KITCHEN BEFORE & AFTER PICTURES!

So it took me a month.  And after failing miserably at painting/recoating the laminate countertops, we ended up finding an awesome counter top guy in town who was able to give us a great deal since he had some remnant pieces we liked.  Oh and he threw in a free sink.  And then when the old faucet was removed we saw that it was all corroded so we decided christmas, and anniversary, and birthdays, for us this year was the kitchen, including a new faucet.

I thought before doing this project that someday I would want to expand the kitchen, etc.  After painting and sanding and sealing every inch of wood in the kitchen... I've changed my mind.  It is plenty big.  For at least the next 15 years.  I used Caromal Colours, I really liked the whole process, and the outcome, but I can't say if it is easier or harder than the standard sand, paint, glaze, seal process because I had never done anything like this in my life!  lol.  Luckily, my mother in law helped me with the whole toning/wiping off process on the cabinets doors.  I did the sides of the cabinets and the crown molding and my OCD-ness kicked in hardcore and I spent WAY more time than was necessary on them.  Needless to say, I would still be painting if it wasn't for her.

So here are the before pictures:

AND AFTER:

I'm not the only one that is excited the project is complete!

 So there you go... Now that I've finally posted these pictures I can start catching up on everything else that's happened in the past month & a half.  But not today.  :)

We've moved!

I can't believe it has almost been a month since my last post!

After replacing the carpet, we moved our stuff into the new house last weekend and started sleeping here 2 nights ago.  I ATTEMPTED to refinish the hunter green laminate countertop.  They look okay, but I am in the process of bidding out just getting them replaced at this point.  So we'll see.  Now I'm in the process of refinishing/painting the kitchen cabinets. . .  They were a light oak circa 1998 complete with gold and porcelain handles.  I will post pictures when we get the whole thing done.  It's definitely making me feel like the kitchen is a lot bigger than I originally thought!

Jeff has been called as the Young Men's Secretary and sports coach in the ward.  They read in our membership records and sustained him in the same meeting.  Must be some kind of record.  Football season is officially OVER and I would say that I have my husband back except he volunteered to help out with the little league 8th grade team and there is church YM flag football as well, but I can only complain about the 8th grade team since the other is technically a church calling.  But it is really nice to have him home before 5 everyday, even if it's just for a few minutes.  :)

Elea is as funny as ever.  Angie saved my life last week and kept her in Page with her, Monday- Friday so that I was able to pack my house and get cleaning done in the new house since it hadn't been lived in for a year.  I would never have been able to get it all done with Elea here- she definitely saved me.  And of course Elea went to sleep for naps and bed time like a saint for Angie.  And ate all sorts of food.  Not so much for mom and dad now that she is back home... but that's just life I guess.  I was very glad to get my little sunshine back though.

Elea is getting her adenoids out on the 3rd of Nov.  I am nervous for her to go under anesthesia, but it is only a 15 minute procedure so that's good.  I am excited for her to be able to breathe better after it's all finished.  Hopefully her constant runny nose will be a thing of the past. . . we'll see.


Things are going good with the pregnancy.  I will be 27 weeks tomorrow- it's crazy how fast time is going by, it hasn't felt like 27 weeks.  Clayne already feels like a different little person from Elea, even in the womb.  I may be completely off, but he seems like a pretty mellow little guy so far.  Elea would kick at anything that put any sort of pressure on my belly until it was gone-- he's had to deal with her jabbing and jumping on him already-- without fighting back, so we'll see what he's like in a few months.  I'm nervous about being a mom of 2, but knowing that my mom is coming to help me for awhile to get a hang of things makes me a lot less anxious!

Well, there is a quick update-- going to go check upstairs to see if elea is asleep or just being mischievously quiet.

We're moving! Again!

A few weeks ago, Jeff's dad told us about a house in their neighborhood that was for sale.  My immediate reaction was to wonder why he was telling me about the house when I have that foreclosure on my credit report and so we can't qualify for a loan for at least 4 years.

But, we decided to check it out anyway, just for fun, and really liked it.  So we talked with the seller's and they are willing to do a seller financing/ lease option type deal with us!  Last week was pretty stressful because we ordered an appraisal and it came in $25,000 LESS than the price we had agreed upon.  I figured it all out and it would still have saved us money to go with their asking price and at least have a portion of our monthly payment be going toward OUR mortgage, instead of renting for the next 4 years, paying our landlord's mortgage.  But, no matter how much we loved the house, we couldn't justify starting out upside down in it.

So we talked with the seller's and we were firm on our price, and they were firm on theirs and it seemed like we were at a stalemate.  I started looking at other properties around town with seller financing or lease options available and had made an appointment to see a few with a realtor.  The next morning the seller's called us and had decided over the weekend it was worth it to them to meet us at our price!!!   Yippee!!

We're pretty psyched.  We still have a few of the little details to work out, but otherwise we're planning on being in the new place on the 1st of November!  Nothing like moving twice in one pregnancy.  But with any luck this will be the last place we move for a long, long, time. 


Other than the insomnia that has come with this whole house deal, things have been pretty good around here...  There are only 3 games left in the football season and I will have my husband back, and Elea is as entertaining as ever. 

Family Pictures of FOUR!

Since Elea was born we have not had a "professional" family picture taken so even though we couldn't schedule Staci D until the 2nd week of September, I thought it was worth it.  I figured I'd just chance it and hopefully not LOOK the 20 weeks pregnant that I actually was going to be.

Well . . . here are the some of my favorites that she has posted on her blog & I'm really glad we finally did the family picture thing.

p.s.  Need to throw a quick shout-out to Angie for suggesting Elea's low pigtails.  :)  I would have tried to curl her hair or something crazy and she wouldn't have looked like herself at all.

Dancin' girl

These pictures were from Elea's first day in dance class... She likes to run around crazy when I am there and is an angel when I am not, so I don't know if I'll be able to get any good pictures of her actually doing the "dancing"  but whatever, she's 2.  AND once a week I'll have 45 minutes to do whatever I want!

It's a BOY!

Okay, okay, I know this is a little late coming . . .  and I hope that the delay in posting about the ultrasound does not give the impression that it has ANYTHING to do with a lack of excitement about having A BOY!  Really, it has a lot more to do with me having been too lazy to scan the images so that I can post them.

Jeff had to work on the day of the ultrasound so he was not able to come.  I have been feeling like it is a boy since pretty early on in the pregnancy.  Partly because it has been EASY-GOING so far with very little morning sickness & fatigue.  Anyway, so as Bobbi, our ultrasound tech, was searching around for possible boy-parts, she stopped and it was pretty obvious, even to me.  After getting a couple good looks she made the "official" call that it was a boy and I would be lying if I said that I didn't raise my arms up in a "V" for victory and proclaim that I had been right.  It's hard to explain, but as I've struggled trying to get and stay pregnant, there have been many days, weeks, and months that I have lost faith and trust in my own body.  Even though I know that millions of women go through it and many of my close friends have and are struggling with the same thing, there definitely is a sense of being betrayed by my own body.  So, for me to FEEL something about my body and this pregnancy and have it BE RIGHT was a pretty great moment.  Silly?  Probably.  She also took a quick look at his heart, etc. and said that from what she could see, everything looked good.  We go in next week for the full-on-check-everything-out ultrasound, and hopefully Jeff will have someone to cover his class this time.

Before we knew whether it was a boy or a girl, Jeff has been pretty sure that he only wants 2 kids.  If this one was a girl, I had said "yes" to just having 2, but if it was a boy, I told him that I couldn't agree to that because I want Elea to have a sister.  My sister has been my lifeline on many a dark day before I was married and on many an I'm-about-to-lose-my-mind day since becoming a Mommy, so I don't know that I can send my little girl out into the world without a sister (even if I am the most fabulous, coolest, amazing wonder of a mom out there).  So up until we found it was a boy, Jeff had his mind set that it was a girl.

After the ultrasound, I bought some blue "it's a boy" balloons and took them to his office at work.  I was hoping to just take them to him in the gym, but his class was meeting with the counselors that day.  His mom came with me and last minute we decided to hide behind a file cabinet so that we could watch his reaction in the big mirror without him knowing we were there.  When he saw the balloons he starting laughing and said, "No way," and just kept laughing, shaking his head.  He looked really excited and totally surprised.  I was glad to be able to see his reaction without him knowing I was there, otherwise I would be wondering if his reaction was genuine, or put on for my benefit.  We talked for just a few minutes before leaving and he just kept laughing.  Later that night he exclaimed, "I'm going to have a son!" it was pretty fun to watch it sink in for him.

We're naming him Clayne Jeffrey, CJ for short.  Here are the ultrasounds- 16 weeks 4 days.  Some of them are a little thrashed because at least once a day Elea wants to "look at baby" and then carries the strip of ultrasound pictures around with her for awhile.

I'm hoping that his buddha/meditation pose means that he is going to be calm & serene . . . and/or very patient.  The dark diamond shape on the top of his head is his soft spot, pretty cool huh?

1st day of Jeff's career job!

Today was Jeff's first day at Snow Canyon Middle School as a P.E. & Weights teacher.  Growing up, my mom always took our picture on the first day of school and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to snap one of Jeff on his way out the door this morning!  I am so grateful that he (finally!) has a teaching job and our life can get some normalcy in it.  He's also assistant coaching the Freshman football team and so far I'm LOVING the schedule compared to Cedar High's Varsity team.  On the calendar so far there are only 7 games, and they are on Thursday afternoons.  AND there are no Sunday night meetings.  So it is pretty fabulous that Elea and I will have him to sit by at the games on Friday nights and Sunday evenings won't drag.  YAY!

On a completely different note, I signed Elea up for her first ever dance class today.  I think I am doing it more for my entertainment than for her to develop any talent at this point. ha.

I'm revisiting the idea of potty training.  I am pretty clueless on how to do it & don't know if I am up for the messes.  However, I don't know that I will EVER be ready for the messes so I should probably put some big girl panties on us both and just do it.  Alternatively, I'm also considering just dropping her off at Angie's house for a few days so that Angie can potty train her and Lexi at the same time and call it good.

Since my last post, we made a trip up to Roosevelt and then down to Page, my parent's came to visit, and we went up north to Preston, ID for a family reunion.  I will post about all of these adventures and more, with pictures, sometime this week.