1 down 59 to go!!!

Hello! Today was a combination day, a day of being completely unproductive in the beginning but turned around and ended up being very productive in the end! Remember those cute little slippers that looked like monsters feet? Well, last night I would have thought they were his real feet coming out of hiding! He was a complete and utter monster! Though I love him dearly after his 4th wake up (at about 4 AM) I was ready to scream. Come this morning when he got me up at around 7, which is actually quite late for the little bugger, I was not a happy camper. I could hardly keep my eyes open I was so tired, it wasn't until I had taken my glasses off to just rest my eyes a bit while he watched Nick Jr. that the mommy monster really set in. I opened my eyes to see the face of an innocent angle, one who hid his mommy's glasses on her. I searched everywhere, blindly, for my glasses until I had to get my mom to help me look because I couldn't see enough to even find them. Afterward, my glasses safely on my face we all decided it would be a good idea for me to go back to sleep for a while as I was anything but pleasant. I intended to just sleep for awhile getting up late morning and going over to the house to work out some aggression. I finally awoke sometime in the afternoon.


In other news today is Thursday. Which has really meant nothing in particular to me for weeks now but there is some significance to is and that is that Thursdays are Weight Watchers weigh in days. Now when I moved back home I decided I was going to join weight watchers and finally get this baby weight off! Also, I'm getting married so I figured lets do this! I went three times. I joined this summer. I know what your thinking, Stephanie you joined and paid for weight watchers all this time and only went three times?? Well, I'm certainly not proud of that fact but yes, I did. My mother has been gently reminding me every week that I should either quit or go but I've just been letting it slide. Every week I say oh I'll start following the plan this week for sure then I'll go weight in and start going, but I always end up not following through with myself and then I'm too embarrassed to go weight in. Well, today I finally made that step and swallowed my pride and just went and did it! And I lost a pound, since August 25th. But hey its a pound right? So Here is to keeping on track and doing the right thing, after all I have a wedding dress to buy!


Speaking of wedding dresses, Nikki I swear we are going to go to Green Bay someday soon! I've just been so preoccupied with everything else going on around these parts its actually been the furthest thing from my mind! Can you believe that? A girl thinking about everything else but her wedding? Crazy!


After dinner we went back over to the house to pull staples...

I'm ready to go fix our house mom!!

Hello there!

After a few laps around the living room I decided having a 24 pound child strapped to my chest was probably not the best for a persons back. So off he came and off we went to go finish destroying our house. Dad ended up coming over with us and bless his heart finished pulling out the staples I couldn't get in the steps as well as all the tack strips on the steps and in the master bedroom! Wahoo! Progress! I also finished pulling up all the staples in the master, hall and Michael's bedroom now all that is left to make that carpet a distant memory are the tack strips in the hall and Michael's room. 

Can't you just see it? Refinished steps and white trim?

Yuck.

You certainly can't tell through all the thinset but there are hardwood floors underneath all that breaking tile. Unfortunately they are ruined. Tonight I also accomplished tearing up all those tiles, half of them were broken or just set in there anyways so it felt good to pull them all up. This weekend while I'm working Mike and his brother are going to start the sad task of pulling out all that ruined hardwood underneath so we can replace the floor properly with new prettier tiles. 

No pictures, Please!

I came downstairs to break for a bit to find Mike ripping out all those pine boards in our kitchen. It smelled soooo bad when he started doing that. I'm not sure if its because the floor underneath was just nasty, old, and dirty or if it was because the pine boards had gaps in them and when they cooked or swept everything got stuck in between or underneath the boards. Either way it is gross! Our plan is to just get something nice but cheap to put down until we completely redo the kitchen in a few years. At least now all our floors will be even and Mikey won't trip anymore. 

The wall with all the bead board completely off. 

So we had originally planned to hang quarter inch drywall on the wall in order to make it presentable. There was the option to mud the wall instead but we figured drywall would be quicker and look better. Thing is they day we went to go pick up the drywall it was pouring out. Water and drywall don't mix. Mudding the wall it is!!! Turns out that is going to work well anyways, the plaster behind the bead board is actually in really good shape and Mike was able to get all the wallpaper goo off and then patched the holes and sanded down the glue that was used. Tonight Mike's brother put on the first thin coat of drywall mud and it looks really good already! I can't wait to see the finished project. Oh and an interesting bit of information, once we had all the bead board down we noticed there was a large hold patched with drywall in the wall, a perfectly rectangular hole the exact size, shape and placement for a window! Hmm, I wonder why they decided to take that out....

Our fireplace! 

If you look closely you can see the paint swatches I am going to use lined up on the mantle. There are three different colors there, one that will be used on the walls, one that will be an accent for the fireplace wall, and one that I will be using in both the front and back entryways. I know they all look very similar, but I want them to flow since the area they are going to be in is such and open concept. I can't wait to get to the painting stage of the project!

One of my projects for tomorrow was to get all the wallpaper off the walls in the half bath downstairs. I figured that I would get a jump start on it tonight while I was waiting for Mike and Patrick to finish up with the mudding. While I was in the bathroom, thinking about how it will look with bead board on the bottom, I asked myself, "why is the bottom half of the wall with the wallpaper and inch wider than the upper half of the wall?" I called Mike in and mentioned it to him and we both kinda scratched our heads. We noticed it before but it had never dawned on us exactly why that was. Sooo, Mike grabbed his handy dandy crowbar and started to take the trim off the top and wouldn't you know those weirdo's had put a layer of drywall around the entire bottom half of the bathroom. But that's not the best part, we ripped off some of that drywall to reveal they had drywalled right over tiles! So, at one point in time the bottom half of the bathroom was tile, someone didn't like it and figured a quick fix would be to just drywall right on over it! So operation destroy bottom half of bathroom shall commence tomorrow as well! 

Check these puppies out!

Mike came back from Home Depot tonight and presented me with these. A new pair of Irwin vise-grip pliers! For all my staple pulling needs. Some girls get jewelry, I get a new pair of pliers! Aww, sweetie, they are just what I wanted! 

Well, I think that me and my blistered fingers are going to head to bed! I've got a full day of laundry, destruction and work tomorrow! 

xoxo