Cabinets

Luckily we bought sample sizes of the paint. Pete tried the cabinets both ways -- blue frames with cream doors and cream frames with blue doors. Both are just a bit over the top. Pete thinks they look "country". I think they look a little like they belong in a dollhouse. Pete has a good solution. We are going to keep the cream and try a tan or a brown. It will go with the floor tiles and we are thinking of a greenish countertop so that may look really nice. We'll see....

Painting....

The house is painted! Well, mostly. After weeks of priming, Pete and I sat down to pick out colors. I spent last weekend in Kenosha with the kids so that gave Pete the entire weekend to paint. The House looks great. As you can see, we picked a yellow for the walls and hall leading up to the bedrooms. The bedrooms are a wheat color, both bathrooms are light green and the kitchen is grey. We still have the cabinets to paint -- they will be cream frames with blue/grey doors. Pete bought samples of the paint and is putting it on the cabinets/frames so we can try it out. We'll see how it looks.

Pete is spending this weekend still working on trim, priming the doors (cabinet and regular) and cutting in the corners.

We also decided that we really should add a dishwasher. We've been researching similar homes for rent in the area and many have dishwashers. We figure as long as we are making a mess, we might as well do it now. The configuration of the kitchen requires us to put it next to the sink, which will only give us a small kitchen sink, but I know I would trade a small sink for a dishwasher -- hoping others will too.

We still have to tile the kitchen floor, carpet or repair the hardwood and some detail work. And now that the weather is nicer, it is almost time to seed the yard, as there are many patches without grass. We also should add some bushes to the front of the house. The list keeps growing. Some of the outside stuff can wait until we get a renter.

Pete is hoping to get another week off of work soon as he thinks he can knock out a lot of the remaining work if he can plow through for several days straight.

Conversations with Wynne

We were driving home from preschool today. She told me Mrs. Schroeder moved her away from Jake at naptime because he was talking too much. I asked her what he was talking about. There was a pause and she said "Mom -- don't tell Mrs. Schroeder. I was the one who was talking. I just couldn't stop...."

A few weeks ago she woke up in the middle of night and wanted to play. I told her that we both needed to go back to sleep so that she would not be crabby at school and I would not be crabby at work.

Me: I NEED to sleep. What will happen if I am crabby at work
Wynne (in a cheerful voice): You will get FIRED!
Me: that is not good. Then we will have no where to live

Wynne: (with the saddest look of shock on her face) how can they take our house?

(So now I am feeling bad. The kid is going to have nightmares now. I am a jerk.)

Me: Mom and dad need to work so we can pay our bills. We are fine and no one is going to take our house.

So I spent some time backtracking. As I was walking out of her room, in the softest, sweetest voice she says

Wynne: Mom
Me: yea
Wynne: What do turtles eat?

Must be nice to be four. You can go from tragedy to turtles in two minutes.

Back on Track

So I'm back on track. Not that the house was ever off track. But I've obviously been off track with the blog. No way I can catch up from the whole month+ that I have been on hiatus, but here is what I have for now:

I took the day off work to do some painting. Used oil-based primer for the kitchen cabinets and several hours later my head is still a little numb. But the cabinets look great. Will be off tomorrow to paint some trim.

Pete and I hammered out a timeline/to-do list. I felt a lot better having it on paper. If all the stars align, we'll be done late April/early May. Much longer than we originally thought, but still OK.

Will do a separate update of the latest Wynne-isms, but this morning was a doozey. I decided to wear Pete's work jacket so I would not get paint on any of my coats. It is too big and very dirty. I was going to drop Wynne at school before I headed to the house and she asked if I could wear a nice coat when I dropped her off at school. Age 4 and she is already embarrassed of her mother.....

Latest "wynne-ism"

I was picking up a pile of blocks that Wynne and Emmett were playing with. I asked Wynne if she could help me and she said "it looks like you are doing just fine by yourself, mom." Note to self. No more asking. You TELL a four-year-old what to do.

Perfect day, not so perfect muffins

I get it now. There is a reason for freezing, -37 weather. To make you appreciate the regular winter days. I have to say that Saturday was a near perfect day. Let's see:

• Slept through the night (no one crying at 3 am!) and woke up at 8 am - crazy!!!


• Temperature check -- 19 (ABOVE!)


• Got caribou and went grocery shopping by myself - "me time" has been redefined


• Put the kids on the sled and literally dragged them around the neighborhood. Went to our local coffee shop for hot cocoa


• Dragged them by the new house to see the progress Pete has made over the last week


• Found that Phalen Park was having a huge celebration for "Hockey Day". I was not informed about this holiday but it was a blast. Tons of people, live music, pig roast and oh yea, hockey.


• Went home and BOTH kids took a nap at the same time


• Had a fun afternoon playing with the kids.


• Being Saturday it was "steak night" so we put the kids to bed and I grilled up some steaks. Mmmmm. Yes, we are dorks.

Sunday was not as lucky. Wynne and I got up early to make muffins for everyone. There is a recipe in my weight watcher's cookbook that I have been meaning to try for weeks - lemon muffins. I was addicted to Caribou Coffee's lemon bread when I was pregnant with Emmett but have had to ban the dessert upon my discovery that it is 12 points! So I figured these muffins would not be as tasty, but would be lemony, dense and sweet.

I forgot about my disability. (that's what Pete calls it anyway) I am not able to follow recipe directions - even if I am really trying. This is not a real problem when cooking but can be awful when baking. The recipe called for lemon zest (and I don't have a zester - if that is even a real thing) so I was trying out all my kitchen tools to get the zest from the lemon. I was also trying to get the muffins in the oven before Emmett woke up. I could hear him talking in his room so we only had minutes left. When Wynne and I mixed all the final ingredients it looked pretty thick. I added some more of the lemon juice and crossed my fingers. No luck. They were like small yellow rocks. Later in the day I realized that I forgot to add the egg.

I did try the same recipe, but the chocolate muffin version, later in the day (and I double checked all the ingredients) either they are bad muffins or I am the worst baker in the world.

So - the house. We are getting closer. Our trusted friend and contractor "Builder Mike" is mudding and taping. We will be able to paint soon! Pete and I spent MLK day scraping more wallpaper. We are just about done with the main floor. The place is such a mess but things are coming together. Mike also installed a door for the main floor bathroom (I think they were using a shower curtain before) so that is a step in the right direction!

The House, The Mouse, The Kids

Well, it has been quite a while since I've posted. Some updates from the last month:

The House:
Let's see - we've passed the electrical and plumbing inspections - yea! and Pete finished tiling and grouting the floor of the upstairs bathroom. I got pretty excited when I heard that Chad was coming over to set the toilet upstairs now that the tiling was done. If you remember the downstairs toilet requires a bucket of water for flushing. I did not realize that we were not setting the tank (need to wait until the walls and trim are done.) So - still using the bucket. But Chad did hook up a hose so we don't have to run two floors down to the basement to fill the bucket.

The big project this week was hanging drywall. My job was the "getter". I would get the tool belt, get the light or get a pop for Pete. After a while I was promoted to assistant driller. Luckily Pete is pretty smart and knew about a critical tool called a drywall jack (yellow thing in the first picture). I did not realize just how heavy sheets of drywall are. And with 13' ceilings in the dining room, I don't know how we would have done it without the jack.

On Friday I spent a good chunk of the day scraping wallpaper since Pete's dad was helping with drywall in the dining room. We are down to the original plaster in some parts of the hallway - Pete was the first to uncover this cool paint/stenciling detail. We thought for a minute about repeating it when we paint. But we decided against it.

So still more drywall to do. then we will hire someone to mud and tape. The we will be painting 'till the end of time. We also have the kitchen floor to tile, cabinets/doors to sand and paint, doors and trim to sand and paint and figure out if we will refinish the hardwood or carpet the living/dining room. It will probably come down to how much cash we have left. We are hopeful that it can be available for rent on May 1. If we keep things moving along, we might be able to start listing it in early March. We'll see....

The Mouse

Good news here. There was a showdown a few weeks ago. Pete went into the bathroom before bed one night and I heard what I can only describe as a ruckus. Apparently he had the mouse cornered and was able to "exterminate" the little guy with the Clorox wipes container (and then the wipes came in handy for clean up.) So we have not seen another mouse since this incident. So either there was only one (not likely) or word got out about the mouse hunter....

The Kids

Christmas was great at our house. The threat of Santa only bringing toys to good girls was lost on Wynne. She told me that "Santa brings toys to all the PRETTY girls, mom!" Apparently this is line from the Charlie Brown Christmas. Kind of sad - she is only four and has figured out that you don't have to be good, just pretty, and you will still get what you want. We did get her the Play Dough Ice Cream Shop. We broke it out and I was the assistant ice cream maker. I had some questions about what kind of sprinkles to make and Wynne said "less talking, more selling, mom". It is kind of hard to correct sassy behavior when you are trying not to laugh.

Emmett's love for food has expanded. He is now demanding pizza (PEEE-TA!) and has figured out how to climb on the kitchen chairs to swipe food from the table. I expect he will soon climb out of his crib to fix himself some eggs in the morning. That will make things a lot easier on us. Emmett is also very sweet and loving. He is very generous with the open-mouthed, drooly baby kisses and almost never bites you now (before it was hit or miss - sometimes you would get a kiss - sometimes a chunk of your face was gone.) He also loves to give hugs and will hug any baby or dog that he can get his hands on.