Little Devils

I believe I mentioned to you all that we had a Halloween party to go to this year besides ours. I wasn't sure if I wanted to Snooki it up again or go a different route. I felt rather large and in charge with my Snooki costume and while it was fun, the piles of make-up I also had to use to get the full effect just didn't seem appealing to apply for a second go around.

The party had a "Montster Mash" theme and you don't have to dress theme accordingly but most do or try. Mark had thought he wanted to do a zombie because he figured that would be cheap. Just put on some fake scars and make-up with regular clothes. Once he got the looking he decided it might take more work than he wanted and he decided on a devil. I was pleased with this decision because even though we don't have to dress in similar fashion...we rarely have in past Halloweens...I kind of liked it this year. Maybe I'm just more needy since pregnant. Anyways, I was pleased because I just so happened to have a bright red maternity dress and all I really had to buy was horns. I also splurged the $6 for a trident too.

Mark's horns plus Spirit Gum to hold them on cost less than $10 so we both rocked our costumes for under $20. One of our old room mates had left a shirt perfect for Mark's costume and he wore back pants.

My belly looks HUGE in this picture!

Giedo photo bombed each picture!

Lovin' eachother!

I like Marks horns.

I love this one! Mark makes me laugh.

Family photo.

Giedo wanted to be in all the photos until we wanted him to be.

We had a good time at the party. I made caprese skewers and they lasted all of about 20 minutes. There was some other good food too but I didn't graze too much. I sipped on water throughout the night and we left around 11:30pm. We didn't know a lot of people there this year but we still had fun. Mark got to catch up with some of his old work people and I pretty much hung out with my friend Chelsea.

I am not going to lie, it was slightly depressing seeing some other the other girls with awesome bodies rocking tiny costumes and looking amazing in them but I just had to remind myself that I was pregnant and I'll be there again some day. On that same note, I did feel really cute. It was fun to wear some heels, I thought my dress was flattering, and I was digging my hair and make-up so over all I felt pretty good about myself.

That was our last Halloween party of the season and I have officially made it through one of my most favorite times of the year without a single cocktail. I also really enjoyed myself and had some really fun times this October. I was so certain life would come to a screeching halt once pregnant but, good news, it doesn't.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Danielle

Changing Table

Mark and I got a changing table from a second hand store. This was after I won my crib and dresser from Baby Bloomers so we had plans for it from the very start. I wanted to get started on it right away and because of my rush the project took longer than expected. Below is what we started with and the idea was to paint the door red and get some red baskets to go on the shelves. I immediately bought red paint, Valspar Cut Ruby to be exact. It took about 4 coats on the door to cover. I had several apple baskets at work so I brought 3 home and spray painted them the Cut Ruby as well. On a side note, do not spray paint when preggo. It's not healthy. I did because I was impatient, I did it out side so it was well ventilated but either way...just don't do it. I wouldn't do it again. 

The before of the white changing table.

Before of the baskets.

Next I should be showing you the after but yet I still have the between to tell you about. My Cut Ruby color did not match our dresser & crib that was on order. I brought the paint swatch to Baby Bloomers along with a few others and did match one with it as close as I could get w/o asking our crib manufacturer for their extra paint.

Back to painting, I painted the baskets, Mark painted the door....another 3 coats by the way!

Painting the baskets again.

2 coats to cover.

After we finished our baskets and door we reassembled then thing and LOVED the way it looked. Until....we moved it into the bedroom. Eli's room was freshly painted with a beautiful white coat on all the trim and doors. The room looked so amazing that our 2nd hand changing table looked...eh...not so great. What looked like white to us ended up looking like a dirty off white. Would Eli care...no...would we care...yes. Haha, it's so silly but we have some other white & red furniture coming and we want it all to match. Back to Lowes to buy more paint. White this time. Mark painted the whole thing white.

It was his idea to paint it white. So he was a trooper.

I thought we could just give it a good scrub and it might be ok.

Yes...my husband still sits like he is 3 occasionally. :)

After the fresh coat of white paint, 2 coats, it looked 100x's better. It was so worth the extra hour of work to really get it perfected. I love that the top that holds the changing pad can be removed so in the future we can refurbish this into something else as well. So...here is the (almost) final product.

Our refurbished changing table!

I just love it! I said almost final project because I want to add some felt to the bottom of the baskets so they don't scratch or rub off on the white paint. I also want to add yellow basket liners to the baskets and perhaps a little yellow banner or ribbon around each one. Our main colors are the blue, red, plus the white but some yellow will be incorporated here and there as well. Our theme could get a little crazy so I still want to keep it simple. And speaking of theme....there's a pretty good clue below.

Now we just need to get Giedo on board with all this baby stuff.

Danielle

Painting the Nursery

We worked very hard on our guest bedroom. We painted it and it took about 3 coats of paint and still isn't perfect. We also dripped paint on the carpet, got paint on the ceiling and the trim. I was exhausted by the end of it and it wasn't that fun. Don't get me wrong, I love walking by our guest room and where we messed up with our paint job is hardly noticeable with furniture in there and all.

This got us thinking about Eli's room. We were going to take our time with his room and make sure it was perfect. We were going to do a good job taping things off, protecting the floor, we would use a primer and Google the most perfect paint job techniques online. After we spent about $100 on paint supplies and a few hours getting our game plan together we both looked at each other....are we REALLY going to take our time?  Are we REALLY not going to get tired or rush to finish.

The answer was a very simple no. We are both impatient. We are not one to pay extreme attention to detail. We both just knew that once we started we would want it done asap. We started kicking around the idea of hiring someone and that really appealed to us both. Like...a lot. We wondered if we would be depriving ourselves of the full nursery building experience if we handed this job over to someone else and the answer was also a very simple no. Trust me their are plenty of projects in this nursery that we will be a big part of. So a few phone calls and 3 days later we had our nursery painted to absolute perfection. Let's start with before...

Tan, immediately after room mate left.

Tan room.

 The day we had the painter come and look at the room he filled in all the holes in the wall to prep it for his paint 2 days later. Oh yeah...filling in the holes is something we forgot all about.

He filled holes I didn't even realize were there! (Is that what she said? Haha, let's hope not)

Apparently there where a lot of holes...and again, we didn't even notice.

So as you can see, there were a lot of holes that needed filling. We didn't even get hole filler much less plan to use it on 100 different spots around the room. Reason 56 why we are amateurs and should leave the painting to the professional. We also didn't have plans on painting the trim or the doors but this guy did and it make a world of difference. Think about the last time the trim was painted in your home or the doors. They probably get the dirtiest too and while a good scrub helps it's nothing like a fresh coat of paint.

It took him about 4 hours to get the entire thing done when he come back to paint. I peaked in when he took a restroom break and snapped these "during" photos.

A drop cloth.

A ladder.

A roller and bucket.

I loved the color immediately but he wasn't done yet.

 I was looking for the magic dust this guy must have on him because apparently it only took him two coats and that was with the same kind of paint we used in our guest room. I also wondered what kind of magic dust he had to not get a single tiny DROP on the ceiling. If my dad were reading this he would be highly upset that I am using the words magic dusts so let me just clarify...this guy had skills that a normal person just doesn't have. Lot's of experience and the fact that this is his profession made him SO much better than your average joe at painting the room. You may think we wasted our money but let me just say, this was my favorite $200 spent thus far. And...after....

The walls are just so smooth looking!

The door is bright white, a long with the trim.

So beautiful!

I can't wait until Eli's furniture gets here so we can put all the details into this room but it really is a perfect canvas to work with right now. These pictures were before Mark steam cleaned the carpet so that helped too.

We love the color for our boy. It's so bright and cheery and I think it will last him quite sometime.

Danielle

Motley Halloween Party

Our party has come and gone already and typically we don't have it until the last weekend in October. We had so much fun. Although we had a blast I have to admit that throwing a party is hard work. You saw our Halloween decorations and that was done well before but there's also a lot of effort that goes into making drinks, cleaning, prepping the kitchen, and whatever else.

That work also gets doubled when you put things off like, decorating the entire outside, until the last minute. Then...the day of the party, when you and your husband are supposed to finish up he gets stuck at work until an hour before the party starts and your pregnant behind is left with a to do list a mile long after your own busy work day and you can't even have a darn cocktail to take the edge off. Well, no problem there because I am super woman and all.

The house was done in time but I was exhausted by the time the party started and I still had to get all Snookified and in party mode...and again, that's much more difficult without the cocktail but I managed. I got in a festive party mood, passed out jello shots galore, chatted it up with friends, showed off a few dance moves, and over all enjoyed myself and I think others did as well.

Ladies!

Giedo is always ready to party!

Our party in general was smaller and much quieter than normal which I can't say was too disappointing to me this year. Some how, despite this being the quietest, calmest party we have ever had the cops (for the first time ever) got called on us and we were threatened with a noise ticket. Looking back I sort of wish I had spoken more to the cop about it. For starters there was no way it could have gotten quieter. We were all talking in normal voices and music was being played at about the level you might keep your TV on.

Ridiculous, but you know what they say, "You know you had a good party when the cops get called". Our party started at 9 and that happened at about 1:30 so everyone left about then which, in my preggo opinion was good timing. We've been known to have our party lasting until almost sunset, ick!

So that about covers the Motley Halloween Party 2012 preggo style. I made it and I enjoyed it!

Danielle

Guest Room

As I mentioned in an earlier post Mark and I have had room mates ever since we bought our house 3.5 years ago. They all moved out recently and I was anxious to make the extra bedrooms nice. We have 3 bedrooms besides our own and they were completely empty after the room mates left. That didn't last long though and we have already completed...or mostly completed our guest bedroom.

There will probably be a few things we will add to this room here and there but for the mean time it is complete. We finished it up before our Halloween party and may have my grandmother staying in it for Thanksgiving. It would be nice to use our guest room for a guest.

Here are some before and afters of our guest room. It started off a very dark pinkish color. At one point it was a mustard yellow and when we had a room mate swap it got painted a dark pink and I have no idea why we choose that color  but anyways, it is now a bright cheery yellow.

BEFORE

The pink and awful cheap brown satiny curtains. Yikes!

DURING

Peach Tickle from Valspar.

It took about 3 coats, this is after one. 

AFTER

We got some curtains and a quilt from Wal-Mart. We never shop there but wanted to finish up and it was 10pm so they were all that was open selling curtains and bedding. 

We moved Marks Jim Booth picture to the room and it goes PERFECT! 

I'm also pleased that this coat rack fits well with the room because I didn't have a spot for it and I did not want to get rid of it. 

Giedo approves. :) 

The little rainbow row picture looks a tad small for this space so I may be adding some stuff around it soon. 

Note the awesome lamp to the bottom right. It's a touch lamp...ohhhh yeaaaahhh!

So the guest room is complete and we just love it. The pictures make it look just a tad brighter than it really is. We finished up late at night and Mark and I both got up first thing this morning to look at it and ooohhh and aaawwww. It's just nice to have a clean spacious room that you enjoy looking at and that doesn't get cluttered with every day living. 

Paint color was Peach Tickle from Valspar, we spent about $100 on painting supplies. Bedding w/ sheets & curtains cost us just under $100. The boxes stacked and looking like suit cases I bought for keepsakes and just moved the from another room (more on them later), and every single other thing including the furniture was passed down from either my family or Marks. I think mostly mine except the awesome touch lamp. :) So our guest room cost us about $200. I'll take it!

Danielle