photos from the lost world

i uncovered some photos today that i forgot were on my cell phone and figured i'd share them here:

you know you are a hot sauce junkie when the extra grande bottle of tapatio rides shotgun to your carmel latte (incidentally, the paint sample there, next to my two liquid obsessions? that is the color we are painting our house.)


boys with santa in december


this was taken at the iowa city children's museum when we went for adam's defense


i love this photo of benj because of his facial expression, what he's wearing, and the inscription on the side of 4-wheeler


at bass pro shop in altoona-- future bad boys




i found benjamin like this AFTER bathtime one evening. he had done this while i washed the dishes. nice.


heart breaker on valentine's day


in other news, things are happening on the house this week. at least, things should be happening--majorly, since we are supposed to close a week from friday! there is a lot left to be done (plumbing, lighting, paint touch-ups, decking, pouring the front porch, replacing a broken window, cabinetry detail, stone around fireplace...i could go on, but i digress). so i'm not holding my breath, but i remain cautiously optimistic.

stone is going on.


the boys played in the walk-in closet. that room would get much more play as a kid's playroom than it will as a closet for mike and i, who are NOT shoppers.


staining on built-ins turned out really nice


as did the tiling on the master shower (that paint is supposed to be a light green...looks a little yellowy to me, yes??)


lockers in mudroom are painted


our flooring installer is a machine. he is a one-man show, and has installed the wood flooring on the entire first floor all by himself. he was there saturday and sunday, all day, working alone. great guy. great work.


still loving the color in the half bath, despite what my husband may say ;)


i was a little nervous with the color mike chose for the boys' rooms. he said he was going for a "nautical blue." when i first saw it going on i was a little stunned at HOW blue. but now that i see it with the white trim, i'm good with it. i'm not really a blue person, so it was a lot to take in all at once :)

weekend efforts

thanks to my husband who played full-time daddy all weekend so that on saturday i could finish up dissertation revisions, and on sunday i could do this:

boring white bathroom before:


warm, rich, Spanish style bathroom after:


i learned two things from this escapade:
1) i am waaaay too short to paint 9 ft. ceilings, even with a step stool
and
2) $200 would actually have been a very good deal to pay the painters to do this bathroom.

ah well, i guess i left my mark on the new house. now i just need to move in.

kiddie visit to the house

we took the kids out to the house today to see their new room. they like to go out and rough it up a little every now and then. you know, just to make sure it can stand up to their abuse. so far, so good.



getting down and dusty at the new place


already running in dizzying circles

Fun all around

My fabulous girlfriends (who I once called "neighbors & friends," but now only one of which continues with that title) took me out for a girl's dinner out in celebration of my completed dissertation draft. If I knew I'd get that kind of treatment for finishing this thing, maybe I'd have done it sooner?? :) We went to Dos Rios for margaritas and guacamole and good times.






It was definitely a nice night out. And I'm sorry, Steph, but the jalepeno margaritas are the bomb. No argument ;)

On Saturday I went out to the house for the first time in weeks. It was fun to walk through it after not having been there for so long since so much had changed. It's really starting to get a more "finished" look to it, although we still have a long way to go. Just one more month...just one more month... just one more month. That's my mantra. I took some photos of the fun things that have happened since I was last there. It's fun to see our future home take shape.

There are a lot of surprises along the way when building a home, we've learned. Our builder informed us that we got an unexpected upgrade when they delivered a much bigger gas fireplace than we were supposed to have. While I welcome any free upgrades they want to throw our way, I realized upon visiting the house that it's so big it means we won't get the stonework we had planned for (an arched stone design above the fireplace to match the curved entryways on the first floor of the house). Whatever, at this point I just shrug my shoulders when things don't go according to plan. In the end those details won't matter and we'll be happy with it regardless.







One of the customized changes we made to the house was to add built-in shelving to the side of the stairway right where you walk in the front door. It won't be super deep so probaby won't hold lots of larger books, but I thought it would be fun to have a spot for family photos and odds and ends. Especially since I'm not much of a decorator, so the more that's already "built in" to the walls, the better :)


This is the office/den. Otherwise known as, play room.


Unfinished lockers in the mudroom off the garage.


Tiling has begun in the master bathroom


I took this photo because it cracked me up to see Oxyclean is what they use to clean up mistakes while tiling. That stuff is amazing.


Jack and Jill bath has tile (otherwise known as the Jack and Benj bath)


The closer we get, the more excited I get.

Today while the boys enjoy the Superbowl, I'll be diligently working on my revisions to my diss. draft. My adviser has sent back 216 pages so far and the rest is in the mail. So far, so good!

equality for all: another jack story

{minor background: it's one of the most important things for me that my kids know that i love them for who they are, and that they never have to second guess whether or not i'll support, or accept, them for the decisions they make in life. add to that the fact that i am a very sound liberal, and the fact that gay marriage is once again a topic of debate within the ia legislature makes my blood boil.}

this morning at breakfast, jack said out of the blue (as are most of his comments these days):

i don't know if i want to get married because then i have to find a girl to marry.

me: "well, when you are old enough, you can find a girl to marry if you want to. or a boy."

jack: (thinking): "i can marry a boy?"

me: "you can marry whomever you love."

jack: "well, i love jaxson. but i don't want to marry jaxson. i just like to play in his bouncehouse."

i guess it's pretty simple for a 4-yr-old.
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looking forward to a short daytrip to iowa city tomorrow (all 5 of us) to support my brother at HIS dissertation defense. and no, you are not all allowed to make fun of me that my brother is defending his diss before i am, even though he began grad school 4 years after me. technically he's not beating me, we are going to tie. when we both graduate in may, that is. :)