Upgrade

The last time I upgraded my phone it was 2006. Back then it was cool if you had a keyboard, and very cool if it could play music. I've resisted upgrading because everything now is a smart phone and requires a data package which costs money. You know how cheap I am. Very cheap. I couldn't really justify spending $30 per month for internet on my phone when I am already on the internet all day at work and I already pay to have internet on my laptop at home. That's a lot of internet and who needs that much access?? Well, I broke down. This weekend Audrey and I drove to Virginia Beach for our cousin Zach's birthday and I decided to pull off on an exit when we hit traffic so we could grab lunch. Thirty minutes later I had a screaming baby, didn't know how to get back to the highway, and still hadn't found a place to eat. Then it hit me. Josh was right (he always is). I need a smart phone. I need the GPS. Ok, I don't NEED it, but it would surely make life a little bit easier. 

So on Wednesday I ordered my iPhone4 from Verizon and went on Amazon and snagged the best rated case I could find (for $25 cheaper than Verizon was selling it, too!). This case is maximum baby proofed. At least that's what I hope because the phone feels super delicate. The camera is so awesome. It takes really good and clear pictures and has a bunch of editing features to make the picture look all cool and artsy. See what I mean?

So one of the best things is that I can update my blog straight from my phone. That means maybe more posting! Or maybe not because I'm still not sure how much I will feel like typing on that small keyboard. But at least I can just upload pictures straight from my phone now! And who doesn't want more pictures?

All Done!

Oh, my sweet baby girl. She is so smart!

We do baby sign language with her, but not consistently other than a few specific signs. We always do "more" and now she signs more throughout dinner when she wants more on her plate, and this has also been her sign for when she is hungry. In the mornings she hangs out with Josh in the kitchen while I shower, and it is so cute when she walks around tapping her fingers together to say that she is hungry (umm...maybe that is not as cute as it is sad that she has to tell us she's hungry...). We also do "milk" and "drink" a lot, but she doesn't do that sign back to us probably because it is confusing to have different words for the same thing. Anyways....

Another sign we consistently do is "all done". Are you seeing a theme here? These are all meal time signs. It is so frustrating at meal time to not know why exactly she is fussing or kicking or whining. It has gotten easier since she started signing back to us. She started doing her version of "all done" just a few days ago, but she's actually been saying the words for a couple of weeks. I would say "Audrey are you all done or do you want more?" and do those signs while speaking, and she would say which she wants. The way she says all done is so cute. Her version of the sign is to throw her arms up in the air and say "Ah! Duhhh". She did this while Josh and I were talking over dinner the other night and I almost didn't catch it because I'm so used to asking her first. But luckily I DID catch it and I almost jumped out of my seat out of excitement! Since then she has done it at every meal! Now its been about a week and she doesn't do the sign as much as she just says, "Ah! Duhh!" when she's finished. Then we clean her up and she gets down! Such a big girl!

Another new thing is that I am waiting for her to come to the table at dinner time, as opposed to walking to her and scooping her up and putting her in the high chair. I ask her if she is hungry and is ready to eat, and she runs over to her high chair and puts her arms up! I love it. She is becoming so independent, and more every day.

The Bathroom

This post is long overdue. The bathroom was completed before we moved into the new house, which was about a month ago. Originally, we were going to DIY the bathroom. Rather, Josh was going to DIY it. That plan was scrapped pretty quickly when we realized that we just simply did not have the time to do it ourselves since we wanted to move by a certain date. So we turned to our very good friend Paul to do the bathroom for us. As you can see from the before photo, the bathroom wasn't THAT bad at first glance. That's actually a common theme with this new house. At first glance its pretty decent! But upon closer inspection, lots and lots of issues come up.

A few of those issues:
1. The bathroom door opened the wrong way. The toilet is on the right of the bathroom when you walk in, but the door latched on the left and swung to the right. So when you swung the door open, it hit the toilet, plus it couldn't open all the way. Why would someone put the door on backwards? Well, that leads us to..
2. The light switch was on the left wall. So if we rebuilt the door frame to open to the left, you would have to walk in and close the door before you could turn on the light.
3. The pipes were leaking and needed to be replaced in the bathtub. The shower never actually turned all the way off, it was always dripping. The tub was also gross and dingy. The toilet needed to be replaced. I will spare you that photo.
4. Nothing matched. The walls were had a very odd spongy thing going on, some fixtures were a gold color, some were chrome colored. Plus there was wood. We are not fans of wood in the bathroom.
5. The tile work was sloppy. Stuff didn't match, didn't line up right, bad grout, just sloppy work. Plus, we didn't really care for the design and style of it all. Removing tile is hard work, and we figured if we are doing that, we might as well bring the walls down to the beams and start fresh. But then when the walls came down, we noticed...
6. The beams had mold. A few beams were even rotting.

YES I know I need to iron the shower curtain.

Those were the biggest issues with the bathroom, but there were a few other not so big things. Luckily, they were all able to be corrected once we got the walls out. Paul replaced the rotting beams and treated the moldy ones. We had our electrician rewire the bathroom and put the light switch on the right side of the wall. Paul rebuilt the door frame so it swings to the left and can open all the way. Woohoo! Josh picked out some very pretty dark colored fixtures, and they chose some gorgeous earth toned glass tiles to line the shower. We chose a smaller vanity so that we could have more space in the bathroom. We have less storage, but more space on the floor for when we are giving Audrey a bath. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS. It is so much better being able to have almost the entire length of the tub and not bumping into anything while I am sitting on the floor while she bathes. Er...when Josh is sitting on the floor. haha. He's on bath duty usually.

The boys picked a light colored tile for the floor and shower so I think the dark fixtures and glass tiles really compliment that tile and none of them steal the show. I picked out the dark paint and I love the clean look of it against the very white trim. I found some good deals at Home Goods on a shower curtain and towels and I think they all look great together! Every time I walk into my bathroom I feel happy and warm and cozy.

Please excuse the missing towels. In the laundry!

The only thing left to do in here is frost the window. Josh insists that it's fine how it is, but I hate it. Every time I take a shower I feel like there are major creepies that could be watching! Frosting a window is pretty straight forward and simple, and I can get the materials at Home Depot for around $20. Hopefully by the weekend I will have this done.

There you have it. The bathroom. In the past two weeks we have painted the living room, Josh installed trim on three windows and the sliding glass door (and painted it all), painted the kitchen, painted the hallway, and started work on the playroom. Those posts will hopefully be coming soon.

Here's Audrey just because she's cute.

Save The Date

May 12, 2012. Our wedding. Be There.

Consider yourself warned. It would be nice to send out one of those fancy magnets with a super cute and clever photo of Joshua and I doing something adorable, but that's just not going to happen. Sorry about that.

So that's what we know. 5/12/2012 up here in Northern Virginia. More details to come. Maybe.

I don't have any recent pictures of Josh and I together to post here, so instead I leave you with a photo of the most handsome living room painter there ever was.

xo

Dear Audrey Falcon

Last night I went to bed early and laid with Audrey while I watched a bit of tv before sleep. I saw this commercial that made me cry, but also inspired me.

Tell me that does not make you cry. Seriously. And how cute is that little baby?! Anyways, I decided to copy the idea (as I do with most ideas I like), so today I started Audrey an email address and wrote her my first email. It was cheesy. It was lame. I hope one day she doesn't think it is cheesy and lame (even though it truly was). It is hard not to get all gushy and sappy. I'm a sensitive mama, ok?? I hope the internet and google and email are still around in 20 years so she can read the letters I write. I hope that with her own private email address, I can be a bit more candid and open than I am on the blog, which is public for anyone to read.

So for anyone that would like to write Audrey a letter (assuming you know Audrey, of course), you can send it to Dear.Audrey.Falcon@gmail.com. I promise not to open and read any emails. :)

Halloween

Halloween was kind of anticlimactic for us this year. In the past, Josh and I have enjoyed doing couple's costumes. We were a cop and an inmate in '06, Sonny and Cher in '07, two of the Village People in '09, Popeye and Olive Oyle and Sweet Pea in '10, and I cannot for the life of me remember what we were in 2008. Anyways, this year we were very excited to be Peter Pan, Wendy, and Tinkerbell. My mom made Audrey's Tinkerbell costume and it turned out fabulous!! I am so happy with it. I made her wings out of a hanger and a pair of tights.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Josh and I in our costumes. That's because we never even put them on. We had a Halloween party to attend last week and I scrambled around to find a blue nightgown for my Wendy costume, but Josh ended up getting stuck at work until 8:30 that night so Audrey and I went to the party without him. And there was no way I was dressing in a nightgown without him dressed in tights and a short dress. Without Peter Pan, no one knows who Wendy is. So I thought, "No big deal, we'll all dress up for trick or treating at the mall". Except that never happened. Audrey goes to sleep at 7pm sharp every night and if we are even a few minutes late, she's screaming her head off and cranky as hell, so I decided it would just be best to stay home and hand out candy. If she were old enough to actually eat the candy, I would have made it a priority to take her out, but this year I felt I could skip it without feeling guilty. So that's the story of how Josh and I missed our Peter Pan themed Halloween costumes. :(

Saturday I took Audrey to the Air and Space Museum's "Air and Scare". There were lots of trick or treaters and lots of candy, but not much entertainment for the littlest ones. We met Dad and Lisa and Matthew and  Cristina there and they were having tons of fun! Audrey just enjoyed running around looking at the benches and being carried around like a queen.

Looking at sticks with Papi

Ohhh a bench to hold on to!

Pretty Cristina

Captain America and a Jawa with the Star Wars guys

Audrey and grandpa

Happy November!