Finishing Up

We are finishing up the bedroom. Today Jason worked on hanging the letters that spell out the kids names. Julie and Joanna did an awesome job on these and they are really cute. You can also see the mobile they made that is very cute and matches L's bedspread quite well.

A Good Hook

Today we finished up the areas for coats and shoes. Here, Jason is hanging the coat hooks for our coats since we don't think we will have enough room in the closet with more people.

Fronteras

One of the things we like to do is go out to dinner on Friday nights. I doubt we will continue this once we have the kids, not only because it adds up but also because it may not be fun and relaxing anymore. So we are trying to enjoy these last few times before dining out becomes an occasional treat. This is us at Frontera's, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants.

Laptops and Olympics

Tonight we took a break from our house projects to relax a bit and watch the Olympics.  We still were able to multitask a bit and get stuff done on our laptops at the same time.  This picture was not taken by our talented photographer cat (not pictured) but instead by a mini tripod temporarily mounted on the TV.

Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood

Today I went to Lawrence to take care of various things and got to spend some time with my family.  Mom, Ron, and I ended the day with a delicious dinner at Applebee's.  I had the spicy shrimp diavolo which is possibly the tastiest thing on the "healthy" menu at any restaurant ever.  It was a fun yet productive day.

En El Consulado

Because we'll be in Colombia for more than just a short vacation, we needed to get visas.  Due to a new rule, instead of getting them via mail, you now have to get them in-person at the regional Colombian consulate.  Kansas' consulate is in Chicago, so I went there today armed with a giant pile of various documents and forms to meet the exact picky specifications.  Fortunately, all the paperwork was correct, and we got our visas.

Cautious Optimism

Today I drove to Topeka to get our visa letters apostilled. It went very smoothly. I am really glad to have it done. Jason is going to the consulate tomorrow and I am really nervous something will go wrong because they are so picky about every little thing, so I will feel a lot better after he is back.

Knowing is Half the Battle

Jason is clearing the last things out of the room so we can get the furniture in. He went through his GI Joe toys from when he was a kid and sorted ones that are still in good condition versus those that are broken.

Meghan the Builder

We're working on setting up an area near our entryway to store coats, shoes, and in general to provide a little more storage for us.  Here Meghan works on one of the shelves.

We Have a Dresser

We are finished with the dresser for the kids room. We painted it a neutral brown since the room is a brighter color and the knobs have pictures of clothing, as an indicator of what goes where. Hopefully we can get furniture in the room this weekend.

Badger Country

Today I got up at 4:30am to head to the airport for an early flight to Milwaukee for a customer meeting. My sales rep and I then drove an hour to Madison for another meeting. I had never been to Madison before today. They have a really nice new airport, though it seemed nearly empty. I flew home via Minneapolis and didn't get home until 1 in the morning. It was a long day.

All New and Improved?

Tonight Jason wanted to try the new Domino's pizza that they have been talking so much about so I made an exception to my Pizza Hut only rule and we got some. Jason really liked it, as you can see from the picture. I thought it was fine, but I still prefer Pizza Hut.

Not Cataracts

My friend Drew and I went to see Avatar tonight at the 3D IMAX theater.  It was visually stunning, and aside from the amazing visuals, I thought it was actually a pretty good movie.  To enable us to enjoy the movie in 3D, we got to wear these very fashionable glasses.

The Square Beyond Compare

Today we ate lunch at Imo's, which has St. Louis-style pizza with cracker-thin crust and provel cheese, yum!

We Just Wanna Have Fun

My mom came out to help me work on some of the remaining projects we have to do. She is helping mostly with the kids' bedroom and then we have some other ideas if we get done with that early. This is a huge help since I was a little worried about getting everything done. This is a picture of all the girls in our house right now: me, my mom, and Natalie.

Happy Early Valentine's Day

Today Jason and I enjoyed a fun date night to celebrate Valentine's Day, even though it's not actually until tomorrow. We went to go see Up in the Air, a movie with George Clooney, and then we had dinner at The Melting Pot, which is one of our favorite restaurants to go to for special occasions. We had a great time and the food was very good. We tried a new dessert that was a fondue version of bananas foster. It was so good and definitely the best we have had there. We will be getting it again in the future for sure. The picture above shows it "flambe-ing".

Apple Clock

One of the last projects for the kids' bedroom is a clock to go on the wall.  We're making it out of foamboard.  Meghan did the design of the shape and all the painting, my job was to add the numbering, and then we'll add the mechanical pieces at the end.  We'll be posting photos of the final product in our other blog in a few days.

Delantals

Today I started working on craft aprons for the kids. I got CS's done, as you see here. It's funny because the word for apron is one I currently cannot remember at all in Spanish. It just won't stick. Maybe this project will end up helping me remember.

Hell hath frozen over?

In preparation for converting my room into the kids' bedroom, I had to completely clean it out.  This turned out to be a difficult task, as I've pretty much used it as a storage room for the past six years.  But I got through it.  This has long been a task for me to complete, but I always ended up prioritizing something else over it.  I think Meghan had pretty much given up hope of it happening.  I know there was too much stuff in there because it's weird to now see so much of the carpet in the room.

End in Sight

Today we put most of the finishing touches on the playroom. Here Jason installs the curtain rod. We hope to complete the last few things in this room tomorrow.

Because Cork Is Boring

In our ongoing quest to finish the play room, Meghan's current project is to make fabric-covered bulletin boards.  Here Meghan works on the second one as Natalie looks on in confusion.

Super!

This is Jason and the pugs watching the superbowl. We didn't really have time to go anywhere this year and the house is a wreck so we didn't want to host, but we really enjoyed watching the game and eating some snacks.

Finally!

We finally finished our work on the cabinet. We are really glad to be done and very pleased with how it came out. You can also see the paint color we chose for the playroom (which was formerly my red office)

Do They Always Come in Threes?

Recently we had our washing machine timer go out and our shredder break, both of which we had to replace. This is Jason and Natalie with our new shredder, getting rid of some of the build-up of our shred pile. We hope nothing else breaks for awhile.

They could only hide from me for so long

The good news is I finally found the elusive hinges I needed at Locks and Pulls, a specialty store in Overland Park.  The bad news is they aren't black.  The good news is I was able to buy black spray paint to make them black.  The bad news is due to drying time, it'll now be yet another day before we have this cabinet project done.

Clearing the Room

We are getting ready to paint my room (well I think it's going to need a coat or two of primer first) so today we moved almost everything out of it and patched the walls. We had been using it for storage. This is Jason moving CS's bed out.

Chemical Independence

About 6 months ago, when I left Sprint we got rid of the cleaning service since it seemed weird for them to come while I was at home. Since then I have been cleaning with homemade cleansers. I originally decided to try it because it's non-toxic and cheaper, but since then I have really found them to do as good or better job than what I was using before. This is a photo of me making a new batch of our general all-purpose cleaner which, along with my powder scrub, is my favorite thing to use.

Technical Difficulties

Today we took a CPR class at the hospital. It taught adult, child, and infant CPR and also what to do when someone was choking. We thought it was definitely worth our time, especially for me because I have never had CPR training. Jason had it when he was younger, but it has been over 10 years so the refresher was good for him. It's training you hope you never have to use, but we definitely think it's important that as parents we know what to do in the event of an emergency. As you can see, some of us were more successful in our infant CPR technique than others.