It’s been about a million years since I posted on here. We moved into the new house! And my camera cord got misplaced in the process so I haven’t been able to upload pictures to my computer which led me to not take very many pictures. Plus we’ve been extremely busy and the house is still in shambles. We’re getting there though!

Here are a few things that have happened since I last posted though.

Aaron framed in our new bathroom window. One new window down, 13 more to go. It’s going to be a long, slow process since each window is about $200 not counting the giant one in the front that we plan on replacing with a bay window.

We tiled for the first time! Subway tile around the shower with a little glass tile accent line and marble tile on the floor. I helped Aaron with the shower tiling but he did the marble on his own (at like 2 AM on tiling day) so I don’t have any pictures of the floor yet. We rented a wet saw from Home Depot for 24 hours and I think we tiled for about 15 hours of that time period. We got it all done in one day though. Tiling nightmare.

We installed the pretty new toilet and the sink:

Pulled approximately 2 million staples out of the wood floors in preparation for floor refinishing. Nightmare job #2. It took about 5 different people 2 whole weekends to complete this task. It was horrible! There were about 4 generations of staples in the floors from people laying carpet at different times throughout our house’s life. The house was built in 1949 and I don’t think anyone ever had the floors exposed before us.

The floors were in rough shape in some rooms too.

Here is the future nursery. It was yellow. Like YELLOW. Spongebob Yellow. In fact, on the left wall, there was a picture of spongebob drawn in Sharpie… Also, what you can’t see is the ceiling is orange. Oh yes. It’s since been painted a very pale blue, gray. Oh yeah, forgot to mention… We’re having a BOY! So navy blue and white themed nursery it is. I’m looking for nautical decor. Seriously. I would like an anchor.

This was maybe a month ago. It was before we moved in, when we were still pulling out staples.

We ended up hiring someone to refinish the floors for us and he did a GREAT job! We decided we didn’t have enough time to tackle this job ourselves and it was totally worth it to hire someone and have the whole house done in 4 days.

They look like brand new floors now! We chose the color “Moorish Teak” by Zar for those interested. Our floor man was skeptical because I think he prefers Minwax stain but the Dark Walnut which Minwax makes, was more reddish gold and we wanted DARK. It turned out perfectly though! Definitely brown instead of red or goldish. The stain had to be purchased at an actual paint store though. They don’t carry it at Home Depot or Lowe’s.

We also moved out of the old house, tenants moved in, and moved over to Mt. Lebanon for good.

We have this huge groundhog living in the backyard under the shed.

And we’ve been living here 3 weeks now and it’s great! The location is awesome and the people are friendly. The commute to work takes about 25 minutes which isn’t as bad as we thought and we can walk places! We walked to a restaurant for dinner Friday night. I love the deck and backyard. The rest of the house is still a work in progress and will be for a lonnnng time. Last weekend Aaron ran a gas line up into the kitchen so we could hook up our gas stove! I had been cooking lots of things in the panini press and the slow cooker before that.

He also hooked up the washer and dryer and is continuing work on the bathroom. As of last night, we have a door knob on that door! Plus the fan is now working in there and we’re about to have a threshold. The stain is drying on that right now.

My grandma also made a baby blanket for the baby and it came in the mail Friday. Chevron! Thanks Tutu!

And here’s the most recent picture of my belly. This was Friday so 28 weeks pregnant there.

We also bought a dresser from Craigslist that I painted last weekend (no pictures yet!). I spray painted it white though and the knobs navy blue. I also spray painted the closet doors for the nursery white because they were yellow. AH. And I spray painted a lamp blue for the nursery. Pictures to come now that I realized I can upload pictures to the iPad, then the WordPress app, then use Ecto on the laptop. Need to find the camera cord…

Anyway, yesterday I did some more spray painting. Aaron bought two of these side tables at Goodwill for like $5 each maybe a year ago.. I finally got around to painting them. First I sanded with the orbital sander a bit then spray painted them glossy gray.

Here’s the before:

And the in process picture. They should be done today though. I just have to add the new knobs. I bought glass knobs for the little drawers.

We also went to a couple of yard sales yesterday morning in the neighborhood and found a hedge trimmer. We were going to buy one anyway and the lady said she had only used it once. Sold! Then Aaron tackled this beast in the backyard. We’re not sure if it’s a giant weed or a decorative shrub. Either way, he hacked it apart. I also tried to buy a frame for $1 but the man just gave it to me. Ha. Yard sales are different here than Troy Hill.

And now it’s Sunday morning. Aaron is still asleep upstairs. We’re heading over to the in-laws house around noon today for brunch so I have to assemble a salad in a bit. Hopefully I’ll blog a little more soon. Hopefully I find my camera cord soon. We still have a garage full of unpacked things so it might be a while.

Have a nice day! Happy Mother’s Day!

I’m 18 weeks now. It’s going pretty fast now. I ordered some maternity clothes from Gap and just got them yesterday. I ordered a pencil skirt (for work), leggings with a foldover skirt, 3 tops and a pair of maternity tights.

Here is 18 weeks from the front (with one of my new tops):

And here is 18 weeks from the side. So definitely a little thicker all around the waist. Plus the bump is super high. Some people have told me if you’re carrying high, that means you’re having a girl and some people tell me that means we’re having a boy. We will see on MONDAY!

• How far along? 18 weeks
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• Total weight gain: I think about 8 pounds
• 
  
• Maternity clothes? Have some but haven’t worn them yet. I’m wearing the belly band with pants and not zipping my work skirts up all the way.
• 
  
• Sleep: Pretty well. I’m not comfortable sleeping on my stomach anymore which is how I normally sleep. Plus I have to get up to go to the bathroom about twice a night.
• 
  
• Miss Anything? Not having to get up to go to the bathroom, being able to paint walls
• 
  
• Movement: maybe something yesterday but I’m not sure. Hopefully soon.
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• Food cravings: cake, I’ve eaten 3 cupcakes in the last 24 hours.

• Food aversions: hummus, Mexican food
• 
  
• Gender: Finding out Monday! I think it’s a girl.
• 
  
• Symptoms: Getting bigger, hungrier, going to the bathroom all the time
• 
  
• Looking forward to: Finding out the sex

Here’s another new maternity shirt. This one ties in the back and has little sequins on the front.

And a maternity turtle neck that I ordered. I still need to get a pair of jeans and then work pants but I’ll probably get those from an actual store rather than order them.

Not a very flattering picture but the shirt is super comfortable.

Also, it looks like we found renters for the house so we’re happy about that! I forgot to take my camera over to the new house this weekend so I don’t have any new pictures. Aaron did put the tub in the other day and then this weekend, we bought the wall and floor tile plus a million tile installation tools. Aaron cut and put up the backer board today while I read to him about how to tile. I think next weekend we’re going to tackle all of the tiling. It’s a small bathroom but Aaron has never tiled before. I plan on helping. I want to learn how to install tile too. I think it’ll be a useful thing to know.

That’s about it for this weekend!

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve updated on the house and the pregnancy. Things are still going well. I don’t have any new belly pics still because I keep forgetting to have Aaron take a picture. I’m 17 weeks 3 days today. Nobody can tell that I’m pregnant still except Aaron and I and some of my coworkers that see me everyday. Otherwise, I just look thicker than normal. I’ll have Aaron take a picture tomorrow hopefully.

House stuff is coming along. Last weekend Aaron installed some drywall in the bathroom and rewired.

He also installed an exhaust fan in there. There wasn’t one before and it definitely needed one.

He also installed the new window! Yay! That might have actually been two weeks ago but I don’t think I blogged about it yet. One new window, 13 more to go!

We’ve shown our old house to three people now and we have two more scheduled tomorrow so hopefully we’ll have it rented soon. It’s kind of a pain to keep the house super clean all the time. Maybe by the time we actually rent it, keeping the house clean will become a habit and I’ll stop letting things collect on the kitchen island. It’s possible. It’s not likely but it would be nice.

Last week I was on the way to the grocery store and I was driving out of Troy Hill and it’s the night before garbage day and I dry past someone’s garbage and see a rocking horse. I kept driving down the block until my brain processed that I needed to stop and get that thing! So I hit the brakes, backed up half a block and put it in my back seat. And so now we have a lovely wooden rocking horse for the future baby. I plan on spray painting her and giving her a new mane and tail.

Still wearing my work clothes and looking a little frazzled. This is a slightly embarrassing photo. I promise my skirt is actually knee length.

Our new appliances were delivered last week too. Yay new refrigerator! And it fit in the semi tiny spot. We’re installing a new dishwasher too. That black one doesn’t work and starts to smoke if you turn it on.

We also have the new oven over at the old house. We’re taking the old oven to the new house but right now they’re both in the kitchen. Maybe this is scaring away potential renters. But they’re getting a shiny, brand new, stainless steel oven. Promise we’ll remove one before you move in.

Because clearly the potential renters read this blog..

This past weekend, I went to a children’s consignment store that was pretty much my favorite thing to do in the whole world. I love bargains. I bought 5 little baby clothing items. Two of them were girl specific and the rest were gender neutral. I figure if we don’t have a girl, I can give them to my sister-in-law who is having a girl in June. 5 items for $11!

I also stopped at a furniture consignment store but it was kind of a let down. I plan on checking out another children’s consignment store that I found soon.

After my consignment shopping venture, I met Aaron over at the new house and helped him with the plumbing! Aaron tackled soldering the new shower/tub plumbing and I helped by lighting the torch and running to the hardware store 3 times to get forgotten items. Unfortunately we had to lose another wall in the process. The small wall to the right of the doorway had to go in order to run the new pipes. The drywall went first and then we realized the framing had to go too because it was weak and rotting from a leak at some point.

The good news is the soldering seemed to go really well! After we were finished, we turned the water on and there were no leaks!

Here is Aaron focusing on soldering the last couple of pieces together:

We ran the shower head pipe up really high because the shower head I ordered kind of points straight down instead of a regular shower head. It’s this lovely one in chrome.

Another picture of Aaron soldering intently. Thanks to my dad and papap and the man at Rollier’s for helping Aaron learn how to solder.

This weekend the tub goes in! Then we’ll hopefully pick up the tile and that will be next I think. This bathroom project turned out to be HUGE. Way bigger project than I envisioned in my head. It’s a bit stressful to have two houses and be rushing to get them both ready in time for renters and so we don’t have to pay both mortgages for too long. I’m looking forward to having renters and moving into the new house. Once it gets a little warmer and I can open the windows, I’m going to do a little painting in the new house. I’ll wear my respirator and ventilate and I think it’ll be okay. Most sources online say painting with low VOC paint while pregnant is not a problem. If anyone has read something different or their doctor warned them against it, let me know!

Alright time to do a little reading and eat generic swedish fish.

Kitchen (Renovated in 2011):

Bathroom (renovated in 2010):

Living Room (comes with the rug which was purchased in 2010):

Dining Room: Very large room. Even with two additional leaves in the table, there is lots of room. Newly painted in 2011.

No pictures of the bedrooms but they’re both upstairs. Master bedroom has a large walk-in closet. There is a full basement with a non-coin op washer and dryer included. New, high-efficiency furnace was installed in 2011. It also has a fenced in backyard with two raised garden beds that we built this past Summer.

Thanks!

Aaron spent last weekend working on building out the window wall in the bathroom. There is a pipe in the wall that sticks out and so he had to build out the wall a bit so we can drywall. (I say we loosely) He also put in the new insulation. No formaldehyde! The new window came in yesterday too so I think we’re going to install that this weekend.

The pipe is in the picture below and the old window.

He also reinforced the floor boards:

And then started laying the subfloor! Yay! We now have two layers of subfloor in the bathroom. Next step is working on the shower faucet plumbing and then installing the tub. I’m supposed to be ordering the shower and sink faucets today but I’m having a really hard time finding something I like for the shower. I think I just need to order something and be done with it. I went to Lowe’s last weekend and looked at their stuff but didn’t like any of it.

Here is Aaron cutting the toilet hole out of the subfloor.

And here is where I was sitting while this happened. I didn’t contribute much to this weekend’s work…

I did go to Lowe’s and check out tile for the bathroom. I think we might use marble tile for the floor and then white subway tile around the tub. I also want to add a little accent line of blue glass subway tile around the tub to break up all the white.

We’ll probably go with these ones:

And then the regular white for most of it. Yay for $0.26 each!

I also went on an appliance shopping spree online this weekend and bought a refrigerator, dishwasher and dryer for the new house and a new oven for our current house. The double oven is coming with us so we had to replace it with another one. I ordered everything from AJ Madison because they had the best prices. Plus I ordered through Ebates and will be getting $50 cash back! I’ve never ordered from AJ Madison so we’ll see how it goes but definitely way better prices than Lowes, Home Depot, and Sears. We checked out the scratch and dent store too but I’m pretty sure that place is a huge ripoff.

Sunday was spent resting. Aaron’s parents dropped by for a bit then we decided to skip church, buy a bunch of junk food and watch movies the rest of the day. This was a good decision. We ate so many cheese puffs and watched V for Vendetta. Wooo

Sorry about the weird shadow. I’m not sure what the problem was.

So not too much different from 12 weeks though I feel bigger. I took this idea below from another blog that I read and I’m going to try to include it in the weekly(ish) posts.

• How far along? 13 weeks, 4 days
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• Total weight gain: 3 lbs as of 12 weeks, 6 days
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• Maternity clothes? Not yet but I wore the belly band one time
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• Sleep: very good
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• Miss Anything? not worrying about falling down stairs
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• Movement: zero yet
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• Food cravings: barbecue sauce, meat, milk, shrimp curry from Taste of India
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• Food aversions: hummus, salsa, Mexican food
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• Gender: No idea but will find out March 5th!
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• Symptoms: Not too much, pants getting tight, hungry a lot
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• Looking forward to: Finding out the sex

On Sunday I tried out another chocolate chip cookie recipe for potluck Sunday at church. I’m trying to find my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe so every time I make them, I’ve been trying a new recipe. I used this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker (who is a big time Pittsburgh blogger) which is originally from America’s Test Kitchen.

I liked this recipe. The cookies didn’t come out too flat which is my issue with a lot of cookies like the Nestle recipe. I like that you use melted butter so no need to remember to let the butter get to room temperature. I also liked that it required no unusual ingredients and did not call for nuts. I did not like that you are supposed to let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets. This resulted in me dirtying every single cookie sheet I have and required me waiting around one or two times for a cookie sheet to cool. I doubled the recipe so I had A LOT of dough to make into cookies.

The cookies did turn out very soft and chewy but I thought they were a bit too sweet. Maybe a tiny bit more salt would help or use bittersweet chips rather than semi-sweet. I’m not sure. I used Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chips for these. My doubled batch made about 55 cookies. I didn’t make them quite as large as the recipe suggests.

And another new recipe that I tried out last week was a pork chop recipe. That was the first time I ever made pork chops. They were good! I used this recipe for Pork Chops with Country Gravy from My Recipes. I followed the recipe exactly except used Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute in place of the poultry seasoning.

Lastly, Aaron got his diploma in the mail this week! Exciting! Here are some pictures of it.

Yay!

Last Saturday, Aaron and I found a Lowe’s three miles from our new house which was pretty exciting. We bought the tub for the new bathroom:

We also got the new sink. We decided to get another pedestal sink (we have one in our current house too) because the new bathroom is pretty tiny. Plus this probably saved us about $300 because all the vanities I found that I liked were $500+. I did make Aaron promise that we would get Carrera marble countertops for the kitchen since we went with the pedestal sink. We’ll see if that pans out.

Toilet in the back seat. We got the “Devonshire” style toilet and sink.

We took a second trip to Lowe’s later in the day with Aaron’s dad’s truck and got all of the insulation, cement board, plywood, green board which I think was actually purple, and a bunch of wood for the floor in the bathroom. Aaron is scabbing in extra pieces of wood to make the floor level and to make it stronger.

Here is the hole in the floor where the tub was. The old tub was leaking and leaked into the ceiling below (where the kitchen is) so that part of the drywall needs to be replaced.

Here is the hole from below in the kitchen. And also a better view of the previous owner’s great paint color choices.

This weekend, the hole grew:

We also ordered the new window for the bathroom. We will have one nice window with the grill in between the panes that actually opens. Yes!

Here is a better picture of the kitchen. We’re not really going to do much to the kitchen at this point except for paint the walls and get new appliances. Down the road, we plan on painting the cabinets white and getting a new countertop and backsplash. Right now, the countertops and backsplash are tile that match the floor. Bad move old owners. There are white tile EVERYWHERE.

I’m standing in the dining room taking this picture. The dining room is open to the kitchen and then those sliding doors lead out onto the deck which is covered in the back and open on the side. The door in the kitchen leads out to the open part of the deck.

Aaron, working on the floor in the bathroom. He purchased a new level this weekend and he loves it. LOVES it. We also bought a mailbox and trash can this weekend. Exciting stuff! Apparently the old owner’s took the mailbox with them because there wasn’t one.

I didn’t spend a ton of time working over there this weekend but I did finish prying all of the trim out of the bedrooms. Here is the master bedroom without any trim. It’s sponge painted a nice orange color… The floors are nice though!

Here is the second bedroom. This color isn’t so bad.

Here I am trying to take a picture of the 13 week belly. I’ll have to have Aaron take one today when I’m not wearing multiple layers.

Here’s the living room where Aaron has two table saws set up. The carpeting will eventually come out. There is oak hardwood underneath but we’re keeping the carpet there to protect it while Aaron is working on the bathroom.

And lastly, I bought my first maternity item! It’s one of those stretchy bands that you put over your unbuttoned pants so you can wear them longer. I got a black one at Target. It’s pretty comfortable. I tried it out yesterday.

Today I have to bake cookies for potluck Sunday at church and Aaron has to meet a client for a bit this morning then church this afternoon then probably watching a movie this evening. Have a nice day!

Coming August 4, 2012!

But first, Christmas happened in Troy Hill. We got a tree from Home Depot this year and it ended up being great! It doesn’t look very big in the picture but it was pretty huge. Ornaments only on one side because we don’t have very many.

We had Christmas dinner at Aaron’s parents new house which is awesome. Here is Aaron with his grandma, Dorothy. Her and Aaron are about to arm wrestle.

(that’s not true)

This past Friday we closed on our new house and Aaron immediately went over there and started demolishing the bathroom. On Saturday I went over too and started cleaning. It’s pretty gross right now. The previous owners were smokers and it was a foreclosure so it is in rough shape. I wore a respirator and rubber gloves. Possibly overkill but I didn’t want to inhale the fumes. Plus Aaron was upstairs knocking out the bathroom walls so all sorts of debris was floating around. Aaron was wearing a respirator too. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture! His has pink filters.

The carpet in the left side of that picture is from one of the bedrooms upstairs. The house has carpet everywhere but oak hardwood underneath it all so we’re slowly tearing out the carpet and will refinish the floors before we move in.

I cleaned for a little bit then went upstairs with needle nose pliers and spent a few hours pulling staples out of the wood floors. Oh my. I finished one bedroom and now have three blisters.

We also decided to pry this hideous wooden shelving and mirror off the wall in the dining room. If you look closely, you might be able to see the red, white and blue Americana fabric hanging from it. Shaking my head at the previous owners.

Here is the vanity and the sink from the bathroom. I didn’t take a picture of the bathroom yet but Aaron has it down to the studs at this point so this weekend we’re going to start buying the drywall and a new window for the bathroom. The windows in the house are pretty gross and half of them don’t even open so we’re going to slowly replace them starting with the bathroom.

Here’s a picture of the kitchen. Yes they painted the ceiling blue and the walls red. Bright blue and red. And the doors are sort of beige and gross. Every single wall and ceiling in the house needs to be painted. They painted the ceilings of each room to match the walls. For example, the small bedroom upstairs has yellow walls and an orange ceiling with orange trim. One of the bedrooms is also sponge painted.

I’ll take some more pictures this weekend and get them up on here. I also have more exciting new to post coming up this weekend. Until then, have a great week!

Aaron is in bed sleeping and I’m sitting on the couch thinking about what we’re going to do today. I’m thinking we may go and get a Christmas tree and put up a few decorations.

Thanksgiving happened and I did a couple of crafts for it. We had my Aunt, Uncle & cousin over plus Aaron’s parents and brother. Aaron’s dad cooked the turkey and stuffing at our house while we all helped with the rest.

I made “Give Thanks” bundting. I think the appropriate word is bundting though Ecto is underlining it. Then again, Ecto was just underlined also.

I used adhesive glitter letters from Michael’s, a glue stick, scrapbook paper and kitchen twine. The hardest part of the whole project was making the triangles the right size and shape to fit the circles and the letters. Once I figured that out, it just took a little time to cut and glue everything. I like how it turned out! The pictures aren’t that great because the lighting isn’t good in the dining room and I don’t know how to use the settings on my camera very well. (We also put up curtains in the dining room finally! I ended up buying them at Ikea after one failed attempt at making them myself. I now have quite a few yards of cut up linen…)

The other little project I did for Thanksgiving was making glittered branches. Aaron and I walked over to the cemetery to gather some branches for this one. We brought them back, I trimmed them a bit then used spray adhesive to spray parts and then sprinkle on the glitter. I ended up putting flowers in mason jars for Thanksgiving and putting a couple of branches in with the flowers. Cheap Thanksgiving decorations! Branches are free! It’s rustic.

For Christmas, I was thinking of maybe spray painting some branches white then using some white glitter to make them more wintery.

I didn’t take any pictures of the Thanksgiving table unfortunately..not sure why.. but our tablecloth was a bit short with all three leaves in the table so I bought 4 yards of pale green burlap from JoAnn Fabric, folded it in half and used it as a runner on the table. It covered the uncovered ends and burlap is pretty cool and super cheap. It’s also machine washable (which I found out because I spilled gravy all over it).

So that’s what happened Thanksgiving week for the most part. Aaron also started paint stripping and staining ours stairs and he hung new doors in the bathroom and our bedroom. Doors that actually close and aren’t hideously yellowed wood! Yay! We got them both at the ReStore in Edgewood for $10 each. The doorknobs ended up costing more than the doors!

We went shopping for the doors in matching plaid.

Aaron painted the doors white.

With doorknobs! (Some painting still needs to be done but we needed to have a bathroom door for Thanksgiving)

And in developments this week… we made an offer on a house! And then they counter-offered the full asking price So then we counter-offered back! And now we wait probably until Monday to find out. It’s a foreclosure so we’re waiting to hear back from the bank as opposed to regular sellers.

That’s about it for now… Have a relaxing day!