Addison's 8 Month Stats

A day late but obviously there were other things to worry about yesterday....

• Weight: Who knows, we have an appointment coming up soon I'll find out then but shes done some serious growing it seems.
• Height: See above.
• Wearing: a few things still 3-6 months on top and bottom but mostly 6-9 month sizes.
• Has one tooth.
• We're MOBILE, officially started crawling this week! See video..house totally not ready for mobile baby!
•  
• Pulling up to stand on EVERYTHING, took her about a week to perfect it but now if she can use it to stand she's up!  Nothing is safe!
• Eating like a pig, likes just about everything we have tried.  If she's not in the mood to eat though, this girl knows how to communicate no way Jose!  
• Sleeping from about 9:00pm (it took a lot to get bed time pushed back to 9!  Before she was staying up until 10 or 11, this momma gets up at 4am for work thats just too late!!) until about 8am most days. Still waking up throughout the night to eat, usually at least 2 times, but goes right back to sleep.  
• Has a little bit of stranger anxiety, but more with men and mostly when she's just woken up.  She is generally over it within mins.  
• This kid is going to be a show off, she needs to be the center of attention at all times.  We take her shopping and she yells at the top of her lungs throughout the store.  Of course at 8 months its cute and all the older women and men come check her out and comment on her cuteness and she makes smiley faces at them.  Talk to me when shes doing it at 3, you won't think its cute then! :)  
• Loves animals, the poor cats won't know what to do when she starts to chase them when they run from her!

The World Lost a Good Man Today

My Uncle Jimmy's long battle with cancer came to an end this morning.  I find peace in knowing that he is no longer in pain.  RIP Jimmy, We Love You!

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.  ~Robert Brault

Wordish Wednesday

Our first adventures yesterday being crazy couponers....

CVS trip. Total Paid $0.52! Retail $20.06 

Walgreens Trip Total Paid $2.08, when you minus the $6.00 Register Rewards! Retail $23.14

Thats right total between both stores $2.60.  Woot!  Thanks to a few of my friends constantly posting their great couponing deals online I had to check it out!  I do believe I am addicted now.

Sunday Scavenger Hunt

I always have big ideas for these photo prompts on Sunday when the new ones are posted but by the time the weekend rolls around I find myself rushing around to take some pictures that fit.  I really wanted to remember to take my camera with me and photograph one of the old abandoned decaying houses around here but alas, it did not happen.  So without further ado, here are this weeks:

1. Decay (old/abandoned)

I have posted a different picture of the same structure before for scavenger hunt.  This is what remains of the big red barn that used to be on our property.  They knocked down the barn years ago when I was a kid because it was starting to fall but my great grandfather insisted they not bury the old milk house.  So this is what remains of a big red barn that once was...a dilapidated old stone milk house, which I love. 

2.Groups of Three

I had nothing for this, then I started looking around the house for 3's of things.  The only thing I could come up with was this.  I don't collect too many things but one of the things I do collect are limited edition cans/bottles. My favorite are the Mountain Dew ones...cause I love Mountain Dew.  These 3 are my favorite of the 25 or so that I have.  

3. Kitchen

What my shabby old farm house kitchen lacks is counter space, what your looking at is it.  Less than 3 feet of counter...fun.  What it is lacking in counter space it makes up in cabinet space, floor to 10 foot ceiling cabinets, and what I got in the picture isn't even all of them.   Ya win some ya lose some! 

4.Things That Make You Go Hmmm...

Another find in this old house, when I first saw this I thought what the Hell is that?  Upon closer inspection...That my friends under the age of oh 80 is a walker.  A walker for a baby. A baby.  They actually put a child into that contraption, and my grandfather is living proof that they make it back out alive.  There are exposed springs and the whole thing is made of metal and wood.  Kids really are tougher than todays paranoia would lead you to believe.  

And here's the little wheels that it operated on!

5. Me Time

This is one thing I find myself in a constant battle for its hard to explain sometimes the need for 15 mins of time to yourself to do something, anything, without the concern about what someone else is doing, needs, wants etc.  Between work and family life I find few moments to myself.  Most of my alone time is spent Mon- Fri in my car for 20 mins driving down I-94...which for anyone who does that you know I-94 is no picnic and in no way should be counted as peaceful and relaxing.  Even with good tunes and the stereo cranked it is never fun at 3:00 in the afternoon.  Instead my ideal me time is relaxing in front of the tv with a good book/gossip magazine and something good to drink!

The Never Ending Bedroom Remodel...Where We Are Now

So we finally found someone who could come over and do the knock down on the ceiling, only its not really knock down more like a regular textured ceiling.  Regardless it helps to hide the fact that its an old house and the ceiling was never really even.  As soon as the plaster had time to dry we cut back into things I could do.  So we returned the texture spray hopper thing that we bought and didn't have to use for the ceiling and bought custom colored green paint to match the green in her bedding.  I started by coating everything but the floors in 2 coats of primer then hit up the ceiling with some Dutch Boy Ceiling Solutions Paint, awesome stuff goes on purple (so you can't miss a spot) dries white!  Then I got to finally put some color on those long awaited walls!  Two coats of the green when on, I love the color its wonderful for one made at the color match station.  Dad also came over in  between coats 1 and 2 of green to help Tony install the Ceiling fan/light.  

primer-ing.

you can kind of see the texturedness of the ceiling here.  Use your imagination.

1st coat of paint and a ceiling fan up!

LET THERE BE LIGHT!

2 coats of paint, don't worry the trim will cover the bottom!

I love it!

There's that pretty hallway paper again!

Now that the paint is up I am awaiting the arrival of a sander for the floors so I can get started on sanding and refinishing them.  It's finally all coming together! I can't wait to see the trim up, the contrast of the white and green makes me happy.  Now I'm glad we went with white bedroom furniture!

The Never Ending Bedroom Remodel...Getting Ready for Paint.

After the walls and ceiling were up it was time for mud and tape, or is that tape and mud?  Anyway our friend Lee came over to help with this part and I think Nate did too once.  They got it all taped and it sat like that for MONTHS...really MONTHS.  Mostly because Addison was born it was mid summer and hot and a lack of urge to get it done.  

Getting all taped up

July 19th, pre-Addison Just have to cover the screw holes and sand it down

And then comes the part where NOTHING happened for months.  We needed help with the ceiling because we wanted to do knock down but didn't have a clue how to do it.  We had a few people offer to help which never seemed to work out or we had other things going on when it did work out.  So there it sat.  

Then one day at the end of September Addison decided she wanted her picture taken in her room...Just to remind Daddy that it was so not finished yet. 

Uh...Hey guys...when do I get my own room?!?

After the pictures Daddy did some screw hole patching and a whole lot of sanding, so it was ready for the ceiling to be done so Mommy could start doing more of her part. The other part of the room that I did during all of the things I couldn't do was to remove all the old square nails, patch up, glue/repair all the trim that we saved.  I did this back in June with a little help from my mom, dad, and brother one afternoon and spend the next day getting it all primed.  It is still sitting in the garage waiting to be brought into the house to be painted just before we reinstall it.  (I don't want to risk having it scratched up once painted.)  

After a little burst of motivation came Michigan winter....cold...and we haven't heated the upstairs since moving into the house and figured why start now when she's sleeping downstairs with us anyhow.  So nothing was accomplished all winter on the room because of the negative degrees and the fact that you can see your breath up there most days.  

The Never Ending Bedroom Remodel...Insulation, New Ceiling & Drywall

The next steps were all Tony, I may have held up a piece or two of drywall but that was the extent of my helping.  The project was slow coming so that was the benefits of being 8-9 months pregnant at the time.  So Tony enlisted the help of some friends to do the ceiling and hang most of the drywall. 

Nate helped hang the ceiling, now theres insulation up there to hold in some heat.

wires all ready for a light fixture.  

RJ helped with the drywall

There were a few beer breaks

But the room got drywalled.

Check out that pretty wall paper in the hallway...its oh so beautiful!

And this is how I was looking the day of drywall.

Word(ish)less Wednesday

She's always on the move!

Sharing Grandpa's Hat.

  

The Never Ending Bedroom Remodel...Demo Part 2

After we got all the plaster knocked down we started removing the lathe boards.  What a pain in the butt that was.  Each board had to be pulled out individually, held in by far too many nails.  Then we had to get the boards with a billion nails in them out of the house.  Just look how many there were...

 We decided to leave the ceiling in due to the amount of attic crap that was falling through the  lathe boards.  We put up a sheet of plastic to prevent more from falling an then Tony framed out a new ceiling right below the existing one.  

UGH!  Lucky for me I was pregnant and I got out of all the hard stuff.  

Puttin' the Baby Belly to work.

Tony did most of the moving boards out of the house part, and probably far more of the pulling nails and boards down, but I did my fair share also!

Getting another load ready to drag out of the house.  

One wall all done.  And look outside wall, ZERO insulation!!!

We discovered that if we saved some of the lathe boards to tack to the stud's we wouldn't need drywall as thick in order to match up to the window frames.  We made sure to save some for this purpose.  

Tony put up the lathe boards on the studs as you can see here.

 After the lathe was out it was on to electric.  Here you can kind of see the starts of wire being ran for electrical outlets and you can't see it here but lighting! 

Tony Proud of his work.