What A Girl Will Do For a Cute Helmet

J promised G the new bike helmet of her choice if she learned to ride her bike without training wheels.

And learn she did...

And in a dress to boot :)

She was promptly taken to the nearest Target and picked out a most fabulous new bike helmet!

Nappy-Time

I LOVE naps - have for as long as I can remember.  In my mind there is few greater treats than a little afternoon siesta!  G seems to share my affection for naps as she is almost 4 years old and still regularly takes an afternoon nap. 

A few days ago, I went to wake her up and found this (I wish I could have captured it all in one picture, but my camera lens isn't wide enough)...

To the right of the bed...

To the left of the bed...

In the bed (pardon the blurriness - she woke up right after I snapped this shot.  I guess I am not the most stealthy photographer :)...

...everyone's all tucked in for a nice-long-nap :)

A Special Delivery

G loves to check the mail!  Everyday (including Sundays) I will hear "Mommy, can I please check the mail?"  at least once :)

She was DELIGHTED to find a package of her very own waiting in the mailbox!

A good friend from church made G a doll baby blanket with a matching hair bow.  Though she could have easily given it to us at church, she suspected that G might enjoy receiving the package in the mail.  Boy was she was right! :)

Truth be told this baby doll blanket encouraged me at least as much as it did G!  When we opened this package on Valentine's eve.  I was UP TO MY EYEBALLS in our nutty DIY project.  Our house was turned upside down and inside out - literally.  I'd spent the entire day painting and was nowhere near being done in time for the flooring guy to start on time in a few short days.  J was out of town on work for the week.  I'd just realized that C needed a Valentine's mailbox for school the next day and I was fresh out of shoe boxes! 

Overall, there was a definite lack of Valentine Spirit in our house and the Mommy-Guilt was running high!  Then enters this package that my sweet friend made and went to the trouble to mail.  (Am I the only one who HATES setting foot in the post office?!? Talk about thoughtful! :)  Those pictures above, they weren't manufactured, G was really THAT excited!  We both felt loved on!  

C wasn't left out - another very dear friend offered to drive over a shoe box once she learned of my mailbox dilemma.  She showed up minutes later with shoe box and Valentine's cookies in hand.  SWEET...doesn't get any better than cookies delivered to your door, does it?!?

We spent the rest of the evening wrapping and decorating C's mailbox.  It was a good night! :)

Queen For A Day

C's class hosted a Fairy Tale Ball several weeks ago.

I was cordially invited

We dressed up

I received a corsage:

And a crown of flowers

Was serenaded by all the Knights and Ladies of the court (don't want to post pictures of other people's kids)

And was presented with a portrait drawn by my sweet boy :) 

I could get used to being Queen!!! :)

Toothless!

C was STOKED to be the first kid to lose a tooth AT school (in his PB&J to be exact)!  

You can just see the excitement written all over his face :)

Watch Out Wal-Mart!

Wild women on the loose on aisle 4!!! :)

G and Mrs. Delores

(I swear - you can't take 'em anywhere :)

And One Thing Led To Another...

That pretty much sums up any DIY project at Casa de P!

New Year's Weekend Warrior Project Scope:  Replace broken quarter round molding (aka shoe molding) in Living Room and Dining Room and paint walls and trim in Living Room.

We figured we'd be done before J had to return to work on Tuesday morning - Easy Peasy!


Preparing to paint

J removed the molding, and I spent Friday prepping and priming the walls and trim.  All was going according to plan until I started priming the baseboards in the Dining Room.  It was then that I noticed a most unfortunate (and familiar) smell. The previous owner's cat had struck again....UGHH!

[Background:  Not long after we moved in, five years ago, we discovered several VERY bad cat stained areas upstairs.  We spent the better part of a month sanding, scrubbing, priming, cutting out drywall and blowing up power tools before we were able totally eliminate the funkiness and put down new flooring in the affected areas.  We checked the rest of the house with a black light - yeah, I'll admit it, we got a little obsessed.  But in our defense, it stunk REALLY bad!  Truth be told - is it was probably a God-send that we didn't find the cat damage in the Dining Room the first go round 5 years ago.  I'm pretty sure it would have sent us over the edge mentally and to the poor-house financially to deal with all of that after having just purchasing a house. :]

At any rate, when J removed the quarter round it released the smell and began what turned out to be a very slippery slope of multiple modifications to our New Year's Weekend Warrior Project.

New Year's Weekend Warrior Project Scope (rev. 1): Replace broken quarter round molding in Living Room and Dining room, paint walls and trim in Living Room, prime funky baseboards to eliminate odor, and gently pull up laminate to determine if sub-floor damage is present.

Soooo...we set to very, very gently pulling up the laminate flooring in the areas we suspected might have sub-floor damage.  We were able to determine pretty quickly that those areas of the sub-floor were soiled.  Based on our previous experience we went ahead and primed the sub-floor and the baseboards in the affected areas crossing our fingers that that would take care of the odor.  Well...it didn't :(

New Year's Weekend Warrior Project Scope (rev. 2):  Replace broken quarter round molding in Living Room and Dining room, paint walls and trim in Living Room, replace funky baseboards, check drywall behind baseboards for damage, pull up laminate entirely, thoroughly treat sub-floor with oil-based primer, and decide on new flooring (the laminate used in our Dining Room and Living Room is no longer available so patching up the affected areas are out of the question).

Now here is where we REALLY went off the reservation :)

When we decided that new flooring was in order that got me to thinking long-term...REALLY long-term!  I've always said that I wanted to scrape the dingy, water stained popcorn ceilings "eventually."  Removing popcorn ceilings is super messy - not the kind of thing you want to be trying to do on nice floors if you can help it.  So naturally we decided it would be prudent (yeah, right...a better description would be crazy, loco,  or loony toons :) to go ahead and scrape and paint the ceilings of the areas that will get new flooring. And sooooo.....

New Year's Not-So Weekend Warrior Project Scope (rev. 3):  Replace broken quarter round molding in Living Room and Dining room, paint walls and trim in Living Room and Dining Room, replace funky baseboards, cut out funky drywall, scrape and paint ceilings and replace flooring in Living Room, Dining Room, and Entry, staircase upstairs hallway and probably Master Bedroom.

So that's what we've been up to.  Overall I'd say things have gone very well.  Thankfully, the weather has been amazing allowing the kids to spend lots of time playing outside so they aren't stuck inside with drywall dust and paint fumes which eases my Mommy guilt just a touch :)  We are making good progress on the ceilings, trim, and walls.  Not done yet, but getting there...and achieving pretty nice results thus far, if I do say so myself.  :)

Here are some pictures...

Popcorn that came off the Living Room ceiling..  I told you it was SUPER messy  :)

Here's another view of popcorn swept into a pile (it was about 1.5' Wide X 6" High)

Ceiling after scraping

I think this is the best way to capture the sanding/drywall prep phase. Think dust, dust, and more dust!!!!!

Ceiling's ready to be primed and painted...FINALLY!!!!

After - fresh paint on ceilings, trim, and walls

Semi-decorated room.

It didn't stay that way for long because we needed a place to store the Dining Room furniture since that was the next room set to go under the knife...drywall putty knife that is...harharhar :)  (Give me a break - I'm kinda running on fumes here - gotta laugh or I might cry :)

Dining Room process pictures to come....