Ta da!!!

My friend Beth reminded me I hadn't posted final renovation pictures.  There was nothing sinister about not sharing them.   Basically these three things (or a combination of them) kept happening.

1.  The kitchen was cluttered when I was thinking about taking pictures.
2.  It was night time when I remembered to take them (I'm more of a natural light gal)
3.  I kept thinking I'd have stuff hung up on the walls in the dining room first (and there's actually a good reason that hasn't happened.  Story for another day!).

But, after cleaning off the counters today, I actually remembered to snap some pictures so here you go . . . .


Dining room...bare walls and still with the permit in the window.  We have two more chairs for the table, but I love the look of the trestle so I keep them upstairs when we don't need them!

  

View from the old dining room. It looks so big!


 

This is our old breakfast nook. We now have oodles of more storage and a desk!





On the other side we have a built in hutch!




We have two glass front cabinets.  Love them!   Right before the doorway is a huge pantry!




The "stove side," including the loooong awaited hood and fridge.

 And there you have it!!   The porch is basically done, although everything is moved around out there because they are washing it tomorrow, so not photo-worthy . . . yet!!

Empty cabinets no more . . . .

The process of "re-loading" my kitchen is not super fun.  It's not that I thought it would be a laugh-a-minute, but somehow the idea of a "clean slate" gives you that rare opportunity to get truly organized.  A place for everything.  Everything in it's place. 

Around here, it looks more like this:   I put something away.  Decide it's not exactly where I want it or that I want something else there and move it.

Repeat. 

Repeat again.

My parents have graciously offered to help me with this process and I plan on taking them up on this offer, but I was thinking it might be nice for them to have a path to the bed and bathroom in the guest room when the arrive tomorrow.  And for that to happen, I had to get started on my own.

Of course, that has been easier said and done this week.  The breakfast nook cabinets (where I am relocating all the items from my dining room) just got their shelves installed yesterday.  I got a bit done last night, but today was shot because I was at school all morning and this afternoon, the contractor was working in the kitchen, so putting stuff away was not exactly practical.   I started up again when I got home from band at 9:30, but quite frankly, it's almost 11:30, I have to be up in less than 5 hours for boot camp so I'm ready to call it quits.  

And for the record, we have waaaaay to many dishes. 
 

Family Fun Night!

Another highly-anticipated Family Fun Night in the books.

I spent almost the entire day setting up at school. The early part of the evening was spent enjoying the festivities with my kids and the later part of the evening wrapping up the auction and doing check out.   We won only a couple items in the silent auctions, but managed to donate a nice chunk of change to the school with dinner and tickets for the kids to spend on Kona Ice, Cotton Candy, hair painting (Gracie) and other activities.  I think Matthew actually left with a handful  of unused tickets,  as he was perfectly happy to engage in all the free things, like inflatables, the mobile gaming truck, and other games.   Safe to say, they crashed hard tonight and I'm right behind them. 

In other news, I was feeling oh-so-positive about my kitchen when I learned that not only were my new chairs in (although I'm not having them delivered until next Friday), but my dining room light fixture was, too . . . a whole two weeks early.

We don't generally  use the words "ahead of schedule" and "early" when talking about our kitchen.

Admittedly, my joy was short lived when the hood installers and dude who does the duct work had their wires crossed (figuratively speaking) and did not get my long-awaited hood installed this afternoon as planned.   I'm sure it will happen Monday and the tile guy will get to work alongside them.  But I must admit, it stole my joy just a tiny bit when I arrived home and the hood was still sitting in my garage.

Sigh.

The good news is the last of the cabinets are supposedly to be installed early next week.   Assuming they can be painted and faux-finished soon thereafter, we have a fighting chance of having the kitchen pertneer finished next Friday.

And so I smile thinking about a  finished kitchen.  And a bigger smile for being able to use the word "pertneer" in this post, which totally makes me think of my Grandma and Grandpa. 

It's the little things.


  

Kitchen update--kind of

It's another week with no kitchen sink or other appliances, except for the fridge.   Safe to say the novelty of the grill, crockpot and even eating out has worn out. 

I just want a working kitchen.

It feels like we have been cursed by the kitchen remodeling gods.   Bassam assures me "one or two problems" does not indicate a curse, but I think we passed "one or two" a few weeks ago.

• Our contractor got a GI bug and missed 3 full days of work.
• One of the cabinet makers got sick and missed almost a week of work.
• The lady who is doing the staining/finishing of the cabinets had planned to work on them last week, but due to the above mentioned issues, now won't be able to do them until a week from now since she had a previously scheduled trip for this week.
• The lack of cabinets also set back the granite guys and the floor guy.
• My fridge has been delayed until September 4th.
• The hood for over the stove top should be here by mid-September.   Technically it should have been here last Monday, but who's keeping score?
• I'm keeping score.
• My new dining table won't be here until the end of October. I own this one.  It's a gorgeous table and worth the wait.  Of course, I haven't found chairs for it yet. 
• The fixture for over the table won't be here until mid-October.  I'll also own this one. However, given my recent string of bad luck, I wouldn't be at all surprised (but verrrrry unhappy) if these dates also got pushed forward.

Please send some good remodeling karma my way, will you?   Otherwise it will be Christmas before we get this finished. 

Silver lining in the form of cabinets

Hallelujah!

Half (or maybe 1/3?) of our cabinets arrived today.   They aren't yet "finished," but they are solid wood, beautiful cabinets with wonderfully smooth rolling drawers.   

This brought me some much needed joy after going to the dentist and being asked, "Did you know you have a broken tooth?"

No, of course I didn't know.   Because if I had known, when you asked me "How is everything going in your mouth?" I would have said, "I think I broke a tooth" instead of "Fine." 

Which made the follow up question, "So you don't know when you did this?" even more ridiculous.

Luckily, when I came home from this less than stellar appointment, I found a bevy of cabinets, including my beautiful new pantry and large trash/recycle drawer.   Squeal!!!     

Unfortunately, our contractor (Thomas) has been fighting a bad G.I. bug all week and wasn't able to get them all installed.   He had already left when I got home and according to the painter, he looked horrible.    He also told me he didn't come off the ladder when Thomas was talking to him in hopes of avoiding catching any of his germs.  

I guess cooties don't fly North. 

Lights, camera, fun?

Although I think we have turned the corner on our kitchen project, it's fair to say, I've hit the wall.

Hard.

I cannot stand the constant state of discombobulation that defines my house, nevermind the constant layer of dust, which only seems to disappear for 20 minutes or so after I attack it with the Swiffer and then returns with a vengeance.

A neighbor told me it would be "so much fun to design my own kitchen!"   Really?  I keep waiting for the fun to start.    Where is it?

I got close to fun when I went to the lighting gallery on Friday with our designer to pick out fixtures for our hallway and dining room.  I wandered around snapping pictures of ridiculous things like this ginormous black crystal chandelier and sending it to Bassam with a note that said, "Do you like this one for the hall?"

It was a bargain, too.  It was on clearance, marked down from  $29,000 to $13,000.

I was also taken by this crystal disco-ball.

Yours for the low, low price of $6,500. 

But the fun ended when I had to hunker down and look at fixtures a little more seriously.  Who knew there were that many choices?   And there were many disappointments.  I'd find one that had potential only to find it was out of my price range.     After countless laps around the store and flipping through numerous catalogs,  I was pleased to find ones that I liked (and for a muuuuuuuch lower price than the black chandy and crytal disco ball!).  And while I left with the hallway fixture in the back of my van, the dining room one won't be in until mid-October.  It hardly seemed like a deal breaker since our new dining table won't be in until the end of October.

Here's hoping the next task will be more fun.

Seems unlikely since I will be choosing drawer and cabinet pulls.

House update!

So here is the big house update. 

I just want to make sure you know there were lots of other things going on that I could have written about.   Those topics include dog vomit, shopping for toilets, commentary on why school supplies are so insanely cheap now but will be marked up by 300% in 3 weeks and the fact that one of the painters at the house looks like the Blue Paint Killer from CSI.

See what you are missing?

Anyway, I guess I should start from the beginning.

Way back when we moved in, the kitchen walls were covered with this . . . . .

We found this last little scrap of wallpaper behind the dishwasher when they tore everything out.   Match it with peach laminate countertops and it screamed 1980's chic.  Which would have been fine, except our house was built in 1996, which means the previous owners just had questionable taste.   The cabinets were builders grade white, and the finish was chipped up and featured shiny brass knobs.

I could go on and on about the amount of brass that was in the house.  I have often told people that the only upgrade the previous owners requested when they built this house was "extra brass."   Yuck.

But after living here about 4 years, we were able to upgrade the counters to granite, added a backsplash, finished changing out the applicance and I repainted the cabinets and gave them a faux-distressed finish.  Somewhere before then I also painted the cabinet doors a pale green color and spray painted the knobs, but I'm not sure I have any pictures of that.  It provided minimal improvement.

Fast forward 5 years and we're at 2012.   This is how are kitchen and dining room looked before we started the current project.


I'm not sure why I never painted the pantry door to match the cabinets.  You can just see a bit of the big light box on the ceiling. 





Took this at the 4th of July, hence the flags on the table.

The funny thing about our house, is compared to ones with the same floor plan, we have a smaller kitchen and larger dining room.  This would be fine if we actually used our dining room, but we don't.   We use the dining room only when we have more than 6 people over, because our breakfast nook is very tight.   I've used my wedding china 3 times in 12 years and quite frankly, the table is more likely to be covered by glitter, paper scraps and other supplies from the kids' latest craft project than dishes.  

So our goal is to make our kitchen bigger, open up the kitchen to the dining area more and use that as our primary dining area, while converting our existing breakfast nook to additional storage, although maintaining a small eating area.

So after moving the wall and expanding the doorway, the house looked kinda like this  (see below).  They had  removed some cabinets and our countertops at this point.  They had also taken out the stove/microwave (sold in 1 day on Craigslist!) and removed the pantry  Luckily, we are able to reuse most of our granite and were able to match it for the other areas.  The electricians had also been by to remove the big box fluorescent lighting and put in nifty can lights!

Below you will see the existing breakfast nook.  The big change here is that we bricked the door to the deck.  We had 4, yes FOUR, doors to our deck.  One in the kitchen, 2 in the family room (not 4 feet from the kitchen door) and 1 from our bathroom (???).   Since we are adding a screened porch and converting the current family room doors to sliding doors, we figured this was a good time to eliminate two other exit points, so no more kitchen/bathroom doors.  Hooray!

Next, they took out the rest of the cabinets and started patching our walls.    As you can see, there will be some work to do on our hardwood floors, too.


When the painters started priming the walls, I finally felt like it was coming together.

This is the view of the kitchen from the doorway into the new eating area/dining room.  The kitchen looks so much bigger. Of course, being empty helps that. 

Yesterday, the painters came back and started putting some COLOR on the walls! Hallelujah!  It's only in the dining room and they aren't finished, but it's letting me feel that maybe, just maybe, this project will be finished some day soon.  The bottom part of the wall is a green/grey and the top is a lighter grey.  The inside of the tray ceiling is a beautiful pale blue. The lighting kind of sucks because we currently have one light bulb hanging down in the middle of the room (very chic, yes?), but you get the idea.

So after a zillion pictures and lots of rambling commentary, you can see where we are at.  What I won't show you is the master bathroom where we are washing dishes in the tub.  Nor will I show pictures of the guest room where everything from the kitchen is stored.  You will also not see the office where we have our kitchen table or the hallway where we have our small low hutch full of food and paper plates.  

Safe to say, life around here is a bit disheveled.  But I see the light at the end of the tunnel.      Hopefully the Blue Paint Killer painters will be here soon to get another coat of paint on the walls!

The final chapter . . . .

This has got to be my last post about our stinkin' fridge. I refuse to let an appliance rule my world.It arrived this afternoon. We have since discovered the doors need to be leveled, but alas, that's an issue for another day. We were able to get a 15% credit out of Sears, which made the whole hassle of the last few days a bit easier to swallow.

On a completely unrelated note today, I heard Gracie putting Ba-ba (her beloved stuffed lamb) in "time out" today. It was hysterical. When I asked her why she did that she said, "Ba-ba made a bad choice!" Admittedly, Gracie has been on a bit of a not-listening streak lately and has had several visits to time out. However, I always thought Ba-ba was a pretty good lamb.

.

He must have been having an off day. It happens to all of us.

We're cursed!

Sears calls this morning and informs us that our refrigerator (which arrived from the distribution center in Mississippi early this morning) is damaged. They will need to reorder and reschedule delivery for "another day."

I could tell you about the numerous conversations and phone calls that followed this, but it would probably be longer than yesterday's blog and no more interesting.

For now, Bassam's off getting ice for our cooler, still parked on the kitchen floor. Sounds like the beginning of a "You know you're a redneck when . . . " joke.

Keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Compressors, motors and fans--oh my!

t has been an expensive couple days here at the Helou house. And anyone who know me and my thrifty ways knows that it is bugging me to no end!!

As I posted on Tuesday, our fridge is dead. The compressor is gone and the replacement cost (for a new part) was too high to justify. Couldn't easily get a used one, so we spent the better part of yesterday afternoon and all of last night researching fridges online and doing price comparison. Oh joy.

As much as I have said I wanted a stainless fridge, it was not under these circumstances. I would have preferred a more leisurely decision and shopping process -- and maybe even some sale watching. But alas, this is the hand we were dealt.

To complicate matters, the space under our cabinet where the fridge sits is shorter than virtually every refrigerator on the market. We actually had to do a little trimming to get our current one in. But it wasn't enough for "today's fridges," so our friend Ben came over today to help Bassam do a little trimming. Always good to have neighbors who know what they're doing AND have the tools to get it done. And I say Ben came over to help Bassam, but almost every time I walked in the room, Ben was actually the one holding the tools and doing the work!

Regardless, they sliced another inch or so off the bottom and Bassam and I hit the stores to pick out the new one. We were thwarted twice by fridges that weren't available for immediate delivery, which we really needed. We settled on a KitchenAid and it will be here tomorrow between 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. Can't wait. It will be nice to have the big cooler out of the kitchen! We're actually going to hold on to the old one, too, and are going to try to get a used compressor and keep this as a second fridge for the garage.

But as the saying goes, "when it rains, it pours. . . . "

It wasn't enough that our fridge died, but our air conditioning also went out sometime on Sunday night/Monday morning. We called a local company and they said they would come out that day and told us to shut it off (it wasn't blowing cool air) in the meantime. The technician arrived at 10:25 p.m. Yes--you read that right. To add insult to injury, when we turned it back on, it actually seemed to be blowing cool air again. He checked the unit (supposedly) and found NOTHING WRONG WITH IT. I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to complain--it was cool, right? And all it cost us was a service call charge.

Ha ha!!! We woke up this morning and discovered it was back to it's old trick of blowing out warm air. A call back to the service company was not particularly helpful when they informed us they couldn't come back out until Wednesday night. We went a couple rounds about that and they finally agreed to "fit us in" sometime today. Not wanting to leave it up to chance, Bassam also called a handyman the family uses. He diagnosed the problem over the phone (the fan motor) and came out to the house and replaced it. It still wasn't cheap, but it was certainly less expensive than going through the first company, plus it was done--and we still hadn't heard anything back from them as to when they might be coming. I really didn't want another late night visit, because quite frankly, I can't imagine how they were able to see anything last night anyway. Our neighbors behind us actually called at 10:30 p.m. because they saw someone "lurking in the bushes." I'm sure it must have sounded ridiculous when we told them it was AC being serviced!

All's well that ends well, I suppose. Our wallet is much thinner, but we are a whole lot cooler and our food will be, too, before you know it!!

Bad news . . . . .

R.I.P.

Hot weekend . . . .

It's a balmy 93 degrees in Brentwood as I type this. I just finished helping my friend Amy set up for the neighborhood bbq/pool party, which unfortunately, I can't attend since I have a band concert this afternoon. Worst part about it, is I don't think anyone will actually be at this concert, less family members of band members (not including mine, who I told to skip it!).

Despite the heat, we got some things done this weekend, including staining the deck (just the floor), which Bassam accomplished yesterday afternoon. I sanded and repainted the table for the deck this morning, plus got a bunch of things that have been "on list" inside as well. Matthew is also entering the world of home projects having participated in the Home Depot Kid's workshop on Saturday, where he built is very own catamaran! He is very proud of his orange apron and the pin he earned!

We took the kids to the pool last night. It's clear that Matthew needs some refresher swim lessons. I figured he probably would, but admittedly hoped he would not. Gracie, meanwhile, thinks she is ready for the 2008 Summer Olympics with all of her confidence in the water. Unfortunately, the "think system" popularized in the Music Man doesn't work for swimming or she'd be on her way. Still we all had a great time splashing around. Even at 7:00 last night, it was plenty hot.

On a sadder note, my freezer has taken ill again. Yes, the jubilation was short lived, but I am still confident we'll get it taken care of. We will be calling Bobby to come back see her again tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed.

It's fixed!!!

So the fridge saga has come to an end! Hooray!!

Last I wrote, we thought we were going to be seeing the repair guy (Bobby at AAA Appliance Repair--highly recommended for those of you in Nashvegas!) on Wednesday to put the new motor in our fridge fan. Unfortunately, on Wednesday morning I received a call from his office manager telling me this part was on backorder until JUNE 16TH! The crazy thing is that the factory was apparently the last place they checked, instead trying all the other repair places in town to see if they had one they could get more quickly. No luck, which as the office manager told me, was probably a sign that it was a bad part since it was so hard to get their hands on one. Although our fridge was up and running by Wednesday at lunch (thanks to the help of a desk fan sitting behind the fridge trying to keep cool air circulating!), the idea of another 12 days with the refrigerator sitting a foot and half in the walkway was not particularly thrilling. Also, since I wasn't 100% confident in what we had rigged up--I didn't want to "restock" the fridge and freezer, less we lose it all again. I called Bassam and gave him the update. He got online and began hunting around himself. There was good news and bad news there---the good news, the part wasn't that expensive, so when it did come the repair wouldn't cost us an arm and a leg! The bad news--everywhere he checked it was listed as out of stock until mid June -- yes, June 16th!

Then late yesterday I got some REALLY good news . . . . Bobby had tracked down the part in Dallas, TX!! They were having it shipped overnight and would be installing it on Friday!! And God bless him, with a death in his family on Wednesday and his grandmother having hip surgery this afternoon, he was at my house at 11 a.m. this morning installing it! I was so thankful--and it seems to be running just fine again!

Sure, a little part of me thought this latest fridge problem was "a sign" that a stainless refrigerator was in my future! Having said that, I wasn't very excited about dropping a pile of money on a new appliance right now.

And a short note about some more good news out of Dallas, TX (but much more serious than my appliance soap opera) . . . . I am happy to report that my old friend, Tim Rees, and his wife finally received their I-600 approval and are off to Vietnam as I type this to bring home their beautiful daughter. Once everything goes through, families are supposed to wait up to 60 days for approval of their final paperwork. Because of recent problems Vietnamese adoptions (not to mention more red tape and lack of answers than you can imagine), their approval took 175 days. It has a been a long road for them and they are delighted that they will be with her for her 1st birthday.

The Fridge is sick--the appliance, not William Perry!

So, the ongoing saga of our refrigerator continues . . .

It was serviced a couple weeks ago by a Sears subcontractor. It was leaking from the front and stuff seemed a little soft in the freezer. Although it seemed to be working after he left, we didn't have a great feeling about him. Turns out there was a reason for that. He didn't really fix the problem.

Last Wednesday, we had problems again. Ice cream was soft and things weren't cooing quite right. Bassam decided it was because there was a big bag of ice jammed in there that blocked the vent. We lost a bunch of food--but it seemed to start working again after he cleaned it out, so he cancelled the second service call.

Monday night---the ice cream is soup and now the refrigerator isn't cooling right either. Call Sears back again and the "customer service" (ugh!) rep tells me they will be "happy to come out and look at our refrigerator on Thursday afternoon." Hmmmmm......a misdiagnosis (and over charge, but that's another story) by their people and I need to wait 3 1/2 days. I don't think so. Hard to believe since last time we called they literally came out the next day.

Found another company on Angie's list last night and they came out today. Our coils were very dirty (bad!!) and the fan was also only running at half speed. Unfortunately a new motor has to be ordered. It's supposed to be here tomorrow so he will be back and we should be up and running again. In the meantime we have a cooler full of ice in our kitchen with milk and a few odds and ends. The few freezer items we were able to salvage are in our neighbor's garage freezer and our fridge stuff that we saved are in my mother-in-law's fridge.

I tried to convince Bassam all these problems were really God's way of telling us that we should get the new stainless fridge that I really want. Unfortunately, he didn't buy into that logic, so we're repairing this one. Quite frankly, it's only 5 years old so it shouldn't be having problems anyway. However, it will make a great "2nd fridge" someday in our garage!

Missing L's and lost keys

As I was running a few errands with the kids this morning and Gracie was chatting non-stop (as usual), I realized how much I love toddler-talk. Specifically, the dropping of the letter, "L."

Here were some of the things she said today:

"Get cookie at Pub-wix!"

"I pway outside at the Y"

"Have a snack, pweeze?"

And of course, my favorite,

"I wuv woo, Mommy!"

Late this morning we ventured off to Cheekwood for a picnic and some "outside time" since it was sunny and in the low 70s. The kids had a great time running around, rolling down the hills and chasing squirrels! The downside to this trip was that I lost my keys. I knew I dropped them after lunch before we went down to the ponds, so it was a limited space (kind of!). However, we had come through the grass and not knowing exactly where we had walked made looking very difficult. This was made even more hard by the fact that Gracie kept pointing into the pond saying, "I see them!" A nice woman and her kids helped us hunt (I say "us," but Matthew and Gracie weren't very interested in looking!"). Finally I found them nestled in the grass on one the hills. What a relief, especially since EVERYTHING, except for my camera was in the van!

At the finally -- you can see the picture of our breakfast nook!!

Almost done!!!!

The kitchen is all but done!! They finished the backsplash today and it looks soooo beautiful! We have never had one before and I had no idea how different it would make things look! The guys who did it do great work (highly recommended to anyone in the Nashville area!) and wow--did they work fast! But when it's your trade--you get that good, I suppose!

We chose the tumbled marble, largely because it was economical as well as very neutral. We had him put a few random accent tiles, too!

I'm toying around with painting the pantry door (either black or red--thoughts and opinions welcome!) and the table will be here on Tuesday (supposedly). Then, it will be all put together. I can safely say, we are ready to put this chapter of home improvement behind us. The finished product rocks, but the road to get there has been rocky to say the least!!

No table, but here's a cool website of the week!

Our new kitchen table...the one that was supposed to be here "absolutely by the end of the week," (you know, TODAY!!), is not here. They assure us it will be here by Tuesday, but until it's sitting in my house, I won't believe it!! You know what? I can't even remember what the darn thing looks like!!!

The good news is the tile guy is coming tomorrow morning to do our backplash. He'll do most of it tomorrow, but will have to come back Sunday to do some sealing or something. I am EXCITED!!

Love the cool website of the week!! Check it out!!!!
http://www.the39dollarexperiment.com/

Kitchen tidbits

Spring break was just last week and already Williamson County has a day off on the calendar. No school today because of a teacher work day or something like that. Poor Matthew (who only goes to school MWF), was so cranky to discover he would not be at school today. We did spend a good chunk of the afternoon out at Crockett Park with his pal Bennett which helped ease the pain!

I am happy to report the kitchen/family room project is coming together....really! Window treatments are waiting to be hung (after trying many kinds, not to mention several types of hardware), things are ready to go on the wall and we are going to keep the new furniture arrangement, which means the cable needs to be run under the house. Wow....that really just sounds like a lot of work for Bassam! :) Thank goodness we have a bye for soccer on Saturday, because he will be busy! Hee hee!!

I am hosting a little gathering a week from today, so that is my incentive to get things done!! The backsplash may not be up but most everything else should be set. The other good news is they found out kitchen table. Bad news is it is still in Canada on a truck. Worse news is the truck is not moving. Sprintz has assured us it will be in our house by the end of next week. I'll believe it when I see it.

We have been crazy busy--but not much exciting to report. I'll have to work on that for next time!

A big day and the luck of the not-really-Irish

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

It was kind of a fun day around here today. Spring break has sprung, so we took advantage of our free day to hit the Discovery Center in Murfreesboro. The kids had a blast and we were able to play outside on the playground, too. Afterwards, we made a stop at Zaxby's (Dad was so jealous!!) for a late lunch before we headed back home.

Before I go further, I will confess to one of reasons for the lack of kitchen pictures. I'm really not sure I made the right color choice. Actually, I rather like it in the kitchen, but I don't like it in the family room. I am trying desperately to figure out how to "fix it" or make it work, but so far, haven't come up with the right answer. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, back to the FUN stuff!! Another exciting thing that happened today (and bear with me those of you who aren't regularly around toddlers--but for us, this is great) is that Gracie pooped in the toilet for the first time. She really doesn't like the dirty diaper, but I think is a bit freaked out by the toilet. For us, this is a major accomplishment and we celebrated accordingly! :)

Finally, Matthew had his first soccer game today. This was our "make up" from Saturday's rain out. Matthew did well staying with the ball, although still isn't great about keeping his eye on the ball and really getting his feet in there. Still, he had a great time and of course enjoyed "the tunnel" and snacks afterwards.

And in the spirit of St. Patty's day, I offer you this little tidbit of trivia . . .
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender used to yell at themto mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. From where we get "mind your own P's and Q's".

Weekend is over

The weekend is almost over . . . . . .

Matthew is off at the new "Horton Hears a Who" movie with Aunt Tammy, Bassam is watching the endless post-bracket-announcement analysis and I'm still putting the house back together. No pictures yet--sorry. I am painting the outlet and switchplate covers & still working on window treatments, so it is very incomplete. I have spent way more time than I care to admit hunting window treatments online and in stores, only to discover some that I saw on Saturday at Linens 'n Things may do the job, although they are discontinued, so I will probably be calling anyone who lives near an LNT to see if they can find the panels I need if I can't track them all down.

Soccer was cancelled on Saturday. The rain actually let up at game time, but it had to have been pure mud on the field and Bassam made the call 2 hours earlier. We are making up the game tomorrow night at 6 pm during our practice time. Since we are off next weekend for Easter and the following weekend is our bye, I'm glad we're getting at least one game in. Matthew is so excited!

Bassam rolled out the lawnmower today and cut the front yard. Boy, did it need it!! We are are also killing some grass to put down a mulch bed around our front trees. Mulch weekend will probably be coming along in the next few weeks, but first we have a bunch of planting to do! We're a little wary, given last year's hard frost on Easter weekend (April 8th), but hopefully we'll be able to get some of the heartier things in!