My spring cutie!

Just took this picture 5 minutes ago and LOVED it!!! Hope you all enjoy :-)

Bathrooms and Backyards...

Well, not a whole lot of house work to show you - Dan is still working on the bathroom; when he's at work all day, it takes a while to get some of these projects finished! And, with the bathroom, there's a lot of mudding and sanding to do, and he has to wait until the mudding dries before the sanding begins, then back to the mudding once again! It is coming together and he has said it WILL be finished by mid-next week!

Addison has taken over the house - she just loves running around the kitchen/living room/dining room circuit and has "helped" unpack a few boxes - though I don't think that Kleenex boxes were what I had in mind! (Just a quick question - as you might see below with Addison's hair, we have a LOT of static in the house - we've tried a humidifier, but it doesn't seem to help too much - any suggestions?)
(toy strollers just aren't as comfy as the big kid ones!)

We've discovered in the past couple weeks that Addison LOVES shoes! She will walk around with 1-2 pairs (or combinations of pairs) in her hands, just toddling around. It is so cute, and THANK GOODNESS for hand-me-downs from older cousins and friends - we've saved a mint in clothes (though I am a sucker for a good sale!!)

I'm also including some pics of our backyard - we are probably not going to do anything this year with it - we're curious as to what will be sprouting up in the next few months. My brother Cam was bugging me to put up some "outside pics" - he is a landscaper and is going to give us a few suggestions (BTW, if any of you in the lower mainland ever need any landscaping done, Cam is super good - he came out to Barrie when we moved there and did our whole front/back yard and did an amazing job!) So, here you go Cam - hope you enjoy :-)

back porch - sliding door leads to Addie's playroom

rest of back of house - circle garden growing tulips, not sure what is growing alongside house

triangle garden in back corner of yard - lots of lillies coming up

full view of back deck

property line is from shed to shed (shed with white edged door is ours)

property line goes to small evergreen tree - big garden in front of it

view of garden along property line

Finally! Some AFTER pictures!

Well, we have only 1 room that is completely finished - by this I mean painted, lighted and curtained - and this is Addison's playroom! It was actually done a few days ago, but I had all her boxes of old toys and blankets and stuff in there...not good for staging a picture. So now it is clean (at least until she wakes up from her nap!!) and ready to be seen by the world...so I present to you:

Addison's Playroom BEFORE:

And Addison's Playroom AFTER:



The project that has been taking up Dan's time lately has turned out to be the bathroom. We were not planning on doing anything major for at least another 2-3 years, but these things have a way of changing before you can even blink!! What started off as changing the bathtub faucet has turned into oh-so-much more!!
Dan: "You know that tub faucet that we were going to change because it was hanging sideways?"
Me: "Yeah..."
Dan: "Well, I had to take down the tub surround on that side to get into the pipes a bit...there's a bit of rot and mold behind the surround, so we're going to have to replace the drywall."
Me: "Sure, okay..."
Dan: "We'll also have to get a new side for the tub surround, because we're changing the type of faucet and there's going to be holes in the other one otherwise."
Me: "Okay...."
Dan: "And I was looking into prices of surrounds, and it's just as cheap to buy one that goes around the entire tub instead of just replacing the one side."
Me: (mentally doing some calculations) "okayyyyy"
Dan: "And I was talking to Dad, and he suggested we just replace the tub while we're at it. I think we should get one that's a little taller than the tub we have now" (FYI - the old tub is 1960s lavender)

So that's how we now have a new tub, when we were just going to get a faucet!! (The above conversation is the jist of about 10 conversations we had over the past week....but you get the idea!!"). It's still not ready to go yet, so everytime Addison needs a bath, we have to take a trip to Grandma's house - thank goodness they live so close!! When this is done, we're done with the bathroom for a while!

Bathroom "Before"


Bathroom "A Work in Progress" - complete with new tub!