house

We had a really awesome weekend this past weekend, and I have a ton of pictures to share. For now, here are some updated house pictures. The second coat of paint was finished this weekend (Sherwin Williams "Vanillin") and all the trim work is painted (Sherwin Williams "Extra White"). I'm not sure if the warmth of the color shows up as nicely with smaller pictures.

upstairs hallway

This coming week they are going to start assembling the stairway railing and spindles and stain the fire place mantle (same color as they stair spindles).

I have no idea why lately I've been sticking my butt out so much in photos... it's quite embarassing. So to counteract that, I am posting an equally embarassing photo of Dave from this weekend.


I know, real mature of me.... All that is left for inside the house is the flooring and the cabinets. And no doubt some smaller things like outlet covers, etc. Outside they need to put up the stone and siding and assemble the front porch. We close in a little over 7 weeks and move in 55 days!!

Best Friends Ever (in the whole world)

Priceless...

Home purchases & ideas...

We've made some purchases for the house, and are starting to come up with ideas. (Well, at least I am! Fortunately Dave seems to think I have good taste.) I'd love some feedback on these ideas.

New Master Bedroom furniture:

We decided to go with this set as it was a little better made that the other set we were considering. We got 2 nightstands, the dresser & mirror, chest of drawers, and King sleigh bed with storage under neath

Close up of the dresser

This is some of the bedding I'm thinking about (Pottery Barn's Sydney Palampore pattern- Smoky blues and muted greens).

Alternative bedding - Pottery Barn's Blythe Paisley pattern - golds, soft blues and greens

I'm thinking a wall color like this - Benjamin Moore Jamestown Blue.

We also found a nice chair tonight to place in the corner by the windows.

I love this bedding for the guest bedroom-Pottery Barn's Provence bedding - could be my obsession with all things French and lavender!

close up of bedding

I think I'd paint the guest bedroom a sage green and use the lavender in the bedding as accents. I can also go the other way and do a lavender / nightengale colored wall and use a green as the accent color.

Here's a painting we love for above the stone fireplace in the formal living room.

It's called Peaceful River.

We purchased a love seat, oversized chair, and 3 tables for the formal living room.

I plan to get new pillows for the love seat - I hate the pattern of the ones that come with it, but the rest of the love seat was awesome to us. The color isn't quite as dark as it looks here (I think the pillows are thowing it.)

Here is the TV Console we're considering. We have a large plasma TV and would like shelves around it, but not above it (what they call a bridge). This would span the back of the family room wall. (Ignore the awful picture of me in front of it. It's for scale.)

Today we also got an awesome deal on a Samsung French-door fridge / freezer. Instead of paying $2300, we got it for $1000! It has 2 very small dents at the very bottom on the freezer; they are barely noticable. It is Energy Star rated and has a dual ice maker and filtered water & ice in door. What a deal for $1300 off!

24 hr recap

Did you ever feel like the universe is conspiring against you? Here's a recap of my past 24+ hrs:

• Wed 12 PM - take Cori to pediatrician again. They place a urine catch bag on her so they can test her urine for a UTI.
• Wed 1 PM - After much screaming, the bag is in place and we are out the door.
• Wed 3 PM - I call Cori's grandparents who've been watching her to ask if the bag has a sample. I'm informed the urine leaked from the bag into the diaper.
• Wed 3:30 - Back at doctor's for third time in 24 hrs. They bag her yet again and we wait for Cori to pee.
• Wed 5 PM - the doctor's office is closing and Cori has refused to pee. We leave to head home as we are told we can take the sample to UPMC Passavent lab that evening.
• Wed 6:30 PM- arrive home after 90 mins in traffic. Cori has finally peed! Alas, I call the lab and they close at 7. There is no way in Hades I will make it there in 30 mins.
• Wed 6:35 PM - curse and swear, rinse and repeat.

Have I mentioned that I was supposed to be at work Wednesday afternoon? Ha ha ha. Ugh.

• Wed 8 PM - try to inject 7CCs of medicine into Cori's mouth as she screams and flairs and hits.
• Thus 7 AM - Cori wakes up and we bag her to collect urine. Here we go again. Start pushing her to drink juice (to no avail)
• Thus 8 AM - no urine, won't drink any juice
• Thurs 9 AM - no urine - takes a few sips of juice
• Thurs 10 AM - we have urine.... in the diaper. The bag has leaked again. Determine that Cori cannot lay down with bag as the urine spills into diaper somehow.
• Thurs 10:05 - we bag Cori yet again and place her in the car. Pack up plenty of juice and a diaper and head out for Ross Park Mall. I figure she can play and walk a bit and then I'll run the sample over to her pediatrician by 11.
• Thurs 10:30 - Cori is asleep in car. No urine. Continue driving out to new house thinking we can see the house and take her sample to the ped office out there.
• Thurs 11 AM - get to see house (yay!) but Cori has not peed.
• Thurs 11:30 -1 PM - head to Chick Fila (no pee) and then to Target to walk for a bit (still no pee). Cori is now getting sleepy and I really need to get back to work. Yeah, I'm supposed to be working again today. Good grief.
• Thur 1:15 - Figure "screw it" and start driving back home. Take long way home past pediatrician's office on McKnight Rd.
• Thurs 1:40 - stop at pediatrician's office, wake Cori from 10 minute car nap and check diaper. We have pee and half of it is in the bag.
• Thurs 1:41 - stop to PRAISE GOD for what is seemingly a miracle.
• Thurs 1:45 - doctor tests urine and finds out Cori has a UTI. We're given instructions to take sample to Quest for more testing and they will call in the prescription to pharmacy.
• Thurs 1:50 - arrive at Quest. Wait 5 minutes until someone comes to the window, and am told that while I have everything ready to go in the container, I still need to wait to be seen so someone can collect the urine. It is a 35 minute wait based on the number of people ahead of me.
• Thurs 1:55 PM - I ask my mom to go into Quest and wait to drop off the urine while I run to pick up the prescription. Cori begins screaming that Grandma isn't with us anymore.
• Thurs 2 PM - arrive at Target pharmacy, while Cori is still screaming and people are staring at me like I am murdering my child. I am told that while yes the script was called in, the pharmacist is in fact on her lunch hour. I beg the pharmacist to yes, please interupt the pharmacist (knowing in fact that karma will find a way to repay me for this seemingly horrible request) and fill my script. My child is overdue for a nap, I needed to be working hours ago, and I am still 30 mins away from home.
• Thurs 2:30 - leave Target, pick up Grandma at Quest, and finally head home.
• Thurs 3 PM - arrive home, attempt to give Cori her medicine which kind of looks like a cat squiriming to get away from the flea dip bath tub - there is screaming, clawing, clenching & flailing... Somehow I manage to get 4CCs of medicine into her. Grandma tries to put Cori down for a nap with no luck.
• Thurs 3:30 PM - pour myself a glass of Baileys as I finally begin working for the day.
• Thurs 3:45 PM - figure screw it - the day is done and update the blog.

Here's hoping tomorrow is a much more productive day! I don't think I can handle the stress of another 24 hrs like this past one!

Vacation 2010 (picture heavy)

As some of you know, our little bird Cori has been under the weather for four days now with a very high fever. I took her to the doctors again today and the poor kid again started crying and saying "no shots! no shots!" - it just breaks my heart. So I thought I'd try to cheer myself up by looking at pics of her where she is her healthy, adorable self. And since I owe a post on our vacation, I am going to multi-task for a bit.

We went to Rehoboth Beach Deleware for our summer vaction this year, and it was our year to take Grammi Lois (Dave's mom). We did have a really good time and spent some great quality time together. Cori was a good tropper in the car thanks to the DVD player, though poor Grammi probably saw Toy Story 2 a few too many times along the course of the trip!
We rented a townhouse a few miles from the beach, and the home was absolutely immaculate and tastefully designed. Really, I told Dave I'd buy the townhouse outright if it had a 4th bedroom. Even Mr. Anti-townhome liked it! I drooled over the little reading nooks, the awesome kitchen and master bath suite! The place had a fitness center and pools that were open until Labor Day, and that was a big hit with Cori (the pool, not the fitness center).

Unfortunately the pool closed on Labor Day and Cori kept asking daily to go back to the "big pool". We went to the beach one day and Cori rushed to the water but then the sound of the waves crashing scared her. She wouldn't go in the water after she felt the way the sand moved beneath her feet when the waves went back out. While she played in the sand the rest of that day, we didn't have any such luck at the beach any other days. Actually, all subsequent attempts resulted in her screaming loudly "I WANT TO GO HOME!!".

Upon suggestion from ever-knowledgable, world traveler Aunt Kacey, we tried a small beach at Cape Henlopen State Park which was near by. The inlet had a lot of sand bars, so there weren't many waves and the water wasn't very deep. Grammi and I were a little freaked out at not being able to see as clearly though the water - more than once I went to pick up what I thought was a shell and it was a live hermit crab!! And my feet were really cut up by the end of the day. But this worked out much better than the beach. Cori got used to the water slowly and the place was so private, it felt like it was our own beach!

We ran though the water...

We chased the seagulls...

I love how you can see Dave running in this shot - a true action shot!

We splashed...

We drew in the sand....

We hung out...

We made a pilgrimage to Dogfish Head Brewery as well, which is Dave's personal version of Heaven I think. I have to admit though, that this MGD64 girl fell in love with a really dark beer that tasted like chocolate (Chicory Stout) which shocked the heck out of me! We always joke and ask Cori if she wants a beer; she will always reply "yes!" We didn't let her do anything more than sniff it, but it seems she wasn't all that impressed with the beer.Overall, we really did have a relaxing time and it was great to spend time together as a family. I wish Cori would have taken to the beach more, but we'll try again next year. And as we say goodbye to summer today, I leave you with this picture of the beach, and my very favorite picture from vacation.

Updated House Pictures

I still need to do a post with pictures from our vacation, but I thought I'd post a few pictures of the house. All the dry wall is up and they've mudded it all (not shown in the pictures). Next is the trim and the flooring. They are still on course to complete the house early, but we still think we're going to do an early December close for financial reasons.

Front of the house

Garage (will it ever look this clean again?)

Family Room

Living Room

Master bedroom

Go Steelers!

How did my little baby get so big?!?

I'd like to think this is her lucky outfit and helped secure an OT win.

My sweet girl, fall & football - sigh. Life is good!

House Progress

When we got back from vacation we stopped by the house to see how things are going. It is looking great! The concrete is poured inside and all the insulation is up. The drywall is ready to be hung as soon as we have our walk through with the builder. Things are still on schedule to be done mid-November!!

Our walk in closet and sitting room (tons of room - can't wait!)

Master bedroom with all the drywall supplies ready for use.

I also grabbed a shot of the master bath tub. It's been in a while, but I never had the camera with me.

One side of the basement showing the poured floor, the fancy water system and the bathroom rough-ins.

Cori the Explorer

Lately Cori has taken to getting out of her bed very stealthily. A few nights ago my mom woke up to find Cori laying on the floor next to her bed, asleep. The baby monitor never made a peep - most likely because Cori didn't either I guess.

The next morning I was working at the dining room table; I had checked on Cori not that long before and she was sound asleep. About 15 minutes later, I heard "Hi!!" and turned to see Cori standing at the bottom of the steps. My own fault for leaving the baby gate unlocked, but still! Stealthy I tell ya!

Oh, and did I mentioned how she just walked out the front door at daycare last week? Oy!

I'll be taking a break from blogging as we're beach bound for nice long, relaxing stay. Here's hoping the Earl doesn't hit! Until then....