Progress

Paint:

It seems like we keep running to store for two things: paint and blue tape. I swear we've spent more money on paint and supplies than on anything else.

The lamest part about painting is all the prep work. Taping off trim + walls + touch ups after you peel off the tape = no fun. It seems like the paint job is never ending...especially when you're painting every square inch of the house. Literally. Sure needed to with mustard yellow walls in the bedrooms, pepto bismal pink in the bedroom closets, and hunter green in the pantry and linen closets. Disgusting. Took lots of primer and two coats of paint to cover that ish. Sherwin Williams cashmere was recommended by a close friend and I've loved it so far.  

The light gray and crisp white are much better. 

Texturing:

Here our contractor is texturing the ceiling so the texture upstairs is consistent throughout. It took one coat of primer and two coats of paint to get it just right.

Once the ceiling was textured and painted we could move onto the walls in the main living area. Love love love the color. Our necks were so kinked from painting the ceiling....3x!

Wood Paneling:

Now that most of the upstairs walls have been painted, we needed to start tackling the wood paneling. 

First we sanded. Then that wasn't enough so we went over it again, wiped down with a cloth, then primered. Now we need to decide on a color to paint it. The ceiling and walls are white, we're leaving the wood primered until we decide on a color. We have extra gray from the upstairs but we don't want every room in the house to be the same color. We're thinking a dark gray. I'm thinking just all white. Simple and clean. Eric thinks its boring. Suggestions?

My father in law said we shouldn't paint the paneling because it's coming back in style. Everything always does, all you need to do is wait a couple years. Not this wood paneling Mike, it's gross. The night we got home from painting it he showed me a picture of Matt Damon in his house (I think) and the whole wall behind him in the photo is wood paneling. It looked good because it's updated, not from the 80's. But it did give me second thoughts. Will we regret painting over it? Could we make it work with the right furniture? Nah...this wood paneling won't come back. It's too late anyway.

Cabinets:

Cabinets have been down and are just chillin' in the garage waiting to be given some much needed TLC.  First we went to Home Depot to see if we can turn any kind of paint into a spray can, like the paint we have. I think spraying them would prevent brush strokes, I don't want that. The guy at the paint counter said we couldn't do that unless we wanted to buy spray paint. He recomended we just brush/roller the paint and showed us a smooth roller to do it with to make sure it's extra yummy.

We also asked if we needed a special paint for cabinets, anything will do he said but mentioned we should get a good primer, the can is at the house so I don't know what it's called, but it sticks onto everything so we don't need to sand, sweet! Saved us time and eliminated one step. He suggested we use a high gloss for easy cleaning but said a semi-gloss is just as good. Think we'll stick with the semi. Painting the the trim with a high gloss sucked because it's like elmers glue and you can see every brush stroke. No thanks, I want my cabinets to look brush stroke - free.

So we primered the cabinets without sanding and spray painted the insides white (they don't need to be perfect inside as long as they seem white). The uppers are ready for paint. Hope they come out looking great. We'll have to wait to do the lowers until we tear out the counter top and can afford to get a new one - which will be a while. We're thinking quartz or butcher block. 

Eric learned a valuable lesson, wear long sleeves and a face mask when spray painting. It got all over his long arm hairs and up his nose. No bueno. It doesn't look as bad in the pictures, but spray paint is 10x worse than regular paint.

*Note: It may look like we've done everything in one day due to our clothes...we just wear the same paint clothes so we don't ruin anymore. I'm not really clean when painting and tend to wipe paint all over me.

Baby, it's cold outside.

How do we entertain ourselves with all this cold weather?
By playing indoors at our local bookstore. My mom gave me the idea because she said when my siblings were younger and it was too cold to play at the park, she would take them Toys R Us to play with the toys (but made sure to tell them she wasn't buying anything). Not a bad idea.

As you can tell, she kept very busy.

Elves

Cristina and I took the girls to see Santa's little helpers at Gardner Village. This place goes all out for the holidays and is definitely a go to place for Christmas. It has unique shops and a cool atmosphere. The girls loved playing with each other, looking at the elves, watching the ducks in pond, and throwing food on the floor at Archibald's. It's been way too long since I've seen these girls, missed them. 

Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Santa

Or a.k.a Daddy.

Eric rarely has to work on Saturdays but he did two weekends ago. We were all bummed but in the end I'm glad he went because he gained one thing out of it: being Santa.

A co-worker showed him a picture of her little girl with Santa, he loved it so much he had her text him the image to show me when he got home. It was the most precious thing I'd ever seen. She told Eric that this place at Thanksgiving Point, Foto Fly, takes non screaming pictures of your kids with Santa. It's not scary for them because their daddy is Santa. Genius! It's only $20 and lasts 5 min. That cost less than the pictures we took at the mall.

We took the very last reservation for the season and I'm so happy with how the pictures turned out. 

This one is so magical.

So glad that:

1. I have a husband sweet enough to put on a Santa suit

2. That he went to work that day

Without these two combined we wouldn't have been able to capture these precious moments of Leila and her daddy dressed up as Santa. 

Behind the scenes:

This was also our Christmas Card. Merry Christmas!

"Lights"

Lately Leila's favorite word is "lights". That's probably because every time we drive by homes with Christmas Lights I say, "Leila, look at the lights". She then points and says, "lights". So being that Christmas is less than a week away now, last night took a drive down Christmas Street in Sugarhouse to show Leila lots of beautiful lights.

But before we headed out for the night, we made our first attempt at building a pre-made gingerbread house. Can't be that hard, right?

We failed miserably because it fell apart shortly after we built it. I'm only a perfectionist when it comes to certain things and let's just say we didn't try hard enough to make it look cute. We're amateurs when it comes to gingerbread house building and almost resorted to using elmers glue. Looks just like the icing but decided to eat it instead. 

With a happy belly full of sweets, we were off to see the lights in the comfort of our warm, toasty car (Leila doesn't last too long in the bitter cold weather). Driving through Christmas Street has been a tradition since we got married. My next favorite neighborhood displays the story of Jesus' birth in Luke and continues to his adulthood in Matthew. Eric and I take turns reading the scriptures out loud. I really want to live on this street so I can be apart of this tradition. Eric and I talked about starting a Christmas Street in our neighborhood...wishful thinking.

13 Days Left

...and I'm still lacking the thrill of the Christmas season. Which is rare for me because I'm usually itching to throw up the decorations the day after Thanksgiving. We don't have a tree, the stockings aren't hung (or made), I don't really have presents to buy or wrap (except for Leila), and it's not even snowing! Can you believe we live in Utah and it's been sunny almost everyday for the last few weeks? Normally I'd be ecstatic that it's been sunny and beautiful but it doesn't feel like Christmas without the snow. Bring on the snow!

All these things get me in the Christmas spirit, but not having our house in order has kinda put a damper on my mood and hasn't allowed us to do our usual Christmas traditions. I mean, this month has flown by and we haven't really done a thing to celebrate because we've been focusing all our attention on the new house...which has been fun but oh so exhausting.

I was going thru a pinning streak on Pinterest when I stumbled upon this post and this post. Think these ideas will get me in the mood and help me to keep Christ in Christmas. Which is can be hard to remember sometimes. I pinned this quote this week: May we be consumed with the Creator of all things rather than with things created. Love it.

Speaking of Pinterest, I have a love hate relationship with the site. I'm pinning all these things I know I'll never make, rooms I know I'll never have, and outfits I know I'll never wear. I'm kinda overwhelmed with all the ideas and things I can make. Sometimes I just need to stop. But I still love it and can't help to see the creative things people come up with. In the back of my mind I think I'll make all the DIY crafts and gourmet food I've pinned. I will say that I've found it at the perfect time...so much inspiration out there of ways to decorate the new crib.

Moving on...we have done one festive thing...we took Leila and her cousin Audrey to see Santa. Here's a lovely picture of a picture. Leila wasn't uber happy to see him but at least she didn't cry or throw a fit. I just don't know what she's doing with her hands. I was really impressed, though I secretly wanted a picture of her screaming because I think it would have been funny. I love those pictures. Maybe next year.

Starting tomorrow, everyday Leila and I are going to do something festive. Tomorrow we're off to the fabric store to make stockings. 

15 -16 months

Leila!
You're 16 months going on 17! Better start racking my brain to remember what you've been up to these past two months before you get older...here are some things I don't want to forget about this stage:

-The biggest accomplishment you've had this month is you've started WALKING! Officially walking, not any of this walking a few steps here and there then going back to crawling kind of business you've been doing for the past couple months, but you're actually walking more than crawling and without needing to hold someone's hand. You still love to hold my hand or daddy's hand and usually look up at us and reach your hand out (which I adore and want to enjoy it while it lasts) but you don't rely on us as much anymore. On Monday December 5th, you decided that walking is more fun than crawling. This day was the defining moment in the walking business for you because you've hardly crawled since this day. You're a stubborn girl and do things slowly and on your terms. At the end of September you took several steps. Shortly after it was 7, then a month later it was about 30, then you went back to crawling and not wanting to walk hardly at all. Now you're walking everywhere and haven't looked back. Glad you made it before your 18 month birthday...way to prove mamma wrong!

-Cut a couple molars. Those things are no joke and make you grumpy. You have 12 teeth so far.

-15-16 months also come with words. You can say:

• "Tweet tweet" for bird
• "Boo" for cow
• "Woof woof" or "heh heh" for dog
• "Eeee eee" for dolphin
• "it tit" for binky
• That
• What's that
• Momma
• Dadda
• Light
• Hot 
• Bottle
• Me-ma or Mamu for Grandma
• Papa
• Beet
• Pretty
• "Nana" for banana
• Baby
• Poo poo
• Inga for "more" or "I want what you're eating"
• Ball
• Wow
• Whoa
• And you can say your name, Leila

You can generally mimic whatever we say and generally don't say it again after we've said it.

-You shake you head when we say "no".

-Are always covering your face and then saying, "boo!".

-When you're near an oven or watch me when I'm cooking you point and say, "hot".

-When I'm blowing your food to cool it down before I feed you, you blow too. But when I put it to your mouth to help blow, you stop and just wanna eat it.

-Now that it's Christmastime every time we drive by a home with lights, you point and say, "lights".

-Hate getting your face wiped.

-You're pretty obidient but tend to look at me with a sly look as if you know exactly what I don't want you to do but do it anyway.

-When you get mad or overly exhausted you throw yourself on the floor and start banging your head on the ground. If there's nothing for you to bang your head on you'll hit your head with whatever is in your hand. At first your daddy and I thought you were crazy and that something might be slightly off with you, but then we googled it and I guess a TON of kids do it too.

-Buttons. You insist on pressing any button you see. Let's just say we need to keep phones, remote controls, laptops, and anything with a button away from you.

-You adore animals, especially dogs. Anytime you see anything that even remotely looks like a dog you say, "woof woof".

-Are still obsessed with your "it tit". I know that taking away your binky should be a priority, but we're taking it slow. I'm trying not to give it to you as often but you scream and I give in because it's the best mute button. Now that you're walking, it's gonna go away soon babe because a walking toddler shouldn't have a binky. I know it's going to be a battle I don't want to fight.

-Apparently I haven't taught you how to be polite because you point at everything and love staring at people.

-Love to play with a ball and love carrying around your baby doll...especially love to be swinged.

-Don't like it when I touch or kiss daddy if he's holding you. You're daddy is all yours and push me away sometimes if I get in the way.

-Very sweet and love to give hugs and kisses.

-It's your favorite thing in the world to be thrown around like a rag doll (in the sky, on the bed)

-You're becoming more attached to me and are starting to have "mamitis". I had mamitis growing up and never wanted to be away from my mom. I love that you love your mamma. Within these last 2 months all you want is mommy. I swear, when you were younger you'd go with anyone and probably would never  notice if I left the room. You were contenta with anyone. I liked that you were easy and would anyone hold you but also wanted you to want only me sometimes. Now that's the case. The other night I left to go work on the house and you could tell I was leaving since I had my coat on. When Grandma came to get you, you clung to me so tightly, wrapped your legs around me, and cried when I tried to hand you over. That rarely happens with Grandma because you LOVE Grandma. It broke my heart but it's nice to be loved and missed.

-Have become quite the cuddle bug and haven't been a cuddler until now. Nothing makes me happier than cuddling with my little toddler.



-You're mastering feeding yourself with a fork and love to feed me too. This never was a problem before but now whenever you see me eating or drinking something, you want some too.

-You're fearless. Love going down slides and playing at indoor playgrounds (baby, it's cold outside), but you are scared of other kids trampling all over you. It's happened more than once and I don't blame you.

-You love to climb stairs.

-Yell "Daddy" as you run for the door when daddy comes home from work.

-You're still being swaddled (shame on me) and are going through this phase of not wanting to take your naps. Can't wait until you're in your own crib so life can get back to normal. I don't think the pack n' play is cutting it out for you anymore.

You're a happy, healthy, stubborn baby and we love you to the moon and back.

And so the work begins...

These past couple weeks have been the craziest weeks, well, probably ever. Let's just say blogging hasn't been at the top of my priority list, it's been filming and working on our new humble abode.

When first touring our home it was pretty much love at first sight. It's got great curb appeal and we're totally diggin' the mid century modern vibe. From the moment we walked in we both felt like this was THE house. We looked at dozens of homes with 2 different realtors. We put an offer on one about 2 months before we found this one. The other didn't feel right so when the homeowner countered, we didn't counter back. But this home there was no question in either of our minds. We had two other homes to check out that night with our Realtor Julia, I told Julia to hurry and show us the others so we can put an offer on this home.

Of course, no home is perfect, but it was perfect enough for us. One of the things at the top of my list when buying a home was a formal dining room. Well, this home obviously doesn't have that, and it doesn't even have room for a table. This home is rad except for the fact that it doesn't have a dining room. So to make it ours we have just a small list of things we want to do before we move in. These past couple weeks we've been working on that list and I've finally found a moment to post about it so here's a rundown via instagram.

Thursday-Monday, November 10th-14th:
Started filming for House Hunters (found out my Papa passed away in the middle of filming Day 1). This was the hardest $500 we've ever had to work for and were exhausted at the end of every night. Though we've seen the show millions of times, this experience was totally different than anything we could've expected and a lot harder than you might think. But it was one of the raddest things we've ever got to do and I'm so glad Eric and I got to do it together. I'm stoked that we get a DVD of the show for a keepsake...now we'll always remember the process of buying our first home (generally, it was only staged a little). I'll post a more detailed log of filming days 1-5...soon hopefully.

Me, Eric, our Realtor Julia, and the producer Susan. 

That's our camera guy, Bruce. Really cool guy.

Friday, November 11th:
My wonderful Mom arrived to help watch Leila while filming. She knew we needed the help and when I was chatting with her about who was going to watch Leila (needed to find someone for a full 2 days, 3 days were already covered), she hopped on the internet and started looking for flights. I was stressing out about what to do with our child and started looking into several daycare places but there aren't a ton that accept walk-ins. It was kind of a headache. Needless to say, my mom saved us and I can't thank her enough (and my dad for sharing her). Isn't she the best?! I couldn't believe she would do that for me (well, I could but you know what I mean). She's the type of mother that would do anything for her kids.

Leila had a ball with Abuela and they got to spend a full 4 days together. My mom worked really hard to help Leila walk. Before she was taking about 10 steps, by the time my mom left she was taking 30ish and was walking all around the kitchen/living room. My mom worked her magic with her.

My wonderful mother isn't the only one who stepped it up, Greg and Shasta were incredible during this time and helped with Leila a tone, and of course, my in-laws always offer a much needed helping hand and can always count on them.


Monday, November 14th:
Started demo on our house! We filmed me taking the first hit to the wall we want to tear down to make room for a dining table. Eric and Greg finished up the job of tearing down that small wall (enough for film anyway) but demo will need to be resumed later because we still have a house to pack up.

The list of "to do's" was much shorter before we moved in, but now that we've started demo, it's this long and growing:

• remove the popcorn ceiling in the living room
• tear down the drop down ceiling in the kitchen
• tear down the rest of the wall
• mesh both ceilings so they match
• paint every room in the house
• add can lighting in kitchen/living room
• raise and paint kitchen cabinets white
• change layout in the kitchen (appliances)
• install new hardwood floors in the kitchen to mesh with the living now that the wall is gone
• sand/stain old hardwood floors to make it look seamless

As of today I think that's it (for the big stuff anyway).

Tuesday, November 15th:
This was my second to last day at work and we started packing up our house/put everything in boxes. Wasn't planning on packing up the bed until later but Eric got ambitious and started taking down the furniture and putting our necessities (like bathroom stuff) in boxes so we slept at my in-laws that night. We're moving in for the next couple weeks until our house is in order. So kind of them to allow us to crash their pad and glad they have the room for us. They should run a hotel out of their house because everyone always seems to stay there. We hope to be out of there soon but as you know, renovations (especially do it yourself reno's) take longer than planned.

Here I am doing my check of the facility. So glad I won't have to be picking up bottles of urine anymore. Yup, that's a water bottle full of urine. These kind of things don't shock me anymore, find this crap all the time. Did I ever mention that people who rent storage are some of the classiest people in the world? Probably wouldn't have guessed it, huh? So not going miss that part of my job. Oh, but I will miss the stories my coworkers and I share about tenants...people yelling and swearing at us, telling us their whole life story, etc...yeah, I've met some of the most interesting people working in the storage business.

Of course nice, normal people rent units too, just not as often or for as long. One thing that makes me laugh is for some reason a lot of tenants try to guess my ethnicity, just in the last 2 months I've gotten told I look Armenian, Persian, Italian, sometimes I'll get Hispanic but more often than not I'll get something else. These are all compliments but I just think I look half White and half Mexican. Random, but don't want to forget that tidbit so now it's on the blog for safe keeping.

Wednesday, November 16th:
Finished packing up the house. Day 1 was easy, packed the big stuff and emptied the cupboards in boxes. Day 2 was hard because all the random crap is left that you have no idea what to do with. 1. Toss it 2. keep it 3. put it in a box and deal with it later. We mostly did #3. Greg and Eric unloaded the Swap van from round 1 earlier and loaded it again for round 2. We left it ready to be cleaned the next day. Ah, it felt so good to lock up for the night knowing all we needed to do was to clean.

Thursday, November 17th:
Cleaned every inch of that house and left it spotless (as spotless as an old house can look). And I worked my very last shift at Alpine Storage! Wahoo!! This was a very happy day. Goodbye Alpine Storage. It's been a long 3 years, had some great memories but I won't miss working there one bit (ok, just my awesome neighbors). I can taste the FREEDOM!!

Greg and Shasta watched Leila (for the millionth time) so we can clean faster. We all know everything takes 2x as long with a toddler around so I owe them big time.

Friday, November 18th:
Left for Arizona for my Papa's funeral at 4am. Passed through Las Vegas and got to see my bestie Erin. I told her I would come visit her in Vegas for her birthday but since we just bought a house it kinda put a hold on things. I'm so glad I unintentionally kept that promise. I. Love. That. Woman.

She We made a delish banana pancake breakfast and James took a break from work to join us, we were only there for about an hour but it was such a special treat to see her and a perfect break for Leila...she loves playing with Jadie. She came to Orem a few weeks ago and I hosted a grand breakfast for she and Cristina. I was so spoiled to see her 2x last month that now I'm going through withdrawals. Love you Erin.

We got back on the road and Leila was such a champ. I was scared it would be the longest 11 hours of our life but I was impressed at how well she did. If she keeps this up I think we'll be taking road trips more often.

Made it to Arizona at 5:00pm just in time for dinner with the whole Stevens family.

Saturday, November 19th:
My papa's funeral. This was a day full of emotions. Sad, of course, because we lost a very wonderful man who was loved by so many people. He was my very favorite grandfather. I've never lived close to either of my grandparents but he was the one I saw most often. I have great memories of riding on his scooter in the hot Arizona weather, he was always happy guy and so eager to play with his grandchildren. But this was also a happy day because after 16 years he will be reunited with my Grammy and will no longer suffer from Alzheimer's disease. It was my Papa's time but I will miss him so much.

Families always get together for funerals, it's unfortunate we don't get together while everyone is alive but sadly it makes for great family reunions. We saw many family members I haven't seen in years and years. These are all the pics I took with my iPhone, more pics to come.

Sunday, November 20th:
Back to Utah we go. We got on the road at 11:00am and made it home at 10:30pm. It was so hard to say goodbye to my parents and my siblings Jimmy and Ana (Billy lives in Utah). I miss them so much and love them to death. It was nice to get the whole immediate family together, even for a couple days. It's just what I needed...and Leila too.

Leila did really well during on the way back, except for the last 3 hours. She was over tired and couldn't sleep. Not even a movie on the laptop helped.

I took a picture of this man cleaning up gas because he was cleaning up OUR MESS! Eric went inside the gas station while the gas was pumping to get drinks for the road. Let's just say the automatic shut off didn't work and at least 5 gallons of gas went everywhere! 

Monday, November 21st:
Since Eric took a week off to film the show, then 2 bereavement days for the funeral, he needed to jump right back into the swing of things at work so we hired Greg - because he's really good at this kind of stuff - to do the demo and get his hands dirty. He really knows what he's doing and I'd rather pay him than anyone else. Since we're newbies when it comes to renovations, it's been great to have Greg there because he's given us some great insight and ideas.

Greg started the demo on our house while we were in Arizona. When we got back he had the popcorn ceiling down in the living room and tore down the rest of the wall the divides the living room from the kitchen. The place looked totally different, Greg did an awesome job and now we have room for my beloved dining table.

Homeowners left a ton of stuff behind. we found that drawer on the floor full of stuff. After living there 20 years I bet they looked at the drawer and said, "ah, screw it".

Tuesday-Wednesday, November 22nd-23rd:
Kimberly and Audrey came to town for Thanksgiving. Kimberly loves to paint and was all about helping us paint the new house. So Grandma watched the kiddos so we could go straight to work. We started painting the ceiling in the basement, sanded the wood paneling in the 3rd bedroom to prep for paint, and took off the hideous wallpaper in the 2 bedrooms upstairs.



Taking down wallpaper was more of a challenge than we thought...ok it pretty much SUCKED! Kimberly bought Dif (supposed to remove wallpaper) but it didn't work for jack. Tiny pieces of paper would come off and it took us 2 hours to get the wallpaper off one tiny wall. What a headache. I was tempted to call the homeowners and tell them to come tear down their stupid wallpaper. Ok, not really that's how frustrated we were.

So the next day we googled how to take wallpaper off and found that all you need is a little fabric softner and hot water. Worked like a champ! Big pieces of wallpaper were coming down. Made our lives so much easier.

On Wednesday I went back and forth to Sherwin Williams 3x to get our paint tinted. We put samples on the wall but they were all too dark so I went back to get 2 more samples. One was still too dark and the other was too blue. We want the perfect mix of a light blue/gray. So I went back a 3rd time and got 50% of the color gray that was too dark and it's just what we wanted. So happy with the color.

Thursday, November 24th:
On Thanksgiving morning I woke up at 5am with the urge to barf and go to the bathroom (not the good kind). Eric checked up on me to see if I needed anything and to get me some water and a cold towel. The next thing you know he's in the other bathroom hurling too. It must have been dinner, food poisoning? Then, coming from Eileen's bedroom I hear someone faintly hurling too. Goodness me what is going on in this house?

Turns out 3 out of 5 adults under one roof got the stomach flu. It's a good thing Mike, Kimberly, and the girls didn't get sick because that would have been a nightmare. Kimberly was such a good nurse (it's also what she does for a living) and got us drugs and nursed us back to health. 5 episodes of vomiting and 7 episodes of diarrhea makes for one awful Thanksgiving. At least everyone had it off.

One of the many things I was grateful for on that day was that there are 3 bathrooms so everyone had their own. Could you imagine if we had to take turns? It would be like another episode of the movie Bridesmaids.

Greg and Shasta came to our rescue and took Leila off our hands. There's no way we could have met her needs when Eileen, Eric, and myself could hardly move. They ended up keeping her that night because she was such a perfect little girl for them so Leila had her very first slumber party away from mommy and daddy. I missed her so much but was so glad they had her. Luckily, they are already prepped with a crib and changing table for baby Sperry (due in February) so it worked out perfect. We owe them so many babysitting hours! It's a good thing they love Leila and she loves them. If Greg's around all Leila wants to do is play with Greg. He's a kid magnet and the coolest uncle.

Friday, November 25th:
Black Friday. Eric was feeling better but not back to normal so he went to Best Buy for a few hours. There's no way he could not show his face on the biggest shopping day of the year. Normally he's there for the craziness when the store first opens but for the first time in history he took it easy. Unheard of for my husband.

He said the store was dead, well, I can't imagine why. The store opened at midnight and had been open for a whole 8 hours already...goodness me. We have lost sight of what the holiday season is about, its about family. Not shopping. It's turned into Black Thursday and I'm not happy about it.

I normally ditch out on all the Black Friday deals but we did go to one store: Lowe's. We used our 10% off coupon that came in the mail with a change of address form and bought a whole shopping cart full of stuff. You can't tell in the picture but the shopping cart is full of:

• 10 can lights and everything that goes with it
• 8 cans of stain for our hardwood floors
• 2 cans of primer
• paint brushes, etc.
• the new HGTV magazine but I took that out before we paid

Needless to say it was one spendy bill.

I was still feeling queezy and might have pushed it a little bit but later that night we took the girls to see the lights at Temple Square. Everyone else had the same idea because you could hardly move with how many people there were. It was still worth it because the lights at Temple Square are so magical and the Christmas spirit really sets in when we go to Temple Square. Nothing beats these holiday lights.

Saturday, November 26th:
Shasta and I went to Bijou market while Eric, Greg, and Kimberly worked on the house. I met up with them later thanks to Shasta who played with Leila so I could paint.

That night we took Audrey and Leila to see Santa at Southtown mall. Leila sat on Santa's lap for the very first time and just stared at him, she didn't cry or fuss but wasn't all smiles either. The picture came out cute so I'm not complaining.

Progress so far: family room downstairs is completely painted (minus trim and adding baseboards since it had ugly brown rubber for baseboards), popcorn ceiling off the 3rd bedroom, wallpaper is off in the 2 upstairs bedrooms, and both rooms are primered.

Sunday, November 27th:
Everyone (except Mike who got sick a day after we did - poor guy) was feeling back to normal so we were finally able to have Thanksgiving dinner. Sweet! Eric made the turkey...so proud of him. We all took this day off and just spent time together as a family, very low key. Eric and Greg wrestled with the girls and we played a fine card game of Wizards.

Monday-Tuesday, November 28th-29th:
We hired a contractor, Jim, for the finish work - drywalling the gap in the ceiling where the wall was, finishing the walls with drywall, texturing the ceiling in the living room to match the one in the kitchen, and lots of electrical work.

The wall we tore down wasn't load bearing, but since the ceiling was already sagging from before, the contractor said if a heavy snow came the ceiling might come crashing down so he added extra support beams in the attic which lifted the sagging roof. Now the ceilings are on the same level and we can even have a dance party in our attic and it would be as sturdy as ever.

On Monday I stopped by the house to pick up a few things and and he was working on patching the walls/ceiling. When Eric, Greg, and I stopped in on Tuesday he had installed the 4 can lights in the living room and cut out the holes for the 6 can lights in the kitchen. The living room looked awesome and the can lights update it so much! I can't get over how rad it looks.

Tuesday was the first time I'd seen something close to a finished product. I knew the renovation was going to be a messy job but I didn't think it would be this dusty or hectic. We have jobs going on in every room and nothing is quite finished, which is annoying with my personality since I like everything clean and in its place. I'm itching to dust and clean so bad. So it was good to see things actually coming together. I'm so excited for this renovation. We just want to move in already, I'm just thankful we're not living there because living in a construction zone would suck.

Thursday, December 1st:
Grandma and Grandpa put Leila down so Eric and I could work on the house. Greg met us there and we were in awe of how great the kitchen looked. Jim had installed the 6 can lights and it looked so bright. Love love love it!

Eric and Greg tore down the upper cabinets so we can get them ready for paint then raise them. I've got some strong men in the family. We then caulked the ceiling in the 3rd bedroom and chatted about the transformation that's already taken place. We wonder what it would appraise at now?

It looks so good without the cabinets I almost don't want to put them back up. Open shelving maybe?

Oh, and check this out. We found an old newspaper in the kitchen from 1965. Eric came up with the idea of framing it so we have a piece of history from the house on our wall. Genius. Greg found the perfect page to frame. So stoked about it.

The 1.5 inch wood for the kitchen arrives today (we had to special order it since it's not a common size anymore). It needs to acclimate for 3-5 days in our house and it gets installed next Friday. Then we sand the old floor, stain both the old and the new, clean up and MOVE IN! Woo hoo! Thinking we'll be in by December 15th. Just in time to put up some Christmas decorations.

Tomorrow we hope to paint the 3 bedrooms and start working on the cabinets. It's coming along.
We seriously could not have done it without the help from of all our family members. I don't think they could ever know how much we love and appreciate them and all they've done to help us out.