More Work Accomplished

Sunday found Nate and I practically knee deep in paint. He took over the living room and got every wall painted. I helped him prep!!! Wahoo! I even got the downstairs bathroom ready to be painted. I was trying to actually do all the painting, but, let's face it, I'm no good. The ceiling, which would have taken Nate 60 seconds to paint took 6 minutes because I kept taking over and I kept messing it up. But my ever-supportive husband was kind enough to tell me I did a good job, that I have potential. He's sweet. A liar, but sweet:]





I didn't get any pictures of the bathroom for this post, but I'll be sure to take a picture of my big circus tent colored bathroom before I paint it. It's a real winner. It's gonna look oh-so-pretty when we're done with it!

More later.

SERIOUSLY

Check out my sister Rae Ann's blog. It's to the right of the screen under "The Adventures of Bean and Sprout." There are some absolutely adorable shots of my nieces! Seriously, go...

You're probably bored by now.

I've been blogging on every little step along the way, but I'm just so excited! I'll do my best, though, and try to refrain from overloading you with pictures of paint, tape, and dropcloths. But I'll begin doing that in just a minute.

First, this is the wall in our dining room at the beginning of Monday night. The uneven white line at the top of the wall is from when Nate painted the ceiling, just so you know. Because it's, well, not important. Anyway!


Here's Nate in the middle of it all.


And here's what it looks like now! So nice and fresh! Our carpet took on a whole new shade, though, one we're not sure we like, but it's nice carpet so we're keeping it for now. And the mouldings! Ah, they look so clean!



This was Nate yesterday, busy prepping the living room. There hasn't been a whole lot for me to do to help Nate in the process - he's the pro. I think that he might assign me a few simple tasks so that I can help...and also so that we can present a painted house in just a couple weeks. I'll post pictures once he gets the walls rolled out, and then we'll see if I have enough restraint to keep my blogs at a minimum so you're not overloaded:)

Rae Ann's B-day

We celebrated Rae Ann's 25th birthday on August 4th. Mom and I went with Rae Ann, Julia, Stella, Ivy, and Nattalie to the zoo (Julia and Nattalie Sager for those of you who don't know). We met up around 2pm and headed out. The zoo parking lot was packed so we had to park at an overflow lot down the freeway. A shuttle picked us up and took us back to the zoo.








The girlies had a grand ol' time! We headed straight for the elephants since that exhibit would be closing early. There was a concert on the big green lawn...an explanation to all the traffic. People were forming one huge line that wrapped all around the zoo.









The elephant named Pet died recently so there were paper lanters all around the elephant pen. It was sad! More people were creating lanterns as we walked through. We moved from the elephants on to other "warm climate" animals...like zebras, rhinos, and bats!







And then on to the less mysterious creatures...



After goats, we visited the Pacific Northwest exhibit: sheep, elk, eagles, fish, all the good stuff. The girls took full advantage of some small people fun-makers, like the tractor they could pretend to drive, the log the could run up and down, and the waterfall where they got thoroughly soaked!












Rae Ann sat down with Ivy for awhile so Mom, Stella, and I visited the elk exhibit. Funnily enough, Stella dropped her juice cup over the side of the wall. It fell right next to the elk, which startled him. Here he is running away from Stella's juice cup. And her we are mourning the loss of the sippy cup. And then in a self-portrait.















The girls began to lose momentum, and all we adults were really hungry. So we made an executive decision: Time To Go! We drove back to Rae Ann's and Mom bought dinner, Italian from a bistro around the corner (or so. Everything's around the corner in Rae Ann's neighborhood). We ended our little meal with a birthday cake for Rae Ann. Oh-so-fun! It was a Good Day.


And isn't Ivy freakin' adorable? She has the most beautiful eyes! This picture absolutely cracks me up--I think it's very endearing! It's been fun to witness her little personality coming out. The picture below is Stella and I kinda "fishy-kissing"...she started puckering up like a fish, so I went in for a wet one. She became more interested in the way my mouth looked than in giving a kiss, so we got about this far. Rae Ann has cute kids. It's official: They're Keepers.

And still more work being done...

Nate finished putting up the rest of the lights in the house, the downstairs hallway, the upstairs hallway, the kitchen nook, and up the stairs. And then he finished the dining room light fixture by attaching the rims to the bottoms of the shades (we both kinda forgot about that before...)








...and still more to come.

Lovely!

These are from Nate for our one year anniversary...




...and these are from my garden!

A quick glimpse...

...at the work Nate did last night.

This house is full of illustrious 1990's light fixtures! Nate and I made a choice to, um, change them. And drastically so. Nate took them all down and primed them, and then sprayed two coats of paint on them. They have a gorgeous hammered look now, a look we're excited to incorporate into the rest of our house!







You've seen the interior house colors in other photos, so here are pictures of the colors that we're painting the rest of the house.

This dark gray is covering the olive green in the family room and the cream in the kitchen. It's really hard to see, but it's actually a lovely color.



We're keeping the red.



This green is from Divine Color, a local artist. She's the only one that had a color that grabbed both Nate and I when we first saw it. We're so excited to get this place done!! This is it, next to the front door. It's just the right shade - not light enough to make you wonder if there's color on the wall or if it's just dirty, but not so dark it feels like a cave.



Here are some better pictures of the light fixtures...





...and the next one on our list...

Sunday's BBQ

The fam got together at Hangar 52 on Sunday. It was a nice break from the business of home. Every time I see Ivy I'm more and more impressed with her likeness to Rae Ann. She was big when she was born, but, man, she's still growing! She's holding the weight of her head pretty well now, and she looks like she'll roll any day. I laid her down on the couch and thought that that would probably be the last time I could enjoy that luxury. I'm sure that the next time I see her she'll be attempting a getaway by rolling off the edge.


Ivy was the smiliest I've seen her - she even enjoyed Nate holding her! She loves her moma, so it's tough to keep her happy when you're holding her and you're not her moma...but Nate did really well:)



Stella was her stunning self. She nipped my sunglasses as soon as she saw them and started dancing around to the music...the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack...not so much dance music, but, hey, it's got a beat!






Dad flew Tom around for awhile, so, when Nate and I first arrived, Mom, Rae Ann, Stella, and Ivy were sitting on the runway waiting for the men to return. It finally got to the point where we were all tired of waiting for the guys to get back, so we decided to fire up the grill and start dinner. Nate struggled with the grill for awhile, but eventually got it lit. He may have taken off mom's eyebrows...who's fault that would be I'm not sure...Option 1) too much lighter fluid, Option 2) mom was too close for her own good.

Point is, we got it fired up and meat was cooked!


Rameus spent his time being bitter that he was tied up in the hangar. He had wandered out onto the runway while we were waiting for the guys to land, so mom tied him up with this coil. It has to do with airpressure and tools and punching holes in the materials for the plane so dad can bolt it all together. Oh, well I butchered that. You'd think I don't listen when dad's explaining the details of building his plane. Nate would be embarrassed if he saw me typing this...


We were wrapping up our festivities when I spotted Dakota on the ground guarding the dish I had baked a raspberry buckle in. She had planted herself between the dish and Rameus, cutting off his access to the sweetness. I caught her with her tongue creeping it's way under the lid to lick up the powdered sugar. Cute. Obnoxious, but still cute!



More later.