The Good Life

With all the hustle and bustle of these new projects, I was feeling really proud of myself. It has been so important to me for us to have a home that we are comfortable in. I wanted Colton to have a cute room, I wanted pretty floors, I wanted to help Matt organize his garage. I was busy, busy, busy making our house comfortable that I completely forgot that what makes Colton comfortable. He doesn't care if he has a cute room or pretty floors, he just wants Mommy and Daddy. On Monday,  the day from somewhere other than heaven,  I was so frustrated. I had so much to do and Colton just kept crying and wanting me to pick him up. I literally felt like I was going to lose it. I was tired, I had so much to do. I was thinking "why can't you just play and be happy". Horrible Mom moment, but let's be honest, no Mom is perfect. So after battling with him, totally losing my patience, locking myself out of the house and crying (ladies,  you can understand that special time of...

Moving into our new house has been so exciting but with all the unpacking, updating, projects and getting settled, I have to admit that I am exhausted. This past weekend, Matt and I took on our biggest project yet - we replaced the carpet in our living and dining rooms with hardwood. The hardwood that we used is not the pre-finished kind, it's straight from the mill (literally). I knew this was going to be a big challenge for us for several reasons but the biggest being that we have a 10 month old "helping". On Friday, I took on the challenge of ripping out carpet while Matt was at work . My Mom came over for about an hour to watch Colton which gave me time to get enough of the tack strip up to be able to manage the rest of that job with my little assistant. It took me most of the day but I was able to get the living room completely prepped for flooring to start. On Saturday morning, we were at Lowe's by 8am getting everything we needed for our big project! Of...

I was invited to attend “Mommies Time Out” on Friday, November 1. It’s a group of Moms, who meet once a month to talk about “Mom stuff” and get away from the normal routine for a couple of hours. The meetings are at Towering Oaks Baptist Church , the church where Matt and I have been attending for the past few weeks. The church donates staff/time so that childcare is provided and I was glad that Colton was going to be in the same room that he plays in during church! I have been slow to join groups or try “new things” since Colton has been born. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to go, I’ve just let myself make excuses as to why I “can’t”. I decided that I am done making excuses, and I am going to make the effort to try some new things. I am so happy that I attended this meeting. I got to meet several new people, and not just “people” but Moms who are going through the same struggles/stress/challenges/joy that I’m going through. The meeting was from 9:30 to 11:30am. We started with so...

So, when we bought our home, we knew that every room was going to need a makeover. Since we have a limited funds and a   “priority list”, my laundry room is very low (if not last) on the list! The laundry room is in the basement and it’s huge. It’s got a big folding counter and lots of cabinet space – but it’s in need of updating - BAD. When we moved in, it had a single light bulb in the ceiling with a pull string (no light switch) and was dark and very, very, VERY dirty. I dreaded starting in on it, but I knew that it had to be done - I mean, we couldn't go without clean clothes for too long. I didn’t want to invest very much (if any) money in this room since we are going to totally renovate it anyway! Where to start? I got Matt to install a new, florescent light (with a switch) to lighten things up. Once the light was installed, I was able to get down there and clean. I took the shop vac over every square inch and then went back with bleach water and wiped everything down! T...

Some people were asking about Colton’s Halloween costume (because I didn’t post any pics)! Since this was Colton’s first Halloween, I struggled with the decision of whether or not to play “dress up” with him. After looking at costumes (the cost of costumes) and talking to Matt about the reasons why we would be doing it, we decided against dressing him up this year. He wasn’t old enough to pick out what he likes or enjoy candy anyway, so we stayed home and had a great time handing out goodies to all the trick-or-treaters. Since we live in a small neighborhood now, we had lots of little visitors on Halloween night. Our first spooky visitor was my Cousin Sara’s son, TJ. He was dressed up in the “Scream” mask. While I thought it was a great costume choice, Colton did not and was scared of the mask. Once TJ revealed who was under the mask, Colton was much happier! My parents, my Uncle Pat and Aunt Teri all came over (and brought pizza) to enjoy the trick-or-treaters. Over the course of the...