Little Project - Phase 1 Complete!

Today, we were finally able to complete the first phase of our kitchen remodel. The drywall is done, painted, and all of the lights are installed and fully functional! After many, many strange and unexpected setbacks (such as mismatched paint, faulty switches and faulty lights) we are now ready to call it quits and move on to the nursery. I will try and post some pictures soon.

We hope to get the nursery painted this week. We have decided upon a very light pink color called "princess pink". We hope that our ultrasound technicians were right when they said it would be a girl :)

Recycle, Recycle, Recycle

I wanted to take a minute to write about a topic that is very important to us. We have become avid recyclers since moving into this house and after Mason was born. We have been making a concerted effort to "go green" based upon a fear that we have for future generations and how life will be like for them if we continue to waste our precious resources and pollute the environment. Plus, we really want to teach our children how precious and beautiful our environment is and how to take steps to preserve it.

We are so excited that our township will institute a state of the art recycling program in April 2009. Currently we are able to recycle glass, aluminum and plastics 1 and 2. Even with the limited program we have now, we still somehow find a way to fill up our bin every week (mainly with Mason's tube feed cans). With the new program coming up we will be able to recycle all plastics 1-7, glass, aluminum, paper, junk mail, magazines, cardboard, plastic bags, etc. Travis and I estimated that 90% of our trash will be recycled with this new program. Take for example a yogurt container, we will be able to recycle all of it now! We are so excited about it! I think our family looks at us like we are crazy...yes, we are this excited about a recycling program. We literally can't wait!

We are going to start some other green projects around the house as well. All the new paint we buy has been VOC free and we have been slowly making the switch to natural cleaners, etc. We are also investigating steam cleaners that steralize and clean without the use of harmful chemicals. This spring/summer, we are going to install a rain barrel to catch the downspout water for watering our garden and plants.

Feel free to comment with your own "go green" tips and links!

March for Babies

That time of year is coming up again! March for Babies is on 4/25/09 in our area. Last year Travis walked for Mason and was able to raise more than $1,000 in donations thanks to your generosity.

We have set up a bit of a different goal this year. There were many people that expressed interest in walking with Travis, so we decided to create a walking team. Our team will represent CDH and will hopefully help to raise some awareness. Our goal is to get 25 walkers this year to participate with Travis and Mason. If each walker raised $100, our team will generate $2,500 for the March of Dimes, a truly special organization.

I really wish I could walk this year, but the event is only 2 days away from my due date.

Please check out our Team Page and register to join us!

Our Dog Whisperer

We have had lots of questions about how our dog training is going. I thought I would post a little update. We love our dog trainer, Bob, whom we call the Dog Wisperer. The first night he came was great. He explained everything in detail and helped us begin "re-training" Buster. Buster seemed to catch on pretty quick to most of the things. We noticed a difference in him almost immediately and I am sure it will only get better with time. His big trouble spot is the front door and he goes absolutely bonkers when someone rings the doorbell. We have a special technique to use and it will take lots of practice for all of us to get it right. Bob visits again tomorrow night.

Our neighbors know that Buster is a trouble maker and a noise maker. I am sure that they got a pretty good laugh when Bob showed up in a car that was labeled with "in-home dog training" and "Bark Busters". I know we did :)

Our Little Project Update

Our kitchen remodel is moving along slowly. The drywall is up and almost ready to paint. Travis is spending the next couple of evenings working on a couple of areas that needed some more TLC. He is also working on patching and fixing all of the holes we had to put in other rooms to rewire the electrical. Later this week and this weekend we will be able to prime and paint the walls and ceiling in the kitchen. After that we can put the finishing touches on our recessed lighting and hang the pendant lights.

We decided that we would then divert our attention to the nursery and get that room cleaned out and painted. I am starting to get nervous that we have nothing prepared yet. We still have a risk that the baby could come at 34 weeks like Mason did. We just won't know until we get there. Hopefully by the end of February, we will have the room somewhat complete in case the baby decides to make an early arrival.

After that, it will be back to the kitchen to sand and paint the cabinets and put in some new countertops.

Fingers crossed, we hope we will be able to get everything done before the baby comes.

Dog Training

Yes, this post is exactly how it sounds in the title. Our lovely pooch Buster has had some deteriorating obedience skills over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, with all that has gone on in the past couple of years, we have not had the time to diligently work with Buster to gain them back. He is a very smart dog and can do lots of tricks, but loves to ignore simple commands like sit, come, no barking, etc. Lately he has started to growl at us, so we need to nip this in the bud ASAP. We have decided to enlist the help of an in-home dog trainer to help Buster regain his manners and to help us restore our trust in him.

We start tonight, wish us luck!

Our Little Project

I mentioned this in Mason's blog last week.

It all started as our little home improvement project.... We had planned to do a mini kitchen overhaul over the holiday break since Travis had a nice chunk of time off. We figured we would do it before the baby comes. We added some cabinets in an empty space by our fridge and planned to open up a sort of "pass-thru" to our dining room so that we could make a breakfast bar and add more light to our dining/family room. The project started off great and then we put our engineering heads together one night and created more of a monster kitchen remodel. We decided to remove the soffits, re-drywall the ceiling and part of the walls, install recessed lighting and pendant lights, build counter tops that will fit our new breakfast bar area, paint all cabinets and install new hardware. We also just recently decided we need a new floor, since our current one was a bit damaged by the ceiling removal. And since we can access the family room sofits from our kitchen with no ceiling, we decided to put recessed lights in there too. Whew!

The project started out pretty well until we took out the soffits. We planned on keeping a portion of the existing ceiling, but that pretty much fell down (literally). We figured we would find a few electrical wires up there that we would have to modify. I don't think that we planned on finding plumbing and that fact that half of our house is wired through the kitchen ceiling! Our neighbor is a plumber, so the plumbing was an easy fix. Travis spent an entire week re-wiring what seemed like our whole house. He did a great job and was able to figure everything out on his own without needing an electrician.

Yesterday, my Dad and Travis put in a new ceiling. This week Travis will be putting drywall patches on some of the areas of the walls where we had to remove the drywall. Next weekend he plans on mudding and sanding. Mason and I will stay at my parents house so that Mason won't need to deal with any of the dust created. After that, lots of painting and then building new counter tops.

Here are some pictures of our kitchen before we moved in....complete with pink counter tops!





Here are some pictures of our kitchen during the re-model phase:

This one was taken just before removing the cabinets to open up the pass-thru. As you can see, hurrican Mason has already passed through the area....



Here it is without the ceiling....



I will post more pictues of our "little project" when the drywall phase is complete.