Thursday, October 16, 2008

Room Makeover

For Chris's 30th birthday, my neighbor convinced me to "remodel" our room. Our room has always been the junk room of the house! I hated our furniture and so I never even tried to make the room nice or clean. It was the one room of the house I could ignore! We are waiting to buy new furniture until we buy a house so that we can buy what fits in the room and won't have to move it multiple times (at least for a while anyway)!

The remodel was a surprise, so we completed the transformation in about 8 hours. Well, we painted the night before, so Chris knew about that, but he had no idea about the rest of the room until he came home!

So, we redecorated the room and did it all for about $200. Not bad! Most of it can be reused when we move and get new furniture, so it wasn't a waste at all! Every day that I have woken up in the newly clean and pretty room, I feel so relaxed. I just love the new look! It's not perfect, but it's 100 times better than what we had before!





My favorite part of the remodel is this picture. This is not the best photo of it, but it's good enough! We bought this print in Italy more than 2 years ago for about $10 from a street vendor. It has traveled with us from Italy to Houston, to our first apartment at Stanford, to our second apartment at Stanford, and to our current home. It has been rolled up and smashed so many times. Once, I thought I'd lost it but found it behind the dryer! Chris tried to throw it away at almost every move. He said we'd never do anything with it!


Well, I bought this open frame at Michael's for $40. Then, we bought some glass at Lowe's for $6.50 (Michael's said the glass would cost $44.00, but they would frame it for free. How kind of them to offer such a great deal???). In the end, I decided not to use the glass anyway because the picture has a little texture, and the glass took away from the look. To frame it, I placed some cardboard behind the picture, and used nails to secure the cardboard and pic. It looks great with our bedding!




We received the bedding as a wedding gift but have rarely used it because I never felt that our room was nice enough for it! I bought the curtains and curtain rods from Ross for a very good deal.



The pics above the bed were a recent addition. I just put them up there for fun as they were leftover from Chris's party. He wouldn't let me put them up for the party, so I put them up in our room. Before that, the walls were bare!



My neighbor and I painted the furniture, and she bought new drawer pulls from Home Depot for about $25.







We bought one extra curtain panel and cut it in half. Then, we laid it across the night stands to pull the room together even more.

Notice Chris's "manimal" trophy. Something silly his friends did... Lots of manly competitions and somehow Chris won first place overall. I know you're surprised he won because Chris is really not competitive at all! (note the sarcasm there!) His friends made this trophy and engraved his name on it. Now we use it for clean, mismatched socks - seems like an appropriate use for a manly trophy! It didnt fit with the new theme of the room, so we moved it to the closet!

The new picture above Chris's dresser is a drawing of an outdoor Italian restaurant. Chris loves restaurants, Italian food, and Italy!

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Chris Turns 30!


I love this picture! They are all so happy!


Kevin helps with the birthday challenge as a dessert taster!



Chis decided to do a birthday challenge this year! He's nuts! He completed all of the following except eating 30 desserts. He ate 23, and then quit. He said it was just too disgusting!!

Run a 30K

Play as many Par 3 golf holes as possible in 30 strokes

Spend 30 minutes playing in the pool with Ellie and Kevin

Make 30 3-point basketball shots

Catch 30 touchdown passes from the 10 yard line

Call 30 friends

Do 300 push-ups

Watch 30 minutes of Longhorn football

Read 30 chapters of the Bible

Clear 3 racks in pool

Hit 3 bulls eyes in darts

Eat 3 hamburgers, 3 Chick Filet sandwiches and 3 pieces of pizza

Drink 30 ounces of Coke

Drink 30 ounces of coffee

Drink 30 ounces of beer

Eat 30 different desserts

Do it all in 30 hours beginning at 6 p.m. on October 3 and ending at midnight on October 4!

We ended the night with a party at our house! We had so many desserts that we delivered them to the neighbors after the party and still had leftovers!

Kevin - 14 Months


Halloween Preview! I wouldn't have picked this out at the store, but I found it for a good deal at a consignment sale! So, he'll be Winnie the Pooh dressed as a honeybee for Halloween!



Kevin loves to pretend like he's talking on the phone. Almost anything can be a phone, but he especially loves to talk on the plastic, chocolate doughnut!


He has begun to make the kiss noises periodically throughout the day! And when we ask if he wants to go "night night", he'll start making the kiss noise and opening his mouth! Before he learned this trick, he would just lay down and go to sleep at night. Now, after I put him in the crib, he'll stand up and make the kiss noise! So sweet!


He loves to roar at all animals!


He walks around the house looking for Ellie and saying, "Eh Eee. Eh Eee. Eh Eee."


He loves to feed himself with a spoon and has gotten really good with it! He won't allow us to feed him unless he is really, really hungry!


He cries when I drop him off at the gym, and he is always waiting for me at the gate when I return. Yes, this does make me feel guilty. He's got my number!


e is as happy as ever!

Mischievous Cousins - Ellie and Pug!


They had a great time! They were mischievous!

They poked holes in the air mattress with some tacks they found. They cut holes in Ellie's sheets and her Dora air mattress sheets. Ellie threw a block in the ceiling and busted a light bulb in the living room! It was an expensive trip.

Ellie decided to sell her tricycle to help pay for all the damage. Well, she did have a little help in choosing a toy that was expensive enough to help pay to replace the items. Chris did most of the talking during our "little talk" with Ellie. She agreed to pay for the damage and even seemed a little excited that she could help fix what she had done. But when it was all over, she said, "Mommy, what was Cinderella's Mommy's name?" Somehow it made me wonder if in her little head she was comparing me to the evil stepmother!

We also told her that we wouldn't buy her any dessert this week because we were going to save her dessert money to help pay for things she destroyed. We went to dinner at Macaroni Grill for Chris's birthday. They brought a big, complimentary piece of chocolate cake to the table. Ellie looked at the waitress and said, "Does that cake cost the family money?" Cute! Our neighbor offered her some ice cream, and she said, "Will that cost the family money?" I think she's getting the idea!

Cleaning the Windows


One of Ellie's favorite things to do is clean the glass door!

Monday, October 6, 2008

Kevin Talks to the Lion



For the last few months, whenever Kevin sees an animal - especially dogs, bears, lions, tigers, or cats - he will make this grunting noise at it! I finally got it on video!