Marielle is three months old today.

She still has the furrowed brow, serious side of her but is showing a little more of her light-hearted side these past couple of weeks.  She also has a serious double chin.

Lots of improvements and finishing touches have been going on around here.

Remember the buffet?  

There was a space between the two cupboards where the old radiator used to be.  Because we switched from radiant to forced air, we decided to put a shelf in this space to put that space to work.  The carpenter put in the shelf today.

He pried the original baseboard off the back wall and moved it to the front.  It needs a good scrub-down, but I wanted to post this anyway (trying to keep it real here).

I'll likely use it to store cookbooks once I have it stained.  

We're also getting the fence put in this week.  We have the back fence in and the front fence will likely be built next week.  I felt awkward snapping photos of the crew while they were building it in the backyard so all the photos I have of the fence so far are "stalker shots" that I took of the progress through the window.  I'll post new fence photos next week.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

                                                                                                                     

Ahh…the weekend was wonderful.  Greg's parents took the kiddos and we were able to go on a date, go to Urgent Care (Greg, not me)*, go to a costume party, and attend the Emmy's in Chicago.

On Friday night, we went to dinner at Kil@wat and had a wonderful dinner. I ordered the salmon and we even splurged and ordered a lemon custard with berries for dessert!  

So pretty. And tasty.

On Saturday night, our neighbors had a Halloween party.  Their haunted bungalow was decked out with creepy severed hands under glass and loads of great food.  They served a drink called Dragon's Spit, which was a jalepeno martini with rosemary and lime.  I wasn't daring enough for a whole glass, but had a taste and it was actually very good.  This was my first time dressing up for Halloween in probably 15 years.  We went as Wayne & Garth and partied on.

On Sunday, we got all gussied up for the Midwest Regional Emmys.  Greg was nominated for the work he's done on the ItsAaron.com project (yes, that's a plug. It's my blog).  

We arrived at Alhambra Palace and there were four Rolls Royces (Royci?) parked in front, strictly as props.  Being easily impressed, I took a picture so that I can tell people that I once saw four Rolls Royci.  

It was a wonderful date night!  Wow.  Two dates in one weekend.  We should be set for the next year! 

*Greg was bitten by a spider on Friday night and had red streaks running up his arm from the toxins.  He spent several hours doctoring and getting meds on Saturday.  Not fun.

                                                            

My little toots is two months already.  She's sleeping about the same as she always has, but she is doling out more smiles now.  She really makes you work to get the smile though!  

Such a sweet little monkey.

Oh, the back door.  It's one of the older, more antiquated (ahem, ugly) features of the house.   We had wanted to replace it right away, but decided to wait until the big items were brought in and out (e.g., old oil tank) so that a new door wouldn't get dinged up.  The door is chipping and flimsy looking and we thought it would be easy for someone to break into.  We thought this until a few weeks ago when we locked ourselves out of the house because the front lock was jammed.  After trying multiple times to get in the front, we decided to try to break down the back door.  

Here was a perfect moment for Greg to get all cop-like and bust down the back door.  After kicking and running and kicking and kicking it some more, the door wouldn't give.  

Okay, one point in defense of the door.  It's not flimsy, just ugly.  

Our neighbors have quite a few tools so Greg went to ask them for a crowbar to pry the door open.  He came back a few minutes later with the crowbar and went to the back of the house to pry the door open.  Our neighbor that we borrowed the crowbar from came out and suggested that we try going in through the basement window.  

A few minutes later, our neighbor is holding Greg by his ankles as Greg dangles through the basement window, headfirst.  He successfully makes it inside without smashing his skull on the concrete floor and unlocks the front door so that we don't have to break in.  

Although the back door does have good qualities, we will still be replacing it.  Let me show you why:

I went to Home Depot over the weekend and found this one as a replacement.  

I like the craftsman look and it's made of fiberglass.  The sales guy said it would hold up better to dings than a steel door. Anyone have any input on this…does fiberglass hold up better than steel?    

Autumn is my time of year.  Not only because I enjoy the cooler weather and fall colors, but also because I get the opportunity to display my vast cardigan collection.  

First, a family update:  Marielle is doing well and we're adjusting to our new life schedule.  She's up about every three hours or so at night, which means that after we get the kids in bed, I lazily flop onto a bean bag chair (for lack of seating in our tv room) and don't move until my back starts to hurt (typically 1-2 hours).  The girls are doing well at school, but with school comes homework.  Our home is not a fun place to be at 4pm: while I am trying to entertain/pacify/relocate a newborn and three year old, I cook dinner and help two [incredibly distracted] kiddos with homework.  I found that yelling a lot helps me feel better during homework time, but strangely, the children do not respond well to this.  I will have to experiment with other methods.

We have been cooped up a lot this week, so today was a lovely day to be outside, fly homemade kites, and drink vats of coffee.  

I also got a mini-date with the hubster this week.  I say mini-date because it involved bringing along two of the four kiddos, but we will take what we can get.  We dined on a rooftop.  It was lovely and I also got the chance to wear a cardigan and escape the after lunch clean up.

Our house update: our master bath has been tiled.  I love, love, love the herringbone floor.  I chose a porcelain tile that looks like weathered wood and it turned out nicely.  The carpenter began laying down the trim in our room as well and the floor got its first sanding.  The vanity and recessed medicine cabinet were also installed.

The carpenter also rebuilt the linen cabinet and we have the door put back on.  I have begun painting the trim and hope to get a few more doors painted this weekend.

The countertops also arrived today!  If a person can develop a crush on a piece of rock, just consider me smitten.  It replicates marble well and I love the polished finish.  The fabricators did a wonderful job  matching up the patterns on the seams and carrying the patterns up the backsplash and down to the sink.  I'll have better photos down the road when I have the backsplash installed, but wanted to post these tonight.  

Also, this is a small thing, but we discovered that our old microwave fits into our appliance cabinet.  

I just love it when even the little things work out, no?  

The upstairs in our home has three bedrooms, one of which has never been finished, as far as I can tell.  We decided to make the unfinished space our bedroom, but first we had to address a rubber-roof porch off the back of the house.  The roof had been leaking badly the past couple of years and that leak led to a hole in the ceiling of a downstairs bedroom.  Here's what it looked like before we enclosed the porch:

We enclosed the porch into a dormer that matches the dormer in the front of the house.  This gave us a nice seating area in the bedroom.  This dormer will be stuccoed (if that's a word) sometime in the next week or two.  

The floor of this bedroom has never been refinished and it was exciting to see what shape the floors are in.  We are not going to sand the floor all the way down to the raw wood, but have decided to leave some of the gray tones in the wood because we like how the ruggedness ties into the gray brick on the exposed chimney.  

Here's what the floor looks like today:

The tub is getting moved into our bathroom tomorrow and the trim work in our bedroom and tile work in our bathroom will begin this week as well.  [Hello, awesome herringbone floor.  Looking forward to meeting you.]

This past week, there's been burst of activity here.  I haven't been able to post as most of my time is now dedicated to homework, floor sweeping & scrubbing from drywall and sawdust, sorting an endless pile of paperwork from the girls' school, and kissing the wrinkled forehead of a sweet lil' babe.  

Last Thursday, the install of our kitchen cabinets began.  It's incredible how a kitchen can make our house feel less like a campground and more like our home.  Here's the kitchen we've been working with the past couple of weeks (it had a nice, minimalistic design):



I was feeling a little apprehensive about the new cabinets because I have never actually seen them in real life.  I was hoping they would be the perfect shade of cream and not too white & institutional-looking.  Turns out they are a perfect cream and pair wonderfully with the floor color.  Today, the cabinets were all hung and the crown molding was put on.  The countertop guy came yesterday with my 230 pound sink and took measurements. Fingers crossed that the countertops arrive yet this week.  Here's what my kitchen looks like today, without any staging or tidying up.  I have no time for such frivolity ;)

Our bedroom has also been drywalled and painted. Thankfully, I have not done any landscaping in the backyard because a giant truck pulled all the way into the yard to lift the drywall into the house through the rear window.

A lot of work has been done on our room in the past couple of weeks.

I had originally purchased a giant orb light fixture for the living room and it was way, way too large for the space.  We decided to hang onto it and use it in our bedroom which has a vaulted ceiling.  We looked the light over this weekend and decided to upgrade to the larger size.  So glad we did because the light is now up and is the perfect scale for the room.

As exciting as this past week has been, I was reminded today about what really makes our house a home.  Sure, it's cool to have a house with a rad light fixture, but what's really wonderful is watching our kiddos work on puzzles in the living room, do homework at the table, and help me out with gardening; it's sitting outside with our neighbors at a block party; it's walking to friends' homes for playdates or dinner; it's inviting friends & family into our home. Those moments are what breathe life into the culture of our neighborhood & our home.  I want my contentment to come from that.