What did you do today?

Because I started renovating the girls' bathroom all by myself. Frankly I anticipated this being a quick, easy project. Take some things off the wall, spackle a little bit, sand a little bit, prime, paint, hang up the new fixtures and boom a new bathroom. Of course, when you plan something to be easy it inevitably has to become difficult. So I removed the medicine cabinet which is far to big and bulky. (Note: this same cabinet is in our bathroom, the half bathroom, and the basement bathroom).

Down comes the medicine cabinet, nice and easy, woohoo! But oh crap there's a gigantic hole in the wall! Not only a hole but one with a random extra partial circle cut out too. I look in the wall completely baffled by this. Upon looking in the wall I luckily find the missing square of sheetrock, which also has another partial circle cut out of it, weird. At this point I'm thinking, oh god if Oscar comes home tonight and sees that I took the cabinet off only to find a big hole he's going to make me put that dreadful thing back up and back burner this project for awhile. None of this did I want to do. So I did what had to be done, first I IM'd my brother the new ridiculousness I've found and then I call my favorite handyman, my dad. After advisement on all the proper steps to remedy this situation I'm on my way to thinking I could possibly tackle this. Add to that a nice pep talk by my brother about how just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't run a saw! Good point! We just don't have a saw to run...hmmm.

I start looking for a measuring tape, but of course can not locate one of the two we own. I head to my sewing room knowing I have tapes there. With my trusty winnie the pooh tape measure I figure out the lengths of the boards I need. Head down to the garage and pick out my 2x4 to start cutting. All I could find was a small hack saw, because we own very few power tools. This did not work well and I almost threw in the towel. I was on the hunt for something better and found a bow saw. Finding the bow saw quite difficult without clamps I figure sitting on the board will work best. The 2x4 was on a 4x1 laying over the saw horses and I straddled the top. This worked rather well and I was able to cut the pieces I needed.

With all the boards in place, me patting myself on the back and I believe I told the girls they had the best mother ever, and possibly referred to myself as a rockstar, I was on to the sheet rock part.

The sheet rock went pretty smooth. I had to keep trimming up a few sides here and there to make it fit just right. But over all the main square went in well. During naptime I had also made patterns for the circle parts and cut out matching sheetrock to fill in the areas. Man I was feeling good! They both worked out great and fit extremely well. Then it was time to slather on the joint compound and get the sheetrock tape on. All of which I did pretty easily. I'll definitely be continuing this whole joint compound fill for a few days, but I'm going to be talking about this project for awhile. I have declared the bathroom a Jenn only project (except for hanging the new light fixture, Oscar can help with that).

Not only am I really proud of myself for all of this, I'm also really proud my daughters got to see and help me do it. Just another thing I want both of them to believe they can do on their own!

I must thank my dad for many years of guidance and many phone calls today for guidance and cheers from both mom and dad! Oscar did come home and offered appropriate excitement for my day's adventures.

Stairway and Hallway

The stairway certainly was one of those hit you in the face awful things that would have made us turn around and write this house off, if we'd seen it in the beginning of our search. But like I said, we learned to look beyond (thankfully!).

The stairway and the hallway were one of our first projects in the house, and boy it felt great to rip all that stuff off the walls. I must stress here how thankful I am to my daughters for being so well behaved and really listening to mommy and daddy when we needed them to stay away from where the work was and let mommy and daddy just work while they played.

As you can see there were TWO chair rails, yes that's two pieces of molding put together to make one big ol' dramatic piece, then the crooked shadow boxes which had to have medallions in the middle, LOVELY! This is where we learned they didn't glue everything, yippee, but they did caulk every thing, booo. And can we just talk about that carpet? oh god.

The hallway luckily just had shadow boxes, chair rail and ridiculous crown molding that was placed an inch below the ceiling. Not only was it ridiculous it was also making the space look so much shorter. That carpet was commercial carpet, not residential carpet, I swear everything in this house was leftover from construction jobs these guys were on, it just had to be.

Once all of the molding was removed the spackling began, oh boy this took a long time. The molding came off pretty rough in some spots and took even the sheet rock paper off, some pretty serious wall repair was in order.

I have to say Oscar and I work together great as a team. We both worked really hard on all of this and did equal things. There was certainly no divide of girl jobs and boy jobs, we did it all together. I'm really proud of us and our relationship for working together so well and rocking Team Santiago!

Oh gosh I almost forgot about the hilarious shadowbox within a box on the tall wall of the stairs, oh lord. And it was crooked. Our realtor and the home inspector both independently referred to it as an optical illusion! HA! Just what you want in your house!

The primer in the hallway and the foyer was a thrilling experience, it really meant we were moving forward and saying goodbye to that awfulness. It also really felt like this was our home, we weren't living in the house yet so it was still pretty surreal. Sense my excitement with painting the "classic taupe!" Of course we went to Miami the day after painting this and I couldn't remember the color so well and I kept remembering it with a hint of orange to it and hating it. I was relieved upon our return to see that I really like this color too.

Then it was time for new carpet. Oh gosh, knock me down with a feather it just looked beautiful. I couldn't believe it. I cried. The other carpet was just hideous and we had cut away the sides so we could paint the trim well. It was just a war zone looking mess. But this beautiful lush carpet was all mine and so beautiful...ok I'm getting a little romance novelly with feelings for the carpet...but seriously I LOVE IT! The carpet was the finale of the stairway and hallway because all the painting was finished. We still need to hang some decor but again I'm enjoying just looking at the clean, one color, lovely carpeted look of the whole thing.

Kitchen Renovations

Here starts the renovation posts. I'm slowly going to work on getting the renovation posts up room by room. This may also encourage me to start getting things hung on the walls. I'm starting with the kitchen because it's frankly our most used space and it just came out so nice.

To start the kitchen was a big selling point with the house. After a year of looking we had really gotten accustomed to seeing a house for its potential and not the flashy good or bad things that hit you in the face. We knew kitchen remodels are wicked expensive, this kitchen was nicely remodelled and we were really happy with that and it's size, it was within the range we wanted it to be but didn't have gas. Frankly finding a house with gas was really difficult in this area, oh well, I'm learning to deal with electric :(

Again with the two tone and shadow boxes, and excessive molding. This project really began at the beginning of the house with the wall removal and arch install. Oscar and my father put the Arch in, which we got online. Seriously if you ever want to put in an arch this was the best way to go, you give them your measurements and in a few days your arch pieces arrive at your door. It went really well. So after some molding removal and my parents trip to VA we were able to start on wall removal. After the arch went in the kitchen was functional enough for us to move on to other projects and move into the house.

After we finished the priority move in projects we

started to focus on the kitchen again. We were originally going to keep the thin crown molding and paint it white and up to the top white so it appeared to be a continuous crown molding. Upon more consideration we just decided to remove it, and we're glad we did. After spackling, sanding, covering everything and priming we were ready to get our color on the wall, "moon mist." We also found that remodelling while living there and with the kids was easier at night for the most part. Once the kitchen was covered in plastic we were certainly motivated to move the project along in order to have the space in working order again.Of course ducking under plastic to make sandwiches was a good time.

First we painted the ceiling because it was ridiculously disgusting. And in the wisdom of John Sperry you always paint the ceiling. Frankly this wisdom had me cursing a few times but like all of his wisdom, he's right, it's a world of difference in all the rooms! We then primed the whole room and did two coats of "moon mist." The paint color really changed the whole room and it was amazing what just that did for the light there. It was amazing how much brighter and cleaner it felt. It's really nice to know that the only grime and mess in the house was made by you and not some stranger (or 20 as we've learned from neighbors). After we finished the color we uncovered the room and got it back in working order. I worked on the trim and crown molding in white while the girls took naps. I have the curtains, as you can see the rod in the corner of the picture, I'm just encouraging someone to hang them ;) And I'm trying to figure out placement of some other decor. I'm still really in love with this room and stare at it regularly remembering what it used to look like!

Brunch with friends

Let's back track a wee bit here...On Saturday we had our very first guests over! Our good friends Chris, Peter and Hannah came over for brunch. We were able to finish the trim on the living room and foyer around 8am that morning and when Oscar and Luli returned from gymnastics that morning we hurriedly tried to re-furnish the room before our guests arrived. All of the furniture had been moved into the dining room for the time being. We were just putting on the finishing touches when they arrived, good timing! We gave our first tour of the house and then on to the eating! I made a raspberry almond coffee cake which came out pretty good (one minor error that didn't really effect taste at all), herbed scrambled eggs, fruit salad and veggie and turkey wraps courtesy of Chris. We also all enjoyed mimosas, and kid mimosas for the girls. It was a fun time and great to catch up, and a lot of excitement for us to show off our new house for the first time.

Playing So Cute

We recently moved the playroom into the eventual dining room to prepare for demolition and renovation of the basement. This morning the girls were playing so nicely that I was able to sit down, drink my coffee and read a bit of my book. But most of the time I just sat watching them and listening to them talk. They are pretty hilarious and their imagination is just amazing right now. For the most part they are so well behaved and just best friends, exactly what I hope for. While they played I snapped this adorable picture of them and I just love it, it warms my heart. And they are doing well at cleaning up the new playroom.

Zoo

This morning we packed up and headed to the zoo with Katie and Alison. It was a perfect day to go, very sunny and hot! The girls were very excited to ride in Miss Katie's car and see all the animals. After a quick tour of the new digs we were on our way. In the beginning the girls were quite focused on eating lunch (even though it wasn't even 11am yet) and kept asking when lunch was. Luckily an orangutan started swinging above on the ropes, and literally 30 seconds prior I was saying to Katie that I've never seen any animal come across those ropes and I'd love to. We learned quickly not to stand under the ropes because he relieved himself twice. It was a great sight and the girls were really thrilled with it. They wanted to see another one do it, and I explained they didn't do that very often and we probably wouldn't see it again today...well WRONG-O Jenn! There came another one!

We saw the zebras, the elephants, the pandas, a lemur, the sea lions, and giant turtles (having adult relations). The girls seemed most entertained by the various statues, perhaps because they could climb on them and be a bit more interactive. After lunch the girls seemed to be losing steam and we really thought they'd fall asleep, until the "myster." Around the zoo there are several water spraying areas in order to have some relief from the sun and heat. The girls loved it, and got pretty soaked. After that they were awake and ready to really enjoy the rest of the zoo! Fiona and Alison held hands most of the afternoon and were really adorable singing and chatting with each other.

Luli really wanted to see the sea lions so we made sure to get to those and then try to call it a day. The girls were so good that we decided to splurge on an ice cream sandwich and another trip through the "myster." All the girls stayed awake chatting and singing on the drive home, and somehow Miss Katie and I did also!

It was another great field trip with our friends Katie and Alison, and a great time for Katie and I to catch up!

First Baseball Game

On Saturday night we went to the girls very first baseball game! Oscar received tickets from work and it was a 7pm game, the girls took a nice nap in the afternoon and we packed pjs for the drive home. We parked rather far away but sprung for a pedicab ride to the stadium, which was a lot of fun for the girls.

We decided to pack a dinner rather than the expense of feeding us all a ridiculously priced hot dog there, so we brought our own turkey hot dogs, chips and hummus and raspberry almond coffee cake. It was good and a great way to keep the girls in their seats and watching the game.

It was the Nats vs. Mets and wonderfully for us the Nats won! The girls enjoyed all the clapping, the standing and clapping for home runs which were also accompanied by fireworks, and learning about the game. Around inning seven we went down to the playground (yes National Stadium has a playground for kids) and let the girls run around. Luli loved it and climbed up high and ran around quite a bit. Fiona on the other hand was nervous and scared of all the big kids running so fast around her, it was rather chaotic. Once we were done running around we began our trek back to the car (sans pedicab) and then got the girls into pjs, brushed teeth and headed home. Amazingly the girls stayed awake the whole ride home!

Marseilles Dress SHABBY APPLE GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Marseilles Dress SHABBY APPLE GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

I love this dress, and I hope I win this giveaway! Some day I'm bound to win one!

Kitchen

I plan to do an individual post about each room but I just posted the pics of the kitchen

Letters

With the new house and being able to paint the walls and decorate the way we want I really wanted to have the girls' names on the wall. I had scoped out a few letters at the craft store and various other places but nothing seemed right and all were ridiculously priced. Then it dawned on me that I have two very talented men in my family who could work together easily to create the perfect letters. My brother, also known as Uncle Eyes, is an amazing graphic designer who works in advertising. He is regularly creating fonts and he usually knows exactly what I want with very little direction. And my father, as many readers and friends know, is a very talented wood worker. Combining those talents yielded one of a kind letters for the girls' room and all of us are pleased. Uncle Eyes had a few requirements for their installation and what color they should be, and we followed them because he is the expert. He felt due to their size they should be the same color as the wall and after a visit from him in July we'll see if we're sticking with that or going a few shades lighter for a small amount of contrast with the wall. The girls helped me paint them and they were the first things hung in the new house!

Last Day Of School

Before school Luli and Fiona posed for graduation pictures. Luli got "special" braids for the big day and picked out several clips to adorn them with. I can hardly believe this school year is over. Luli had a great year with Miss Cindy #1 and Miss Cindy #2. There were a few ups and downs but I think Luli is the greater for all of it. Let's just say I didn't expect girl cattiness and bullying to start so early. My hope is that the experience gives Luli a bit thicker skin and the ability to deal with these happenings in a healthy manner as she grows. On a much more positive note Luli learned so much this year and has blossomed. From the beginning she insisted on being called her full name, Lourdes, so all the kids know her as Lourdes and I had to constantly remind myself to call her Lourdes when speaking with the moms.

The final day was a graduation ceremony (even though she'll be attending pre-k) most of the kids are headed off to kindergarten next year. The kids had graduate caps and marched in to Pomp and Circumstance. It was really adorable. Every child was called up to receive their diploma and a handshake from Miss Cindy.

After the graduation we went inside to watch the presentations the children had prepared. They sang three songs, You Are My Sunshine, The Rainbow Song (referenced in the mother's day post) and one other one...hmmm can't remember right now. Then Miss Cindy presented each child with their binder of work for the year and announced what each child wanted to be when they grow up. Apparently Luli wants to be a gardener, perhaps she can work on that now my yard needs it! It was a really special morning and we were all sad to say good bye to the school year.

Mother's Day

I know we are fast approaching Father's Day but I realized I still haven't posted about my amazing Mother's Day. All the mother's at preschool were invited to a "Mother's Day Tea" at school with our children. I made sure to have Oscar clear his schedule so I could drop Fiona at his work and go to the tea as a special thing for just Luli and I. I'm really glad I did, it was really sweet and quite possibly my favorite Mother's Day moment so far. At the tea, the children performed three songs- I love you (the Barney song), You Are My Sunshine (not a dry eye in the house), and a song the kids wrote about a rainbow in the sky and all the colors shining through them. After the songs Miss Cindy presented each child's mother with a gift the children made, on each it said something they love about their mother and when they think their mother looks most beautiful. Luli's was almost the last one and it was hysterical. Luli does have a tendency to say the most random hilarious things and she sure didn't disappoint! First she said "I love that my Mommy bakes yummy things and her hugs" and then she says "my mommy looks most beautiful when she wears clothes." Seriously everyone started laughing, Miss Cindy said she tried to get Luli to say something different but she was adamant about saying this! HA! I wouldn't have changed it for the world.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I'm working on getting some pics from other moms.

New Pictures

I know it's taken FOREVER! But we do finally have internet, cable and the phone line set up at the house. So now I'm able to upload photos and update the blog. I have uploaded a lot of new pics of the house and what we're up to with it. I found out I never took the after pics of the kitchen so you'll see it primed but not painted...woopsy! So I'll take those pictures tomorrow and of the master bedroom almost finished. That's the only room with curtains up so far, though we're still not ready for wall decor in any room...so definitely not finished in the decor department.

Herndon Festival

This past weekend was the Herndon Festival. We went three of the four days and had a great time. What a difference a year makes when it comes to fairs and these girls. Last year we went to FunLand in Rehoboth Beach and Luli totally freaked out about getting on rides, and when it came to fireworks at the fourth of July, Fiona clutched me for dear life and wouldn't even look at them. This year both girls wanted to get on the rides (without an adult) and Fiona loved the fireworks that went up on Thursday and Saturday nights. The fair was a great time with lots of rides, vendors and food. It was a real coming together of the town and a lovely show of cultures. We really enjoyed ourselves and felt much more comfortable here than we ever did in South Riding. We just feel at home here and we're so happy to have made the right decision after many months of looking. We are developing a great routine here and meeting lots of friends. I feel a lot happier here and Oscar and I are loving creating our own home. The girls are thrilled with the new house and new neighborhood. I'm amazed with the ease it takes Luli to make new friends. I have so many more posts about our new life but it's late, so they'll wait.