Home Remodling

Several months back Mark convinced me that our current house will be our "forever house" for a VERY long time.  I have been torn with that idea because it is the only house I have owned as an adult.  Mark bought a house in Waldo and we lived there for a while before moving to this house.  He made tons of money on that house, which was just what he hoped and planned. 

We looked at several houses before we found "the one."  We knew when we walked in that it was meant to be our house.  No, it did not  have a 3 car garage or a 4th bedroom, but there was tons of space and in perfect condition, which says a lot after several of the houses we looked at. 

Mark is very financially smart (degree in finance and works for a bank) and in this economy this needs to be our forever house.  So, he agreed to make it the way I wanted it.  No, he could not add a 4th bedroom or a 3rd car garage, but he could do just about everything else.  Well not him, or even us.  We will hire people.  We are not handy, although I would love to be.  We just are not!  And really, we have the square footage with a finished basement, and really that is our 4th bedroom!  Office space, play room, and another TV, couch and chair. 

So we have done several upgrades/changes over the last few years.  Our most recent are the iron spindles.  We love them! 

They were white before...they look so much better now. 

So here is what we have done so far:

• New carpet in the living room, stairs, hallway and Master bedroom
• Paint in the kitchen, family room, living room, hallway, master bedroom, both girls room, master bath room and hall bathroom
• New privacy fence
• Shed (since we don't have a 3rd car garage)
• Painted the outside of the house
• Spray painted the outside light fixtures, so they look new
• Built in desk and bookshelf in the basement
• New hardware in the kitchen and master bathroom
• Iron spindles

Here is what we would like to do:

• Replace the ceiling fans (next project)
• Replace the gold light fixtures (next project as well)
• Replace the gold door handles with silver/nickle
• (Do you see the trend here...get rid of gold/brass)
• New carpet to the family room and girls bedrooms
• Tile all three bathrooms
• Sprinkler system (Mark's dream, soon to come true)
• Redo the kitchen (my dream, soon to come true)
• Add on to the deck
• Redo Lauren's bedroom when she is 8
• Get rid of the brass light fixtures in the hall bathroom and 1/2 bathroom
• Completely redo the 1/2 bathroom.  Addison calls it the lion bathroom (appropriately so!)
• Wood blinds in our room and the girls room
• Re-do the hall bathroom.  New light fixture, hardware, paint, shower curtain, rug, towels. 

Here is another look at the iron spindles.  They turned out really great and they were installed in one day.  We are so happy with the way they turned out and can't wait to get started on the next project. 

Coco Keys

Our weekend was great!  Not a lot going on, and I love it.  We spent most of the day Saturday at Coco Keys water resort.  It is an indoor resort attached to a local hotel near the Sports Complex.  I got a great deal from Groupon, so we spent the day swimming. 

Addison loves the water.  We had swim lessons in the morning before heading out to Coco Keys for the day.  The only reason why Addison needs swim lessons is because she THINKS she can swim on her own, without our help.  She is a little fish that will easily be swimming on her own shortly. 

Lauren loved this big blue slide.  She went down several times on her own and loved it.  I took Addison down with me a few times on my lap, until we were told that was against the rules...which is probably a good thing.  We got going pretty fast. 

Lauren played in this playground area most of the time.  She also enjoyed the lily pads, and jumping in the water to Mark.  Addison tried her best to do everything Lauren was doing, but she just could not keep up. 

Hello gymnast?  She looks adorable here! 

The kiddie pool was a huge hit for Addison, and Lauren too.  Addison probably went down this slide 25 times and laughed everytime.  Again, no fear of water in this girl.  She is so much different and wilder than Lauren was at this age!  Lauren has finally come around to loving the water and Addison has never had a problem with it. 

Mark and I got to spent some good time with both girls, as they were not usually in the same area together, except when we were all on the lazy river.  It was fun to get some time alone with Addison.  I don't usually get that!  We hope to head back again in a few weeks, as we have another Groupon to use! 

100th Day of School

Today is the 100th day of school!  This is a big deal at Lauren's elementary school.  I don't remember a celebration for the 100th day of school as a kid, but today it is a big deal.  Lauren has been talking about it for weeks and the big day is today.  I am so bummed because I signed up to volunteer, then when we had the stupid snow day a few weeks back it moved the 100th day to today, a Friday.  I am not able to get away from work on a Friday so I will have to miss out on the party and the celebration.  I have promised Lauren that I will be at her Valentine's party, so she is OK with me missing the party today! 

Each classmate has to bring 100 things in a zip lock plastic bag.  Lauren chose marshmallows.  It has to be the same thing, small enough to fit in the plastic bag, not roll around on the table.  (Don't mind the blurriness in this picture.  I have my Nikon 50mm/1.8 manual focus lens on the camera.  I am trying to get all the practice I can get!) 

Here she is counting the marshmallows.  We had to get exactly 100 in the baggie.  We kept getting interrupted by a certain little sister and so it took a while...

Lauren had a lot of fun preparing for the all day party today at school.  She has been able to count to 100 long before even starting Kindergarten, but it was still good practice to get her marshmallows ready. 

Thank you Lauren for being a model with my new lens.  I like this last picture.  The color is amazing, the sharpness is even better, and the bokeh effect is my favorite. 

Lauren's Writing

So over Christmas break Lauren had to do writing homework.  She was so on top of things she was reminding us that she needed to do her homework each night.  Her assignment was to write about an event and then draw a picture.  Here are some of my favorites.  I will interpret for you...because at this point in reading and writing sounding things out are important.  Kindergarten spelling is what her teacher calls it...spell it exactly how it sounds. 

"I like all of my toys that I got from Santa." 

"We made a gingerbread house at my old school." 

"Believe me that Freddy and Sam are in love."  Who are Freddy and Sam?  I have no idea...but apparently they are in love! 

This is my favorite.  "I love my whole family."  Lately she has been writing this on everything.  It is so sweet.  She has come so far in just half the year in Kindergarten so far.  It is amazing what they are taught and what they learn.  Meta cognition, Schema, visualizing, connection,  and so many other things I can't even remember right now. 

Lauren's second quarter grade card was near perfect.  She excels in reading, math and writing.  She still needs to work on fine motor skills of cutting and of course social skills of listening and not talking when the teacher is talking, but she has improved tremendously in her social skills and learning the rules of Kindergarten.  Way to go Lauren!

Project Life

Have you heard about Project Lift? It is scrap booking made easy!  After Lauren's 5th birthday I decided her next scrapbook should be a Project Life scrapbook.  It comes complete with an album, pages, journaling cards, card stock, and all you need are pictures and a pen! 

All the card stock match and your whole album has the same color theme.  This is the title page of Lauren's album.  I am not sure that I want to keep that first picture of her at the top...I might change it. 

Here is an example of a completed page.  At the top is the title card.  If you look closely you will not see a title.  I am a little behind on titling the pages.   I used card fillers and journaling cards to complete the page.  This was Easter Sunday so there was a nice theme to the page. 

This a page that I had to get a little creative on and figure out how to incorporate all the pictures together.  The pictures of Lauren in green are from St. Patty's day so I used them to match her umbrella, that is also green.  The bottom right picture was initially a vertical picture, but I trimmed it down and added card stock to the side to make it fit into this page. 

I took so many pictures at Lauren's Pre-K graduation!  It was such a fun night.  At the top I made a collage of several pictures and just printed it up into a 4x6 print, that way I was able to put several images on one page. 

I also included some of her art work during the year on this spread. 

I used more card stock and filler cards on Mark's half marathon page.  I wanted the girls to remember it and it could not really fit onto one page, so I made it into a whole spread and just added some paper.  Less pictures and more paper was a nice change in the flow of the album. 

Lauren's first day of Kindergarten also included tons of pictures.  I did not really have anything from the kit to match the purple outfit Lauren was wearing, so I added my one paper to this spread.  I have a large area on another page that will included all the journaling and memories of the first day of Kindergarten. 

I like how I have two filler cards on the outside and the journaling in the middle. 

Trick or treating this year was so much fun with Lauren and Addison's little friends.  I included several pages on the October traditions that we have. 

Doing this album has been a lot of fun.  I have enjoyed changing it up a bit and doing a different kind of scrap booking with Project Life.  I have ordered another album this past week to get started on my next one!  I have decided to keep going with Addison's book and keep doing individual ones for her with the old fashioned scrap booking.   It is only fair since I have done Lauren up to age 6.  I decided recently to start doing a family album for each year now.  Lauren currently has 9 scrapbooks all of JUST HER.  Instead of doing separate ones for the girls I am going to start the family album (but continue with Addison until she is 6.) 

I will probably do a school years album for both girls and really want to get started on Lauren's.  I also thought I would do some random albums here and there of their hobbies and sports as they get older. 

Of course, family vacations are digital (usually on Shutterfly) because I take so many pictures in one weeks time that I would never be able to make a scrapbook of the vacation unless it is digital. 

I hope to finish Lauren's current book before her birthday (which is in 2 weeks.)  I have to do November and December.  It doesn't sound like much, but December was full of so many fun activities that I am not sure I can completely get it done, but I am going to try. 

So give Project Life a try. I love it! 

Camera Lenses

So I got a few new lenses for Christmas.  So far I love them, but I have A LOT to learn. 

The first one is the Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 lens.  Amazing lens so far.   A friend of mine suggested this lens as I was looking for a zoom lens.  The current lens on my camera, the Nikon D40 came with a 18-55 mm zoom.  This lens will zoom to 200 mm.  Much better huh?  It is also a macro lens, which will capture amazing pictures of that tiny little ladybug you might see on a leaf. 

Nikon 50 mm f/1.8D auto focus lens.  Everything I read said this is the lens to get.  It is cheap (around $125) and takes amazing portrait pictures.  It gives a great bokeh effect (blurs out the background) and captures very sharp images.  The one thing I really need to get used to is the manual focus.  I have to focus the camera my self, no auto focus here.  I have been practicing around the house capturing random moments with the daily happenings of life.  I am very anxious to get this lens outside and capture some portraits of my girls with this new lens.  But, until then you might see some random, crazy pictures of me playing with my new lens, trying to master the art of manual focus! 

Determination, or Maybe Determined

That is my word for 2012.  Have you heard about the one word?  I see it on several blogs I follow.  It is my focus and my New Year's resolution.  I have thought about my word for several days/weeks now and I kept coming back to Determination.  When I saw this quote I knew I did not have to think any longer...


Time is inevitably going to pass and one year from today, you can find yourself in the exact same spot you're in now, you can find yourself further away from your goal or you can find yourself closer to your goal - so where do you want to be a year from now?

Determination fits for several reasons: 

1. To lose that last 5 pounds, well actually now 10 pounds, that I just can't seem to get rid of!  I am DETERMINED to do it sooner than later. 
2. To make a decision on whether or not to advance my career and become an Nurse Practitioner.  Did I tell you I applied to get my Masters and become an APN?  Probably not...I have not told very many people.  Mark, or course, and a few work people.  That is it.  I really don't know if I want to do it.  I am DETERMINED to make a decision in April when I get the acceptance, or maybe not, letter.  Who knows, maybe I won't get accepted and the decision will be made for me!
3. To make a decision on which races to run in this year.  I love that I have taken up running and I can't wait to do more runs this year.  I am DETERMINED to keep running.  It is great exercise and feels so good to be in such good shape. 
4. I am DETERMINED to be a better wife to Mark.  He is an awesome Husband and I feel like there is so much more I could do for him.  Did I tell you he brought home roses last week? Oh, and he spelled out I love you on the bed with rose petals...seriously he is an awesome guy and I am so lucky to have found him!
5. I am DETERMINED to get caught up on my journaling in the girls scrapbooks.  These are their childhood memories and I don't want them to be lost.
6. I am DETERMINED to become a better photographer and take a photography class to do this.  Did I tell you I got 2 new lenses for Christmas.  Yes, 2 new lenses.  I will have to share them soon.
7. I would like to find a way to get into Addison's little head and try to manage her stubborn, fit throwing, three year old ways.  She is 3 right?  Normal stuff, right?  Man she is tough.  I am DETERMINED to keep her a good kid and make sure she knows who is boss. 
8. Lauren is awesome.  She loves Kindergarten and I am DETERMINED to keep that excitement for school alive over the summer break.  I have already learned of ways to keep up school work over the summer so she does not get behind and will be ready for 1st grade.  She is a smart kid and she will excel with her love of school. 
9. I would really like to produce a recipe blog.  I cook every meal that our family eats.  We rarely eat out, really only for special occasions and the occasional pizza night.  I would like to commit some time to producing a recipe blog to share with every one else.  DETERMINED. 
10. This may seem silly, but I am DETERMINED not to over spend at Target.  Seriously.  There are several  home upgrades we want to do this year that if I would just stick to my list I would probably keep my Target bill under $300 a month.  How many times have you walked out of Target wondering how on earth you just manged to spend $100 when you went in for a package of diapers and wipes.  Yep, me too!
11. DETERMINATION  to relax more and just sit.  Sounds crazy with all these goals I have just set up for myself, huh?  But, I am a very high energy person.  I get a lot done in any given day, but I also don't sit and relax much.  I am going to work on that.

So there you have it.  My goals of 2012.  DETERMINATION is my word.  It is here for all of you to see and here and keep me on track.  I will keep you posted on my success. 

Snowmen

So it finally snowed outside, but not nearly enough to make snowmen.  The girls are dying to get outside and play in the snow and make real snowmen.  Over the Christmas break when I had 10 days off we made these snowmen.  I got a huge package at Target for 50% off and I knew the girls would love making these one cold afternoon when we would not get outside to play. 

Don't you love the way Lauren spelled Daddy (Dadey) 

They both worked very hard and were very creative in the many snowmen they made. 

Zoe even got a snowman too!  Addison was so sweet.  She made one for Zoe and then went and placed it by her so "Zoe could play with it."  Seriously, that Addison is awesome and so is Zoe! 

Fingernail Polish Fun

So the girls got a lot of fingernail polish for Christmas.  It is a good stocking stuffer, ya know?  And, what is sooooo nice is that Lauren can paint her own nails now...and Addisons too!  As you can see, there has been a lot of fingernail painting going on around here. 

So much that the little one decided to take it on herself and paint her own nails as well...

The thing is, I was sitting just a few feet away from her when she did this! 

Claire is 4!

My niece, Claire, had her 4th birthday party this weekend.  She is Snow White there in the middle.  Her actual birthday is New Year's Eve, but my sister always has the party a little later.  Princess Belle came to Claire's party this year.  The girls loved it! 

Princess Belle arrived with a treasure box, but the girls had to pass 3 tests before they could open the treasure box.  The three tests were fun games for the girls and they all loved it.  Addison loved the bubble game. 

Lauren is striking her best princess pose!  They also played a funny hat game! 

After the treasure box was opened the girls got to pick three prizes out of the box.  To wrap up the party there was face painting at the end!  Lauren, Claire, and Addison. 

The girls had fun and it was the only thing we HAD to do this weekend.  I love January and the quite, stay home and stay warm, kind of weekends.  Mark also took the girls to the Bass Pro Shop Sunday afternoon.  It had been a while since we had been there so of course they had fun! 

Happy 4th Birthday Claire!