Reno before/during

Here are a few pictures of the dining room before it became Little C's bedroom....and some pictures I snapped during the process. Please excuse the poor quality - some of them were taken with my phone, and at night/or in poor lighting.


Before: The dining room. T had already taken the furniture out, so picture a long table and 6 chairs and a high chair in here!

During: the framing for the wall goes up!

During: With the framing done (and electrical, heat vent/duct work, and lighting done), the drywall starts going up.

During: drywall on the 'public' side of the wall goes up.

 

 

 

During: my Dad sanding the drywall mud:

 

 



You've Got Mail

Remember when AOL and the internet were new, and you would click on the little mailbox and wait for those three awesome words: "You've Got Mail"? Now everything comes electronically and we rarely get 'snail mail'. And now we get excited when we do get snail mail. Like today: Sweet P got two, count 'em - TWO pieces of snail mail today! She was so excited. And she was the only one in the house to get mail.

The first was a postcard from my brother and his wife that are currently travelling in Europe. Sweet P has been asking, every day since they left, where her letter is. LOL. Well, it finally arrived from Spain today.

The second piece of mail was a chain letter for a sticker club from her friend. The concept is, you mail a package of stickers to the kid whose name is in the #1 spot. Then you move the name of the kid who sent it to you into the #1 spot, put your name in the #2 spot, and send it to 6 kids. So those 6 kids will send stickers to the kid whose name is in spot #1 and then move your name to spot #1. Sound confusing? I am probably not explaining it well, but the bottom line is that within a couple of weeks, Sweet P should receive 36 packages of stickers! I was thinking of doing this with recipes for adults.....how fun would it be to receive 36 new recipes in the mail? Or email might be better.

Anyway, Sweet P was so excited to receive mail today. Someone should invent a talking mailbox that says "You've Got Mail" when you open your front door.

P.s. I know it's cheesy, but I love that movie. I know most people love Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle (which I hate), but I prefer You've Got Mail.

P.s.s. I am still working on the "before & after" post about our reno......I accidentally took all the after pictures in RAW and don't have the time to go and edit them. So I am waiting for another sunny day to take the pictures in JPEG.

p.s.s.s. Little C is 11 months old now.....he will be 1 next month and Sweet P will be 4 next month.....that also means I go back to work next month (boooo - I really wish I could stay home with the kids forever)......

It has been one of those weeks

Every time I feel like we are getting a leg up on things, something comes up and we take 2 steps back. In the last couple of weeks, our van was hit in a parking lot. We were not in it, but it was considered unsafe to drive since the front passenger door would not open. We had to take it in to get fixed, get a rental for a week (we were given a Jeep Compass - let me tell you, that IS NOT a family car. Our car seats barely fit, T couldn't drive it, and as a passenger his knees were hitting the glove box), and we had to replace the car seats. Insurance has been great - although we still haven't been reimbursed for the car seats (which were over $800 for the two).

We finally got our van back and then in the mail get a ticket from a red-light camera. We went down to the courthouse to see if there was a way to reduce the ticket price or get on a payment plan....waiting to hear about that still.

Then I did our taxes (well, still doing them) and it looks like we will owe - AGAIN. Every time I am on maternity leave, I owe taxes. I don't know why the government can't just take off the right taxes on EI. On the plus side, it isn't much at all - the first year it was over $1000!

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A before & after post on the reno is coming soon - still working on some finishing touches in C's bedroom.

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On another note - I can't believe C will be 1 next month, and P will be 4 next month! And that I go back to work in 5 weeks. Where does time go? It will be really hard going from being home with them 7 days/week, to leaving them every morning 5 days/week.