2013/04/02 Tuesday: Love These Colors

I finally have our bedroom put back together and vacuumed.  Previously the walls and ceiling were a pale pink.  I love the white ceiling, and the walls are two neutral colors.  The lighter one is "Toasted Cashew" and the brown is "Stepping Stones" both in Behr Premium Plus paint.
My next big home decorating project is to replace those curtains.

2013/04/01 Monday: Shopping in Pajamas

Gigi still won't let me dress her in regular clothes, so sometimes it's better for both of us if we just go out in pajamas.

2013/03/31 Sunday: Happy Easter!

Is this something that other people do?  Before your company comes, you brace your chairs that you took from the alley when your neighbor threw them away?

We had ten adults and 9 kids over for dinner.  It was very fun.  Everyone contributed to the meal and it was all delicious.  Nick was in charge of a meat.  He went to Costco by himself yesterday, and went overboard even by his own barbecue enthusiast standards.  He cooked a turkey, a ham, and a lamb roast.  He came home with a frozen duck too, but says it's for another day.

 

 

 

2013/03/30 Saturday: Village Egg Grab

The villages annual Easter Egg event doesn't hide the eggs, it just pits kids against each other on the tennis court to grab as many as they can, grouped by age.  Each egg has three jelly beans inside.  They were the hardest to open eggs I've ever encountered, so I hope they used prisoners to fill the eggs because no one should have to suffer like that.

Then we worked on the house, getting the post-painting chaos under control.  In the evening, Nick had to go into the lab.

2013/03/29 Friday: Play Group Easter Egg Hunt

Play group held their annual Easter Egg hunt on an AstroTurf soccer field.  Now the entire house is covered with little green fibers, but the event was perfect.  The kids had lots of fun and the mom's enjoyed visiting too.  Also, it was actually warm enough to be outside with just a jacket on.

2013/03/28 Thursday: Henry is Four!

Can't believe this cute thing is four years old already.  His interest in Thomas is fading a little, and he's starting to get interested in super heroes.  So for his birthday I got him this green Avengers T-shirt.  Now there's only nine years left until he can see the movie.

His favorite part of the day may have been that I let him buy something out of the Costco vending machine.

We let him pick dinner to celebrate his birthday, and we were certain he would pick the train restaurant.  He's a little predictable sometimes.

This is the face of disappointment after your sister tried to blow out your candles while we were still singing "Happy Birthday."  Nick's hand is in front of her mouth to stop her from jumping the gun again.

The Currans joined us for Henry's Costco carrot cake cupcakes (which are each the size of a small cake.)  Henry chose carrot cake, I think because he remembers that's what he had last year.

2013/03/27 Wednesday: Pretending It's Spring

 

2013/03/26 Tuesday: The Kitchen is Painted

Of course, I am kicking myself for not calling this painter the minute we bought the house.  Part of the delay is we always had the vague sense that we should do it ourselves, and that we would get to it "later."  There's only about 80 days before Nick gets back to his crazy schedule, so now is the time to get everything in order on the house for when we put it on the market when residency is over.  Stuff we will need to do before we sell (like fixing the back gate), if we fix it now we get to enjoy it for three years.
Point is, the professional painter got it done, and I'm very happy to have a lighter, brighter kitchen.

2013/03/25 Monday: Kitchen Wallpaper is Down

Just the absence of birdhouse wallpaper already makes the kitchen look better.
It was a rough day with Gigi.

2013/03/24 Sunday: Bathroom Comparison

This is an old picture (when I was trying to see what the back of my hair looked like) so I can show you the yellow walls, wallpaper trim, and yellow ceiling of our bathroom.

Here is our bathroom with a bright white ceiling and neutral (Toasted Cashew) walls.  We will worry about the flowered tile another day.

2013/03/23 Saturday: Handy and Handsome

We spent a lot of the day putting the house back together and making little "upgrades" as we reassemble the rooms.  After Nick put the cabinet back on the wall, he replaced the hardware and hinges with chrome ones so they match the sink and toilet paper holder.  We are also replacing a majority of the vent covers.

2013/03/22 Friday: We've Hit a Rough Patch

Gigi and I are disagreeing on a lot of things right now.  One of them is that I think she should get dressed so we can leave the house, and she thinks she should not.  I would just agree to disagree except it's so cold outside.  Eventually, we found enough clothes to go to the McDonald's playground in the afternoon with Jamie.

2013/03/21 Thursday: White Ceilings!

The previous homeowner had a nasty habit of painting rooms, badly, and using the wall color on the ceilings.  Even when they didn't paint the ceilings a color, they still weren't using ceiling paint- it's off-white and shiny.  So, with the painter here, we're on a roll, and are painting the upstairs bathroom, guest bedroom and our bedroom.  The white ceilings make such a difference.  He also painted our hallway ceiling white (which had been a butter cream color.)

Gigi is really fighting me on clothes and diapers.  If it were warmer, I'd just give up and let her run around naked outside.

2013/03/20 Wednesday: Paint and Trauma Dinner

The walls of the family room have gone from a purple I hated to Behr's "Toasted Cashew".  It also made a huge difference when he painted the ceiling white.  I knew it wasn't bright white before, but you could really see how gray it looked as he put the new bright white paint up.

I wish I had a before picture.  These now beautifully neutral walls had been covered with yellow sunflower wallpaper.  It's what a grandma would have picked in 1994.

 

Nick and I attended the Chicago Trauma Society dinner and case presentations.  It's dinner and a medical show.  I love it.

2013/03/19 Tuesday: The Secret Behind the Mirror

The message says: Note: This medicine cabinet has been put here by Raymond G VanCura this day of March 6, 1950 owner of this home. This home was built in the fall of 1948.

As part of the bathroom paint project, we replaced the medicine cabinet.  When Nick removed the old one he found a message in pencil from the original homeowner. 

And we brought in the professional to fix the plaster and paint the bathroom.

2013/03/18 Monday: Portillo's to Go

We had dinner at Portillo's, largely so Kate could pick up some combo sandwiches to take back to Dallas.  Kate started peeling off the wallpaper in our downstairs bathroom, and them found out the wall is lathe and plaster and in bad shape.  This is going to require a professional.

2013/03/17 Sunday: The Luck of the Irish

We had to pin some green on Henry so he wouldn't get pinched at church.  I stayed home, definitely worse for the wear I got yesterday.

Kate had Nick look at something she thought was an ingrown hair/eyelash.  He disagreed with her diagnosis.

2013/03/16 Saturday: Chew, Chew!

We took Katie to Henry's favorite restaurant, the Junction Diner.  Your food is brought to you on a model train.  It's a big hit with the kids and the food is quite good.
Katie visited some friends downtown earlier.  We went to Costco, then a baby shower, and then out to dinner.  By the end of the night I was realizing I should taken it much easier- it's only 4 days post-op after all.