A Work in Progress...

We closed on our house on Friday and have hit the ground running with "Project Update". Since my mom is here to keep Kate busy, Brad and I have been able to get a lot done in preparation for some contractors to start next week. Kate especially loves her being here...they have LOTS of fun together. During the day, they cook, run errands, take walks, and learn lots of new things. We are so grateful for your time and work here, DeDe!! Also, Thanks so much for letting her come, Dad!!

I took this picture of Kate while we were in the car running errands...I rode in back with Kate so my mom could see the sights. I think we were all on our way to Lowe's to get some supplies, after completing the citywide tour for De, Saturday morning. Aren't Kate's two little teeth cutest things ever?!?!

On Friday and Saturday, we worked on getting the kitchen prepared for the painters to come paint the cabinets, trim, and walls. Brad took down the lovely dropped ceiling light fixture, got most of the counter tops off, removed some appliances and I helped take down the cabinet doors (removing the doors ourselves saves big $$). Here are a couple of before and after pics. Don't anyone worry, though, I am having the beautiful wallpaper reproduced to put in several other parts of the house...ha. We did run into our first snafu in the kitchen on Saturday. When the oven came out, we discovered the oven cabinet was not large enough to house anything but a very small oven. So....looks like we'll have to have a new cabinet built so that we can have a regular double oven....could be worse.

Today (Sunday), Brad got the rest of the kitchen disassembled and also opened up part of the wall (all by himself...isn't that neat) between the kitchen and family room. This made such a huge difference in the "feel" of the space...we're excited to see it framed and finished!!

While he was busy with that, I began removing the GRASS CLOTH that was on all of the walls in the family room. It didn't look like the first pic when we bought the house...we started tearing it off before I got an actual "before" picture though. Our painter laughed at us when we said we wanted to try and take it down by ourselves. We can't wait for him to begin priming/painting next week and see how well it turned out. He's really nice so he'll be happy for us that we didn't have to pay him to do it or fix any of our boo boos...ha!

And, this is our attempt to keep Kate "at bay" while we're working on the house. She really liked being in her "pig pen"....it was kind of like she knew it was her space and her space only. What a big girl!!

Speaking of being a big girl, she's learning more and more every day. Some things she's doing that we find irresistable:

• she blows kisses (says mmmwa..but doesn't gesture with hand yet),
• says 'hi' especially when asked to tell someone on the phone hi...she also likes to say it to herself in the mirror and to Brad and I when we walk in the door
• throws hands high in the air (I think she may have picked this up from Brad's mom last weekend...Kate mimicked her stretching),
• she's become very daring in her standing/pulling up...a couple of times she has stood on her own but only for a few seconds at a time
• understands what "we're going to go bye bye" means. She will crawl right over, sit up, and put her hands up for me to pick her up if I tell her we're going bye bye

Well, after a long and busy day I'm going to call it a night. Hope you all had a great weekend!!