Work & Fun & Our Deadlines Are Done!!!!!!

These past two weeks were busy ones. We were staring down our final deadline for the house and were trying to get as much done as we possibly could before they came to do our final appraisal. The person doing our final loan told us to focus on all the things that would improve the picture-ability of the house, so we tried to focus on those aesthetic things to hopefully made the biggest impact, knowing that we can do the rest down the road.

The appraisal was done Tuesday and that was, I believe, our official last deadline for the house!!!! YIPPEE!!!!!! Ger and I have treated ourselves to two early nights in bed this week, and lots of relaxation time, which has been just wonderful. We're starting to feel like we will be getting some of our life back, and it feels great. We can now officially join the ranks along with the rest of the homeowners out there and just know that we'll have a constant list of "projects" probably forever, but that we can do at our leisure, not on someone else's time table.

Needless to say I've gotten behind on the blogs, so I'll try to catch everyone up on some of what's been going on. Here goes...

Ger and I are slowing learning the creative art of entertaining Piper while getting work done. As any parent knows, getting things done becomes more of a challenge when you have a little one running around. But, Piper was willing to help whereever she could and was very interested in the work being done.

We got the bathroom fixtures up and Piper was right there to lend a hand.



This picture below cracks me up, becuase this is what Ger's "working area" looked like after he was done in Piper's bathoom! Ha!





Next we focused on getting the front porch finished. Here's a "before" shot of the porch.




And the "after" shot.

All we have left to do on the front porch is stain the porch and paint the front door. So, almost done!



Next we moved on to painting interior walls. Piper had a blast with the painter's tape and she spent a long time trying to tape anything she felt needed it, mostly things like the walls to be painted and the windows.



See if you can tell which piece of tape is her masterpiece?


There were a few tricky spots that had to be painted that took some ingenuity to get the ladder where it needed to be. There were a few trickier than those below, but couldn't manage a camera shot while holding the ladder with Ger up there trying to paint while swaying about and the ladder creaking and sliding! Glad that part's over!

All walls in the upstairs of the house are officially painted now!!!! So just the trim left to go.

I also learned a very valuable lesson...when the switch plate covers are off the light switches, NEVER, EVER touch the little screws on the sides of the switches...cause they are live and they will shock you! So I had a little jolt Saturday afternoon while trying to put tape over the light switches. Little Man was relatively quite before that, but it seemed to really put a little pep in his step and he was moving like crazy the rest of the afternoon!!

Mommy and Piper squeezed in a trip to the park down the road from us to give Daddy some time to finish. Piper spotted the climbing wall right away when we got there and decided to give it a try. Here she is making her plan of attack...

And off she goes!

They also had a really neat doubleslide, the we could ride down side-by-side together. Couldn't quite manage to get a picture of that, but it was a favorite and I think we'll be spending a lot of time at that park in the future.

Piper has discovered the "kid carts" at various stores around town. She has become an expert at spotting them when we are pulling in the parking lot. If she doesn't spot one outside, she is on "high alert" when we walk in the store and if she spots one starts pointing at it and yelling "Dis, dis, dis!!!".