For Darlene, Dwayne’s Mother

Darlene sent me this cute “It’s a Boy” shirt from Brazil just after we learned he was a he (as Kyla insisted it would be). She has missed seeing my progression, so here are the pictures of baby and I at about 34 weeks along. About a month to go!

I’d like to make a bunch of excuses for how I look—it’s late at night, I had been cleaning and organizing all evening, my back hurt, I had a cold…, and while all that is true, I am just beginning to accept the truth. Having grown into my looks fairly late (mid-20ths), and I now losing them quickly just ten years later. Sigh.

Bathtime

Piper is 22 months old and Kyla over 3 years. They are so funny, especially when they play together instead of fight. (Sometimes I think Piper provokes just so she can say ‘sury’ and give Kyla a hug.)

And Unto Us A Star Is Born!

Kyla was in her first Christmas pageant this year. The preschoolers stood on stage in their costumes, occasionally mouthed a word or two, and eventually, Kyla just sat down, inspiring two of her peers to do so as well. As always, the kids’ overall cuteness far outshined any talent, but the parents got a kick out of it.

Kyla in the blue “green room”, before the big show.

Sitting down on the job.

Kyla in her Christmas dress. Piper in hers.

Sarah and I have the same due date and found ourselves wearing matching outfits, so we didn’t waste the photo opportunity!

Piper’s New Room!

Well, it is still a bit brighter than I was going for, but the room matches Piper’s mostly sunny disposition. This was a former office that is now her own room—with her own big kid bed, which she has slept in just fine since we moved her into it a few days ago. It is still a novelty for Kyla and Piper to play in this room together.

The beginning of the remodel. The office had a lighter color to complement the deep green lower wall. The ancient map wallpaper had to be removed with some scrubbing, but not too bad. The worst part about the remodel was all the heavy furniture we had—and I couldn’t move. There was also a large island of boxes just holding stuff. I’ve gone through most of it now, and am pleased to announce that I have gotten rid of a good chunk of it!

The room before we moved anything into it. I like the clean yellow and white.

Since then, I have put up cloud decals and furniture around the room. It’s fairly charming.

Snowflake Lane

The local mall has a fantastic winter tradition of Snowflake Lane. Every night in December, at 7pm, dozens upon dozens of toy soldier drummers and majorettes and polar bears, etc, come out to entertain us all with holiday music and soap bubble snow. The girls loved it almost as much as I did, and my back hurt pretty badly after all the jumping up and down Kyla and I did. The other picture was taken outside of Santa’s toyshop, where instead of waiting in line for pictures with Santa, we took advantage of his well-decorated workshop!

Great-Grandma

I have one grandparent left, and I have produced her only great-grandchildren thus far. She lives down in Oregon, so we don’t see her often. In fact, it took me the last 11 months to recover from the last time I took the girls down to Portland, sans Dwayne. This time, Dwayne joined us and we had a wonderful weekend, even if we only spent a little time with Grandma.

Our New Office

This is the project that actually came out mostly has I had envisioned.

This used to be the extra “empty” room—a place to store all sorts of junk, even if it wasn’t junk before it was thrown in here.

To make it a permanent office, Dwayne took out the closet. We were able to reuse the closet organizer Keith, our former housemate, built in Piper’s new room. Then we hired a drywaller to fix the walls and ceiling left bare from the closet removal.

Then I had to cover the deep blue accent walls with two coats of primer, as well as test colors. I quickly decided NOT to sponge or faux texture to get the Tuscan look I wanted.

I finally settled on this color, Summer’s End, to match the mural we decided to put up. I love the rich orange of this color—it has managed to be both warm and bright in our darkish room.

Then Dwayne and I spent one evening putting up this 8 panel mural. Notice the arches and balustrades?

The next day, the rug was removed and the laminate “hardwood” floors were installed. (We hired out two of the projects that I am sure I could have done on my own, but I had no shame in playing the pregnancy card this time. I would not have gotten the floor done in 3 hours one morning as our installer did.)

Once the floor was in, we were able to bring in the desk we found on Craigslist. I love the idea of having just one large, functional piece of furniture with a few chairs. My brother cut the trim one morning when he had some time to kill, and I was able to finish the rest of the trim and touch up work, and decorate. My favorite part? I carefully went through everything we put back in the office—if we didn’t use it, we got rid of it! Oh, and the fern. I love the fern.