Kitchen Corner: Before and After

Remember how I painted the trim in the kitchen and it made the wallpaper especially ugly?  Well Patrick helped peel off the paper in the corner I started and then plastered and sanded over it so I could paint.  Here are the before and after pics. 

Before:

Intermediate:

James helped.....

After:

I haven't decided yet if I want to do the rest of the kitchen that color or not...if not I may paint over this when I decide on a color, but it looks nicer for now.  What do you think?  There really isn't that much "wall" to paint in the kitchen, just around the two entries and about a foot worth above the cabinets.  The rest is all backsplash that we were planning to replace...

On the baby front:  Nothing to report.  I'm due next Wednesday according to the doctor, or last Wednesday according to me....and the midwife I saw this week (doctor was out of town) who said I was measuring at 40wks...which would seem to agree with my due date.  Anyway, not dilated at all, some contractions, dont' seem to be accomplishing anythign...my next appt is for the 25th, two days after the doctors due date.  If I still haven't had the baby then I'm assuming she will be scheduling me to get induced the following week around the 30th.  Fun, fun.

UPDATE:   Here's the handle cover I made for our carseat...it totally looks like it goes with it if you don't look close huh? If you'll recall, the rubber grip had melted in the attic and I didn't want sticky stuff on my hand everytime I tried to pick up the carrier, so I made this out of the head insert that came with it since I had already bought a better one. What do you think?

When Patrick's away....

Kiera feels the need to re-decorate.  Patrick was away on business this past week (doesn't that sound so professional?) and I felt the need to paint the remaining two brown doors in the kitchen as well as the wainscoting poking out the sides.  Not as grand a plan as I've had in the past, but it still took some doing.  Here are some pics:

Before:

(notice the doorway, not the baby)

Intermediate:

I hate having to primer things...stupid dark wood. ;)

After:

This only took a day, which was nice.  I primered/taped while the kids were awake (and miraculously they didn't get into it) painted the first two coats during their nap and then finished up after they went to bed.  I think it helped lighten the room....unfortunately I think it also made the ugly wallpaper stick out whereas before you didn't notice it so much.  Consequently the next day I got it into my head to try and pull off all of the wallpaper in the kitchen.  "Maybe it will come off easy," I thought, "then I can repaint the kitchen before the baby comes and wouldn't that be awesome?"  So I spent an entire load of laundry peeling wallpaper...after an hour I had managed to remove about 3/4 of one small corner by the garbage can.  That's when I decided it was too much work and quit.  We'll paint the kitchen some other time. 

So I also decided randomly at 2:30 in the morning the night before Patrick left, that maybe I wanted bangs again.  I did a search for short curly hair with bangs and found this pic:

So I went into the bathroom and kind of parted it where it should go and thought "yeah that might be cute, maybe I"ll go get a haircut when Patrick comes back..."then I thought; "screw it, where's my scissors?"  I then proceeded to cut my hair.  The day after painting the kitchen I also decided to dye it.  The hair dye I bought was supposed to be very close to my natural color.  After I was done I thought it looked really dark, but after holding up a piece of the bangs I had cut previously I found it really was my color...I just had way more highlights before than I thought I did.  After coloring my hair I went to fix it in the mirror...and decided that the back was way longer than the front and that I didn't like it.  So I pulled out the scissors again and started hacking away.  It's very hard to cut the back of your own hair.  I'm not sure how bad it is yet since I let it go curly and you can't tell as easily where it's uneven.  So here is a pic of the finished product (yes I know it's sticking up funny on the side) as well as my 36 wk belly.  :P

Patrick is going away again next week.  I don't have any major plans to do anything yet, but who knows what will happen?

Laundry Room: Before and After

So after the baby's room I swore I was done painting until after the baby came....but then last week I decided that the laundry room was small and thus should be really easy to do...plus we already had all of the paint in the colors I wanted...the only things I needed to buy were a cool vintage "Laundry" sign I saw online and a new cover for our butt-ugly ironing board. Well the room turned out to be more work than I thought, largely because I wanted to do stripes but we didn't have enough tape to tape them all off so I had to freestyle it, and because the space was very small and my belly is very big, making it difficult to manuever. Somehow I managed as you can see. Anyway, here are the pics:

Before:

(Pardon my big belly getting in the shot) As you can see there was nothing really "wrong" with the room, it was just very, very dark. My grandpa's house had dark wood paneling everywhere and a dark kitchen floor and I always thought it was very depressing, so I was trying to lighten up the room. It's kind of sad because the panel is kind of warm and pretty when it's cleaned, if you like that sort of thing. Oh well.

Intermediate:

This is where you say "What in the world are you doing painting when you're that pregnant?" and I answer "well obviously I am insane."

After:

The lighting is different in the after pics 'cuz of the time of day so it looks darker than it does in real life. Here is the pic I was using as inspiration from Better Homes and Gardens:

So they have way more light than we do, but our window looks out onto a covered porch, so there's not much light in there anyway. What do you think? Remember we are planning to replace the floor with something a lot closer to white than that ugly brown and yellow stuff they have down now...I think that will help alot.

PS:  Okay I think we figured out how to fix my pics so they'll blow up, but I don't want to reload them all since it takes so long.  However future posts should work. :)

PPS:  Okay I retook the first after pic in better lighting and added it with the new editor so it should blow up bigger now...not that any of you are re-reading this, but I just thought I'd say.

Jerks

So today we went into Denton to go to the doctors office to get my bi-monthly allergy shots. Generally the routine is we go in, Isabelle and James settle into the toys in the kids area and then when we get called back I get my shots and Isabelle gets a sucker. Up to this point I think James has been too little to get one too. Following this Isabelle tends to run around the waiting room generally amusing and charming any other patients who happen to be there. They compliment me on how cute she is and ask her questions which she is happy to answer...they then exclaim over how well she speaks and how smart she is and how old is she? Only three? That's amazing! She always is so proud to tell me how she's "not shy of people" anymore and loves talking to them. The type of patients range from other kids to older grandparent types. The worst anyone has ever said to her was that she shouldn't run with her sucker in her mouth as she could choke. She then obligingly takes it out (the same guy says it everytime and we've been there at the same time a lot more than you'd expect) and they tell her how she's a good girl, etc... This admonition is generally given with a chuckle and an amused smile.
So today; we go in and I decide that James is big enough for a sucker as he is gesturing repeatedly towards Isabelle's and babbling (he can't really talk yet). I ask if he wants one and he nods emphatically. I give him a sucker and he walks around eating it going "mmm....mmmm" over and over again. He eats the entire thing as Isabelle alternates between running around visiting with people and reading/looking at books. I am at this point complimenting myself on how I am such a good mom since I let James have a sucker, and allowed Isabelle to wear her underwear all the way to the doctors office. She even went potty in the restroom there.
Anyway, I am sitting down reading a magazine and listening to Isabelle talk/run to ensure she isn't bothering anyone (which has never really happened before to my knowledge so I wasn't too worried about it...as I said most people think she's charming and compliment me on how cute my two kids are). So this older couple has come in (around late 50's maybe) and is sitting down waiting for their turn. I hear the woman tell Isabelle at one point that "running is an outside activity." I roll my eyes and think to myself how she should mind her own business as she isn't her mother. However I tell Isabelle to come over and ask her to finish her sucker so we can go. She agrees and continues to roam the waiting room munching on her sucker. I then hear the gentleman (and I use that term loosely) tell her that she "needs" to "go back over by her mama". I'm a little annoyed at this point since she isn't hurting anything but I again have her come over and tell her we're going to leave and maybe she should start help cleaning up (as they tend to dump the entire basket of blocks as well as all of the kids books on the floor while we're there....the kids area is on the opposite side of the waiting room in a kind of foyer area so this doesn't tend to bother other people). Anyway, Isabelle is over there eating her sucker and I am awkwardly crouching over my huge pregnant belly encouraging my 1 1/2 year old toddler to help pick up (which he's doing quite well), I again ask Isabelle to come and help. Now for those of you who have ever been pregnant you know how uncomfortable and hard it is to bend over and pick anything up, much less lots of things and watch two toddlers at the same time. In most social situations I've been in this has elicited sympathy and unasked for assistance from other people. Not the case here. As I'm in the middle of this the guy gets out of his seat, stalks over to me and demands that I "control my child" with a please added on as an afterthought. Now again Isabelle was not hurting anyone and I am obviously not in a position to go over there and physically restrain her in her chair. She's three years old! She has wiggles!
So my first impulse was to say something to the effect of "control this" and flip him off. Instead I restrained myself and told Isabelle in my firm/mean voice to get over here right now unless she wanted her bum spanked. She ignored me so (under the glaring supervision of the uber evil, child-hating couple) I walked (more like stomped) over to her and she immediately sat down saying something to the effect of "I'll sit here!" I say no, pick her up (again with my huge pregnant belly) and carry her back over to our side and sit her in a chair. I then continue to shove toys/books back where they go with more force than is necessary as she cries, not understanding what she did wrong. I explain to her that some people don't like it when she runs by them and gets in their space. She is crying more now since, as I said usually people think she's cute. The couple walks out and she again asks why they were mad. I am at this point very mad myself and tell her, in a voice loud enough for the nurses to hear, that it's because they're JERKS. This gives me a little satisfaction, but I"m still angry.
I ask you what am I supposed to do to "control my child?" Maybe I should have said "Oh I'm sorry but I seem to have left my duct tape at home" or maybe explained to the gentleman that I didn't see that she was doing anything wrong and how maybe he was the one with the problem...or just flipped him off and called him a jerk. We've been going to that office several times a month for the past three years and I have never once had anyone say they had a problem with either my children or the manner in which I "control" them. I'm sorry but after driving 45 minutes to get to the stupid clinic I think it's okay to let them move around and get some of the wiggles out. I don't feel the need to restrain them in a chair just on the off chance they may bother somebody. Again the idea that the man would come over to me and say something like that when I'm obviously pregnant and not at my "restraining children" parenting best, crouched over awkwardly on the floor trying to be a good citizen and clean up after my progeny, both of whom are too little to be able to sit in a chair for that long with nothing to do and then demand that I "control my child"? WTF? Stupid jerk. Okay that's all about that.

On a more positive note; James went to nursery for the first time on Sunday (two weeks early, which was very nice of them to allow) and had a great time. Every time we asked if he wanted to go and run around/play with toys/Isabelle/etc..he nodded his head emphatically and tried to go. So by the time nursery came around he was ready. Patrick took him (as they tend to cry if I leave them somewhere and not so much if he does) and he reported that he took off running down the hall to get there, went right in and headed straight for the toys without looking back once. Patrick explained where he'd be and made sure Isabelle would "watch" him (though I don't know how helpful she was) and left. The nursery leader reported that he did really well and Isabelle said he didn't cry once even when one of the other kids "ran him over." She said he ate all of his snack and that they had fun playing. Also Isabelle wore her underwear all day to church on Sunday without any accidents. Patrick warned the teacher she was wearing underwear and was surprised when she then explained that Isabelle has been asking to go potty for weeks and they've been taking her with no problems. Who knew? I took her to go before nursery and after and she went just fine. So now if she can just manage to poop in the potty I'll call this a potty training success....of course she only poops in her diaper every 3-4 days so who knows when that will happen....

Shorn

When I was growing up my great grandma always wanted me to be a beautician...I think so I could do her hair for free... Since I'm not doing anything with my Anthropology degree I thought maybe I'd try out my "beauty" skills on my husband. What do you think?

Before:

First we cut off his ponytail. Isabelle thought that was great...

Intermediate:

I actually kind of like this length, but it would drive Patrick crazy 'cuz it would get into his eyes. After we put the kids to bed I cut off alot more....

After:

I took these pics the next day so his face is all dirty from work, but otherwise, what do you think? Oh and here is my belly at 32 weeks with one of my new maternity outfits. :)

Names

So apparently no one cares for my angry post about not going to my reunion...or no one is checking my blog anymore, one or the other. My sister called me today to tell me her water broke so she's off to the hospital to have her baby. My parents are leaving to watch her kids and would have arrived at her house right about the time we would have gotten to theirs. So I guess it's a good thing we're not going to my reunion since no one would be there but my brother. (Although that doesn't make me any less mad about the whole situation). Moving on.
So we're trying to decide between two baby names:
Henry Russell or William Russell (although I also like William Henry, but Patrick is insistent on the Russell part). Here are the definitions:

Henry: The boy's name Henry \he(n)-ry\ is pronounced HEN-ree. It is of Old German origin, and its meaning is "home ruler". Norman name that is a favored royal name (for eight kings) of England and France. The second son of the current Prince of Wales is named Henry.

William: The boy's name William \wi(l)-liam\ is pronounced WIL-yum. It is of Old German origin, and its meaning is "will helmet, protection". For a long time after the Norman conquest in AD 1066, three out of four English boys were given some form of the conqueror's name, William. Short forms and variants came into being with a common basic meaning of "will", "determined", or "resolute". William has remained a royal name in the UK for nearly one thousand years. The firstborn son of the current Prince of Wales is named William.

Before you say it, no I did not intend to name my son after Princess Di's kids, it was only later that I realized both of the names I liked were theirs... Anyway. William is cool because I still like it from the last time and because one of the meanings is "helmet" which is funny considering what Patrick does for a living. I have liked Henry since we saw the last Indiana Jones movie. I also like that it is a traditional name (ie not wierd) but still not as popular as say "michael". We also have ancestors on both sides (I think) with both of these names so we can claim we took them from our family history. Which do you like better?

Updates

We just got back from our 30 wk ultrasound and are happy to report that the placenta has completely moved out of the way and we are previa free. Yay! Now I just have to worry about going into labor and not making it to the hospital on time (not a big worry since both my kids took 13 hours of hospital labor, were at least a week late and James had to be induced).

I'm glad everything is fine and we don't have to worry about randomly bleeding to death anymore, but I'm kind of disgruntled too. I was kind of hoping that it would still be there and they'd put me on more restrictions which would then make it medically necessary that we miss our supposed trip to Utah next week for my highschool reunion. Instead they took me off all my restricitions and told me it was totally safe to travel. Now I'm bummed out because the reason we probably won't go is money related. I hate not having money to do stuff. I also hate sitting at home all day taking care of screaming kids and constantly picking up the messes they make. I was looking forward to a trip. Eating at restaurants, stopping at gas stations, staying at a motel. Then once we got to my parents house we were going to take advantage of their free babysitting and go to the greenshow and a play, and see Harry Potter and the parade on the 24th and festivities at the park and then the reunion Saturday. We never get to do any of those type of things here. Just the screaming kids and messes. Bah! I think it would totally be worth putting it on our credit card to go anyway, but Patrick disagrees and since he makes the money I guess he should have some say in how we spend it. But it still sucks.

Picture Post

So I've been meaning to update but have been too lazy to think of stuff to say. Instead here is a picture post of what we've been up to:
28 wk profile pic...with new haircut. My mom trimmed up the back and sides for me while she was here and I decided it was good enough so I won't be going to the salon to drastically cut it anytime soon.

Mom and Dad came to visit for a week from Utah. Mom played with the kids and exercised and Dad sat around with small spurts of metal detecting in the 100 degree heat.

Mom helped me (and by "helped" I really mean she did all the work and I supervised) plant two pots of flowers to put on our porch the morning before they left...you can't really see the flowers in this picture, but I guess that's okay.

Dad hauled our rocking chair from the back porch to the front...James thought he was chasing him with it.

Isabelle holds James' hand sometimes and "helps" him. It's cute when he goes along with it. Not so much when he's pulling away from her screaming....oh and Patrick put in a chain link fence around the back to keep James from running out into the street everytime he's outside (his favorite pasttime).

Isabelle and James finally got a new pool to play in. It looked much bigger in the picture, but they don't seem to mind.

Isabelle in her 4th of July clothes (there's a flag on her shirt if you can't see it) and Patrick grilling hamburgers....We went to see the fireworks in Gunter and were pleasantly surprised by all of the stuff they had to do in the park. Next year we'll definitely go earlier to see more of the booths as it was almost dark by the time we got there this time. That didn't stop Isabelle from playing on the swings and slide and running around crazy.Isabelle actually took this picture of us...in the dark I might add. Turned out pretty good for a three year old huh? This is us waiting for the fireworks to start.

James was not impressed with the fireworks. He liked maybe the first two and then decided they were loud and scary, so Patrick covered his ears the rest of the time. We thought they were surprisingly good and much better than we were expecting for such a small town. Though they played more traditional patriotic music over the speakers rather then Tom Petty's "American Girl" and Toby Keiths "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" which are Denton standards...it was still good though.

When we got home we set off a few small fireworks and did sparklers but it was late and the kids needed to go to bed so we didn't get to set off even half of the huge bag of stuff Patrick bought. If we manage to make it to Utah for the 24th they said we can set these off at my highschool reunion, but it's looking less and less likely we'll get to go. :(

The next morning it rained and Patrick let Isabelle go out and play in her nightgown with my Mona Lisa Umbrella. He's a much nicer parent than I am.Sunday evening I was finally able to finish making my 4th of July cake (fireworks and such ran too late to do it the night before). This is one of my favorite desserts...it's yellow sheet cake with a layer of vanilla pudding, bannanas, whipped cream and strawberries for the stripes. Generally you also have blueberries for the stars, but we decided to forgo those this year. It was still very tasty.

Guest/Baby Room: Before and After

So we just finished up the baby's room and I thought I'd post some pictures. Before:
(door leading to our room)

Closet and hallway door. (I'm starting to wonder why I bother posting before pictures since every room in this house looks exactly the same...)

We ran into a few snags along the way...I had originally wanted to strip the paint from the trim and have a dark wood border. We started doing this and then, at Patricks insistance, double checked to see if it was okay for me to be doing that. The internet betrayed me and every site I found said pregnant women should not only not strip paint but should vacate the premises until the project is completed. So we stopped stripping the paint and Patrick sanded down the part we had already done so I could paint it. Here's what we did:

We've been referring to this room as the "box room" since it is where all of the unpacked boxes have been. Here are some pics of most of them shoved to the center of the room for painting. There were actually 4-5 more big boxes in here before we started fixing it, but we managed to find some place to cram what was in them...for such a big house it seems to be lacking in usuable closet space...

So here's the finished product; notice that we only painted up to the edge of the two far doors. This was because Patrick is planning on putting in a wall here so that we can access our bedroom without having to walk through one of the kids rooms. So it may look kind of funny with only three of the four walls painted, but we'll fix it before putting the baby in there (so before like November/December since he'll be in our room the first couple of months).

So there area few more things that need to be done...I want some sort of curtain or valance for the window, we still need to paint the louvered doors (waiting on a paint sprayer thing for that) and I think the walls need a few more things on them, but I'll have to go looking for something I like for that. Plus the cradle will have a bumper/sheets/mobile but I'm not putting them on this early for the kids to destroy. I was thinking it might need a colorful rug in the center of the room too...and something more substantial on the bookshelf, but I'm sure we'll fill the space soon enough.

My parents are coming to visit next week and mom said she'd help me take down wallpaper in the dining room so I may have pics of that soon...or not if I'm not feeling like it. I usually take a few weeks off between rooms so I don't know that I'll want to jump right into the next one so soon. ;)