a "new" kitchen

i know, i know! it's been forever. i've been slacking really bad, but i've also been super busy. so...to start off, we have a "new" kitchen! we finally got around to painting it. with someone's help, of course, and that would be jesse's dad, jeff. here are the gross before pictures of our green kitchen (the previous owners really liked frogs, no joke)...

and the much better after...

so much more airy! i love it! it is creamy cucumber from olympic.

and just for fun, here are some of the during photos...

and this...

resulted in this...

all the popcorn stuff from the ceiling. may not look like a lot here, but it was so hard to get out.

and that would be the newest update to the house. and although i'm writing about it now, it was probably about a month ago, now. i'm so behind! but we would definitely love to thank jesse's dad for helping out. he's definitely much faster than we are.

and i promise i'll try to keep up more from now on!

sneak peek

we know he's our child because he likes sushi :)

parker's chalkboard is now officially complete. i was able to find a little container at ikea to put his chalk in. it was in the "as-is" section for $.10!!! what a deal!

and the sneak peek...

it's not finished, so details and more pictures are coming.

new additions

lately, in my enormous amounts of extra time this summer, i have been trying to fix up a few things around the house. in the almost 2.5 years that we've lived here, i'm just now getting around to actually making it look like we live here. so...

our laundry room needed some help. the rod that was being used to hold extra coat hangers and jesse's work shirts was a shower curtain rod that you twist to tighten to the wall. well, it never really tightened that well. i guess it couldn't take the weight of the shirts and was always falling and consequently tearing the paint from the way. so it was high time we fix it.

i went to lowe's one day and happen to come across these guys.

so all i needed was a wooden rod and we're good to go!

so my dad came over to help me put it up.

and ta da! much better.

and please disregard our green kitchen, we still haven't painted. it is on my to do list though!

and there used to be blue striped curtains covering the laundry (when the kitchen was planned on being blue and white), but they were taken down since we've changed idea of colors. now, the curtain rod that was there to block to laundry room has been transplanted to here...

the finials on the ends were too big to fit in the area over the laundry room, so i've got to source out a new one for there. the old rod is now over our sliding door to the back yard which was previously these annoying vertical blinds.

some were beginning to point in the wrong direction and weren't closing right...they were just a pain. and now it looks like this...

yay!! however it will change in the near future...again. those curtains are actually for the laundry room, once we find a new rod. they will be replaced with some white curtains. but, trust me, it's way better than the vertical blinds that were there.

i did this one a while ago, but haven't mentioned it. i made the end of the kitchen cabinet a chalkboard for parker.

i just need to find a container that i can screw into the cabinet to hold an eraser and the chalk. parker seems to like it though, that's all that matters :)

and last but not least, we now have a compost bin!! i'm pretty pumped about it. less trash, better soil (once it's all decomposed), and better for the environment. i got the tutorial here. it was super easy and super cheap. and since i had already started planning on making one, i started collection kitchen scraps and lint early. so i had plenty to add to the bin when i made it.

started by drilling some holes on the bottom.

then added some leaves, dried weeds, and dirt.

added in all of our kitchen scraps (banana peels, egg shells, cucumber skins, lint, carrot leaves, strawberry tops).

then mixed it all up and put the top on. drilled some more holes in the top. then set it to the side and you're done!

and that would be all the newest additions to our casa. the kitchen is my biggest to-do right now and i desperately want to finish it. so i'll keep you updated!

what's parker up to lately?

a few pictures to let you see what parker's been up to lately:

baking.

playing in the water with reed...

and with worms.

attempting to work out.

legos.

helping with dinner (which helped him to actually eat :) )

golfing.

and lining up cars...everywhere!

stay tuned for some new additions to our house.

charlotte!

this past weekend i finally made the trip back to my hometown of charlotte, nc. and by finally, i mean that it's been 8 years since i've been back! it was awesome! the change there was ridiculous, but it was also 8 years of change. so many new neighborhoods, shopping centers, expansions and natural growth (i miss all the trees).

i stayed with my best friend since middle school, sangeeta.

we started out my trip with visiting my old houses...i miss them dearly.

this was the last house i lived in and the one i remember the most. my room is the top 2 right windows :) the people have painted some; the shutters used to be black and the door was white. my dad planted the huge tree there in the front. it was pretty much the best house ever!

we drove around a lot on friday when i got there. i was so excited i just wanted to check everything out. we went and saw my other house, my elementary school, a few shopping centers. we stopped to have lunch at this cute little italian place called rotelli. i had stuffed shells, delish :)

and while driving around, we had to go get sangeeta's car fixed. so we stopped at the dealership and i ran into an old friend's dad. he mentioned that my friend, jessica, had actually just been there. so we gave her a call and she came back to see me. haven't seen her in even longer than i've actually been back to charlotte. and we've known each other forever...like since diapers :)

that night i got to enjoy and old favorite, cherry blossom. we used to go there a lot. i always got shrimp fried rice, so i had to get it again. and it was amazing, just as good as i remember.

and i've been asking jesse about going to 6 flags every now and then, but we have yet to go. so, needless to say, i was pumped when we decided to go to carowinds. we went with sangeeta's sister, gayathri, and our other friend's sister, anusha. they added a new roller coaster, the intimidator. it was intense...90 miles an hour, long, and lots of "hills."

sunday, we got to go to another old favorite, park 51. we used to eat here a lot too. expect i was so young that all i ever remember getting was those tiny boxed cereals haha. i went for more of an adult meal this time, ham and cheese omelet with home fries and a biscuit. yummy!

had lunch at macado's in concord mills (for those of you in tx, it's basically the same at grapevine mills). and went shopping at aerie...got an awesome deal on some shirts and pants. and somehow we managed to make it over to southpark (which has grown like crazy; it's basically like a mini galleria) and then dinner at our friend neeli's house.

neeli's mom cooked chicken curry. i'm not a spicy food eater, so she made me a small portion that was much milder. but everyone was freaking out thinking it was going to be too spicy, but it was AMAZING! it was so freaking good, no joke.

(anusha, neeli, sangeeta, me)

minus my early flights (left dallas at 7:40 and left charlotte at 6:10), my trip was awesome! thanks vijayagopalan's for letting me stay with you and atyam's for cooking me dinner!!!

redecorating dilemma

lately i've been over-obsessed with trying to finally figure out how we're going to decorate our house. i think it's cause i'm actually home all the time now, so i'm constantly see everything and running ideas through my head. kinda makes me crazy at times.

i'm always checking out etsy to see what they have new and came across this:

courtesy of: decoylab shop

i feel as though i need to make a spot for it! i'm in love!!

we have no idea what we want to do with the house: colors, accessories, places for things, etc. there's no telling where it'll end up. but in my hours of navigating through my new favorite blog, young house love...i'm in love their house.

not only have i found ideas from sherry and john's house (yhl), but i've so many other ideas from link to other websites and what not. here are some of my favorites:

courtesy of: tart house

courtesy of: don't know.

courtesy of: pottery barn

courtesy of: tart house
i love that the desk is a total diy project! it's made from 2 doors, a bookshelf, and 2 table legs.

courtesy of: young house love

courtesy of: probably better homes & gardens or something like that.

courtesy of: don't know.

how fun would that be?! to have everyone over for a party and then go outside to watch a movie. love it!

courtesy of: don't know.

notice the background there? yea...we don't exactly have that here in north texas. i can still dream, right?!

as you can see, i love open storage. so that will somehow be worked in. and i've read that in smaller houses, you should have a color that is worked in throughout the house to make everything go together. so now, what color?

what colors have you painted your house? do you have a recurring color? how did you decorate? let us know. help us with some ideas!

swimming and reorganizing

as you know, i've been watching my friend's baby, reed. well the other day, katy had the day off and invited us to go swimming with her and reed.

i was pumped! and thought parker would be too, but it wasn't as easy to get him in the water as i thought it would be. he mainly wanted to walk in and out just on the stairs. he was very scared to actually get in the water and even when i got him in the water, he was death-gripping me to hang on!

reed on the other hand, enjoyed the water! he even kept trying to climb out of his little boat. i just told katy that he's a very ambitious swimmer.

luckily for both of us, the pool wore both the boys out.

let's just say, they both got a REALLY good nap that day :)

and on a side note, we just reorganized our office, which i tried to start on my own because i got overly excited about my ideas and thought they would just come together. little did i know! jesse and i talked about it the next day and finally came to a decision about what we wanted to do. and i'm HORRIBLE at taking "before" pictures. so seeing the amount of space available now does not mean anything to you if you can't see how unbelievably crowded it was before. but anyways, here is our "new" office.

the bookshelf on the right used to be where the black shelf is. and where the bookshelf on the right is now, there used to be another bookshelf there (we're getting rid of it). the black shelf is now my scentsy product area (side note: last month was my best month yet! i sold $724!!! so if you have any questions or want to buy, let me know).

there was a square table where the long one is now. and the long table was still there, but to the left. and the workout bench was thrown in the room before too. already sounding crowded? i know! be glad you didn't live here.

to the left of the desk used to be a matching small bookshelf, which had all of our school stuff on it. and now all the school stuff is consolidated to the bottom shelf of the black shelves. and to the right of the desk used to be a filing cabinet. oh, but we're not done yet!

filing cabinet is now in the closet. and for the big shocker...all of that stuff in there, used to be on the long table that is still in the room and the square table we took out!!! and although it may not look like a lot...it's A LOT. both shelves go beyond what you can see, so there is more.

we're not completely done with getting everything up and off the floor, but it is soooo much better than what it was before. trust :)

we eventually want to paint the walls a light gray and the tall bookshelf black. it's our black, white, and gray office. i'm kind of excited about it! i think the black and white will make it seem a little more sophisticated and formal. can't wait :)

and last thing, i promise! i just remembered this picture the other day and realized i never put it up. it's one of my favorites of reed. we keep trying to get him to smile cause i still don't think he's completely comfortable being in a new place. so jesse tried to do what he did with parker when he was younger...just running with him. he loved it...

i hope that gives you a smile :) i LOVE reed's smile!