Christmastime's a Comin'

We picked out our tree on the 11th. Adia's choice in trees has gotten smaller each year and that's perfectly ok with me. I'm sure she'll be trying to get huge ones soon enough. We came home and decorated it. I put the lights on and she did everything else. The majority of our ornaments are either plastic or cloth so I knew she couldn't break anything and the twins couldn't get hurt from them. Surprisingly enough, Adia's been the only real problem with the tree. Leia investigated it the first night and since then, she's left it alone.









Gramma and Papa had their Christmas Party last weekend too so we headed to the coast. Daddy was actually able to join us. Gramma had gluten free crackers and brownies and we made gluten free m&m cookies. Papa also made gluten free cinnamon raisin/craisin bread. The girls loved it, but Adia told him to leave the craisins out next time. Leia started picking them out and handing them to me even though she LOVES craisins. I guess she doesn't think they belong in bread either. The girls were great with all the people and Mira even started flirting with some of them. They were good about all the Christmas decorations. Mira quickly learned how to use one of the trains and Leia preferred the more complicated one. Once again, our biggest issue was Adia trying to play house with Gramma's Christmas villages.










The twins had fun pestering the cat. The cat actually seems to really like the attention, but accidentally scratched Adia and Leia. Adia had been trying to play with the cat with a cat toy and she got too close. She was hysterical, but Daddy calmed her and washed off the scratch. Leia got slightly scratched when the cat gently put her paw on Leia's shoulder and Leia pulled away. She was startled, but not really injured.








We had a few hilarious moments while we were there too. To keep the twins entertained since most of their toys had been put away for the party, Papa hooked bells on them. Mira thought it was the coolest thing ever and was dancing around the house, jingling. When Leia saw Mira, she wanted to do it too. He hooked the bells in the back of her pants like a tail and she started spinning in circles. It was hilarious. She so reminded us of a dog chasing its tail. It was just too funny. She would then dance around some more just to hear the jingling. When it was time to take the bells off, she started screaming.

The girls are still enjoying all their new room. They skate and play and slide around on the laminate floor. Adia pretends it's her skating rink.










On the rare occasion the twins aren't trapped in the playroom, they like taking my kitchen apart. They really like the kitchen cart. I only put stuff in it they can play with and not break so they like taking it all out and putting it back. They think the door on it is a lot of fun too.














Mostly the girls have just been playing and discovering toys they haven't seen in awhile.






Adia and I have made cookies quite a few times. We made chocolate chip last week and tonight we made gingerbread cookies. We're decorating tomorrow. She says she can't wait.






We're still working on the house too, but we had an unexpected problem pop up last week. I noticed some water in front of the dishwasher and when I wiped it up, it didn't just dry up. I pushed on the floor in front of the dishwasher and more water appeared. When I opened the dishwasher, there was a ton of standing water and I knew something was up. I left a towel on the floor that night because Gramma and Papa would be there in the morning and Papa said he'd look at it. Well, apparently our dishwasher had something really wrong with it and it had been leaking for quite a long time. It ruined 10 boards of laminate flooring! Papa had to carefully remove a big chunk that he had recently installed and figure out how to reinstall new flooring. It was horrible. They also bought us a new dishwasher for Christmas. So, while it's awesome to have a new dishwasher, it meant that he didn't get to finish the projects he had hoped to finish that day. Another bonus, the kitchen now smells even less like cat. Once we had the dishwasher outside, we discovered it smelled really really bad!

Wordless Wednesday

Girls Meet Santa

My kids never cease to amaze me. Adia has been asking for weeks to get a picture with Santa so today, when we were at the mall, I thought we could certainly attempt it. I even brought along coordinating sweaters for the girls. We had a short wait in line and when it was time, Adia stopped dead in her tracks. We coaxed her up next to Santa, but she wasn't going to smile or talk. Mira, however, jumped out of the stroller and climbed right up next to him. She thought he was awesome looked thrilled. Leia, well, was Leia. She freaked. She clung to me and wanted nothing to do with him. We did the drop and duck technique. I dropped her on his lap, he held on tight and I ducked out of the way. Seconds after the picture was taken, she went limp noodle and slid right off his lap. Yep, that's Leia. She did the same exact thing when DiDi tried to hold her on Halloween for a picture.

Updates

We're still working hard, or I should say Papa is. We have a fully functional master bathroom now. New vanity, sink and mirrors. It looks amazing and it's hard to believe it's the same bathroom.










Papa still has some work to do on the 2nd bathroom. It's thrown us a few curve balls for sure. He has to get creative to hook up the pedestal sink to the existing plumbing and for some weird reason the toilet tank is now leaking. Then there comes the issue of the door not opening or closing properly, but the floor looks awesome and the shower works. I wish the pictures were better, but I actually haven't peeked in there since Papa first put the toilet back in. I'll have to take some better pictures tomorrow.








We have new french doors too. You can immediately tell the difference when you're next to them. Not more cool breeze! They look awesome and change the whole feel of the room too. I can't wait until the trim is up. They, too, were a pain to install. What Papa thought would take a few hours turned into an all day project. He had to trim the floor, restretch some carpet, it was just one thing after another, but they look amazing now.





The kitchen is pretty much the last room that has a ton of boxes in it even though those boxes don't really belong there. I did start hanging pictures and we're really trying to be unpacked by this weekend... or at least appear to be.





The unpacking and picture hanging would have gone smoother the last few days if I hadn't sliced my right palm open on a can lid. Papa drove me to the ER and we spent 3.5 hours there, nearly 2hrs waiting to be called back and the last 30min waiting to be discharged. The nurse numbed my hand (truly the worst part of the whole thing) and then scrubbed the cut. So glad I was numb for that since I was no longer numb by the time the doctor started stitching over a hour later! By that point I didn't care that I could feel each stitch (it was only 5), I just didn't want to go through the numbing again and I just wanted to go home. The nurse who bandaged me up afterward was really surprised when I winced as he was scrubbing off the blood. Apparently the numbing stuff is supposed to last at least 4 hours. Nope, sorry. I felt it all. Adia was worried about me and stayed up until we got home. She was so tired that she fell asleep, head propped on her hand, watching DuckTales.






Despite a not so fun week, we did have fun last weekend. Adia spent time with DiDi. All the girls miss her since she's farther away now. We spent the day at her house on Sunday and even went for a walk.


Adia's also had some good daddy time lately. He's taken her out jogging in the jogging stroller the last couple times he's gone. She really likes it, even though it's chilly.




And the twins are still enjoying the new place. They both slept through the night in their beds last night. I have my fingers crossed that they do it again tonight.

We've moved...

no, really, we have. All our stuff is now in our new home, of course, new is being used as a relative term. It's new to us, but very much NOT new at all. We picked up the keys on the 17th and it's been one project after another since. We honestly didn't remember how bad it was inside or how horrible it smelled. When we opened the door, it nearly knocked us over, but we've managed to mostly annihilate the odor except in a few places where it keeps popping up. I will say that I will NEVER EVER own an inside cat. I might actually hate cats now and if I don't hate them, I certainly hate bad cat owners who let their cats pee everywhere.

Our first project had to be the kitchen floor. It was the biggest job to do and where most of the odor was coming from. Daddy ripped up the parquet floor and the smell was overpowering. I couldn't even been in the same half of the house it was so strong. Papa eventually sanded it down and we sprayed Kilz over the worst places. The floor was actually still damp in some places and no one's lived here for almost a year! I think Daddy's going to actually burn the flip flops he wore to do most of the demolition.









Of course, as with everything in this house, when you start one thing, you discover 10 more things that need to be done to complete the original job. Once Papa moved the stove out of it's location, we discovered a hole in the floor that had been haphazardly "sealed" with a disposable pie tin. Needless to say, it wasn't doing its job. You could see where rats/mice had chewed through parts of it and attempted to bring cat food back under the house. There was also a second hole, where the electrical for the stove went and was "sealed" with a tin can lid. Once again, not effective and actually quite dangerous. That was just the floor, we also saw burnt, taped wires on one side and more wires on the other side. Papa soon discovered a live wire pushed back into the cabinet!






Before we had bought the house, the carpet had been replaced and they kept the carpet in the dining room. With 3 small children, we knew carpet wasn't a smart idea so we decided to replace the kitchen floor through the dining room with laminate flooring. When Papa pulled back the carpet, we discovered a few more nasty cat pee places, including the opening to the 2nd bathroom. Our 2nd bathroom was soon completely gutted, to Daddy's dismay. He hopes to never have to remove the wax seal on a toilet again. It was pretty gross.







While Papa, Uncle Eck and Daddy were busy tearing the place apart, Gramma and Mommy were busy painting everything. We did Adia's room first because I had big plans for it. I originally wanted to do purple stripes, but after spending 1 hour taping off one wall, I decided we'd do 1 wall stripes and the other 3 polka dots. The end result was amazing. I absolutely love love love Adia's room. Her white bed frame looks great in it too.





We painted the twins' room a light lime green. It's almost the same color as granny smith apples. They have teal curtains and 2 twin beds almost on the ground. They don't really have any furniture though because they didn't have any in the apartment.







We then began painting the rest of the house a buttery yellow. It's a gorgeous color and only needed 1 coat. Gramma started in the kitchen and while trying to tape everything off, she noticed the strong cat pee odor in a couple corners. Papa pried off the wooden backsplash and the smell got worse. The white walls were stained, particularly around a plug in. The plug in was so corroded from cat pee that when Papa removed it, it disintegrated in his hands. That was another location that had to be thoroughly coated with Kilz spray. It also led to another run to the home improvement store to pick out tile for a new back splash.Papa also had to remove part of the cabinets around where the fridge needed to go so we could put in a new fridge.





Adia helped paint the last bit of our entry way yellow. She didn't last long, but she had fun. She also stuck her hand in the wet paint a few times. It was actually pretty funny. She'd absentmindedly put a hand against the wall while painting with the other.









The master bedroom was the last bedroom to be painted. I will never use that kind of paint again. It was awful going on the wall and definitely needed 2 coats. It also turned out much darker than I thought it was going to be. Luckily, it coordinates well with our curtains, comforter and lamp. That room is still a disaster though. It's going to take some time to put everything away in there.

The last rooms we have to paint are the bathrooms. Gramma painted the 2nd bathroom yesterday since it's gutted and Papa was getting ready to lay the marble floor.The color turned out much more vibrant and green than I thought it was going to be, but it will look great with the brown shower curtain and mat I picked out. The master bathroom is half painted, but we still have to replace the vanity and get the mirror off the wall. Neither will be an easy task. Whoever installed that stuff seems to have used liquid nails so we're probably going to have to re-plaster most of the wall.






Papa and Daddy still need to install the french doors (I'm guessing this weekend) where the slider is now. The slider isn't properly installed or sealed so you can feel the cold breeze coming from it. I've hung thermal curtains over almost all the windows in the house and the instant difference in amazing. I highly recommend them. The chocolatey brown ones in the dining room are gorgeous. I still have 3 windows that need curtains though.



Next up will be unpacking, unpacking and more unpacking. The kitchen is unpacked, but there's still boxes everywhere and I expect some to stay for a bit because we have limited furniture. I guess that happens when you go from 875 sq ft to 1845 sq ft. I'm still trying to figure out how we fit all our stuff in such a small place before. I do know the girls definitely love all the extra room. They have their own playroom that's the size of our old living room. We can also baby gate both entrances to it and they can see us, but not get into too much trouble. Their picnic table has come back out of storage and sits in the kitchen. The twins love eating breakfast and lunch there. They actually sit and eat instead of trying to run away.






I plan on taking after pictures when we're done unpacking or at least almost done unpacking. Right now Adia's room is mostly boxes. I haven't even had a chance to put all her books back in her bookcase.