The "before's"

Welp, we're in! We got the keys to our place on Friday:


... & we've been crazy at work re-doing the house. I keep telling Vance, if we EVER move again, we are moving into a "move-in ready" house. I feel like our life is in constant chaos because we are ALWAYS doing house projects. Luckily my husband is a plumber and my dad and brother are rather handy (my dad built their extension and helped my grandpa build a house while my older bro worked maintenance for a huge hotel while he was in college way back when)... so far the floors are done (laminate), the wall of mirrors have been removed, the gross staircase coverings have been removed, the upper kitchen cabinet is being removed as I type this and the house is 75% painted. Unfortunately the bathrooms still need to be completely gutted and renovated and we need to add some type of grass outside for the dogs AND we have tentative plans to re-carpet upstairs.

Anyhoot, here are the "before" pictures:

Dining Room


Hallway-- check out the mirrors on the kitchen cabinet (?)

More mirrors in the kitchen:

Living room (carpet was ripped a few hours after I took this and laminate wood floors are in!)

Downstairs bathrooms-- yep, that's TILE ON THE WALL. Those have been removed, but the bathroom is in shambles.

Wall of mirrors in the living room:

View of dining room from living room (& my mom cleaning the floors-- she's obsessed with cleaning the floors!)

Outside patio:

That's it for now! I don't have Internet access at home anymore, so it makes it quite hard to blog and add pictures, but I'll be sure to update with some of the "after" pictures :)

Almost February...

Yowza! I can't believe how fast this month has flown by. We're finalizing the purchase of our townhouse and Vance can't wait to get started on re-modeling, which is what we'll be doing for the next couple of weeks. I am ... less enthused. I would much purchase a move-in ready house, but unfortunately the one we purchased was just such a great price!

Anyyyyway, we've been busy working and occupying our weekends with lots of family time. I realized today that so far almost everything the psychic I went to last year came true. It's the strangest thing EVER ... and a little creepy. I'll write more if the last thing comes true :)

This past weekend we attended our wonderful friend's son's 1st birthday party. B had the most amazing time playing in the bouncey house, stopping for a little lunch bite, then running back to play.

I'll be sure to post before-and-after pictures of our little house!

my friend got married!

One of my best friend's from high school was married this past weekend and so v,b & i made the trek to the other side of the island where we were able to join in their beautiful and peaceful ceremony.

little b had a great time climbing trees before the ceremony



how beautiful is the view?!




she just looks so gorgeous, and so, so happy



Where the ceremony was held:


♥



too bright!


I am so extremely happy for my wonderful and amazing friend. I can only wish a lifetime of happiness and love for the both of them!

ridiculousness

One of my very best friends from high school came home for a bit and brought B a Christmas present-- LeBron James hot pink shoes! How freaking adorable are they?



guess the hot pink makes her want to dance!


My in-laws took all 3 of us to dinner to celebrate my new job... so sweet, right?


Speaking of my new job and life-- I am currently adjusting to everything new. I had a mini (well, I call it mini, but it really wasn't so mini) breakdown in the car with B the other day with everything going on. Little one may be dropping her nap, and was in the middle of a huge tantrum and I just ... lost it. Not my proudest moment and I felt like a huge jerk after I was done. Basically I threw a two year old tantrum in front of my two year old. I win the awesome mom of the year award.

friendship

What's crazy to me is that the second I started dating Vance, I gained a new set of friends (his). One friendship in particular, has grown over the years and we've gone from a bunch of of college students getting drunk in bars, throwing darts and staying out till the wee hours of the morning ... to taking our kid(s) [they have TWO now!] to Chuck E Cheese. Haha.

Way early on ... Staci was pregnant with her first, who is now FOUR! He'll be five this year!


Again, Staci pregnant with her first. . . she gave birth a few days after this picture was taken, I think


Celebrating Kayden's first birthday party


Brooke and Kayden at Chuck E Cheese


♥

New year, new EVERYTHING!

Happy 2012! As promised, I'm about to life update everyone with what feels like an entirely new life. First things first, I got a new job! I graduated with my MA in Counseling back in 2009 (5 days before I gave birth with Brooke) and haven't been able to find a counseling job since then. Instead, I took a marketing job which I am NOT quitting, but keeping as a part-time job since my new job is as a half-time counselor at a small elementary school. I thought my mouth was going to burst from smiling when I was hired.

Next, we bought a (town)house! We are so extremely excited to own a little place in Hawaii that we can completely re-do. It's an older townhouse and really outdated, but in good condition. I am sad to be leaving the gorgeous house we rent-- B took her first steps here and I watched her grow from a little lump on a log to a running, jumping and talking little girl-- but at the same time so very excited for this new chapter in our life.

Here it is! These are old pictures but being the noob I am, I didn't take pictures at the house inspection...

Entrance:


Living room. There are mirrors EVERYWHERE in this house! It's borderline creepy. We plan to remove these mirrors, change the floors and paint the walls


Dining area/stairs.. we plan to take that hideous white ... thing off of the stairs and change the floors.


Kitchen .. not bad. Will change the floors, but the rest can wait for later. So excited to finally have a dishwasher!



Master bedroom.. totally in love with the fact that we'll have a balcony!



And that's it! (For now) Can't wait to see what else 2012 has in store for us...