Home Projects

Home projects are what we have been doing with our spare time recently. I haven't blogged much about our house, and I definitely should have been, because we're so proud of it and are putting some major elbow grease into it. When we bought this house, every piece of trim (which was a lot) and EVERY door was the color of butter. BUTTER. Yuck. To compliment that lovely shade, EVERY SINGLE WALL was the color of light butter. We couldn't resist the square footage, location, lay-out and how well-built this house was, but knew that we would need to put some work into it. Hiring it out was out of the question, so we've been trying to do it little by little. Before we moved in my parents got the dining room walls and trim painted, Abigail's walls, trim and doors painted, and the entry way trim and walls painted. They gave us such a head start. One weekend that we came into town before moving in we got the den walls and trim painted while Mom and Dad painted the built-ins (such a huge task). All this painting was happening while David and his brothers and some very faithful friends built a massive fence. So, since moving in, we have accomplished these projects, in this order...

1. Front door painted
2. Downstairs storage closet, coat closet and half bath door painted.
3. Half-bath wallpaper floated, sanded and painted.
4. Half bath cabinets painted
5. Staircase trip and hand rail painted
6. Upstairs landing walls and trim painted
7. Guest bath trim and cabinets painted
8. Guest bedroom walls and trim painted
9. Guest bedroom furniture (hand-me-downs from David's grandparents) painted
10. Guest bedroom door and closet doors painted
11. Linen closet door, office door, and office closet doors painted
12. Office walls and trim painted
13. Master bedroom walls and trim painted
14. Master bath wallpaper floated and sanded

Yeah...

It's a lot of painting. David does such good work though and has become a master with his paint sprayer having done all these doors and cabinets. Once we finish the master bath (hopefully during this week sometime) we will head to the kitchen. The plan for the kitchen (that we will do ourselves) is painting all the cabinets, installing new hardware, paingting all the trim and painting over the wallpaper (after floating it, sanding it, and putting Kilz on it of course :)). We will hire out new counters, floors, and appliances.

The tasks are never ending, but I can't say that it's been drudgery. At times we've been annoyed, but we are proud of our work and the money we've saved doing it ourselves. By the time this house is "done" it will have a lot of our sweat in it...making it pretty darn special to us. We've enjoyed the time together talking and planning. We feel like we've "touched" every part of this house and made it our own. I would post pictures of the completed rooms right now, but my house isn't really suitable for picture taking at the moment. Maybe later on today while little miss is taking her afternoon nap.

Other things going on with David include a new Bible study that we're doing together on Wednesday nights, David getting himself set up for doing implants and an upcoming trip to Dallas...just the two of us.

14 Months Old

Abigail was 14 months old on Sunday! Here's a couple shots from today...I think you'll get a nice idea of how busy she is these days. :)

We have so many fun facts to report about our girl this month and so many things I don't want to forget. Every day she does something new/funny/fun.

1. Height and weight: no clue...maybe around 21 pounds?

2. Diapers: size 4

3. Clothing: 12-18 months

4. Daily Schedule:
7:30-7:45 Wake up
8:00 Breakfast
9:30-10:00 down for nap
10:30-11:00 Wake up
11:30-12:00 Lunch
2:00 Down for nap
4:00 Wake up/snack
6:00 Dinner
7:30-8:00 Bed

5. We're bottle free! All sippy cups these days and no bottle before bed. It hit my like a ton of bricks...she's drinking 20-24 ounces of milk per day, she doesn't need a bottle at night. I had already been thinking about dropping it and I think I posted about it previously. One night we just didn't give it and it was totally fine. Turns out it was Mommy holding on to that bottle...not baby. :)

6. Teeth: we now offically have TWO teeth. That's right, two. And we're darn proud of them. Before bed David will sit her up on her bathroom counter and brush her teeth. It's the cutest thing and totally normal to her. It pays to have a dentist Dad.

7. Walking: Right at around 13 1/2 months she started walking! I was at Mom's house for lunch and it was like she decided, "I can do this." Not long after that she began standing up on her own without pulling up on anything and she was off! It's so fun and life has changed once again. She bobbles around the house and it's adorable. I'm so proud of her.

8. Abigail is mimicking animal sounds. She will do a lion, cow, and sometimes a goat. We're working on "pig" and she'll scrunch up her nose. Other words include "Momma, Dada, and Wow." Wow is hilarious of course.

9. Sometimes Abigail will cough, and then continue to fake cough. She seems to think it's funny.

10. Her hair is getting so long, but it's still so thin that we don't really feel like we can get it cut. So right now I'm just putting a bow in it and pigtails (sometimes).

11. It seems like she is constantly learning, but she is also constantly learning to excersize her will. Discipline is something that we're trying learn as we go. Hopefully Mom and Dad can get a handle on it before little miss runs-a-muck. :)

12. As you saw in the pictures, she loves a good balloon. When I go to Kroger she gets a free one and usually spends the rest of the day carrying it around. Pretty adorable.

We wake up with quite the hair do these days...

Christmas Part 2 and looking to 2014

This post is overdue, but here I am!...ready to blog the rest of our Christmas celebration, plus my usual "looking toward 2014" thoughts.

On Christmas Eve, David and Abigail and I loaded up on a plane and headed to North Carolina to see my grandparents. Mom, Dad, Tripp and Kara were already there and we were excited for Granny and Grandad to spend some time with their great grand-daughter. On the flight there Abigail was OK. We were at the back of the plane and made the mistake of allowing her to stand on our legs and touch the seat in front of us before those people sat down. Well, clearly she can't do that during the flight because that would drive those poor passengers to the brink of sanity. Unfortunately when they DID sit down, it was a child and woman with a head covering on...bad combination. Abigail wanted to look at the kid and touch the purple head covering. But we made it and were thrilled!

We went to the Christmas Eve service with the whole family and Abigail did great again. She was tired but was totally a trooper. I was so proud. She seemed to most enjoy the music when we were all singing.

We opened some presents on Christmas Eve and then fell into bed exhausted. David and I both woke up the next morning with head colds (that we are currently still feeling the effects of), but we perked up by present time. The funnest part of opening presents with Abigail was the sounds that she would make. She would say, "Oh! Ah!" every time we opened one for her. She definitely acted like she understood that the presents were for her and wanted to play with them immediately. It was such a fun time.

Christmas day was great and relaxing. We took a walk, played with Abigail, and messed with our presents. :) Granny cooked an absolutley delicious Christmas dinner of dressing, ham, chicken and dumplings, butter beans, green beans, fruit salad, pound cake, lemon supreme cake and rolls. We ate ourselves silly (especially since the day after Christmas she also cooked a huge breakfast and then Grandad did the fish fry). We couldn't have had a better trip and we were so thankful for the quality time. Having great grandparents is pretty special and I'm thrilled that we can make sure Abigail spends time with them.

Here are some pictures from the trip...

Looking toward 2014:

It's going to be hard to top 2013 as far as change goes. This year...

1. David finished his AEGD residency
2. Abigail was dedicated at LBC
3. We celebrated Easter as a family of three for the first time
4. David found a job in Little Rock
5. We sold our house in Kansas City, lost the buyer, and sold it again 3 days later.
6. Bought a house in Little Rock.
7. Celebrated our 5th anniversary
8. MOVED!
9. David began work in his new practice
10. Rejoined our home church IBC
11. We both turned 28
12. We got a new niece...Rebekah Caroline Rainwater
13. Abigail turned ONE!
14. David celebrated his 10 year high school reunion

The coming of 2014 is exciting. We're looking forward to our first full year back home. We'll both turn 29 this year and Abigail will turn two. We hope to spend some quality time at the lake this summer and also make a couple trips to Kansas City to see some great friends (we miss y'all a ton!). We would like to take some sort of family trip as well, even if it's a short one...just the three of us. :) It is our hope that we'll have more time to work on the house and we'll be able to go ahead and finish up the painting upstairs (we're so close to having it done!) and begin work on the kitchen. It's an overhaul, so we'll probably pain the cabinets and then do all the rest all at once. I will celebrate my 10 year high school reunion this fall and we'll hopefully travel to some Fayetteville Razorback games. Of course, these are just the things I can safely predict and hope for. There's plenty more that we will do and share I'm sure, and I can't wait for it. :)