Life Updates

God, I miss blogging. I miss being able to go back and read what life was like, what the girls were doing, what stages they were at, what we did for birthdays, how we were celebrating holidays. I really blogged for myself: a journal of these oh-so-fleeting stages of the girls' childhoods and our life together. And I'm really mad at myself for letting it lapse.

Easter 2017

I've been busy, but that shouldn't be an excuse. I'll probably never fully forgive myself for not continuing the 2x a year letters to the girls - I need to start that up again. I have such a terrible memory: Emmeline says something hilarious and I tell myself I'll write it down and then I forget and then a year has passed and I've basically forgotten how entirely hilarious she was (and still is) between the ages of two and now. I missed blogging Carys's 5th birthday and Emmeline's 3rd birthday. WHAT DID WE EVEN DO FOR THEM?!? A year plus of holidays has gone undocumented...missing Halloween posts, Christmas posts, Easter posts....(there are plenty of pictures, sure, but when do I get on the computer and look at them?! Rarely.). And I miss writing. I love to write, and I think I may have forgotten how to form intelligent, cohesive, and dare I say humorous sentences. Like entirely forgotten. I used to be funny and a good writer. Now I can barely pull myself together to write down a grocery list.

October 2016

Life is so different now than it was in 2015 when I was last regularly writing. Carys is getting ready to start kindergarten this fall (deciding to wait until this year to send her is a post in and of itself). She can read and write and is the most creative, kind-hearted kid I've ever met. Emmeline's three and barely even a toddler - she's a full-on preschooler who knows letters and opposites and how to spell her name and write a (small) handful of letters and is just silly and fierce. And the picture of "doesn't give a fuck." We had Emmeline's third birthday a full 3.5 months ago - Candyland themed. We're planning Carys's sixth (SIX?!?!) birthday, and it will be Moana themed. Carys is in dance class and swim class and drama class. Emmeline does swim class and "messes" class, a toddler class at the Y where they paint and run around like maniacs.

Emmeline, March 2017  - - - -  Carys, April 2017

We're getting ready to go to Disney this summer - I earned a trip for myself to Disney through my work with Usborne books and it's been a flurry of planning and research and seriously? When I earned the trip I didn't even know what Disney WAS. Like...I knew it was a theme park. But I didn't really understand if it was rides? Shows? Characters standing around everywhere to meet? If it was just rides, what made it that much better than going to Worlds of Fun that's only two hours away and probably literally $5,000 chapter? I still am completely clueless, but I now can name about five restaurants at every park, list all of the Disney resorts, and tell you the list of all of the rides in Fantasyland in order of popularity. So I'll be a well-informed clueless first-timer.

April 2017

We got a guinea pig (named Link) and a beta fish (named Azul, or as Emmeline calls him, Blue in Spanish) and we're like REALLY working on Chris to let us get a dog. The hypothetical dog is already named and the girls and I know exactly where we'll put his food and water and dog bed and whose job it will be to pick up poop and where we'll take him on walks.

October 2017

We've done shit to the house - new chairs, painted the front door, finished other rooms. There's still a lot to do (I mean it's only been TWO YEARS what do you want from me?!) but it's coming along nicely. Mostly. We haven't touched our bedroom and it's kind of making me twitchy so maybe that will be this summer's project. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

Checking out baby chicks; April 2017

We visited my mom in Dubuque and went camping. We went to the zoo and children's museum and had playdates and went on a boat and oh, my god, went to an amazing, fun family reunion to Lake of the Ozarks and dude, I CANNOT FIND MY PICTURES FROM THAT TRIP ANYWHERE and if I'd been blogging I'd at least have a record on them here. What the hell. We went to California and I DO have pics from that trip but I don't think I've edited them yet. See, I need the pressure of a blog post in order to make me edit pictures!

I might go back and blog a few of the things that I want to share: the girls' birthdays (maybe before Carys's next birthday in three months!) (goals!), Halloween, vacation, I don't know. I just know that I want to get back to this space. I want to write again and document again and share again.

October 2016

LET'S DO THIS LARA! You got it! Go team!

House Tour : Two years Later

We closed on this house on March 30, 2015 and spent about a month painting it. So it's been about two years now that we've lived here.

Guys, I LOVE this house. I love it. Every time I get home, I am kind of in awe as to how perfect it is. It's so full of light - I love all the windows and doors. I love how it's exactly the right mix of open concept and separate rooms. From any room on the first floor, you can look through to see every other room - yet they're all separate spaces.  While every room and space is distinct, they all flow together beautifully. I love how the first floor is a big loop and the kids can run laps from the kitchen through the dining room through the sitting room through the entry through the family room and back to the kitchen. They burn so much energy doing that every single day. And the neighborhood is amazing, with great neighbors.

Obviously there are things I don't love - the mix of flooring on the first floor, that dang tile in the family room, the several windows or window frames that are broken (SIGH) (BUT THEY'RE GETTING FIXED! GOODBYE MONEY!). And it's still very bare in places. Now that the painting is done, we HAVE to start finishing the decor - curtains and wall hangings and real (versus temporary Craigslist) furniture. Why does all that cost so much money??

Even without most of the rooms being done, decor-wise, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at all we've done over the last two years.

Here's a video (pictures will follow the videos, so if videos aren't your thing, skip down) that I took in December 2014 - months before we'd even put an offer in on it. I took it to show my mom, who wasn't able to get into town to see it. The video is absolutely terrible quality. Like TERRIBLE. It's shaky and misses an entire floor (the basement) and doesn't really give that great of an overview, but it's all I have, and it kind of gives an idea of the layout.

Look for appearances by toddling, just-turned-one Emmeline (as well as Chris, Carys, my mother-in-law, and our realtor)!

Holy heck was that a lot of oak. Having finished painting most of the trim before we even moved in - so never getting used to it - I kind of forgot about how the entire house was reddish orange. I'm kind of proud of us for seeing past the orange and imagining what a little bit LOT of paint could do.  Here's the updated video house tour. Remember this isn't one of those curated, picture-perfect blogs that makes you wonder how anyone lives like that. We DO have two small kids who leave swathes of destruction in their midst. I haven't cleaned the baseboards...ever. This is real life. So excuse the sippy cups floating around (we go through like a dozen a day, I swear) and the dust.
As you can see, we've done a ton on that first floor, and not so much on the second floor. On the first floor, every room but the kitchen has been painted (although we did get the window and door trim done in there), and we replaced the dining room floor. On the second floor, we haven't touched a single thing in our bedroom, in our bathroom, or in the playroom, but we've painted the walls in both girls' bedrooms and completed a few updates in the shared bathroom. 
Here are some pictures to look at the differences and updates room-by-room. 

EXTERIOR

Before

One Month Later

Current

I'm not going to detail all the changes for every room, but since we've only done two things that are visible from the exterior and they're both subtle...the front door is white (instead of wood) and the small decorative plum tree right in the middle of the house has been cut down (it had to go because it was planted too close to the foundation). 

XXXXXXXX

ENTRYWAY

Before

One Month Later

Current

Removed the glass from the chandelier and gave it cute bulbs. Eventually it will be replaced completely.

Before - One Month Later - Current

 

LAUNDRY ROOM/BATHROOM

Before - One Month Later - Current

FAMILY ROOM 

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXXXX

Before

One Month Later

Current

That tile floor HAS GOT TO GO. It is the bane of my existence in this house. If I get NOTHING else done in the next year, I would be happy as long as that floor was gone. The rug goes a long way to help disguise it, but that room really needs the depth of color and warmth that the engineered wood floors will bring in. We also desperately need something over the couch - but that wall is HUGE (like 21' long) so finding a large-scale art piece to fill it has been hard. I might DIY something. Whatever I do, it will bring in a lot of color. 

XXXXXXXXXX

 SUNROOM

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXXX

KITCHEN

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXXX

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXXXX

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

DINING ROOM

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXXXX

SITTING ROOM

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

UPSTAIRS HALL

Before - One Month Later - Current

CARYS'S ROOM

Before

One Month Later

Six months later
I had this room cleaned 10 minutes before I took this picture, I swear.

BATHROOM

Before - One Month Later

Current
Eventually the wave tile and blue floor tile will go, and we'll repaint the bright blue upper walls and paint or replace the cabinet vanity. 

EMMELINE'S ROOM

Before

One Month Later

Six Months Later

PLAYROOM

Before

One Month Later

Current (going the other direction)

Again, I swear this was clean before I went to take the picture.

BACKYARD

Before

One Month Later

Current

XXXXXXX

I think the only that that is different is that I pulled all the plants from in front of the deck (I'm thinking about using that space as a veggie garden next year) and we got the willow trim (at the top of the picture) trimmed.

MASTER BEDROOM

Before

Six months later

(AKA We've done nothing. We're going to paint and replace the fan, to start with. Someday.)

MASTER BATH

Before

Current

Nothing done here either. Lots of plans. Definitely want to frame out the mirror and lose the carpet. I hate carpeted bathrooms (but not as much as tiled family rooms!). 

BASEMENT

Before

Current

XXXXXXXXXXXx

Before

Current
At some point, this will be less of a "storage/drop-off" area and have a second television and comfy pull-out couch to act as a kid's media area that doubles as a guest room.

XXXXXXXX

Before

Current

Again, we've done nothing to the basement. The walls were painted by the previous owners while it was still on the market, but after the pics had been taken. Thank you, previous homeowners!  We need more shelves and I need to finish sorting the clothes out. I actually need to just donate or sell all of them since we're 95% done having kids but I can't bring myself to do it yet. 

We have come SO INCREDIBLY far - there are even changes you can't even see in the pics, like two of the toilets have been replaced (or maybe you really ARE that observant?) and we took the remotes out of fans and replaced a bazillion light bulbs with LED ones and stuff like that. But there is 

still.

so.

much.

to.

do.

Sigh. Like I said above, my number one goal is the family room flooring. We added a rug and that helped a ton, but getting the dark engineered wood from the dining room will really be a huge change in that room.  Then the rest of the flooring can stay for a little while while I turn my attention to other things. Chandeliers. Light fixtures. Painting the trim in the upstairs bedrooms. Painting OUR bedroom. Painting our bathroom. Replacing the rest of the door handles. But our list of things "to do" is getting smaller and smaller, and our crossed-out list amazes even me (I did like a crap ton of it by myself and have the sore back to prove it...but I still can't believe it!). Slowly but surely, we're getting there. 

(someday I'll finish this post)