Colors?

House colors... Ahhh this is stressing me out! I met with an interior designer from Ethan Allen the other day and spent 3 hours at the store looking at furniture and such (I actually FORGOT Isaac at school).  I am looking for a leather sectional, recliner and two end tables for living room, breakfast nook table with 6 chairs, 4 bar stools, and dining room table with china cabinet. I painted the house in Ben Moore colors.. the dining room is "heather gray" on bottom, and "silver marlin" on top and the main living space is a tan/neutral called "stone house". Well since I have designed the house all open I feel like all the rooms need to be able to 'tie in'. I am looking for a dining room table that has dark wood and I want the chairs to match the table and china cabinet and the two end "serving' chairs to be upholstered in the fabric below.

Living room

Dining room

Wine and flowers

NO! I didn't drink this :) I was cleaning out my cabinet and I happened to find a bottle of vino that we bought on our honeymoon. We went to a wine and cheese tasting in a catacomb in Italy and brought two bottles of wine home from the adventure. The first one we opened on our first anniversary and this one is the one we are saving for our fifth or maybe we will save it longer who knows! 

Josh did bring me flowers the other day for no reason just because he knows I like tulips!

Baby monitor... check!

I ordered a new baby monitor today. We needed another one for the new baby's room anyway and I wanted a video monitor this time. I ended up buying one with an extra camera (one for her room and one for his). I read reviews and reviews and this one seemed to have a pretty good rating. It says it will alternate camera views every 8 seconds. When we move,  Eli's room is upstairs and Baby girl's room is across the house so I thought it would be helpful to be able to see  as well as hear what they are up to.  I am sure she will stay in our bedroom in the cradle for a few months anyway. Eli is still in his crib and I am not in any hurry to transition him to a toddler bed. His crib converts to toddler bed and then to a regular bed; however, I like the fact that I can put him in his crib and he will still be there when he wakes up! We still haven't taken the passy away either!! Isaac was probably 2 1/2 when I took his and I had planned on taking E's away over Christmas break but I just couldn't do it. He was weaned to only nap time and bed time but recently he has had it more as he has been cutting the second back molars. I would like for it to be gone before baby sister arrives though!

I think we have hit the terrible two's early. We've got two more months before he turns 2! He is getting very opinionated and can voice his thoughts and opinions quite well.  Me, " Eli, stop messing with Mommy's new phone".  Eli, "Mommy stop fussing". (He must hear that frequently). He is still a ball of energy and wants to climb, jump, run and get into everything. I do think he is going to be a smart cookie like his brother b/c I have seriously not worked with him on his letters but he knows most all of them! He was playing with his Leap Frog letters and he started throwing them saying "that's a G", "that's a J" and sure enough he got every one correct! I pulled out the video to try to catch it on camera but then he wanted to sit on my lap and and operate the camera and wouldn't do it again. I am going to try to video him one day while he is unaware. He can also rote count to 12 as well as count objects to 4.  He knows when he has more than one object b/c he will say " I have two crackers" or "Two blankies!" He also knows shapes even though I don't feel like I have worked with these either. He knows circle, triangle, square. If he sees a shape he is familiar with he will say "that's a kite (diamond) or "that's a pizza" where he is associating it with his shape puzzle that has pictures of objects under the shape. He is picking up colors: blue, green, red, black, white, yellow. The other ones are not very consistent. Well i guess I will add more when I do his two year old post in March but I thought I better write this down before I forget.

Babies, babies!

One of my good friends had her baby boy, Kason Michael on January 16th. He weighed 6 lbs 8 oz and was 19 inches. Several of my friends are pregnant right now!

We have concrete!!

The concrete is poured for parking and our columns are in! The columns still need paint and the rock around the front door isn't complete either; however we are getting closer. Our builder said we may be in the end of March.

Garage doors... check!

Garage doors.. this side doesn't have our final color though

Well, our granite is at our fabricators now and the garage doors are in... things are moving along. This week has seemed to crawl though. They are still trimming and painting and we are waiting. Here are a few updates.

Master bathroom granite

This is our kitchen granite.. it's called Typhoon Bordeaux

This is the granite for our 2nd downstairs bath.. still not sure what sink I am going to use... I've been thinking copper but I'm not sure how that will flow with the colors.

22 weeks

This pregnancy is flying by... probably because I have two other rascals to occupy my time;  I'm still working, and we are building a house. I had my 22 week check-up today and I have gained 12 lbs total. It would be nice to be one of those people that only gain 12 total pounds during pregnancy but my body is evidently not made to do that. I gained 35 with Isaac,  and 36 with Eli so let's hope that I go down instead of up this time (I have a feeling that's not going to happen). Hopefully it will all come off as easily as it did the first two times. My blood pressure was 110/55 and my belly measured right on the 22 week mark. We got to hear baby's heartbeat which is always a sweet sound. I have a doppler at home and Eli loves to go get it and say "Listen to the baby".  Then he precedes to get out the gel and the wand and stick it on my belly. He knows when we find the heartbeat too because he starts grinning, laughing and saying "there it is", 'kick, kick'. When you ask him where the baby is he will say "under the couch" (his reply to most 'where' questions) and when I say "nooo Eli.. where is the baby?" he responds "in Mommy's belly".  Baby girl's rug came today and I have her room painted already. I had the top of her room painted linen white and the bottom is called antique (ivory/tan color); I am putting chair railing up between the two colors. I think that will be pretty contrasted with the dark wooden floors. Her chandelier is coming soon too and I can't wait!! I have already ordered two adorable outfits from Janie and Jack (they were on sale) and one little smocked gown from Zulily.  I am getting excited about the idea of having a daughter.

One line a day... for a year!

My Aunt Jane gave me this memory book right after my dad died last year and I have actually kept it up this entire year. Now there have been times when I have had weeks worth of entries to catch up on but I am proud of myself for staying at it. It has enough lines for a short paragraph about the day and it is a 5 year memory book where you can see each year on the same page so you can revisit your thoughts  and memories over 5 years. Isaac will be 15 and Eli will be 5 when it is filled up... crazy!

House updates

They are working hard on the inside of the house.. putting down hardwood floors, tiling,  painting, hanging doors,  trimming, and  finishing the fireplace. Our cabinets are supposed to be in Jan 23rd, and our garage doors and appliances should be in soon too. I am getting so excited and can't wait to move in and have some space!!

2nd downstairs bathroom shower

Master bathroom tub

Master bathroom shower floor

Master bathroom shower

Fireplace rocked with hearth (slate will be added on top)

View of fireplace from upstairs

Dining room

Baby girl names??

Okay here are a few I like:

Amelia (my great-grandmother)
Cordelia (my great-grandmother)
Elise (it's kinda close to Eli though)
Olivia (my sister is determined that this should be her name)
Emily ( common but pretty)
Ansley or Ainsley (different but pretty)
Adelaide ( that would be hard to learn to spell though)
Clara ( my great-aunt but I just like the name)
Lydia (old fashioned but pretty)
Elle (but would that go with Allison.... Elle Allison??)
Bryn or Brynlee
Elisa
Grace

dern... my internet went down and so did the BabyCenter name list... I was on the L's. Guess I will add more later

I want to do something like this with her initials behind the crib

2011 in Re-Cap... bring on 2012

Well this year has been full of ups and downs for sure. We began the New Year 2011 with my Daddy passing away from lung cancer on January 3rd.  We learned how to navigate through funeral arrangements and questioned 'why' many times. My Dad was 60 and had no health problems except that he was a smoker for years. I have learned that I  hate cigarettes and I hate cancer.  A few weeks afterwards my Aunt Jane was diagnosed with rare uterine cancer. We were shocked. We stayed positive and we rejoice and praise God that she has finished treatment, had surgery and is cancer free. My sister moved back to our home town! I learned that I missed her a lot; now we talk at least 2-3 times a day. We worked on my Dad's estate with our lawyer and accountant and had to learn a lot very quickly. I started managing my Dad's businesses and taking care of the leg work of the estate while my Aunt went back to Georgia. I became very familiar with LLCs. We became debt free... what a blessing. Eli turned 1. We started cleaning up our property to get ready to build and we searched... and searched.... and searched for a house plan. Found several we liked but not exactly what we were looking for. I began to have heart palpitations... too much stress! They hooked me to a Holter monitor and found out that I had a run of something I can't remember so they put me on heart medication (which jacked my insurance up). I then went to cardiologist and they took me off of  the medication and they went away (duhh... stress!). I went down to working part time at school to have more time with Eli (Tues, Wed, Thursday). I learned that sometimes going to work is much easier than handling a toddler all day. We finally decided on a house plan and started building. I learned about soffits, gutters, 20 yr vs. 30 yr shingles. I learned that straight edges are much less expensive than rounded edges. I learned that the price of rock is ridiculous.  I learned that there are all sorts of muttons and window color. Trim or no trim? We learned about HVAC systems, lighting, sheet rock, and plumbing. Oil rubbed bronze is pretty but it's of course more expensive. Josh had a wreck and totaled his car. I had a wreck and did 6 K of damage to mine. Isaac turned 11!! Yikes! Josh and I went on vacation alone.. I got pregnant! I learned that I get pregnant very easily (actually I knew that). My baby nephew, Camden was born. He had a brief stay in the NICU but is now healthy and happy. We found out that we will have a daughter (still hard to believe). I learned that it's not easy but you have to keep on keeping on no matter what situations arise and it doesn't do any good to worry about tomorrow. Looking forward to all the new things to come in 2012!