June, July, August fixes!

I got a few things done in June that I had been meaning to do. I finally put the finishing touches on the front hallway by hanging some art and pictures:

I planted rose bushes! Five different colors: Drop Dead Red, Queen Mary 2 (white), Pink Traviata, Ch-Ching (yellow), and Just Joey (peach). They are budding like crazy right now and I'm so glad I put something I love in that flower bed!

I also have been wanting to redo our den a little bit. I'm picturing painting the room a lighter color so the room will appear bigger and lighter. To start, I painted our fireplace white. I've been looking at so many pictures of white fireplaces online, and I love how clean and bright they look. It also reinforces it as a focal point in the room. Our fireplace was already painted, so I just got some semi-gloss white paint and went to town on it. I painted it all in one night! Two coats was about right for this job. I love it!

In July, I put another big paint change into place. I finally painted the den. No more purple! I loved the purple so much, but I really wanted to incorporate more colors (specifically blues and greens), and the purple kept me from adding too much color in accessories, and didn't really match the furniture we already had. So I brought the paint color in the hallway forward into the den. It's so much brighter; it feels like we have more lights on at night!

In August, I didn't have much time for major fixes, but I got on a smaller project I've been meaning to do. Our master closet has been a mess for a while, with things thrown up haphazardly on shelves, and wasted space at the bottom. While I'd love for us to be able to afford a new closet shelving system, I found some things around the house and did this little fixup for free! Not to mention it was a great excuse to throw away and donate some stuff and get rid of some clutter. I organized purses and scarves into bins at the top, and added a second hanger rack on the right side so I could double the number of short items hung. So much more space! I also removed the sliding doors from the front (not pictured) because they kept getting in the way. Now I don't mind looking at the closet, and it's easier to find everything, too.

May Fixes

It's June already! How did that happen? Well, I'm ready to show you what got done in May. I think I was subconsciously trying to make up for what didn't get done in April.

We hung a shelf in the newly painted hallway, and I hung a mirror and changed out the light fixture! Surprisingly not that hard. I did have to spackle the ceiling where the hole was just a little too big.
Before and after:

I got a new doorknob for the back door (the old one kept falling out)!

And the piece de resistance: I spent the entire three-day Memorial Day weekend removing unwanted plants, shrubs, trees, and weeds from the flower bed that runs along the back of the house, and replanting some brand-new hydrangeas (and transplanting one old one). Day and night, people. Day and night difference, here.

March and April fixes

In March, I tackled the gross job of removing a bird's best from the vent in our attic and stapling up new screens. No pictures of that, but I do have a before-and-after of the other March project - updating some of the front landscaping! I moved the puny azaleas to make way for a little sitting area (we don't have a porch).




In April, I didn't get much house stuff done, but to keep the resolution I knocked one out: painting the entry hall. It had a dingy yellowy cream color, and the ceiling was painted to match. I chose a lighter cream, and painted the ceiling and trim a bright white. Let in the light!

February Fixes

I really got on a roll in February with house fix-its. I kind of went on an organizational streak!

My main goal for the month was to re-hang the shutter that had fallen off the house. It had been sitting propped against the house for months! I was starting to feel like we were "that house" on the block. I am trying to pick my goal project to be something that I've been putting off, or that isn't fun to do, so if I do want to do other projects it's just a bonus!

We (and by we I mean mostly Cory) spent a good part of a couple of afternoons trying to drill the holes in the mortar for the shutter screws. That is, until our drill bit broke! Oops. So it turns out, you can buy a masonry drill bit that is mean to drill into that kind of stuff. Once we got the right kind of bit, it took about 30 seconds to drill the last hole (whereas the wrong bit was costing us about 20-30 minutes per hole). I hammered in the shutter screws, and project done!

I also reorganized the closets in our guest room/craft room and in our hallway (where we keep all the cleaning stuff). It's crazy how doing something small can make such a big difference! It also keeps me motivated to keep going more things around the house.

I don't have a picture of the shutter, but it looks like all the other ones now, really. Here's a picture of the redone guest room closet, and a before/after of the hallway:

Ten months

Penny's tenth month included Christmas and New Year's. A busy month! We took Christmas pictures with Katie:


Had lots of fun in the bath!


Chewed on everything possible:


Went to visit our Louisiana family:


Smiled! A lot!


Woke up Christmas morning with a new lovey in her stocking!


Took lots of snuggly naps. :-)


All in all, a great month! She didn't even freak out too much when Daddy chopped off all his hair. :-)

Nine months

Penny's ninth month was a lot of fun. Lots of smiles every day!


She went to her first concert with me, Aunt Kim and Katie - Yo Gabba Gabba! During which she may have taken a nap. :-)


Still standing up and crawling at every opportunity.


She loves looking out the window, especially when Daddy's raking the leaves!


I know I'm totally biased, but I think she's the prettiest baby ever. Look at those doe eyes!


She's still sucking her thumb at night and loves her lovey.


Happy nine month old girl! Sixteen pounds, ten ounces of sweetness!

Eight months

Penny is moving right along!


We made a trip to Louisiana for her cousin Steve's birthday, and she even snuck in one time standing up without help! She's so close to trying to walk - we think it will be soon. At the birthday party, she got to try playing in an inflatable bounce house - less fun when you're crawling, but she seemed to enjoy it enough. (It was just her and mommy in there.) We also had our first trip to the zoo!


She and her daddy are best friends. I love them so much!


She's really mastered pulling up, and stands up (holding on) whenever she gets the chance. She loves to explore and get into things.


She's eating well, and we're trying to give her gradually chunkier foods and work more with picking up things to eat, like puffs. She likes them now! We're also letting her practice with a sippy cup.


This month was Penny's first Halloween! She was a strawberry. We went to our church's Halloween party and also visited our friend Shanna for her neighborhood block party!


We love you Penny! Happy eight months!

Seven months

Penny has been up to so much in the past month! It's official: she can't be stopped. She's crawling all over the place, even out of the room! Whenever she gets a chance, she stops to try to chew on something (the rug, Buster, our feet, a TV tray) or pull up on something. She can pull herself to a standing position now. Look out!


Eating continues to go well, and she's trying a few new foods every time we make a batch of food for her. I've even started giving her tiny mushed up bites of other foods we eat that I don't make just for her (like chicken or potatoes).


She's right at the end of 6 month clothing, and ready to start getting into some 9 month sizes! She's still happy all the time, and her little two-tooth grin always makes us smile.


She's now closer to a year than her birth day! Big girl!

Fixin' it up

So, I never posted anything about New Year's, but I did make a resolution: to do one new house project a month. It doesn't have to be anything major, but I have to do or fix at least one thing about the the house during each month in 2012.

So far, I've kept it! Last month, Cory and I replaced the wax seal under our toilet in the master bathroom, a process that involves removing the toilet and putting it back (side note: toilets are HEAVY). That fixed our poor wobbly toilet!



This month, my personal goal is to rehang a shutter that has fallen off the front of the house. In our case, that means drilling holes and hanging it properly (as opposed to using the velcro the previous homeowners used). I'm going to keep a list in the sidebar of things I've done this year to the house; I hope to add more and more!