoyed countless walks in our beautiful neighborhood.  We planted flowers and gardens and painted walls and cabinets.

It makes me a little sad to know that neither Lainey or Wyatt will have any memories of this house, aside from looking at pictures (and obviously, there's plenty of those!).  But when they grow up a bit, maybe we will drive by and check on our first home and tell them stories about what a wonderful place it was for them to start their little lives.

Farewell 47th Street!  It's been a blessing to live here and start our family together in this little house.

Weekend fun, visitors and projects

Sheesh, it's already Wednesday and I'm just now posting this... such is life!  We had a really great and busy weekend last weekend and it gives a good picture into our family life right now...

It started with this little Miss sleeping until 7am, which if you've talked to me recently, you know that that is very good.  Much, much better than 5:08 AM, which is her earliest to date :)

These two are LOVING playing together.  Wyatt is obsessed with this Little People zoo.  The zoo animals often wander over the castle next door and we always find a princess or two going down the zoo slide.

Jed was home from work on Friday so I got to take my favorite little girl on a Target date.  We even got to enjoy a bag of popcorn.  She was in heaven.

Buuut too much excitement from that great Target trip lead to her not taking a nap, which then lead to her falling asleep on the couch at 4 pm.  Mommy always wins Lainey... you WILL nap!

We rounded out our day with a family trip to Home Depot.  Been hitting that place a lot lately with lots of house projects to get our house ready to put on the market.  Lainey obviously looks like she knows her way around.

Lainey's beloved "Ma" and "Papa" came down to help us with projects and watching the kiddos.  They always have great surprises in store!

My hard working husband spent the majority of both Saturday and Sunday working on the bathroom floor.  Not having a completely functional bathroom is sure interesting... especially when it's your only one!

Luckily, we were able to take advantage of my parents visiting and we got to go out and celebrate our anniversary Saturday night.  We ate at Sam and Gabe's (YUM!) and really enjoyed our time together.  It was so nice to relax and eat a real meal (and a really, really good one at that!  I'm not kidding, I haven't stopped thinking about the chicken lasagna I had that night.  It was amazing) alone after we've been working so hard for several weeks.

My hard working DAD spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday outside doing what he loves, yard work.  He cleaned up and layed a TON of mulch for us, we are so grateful!

Lainey had big hugs for her Papa on their way out.

Enjoying Papa's yard work!

It was a great weekend!

Why is it...

that home improvement projects always take AT LEAST two times longer than expected...?
...And maybe even three or four times longer than it should when you've got one of these sweet things to love on and entertain?
(All I can say is thank GOODNESS she's not crawling yet...)

...More to come as soon as my house is back in relative order...

Another (super fun) project

Curiosity is a funny thing. A few weeks ago, Jed kept saying, "I wonder what is underneath our carpet." We live in a pretty old house, built in 1925, and most homes this age have or had hardwood floors. When we bought the house, they had just put in all new flooring throughout. Nice plush carpet, new shiny linoleum, etc. After making this statement a few times over the next week or so, Jed decided he was going to pull up a corner of carpet in one of the bedrooms just to see what he could find. Upon his discovery, he exclaimed with joy, "Babe! You've gotta come look at this!"

Hardwood floors. Nice ones.

Mind you, this discovery came while I was 35 or 36 weeks pregnant. Call me a pessimist, but my mind immediately went to all of the nesting and cleaning and organizing I'd been pouring myself into and that it would be completely destroyed and need to be REdone if Jed pulled up the carpet. I just smiled and said, "Not today, Jed, not today."

Well, Sunday, we didn't really have anything going on all day and Jed thought he'd try his hand at this again. Call me crazy, but I agreed, even at 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant, just 3 days away from my due date. He had to agree to COMPLETELY put everything back in it's place and clean whatever needed to be REcleaned. I did end up helping some, but just because I wanted to. What can I say? I love vacuuming, especially with a powerful ShopVac. The whole project took from about 11 AM until 6 PM or so and I only had to do a minimal amount of the picking up and cleaning thanks to my hardworking husband.

Jed is THRILLED with how it turned out. Simon is depressed at the loss of the carpet and struggles when we play fetch with his rope or tennis ball in the house - it's just too slippery! I feel bad for the poor little guy! I think it looks great though and am excited to find a nice area rug for the middle of the room so little baby J has somewhere to lay and crawl around (if he or she ever arrives).

Here are some before, during and after photos of the project!

Never say never... but....

No, this post isn't about Justin Bieber or his movie... sorry... :)

I know you should never say never... but I'd truly like to say that I will never again paint kitchen cabinets. (At one point today I said I never wanted to paint anything ever again but I doubt that will hold true.) We bought the house knowing we wanted to make a lot of updates and here we are, almost a year later, and the kitchen and kitchen cabinets are finally painted! It was quite a transformation and we are really excited about it. I am usually nervous about colors - I can't pick them out and I can't commit to anything bright or anything not neutral but this is quite the color and I really like it! I will say it will be awhile before we tackle big paint jobs again - I am SO exhausted! The kitchen was really tedious just because there were 3 windows and 3 different door frames, not to mention my new nemesis... WOOD PANELING. Ugh.

Anyway, here are some before and afters!
Before ... (excuse the mess :)

Another before - testing out some colors

My hard working partner in crime!

More of a distraction than a help... but still cute.

After!!!

Ahhh... so tired! That was really a lot of work! I'm enjoying a well deserved, small bowl of ice cream and laying on the couch as I write this. I think I can hear my bed calling my name!