Work Hard...Play Hard!

Emma and Gwynn in all their glory!

These are the "Kung Fu Panda" girls being crazy!

After all the hard work we've been putting in to the house, I took advantage of my vacation time to play! The Hartford offers each employee volunteer hours during the year, so this year I used some of that time to go help out at my old elementary school. I'm sure you all know that's where my mom and sister both teach, and Emma attends school I went during what was supposed to be field days, but it was a little rainy so they had the class talent shows instead. Emma's class did a cute dance to "Monster Mash" and she had her hair all teased and her face painted! Here she is with some of her friends just being silly! It was so great to play and be a kid again for a day!

Everything Old Is New Again...well, almost

YUCK! I can't believe how ugly this kitchen was!


Here's what we've done with the kitchen to date...cabinets are nearly all painted and we're beginning to install the hardware. The floor remains undone and we need some new lighting fixtures and counter tops, but other than that we're making great progress! And I've even managed to keep it clean enough to keep cooking and entertaining in! I'm quite proud of that! My curtains still don't match, but I'm hoping my wonderful mother-in-law will help me with that soon!

When one door closes...

Hah!! Do you love my "safety" glasses?!


We all know the old saying, but this time we didn't close any doors...just opened new ones! Our house is oddly laid out and even though we have two rooms that are back to back, you can't get to one without walking around the entire house. It was becoming a huge pain, so we decided to open up the walls. It was quite invigorating to say the least! I'd had a rough few weeks at work, so taking a sledgehammer to the wall was just what I needed! Hopefully by next week or so we'll have the door installed (or whenever our privacy glass door gets here!!) Here's some pictures to prove that we really do work hard : )

Takin' My Time

Sorry we haven't posted in a while...it's been pretty crazy around here with house projects! Hope you enjoy the new pics!

Change is good!

Since we moved in to our house, we've been having a hard time trying to get everything to look just right. Currently, we're in the middle of about six projects (yikes!), including the kitchen, mud room, master closet/changing room area, the outside of the house and many more! It seems like we have ADD (or at least I do) because we just don't seem to finish one project before we begin on the next. Today we decided to rearrange the furniture in our TV room to make it seem larger, even though there's no paint/wallpaper up yet, but hey...chaos can be good, right?
Oh - and excuse the ugly window fan. It's another 95 degree day in NY and we don't have AC anymore (that's about the only thing I miss about our apartment!)

NY Beauty

Yesterday, after a long and hot 95 degree day, we were in the kitchen getting prepared to make supper and out our window was the most beautiful skyline. I just had to share it!!

Going NUTS!

Anyone who says home ownership isn't work certainly never lived in our house!! Since we've moved in, we've spent more time hunting creatures than redecorating! We're certain it's because the house was vacant while it was on the market, so heck - what bug wouldn't want to move in! We've conquered spiders, centipedes and ants...so now on to bigger and better things! SQUIRRELS! There has been a little baby squirrel traveling back and forth from the tree branches and phone lines to our attic for a little over a week now and we just couldn't seem to get rid of him. Finally, we got creative and only left him one way out, and after Ryan sat for hours (literally) on Saturday waiting for him to poke his head out, we were successful! They're cute to look at out the window, but we're very glad to be rid of this unwanted house guest!