thursday!

As I wrote before, life has been hectic and challenging, and Brett and I are doing our best to balance the chaos with rest, but that's not always easy. We were able to go out to see a movie Saturday afternoon, and then catch a delicious dinner at Figlio. We saw Guardians of the Galaxy, which was just a funny, adventurous, escapist Marvel comics movie. In the meantime, Susie and Jesse took Stella to a couple parties, one of which was a birthday party, and she had so much fun. Gracie napped and played at my parents' house while we were out.

After working in the infants' room at church in morning and then going to the 11:00 service, we ate lunch at home, and then Brett had to go into work a few hours. While he was gone, Grace napped, and I applied Jamberry nails to Stella. As it was my first time applying them, it went pretty slowly, but after reading some tips on Pinterest since then, I think the next time around will go more smoothly. Stella was tickled pink to have all the one-on-one attention, and she is so proud of her pretty nails.

Sunday night Brett and I prepped the downstairs for the painters who came Monday and Tuesday to remove a bunch of ugly wall decals, paint the basement walls, and refinish the deck. We are so pleased with how everything turned out. I have been in such a nesting mood, and am so looking forward to spiffing up the basement and play room areas. The walls are now a neutral gray, and I hope to add some punchy colors to liven up the place and add some fun. So far aqua/turquoise blue and possibly a mustardy yellow will be the accents. I ordered this toy bin from Land of Nod, and I can't wait to add a fun rug and some artwork, not to mention other modes of organization to get this play room in the tip-top shape I'm envisioning it! I especially want it finished before the cold weather hits, so the girls will have a warm and playful sanctuary to retreat to when going outside becomes more difficult.

I probably won't post any more basement pictures until we are able to significantly improve it even more, We chose Burnished Clay by Behr, which they color matched at nearby Sherwin Williams.

I have so enjoyed decorating our house since we moved in July 2013. There is still so much left to do, but I'm happy with our progress so far. I love our cool and calm palette for the house, and I can't wait to add more lamps, accent tables, and artwork to the living room; get new furniture for the basement; get the rest of the doors and trim installed upstairs; and hang up pictures in the upstairs hallway for a fun gallery; and eventually get a new light for our room (we took out the clunky big ceiling fan), and figure out better storage solutions for Brett's and my clothes. Brett also wants to add shelving in our laundry room.

We had to pay for a new air conditioner and furnace at our Crystal property. Not cheap. Insanely not fun. So annoying, but a necessary purchase. That's why we have a savings account: for these un-fun, unexpected, yet unsurprising, hiccups in life. It can be demoralizing to build up your savings account and then it takes a huge hit with something like this or a major car repair. I'm grateful we have the funds to cover it, but it means putting other plans on hold. 

This week has been hard. We basically had to leave the house when the painters were here (Grace's room is right by the deck where the painters were doing loud scraping and power washing), and we do a lot of our play downstairs, and since they were also painting downstairs, we basically camped out at my mom's for those two days. One of the days we went on a play date in Chanhassen. Stella was out of sorts not being home, and has been acting out like crazy. I don't want to go into detail about her behavior because I want to be respectful of her privacy. Let's just say she has been extremely challenging lately, which has been trying my patience to the hilt. Brett has had a full week of work obligations, and he didn't get home until midnight Tuesday night. Last night Stella kept getting out of bed and was acting very upset, so I was up with her in addition to Grace a couple times. Stella then slept in until 11 a.m.! 

Tomorrow night I'm going out to dinner with some girlfriends, and Saturday afternoon I'm hosting a Stella & Dot party for a couple hours. Brett and I so need to decompress, but outside of the occasional date here and there, we are learning to accept that this pace of life and extent of giving of ourselves to the girls and to his career is the new normal. Making time for each other and to maintain our social life with other couples or individual friends has been a challenge. It's funny because I get to see other moms throughout the week, and sometimes on the weekend, and I'm the introvert, yet my extroverted husband rarely gets to hang out with other guys due to his crazy work schedule. 

And in honor of Throwback Thursday, here's a few pictures from roughly a year ago...

look how bad the deck used to look! aaahh!