Thanks, Paul!

My friend's dad, Paul, has a very fancy Nikon camera that he loves to take pictures with (and is REALLY good) and when we were over at their place for dinner, tonight, he snapped a nice family photo of us and sent it to me!

Thanks, Paul!!!!

Home Sweet LITTLE Home!

Well, we haven't spent more than about 5 nights in our new place, which is mostly filled with boxes, but I am already enjoying our closer quarters. Quinton no longer yells at me from a different floor to come and get him. Our laundry is on the same floor as the kitchen - as the bathroom - as our rooms!

All this 'new' luxury wasn't without it's elbow grease before we even moved in! I really liked all that this little house has to offer but I knew when I saw it that it could use some TLC. Matt was patient enough to indulge my need to make this rental a little bit nicer and helped tear out the carpet and refinish the hidden hardwood floors underneath so we have a MUCH cleaner living space.

Here is one of the views of the carpet in our bedroom. It doesn't look too bad, although if you look close, the color of the carpet is a beige-ish gray and had some icky looking stains.

Below is the carpeting in Quinton's room and was just as icky as the carpeting in our room. Matt and I were both convinced that whatever was underneath the carpet couldn't be any worse than the carpet so we asked the landlord if he wouldn't mind us pulling up the carpets, checking for hardwood and refinishing the floors. Lucky for us, the landlord was cool with us taking the initiative!

When Matt pulled up the carpets, even he was grossed out! Underneath, you could really understand how old and gross the carpets were and there was a black sand/dust/dirt pile leftover from pulling up the carpets.

Thank goodness for Youtube! I looked up how to refinish hardwood floors and Matt and I watched a couple of tutorials, rented some equipment and VOILA!

Even though there are some visible stains in the hardwood, I am WAY less skeeved out by these stains than the ones in the carpet!!!

Not bad for never having done this before, eh?

Even though I miss our temporary mansion by the lake and even our cozy Tulsa starter home, I know I'll be able to make this place feel like home...once I get some of these boxes out of the way!

Shhhhhhhh! I'm reading!!!!!

So I know we're moving tomorrow and Matt will be at the UHaul store to pick our 24 foot truck at 7am sharp, but I couldn't resist going with my fabulous friend, Mrs. R, to the release party at Barnes & Noble for the fourth and final book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. Even as I am typing (at 12:39 am), I really want to be reading but I just had to blog about buying the book a little after 12 am this morning!

Here is Mrs. R and me, it's blurry, but you can tell we are excited to start reading our books and ignoring our kids!

There were two YOUNG girls in line behind me and one girl was saying her mom said she could only read 2 chapters tonight before she went to bed. In my head, I thought, "Gosh, I'm glad this book came out when I'm old enought not to have my mom tell me how many chapters I can read each night!" But then again, I should listen to her since are ARE moving tomorrow!

We'll see!