decorating the new house

here are a few ideas that i love so far for the new house. i loved the movie monster-in-law with jane fonda and jennifer lopez. and once jennifer lopez's character moved in with her fiance- the hottie- michael vartan, they had this awesome sign leaning against the wall. i found a website that sells them (vintage new york subway sign art) but after seeing the hefty price tag {$500-999) i've decided to continue with my plans and just copy it.
i also found these decals on an etsy shop- tasty suite.
of course the husband is a fan of the "get naked" and the one that says "office" will go on his bathroom.
if we build, i would love this mudroom door w/sign found on this young house. and i'm totally digging the magnet/chalk board craze. i cant remember if i saw it on a blog or magazine but i would love to do a wall in either kaylee's bedroom or playroom or maybe in the kitchen somewhere. and i love this front door via dandee

weekend over already?

with mike being out of town for most of december i feel like my own schedules been out of whack-meaning no planning like i usually do. most of saturday afternoon was spent looking at houses since mike was actually home. the house that i had high hopes for ended up falling short and the house that i felt "oh we'll just go and look at it " ended up being the one we love. i'll post more on the phaeton place later.


sunday was sweet kaylee's birthday. and this is what i mean by having nothing planned. no cake, no special birthday meal etc... since mike was to leave after we looked at two more houses. she got to open up a present in the morning. since she loves to do crafty things, like her mama, i got her her own craft tool box similar to the shims+sons. inside i put a jewelry box painting kit, scissors of her own, pencil sharpener, eraser + markers that click to open and shut- love those! at last minute we headed over to olive garden for lunch. we pretty much had 45 minutes to eat and drive to the first house. we ordered as soon as we sat down. here's kaylee opening her last present from us. she did take her sweet time.

besides the bike we got her late summer, we also got her a digital camera. this camera also plays a few games and its a video recorder too. it downloads to a computer or tv so she can "edit" her images. she totally loves it!!

and we cant forget about my handsome ham. he had 15 minutes to shower and get ready for lunch which he so appreciated- ha.

mike got ready to leave around 5pmish. kaylee kept telling him "don't go' (reminded me of the little girl in the patriot with mel gibson) and she would block the door from him. i could tell that she didn't want to cry but she ended up crying anyway. it was really sad and i even got teary eyed. after 10 minutes that mike had left she was still crying. i called him to tell him thanks for leaving me with a clogged up toilet. he heard her crying in the background and said he would come home and just leave around 4am. i told him he didn't have to but he said he didn't feel right leaving kaylee crying on her birthday. he did end up sneaking out around 8pm. we heard the roads were going to be pretty slick in the morning. i distracted her by having her watch "hanana patana" {kayleeism}.

her day

today she turned 4. i have no words that can express my love for her. she's just the sweetest thing around. always looking for fun. she's full of kisses and hugs and cuddles and giggles and tickles and smarts. i love you my sweet baby, big girl. happy 4th birthday.

on to the next chapter

i would like to take this time and thank everyone for their support and comments of congrats on my last post. thanks for almost a year of whining, complaining, begging, pleading and feel sorry for me posts. its funny how everything works itself out. while talking to mike about the numbers {why are men always about the numbers?} for the stratton house (house to be built), he figured that if we used all of our equity as a down payment, our mortgage payments will be exactly the highest amount we wanted to go and i mean to the T. makes me wonder who's in charge here. the other good news is that we had the builder quote us high so it could actually be cheaper. right now i'm waiting for approval from the home owners association that our house is good enough to be built on their lots. they, like most places, require 1800 sq. feet if its a ranch. ours will be a little over 1600 not including the finished basement. finished basement will add another 800+. and if your as nosey as i am here's what the stratton house will look like. and this is the layout. of course i have modifications that need to be made. but i will share those along the way. this weekend there are 4 houses to be seen. this one is high on the list. if this one doesn't work out, i'm pretty much ready to build. it doesn't have a pool but the yard looks big enough to hold one. and if you cant tell, i'm as giddy as a high school girl going to see the jonas brothers. or are they too young for high school girls...back in my day i got giddy over depeche mode...still do....man, i'm old.

we're as good as.....

SOLD!!!

got a message yesterday that the buyer would not, could not, go anywhere near what we were counteroffering. but her agent said she would do anything to convince her buyer to meet us half way which was our lowest price we wanted to sell the house for. stupid, crappy market. her agent also gave up the $1000.00 bonus we were personally offering to anyone who brought us a buyer and our own realtor is taking $500 bucks off her commission. how could we say no to that? everyone went out of their way to get it done. it feels really good and its finally sinking in as i type this. a sense of relief that its finally over yet a little bit of sadness too. october marked 10 years that this has been home to ham and i. look how far we've come.

the buyer is currently in an apartment and her lease must not be up till march so we're not closing till february 12th. that gives us some time to find a new place. i also got the numbers back today from our potential builder and it looks do-able. our realtor went through 63 houses and sent me 29 of what she thought we would like. i went through the list today and found 4 with 6 others on standby. i'm thinking though if one of these 4 do not work out then we will start building which means we will have to find a place for a few months to habitat. and i'm freak'n ok with it. we finally sold our house!! we FINALLY SOLD OUR HOUSE!!

she's crafty

just showing off my craftyness. these are the final results of the poker chips i'm having made for my b-i-l and mike. ron went to IU {indiana university} and is still a fan of the school for some unknown reason so i had his done with the school colors. and we all know that mike likes liquor and poker. i love crude funny stuff. and if i get a comment about how un- lady or christian like that is from my mom, that will be an added bonus. i know mike will love this and if ron doesn't well, he's more lame than we all thought.

last week kaylee and i made a gingerbread house. it wasn't as exciting as i thought it was going to be. they pretty much had the house built, i just had to spread the "crosting" {kayleeism} and make the doors and windows. the crosting ended up being a little thick but kaylee had fun decorating so that's all that matters.

two weeks ago, my mom had all the grandkids- minus ham- make these christmas trees. i thought they were pretty neat and wanted to make one but mom wouldn't share her supplies with me so that night i had to run to hobby lobby and buy some. so here's the trees and gingerbread house together. it makes a nice christmas display if i say so myself. and to finish off my craftyness, i made kaylee's birthday invitations. we're only having my family over since its going to be on monday night and its going to be a week after since her dad is working crazy busy hours. we will do the big shah-bang next year when she turns *gasp* 5. hopefully in a new house. once again, i'm such a copy cat. i copied this idea from princess pigbear and her buddy-ro. {donkey is kaylee's saying, she came up with it a year or two ago} * do you know who sings the title?

tuesdays mumblings

ever have one of those days that feels like its been extremely busy but once you start thinking about what you've done, you realize you haven't really done anything? that's how i feel. kaylee and i had play group today and we brought along cousin kiran. they were both really good and they're still playing at the moment. this could be something that my sister in law and i could continue. one day a week, we switch. and its a win win situation. kaylee's got someone to keep her busy so i can get things done around the house and the following week, i get to run errands. all. by. my. self.

sunday, as you all know, we put up our christmas tree. here are a few ornaments that i copied off of ali edwards. i'm such a copy cat. they do look nice though.

saturday we had my mom's side of the family christmas party, reunion, whatever. it wasn't as bad as i make it out to be. kids got to see santa, yes my parents have that kind of power, and everyone got a gift. it ended well before nine so i got a chance to watch my movie flirting with forty. it turned out to be a decent movie but it doesn't compare to the book. books much better though the movie did have some nice scenery ie. robert buckley with no shirt on and hawaii. this makes me sick. she's freak'n forty six years old and is hotter than ever! god is punishing me for something.

and if i had a christmas list i would put these two items on it:
i love this kick ass holgaroid camera. it can be found at pola premium. almost anything polaroid related can be found on this website. and if you love all things polaroid check out paper cameras while your at it, great polaroid eye candy.
and i've decided that i also want one of these:

just in case i have an aching desire to put my body into some sort of agony and go for a run, i will not only have music, but a phone for when my knee or hip decides to go out.