Two Finished Bedrooms!

And neither one is the nursery! What fun!!!

So, my friend Lindsay featured our french door headboard on her blog and even polled the audience about my frame dilemma problem. She suggested wood frames, and I decided to run with it ... which inspired me to finally finish the room (hang up curtains on the small window, buy an ottoman for the vanity, etc). I was originally thinking purple would be a nice accent color, but Kurt thinks that purple is an old ladies-only color, so I went for the indigo instead (two picture frames mats and the mirror frame). He declared the color "blurple" but didn't argue. Of course, I painted it all while he was on man-weekend, so by the time he got home there was nothing he could do about it. (If he'd pitched a big enough fit, I would've repainted.) Eventually I'd like to paint some chunky, horizontal stripes in indigo onto the curtains, but that's definitely a 2013 project. Oh, and we need closet doors. Sigh.

The other room is our guest bedroom. The only things left to do in here are fix my painting gaff on the foot board (from 3 years ago) and add closet doors. I hemmed the curtains with hemming tape (which is awesome, but doesn't work nearly as fast as the instructions say it do) earlier this summer, and added a few more frames to the collage wall. Looking back, I wish I'd hung the curtains higher, but whatever, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. 

I call this my Charleston room. Everything from the Jim Booth painting on the wall to the pictures of Charleston in the frames to the colors remind me of Charleston (or are directly related to Charleston). Well, I guess not the books or the Willow Tree statue, but almost everything. I wanted the room to feel coastal but not beachy.

Don't you want to come stay with us now?

Welcome to the Family!

On Saturday, our 2 year car search ended with the purchase of a new Subaru Outback.

We love it!

We started dabbling in the car search when we started trying to get pregnant, nearly two years ago. Once we found out that I'm pregnant in January, we got more serious about it. We had a lot of cars in mind in the beginning, but an Outback was always at the top of the list. Once we test drove it, we were hooked.

We are true Coloradans now:

-lotsa bikes

-dogs

-snowboarding

-and now an Outback

The best part? I won't have to kill my back shoving a car seat in the back of a two-door coupe.

August Goals

1. Learn How to Coupon
2. Clear Out the Nursery
3. Paint the Nursery (Or rather, have Kurt paint the nursery)
4. Buy and Refinish a Dresser for the Nursery

Not sure what I capped those like they're headlines, but whatever. :) Wish me luck!

July Goals Recap

1. Make Progress on Operation: Babyfy the House:
     -Completely Clear Out the Nursery FAIL
     -Which Means Finding New, Permanent Homes for All that Junk FAIL
     -Order the Crib SUCCESS!
     -Have Paint Color Picked Out FAIL--though I have a good idea what color I'll use
2. Finish My Novel -- FOR REALS THIS TIME! FAIL
3. Complete All Value Experiences (or whatever they're called) for Individual Worth--I'm in Young Women's and want to get my YW Award, so I have a goal to do a value each month. I'll work on it on Sundays. FAIL--completely forgot about this one!


Wow, what an epic failure of a month. The crazy thing is? I was actually really productive in July too, despite our many trips and such. The hard thing about clearing out the nursery is I can't do it by myself these days (though I could've done a lot of it back in the pre-prego days). Frustrating? You betcha. And Kurt was really busy this month, so that's why that didn't get done, although I did make some progress on cleaning it out. There are a few things I could lift in there. But at least we got the crib ordered!

Classic!

We headed out to Salida this last weekend for the last Colorado race of Kurt's season. I wasn't sure I was going to make it until about two days before, and I'm so glad I did. Got to get in these spontaneous trips while we still can!

Kurt himself almost didn't go. After Laramie and then his bike crash, he was feeling pretty low about racing. He told me, at the time, that he was burned out and considering no more races for the rest of the season (except Lotoja, because for some unknown reason, he enjoys riding 206 miles in one day). On the way home on Sunday, he told me a little more--that he had been seriously considering quitting all together. I think Kurt's done phenomenally this season, considering it's his first true racing season, but he was really discouraged a couple weeks ago. But he also told me, on Sunday, that if it weren't for his awesome team, he definitely would've quit racing after this year. Kurt's had some good races, and some not-so-good races, and if he'd been flying solo for the summer it would've been really hard to take. As it was, he got discouraged, but having an active, supportive team (and he helped get multiple guys on the podium) has made all the difference, and he's ending the year with a bang. Plus, hello! It's his first year. He's learned a lot, and still has a lot to learn, and I'm really proud of everything he's accomplished.

Anyhow! So, we drove up to Salida on Saturday morning and Kurt raced in the crit. He didn't get to warm up as well as he'd like, so he was sluggish at the beginning of the race, but after a while he looked (to me) and said he felt very strong. So warming up is so important! After the race, I walked around downtown Salida with the other team significant others (wives, girlfriends, fiancées). It's a really cute little town back in a desert valley west of the Springs. That night the whole team went to dinner. Then we got up crazy-early on Sunday morning for a short road race. I handed out water bottles with the girls, and it was really fun. Of course, the forecast had called for rainy and 70s all weekend, and it ended up being sunny and warm, so I was sweaty and gross-feeling almost the whole time. But whatever! After the race, we met in Buena Vista for lunch, then Kurt and I came home.

I didn't get an pics at the crit, as I was struggling to breathe at the time. For some reason, my asthma was really bad on Saturday. Go fig.

Kurt's team's the cluster of red and black kits (uniforms) at the front right. Kurt's the farther right, with the black helmet, red sunglasses, and red bike. This is lining up for the road race.

 Kurt had to lead the pack for a while to give his teammates a break, which is really exhausting. So he got dropped after a few laps. Here he is, heading into the feed zone on the last lap. On the lap before, I'd called out his name, and this time, some high school boys who were volunteering to hand out water bottles had remembered his name, and called it out. Funny kids.

 Primal Cat 4s after the race.

Sadly, most of these guys will more up to Cat 3 next summer, but a big reason the Cat 4 team is so strong is because of good leadership (and one of the leaders will be a 4 next year too). 

Now Kurt's got his eye on the big one: the Lotoja! 

Belly Shot!

When I hear "belly shot," I think of someone punching another person in the gut.

Because I'm weird like that.

Anyhow, I've been getting requests for a picture of my expanding body, so on Sunday I decided to make everyone happy. And, funny enough, Sunday was exactly 3 months before my due date.

(And our crib arrived on Friday! I can't wait to put it together!)

I'm not the type of girl who says, "I can't wait to snuggle my little baby!" I think it's weird when people describe babies as 'yummy.' I rarely ask to hold other people's infants. Usually only if they belong to a close friend or relative, and sometimes not even then.

So it hit me as kind of a shock when I realized how excited I am for our little guy to be here. I'm so excited to see if he has my nose (like I suspect, due to the ultra sound). I can't wait to learn his personality; I hope he'll be a rambunctious little boy like his dad was, but still love reading like I do. And--I'll say it--I'm excited to hold him.

So while the next three months don't need to fly by--because we still have so much to do--I'm looking forward to their passing, and to moving on from pregnancy and into parenthood.

July Goals

1. Make Progress on Operation: Babyfy the House:
     -Completely Clear Out the Nursery
     -Which Means Finding New, Permanent Homes for All that Junk
     -Order the Crib
     -Have Paint Color Picked Out
2. Finish My Novel -- FOR REALS THIS TIME!
3. Complete All Value Experiences (or whatever they're called) for Individual Worth--I'm in Young Women's and want to get my YW Award, so I have a goal to do a value each month. I'll work on it on Sundays.

I'm keeping it light this month I''ll be traveling quite a bit, and I don't want to put too much on my plate. Because, historically, my eyes have always been bigger than stomach in that regard.

May/June Goals Recap

-Finish my WIP. I know, same song, same verse even. But did you know it's just as hard to write a novel while nauseous as it is to clean the kitchen? True story. Fail. Yet again. Oh well.
-Write a short story after I finish the novel (the novel should be done in about two weeks, so that gives me plenty of time for a short story) Technically a fail, but I deliberately decided not to write this short story, so we'll say it's a pass.
-Do research for next book. Make tentative outline. (I'm a semi-outliner.) -- This is optional. We'll see how fast I get the short story done. Another pass ... since it was optional.
-Accomplish these house projects: kitchen curtains, guest room curtains, paint and upholster kitchen stools, make trash/recycling can cabinet-thing, make our headboard, rearrange our bedroom. Success! I didn't complete the kitchen curtains or the cabinet, but only because the other projects took longer than expected (don't they always?). 
-Work out 4-6 days a week (don't worry, two days a week will be prenatal yoga and walking--not exactly strenuous exercise) Success! Some weeks it was only 3 days, but those were literally the only days I was able to work out, so I still count that as a success.
-Maintain a clean home. Because right now it's clean! And I want it to stay that way. Because maintenance is easier than letting it all go to pot, then trying to clean it all. Success! And I'm kinda addicted to keeping my house clean. Sometimes it gets a little messy (not dirty, just messy), but I never wait more than a day before straightening things up. It's been so easy to maintain my clean home, about thirty minutes a day for whatever needs to be done (kitchen, laundry, bathroom, etc.). I need to remember this in the future, because a few minutes a day is way better than hours once a week.

Some House Projects

Here are some pics of the projects I've completed around the house this month. I don't know if it's nesting, or just finally getting sick of sitting on all these projects for so long, but I've been über productive so far this summer. Yep, über. 

Upholstered My Piano Bench:

Okay, I actually did this back in March. But it's the only non-June project. I decided to do this because my butt hurts after sitting on the bench for more than 30 minutes. Since this piano will be around a long time, I chose a nice neutral, durable fabric. Love it!

Upholstered and Painted Kitchen Stools:

These are just your typical blonde-wood, cheap stools you can pick up anywhere. I was originally going to paint them gray, since I have so much gray paint it's insane, but decided to do the green to add some color to the kitchen. And my original plan for fabric was going to be painter's drop cloth, but I had enough fabric leftover from piano bench, and knew the white would look awesome with the green (spray paint). I love them!

 I even remembered to check my centering and direction of the fabric. I'm learning!

 Love the green against the white beadboard.

 And super fun with the cushions on our other two stools.

French Door Headboard:

Kurt did a lot of the work on this, obviously. I originally saw the door-headboard idea way back in like 2008, and immediately thought it would be cool with a french door. Well, last year I finally saw nabbed one on Craig's List for only $20! And then it sat in our hallway for almost a year. :D

Kurt built the frame and I painted (spray paint, don't worry I was outside). It's technically still not installed--not screwed onto the bed frame--but I wanted to go ahead and take pictures. And yes, document our lovely AC unit in the window. So classy. 

I love the black and white combo. I thought about doing a mercury glass finish on the glass panes, but decided not to, mostly because I have way too much other stuff to worry about right now. And I rather like the plain glass. Oh, and Kurt's mom made that gorgeous quilt for our 4th anniversary (err ... or maybe 3rd... ).

 So, obviously all of this art needs to be framed, but I wanted to throw them up there. Kurt's cousin made the graphic art on the left with our wedding date, Kurt's dad gave us the drawing of the SC temple (where we were married) on our wedding day, the picture is obviously of our wedding day, and the certificate on the far right is our temple sealing certificate. 

 I'm thinking of doing some kind of metal frames, to give an industrial touch to the room. Any ideas? And I'll probably get a new matte for the temple drawing--something smaller, so that when I matte the certificate, they'll be closer to the same size. I'm not sure if I can get a new frame for the graphic art though ... so we'll see, I might just have to do black frames.

Wreath and Flowers:

This may have been the end of May, but close enough. I've posted about potting flowers in our blue planter before, but I found the other two planters and decided to put them to use. Also, the flowers I've planted in the blue pot before have never done well, and I've finally realized why. I've always put Full Sun flowers in there, because most of the year, the stoop gets a ton of sun. However, in the summer with our elm tree fully leafed out, it gets about 2 hours of sun. So this time I planted all Partial Sun flowers and they're doing great! I think I need to water the begonias a little less to make them happiest, and the impatiens don't want to fully bloom right now because of the oppressive heat (we've had like 5 or 6 days over 100 degrees in the last week and a half here--about 20 degrees hotter than normal!), but everyone's looking pretty happy.

The wreath is the same style as others I've made in the past, without the buttons, cinnamon sticks and bow/ornament. I decided to try without those things because there's already a lot going on visually with the flowers, plus I'm going to paint the door at some point this summer (we're in a long process of painting the house. If you are really observant, you'll be able to notice a difference in the siding color. The trim and door are all that's left, but this heat is making it impossible to finish up for now). I rather like keeping the wreath simple, too.

Originally we had the two smaller planters both on the right side, but Kurt kept tripping over them, so we rearranged to make things less cluttered on that side.

Yeah, I goofed and planted these with the sticker showing. I need to rip it off. One of these days...

Cycling Is My Life

And I haven't even ridden this whole year! So maybe it's not my life, because I don't go to all of Kurt's races, but I go to a fair amount of them. Not because I have to, but because it's fun to cheer on my husband. And not be stuck at home all Saturday morning. Kurt has a race almost every Saturday. This season is a lot more intense than last year, but that's a) intentional and b) good. He really loves his new team, which provides a lot of support. And he's learning the ins and outs of racing. And there is a lot to learn! Kurt's had some really good races, and some not-so-good races, but he's learned from all of them. Here are a few pictures.

Warming up for his first time trial, which was a team time trial.

 Sweet time trial gear

 We even volunteered at a Bike Colorado event. I told you, it's my life too.

 Starting his latest race in Laramie. This race was absolutely brutal, but Kurt managed to finish, though he was too sick from dehydration to continue the next day (it was a stage race (think the Tour).

And while he avoided hospitalization after Laramie, he had to make up for it on the following Tuesday (just two days ago) by getting in a wreck on the way to work. Luckily, he was fine, and so was his bike. He banged up his nose (as you can see) and suffered a minor concussion. Did I mention he seriously cut his hand about a month ago while working on his bike? I swear, he gets hurt way more often than I do.

Little Turbo

We found out yesterday that we're having a BOY! Let's just say that my mother's intuition was wrong. Lots of other people were wrong. In fact, most people who'd voiced a strong opinion, had gone the other way. Kinda funny how that works. 

But we're so excited! I love the idea that I'm going to have a mini-Kurt running around (and breaking things, and eating dirt, and being generally rambunctious). I'm so glad we found out the gender of the baby ahead of time. Not only can I plan (i.e., shop!) for him, but he now has an identity to me. Rather than being amorphous, ambiguous THE BABY, he's now a person to me, an individual. I didn't anticipate that experience, but I'm digging it. 

Anyhow, we're kinda at the drawing board when it comes to names (we had totally zeroed in on a girl's name. boy's name ... not so much), so if you have suggestions, they are welcome. 

Right now I want to post a bit about the nursery. Kurt is a "man's man," and I'm not the only one who thinks this--many people over the years have expressed this same statement. I want our son's room to be All Boy. I don't want it to be cutesy, but be something that he can grow into as a toddler and even a kid, if need be. And I've mentioned before that I want to do a bike theme.

When I found out I was pregnant, I emailed Joni at Lay Baby Lay requesting a bike-themed nursery inspiration board. She actually made two (one for each gender) that are SO cute and exactly what I was thinking of. Here's the boy one:

I love it! The navy is awesome, and she finds the best art. I want to capture the essence of this mood board, but incorporate a few more pops of green, yellow, maybe even some orange or red. I want the room to feel ALL boy, but also playful and be something he can grow into. That might be a tall order for such a small room, but here's hoping!

Anyhow, here's the art I'm leaning most towards:

 I like the vintage-feel of this, though it's not my favorite.

I don't love these colors, but I love everything else about this print. 

I love the euro and vintage feel!

also comes in blue

 Again, I don't love the colors, but SO FUN.

This is probably my favorite. So simple and graphic, yet bright and bold. But perhaps too simple.

also comes in red

We really like graphic-type prints. All of these (super affordable) posters come from poster cabaret.

And the word-art print Joni featured that I love most is "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." It also comes in green, chartreuse, yellow, and red-orange.

Anyhow, just some ideas tossing around inside my head. I'll definitely have a rug of some sort, and most of the furniture will be white (if we stick with navy walls). I'm not sold on the navy walls, mostly because the room is so small. However, it gets A TON of light (the windows face south and west). And I love navy. So if we did another color, I'd have to incorporate navy somehow.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Baby names?

Doing the Charleston

aka Our SC Trip Part Deux

We expected Monday to be rainy and miserable, but we woke up to blue skies. So we headed to the beach. As much as I love Colorado, I miss the beach so much. I ache for it. I crave it. The other day I realized I didn't go swimming in Denver ONCE last summer. As a girl who grew up 15 minutes from the beach, who, for many summers, had passes to the neighborhood pool or local waterpark, and then liefguarded for 5 years ... this is not easy for me to stomach. So, anyhow, you can bet we went to the beach while in Charleston.

And I got fried. I put a liberal amount of sunscreen on my upper body and face, but my chest and forehead still got burned. And I didn't put sunscreen on my legs, but we were only at the beach for 2 hours and my legs have never burned easily. Well, they got burnt to a crisp. When we got home, my mom said, "I should've warned you that you're more sensitive to the sun when you're pregnant." So, while Kurt and Collin headed back to the beach on Tuesday, I stayed home. However, the beach was so nice on Monday that I didn't mind--breezy, not too hot, and the water was still cool (the water around Charleston gets quite warm by the end of the summer, which is nice too, but it's also nice while it's still cool in the early summer).

Monday night we went and saw The Avengers with my family (which was awesome). Tuesday night I went to dinner with my girlfriends from high school, Megan and Katherine. It was really fun to see and hang out with them, get the low down on everyone who went to JIHS, and discover that Megan also loves Sister Wives. (Seriously, what is it about that show?)

When Kurt gets an idea in his head, he has a hard time letting it go without trying it. And a few months he read an article about She Crab Soup, which is a big traditional dish in Charleston. He was shocked that I'd never had it, but as a kid I wasn't much of a soup fan and I hated crab, so why would I've tried it? On Wednesday morning he decided to finally find a place that had it, especially since it was in season while we were in town. One place he found was Hominy Grill, which is very famous, so us and my dad headed over there for the lunch. Apparently the She Crab Soup wasn't as good as she crab soups go (though Kurt still enjoyed it), but everything was FANTASTIC. Kurt got their shrimp and grits, which was very different from other restaurants', but absolutely my favorite ever. Instead of serving the shrimp in a sauce over the grits, they sauteed them with mushrooms and some other stuff I can't remember. And the grits were white cheddar cheese grits. HOLY COW, they were so good. All the food was awesome, and we were all stuffed and happy afterwards. Also, try their chocolate pudding if you go. I know right--chocolate pudding at a restaurant? But theirs is life changing (Alton Brown named it one of the best things he's ever eaten soooooo yeah). And I saw my middle school band director, Mr. Stewart!

That night we went to my parents' favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner (because clearly we hadn't eaten enough for the day), and then my mom and I went shopping for maternity clothes. I'd been dreading this, but it actually was quite fun. Maternity clothes are cute! And since then, I've only worn my maternity pants because I love wearing pants without zippers or buttons. 

On Thursday we ... I actually can't remember what we did, but that night my grandma threw me a baby shower. It was so sweet of her (and my mom, of course, who made a ton of the food)! And everyone who came was so generous. We're off to a good start on our baby supplies. And Kurt helped Dad with the pulled pork, so he got the learn the fine art of bbqing pork. He did a good job (and he made some awesome gouda mac'n'cheese too).

On Friday we kidnapped Collin and headed up to SC's Redneck Riviera, Myrtle Beach. Kurt had never been, so it was time. Unfortunately, it was drizzly on and off, but we cruised the strip a few times so Kurt could get a feel for the local color. We thought about eating at the Hard Rock Cafe, but decided instead to ask the locals where they like to eat. Turns out it's a yummy fast food burger place called .... I can't remember. Anyhow, the burgers were awesome. Then we walked the strip in hopes of finding those bathing cover t-shirts that have the sexy women's bikini body drawn on them (you know what I mean, right?). We couldn't find any, but found some pretty awesomely-redneck shirts instead. We rented Thor that night, since my parents hadn't seen it. Always a good movie.

Saturday we ran downtown to grab pralines for our neighbors, and oh yeah, Dad took Kurt and Collin giggin on Friday night. Sadly, they didn't get to stay out for long because the gig broke on Collin's first fish. But still, Kurt has no experienced gigging. That evening the boys headed back out to the beach for more surfing because there was a nice swell in. I'd wanted to go to the beach that day, but it ended up being cloudy and in the 70s--too cool for me. But Dad and I followed the boys out, and got some fun shots of them. We were all pretty exhausted, had to get up early the next morning for our flights home, and had tons of left overs, so we hung out at the house that night, keeping it easy. The next morning we were up at the airport nice and early.

We had such a great trip! I miss Charleston already, but of course it's always good to back in your own home. And of course I missed Swift and Ruby. But now I miss my family and the beach and Charleston. Guess I'll always miss something. :)

 She crab soup!

 My dish was called the Big Nasty Biscuit. It was amazing.

 Megan and Katherine at my shower. My mom bought me that gorgeous dress.

 You stay classy, Myrtle Beach.

 Dead horseshoe crab. Sad. These are really cool animals.

I don't want to be one of those girls, but ... Kurt's pretty damn hot. :)

Basic Addition

2 people

+ 4 college degrees

+ 3 states

+ 4 cities

+ 4 rental homes

+ 1 owned home

+ 2 cars

+ 3 dogs

+ 4 wards

+ 8 bikes

+ hundreds of thousands of miles traveled
+ 1 baby in utero

= 5 Happy Years of Marriage

Kurt and I celebrated our 5th anniversary on Saturday May 26th, 2012.

We spent the day knocking out home projects, then went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse Grill (we were both craving meat).

It was pretty low key, but still a nice day spent together.

I'm glad to say that I'm happier than ever with my decision to marry the Kurtstanimal.

He rocks my world.