New dining room

The new floors that we are now enjoying has sparked a variety of improvement projects around the house that we are most proud of. When better to clean out and clean up than when you have to empty the majority of your house? While we are gradually getting finishing touches put back up on the walls and shelves, we are extremely happy with our new dining room. We felt like our old dining room set was not as kid friendly as we need, and it kind of filled up our little dining room space. The table has not been set up for over a year, and the chairs have been living in the basement to allow for more play space in that area. We don't have a play room or a den, so we do all of our living in the living room, and that includes play. While we have been without a dining room table, we've been doing all of our eating around our little bitty kitchen table. And that is fine and good for breakfast and small lunches, but dinner time would be so much better at a proper table. Especially in the event that we want to have guests.

So, we placed our old dining room table, chairs, and buffet/hutch in a local consignment store, and we have replaced them with the following items:

a pedestal table and two cross back chairs from Ikea
two long benches that I found at the Mission Thrift and Joe sanded and painted
a series of shelves in the place of the hutch.

Having that hutch out of there has really freed up a lot of space, and the pedestal table paired with the benches cuts down on too many table and chair legs that tend to fill up a space. We also removed the old, out of date light fixture that has been in there for so long, and we replaced it with a lower profile, modern fixture (also from Ikea). The old green rug was removed and replaced with some randomly placed, small round rugs. Why would we cover up those gorgeous floors? I still want to make cushions for the chairs and benches, but for now, we could not be happier with our new room.

Now, for before and after pictures.....I don't have any good befores. We have been clearing the rooms all summer, so it has been in a series of disrepair for quite some time, so I never got a really great, bona fide before shot. The best I can find are from old parties, so please enjoy the shots below from last year's Christmas party. Let's hope my friends in the pictures don't kill me for putting these images on the inter-webs. (but it's a great test to see who is and is not reading my beloved blog!!)



I know it's hard to see, but both pics show the dining room set and the light fixture. Ok....you've probably skipped all this explanation just to see the goods. So here ya go:



So, whaddya think? Good? Wanna come eat supper sometime?

Please help me.....

Do you see the fearful look in her eyes? She is right to be afraid. Very afraid......

4th of July....a little late....

I mentioned in a previous post that we were terribly lucky to spend the 4th of July on Lake Harding at the Shack, which is the old family vacation home of our friend Race. He and my oldest BFF Heather invited us for an overnight visit. We headed over there with babies and ice cream fixins in tow on Saturday the 4th prepared for a weekend of fun, which is precisely what we got. We were joined by plenty of friends and family, which is as it should be for such a great holiday. The pictures are all candids, and they aren't all that accurate to all the tons of fun we had in our short 24 hour visit, but we got some great action shots!

Tumbling

Tumbling class is the highlight of Jacks Dyer's week. During the school year, he takes tumbling at his day care with Mr. Frank, who owns a local gymnastics studio (Premier) and he is gracious enough to come up to day care with a plethora of safe equipment for toddlers to learn to balance and roll and whatever toddlers do at tumbling class. But, this summer, Frank's son Marc (who also works at Drake with me), has held a small tumbling class at Premier for a handful of teacher's kids. Going to the actual gym is so much better because of all the fun trampolines and padded mats and other equipment that the kids can play on there.
Usually, I take Jacks to his summer time tumbling group with Nealy strapped to my chest or in her stroller. And I tend to gossip with the other mothers or check my blackberry while Jacks plays. When Joe goes to tumbling class, it is a different story. He plays on every piece of equipment and does everything the kids do. He is basically the oldest member of the tumbling class. For every really silly thing Joe does, my friend Mandi says something like, "Hey, that's YOUR husband," or, "Dude, you married him." Yes, yes, Joe may look like a fool, but every good daddy looks like a fool every once in a while for the sake of his kids. And I'm glad he does, because Jacks has a BALL at tumbling with Joe.

Boys in a bathtub

Our friends the Cannons came over for supper the other night, and we had the best time we have ever had with any company we have ever had over ever. EVER! After we all ate delicious steaks, meatballs, potatoes, cakes, and ice cream, we threw the kids in the tub for a bath. The Cannon twins are a few weeks older than Jacks, so we attempted to get tub pictures of the three of them. However, these are the worst pictures ever. It was steamy in the bathroom, and none of the boys would look at me at the same time, and Jacks insisted on splashing everyone the whole time. So I was fearful for the life of my super precious tiny camera.


Unfortunately, we didn't get any other pictures of the evening. But, it was only because we were too busy having so much fun to remember to pull out the camera. Sometimes, not taking any pictures is a good thing.

Nealy and Ryan meet again

Jenny brought her sweetest Ryan Lily over the other day for a visit. We had a ball!!! These girls are really starting to interact with one another. You know how babies do - chewing on each other's arms or poking each other's eyes out. You know - good fun!!


Ryan and her parents are about to live just around the corner, so we are hoping that she can come and visit all the time now!!!

Beautiful Babies

My friend Leah and her husband Brian were flying through Alabama on their way back to South Carolina after a very quick visit to Pensacola to retrieve their children from Leah's mother, but they were good enough to stop in for a quick bite of lunch and a visit with us. Got all that? Anyway, Joe took pictures of their gorgeous children with hopes that he will find time to draw their portraits.
Can you believe how beautiful these children are? Ah.....take my breath away!
Thank you to Leah and Brian for stopping by. We wish you could have stayed much longer. There never is enough time with good friends, is there?

Play date

My friend Brandy came over the other night with her little girl Annabelle for a little playing (for the kids) and wine (for the mamas). Jacks Dyer cannot resist a pretty girl. Watch out ladies. He is unstoppable.

Idea

So, Nealy is getting close to 4 months old. And they say that 4 months is the age to start your baby on rice cereal. Well, Nealy is a pretty big girl, and I've been putting cereal in her night time bottles for a little over a week, so I thought it would be a great idea to try to feed her some cereal.

Fail.

Content

Fun with zee wee bebe

Just sittin' around, mindin' my own.....

Wait, what did you say?

What? Are you trying to be funny?

Ok, I guess that was funny!!

he he he.....

hoo hoo ha!!!
Ok, we're done here.

Cool tats, man

Jacks's friend Annabelle brought him her pirate goody bag that she got from a birthday party but wasn't interested in. There were temporary tattoos inside. After we ran through those tats, Jacks was ever so disappointed. So, he and Joe went out Sunday afternoon in search of tattoos, which they found en masse at Big Lots - the land of bizarre treasures. The more tattoos Jacks gets, the tougher he gets. As you can tell from the surly sneer.
Damn, that boy's tough.
Here is his reinactment of that scene in Cape Fear when Robert Deniro does those upside down sit ups......
It doesn't get much tougher than that, man.

New Floors

So I'm a little anxious to post about our floors, but I'm still not totally prepared for this post. I haven't gotten any sufficient 'after' pictures, and I never got any after pictures when the rooms were empty. Now I'm kicking myself a little, but not that much. It's not like I missed one of my kids doing something monumental, it's just freakin' floors already!!!
Okay, I'll start at the beginning. When we moved into this house many years ago, we ripped out the wall to wall carpeting that my Grandmama had installed in the 80's. At that time, the floors really should have been redone, but I didn't have the means or the wherewithal to figure out how to make that happen at the age of 22. So the floors were put on the "someday" list, and they slowly continued to erode over the years from use. Until one day recently when I could hardly stand to look at them for one more minute. I mean, I have original hardwoods - white oak - they should be gorgeous! Instead I have this discolored, rough, worn mess all over my house. We contacted several floor guys, and we settled on the nicest man with the best price. He said he could start two weeks from the time we met, so that gave us two weeks to clear out the house and find somewhere to live. It was decided that if he started on a Monday, we could move back in on the following Saturday.
Plans began to take shape. We ordered a mobile attic pod thing that landed in the front yard 24 hours later. We called our friend Joe over at Two Men and a Truck to arrange for boxes and muscle. Our friends Pete and Katie offered us Pete's parents apartment that they keep in Auburn for long term visits. The new furniture consignment store picked up our old dining room set that we have been looking to sell. Within the two weeks, our living room, dining room, foyer, hallway, master bedroom, and all the closets in those areas were completely emptied (we did not have the kids' rooms done - too much at this time). And I mean EMPTIED. We removed the pictures from the walls and the curtains from the windows. The books and knick knacks were boxed up, and the jewelry and silver was securely hidden. Then began the massive exodus across town to the apartment.
Those of you with babies know what a major deal it can be to travel anywhere. You can't just pack a bag and run out the door - there are tons of things involved. There's bottles, diapers, wipes, port-a-crib, sheets, blankets, formula, breast pump, bath tub, and on and on and on..... And that's not including anything we needed for Jacks! We needed to be sure to get his swim toys, sun screen, dvd's, important toys, and so on.... The move was kind of major. Once the floors got started, there was no going in the house to retrieve anything. We mostly filled laundry baskets with everything we needed, there there were duffle bags and totes. All in all I think it took Joe about 8 trips to and from the car to get everything in and out. I tried to travel light, but it became too difficult. It was almost easier to take everything. After all, whatever we took was one less thing to pack up and store for the floor duration.
After being in the apartment for a couple of days, we packed up and headed to Lake Harding for the 4th of July. Our dearest of dear friends Heather and Race have a lake house over there called the Shack. Race's family built the Shack in the 20s, and it is full of history and memories. They have completely renovated that house recently so that they can live out there full time while building their house in Opelika. We ate barbecue and flag cake and homemade ice cream. We swam in the lake and took a late afternoon boat ride. We watched as Race and Heather's dad shot fireworks off of the dock. All in all it was a fabulous holiday. Then it was time to load up and haul the group of us back to the apartment.
At this point in the process, I felt like a band of gypsies moving from place to place but never settling down. And more than that, I was homesick!! The apartment was so nice and lovely, but I wanted to go home. But, the week had not even begun. I was miserably homesick on Sunday evening, and the floors didn't even begin to be worked on until the next morning.
Over the next week it was determined that Two Men would move us back in the house. After watching the guys move us out, we were pretty sure that most of our furniture was way too heavy for either of us to handle. We booked them for Monday the 12th - one week to the day from the start date on the floors. It was two days later than the day we could actually move back in, but do you think I'm paying weekend rates? Hell no......this thing was already ballooning into a major financial burden, and my parents were even helping us out!
So, after all that, we are slowly getting our house back to normal with one exception. Normally, our floors were atrocious beyond belief. That has changed. They are now amazingly gorgeous. I cannot get over it. Many of you will come into my house and never notice a single change. So, for those of you who think floors aren't that big a deal, check out the pics below. The difference is amazing to me.

Here are some before shots - notice the darkened spots where the finish was completely worn away.....And these after shots aren't so great - they were taken with my phone after the first coat of polyurethane. Plus I couldn't get good angles because I was confined to the kitchen - no walking on wet floors!!!! But it gives you a good idea of how they look now....

Overall, our experience wasn't so bad. We were so lucky to get so much help from our friends, but transporting ourselves with an infant and a toddler along with all of our stuff all over town became a little difficult. And we couldn't behave as if we were totally on vacation - we had swim lessons to make, doctors appointments to keep - life must go on.

We are making several changes to the house in the organization of things and the layout of the rooms. So, I'll be sure to post some better pictures of our new and improved rooms soon. I will say this - Clean House on the Style Network is the greatest show EVER!! We watched hours and hours of that show while we were at the apartment (it seems like it's always on!), and it has served as inspiration to declutter and streamline our house. I hope the improvements make a difference!!
One person who doesn't love the new floors is Jacks. He liked this house so much more when it was empty with bad floors, because he was free to do most anything in here.
Dorothy hit the nail on the head when she clicked her heels together and said, "There's no place like home." Maybe I'm a homebody, but I'm so happy to be back on home turf. Stay tuned for more pictures of the finished product with furniture and some new design.