Totally Floored

Since moving into our house in May of 2008, Jared & I have done very little "renovation." Our house was brand new so it didn't need any real upkeep. We bought furniture the first year, added a patio in the summer of 2009, and have done very little since then. When we bought the house, there were very few things that I would have changed on the inside. My major thing was the steps. The steps that lead upstairs, are front and center when the front door is opened. They were carpeted. The first day we looked at the house, I remember loving how bright, fresh, and clean it was. Then I had these nightmares of Jared's work boots on that beautiful white carpet.

Well over the 3 years that we have lived here, he has done pretty well with the carpet. What I didn't mention was our lovely, darling, center of our world dog Dudley. When Dudley was a puppy, he would go pee outside and then come inside, run to the top of the steps, and pee again. Lucky for us, he only weighs 5 pounds, so he pee is more the size of a quarter, not the lake or puddle we would have with a bigger dog. Never the less, it was gross. For a long time, we couldn't figure out when he was doing it. He would go outside, so we figured he was good. As he got older he stopped doing it, but the damage was done. We (Nannie included) used every carpet cleaner known to man to clean that carpet. And for a while it would look okay-but I always hated it.

With the prospect of a little one somewhere hopefully in the near future, I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted that carpet out of there. I did not want to replace it; I wanted hardwood. The plan was to have hardwood in our dining room, and the hallway upstairs. This would flow nicely with the existing hardwood and give our entryway a nice look. Little did we know how hard it would be to find someone who would do the stairs. They needed to be sanded, stained, and finished. Well, we finally found a great carpenter who jumped right on it. Here are some pictures from the project. I took them with my phone, so the quality might not be the best.

Dining Room before

(I didn't think to take pictures before we moved the furniture out)

This is just inside the front door. Notice the dining room to the left and stairs straight ahead. Also of note is Dudley's gate.....

In process of removing carpet...

It took alot of convincing to get him to help me. He worked on the tack strips while I did the staples.

While we waited for help to move the big cabinet, I got this nasty shot. None of these spots were visible on the top side. I guess this is why animal's can always smell where they went. GROSS!

Dining room at sub flooring level. There were no pet stains on this.

Dining room final product!! I love it!!

Stairs before:

Stairs in progress:

Tedious! The tack strips were very difficult. We were trying to do as little damage as possible.

Cleaning...and more cleaning....

Once the carpet was up....on one not quite so beat up!

This is once the carpet and tack strips were up....looking rough!

All stained and ready for paint!

I had agreed to paint the risers once they were stained.....here they are when I first started. For whatever reason the he didn't lay the hallway upstairs until after the stairs were finished, so, you will notice, there is no nosing on the top stair.

A sneak peek of it almost finished. I like how even with limited light it looks so much better painted.

Final product! Well, minus the one piece of trim that goes where the riser meets the tread.

We stayed away for a week while the stairs were done. We were glad to be home. I will post more pics once I get the dust cleaned up and the furniture how I like it. We also need some RUGS!!! I didn't tell Jared that when we discussed the budget for this project!!

Brooke's Baby Shower

This past Saturday I hosted a baby shower for Brooke, with my friends Megan and Mallory. Brooke has been my lifetime best bud, college roommate, and now wife to Jared's best bud Jason. While we certainly thought at the end of last year that we would be experiencing this journey together, (we were only due 1 week apart) it has actually probably worked out that we have some time in between babies. It allowed me to focus my energy on having a nice shower for her, something that I know she will do for me some day.

We started off with wanting owls as part of the theme. After some evolution, we ended up with owls on the invitations, which had some blue in them. We ultimately ended up with blue and orange as the main theme. I had purchased some pinwheels (the larger size) from Hobby Lobby to put at Brooke's house when Leyton is born. They somehow made their way into the shower theme the more Megan, Mal and I talked.

We decided to have it outside at my house.

This is a picture of the 'walkway' to the backyard that we lined with pinwheels.

In looking at many different blogs, we had several ideas we wanted to incorporate, yet keep it all looking put together and not so busy. This idea we saw in a picture from a wedding. We changed the colors of the fans, and mounted it to styrofoam. Brooke now plans to hang this on Leyton's nursery door for a while.

Hobby Lobby also had small pinwheels. We had these in blue, yellow, and green. We tucked one into each person's place setting and it was one of their favors.

Here is a picture of the centerpieces. We used vases that I already had and anchored the pinwheels in gumballs. I went to Wegman's and got huge gumballs and jawbreakers to fill the space.

This shows the overall tablescape. You can also see that we used Orange Crush as a favor. We used the Cricut machine to cut out L's and circles, then used stickers to attach them together. We then hot glued the L to the ribbon on the crush.

Stay tuned for more pictures from the baby shower!

Spring...Maybe?

It is hard to believe that it might actually be spring time. I certainly hope that it will be consistently springlike weather really soon. It has been a long winter and I need the Vitamin D! I was happy to put out some of my new spring decorations. I have a hard time finding things I like for my front door, because it is green and sometimes things I like just blend into it. I found this cute sign, that Jared hates, for $7 at Hobby Lobby. Dudley likes the warm weather too, because it means we leave the front door open and he can people watch. He mostly watches Marley, the lab across the street, and barks. He also barks at all kids on bikes....lovely!

These guys are showing signs of spring and that I need to get weeding! These Iris' came from a friends house 2 years ago, and have not done much since transplanting them. This picture was taken more than a week ago so they are really out there now. This might be their year!

The trees in our front yard are also showing their lovely colors that they only do for about one week out of the year. This is the Japanese maple (I think) that was planted when we bought the house. It is doing quite well; what you don't see is the fountain cherry that we planted to years ago and only has buds on like 2 branches.....so annoying.

I do not know why only the yellow on yellow daffodils have bloomed. Well, now that this pic is a week old there are some others and these are fading. I planted a ton of bulbs so that they would all be in bloom at the same time and look plentiful. I guess I will need to plant more! I have color for a while, but it is more sporadic than I would like.

Another tree shot!

Daylilies well on their way!

My favorites--Hyacinth! I planted a four bulb multi pack when we moved to this house. This year I have about 12 blooms! So happy. The blue/purple bloomed first, but I do have a pink and 2 whites currently!

I am going to enjoy April to the best of my ability and anxiously await April showers to bring May flowers!

Day 4: Your Favorite Book

I rarely read books anymore, and when I do it is usually garbage and not worth calling my "favorite book."

So instead, I am going to post on a more current topic for me: my Gala! The annual Chamber gala is always the last Friday in January. This year it happens to fall on my birthday. It is our biggest event of the year and is our only formal event. I am looking forward to it very much. It is the event where we present Business of the Year and a few other prestigious awards.

I thought today I would share our invitations. I got a small committee together to help with the event and one of them recommended The Silver Starfish for our invitations. I loved working with Kristen. I would highly recommend her. These lovely "All American" invites hit the mail yesterday.

I guess I need to spend some time with my new camera to get the best shots! They are a bright white card stock with navy and red writing and a lovely "presidential" graphic at the top. They have a thin red border and are mounted on navy linen paper. I love them. Here you can see the graphic better that made me go with these in the first place. I can't wait to see what the members think!

Day 3: Your Favorite TV Show

So I am off to a great start to 2011 and being a better blogger!

I am not a huge TV junkie, but I do have some favs.

Growing up we loved watching TGIF on ABC on Friday nights. Sometimes I wish it was still on for those Friday's when you had a long week and just want to stay home!
But, its not, so we move on.

Anyone who knows me well could call this pretty easily: Jeopardy!
I love Jeopardy! I especially love the Teen Tournament, and College Tournament; I am sure it has to do with my increased knowledge on those levels!

Brooke and I both love Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and we watched them all through college together. Even now, if we are stuck at the Fire Dept. we will make the guys turn it to Wheel and Jeopardy. One time, Brooke even signed us up for the best friends Wheel. We never got called, and she even mentioned signing up again a few weeks ago.

Wouldn't that be nice! I could handle $10,000 in a half hour!

A Rainy Day

When my Dad and I were dancing at my wedding, he gave me some advice, a piece of which was to "Save for a rainy day, because a rainy day will come." He then said that the rainy days won't last, but to anticipate them and use them to draw Jared and I closer.
Well I think I experienced my first true "rainy day" on Wednesday, December 29th. While I have been a terrible blogger this fall/Holiday season, it is not because I didn't want to. I had many exciting things going on in my life and I couldn't wait to blog about them, and simply didn't have time.
Jared and I found out on Halloween that we were expecting. This was very exciting because we hadn't been trying and it happened so "easily." We went to the Dr. on November 15 where they confirmed it, did blood work, and sent us on our merry way. Because I had only come off of the pill 30 days before, I had not had a true period, so they wanted to use an ultrasound to set the due date. On November 29 I had my ultrasound with a strong heartbeat of 173 and they set the due date of July 12. Jared didn't want to share our news until after the holidays, but we agreed that after the ultrasound we would share with our family. He was traveling out of town for work, and so we waited until the first weekend in December to share. Our families were thrilled. Also during this time, we learned that 2 of my lifelong friends, Brooke and Lindsey, were also expecting. Brooke due on July 4 and Lindsey on July 11. How exciting. We also had other friends that we haven't known as long due in July. No way we could have planned it like that.
I was off from December 22 until the first of the year and so I set my 12 week appointment for the week I was off.
The week before Christmas one of our friends suffered the loss of their unborn baby. For what I can only describe now as God's infinite wisdom, I began to consider that it could happen to me too, and told many people over Christmas that I was playing mind games with myself since learning of my friend, and that I wouldn't feel better until after the 29th when I heard the heartbeat. Little did I know that that would become my reality on the 29th.
Jared was also off and able to go with me to my appointment where we expected to hear the heartbeat for the first time, and be cleared from the first trimester and the risk associated with it. We had planned to go to Babies R Us in Richmond after our appointment in search of neutral bedding, so I could attempt to keep my plan of it being a surprise.
We had an early morning appointment and it ran right on time. I was pleased that I hadn't gained any weight and the nurse attempted to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler. I shared with her the anxiety I had since learning of our friends news. I was not at all worried when she couldn't find it, because Brooke had gone a week earlier (same Dr.) and the nurse couldn't get hers either. The nurse said not to worry that Dr. Burke would be able to get it. Dr. Burke then came in and told me right away that the nurse had shared with her that I was anxious because of my friend. Dr. Burke said let's hear these hearttunes right away so you won't be worried. She then attempted to locate them on the Doppler. The entire time she continued to talk about tests that we could do in the next weeks, and other options, never once seeming concerned. She told me that because the baby is still in the pelvis at 12 weeks, that they cannot routinely hear the "hearttunes" until 13 weeks. After not locating them, she never flinched or seemed concerned.
She then asked me "would YOU feel better if I got you an ultrasound today so you know everything is okay before you leave." I greatly appreciated her consideration and said yes. I was happy to know everything was okay and to get to see the baby with Jared, since he missed the first ultrasound appointment. It would surely look more like a baby this time and we would have great pics to share with our families. On the way out of the room, I commented to Jared, "Gosh, I hope we hear it." To which Dr. Burke said, "Don't worry, you have a 97% chance of hearing it."
The same technician did this ultrasound as the first one. She acted the same so I still wasn't particularly worried. Then she said she needed to check with Dr. Burke and that she would be right back. I knew something was wrong. I told Jared and he didn't really believe me. I wasn't certain if it was no heartbeat, or a deformity, or something else, but I knew it wasn't good. If it was she would have turned it around, showed me it was okay, and printed the picture.
Dr. Burke came in with the technician and said the technician had located the baby but no heartbeat, and that she (Dr. Burke) needed to confirm that in fact there was no heartbeat. Of course she didn't see it and she showed it to me on the screen. I knew it wasn't right, since I too didn't see it, and the baby looked very similar to my last ultrasound which was exactly 30 days prior. I was devastated and felt so sad for Jared. I had high hopes that he would get to see the heartbeat and see it was "real." I hadn't been sick, not even once, not moody, not craving weird things, and not that tired. So I was hoping that this would make it real for him. Instead it was full of disappointment. We had waited to tell people hoping to avoid this moment, and now it met us head on.
They put us in a side room until Dr. Burke's room was available again. We waited for what seemed like an eternity. All I wanted to do was get a breath of the fresh winter air. I had not eaten anything because of my medicine before the appointment so I was hungry and thirsty. This quick 15 min appointment was now going on 2 hours. We finally got in to see Dr. Burke, who gave us options for moving forward as I had no signs or symptoms of miscarriage. We considered the options and proceeded with what gave us the least risk for impacting future opportunities.
On the way home we stopped and got a new Dyson vacuum, and a limeade from Bill's BBQ. My absolute favorite. I then called our families and let them know. Everyone was so supportive. Although they shared our same excitement, they will again someday. Everyone recognized that everything happens for a reason, even if we don't know what it is right now.
Both Brooke and Brandy brought over my favorites for dinner and some snacks like Chocolate poptarts, and limeade, which I hadn't had since before October. I also splurged on a large fountain Diet Coke on the way home.
Fortunately the medicine worked quickly and we are hopefully over the worst part. I go back to Dr. Burke on January 13 and am praying for a clear ultrasound, which will make me "normal" again. Dr. Burke indicated we will talk about "what's next" at that appointment.
At this point, I am hopeful that I will be able to get pregnant again, rather soon, and that we will have a healthy baby. That is what I want most; and if that means that I have to wait until later in the year or early next year, I will.
Hopefully this is our only rainy day for a long while. I am so glad that it is the New Year and that I get a fresh slate. On to happier posts!

Day Two: Your Favorite Movie

This one is not as hard, because I have had this favorite for many years....Home Alone!

I like them both, but prefer the first one. Morgan, Tyler and I used to even have a Home Alone board game that we played. I don't even remember the point now, but it was our favorite.

I love the music in it, and Jared makes fun of me every time I try to hum it!

We lost our VHS of it, and last year Morgan gave me a DVD of it!

The season for it is coming!

KEVINNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

In my adult days, I also like most things with Reece Witherspoon, especially the Legally Blonde's.....and Megan can do a great Cameo to that!