Saturday, August 30, 2008

Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone!

Just a quick post because Matt is making me feel guilty that I have been "blog slacking".

I hope everyone is enjoying a fun holiday weekend! Ours has not been too eventful. Matt is on-call the whole weekend and his day today was quite hectic. Lily and I got to meet some friends at Peddler's Village (LOVE that place!). We did some rides and had lunch. Of course I made the regular stop at the bakery for some "Electric Bread"!! I got some for you Daddy! :)

We had another showing on our house tonight. There is some interest from one of the couples who came through last week. They are planning on coming back with their parents next week. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

Tomorrow we will be going to Pop-pop's house for some fun in the pool and hamburgers for dinner. I am trying to get in as many summer activities as possible for Lily since it is coming to an end this weekend.

I am finding this last part of August to be a little difficult since it was last year at this time when my Mom starting showing signs that something was not right. September was a bad month last year....I know it is going to be a hard month coming up. I am so thankful that our family has each other. I just miss her so much.

I hope everyone enjoys their final summer days with family and friends!! Get in one last barbecue, one last swim, one last picnic in the park, one last beach day!! Enjoy!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

I have been a Blog slacker!

Sorry all! I just have not had much time to sit down and write anything creative lately. It has been a busy week. We had a little bit of action here on the selling of our house so that is good news. We had two showings on Tuesday so I spent much of my day cleaning and getting all of us out of the house.

I had a wonderful girls night out on Tuesday evening. We just went to dinner and talked and talked. It is always so good getting together with my friends. As I said before, it is like therapy for Moms.

Yesterday Lily and I took a trip to her school to give the Nurse some of the medications she needs in case of any allergic reactions. Lily certainly LOVES going to her school. Just two weeks and she will be officially starting. I don't know how she will be feeling when I drop her off and leave but she has been Miss Social Butterfly with all of the teachers and staff. It will be neat to see how she does. We had "Meet the Teacher" night last week and she loved it. She went running into her classroom in amazement that they had a play kitchen. We got to play a little bit, meet her teacher and other classmates, go to the playground and get her book bag! Exciting. It was all a big hit for her!

Here is a picture of her checking out the kitchen.

And when we got home holding her new schoolbag!
Today we spent the morning at Sesame Place and had such a great time. We saw all the shows, did some rides, had lunch and watched the Parade. Such a fun day!!

So as you can see our week has been busy. Matt is on-call the whole holiday weekend so I am not sure what we will have planned. I hope to have some time to post those Beach Day pictures soon!

Lily is now sound asleep and I got an extra bonus today...Matt is home early so I am off to the gym!! YAY!

Again - I hope you are all enjoying the final days of summer. Just one official summer weekend left!! Have fun everyone!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Progress 9

House Update!! It is getting close to being done on the outside! They finished up the stone. I think it looks really beautiful. I am so happy with it. The molding above the windows is all up but still needs to be painted - it will be a khaki color. The next step for the outside will be the shutters, paint the molding and then the lights. Also the pillars will be put up for the front porch. There really isn't too much more for the outside. They also worked on leveling out the lot.


In the inside they are working on putting the doors in. We tried to go in this weekend but it is all locked up now. Bummer! :( Matt did some peaking in.....

And he tried to get in through the basement door but that door was locked also!!
Here is a final picture from Sunday! Just 69 more days!! WOO HOO!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Look what we did today!

HA HA!! (Please excuse the crazy flip-flop tan on my feet! We spend a lot of time at the park)

Another girl-girl activity. This was our first time painting Lily's toes and she LOVED it!! She was very excited and proud. It was fun! Here she is pointing them out!

I hope everyone had a fun summer weekend. We had a BLAST at the beach yesterday. I am planning on doing a post with pictures later in the week. Check back tomorrow for my House Update!!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Just a little more time left....

Just a short amount of days left and we will be saying goodbye to summer. It really has gone quickly hasn't it?? I am looking forward to the fall but it is always sad to see the summer come to an end.

We have been busy trying to get as many summer activities in as possible. Today we spent the morning at a pool with a couple of friends that I used to teach with. The one little boy was born on the same day as Lily and they will be going to school together in just a couple of weeks. Lily had a lot of fun. Here they are kicking on the side of the pool!! Ha! It was funny when they all lined up to do this. I had to get a picture.


All lined up!

And of course the highlight of any summer day at the pool....THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!! Lily chose a blue Icee pop!! Cool!

Last weekend we had a fun summer day at The Grange Fair. We met our friends and their two little boys. A lot of neat animals and some YUMMY Kettle Corn.

Looking at the goats!



Matt took this picture and we think she looks so pretty in it! OK - maybe we are biased but oh well, here it is!

Petting the bunny.

TRACTORS! Notice Lily sneaking under the rope! She wanted to go on them so badly.

Thankfully they had some tractors the kids could go on. Here they are with the Daddies.

And a final cute picture of the two good friends!! (They will soon be our neighbors also! We are so excited!)

All of these summer activities have been so much fun. It is really neat to see Lily enjoying these types of things more and more as she gets older. Tomorrow we have another exciting day planned - BEACH DAY!! Lily has been talking about going to the beach all summer long and we are finally going to get to go. She is looking forward to it. Her favorite book right now is Beach Day so we have been reading it everyday in anticipation of actually going! I am sure I will have some good pictures to share of our trip!

Go check out some more summer fun at this post on City Momma/Country Momma's blog - Down By the Bay. Really cute pictures of my nephew enjoying the beach and other summer stuff!

Hope everyone has a fun summer weekend!! ENJOY!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

She's ALL Girl!!

Lily is a total girly-girl! I love it. As she gets a little older I can see more and more "girly" qualities emerging! One of her new favorite things to do is "Do make-up". She will sit in the bathroom with me while I do my make-up and take each piece of make-up out of the basket and pretend to put it on. It is our new morning ritual!!


She always is wanting to fill up and carry some sort of bag or purse. She loves to iron with her new ironing board and iron. She picked it out, she wanted it more than anything! She is always concerned with things matching. Today she says "I would like to use the purple cup Mommy, it matches my shirt."


She loves to play with her Baby doll. She is so good at taking care of her. She feeds her. Puts her down for her nap and covers her up. Lately she loves to take her Baby on a picnic. She pushes her in the stroller and pretends to go shopping at the mall.


She loves shopping! Yesterday at the mall she rode the carousel and then came running over to my good friend and me and said "Let's go shopping now!" Too cute.

I love it. I just envision when she is a teenager - shopping at the mall, having lunch, picking out a new outfit or dress for that special dance. These are some of the best memories I have of being with my Mom. I know it sounds silly but really it is. I can't wait to make those memories with her!

It seems she is growing up so quickly! That fun shopping time will be here before we even blink. I don't want it to come too soon though! Tonight we are going to "Meet the Teacher" at her school. SCHOOL!!?? Yes, I said school. I can't believe our baby is starting Pre-school. It should be an interesting adjustment for Lily and Mommy. I am thinking she will be really happy tonight when she gets her very first school bag to fill up and carry!!!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Progress 8

Exciting changes this past week!! It is looking good. They did the stucco and started the stone. We also have walls inside. Matt was able to go in one day and get some good pictures of the inside. When I went by today they are just finishing up the stone. We met with a painter (for the interior) on Saturday and that went well. We have been busy looking at colors. It really is hard to choose! So much to do!!

Here are the pictures from the progress this week.
A good shot of the side/back of the house so you can see the stucco.

And the other side/front. The molding above the windows will be a darker tan color when painted.


Inside - some walls!! The family room.

In the living room looking into the dining room.

The beginning of the stone.


Earlier in the week.

Friday - the stone is getting there!!



And this was today when they were working. Almost to the top!

So there are the changes for this week. Thanks for checking back to see our progress. We are very excited. Just about 2 1/2 months left!!

If you haven't already had a chance check out my post from Friday about my ALTERED CLOCK project. My sister, CityMomma/Country Momma, says I should submit it to Tip Junkie. I am not really sure what that is or how to do it but I will look into it!!

Have a good week everyone! I hope to be back with some fun posts this week.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Altered Clock

Here is my simple tutorial of an Altered Clock!!!


Now a lot of you out there in blog land have probably seen something like this before so it may not be something new to you. I had seen them about a year ago somewhere on-line and always thought it would be fun to make. It really is very simple, especially if you are into scrapbooking already. You kind of do the same thing but put it on the face of a clock.

For those of you who have never seen this neat craft idea here is a mini-tutorial on how I did it. I bought an inexpensive clock from Wal-mart that was able to be unscrewed from the back. I took out the hands of the clock and took off the face.



I picked out a scrapbook paper I liked and cut it to fit the face of the clock. I got an extra big clock so it took two pieces of 12 X 12 paper arranged just so. Be sure to cut the hole in the center where the hands will go back through. I picked the bright colors because I am going to use it in Lily's play room in our new house. I am going to go with primary color decorating in that room rather than pastel and pink like her room is going to be.


Then I arranged the pictures and numbers how I wanted them and put them down using my tape runner. You could do anything you wanted - pictures, no pictures just a pretty paper, numbers all around, no numbers, just a 12!! Whatever!! I used chipboard for the numbers and circles that I put them on. I bordered the pictures in ribbon - you can see that in the final picture.

Then you put the hands of the clock back on and put the whole clock back together. I painted the rim of mine red. It was black. (It was my first adventure in spray paint and it went well!! I can see how some of you become addicted!!!)

So there you have it! Pretty simple and I think it turned out pretty cute. The pictures don't do it any justice! It looks much cuter in real life!

I zoomed in on this one a bit so you could see some details a little better.


I hope you enjoyed my little project! Now get out there and go purchase a cheap clock. Now you can take it all apart and make something extra special for yourself!! :)

HAVE FUN!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Fun with Friends!

Just a quick post today because I have been busy working on my project!! It is coming out pretty cute and I should be able to post about it tomorrow or Friday! Oh! And sorry Daddy - it isn't a patriotic shadow box but I really like your guess!! :)

Lily and I had a fun day today with our friends Kate and Bobby. We are very fortunate to have a lot of friends that have little ones around the same age. We try to get together as much as possible but it is sometimes difficult with all of our different schedules. Today we met up with Kate and her son Bobby. There is a nice playground we like to meet at because it is a half-way point between our two houses. After the playground we headed to the mall for lunch and then to ride the EXCITING rides! It is so cute to see how excited they get from the 50 cent rides! So adorable. Lily and Bobby have been playing together since birth and they have just really started to actually play together. Before this they really just played in the same room but now they are interacting, chasing each other and of course imitating what each other does. It is really neat to see.

Today after swinging and going up and down the stairs and slides Lily insisted on holding Bobby's hand on the way to the cars!


Here they are riding the rides at the mall!







Just so much fun!! We did have a very nice day. Thanks Kate and Bobby! Let's do it again sometime soon!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

I am in desperate need of a project!

I think of myself as a pretty crafty and creative person. I usually have some kind of project going on. Usually it is scrap booking or a stamping project. Right now I have NOTHING! I had to pack up my whole scrap area for the selling of our house. There was just way too much stuff everywhere and I had to remove the clutter. I am so excited to get into my new house and set up a craft area.

For the time being I have been reading blogs of some really crafty and talented people! I am getting some good ideas for future use but nowhere to store anything for now. I am getting bored without a project so today I had an idea. There is a project I have been wanting to do for a while now and I finally have something in mind I can use it for.

This is just going to be a "teaser" post. I am going to keep you guessing so you will have to come back to see what I do. I got just a few of the supplies I will need while we were out today. Here is a picture.


Aren't you proud? My very first can of spray paint!! I am so excited. I know a lot of the readers out there are so proud of me! I can't wait to see how my little crafty idea turns out. I am not making any promises but come on back and see what I come up with!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Progress 7

Not much happening on the outside of the house this past week again. They finished the first layers before the stucco goes on but still haven't started the stucco.

Here is a picture of how it looked yesterday. Basically the same as it did at the end of last week!

Here is the stone all ready for them to start. We are thinking they may start adding the stone this week.

They did do a lot of work inside. The whole house is now insulated and ready for dry-wall.

Insulation in the garage! Exciting, huh??

A pretty neat picture of our bath tub in the master bath.


Since I have been all about photo comparisons lately I thought it would be cool to see the transformation since May.

Here is the lot in May with just the foundation done.

Here is the beginning of the framing at the end of June.

And then August!! Amazing how fast it all goes.


On a sadder note....it looks like our perspective neighbors are no longer. Apparently it fell through. We are not really sure what that means but we were disappointed to hear it. We were excited because they had young children and we were looking forward to nice neighbors. Right now we are the only house on that side of the development. We are just the beginning of Phase 2 so I am sure in time there will be many more people coming. However we will be living in a construction area for a while!!

Here is a picture of the house that will be up for a "Quick Sale" as the builder calls it. Anyone in the market for a brand new home in Bucks County?? We would love to have some nice, new neighbors!!!