Little by Little

I can't tell you how many times Matt has said this over the past two weeks.

Have we really owned our home for two weeks?

A lot of changes have been made...

From a boring laundry room like this:

snooze...

To a vibrant room like this (NOTE: the cabinet doors will go back on when we get our hinges and knobs in!)

Aren't those machines just gorgeous???

And our bedroom has gone from a muddy green...

To a cheerful, buttery yellow...(baseboards and window sills still to be done...)

And the kitchen? 

Ooooh the kitchen.

We're in Phase 1.5

First we painted the cabinets (well, we've still got the cabinet doors to do so we're a long way from done, but this at least we can move into).  Then we painted the walls.  Finally tonight we began the process of painting our countertops.

Yes, you read that right.

We're using a Giani Granite Countertop kit in Bombay Black, and tonight I scrubbed and scoured and wiped those countertops until they shone, then applied the first layer of primer.

This is before:

This is with the cabinet bases and the paint done..

And here's with the first layer of primer halfway dried (and all the cabinets and the breakfast bar covered in plastic).

It felt gutsy making that first stroke of black on that light laminate...

This is me thinking, "I hope I know what I'm doing!"

And of course this blog wouldn't be complete without a picture of either Tatum or Roy.

Or both.

Tatum still makes this face when she eats food. But she keeps on eating it...so...I guess she likes it?

Roy has loved the venture into finger foods.  Lots of little puffs get dropped on the ground for him.

I have a feeling Tatum is his new favorite.

Today I was in her room packing up her clothes, and she was playing on a quilt on the floor. When I heard her squeal in laughter I looked down to see Roy laying with his back to Tatum and her sidled up to him...systematically pulling his hair out.

I think he's considering it penance for the diaper episode...

A Home

Hi Morning Cupparoos!

   

 Last night we signed an agreement on a house!  So as long as everything goes okay (which I'm sure there'll be a few hiccups along the way), we close escrow on April 5th!

This is (hopefully) our new home!

And that garage will be painted a much cheerier white and the front door red--much more welcoming!

(oh, and a new roof was put on it Monday.  Yes, this past Monday.)

laminate flooring in a shade that will hide both the red mud and Roy's hair--yay.

I love the corner fireplace...a place to hang stockings next Christmas!

Kitchen needs some updating and some color, but we really like having that curved breakfast bar

dining area with bay window

Master bedroom is a nice sage green we'll leave for now...

Master bath is same color, has two closets that meet in the middle behind the wall where the tub is, and a whirlpool tub :-)

This will be Miss Tatum's room.  Its a pale pink right now, but we'll paint it either blue or a pale yellow before we move in

Spare bedroom is the same color as the Master although it doesn't look like it.  Its the darkest room in the house, so we'll be adding lights and painting it a brighter color.  

This will be the office/sewing room/guest bedroom, so once we get a bed in there y'all are welcome to come for a visit!

The YELLOW bathroom.  Yeah, this will be painted too.  ZIIIIINGGGG!!!!

Backyard come with an igloo for Mr. Roy and a BBQ for Mr. Matt

And that's all the pics we've got!  

It's on a nice cul-de-sac, the neighbors have two dogs who will keep Roy entertained through the fence, the fridge is old but stays with the house so that's helpful up front, and the garage has a workbench that stays.  Yippee! 

That's all for now, hope you all are enjoying your day!

Here's hoping!

We're putting an offer in on a house.

If you had told me a year and a half ago that I'd be in Oklahoma with a baby and thinking about buying a house I probably would have laughed at you.  Yet, here we be.

Oh, and did I mention that the offer is ridiculously low? I mean, low low? And that our wiggle room for negotiation is itsy bitsy?

Still, we love the house.

It has a basketball hoop for Matt.

A big kitchen complete with an island for me.

A huge living/dining/kitchen area for having people over and for Tatum to toddle around.

And a large yard backing up to a greenbelt and a creek for Roy.

It even has a three bedrooms so y'all could stop on by!

And so we put an offer in on it.  Its a loooong shot, but its worth a try.

In fact, I even have a verse about it! Its from Psalm 105:11-12

saying, j“To you I will give the land of Canaan

as kyour portion for an inheritance.”

12 

When they were lfew in number,

of little account, and msojourners in it,

Note: I know this is severely out of context and am not taking it seriously as a word from the Lord about the house, I just found it funny!

So if you think of us, say a little prayer that if its God's will we be in that house for the next 3 or 4 years that he would open all the doors, and that it would be obvious to all that it was His hand that gave this to us.

And that the relocation company that currently owns the house would be in the Christmas spirit of giving...

Tatum's Eighth Week

That's an odd word to spell.

Eighth. 

But here she is at eight weeks old! The hi-lighted part shows the route we're taking from Seattle to Edmond, Oklahoma.  

Roy decided since she was a bit fussy on the floor that she needed a kiss to cheer her up...

I'm not sure she appreciated it...

To date we've had 10 get-togethers for people to meet our little Tater Tot, and met nearly 100 people for the first time!

Today we're in Prescott Valley, AZ with Ammah for two days of rest.  Hallelujah!  Those long days in the car are hard on a little one!

Last weekend Matt and I were able to have our first date sans baby! Grandma Beth and Grandpa Dave watched her while we went to lunch and for a walk around the lake.

Tatum did great, but apparently Roy was anxious for us to get back.

Oh, and here are the shots that Matt's cousin, Jacob, took of Tatum. He really is a talented photographer, painter, graphic designer and all around artist.  You can see some more of his photography on his blog, Jacob Reid Design Photography.

We've been so blessed to have so many people SO excited to meet our baby girl! Thank you to everyone who has arranged your schedules to accommodate us, driven long distances to see us, invited us and our very large and bossy dog into your homes and hosted gatherings of people, and loved on us and our Tatum. We have only two more days of driving until we reach our new home!

Tour de Tatum

And the Tour de Tatum has begun!

I'm sitting at my in-laws sipping Mother Lode coffee and finally able to take a few minutes to write.  Over the past few days (week, actually), the words have been piling up inside of me and I write and write in my head without the time to write it out on paper or my computer, and now that I have the time to sit down and write I've forgotten most of what I intended to say! Drat!

Writing is necessary for me.  Like eating dinner or brushing your teeth. I write in my head constantly. Now I just have to remember what I've already written!

Our pods from U-haul were unloaded last Saturday and on Sunday, in true Seattle fashion, it was cold and drizzly all day.  We hired a mover to help us fit everything into our two 5' x 7' x 8' pods.  He arrived on a motorcycle with a pony tail and long beard and looked like someone right out of Hell's Angels.  He also happened to tell Matt he was a hoarder and had to work to make pathways through his house...interesting.  But he was awfully nice, and really did bust his butt to fit as much as possible into the pods.  

Sadly, those pods are not as big as P.O.D.S. ones and we were forced to leave a lot of things behind for donation.  Our coffee table that held all our games, dining chairs I had lovingly painted robin's egg blue, TV from my dad (it was really large and heavy), TV stand I had re-stained, the beautiful bassinet we were given second-hand, and a truck load of other things had to be left for the donation truck since there was no time to try to even sell it.  We even posted it on Craigslist.org for free but there still wasn't any takers in the short amount of time we had.  

Its true its just "stuff."  But even though it was mostly second-hand I still had poured some energy and time into that "stuff," and it was sad to leave it behind knowing once we get to Oklahoma we'll need to spend more time and money to find replacements.  Looks like I'll be garage sale shopping soon! And I think I'll buy some more robin's egg spray paint because I loved our painted Ikea chairs. 

And now, a moment of silence for my chairs:

We originally meant to pull out on Monday morning, but with so much stuff left over we were trying to do the math of whether it was cheaper to try to get a hitch installed on my car and pull a trailer (it was a whole other pod's worth of stuff, basically.  U-Haul lies when they say an apartment can fit in two U-boxes!), or ship it or donate it.  We also hadn't even started cleaning the place and had a goodbye party for Matt that evening.  So we decided to stay one more day. 

The next day we cleaned and hauled more stuff to Goodwill and I crammed as much as I could into every available nook and cranny of the pods.  We had to have some friends come over to help move the TV and base into the car since I probably shouldn't be lifting anything super heavy this soon after delivering a nearly 10 pound baby...

That night, with three full bottles of breastmilk in the fridge we went to our last Seattle dinner at our fav Mexican place, Torero's and I indulged in a "regular" sized margarita for the first time since finding I was pregnant.

So. So. Good.  And appreciated.

The next morning we started loading the car.  But as it goes with a crazy dog and a baby and only one of us being a Tetris master to make everything fit in my car (me), and having used all our bottles of milk so I had to breastfeed every hour or so and finish cleaning the apartment...we didn't finally drive away until 2ish. 

Then the tarp I had tied over the things tied on top of my car wouldn't stay down, and we were so tired and fed up with it we went to FedEx and shipped it to Oklahoma.

Then we finally got on the freeway and pulled off when we saw a sign for Taco Bell and tried to get some lunch, and there was no Taco Bell to be seen! Seattle had to get us lost just one more time!  You can read my first driving experience in Seattle that I wrote nearly three years ago on the Ups and Downs and Waiting post.

That night we stayed in Meford, and the next day headed to Paradise, CA to meet up with some of Matt's family.  

Everyone was so excited to meet our little Tatum, and she did so good being passed around to all the different family members.

Even Roy had a good time the next morning with Belle the dog. 

The next morning while hanging out with Matt's Aunt Teresa and cousin Jacob I got to borrow Jake's 50mm camera lens and drool...

Jacob also took some pictures and as he's light years ahead of me in photography skills I can't wait to see them!

Thursday (was that only yesterday?!) we headed to Matt's parents with a stop in Sacramento to see some more of my family.  The last time I'd seen most of them was our wedding! We had fun catching up, despite Tatum being a little grumpy.

Tatum thought Aunt Candy was pretty funny!

Beth and Dave (my in-laws) are both elementary school teachers, and today we went to their school to show off Tatum. 

And the rest of the day we have just rested.  Well, nursed, did laundry, made a cup of coffee, wrote a paragraph of this blog, held Tatum, changed the laundry, grabbed a bite, wrote another paragraph...you get the picture...

Sorry this was such a long overload, I'll try to do shorter blips for the rest of the trip!