Our House

***Warning...this post is heavy on pictures!***
When we bought our house we knew it would need a lot of work. My dad & Zach worked really hard for almost 2 months getting the house to a livable condition. This is the outside, and honestly, we haven't done anything with it yet. We have every intention of getting rid of the sea-foam green paint and adding some green to the yard. But that will have to wait until we (meaning Zach) have a design.

This was the view from the patio door (left) and front door (right) when we bought the house. See that wall?

Yeah, they knocked it down. And it is one of the best decisions we made!!!

And here are those same views today. There is still a lot to be done, but it is much improved!

The carpet in the family room has been replaced (in the whole house, actually). The tile in the kitchen was replaced with wood laminate flooring. The fans, paint and baseboards are also new through this part of the house.

This is kind of a boring picture, but it shows the quality of the paint job through out the entire house when we bought it. I don't think the people who lived here before painted a second coat on anything... so nearly every wall has been painted at this point. There is still some trim work that needs painted, though.

 My favorite part of the house - the kitchen!!! Ugly, uneven tile - gone. Tiled counter tops - gone! The dishwasher has been moved to the other side of the sink. We painted all of the cabinets and added beadboard to the fronts, to match the beadboard back splash. The upper cabinets to the left of the window were replaced with full size uppers. We added cabinet pulls to the cabinets and drawers. And added the island.

Still on the list for the kitchen - there is some painting still to do, trim out and replace the lighing in the soffit, and curtains for the window. 

 The toy room - It's just white (and was when we bought it, but it got a fresh coat of paint anyway), but I finally found some inspiration for the decor...the hot air balloon that's hanging in the corner. I got the chevron fabric (which I'm not normally a fan of, but for this I think it works) to make curtains and ordered some vinyl in matching colors to put the alphabet on the wall opposite the window. I'll take more pics once that's finished.

 The master - what was once this ugly pearlized/metallic dusty rose color...

...is now a nice, calming gray (which I realize looks white in the picture). I still need to do something over the bed, I just haven't decided what. This room also got a new fan.

 The master bath is one shade darker than the bedroom. It still needs some of the paint, a new counter top & sink, new light fixture and we'd like the frame out the mirror.

 The kids room - from this...

to this. Their room is almost finished! I still need to hang their initials above their beds and make a valance for the window. I got some cute yellow polka dot fabric for it.

 The main bath - I can't access any of the before pics right now. :( We've replaced the floors (and that's what the cabinets used to look like in the master bath, which also has the same new matching floors).


And as part of their Christmas present to us, my brother & his family came up one day and did some work around our house, including painting this bathroom.


There's still a lot of work to do, but we're slowly getting it done. I don't have any pics of the pantry, but we've started on that room too. I'll try to get more pictures on here as we finish more projects. Hopefully one of these days I'll have more to show on the outside of the house. I wanted to wait until each room was completely finished to show pictures...but that's probably not ever going to happen! :)

Henry Cole Watson

Wow, I was a terrible blogger in the second half of 2012! Let's see...we had a baby & moved into our house (still working on fixing it up though). Those two things have pretty much consumed my entire life over the last 4 months. And since they are both pretty big events, I'll break them up into two posts.

Henry was born on 9/11 at 4:03 am and weighed a whopping 9 lbs 15 oz! He was 21.5 inches long. Madie was VERY excited to meet her new brother. She woke up around 3:30 that morning (if I remember correctly) and never went back to sleep. Good thing Henry didn't wait much longer than that to come.

He is growing great and when we saw the Cardiologist in Oct he said that Henry's heart is starting to heal and that we don't need to go back until April. I'll try to remember to update on that.

 Henry is a thumb (and finger...and fist) sucker. It still seems so weird to me since Madie couldn't do that when she was a baby.

 All dressed up for church.

 Halloween - Belle & a mummy

 Henry is my snuggle bug. He loves to be held and snuggled. Also very different from his sister.

 Henry is such a happy, smiley baby! And he's pretty ticklish...which I just love. He pretty much only cries if he's hungry. Sometimes he fusses when he needs to poop or when he's tired...but not always.

Zach blessed Henry in November. It was lovely, thank you to everyone who came.
Madie did NOT want to pose for pictures! She cried and threw a huge fit. All she wanted to do was change her clothes and play with her cousins.

In his fancy suit that grandma 'roney made him.

Our summer & changes are a comin'

What have I been up to that has caused me to completely forget about my blog for the last few months??? This...

I opened an Etsy shop and it is doing really well. My largest order so far has been for 165 bees.

It was for a preschool summer camp in NY. The next two biggest orders both went to Australia for a school play. One was an order of 45 monkeys and the other was for 33 elephants.

I've been making a few cute things for Henry, like these tie onesies. I've also made a few clip on ties (sorry, no pic).

And I got Madie's Halloween costume made. Although, if you ask her, I still need to make her some gloves.


Madie took swim lessons in June. She did great and is an excellent swimmer now. She jumps right off the diving board and swims over to the steps all by herself and she is doing really well at swimming with her face underwater.

Henry is continuing to grow...and so is my belly. Madie keeps telling me that my belly is too big and that Henry needs to stop growing. He's already measuring in at 6 pounds...which is about 1 pound more than average. She actually yelled at him the other day. It was really funny. She was laying on the floor next to my bed and I was next to her, Zach usually takes on this role but Madie wasn't feel well and only wanted me. She was facing me and trying to roll over but there wasn't room, so she proceeded to say "Henry, move! Mom, Henry is stealing my spot. I'm trying to lay down and he's in the way!" She was not happy and I couldn't help but laugh.

Other than that, we've been busy with doctors appointments (twice a week now) and house hunting. Well after about 6 weeks, over a dozen viewings and 4 offers we found a house!!! It is in the downtown Gilbert area and we love it! It needs some work, but it has everything we wanted in a house. We are supposed to close on September 10th (yep, my due date) and then we'll take a few weeks to do some upgrades and repairs and probably move in some time in October. So if all goes well, this will be our house in a couple of weeks. I'll be sure to take lots of "before & after" pics of the things we change.


And last but not least...a few cute pictures of Madie :)

You've had a birthday, shout "Hooray"

Madie turned 4 last Tuesday!!! I still can't believe it! We started the day out by going to art class with Katie, then Zach & I took her to lunch at Wendy's. After that we had some visiting teaching to do and then we came home and went swimming. Finally, dinnertime rolled around and her cousins came over to party. When asked what she wanted for dinner, Madie responded with "waffles." So the kids all played and we had waffles (with pink whipped cream), hash browns, bacon & eggs for dinner. 

Madie (in her new birthday dress) waiting patiently to open her presents. 

 Grandma & Grandpa with baby Samuel (they didn't know I was taking the picture). That's a unicorn costume Abigail is wearing...I'm still not sure how she didn't get heat stroke in it!

 Some of the kids were kind of bored during the opening of presents...

 Madie opening the Belle nightgown she got from the Tolmans. To say she LOVED it would be an understatement!!!! She wore it to bed Tuesday night and then tried to convince me to let her wear it all day Wednesday as clothes. I think tonight is the first night she hasn't worn it to bed since she got it.

 Molly opening her birthday present from Auntie Lori & Uncle Justin. At first Kristi had Molly's present off to the side and Molly kept trying to open all of Madie's presents. Finally, they put her gift over in the pile with Madie's and then she would open it.

 The pink princess castle cake that Madie helped me make.

 Happy birthday little big girl!

Oh, and the title of the post is the song Madie requested we sing to her in Primary last week.

Preschool, Graduation & Mother's Day

Madie loves school! Whether it is art class with Katie (through the city) or the preschool co-op we did with some ladies in our stake or primary she just loves it! Here is a pic from one of our preschool lessons about construction. This was actually the last lesson I taught before I was put on bed rest. And she has been doing really well learning her Articles of Faith! She has passed off 1-5 and was ready to pass off #6 today, but they didn't do it today since it is Mother's Day.

Speaking of school...ZACH GRADUATED!!!!! It has been a long 4 years, but he did it (with honors even)! I'm so proud of him and all of his hard work. And thank you to all of the family that came out to support him that day!

 While Zach's parents were in town for graduation, we went to lunch together and then they took Madie shopping for her birthday. Here she is playing with Grandma Watson and her new birthday carriage (which she just LOVES, by the way).

 Madie enjoying a random May storm. It felt very monsoon-ish.

And this is the two of us before church this morning. Yes, we matched (the outfits were planned...the matching hair just sort of happened). The primary kids sang "I Often Go Walking" in Sacrament meeting and I received several compliments on how they did. It was so cute to see Madie up there singing. She did a great job of singing loudly, but not too loudly.

As far as Henry goes...he is growing really well. We had another check this last week for his heart (which beats irregular) and there was no change, so that means I get to go back for another check for that in two weeks. So as of right now, I'm been seen every 2 weeks by my ob to check on the clot and every 2 weeks by the perinatologist to check on Henry's heart. The good news is that he should out grow the arrhythmia though and it shouldn't cause any long term issues. The other good part about it is that it means we get to see him on u/s quite often. This picture is from 2 weeks ago...I got another 3d pic on Friday but don't feel like scanning it in right now.


Madie's birthday is on Tuesday so I'll post pics from that later in the week. Also, we had new pics taken of her and once I get those back I'll upload them.

Big belly

Madie was laying on the couch after dinner and sticking out her belly. She said to me, "my belly is getting bigger because I have lots and lots of babies in it!"

Oh and here is my big belly at 18 weeks.

Visits with family

In February, Lori came to visit. She stayed with us and Madie LOVED it!!! We enjoyed hanging out with her. On one particularly windy day, we went out and flew the kite. 

We enjoyed spending time with family to celebrate the February birthdays.

Ty and Miranda came to town on their way back to Delaware. We had a nice visit with them and Ana & Matt one Sunday night. Unfortunately, Madie was already in bed so Ty & Miranda came by the next morning to see her. She had fun playing Chutes & Ladders with them and meeting their dog, Stitch.