Baby Shower

In September, Mom, Michelle, Betsy, and Rose (my MIL) put together a baby shower for Ross & I! I can finally blog about it  now that I have my camera (and the photos) back!

The shower was absolutely gorgeous and Ross & I had such a great time! The original idea of having a coed shower was due to the fact that we were living away long-distance and only got to visit home and all of friends and family every once in a while. Just days before I mailed the invites, it was official that Ross & I would be moving to Cleveland in a few short weeks! Talk about some last minute scrambling, haha.

The day of the shower was beautiful, good thing too since it was at the park! I really wanted something more casual and relaxed than the formal 'ladies-only' baby shower and it was just as I had pictured! It was sunny and perfect fall weather but *windy*... oh the wind!!.... poor mom & michelle didn't get to put out half of the decor they worked so hard on because the wind kept knocking things over.

I tried my best to get some good photos but didn't get as many as I would've liked! Here's us 3 girls... excuse the 'wind-blown' look :) Hence the reason Michelle and I both wore our hair up that day!

After about 15 takes, Luca is finally looking in the right direction :) I'm getting my bff, Ang, trained on how to use my camera... she was my pseudo-photographer! haha

Here are a few shots of the decor... the cookie table (yum!) and some of the prize gift baskets for the winners of the scavenger hunt (created by mom and turned out to be a real success!), a crossword puzzle (thanks to michelle) and some Ross & Kristin Trivia (also thanks to michelle, mom and rose) that even I didn't know all the answers to!! haha

Before the shower started, my girlfriends surprised me with their gift...

They actually engraved the back of the wagon with their initials and yes, though they may not technically be my sisters, through 15 years of friendship, they will most certainly be aunts to my baby girl :) I love them dearly and baby girl is going to be so spoiled by them!

Not sure what the intense conversation is here but this photo makes me laugh.... (dad is laughing in the background too!! haha)...

Rose, my MIL, brought along some way-too-many goodies for the kiddos of the shower. She bought this pinata where you pull one string at a time to finally crack it open. It was more like.... pull every string at once than all the candy jammed the opening. I poked my finger in to fix it and it all came pouring out!!! There was enough candy for 50 kids. literally. But alas, there were only 5 kids old enough for this. Sorry parents!! It was not my idea to load your kids up with sugar before you headed home!! haha but it was all in good fun. I hope.

Aunt Beth was the only one to remember to get a photo of just Ross & I!! Big failure on my part :/

And lastly, after the night was over and all was cleaned up, Michelle remembered to grab a photo of the 3 of us siblings! Yay!!

So after about 5 minutes of this...

 

We finally got one....

I'm not even sure what was so funny :) haha

The shower was more than I could have ever asked for and I know Mom, Michelle and Betsy spent so much time planning it!! So many people pitched in to help as well and I couldn't have asked for more. It was over the top and we received so many great gifts to help us get ready for Baby Girl!!!

I'm finally putting the nursery together this week and keep telling Ross I'm gonna go play with all my new toys! They are mine, right?! No? Oh well. I shall adore everything in the meantime until she arrives :)

Countdown: 6 weeks, 2 days!

*Kristin*

Settling In to 'Normal'

Our lives are finally getting back to normal and settling down!!

I'm sitting here in our rental house... looking around at the last few things that need to be organized. The house is so cozy and our things and furniture fit well! (aside from items placed in the basement for storage :) We had to downsize from our AL house since rent was a bit outrageous here... but it feels good to downsize. Our AL house was half empty anyway, so we didn't have a ton of extra furniture. And it constantly makes us re-evaluate how much we own and what we can do without. I'm always on a 'minimalist mindset' and I love when Ross starts to jump on board! haha

Back to the 'charm' of the 1920's house... take a look at a few of the original doorknobs we have here, I love them...

Glass doorknobs make me swoon :) Wouldn't it be funny if they were actually only made to look old?! I tell myself that they are original. They are in rough enough shape for me to think so!

I also love the original wood floors throughout the house. They have a few scratches and wear-and-tear here and there, but that's all the more reason to love them and imagine who has lived here in the past 90 years. *blush*

The living room is my favorite room in the house! (I apologize for the cell phone camera quality!)...

For the first time EVER, I have a fireplace and a mantle to decorate!! I can't wait to decorate it for Christmas. And I don't even know where to start on all of those built-in shelves, I love them but for now, they will sit empty. Ross & I are already looking forward to some cozying up in front of the fireplace this winter and with baby girl here :) It's gonna be a good winter this year.

So even though I love the charm of the older home, it also has a few quirks that only older homes can have. So maybe it's not our ideal house for the long-term, but for now, I'm loving it and we're comfortable.

And now... I can finally focus on getting ready for Baby Girl. We're purchasing her crib next weekend and will start putting her room together. Only 8 weeks to go!  It's coming fast and we'll hopefully be ready just in the nick of time :)

*Kristin*

Newbies in Cleveland :)

I have to go back and read my old posts to see where I last left off! It's amazing how our lives have changed in just over a month! I can't remember the past 24 hours, let alone the past 2 weeks, but here it goes!...

Our house in AL is *SOLD*. The official closing date is not until 10/22, but the inspection period went well and it should be smooth sailing until then.

Last weekend, Ross & I made the first trek up to Ohio with his car and Dakota. We're currently living out of a hotel in Cleveland until our rental house lease begins (Oct. 1st). It's been the first time in weeks(!!) that I've had enough time to just sit and watch tv. Hotel living really ain't that bad and we'll be out of here in no time :)

Ross started his job at Alcoa this week. It's been all training and meeting people this week, so not much to report other than he'll have his hands full once he gets in the swing of things! The environment will challenge him in his career but he's so good at what he does, I'm confident he'll do great. And if he doesn't, well heck...we'll just move again! :)  #kiddingnotkidding

Our movers are scheduled to come pack up our house on 10/1 & 10/2, so I'll fly back down to B'ham for the week to oversee that, see my coworkers one last time in the office before completely working remotely, and make the final trek up to OH moving my vehicle this time (Ross will meet me down there to help with the drive). This will be our FINAL farewell to Alabama and the life we made there these past few years. It's always bittersweet to see your house left empty as you drive away but it's hopefully for the better!

We'll move into our rental house the first weekend of October. Of course, our furniture and belongings will not arrive for another 3-10 business days, but that's expected. Let's hope it's not more than 10 days (movers love to make promises that never keep!). We'll be sleeping on an air mattress until they arrive with our bed. I'll make sure to play up the pregnancy sympathy card while they are packing up the truck :)

Here's a pic of our rental house that I stole from the internet...


The house *feels* like a rental but I'm sure once I give it a thorough cleaning and get our stuff unpacked, it will feel like home! It's been vacant a few months so it needs some TLC.

It's the cutest house in an adorable neighborhood with sidewalks and tree-lined streets... I've always envied these cute neighborhoods and thought now would be the time to try one out since we're only renting! It's in the town of Bay Village, OH. Go ahead... google it. I'll wait :)  Do you see how close Lake Erie is?!?! I'm picturing strolls around the neighborhood, waving to neighbors, watching the sunset on Lake Erie, etc. I guess maybe after the dead of winter!...

So now that we're *finally* in the downswing of our chaotic lives, I'm able to focus on Baby Girl. I'm 29 weeks today and feeling good! She's moving a lot more now and I love it! I'm also giving into every dessert temptation I come in contact with, so watch out!!

This weekend, Ross & I have NO plans. I repeat.... NO plans! I don't even know what to do with that. Ross celebrated his 30th birthday on 9/7 while we were camping over Labor Day weekend with our friends in N.C. but we barely got to celebrate with everything going on and I completely failed as a wife to get him a cool, memorable gift (aside from one little item I bought at the last minute), so we're hoping to get out this weekend and just have fun!

Next weekend is mine & Ross' baby shower in Pittsburgh! I'm so excited to see all of our family & friends.... but really, what I'm most excited about?! The 2-hour drive to go home!! (as opposed to an 8-hour trek spent flying & on layovers). Yeah, it's dumb... but 2 hours thrills me! :) And I'm sure the shower will be great as well! haha

So that's it for today :) See most of you next weekend!!

*Kristin*

Before & Afters! (Part 2)

Welcome back! Let's move on to the rest of the house :) I'll warn that a lot of these are just 'After' pics. For whatever reason, we failed to get some before shots of the hideous pink walls we painted over.

Moving on from the kitchen, we have what we use as our Den:

As you can see, we never got around to this redoing this room. This (and one other) room still have popcorn ceilings. I eventually wanted to paint the wood paneling white, but then again, it felt so home-y as-is :) I'm curious what the next homeowner's will do with it. The carpet in this room probably also needs to be replaced, but again, that is for the next homeowners to decide.

Stepping into the hallway, we have the main hall bathroom:

In this bathroom, we removed a very ornate/flowery wallpaper and painted the walls beige (the same beige used in the hallway and spare bedrooms). I also added the frosted window decals so that we didn't need window treatments and still had privacy. Lastly, we installed a new toilet back when we moved in and recently, needed to have a plumber fix the bath/shower fixture (new rough-in for handles and showerhead). I also painted the doors and trim white and gave them new hardware.

Eventually, I would have replaced the flooring and maybe re-purposed the vanity (or at least given it a new top). And replaced that light!!! haha But again, we ran out of time.

Moving on to the Master Bedroom:

It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do!! As well as smooth ceilings, freshly painted white trim, and freshly painted white doors with new hardware. When all is said and done, I repainted 20 interior doors (!!!) in this house from their outdated yellowish white paint to a crisp clean white that matched the new white paint we used on the trim. We also updated all the hardware (hinges & doorknobs) that I bought in bulk online. The white doors made the whole house feel more updated and clean. And I LOVE dark hardware on white doors :)

You can ignore the ugly handy-down dressers... ONE day I will buy us new furniture. *sigh* The fabric headboard I made myself. And lastly, we took down the window treatments and put up white wood blinds that I found at IKEA (they were surprisingly the only ones that would fit the size of our windows).

Attached to our bedroom is a Master Bathroom (though there's nothing Master about it!):

When we moved in, I immediately removed the wallpaper, painted the walls gray, put the frosted decal on the window (not shown) and installed a new medicine cabinet. 

Moving on to the 2 spare bedrooms across the hallway from our bedroom.

Here is the guest bedroom:

And another spare bedroom:

In each of these rooms, the walls were pepto-bismol pink and the walls were dirty and filled with nail holes. It took a lot of prep work to get them ready to paint. 

Again, we had to scrape popcorn ceilings in both of these rooms, painted the ceiling white, painted walls the same beige, painted the trim, installed window treatments, and also tackled painting the doors white. What a difference!

Finally, we have a room upstairs where the previous homeowners converted some attic space into a 4th bedroom and 3rd bath:

This room we tackled a week before listing the house! We've never used the bathroom (it's tiny!) and Ross just used this room for storage. It was the same pepto-bismol pink as the other spare rooms and just felt dirty up there. It has walk-in attic access which was really nice. 

Don't you just love the avocado green bathroom?! (it looks much better now that the attached bedroom is not pink, ha!)

So we spent a week (on crunch time!) prepping and painting the bedroom & bathroom beige, painting trim white, and painting the remaining interior doors white. This room also remains with popcorn ceilings. There was no way to tackle that in a week before wanting to list the house with all the other last-minute projects we had going on.

So that's it!! This house was mostly cosmetic updates. Sure, we would've tackled a bathroom or two down the road and maybe the kitchen, but in the short-term, it wasn't worth our effort or money. We made some major improvements as well which helped the value of the house (replaced the furnace, updated the breaker box, etc.).

With this house, we became pros at:

• scraping popcorn ceilings (FYI, it's a LOT of work, scrapping, skim-coating, sanding, painting, etc.)
• painting interior doors (with no brush marks showing :)
• updating electrical (only Ross)
• installing crown molding and baseboards
• installing plank walls (only me!)
• and other numerous projects. 

When all is said and done, we'd probably do it all over again. The payoff to us is a house that we can be proud of and bringing a house back up-to-date! We also love tackling a project! What will be next?!

*Kristin*

Before & Afters! (Part 1)

I'm so excited to have put together some 'Before' and 'Afters' of our house! I didn't have all the before's, but enough that I can look back on these fondly and remember all the blood, sweat and tears that went into every room.

We will have owned this house for 2 years (in Oct. '15) and have accepted an offer on it this week! I'm actually more sad to see it go than I thought I would be, b/c I never loved it. It was't my mid-century style and never could be, but it still had good bones and cleaned up really nicely. The house had a frenzy of showings when it hit the market last week and got a total of 3 offers (one offer which eventually walked, one offer was wayyy too low, and the perfect 3rd offer which we accepted yesterday!).

Here we go!

Welcome to our home:

None of the curb appeal was changed. Just properly maintained :) And Ross got the sidewalk light working again. (We got a LOT of things working again *big disgruntled sigh to previous homeowners*)

Again, just properly maintained, nothing changed.  This backyard is why I love older homes... I can't put a price on mature landscaping and private backyards!


Walking inside, here is the foyer. Such a small space, but one of my favorite 'Afters.'

The flooring is just peel-and-stick vinyl. I have a feature plank wall behind the mirror which really gives the space some visual interest in person :) The chandelier was from World Market ($99!! compared to the expensive PB version). And lastly, since all of the walls are painted a clean white, I painted the door black to make it *pop*. I have a new obsession with black interior doors :)

This is the view you get walking in from the entryway:

The walls were repainted a warm gray, popcorn ceilings scraped smooth and painted white, trim painted, decor added and *boom* what a difference! :)

Next up, the dining room:

Again, we painted the walls gray, ceilings smoothed, trim painted, new light fixture. Oh, and we removed the chair rail wainscoting and had a lot of wall patching to do b/c of that. The chandelier I got on clearance for $50 from Lowe's becuase they switched out their display lighting. *Score!*

Also, all of my window treatments are super cheap. Rods from Walmart and white curtains from IKEA, hemmed to length. I love my frugality :) But also how crisp and clean they look.


Let's move into the Kitchen:

This was one of our biggest undertakings. If I could've completely demo'd the kitchen, I would have (b/c honestly, the cabinets are original (from the 70's) and in bad shape, the previous owners put new faces on them to only make them look good. The inside of my cabinets are avocado green and in rough shape!).

First off, we removed the door leading to the garage on that wall in the right of the picture (behind chandelier) and moved the garage access to the mudroom, where it belongs. Just by closing off the door, the kitchen felt 1000x more home-y. No longer was I looking into the window-pane door to the junk in our garage! I then decided to also plank that wall to give it some visual interest since it's painted white (I'm obsessed with neutral paint right now but using textures instead to give the rooms some interest). Also, a HUGE update was changing out the florescent light to 3 new recessed lights (on a dimmer switch!). It gave the kitchen such a different feeling and WARMTH! I am obsessed with the recessed lighting! Props to Ross for becoming a self-taught electrician these past few years! And with the help of one of his more experienced friends who helped us wire up the 4-way switch.

Another view of the kitchen and the eat-in kitchen area. The clean white walls made such an improvement. We removed more outdated and dirty wainscoting and chair-rail in the kitchen. There was also a LOT of wall-patching to be done when it came down. That's sort of how the plank wall came to be about... I chose to cover up the ugly wall instead :)

Ross & I also finished the crown moulding in the kitchen (a feat I'm really proud of us for. Cutting all those angles was quite the learning curve, but now we're pros!). Ross also finished putting up new baseboards and quarter round. All of those finishing touches really brought the kitchen up to the 21st-century without breaking the bank!

Moving on....

This is our pantry, that leads into the mudroom, and leads out to the newly installed door to the garage. I'm obsessed with our pantry. It's huge!! It was the old washer/dryer location that we converted into shelving, with the same vinyl flooring from the entryway. I also love the hardware I installed on the bi-fold doors, they reflect nicely off of the black photo frames in that hallway. I sadly put a LOT of obsessive thought into these tiny details :/ But pretty hardware makes this girl happy :)

In the photos above, the wall on the right of the pic was actually the first plank wall I decided to do about a year ago when Ross was out-of-town one weekend. I didn't tell him what I was up to but it was fun playing with his miter saw and nailgun :) He wasn't sure if he liked it at first, but over time, is really happy with it. And I am absolutely obsessed (hence the 2 additional plank walls down the road)! I also get a lot of compliments on it so it's makes me blush and love them even more :)

Next up...

 Ok, I lied about the kitchen... the mudroom was DEFINITELY the biggest under-taking.  We hired out a plumber back when we bought the house to move the washer/dryer connection from our pantry to this new location. We had no clue what the purpose of this room was previously, but to us, it made sense to turn it into a mudroom/laundry room. This is also where we installed a new (fire-rated) door to the garage. I came up with the layout, w/ a lot of pinterest inspiration! I needed to make sure I made good use of every inch of space in this tiny room and I think I succeeded! I love this room! The cabinet was from walmart.com and we built around it. Ross made me the built-in bench. I just love how the room serves so many functional purposes!! We also hired an electrician when we bought the house to update the breaker box, a much needed update to this house and well worth it.

That's it for today! The post is already too long, so stay tuned for 'Part 2' of the Before & Afters!

*Kristin*

Secrets, Secrets! Read all about them :)

Well I'm ready to spill the beans, even though I haven't gotten a chance to tell all of my coworkers yet (hence the delay of a FB announcement)...

We are moving to Cleveland, OH!!!

Let me start from the beginning (I know you're thinking, "yay, another rambling post!") ...

This summer has been a whirlwind. Lot's of uncertainties at a time when I thought being pregnant was enough on our agenda, God had other plans. In case you hadn't heard the news, US Steel (where Ross works) is doing very poorly, as a whole. Over the course of the spring, Ross had witnessed round after round of layoffs at his workplace. Eventually, we were not surprised when he was dealt the same card. We saw the writing on the wall but were still hopeful at the time that he would be spared. Since June, Ross has been enjoying his 'summer break' (as we call it :) There was a chance he would be recalled, but that never happened and the operations here (and all USS plants nationwide) have only gotten worse. They just recently announced last week the remaining 1,100 layoffs at his plant here in B'ham. The plant is being completely idled for at least a year. And even when they do start-up again next fall, they will only hire back about 200 employees (compared to the 1,500 that worked there earlier this year) (and that 200 does not include Ross' position). Lot's of good people lost their jobs so the whole scenario is really a shame.

In the meantime, Ross has been job hunting this summer. The big question at first was whether or not we move out of state (since I have a very good job here in B'ham!). Once we learned that I may have the possibility of working from home, the job hunt was wide open. We decided it would be nice to be a bit closer to home, so he started looking for jobs anywhere on the east coast.

He actually got a lot of good traction in his job hunt and I was excited to think of our next phase of life (even as it was bittersweet)! He had gotten such invaluable experience at his job here at USS that I really felt like we did what we came here to do, but now it was time to move on.

As of 2 weeks ago, he accepted a job offer with Alcoa (another Pgh-based company, go figure!) in Cleveland, Ohio! He'll be in the same line of work of Labor Relations. We gave them a start date of 9/14 (which gave us 4 weeks) to give us time to list & sell our house here (another house updated and flipped *sigh*) and get some other kinks sorted out before we move north.

Our house was officially listed this Monday. It's been on the market for 2 days now and already, we've had 2 showings, and 3 more coming up today! It's getting a lot of good attention so we're hopeful it will sell quickly! The updates we've made to the house really show so even though it plain *sucks* that we've renovated another house, and are now selling it, we're hopeful to at least make some money off of it. (I'll blog a house post to show you some 'before' and 'afters' so stay stuned!)

Ross & I are headed up to Cleveland this weekend for a house-hunting trip and to check out the area. We haven't decided yet whether to rent or buy in Cleveland, but hopefully we will have some answers in the next few days. Baby Girl's due date is approaching quickly, so trying to coordinate a timeline for the next 6 months is quite the headache. We'll see what feels best for us and our situation this weekend :)

And lastly, as far as my job is concerned... it's probably one of the biggest blessings I could have never imagined. I just found out yesterday that my boss has agreed to let me work remotely from home until after maternity leave! And then!, for the long-run, I can come back as a contractor and continue working from home. I'll admit, I never wanted to be a stay-at-home, I love coming to the office and interacting with coworkers on a daily basis, but with our lives about to change with Baby Girl, working from home may be such a huge blessing I didn't even know I needed and/or wanted, so I'm thrilled for the opportunity! (And Ross is thrilled I still have a job, haha)

Everything is now falling into place. I've prayed more in my life this summer than ever before and relied on my faith more than ever. Strangely enough, Ross & I have felt more calm in this chaos than I think we should've felt. Yes, there were days we were fearful or questioning 'Why?' but we've not been as stressed as I think someone should be in this case. From one of my favorite church sermons we heard at the beginning of summer (perfect timing!) was to live fully in your Faith so that you can live your life Fearlessly. I've relied on that so heavily this summer and God has truly taken the brunt of the weight and moved mountains for us.

In the end, we feel we've done what we came here to do and now it's time to be closer to our family and friends in Pgh. Ross & I are so excited for our next phase of life and I'm so relieved to finally get to share our secret :)

*Kristin*

Gender Reveal Party

I know I already revealed our news on facebook, but I still wanted to document the day of our gender reveal this past weekend. The anticipation of finding out Baby S' gender was so exciting that I'm glad Ross & I didn't do it any other way (and no, we didn't cheat or know anything before the reveal!! We waited patiently!). I was so happy to get to spend the celebration with our family and friends back home :)

We decided to keep it low key and just invite our families over to mom & dad's house for dinner. (Of course this meant us having to fly home to Pgh, but it was worth it!) My girlfriends and their guys joined in on the fun as well so I was really happy to get to spend the day with my favorite people!!

Here's Ross & I before the reveal. He kept goofing off. The pics make me laugh :)

Here's a shot of the whole gang! I asked everyone to wear beads for their vote. You can see it's pretty evenly split, boy vs. girl!  I voted 'Girl.' I've always dreamt of having a boy first, but since the day I was pregnant, I had a sneakin' suspicion it was a girl. God has a sense of humor like that... I've learned :) Ross really had no preference or idea either way, but decided to vote against me once I peer-pressured him enough to choose a side!

My best friend, Ang, and her husband, in the middle, were neutral since they were the 'secret keepers' and in charge of buying the balloons. They did a fantastic job :)

A few more pics from that day before the reveal...

Michelle made pink and blue punches. It was adorable, and even more important, both were delicious!!

After dinner, it was finally time!! I was so nervous!  The video I posted on fb perfectly captures how excited we were to find out!! I love it so much and could stare at these pics all day :)

It's a girl!!!

And yes, both Ross & I are happy to raise her as a tomboy :) (if she agrees!)

And a few after pics!

This picture cracks me up... and so perfectly captures us! Ross gets this look a lot when I'm yelling at him :) He popped his balloon from playing with it too roughly! Luckily, we had plenty of extra balloons on hand for photo ops.

And here we go again! Ross goofing off....
 


I love these girls more than words can express!!

I joked with my grandpa that he had the same baby bump that I did :) haha...

Lastly, a few more pictures of the box! I had to buy and decorate the box the day before and LOVED how it turned out (I was a little nervous it wasn't going to turn out well). My friend at work made me the 'boy or girl?' text from her Silhouette machine and Ross & I cut out the polka dots from scrapbook paper. Ross was also nice enough to help me wrap the box with brown kraft paper to cover all of the logos and give us a clean slate... but don't ask him, he'll deny any involvement in the activity :)

Love, love, love my box. And then my dad destroyed it afterwards in front of me when the party was over. Rude. I wanted to have a memorial service for it. Too bad Southwest wouldn't just allow me to bring it back home with me on the plane. *sigh* And can we all just take a moment to recognize how gorgeous my parents backyard is?!! I love it back there... and that yard makes an awesome backdrop!!!


Also a quick pic from the day after with mom and Michelle (and Luca, hehe)....

So that was it! It was a really special day. And the fact that we're having a girl is finally sinking in. I will love her with my whole heart.... even if she does love dresses and princesses. I might eventually learn to love them too :)

*Kristin*