As Promised!!!!

Camera charger got here early and it was the right one! Here you go, as promised some updated pictures on whats been going down! more to come. Sorry if I leave any out, if there is anything you want to see that's not posted let me know and I'll get on that!

And Begin:

Ryan and Calvin primer-ing our master bedroom!

New working gutters!!! Thank you David Groth for doing such a fantastic job!

Naomi's room primered then painted

A better shot of the color, 2 walls purple 2 walls the lovely cream tan we have every where else :)

Our room, this is suppose to be a light grey its very light and normally looks kinda blue. Fail on trying to make it gray but win on it still looking nice.

Awesome steps coming out of the kitchen slider getting framed in

Preparing for concrete

Concrete

Finished steps with leaf impressions.

Look we have more of a living room!

 Since were trying to keep everything the same and our 10 foot window is so huge here are my curtain rods getting painted. Not quiet Handmade House status but its a start. 

Rod holders: Lowes: two pack $10 thank you. very simple and white just what we were looking for!

The big 10 footer, oh and the new window, not cracked and double paned!

Kitchen

lovely kitchen floor thanks to my padre

snap shots going around the kitchen 

(Im standing in the corner by the slider)

new electric over hook up from my parents neighbors, pretty much brand new and totally free! Thank you!

Why my kitchen isnt done. Need to pick up a counter top install, glue and attached pipe for sink, attached and hook up dish washer and complete! at least for the bank and then well totally remodel hahaha

And now, THE BEST part of life....

Before, During and After of....

CARPET!!!

yucky nasty stinky

Bleached clean and not so stinky

Beautiful, soft and perfect carpet!!!! 

Thank you Tony C. for installing and Pro Source for the actual carpet! Love it!

So there you are, what's been going on. So happy to finally have my camera back in action! enjoy and thanks for following!

Good Night. 

Toddlers and Pets

Every mom (whether mom of a child or pet or both) thinks theirs is/are the greatest by far! I'm just going to say mine are the greatest for us <3

I was suppose to be adding a pictorial blog but as I was copying the photos from my camera to my computer my camera ran out of battery and so it cut that short. So instead I feel I should talk about my babies, furry and not.

First my little Naomi Jean:

When did she get to look this old?! She is 19 months now and crazier than ever. Its strange to think that in 5 short months she will be 2 years old, I JUST accepted the fact I have a 1 year old and now I have to start all over accepting this!? yup a couple hairs just turned grey. While we have our moments, the stress and less baby friendly situation we are in right now has started to give us the idea of what terrible twos may be like: tantrums, hitting, some biting and just straight doing things even though you told her not to 500 thousand times before including 2 seconds earlier, I couldn't love her more (even though she makes me bonkers some times) Multiple times during the day she will simply come up and grab my leg if I'm standing or my arm if I'm low enough and kiss it and hug it and so many times it's right when I really needed that little reminder that ok these cheap tacks suck, ok you cant find your camera charger, ok you can figure out how to do some simple construction ish type job its all ok, the world (as I tell her constantly) is not ending. Goodness she's great.  And on top of it when you tell her "Naomi, I love you so much!" she says "much" back. I kind of hope that sticks and becomes an inside thing for her and us so we can sign notes and say "much" when she leaves and just have that cute thing, but probably not...Some of her accomplishments? New things? Achievements? Take  your pick, are: she knows and can say purple, which is good because 2 of her bedroom walls are purple, she can count to 2 "wahn tew!" because when ever you like go to toss her you go one two three and toss or whatever on three so she counts to 2 and sometimes if you count one....two..... shell then run a few steps and the throw herself on the ground or on a sofa or something, its pretty hilarious. She, I think, legitimately answers questions and uses words correctly. I'll ask her if she wants juice? No. Water? No. Milk? Yessss! and if you try to give her juice she will push it away until you give her milk, sounds kinda spoiled but when you want your milk, you want your milk. Or what I love: Naomi you poopin'? Yeah. a minute later. Naomi, you got poops? Yeah. Do you need a diaper change? Nope. You sure? Nope. You need a diaper change? Yes. Ok lets go upstairs. and she'll run to the stairs. We are learning to say please which is nice but sometimes kind of difficult and it sounds a lot like peas so I don't know if she's getting the concept. Ask for peas, get gold fish? hmmmm. She also loves me to read to her and she has her favorites, one being the classic "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" she can't quite say it so it sounds more like buh-bye. On the last page it has all the animals brown bear, red bird, yellow duck, blue horse, green frog, purple cat, white dog, black sheep and goldfish (yes I did that in order and from memory we read it that much) and we can ask her where an animal is and she gets it correct just about every time, the sheep is the toughest one. And o man is she ever Keith's daughter if not by looks by interests! She LOVES cars! Any car or truck put her in the drivers seat and shes happy! She can now open some car doors. If she sees a car she says car car and drags me to it or tries to open the door or something. its hilarious and slightly scary haha... She saw the characters from the pixar movie "Cars" and got all excited totally passing up the butterflies and stuff, when we get our TV going we will have to rent that one for her. 

Now Ozzy, our sweet 4 year old yorkie mix thing. He is so weird and some times frustrating but dang he is so good with her. He puts up with so much and just leaves if it gets to be too much for him. He never growls at her or snaps at her or anything. He loves that little girl. For a while she would not go to bed with out seeing him and sometimes when shes crying because shes tired or hungry or something he is the only thing to help calm her down. The other morning she was chasing him around and he was just kinda going in circles and then he ran off and she chased him but he would pause (as it takes her a little longer to get up and down the two little steps in our sunken living and family rooms) sneakily look over his shoulder and wait for her to get about a foot away from him and jog off but not too fast and she's just cracking up hysterically over it all!

Then the newest baby, Dio, the 6 month old tom kitten we adopted. He is a kick, super friendly and playful. He and Ozzy get a long so well and he tolerates Naomi, shes still learning. He loves her tunnel in her bedroom and its so funny to see him, Ozzy and Naomi all playing before Naomi has to go to bed, a great way to tire her out. He doesn't bite hard and very rarely uses his claws on us when he plays and when he does its very slightly. He is just a rag a muffin, a slinky cat. My old cat, Dina, was very... stocky isn't the word, condensed? no, not quite... she just never really loosened up, this kitten I have to hold like a baby otherwise he slips out of my arms haha! He isn't very cat like either, he's clumsy, he cant really jump on things, hes messy which is odd but oh well he's still probably one of the best cats we could have gotten. 

Well I will try looking for my camera charger some more but if all else fails I will just have to buy another charger. Sad day. 

slowly but surely

Ok I know, no pictures again! Still haven't found that cord, well haven't really looked... but were so close to unpacking!!!I will have a blog soon just of pictures and captions. I want to wait so I can use older pictures saved on the desk top for befores and afters. 

Well as for progression... its slow... roof still isn't done, jinxed it apparently, and the counter tops aren't even ordered but aside from that it has been a very progressive week :) I spent the first few days practically living in the truck because I was running around non stop! It was crazy, my poor Naomi was so fed up. She has been living in car seats and shopping cart the past few weeks it seems and its not like when we are home she can really play because everything is so crazy and there are power tools everywhere! But soon I keep telling her. 

Monday evening we had Spencer and Calvin and Ryan primer-ing all of upstairs so we could paint paint paint tuesday because carpets on wednesday. Lora brought over a dinner and Karly joined us as well, which was so nice to see the ladies as I have been surrounded by guys lately. The dinner was also amazing since we go out to eat every night and its not like these take out places have a bunch of yummy veggies... dying for veggies! Anyways so then tuesday there was a HUGE push to get painting done and my darling Keith who gets up at 5am to drive 35-40 minutes out to the coast to work a crazy full 8 hour day drive back 40 minutes and then work work work on our house until anywhere between 11pm and 2 am has been pushing along so well and as we are finishing painting he is getting burnt out. Thankfully Calvin is still sticking with us and helping to keep him motivated but even that can only work for so long. Tuesday evening our carpet guy calls me and says our carpet isn't in but will be in thursday and that he will carpet friday. While that kinda sucks it was a relief on the pressure of painting. 

While all this was going on Tuesday morning I was getting ready to go to Spring Lake for my weekly walk with an old coworker of mine and her baby when the window guy shows up with ALL of our windows... Apparently he assumed that this was a regular construction site and there would be workers here to help unload the windows as we have 2 sliders and our huge living room window which is 10 feet wide... I told him I was just leaving but could help unload if he thought it would help, he hesitated, I assured him it was ok if he thought I was too weak. All he said was that the owner shouldn't have to unload their own windows haha. Guess that answered that one! I called our contractor and told him what was up and that our worker (Calvin) was busy with family stuff, Keith was at work and my dad was on puppy duty and then apparently Mike was waiting for an inspector and couldn't leave. Uh-Oh. Mike told me to have the window guy call him. When I told him that he said "yeah... they told me I would need a second guy to help unload, I told them I would figure it out when I got here" at that point I realized this was on him and not on anyone else so I left and he got them off some how with out breaking any of them. Oh man. So now the slider in the family room is replaced and the 2 broken windows, one in the kitchen and the big 10 footer, have been replaced. the other slider would have been replaced as well but the slider that is in there now is a special order 5 foot door and we have 6 foot door. problem. solution: cut a foot out of our kitchen wall to make it fit... that is to come...

So last night, Thursday the 5th, (wow just saying that is weird it feels so long ago) well we needed to finish up a little painting in our master bedroom. (now granted bed 2 isnt cut in and we need to do touch ups and cut ins all through the hall and stairwell but at this point were all getting burnt out on painting) It was so chill Keith, Calvin and myself just chilling kinda painting mostly listening to music. Calvin climbed up on top of Keith's closet and played the guitar and painted up there. Very silly, Keith got a picture on his phone I'll have to post. Then we swept and cleaned the floors for the carpet guys and I even laid down on the wood floor just chillin'. it was one of those nights that you wish you could video or picture or have some way to record the chillness that was that night. We were all zoning towards the end, all just chillin in Keith and mines master bedroom. (mines? is that a word? i dunno... strange) Its hard to explain but its just one of those times you want to be able to look back on and since that is why I decided to start a blog I am going to blog about it! so there. 

So friday carpet is in! The whole upstairs has that new house smell because of the carpet and fresh paint. Its so soft and new and wonderful I have never seen Rusty with carpet. It's the one thing we have done that we didn't just fix, like we had a kitchen now it looks better, the walls were painted now not so many colors, there just simply was no flooring upstairs just mold and now, there is! It looks great and it really brings the bedrooms to life! Especially Naomi's, since its all painted and I drug the gently used twin bed I bought her off of craigslist for $50 up there and put the white fitted sheet on it and a blue knit blanket over it. Its lovely. The carpet is a medium grey color if I had forgotten to mention that. You will see it in pictures soon! Also today our back steps from the kitchen got poured, they look good and our contractor placed some leaves strategically on them to leave the imprint of them. He did it at his place and he says it looks great once the leaf rubs off. So excited to see it. We didn't, however, get to put Naomi's hands in it. I was suppose to when I got back to rusty later this afternoon but got so distracted with the carpet I forgot... oops, my bad! 

So sorry for another long text entry but soon, very soon I will get pictures up and you can see the amazing progress we have made. 

Official

Oh man! SO so much has happened and I haven't had enough time to stay up to date so I will probably forget parts :( but anyways... So as December and 2011 said goodbye so did our lease at our apartment... We had originally planned on moving in to Rusty Christmas Eve, Keith even thought we would move in earlier. With all the chaos that is life with a fixer such as our beloved Rusty home that didn't quiet happen... We had our first night here Friday December 29th! very crazy. But lets back up a few days...

Rewinding......

Rain was constantly threatening to start and yet still have not come. Our roof is still far from being done. The week before Christmas we were lucky enough to have Keith's brother Spencer dominate our roof. He showed up before Keith got off work and roofed half a side and completely stripped, pulled out nails, and swept the whole other half of the roof and still with some day light, we were floored. He is the man! Saturday, Christmas Eve, one of our contractors guys came out and helped Keith lay down the tar (?) or tarp (?) paper that goes under the shingles on the rest of the house. Not too much got done the rest of the weekend, a little moving a little cleaning just little stuff. Monday and Tuesday came and went with not a lot of progress either as Keith can not roof by himself and people had holiday family plans and were busy, which is completely understandable, this time of year does make things tricky. I believe it was Wednesday night when it hit both Keith and myself that Saturday was pretty much here and we had barely moved and so so much still needed to be done. Keith called everyone in his phone and people either didn't answer or couldn't help then. Panic was starting to creep around. However between people seeing Keith's calls, my plea on Facebook and us keeping an understanding mind we were blessed and got people. Calvin, the same who had helped us earlier, replied to my plea. While it will be sad to see him follow his family out to Utah it did mean that he needed to quit his job and his last day just so happen to be that evening and he was down to help as much as we needed him. Between his eagerness and love, the stress that was there and the relief that followed and just the loveliness of being a female at times I found myself tearing up, yes embarrassing to put down but really he has made a lot possible and has helped keep the stress and bickering that comes from stress down. And on top of it he is a funny guy. He came that night and helped scrap and bleach our nasty up stairs. The floors up there look AMAZING while you can still see the stain marks in the wood from everything that went down in this house all the orange and black mold was cleaned. It may sound silly but it was nearly breath taking haha. The next day he came back while Keith was at work and cleaned our back yard and stacked wood and filled dumpsters. Another breath taking sight. That afternoon I came over to see all these things and also to see Sam and Spencer on our roof. Happy, happy day. So exciting.

The next morning, Friday, I found myself back at Rusty and watching the last little bit of our new gutters going on!!!! Our gutter guy is awesome, David Groth, and our gutters look great! We chose a white gutter with our black roof and at the moment we think we will, in the end, paint the house a dark stone gray blue color with a white trim. That evening started the big move. Calvin and Keith moved 40-50% of our stuff that night and we spent the night for the first time. Luckily my curtains had come that day and I went over to Mead Clark and bought 1 5/16 " round wooden rods? poles? I don't know what you would call them. Anyways got those to make our own curtain rods. This idea came when trying to find simple matching rods for the whole house. Well our front window is 10 feet wide. The rods I was finding that would fit that were expensive and not us so were going to make ours! (taking a page out of "the handmade home") I still need to find something to hold the rods up but for now to blacken out our family room, which is where we sleep, we just put some screws in the wall and set the pole on it. Later I also plan to paint them the same white we have for the rest of our trim around the house, Kelley Moor's Swiss Coffee.

Then Saturday, DUN, dun dun! So much to move and clean and yes still pack. Calvin came far too early in the morning and stayed in to the new year. Our friend Rachael also came and entertained Naomi and helped us move from the afternoon in to the new year. To say it was intense and gross and tiring and hilarious is an understatement. We still barely were able to clean and I still need to drop our keys off, I hope there is no issue with the fact we are dropping them off a day or 2 late. I don't think that I should even get in to all that happened in that very long day but Keith and Calvin worked so hard and got so much done that its stupid. I can not express enough how awesome those guys are! Everyone finally left at 2 am and we are officially out of Agnew (the apartment) and completely in Rusty from now on! Also during the day my dad had come over and laid down half of our stick on wanna be tiles in our kitchen. It looks great! I cant wait to see it when its all done. We did not do real tile as we are planning to remodel the kitchen in the next couple of years and these till be easier to remove.

It's hard to believe all that we have gotten done and we haven't even had the house for 3 weeks yet! This place is still a complete disaster but really not for long... This next week to week and a half is really going to pull everything together. I believe Spencer is going to some back and dominate our roof and should just about get it done. I feel with out jinxing it, it could be safe to say our roof will be done by the end of this week. The kitchen is all coming together, I will be figuring out our counter tops and hopefully getting them in at the end of the week or latest the beginning of the following week. Which then means we can get our sink in and then stove and dish washer and refrigerator in to make the kitchen complete! then we can actually cook again! Can't wait. Then the really exciting parts, we will be painting upstairs Monday and or Tuesday because............... we get our CARPET in on Wednesday!!! That is going to make Rusty in to a real home! we can move in upstairs and then really move in down stairs too, organize the garage ect ect. There is still some construction in the bathrooms upstairs but we will just have to be very careful with the carpets. We did feel that it was still the better way to go getting the carpets earlier. It wouldn't be as big of a deal but with a baby who naps and loud construction it was necessary.

Oh yes and Friday morning the girl woke up with a sore throat and runny nose and didn't want to eat anything. sigh. She has been so awesome through this though, I can't love her more. I was cleaning and she came up to me kissed my arm and then hugged it and looked up at me with a huge sweet smile. goodness she is perfect.

Well sorry no pictures yet in all the moving I need to find my camera cord. I will add pictures after the carpet goes in, ON WEDNESDAY!!!!!! but I'm not that excited ha ha.

Happy New Year, It is the greatest holiday!