Weird day & paint colors.

As if having an earthquake on the east coast wasn't strange enough for one day, something even more weird happened tonight in our house.

Mallory requested to sleep in her own bed.  That is a shocker folks.  You see, we have gone back to co-sleeping because her sleeping in her bed was just getting progressively worse & worse.  Then all of a sudden, tonight for her to tell me she wanted to sleep in her bed...well, I just don't know what to think!  I am excited, but we will see how it goes...

Moving on to paint news.  All the colors in the house were finally finalized today. 

Mallory's room is the only color not shown because it is a Benjamin Moore color and I couldn't figure out how to save it.  It is actually a bright & cheery turquoise/aqua color because looking at those colors now, they seem somewhat blah.  Oh yeah, & our contractor hates my main/base color.  It is the second color from the top, Amazing Gray.  He tried hard to talk me out of it...he is not on the gray bus with me.  I hope I don't regret not siding with him!

More beach pictures.

Ashley emailed me her pictures from our beach weekend & since I know she won't post them on her blog, I will post them ;)

Say hi to the camera!

Mallory thought she was on a slide I think.  She loved getting on top of where someone had built up the sand & sliding down it.  We did this for quite a while.

Aww, aren't they cute?!

 

 

 Part of our wonderful dinner Saturday night.

I don't know what it is with Mallory & helmets, but she likes to wear them.

Ashley noticed this write up about oysters when we were at the aquarium.  I'm not sure I can eat oysters again after seeing this...yuck!

It was such a fun & relaxing weekend, we are ready to do it again.  However, we just felt an earthquake today that hit in Virginia and we are expecting Hurricane Irene to hit this weekend so he will be hunkered down at home during all this crazy weather!

Family Beach Weekend.

This past weekend we went on a mini beach vacation with my parents & Joseph & Ashley.  Patrick, Mallory and I went Friday after work with Joseph & Ashley.  We stopped on the way to pick up Michaelangelo's pizza (my fave!).  My mom & dad came on Saturday along with Aunt B who came for the day. 

Saturday was spent on the beach building sandcastles.

Mallory was ready for the beach bright & early.  Ashley & Uncle Joey came a little later.

Mallory refuses to get in the ocean, so Ashley & Joseph decided to dig her a pool.

After an AMAZING home cooked meal of kabobs, corn on the cob, asparagus, twice baked potatoes, salad & bread we took Mallory for her first game of putt-putt.

She liked it and did really good.  After keeping up with her ball & club for 12 holes straight, she put them both down & said, "I'm done."  Haha!  In her defense, it was almost 10:00 -- way past her bedtime!

Sunday, my dad & Joseph played golf while the rest of us went to the aquarium. 

Mallory cracked us up taking pictures of the fish with her camera!

Sitting on the frog

Checking out the alligator...I'm really surprised she wasn't scared to get this close!

We definitely found out what Mallory's favorite sea creature is -- the seahorse!  The whole time we were there she kept saying, "I want to see a seahorse" over & over.  Somehow, we missed seeing them on our first walk through & had to go back & find them.

Can you see the tiny seahorse through the glass?

Looking at more seahorses.

& guess what she picked out in the gift shop....a seahorse.

& last but not least, the infamous crab shot that everyone gets at the aquarium.  Everyone decided to pass on that with the exception of Mallory :)

Manners.

It is no secret that I think Mallory is a pretty bright little girl. 

She's no slow leak & catches on to new things quickly. 

You can tell her something one time & she has it down pat. 

With one exception. 

Manners.

She knows what to say - please, thank you, yes ma'am, etc.  The thing is, she won't say them unless I prompt her to say it.  & a two-year old can sound extremely bossy when not using any manners. 

For example-

Mallory:  Get my drink! 

Me:  What do you say?

Mallory:  Peasssse!

Me:  Okay.  Please say 'get my drink, please' 

Mallory:  Get my drink, pease. 

& no matter how many times, we go through that she will not say it without me having to tell her to say it!!  We are about to have a manners boot camp around here because the bossiness is driving me nuts!

Trim is d-o-n-e.

It seems like it took forever but all the trim in the house is finally done!  We have A LOT of trim in there and it is amazing what it has added to the interior.  I LOOOOVE IT. 

Tomorrow, when I get home there will be paint samples on the walls & I am just a wee bit excited about that.  I have looked & looked at paint colors & then looked some more.  I can't get gray out of my head - I am slightly obsessed with it.  I am just worried that I am using it too much.  It's also hard to find the perfect gray...a gray that is true without having tints of blue or purple to it.  & then there's greige which I like as well.  I think I am somewhat scared of bold or bright colors on the walls.  Everything is going to be pretty neutral and my plans are to accessorize using color.  I am thinking about doing Mallory's bathroom gray & pink, maybe the master in gray & black.  I also love coral right now. A LOT.

Thank the good Lord for all the awesome home design blogs out there right now as well as pinterest.  There are so many amazing ideas & pictures, that the possibilities are endless.  I will take pictures of the paint samples & post up here this week.  I know several of you who read this blog have a great eye for home design so I'm counting on y'all to help me out!!! 

4 months after breaking ground: it's getting there!

What a beautiful Sunday it is!  We went to church this morning & enjoyed breakfast there since it is first Sunday.  Now Patrick & Mallory are taking a nap while I've been cleaning & doing laundry.  I don't know why, I just could not make myself do any cleaning or laundry yesterday.

It has been exactly four months since we started on our house & here is where we are at today with it - still working on trim.  There have been a few setbacks with the trim.  Our contractor's dad is doing the trim & he fell off a spiral staircase (not ours) while putting the railing up.  Therefore, he was out of work for a little while.  Then, they had a death in their family & didn't work for a few days.  Probably a week went by with nothing done, but setbacks are to be expected.

Here are pictures taken today:

Walking in the front door

Going through foyer into living room

Looking in opposite direction

Kitchen

View of kitchen standing in breakfast nook

Master bedroom

It is really hard to get a picture of this room, it's long & narrow.

Master bathroom

One side of laundry room

Washer & dryer will go on opposite wall

Dining room/foyer

Another view of dining room

Mallory's bathroom

Mallory's bedroom

Guest room

& the outside...where nothing has really changed in a long time.

So, hopefully within the next two months I will be done having to go outside to do laundry.  I will never take my indoor laundry room or dishwasher for granted :)

New pool & shopping.

Ahh...it is so nice to have a Saturday at home with no plans.  I love these days!  Mallory got the cutest little inflatable whale pool for her birthday, but we haven't been home long enough to play in it.  We finally got the chance today.

Here is daddy blowing up the pool.  This picture looks like this because every time I bring my camera from inside to outside the lens fogs up.  That's how hot it is!

She had a good time playing with this "little fella" the whole time.

There was lots & lots of getting in & out of the pool.

After playing in the pool for a while, it got cloudy & started raining so we decided to go to Target.  I wanted to get Mallory some new movies because Elmo & Barney were getting old in the car all the time.  (To me anyway, she didn't seem to mind.)  We ended up getting the Disney Princess Stories, Bambi & Tangled.  She picked Tangled to watch on the way home & she really liked it.

& I got this for myself because I'm thinking about trying this challenge. 

I highly doubt I will do it & stick with it just because I suck at making commitments like this. I will have to do it at either 5:30 am or around 10:00 pm :(

However, I did use a kettle ball quite a bit last year when I was working out with a trainer & I really liked using it.  I desperately need to start excercising so maybe this will be something I like & can stick with.  Hope so anyway, I'm tired of not being happy with my body.