Best Friends

The hardest part of moving to TX was leaving so many good friends behind. Lisa and I like to tell ourselves that we are mature and have moved enough in the last 5 years that it's not that hard. However, it's been particularly hard to watch Sophie try to adjust. She had a number of close friends she left behind, but none closer than her cousin Sam.

However, she's discovered the joy of talking on the telephone. This is a video I took of her talking to Sam on the phone - for like 25 minutes! Think I have to worry about her teenage years?



The other silver lining has been watching Sophie grow in her relationship with Travis. Travis adores Sophie, and thinks whatever she's doing is the best. It's so nice to see her reciprocate and play with him too (though we're not big fans of her insisting she can only talk like a baby).

Aqua Rapids Revealed

So we got the hardware back up in the kid's bathroom and also a few other little decorate-y things. And, I have to admit, I think it is SO CUTE. SOOOOO CUUUUUTE. It's just so happy!! Just the way I wanted it to look. So, as Bryce says, now that we have the smallest room in the house finished, on to bigger better things! :) Ok, some pics...

BEFORE

AFTER:side wall. We lowered the bar with hand towels so little hands could reach it.Looking at the sinks (and Sophie with a towel on her head -- she was DYING to be in the pictures)this is my latest excitement! I found this fabric buried in my sewing box and it was the perfect match to the colors I wanted in the bathroom!! ...but I didn't know where to put it. It would have been the cutest shower curtain, but there wasn't enough... anyway, I was at Ikea today and found these cheap-o picture frames. Then, I covered the frames with the fabric and put some of the kids' artwork in them! I figure we'll put new artwork in about once a month, or whenever they come up with something particularly brilliant. So excited about these little do-dads - I love them!and my hunky assistant, without whom none of this would be possible.how do you resist this little face???

So, there it is! Aqua Rapids bathroom. Oh, and I am very happy to report that we ended up using a good 2/3 to 3/4 of that gallon of paint I bought. Good thing I got so much, eh???

Next home decor project - which was actually finished a while before the bathroom. I'm just now getting around to taking pics of the finished product. We found this headboard on craigslist for a STEAL and painted it black! And I LOVE IT. I think it turned out so fabulous. Here are before and after pics:
And here it is in our bedroom. It does look better with natural light and not my wimpy flash. :)
A friend told me this weekend that non-matching nightstands are totally in. What do you think? I may be partial to the tried-and-true idea of matching nightstands...but we left the other white one in SLC, so what can you do? Oops!


And, here are a few other highlights from last month...

Travis got 4 stitches in his lip after falling off a scooter at Gma & Gpa's house. Poor little dude.

Ahhh yes, and the famous haircut. Sophie cut her hair all by herself. Here's a snapshot taken about 45 seconds after I caught her. From the looks of this, you'd have thought I was screaming my head off... I wasn't. But it sure looks like it, huh?

It was down to her scalp in a couple spots. She's been wearing a lot of headbands lately,Burrito time on the couch. It is COLD here!
I thought Texas was supposed to be all warm and stuff????
Daddy-daughter dates. This was their "home date" since they stayed in and made these DELICIOUS cookies. Wow. They were good. Recipe came from a dessert cookbook Katy made for Bryce several years ago. Here they are picking out juuuuust the right recipe. So cute!Lots of reading books! Actually, it's mostly just Sophie loving the books, but Travis will do anything she does, so if it's books she wants, it's books he wants!Also, last weekend, I was able to meet up with some wonderful college friends in Houston! We had a marvelous time together! Thanks to all the husbanderos who made it possible!!
...and now I think I'm done.

And you thought this post was just about the bathroom!

Silent Night

(picture taken at the city-sponsored Christmas fair we went to this year. One of the churches had a live nativity and Sophie would have been 100% happy to stay there watching them the entire night)

Sophie has long held a dear love for the nativity story. Her favorite characters are Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and the camels. Ever since we re-enacted the nativity at Christmas this year, one of her favorite things to do has been to find all my stretchy headbands and wear her "Mary costume." As in, a blanket over her head with a headband around her forehead. The headband is a must. She is most definitely NOT Mary unless she's wearing the headband.

So tonight when Bryce and I went in to check on her, this is what we found...a peaceful Mary slumbering quietly away. I will be very curious to see whether the costume is still on her head in the morning... :)

Lessons in Home Renovation

Note to Self: When painting a smallish bathroom that has only 1.5 paintable walls... do not buy an entire GALLON of paint. Esp when the color is Aqua Rapids. I tried telling Bryce that I would also paint the laundry room, guest room and game room this color.... but I don't think he's buying it. Rats.

Merry Christmas!

Welcome to Texas

My foot was really bothering me a little while ago. It was sore to the touch and looked kind of bruised. I couldn't think how I bruised it, except that Sophie had stepped on my toe one night and it really hurt. After a week, I decided to take a closer look, and noticed that my toe was infected! I'll spare the gory details, but suffice it to say that there was no doubt it was infected.

I followed proper protocol and cleaned out the puss, disinfected the area and put a bandaid over it. I realized that Sophie probably wasn't the culprit. Then I remembered...

Lisa never actually saw the house that we bought until after we were under contract. Hard to believe she trusted me with that decision. When she flew to Texas with the kids the first week of October, our first order of business was to have her walk through the house.

While Lisa was walking through the kitchen, I was excited to show Sophie the playground out back.


I picked her up because there are quite a few cacti in the greenbelt, and I didn't want her to accidentally get pricked. So of course you know what happened next. I was so excited to show her the park that I didn't watch my footing and slipped and hit a cactus. Oh, and I was wearing sandals.

I was surprised that it didn't actually hurt at all. I removed all the spines I could see - they were small and hairlike - then I disinfected the area and quickly forgot all about it.

So back to my initial story. One week after cleaning my toe, it was still sore. When I checked closer, you guessed it, it was infected again. I decided this time I was going to get every last drop of puss out so that the infection wouldn't come back. After 2 or 3 squeezes, I discovered the culprit just by the base of the nail in my middle toe.


Apparently, I missed one BIG cactus spine that was totally embedded in my toe. Glad to know I carried it around for almost 3 weeks!

Welcome to Texas!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

In Nursery today, Sophie got her very own Christmas ornament. She was so thrilled to come home and hang it on our tree.


Those of you who know Sophie know that when she gets fixated on something, there's no stopping her. She wanted to keep decorating (notice the ripped paper she added to our tree).

First, we started down the right vein. She helped me decorate a wreath that Lisa got last night (nice reflection huh?).


Then she distributed some Christmas ornaments around the house.



Then she decorated with things she could find that were Christmas colors at least.


Then she finally settled for other things she associates with the season.



Yes, socks and gloves. The gloves are obvious, but we had to make a rule that she wear socks all the time now because our house is so drafty and cold. I did get some caulk this weekend so I plan on at least reducing the draftiness of a few windows this week.