A Step at a Time

My exciting news? My bathtub is now in the bathroom, not my living room:) Yup, that's the good life...it doesn't actually have running water yet, but suddenly my living room looks huge so I'm happy!

Last weekend my FIL came over and we were able to put the new flooring down and put the bathtub in place and prepare the plumbing for the vanity to be put in place...each weekend we get a little done, a step at a time. It would be nice to have several days and get it all done at once, but for now I'm perfectly happy just having a toilet upstairs again:)  Going down to the basement each time was getting old...

Here are some new pictures of how the bathroom is looking now!

Bathtub ready to have plumbing attached and wall surround installed.
















Sorry, didn't put the lid down for pictures, gross...

Vent will be replaced as well from our 1970's edition:)












So, the bathroom reno continues.  Once this is out of the way I'm getting inspired to make a space in the main floor for Carlee to be creative as she gets older...a little table and chairs with craft supplies...can't wait!



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Tubbin' Around

The bathroom reno continues...with a bathtub in the living room:) The life of renovations eh?

 Saturday the walls came down and new walls put up, and we are now working on the putty between the pieces of drywall...that's a new technique to learn for the hubby but his skills are coming along:)  That pretty much took all day for them so then Monday we called up my FIL(who is super awesome by the way - apparently 25+ years of homeowning teaches you ALOT!) to come by and hopefully put in the new bathtub...well, we got the bathtub, but once we got the old one out we saw the flooring had been getting damp under the tub so it would be wise to put a new layer of flooring down first:)  So the bathtub sits in my living room, but we have a lovely new floor waiting for new flooring now!  Perfect!  The plan is for that to go in Friday - will let you know how it goes! 

Life continues to be busy as I am running a little business from the home as well as planning to go back to work 2 days a week come February!  its gonna be a bit crazy as we settle into that routine but I think it will work well once we get used to it.   My business is taking off well too, and I look forward to doing that part time and quitting my regular job at some point....exciting and scary! 

My weight loss journey? Going well:) I am down to within 10 lbs of the pre-pregnancy weight.  I have been doing some research and found out that pcos was not to blame for my weight gain after I had initially lost most of the weight after having Carlee - nope...that responsibility lays on the drug domperidone!  I had been told to take it to try to increase my milk supply when I ran into problems due to pcos inhibiting the production of glandular tissue, which didn't work....but did give me some 20 lbs extra for fun!  So in a roundabout way, still PCOS issue, but not directly related:)   I still find it hard to stay on a healthy diet when surrounded by friends who don't, but most days, I do ok....  And stay motivated to be healthy so we can attack the hormones with our next child and try BFing again.  We did continue partially BF til 8 months, but I would love to BF exclusively for a full year or more with the next one:)  A fun/stressful challenge to face for the future! 

That's it for now!  I will be back soon with pictures of our new bathroom! 

Krista

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Bathroom Reno has begun...

 Well, what do you think? Is it better yet;)

                                                                        BEFORE

                                                                          DEMO


The start of the bathroom reno came with wall paper down and tiles shattering to the ground:) No more white with blue flowers left except for on the countertop.   The walls need to be taken down and new ones put up, new vanity put in, new bath tub put in and fix the flooring.  Then the final touches of painting and such...that doesn't sound like much right?? ;)  Excited to get the blue bathroom in the past!!



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A little bit of Christmas..

I love Christmas....like really LOVE it.  I love the family time, and the songs in church, and pulling out the nativity and the lights around the house - I love thinking of presents that will really make someone feel special(hopefully) and taking the time to slow down and appreciate our lives and family around us.  And this year I am SO excited to share that with Carlee who probably won't even notice at 10 months...but I can't wait to see her little face with all the wrapping paper she will get:)

So, in the Christmas mood last night, I whipped up some cards to sell or give out myself...we shall see:)

A week from Friday we will drive out East to be home for the holidays - and I cannot wait!  I hope you all are getting excited, take time to enjoy the season amidst the crazy, and each have a wonderful Christmas celebration.

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Ring to the Sling

So recently I've met a new group of women - the majority of them who are big on 'wearing' their babies:) We had just a simple buckle carrier and I never really thought much of it, we didn't use it too much and I never really felt like it looked very comfy for her even if she did sleep well in it being so close to us.

Well, after meeting these women I was intrigued by all the options, and not too surprised to hear that a lot of the common carriers are in fact bad for the hips of babes - some even recalled.  And since 'wearing' the baby at a young age can encourage a good milk supply, I would be inclined to use it with baby #2 someday when we try to overcome this dumb PCOS thing;)

What I was stunned by was that the cost of some of the name brands were $50 or more depending on the type of carrier.  Well, I found someone who made their own 'moby' online and sold it for 10 bucks...my sister is testing it out with her newbie right now and I think my girl is probably a bit big for that now anyways...but I do like the looks of ring slings for their ease of use on the go.

So then...next trip to the 2nd hand store, I found a nice strong piece of material for 6 bucks, picked up a couple of harness rings at the hardware store for 4 dollars(can also be bought online at slingrings.com) and got to work.  Since my sewing machine is on the fritz I pulled out the iron and some hemming tap, folded the material down the middle and cut it to about 2.5 meters. I'm about 5'6 and that gives me lots of extra material to work with.   And here we go:

We tested it out today at the Farmer's market and loved it!! :)
To all you Canadians, enjoy preparing for Thanksgiving next weekend! I look forward to some great family times!

Please check out where I'm linking up today!

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Who Doesn't Love Free???

So for those Canadians on here, you may have heard that over the air signals are changing from analogue to digital like the states did back a couple of years....  Well, we don't have cable right now and I HATE the idea of paying such inflated prices for tv....so I've been researching the last few months on what we will do when the change happens.

This week, they started switching over and I started having fun! I debated getting a new outdoor antenna to ensure we could get some usa channels since we'd be switching anyways, then I thought, wellllll, maybe I can diy it!! And then I did...

I dragged my husband off the couch and forced him to help me make this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

And of course took no pictures but it worked fine, not much better than our rabbit ears really....then I thought, let's move it up to the attic and it started coming in much clearer on the analogue.

Then I finally figured out how to get the digital signal on our tv and found, nope, not much coming in from buffalo, a couple christian channels but that was it:( Then I went to thesource and picked up a video amplifier for 30 bucks hoping it would do the trick to get those extra channels in....and sure enough.  A couple minutes .later we went from 8ish channels to 21 channels!

Total cost? Under 40 dollars and a very happy girl here...way better than 40 bucks a month, minimum!! Going from about 4 channels to 21? I don't even know what to do with myself:)

Anyone else get creative with the transition?

Ps. my girl is almost crawling!!

Taken at iSMILE studios

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Minus the Gluten...

In an effort to give my body a break and feed it healthy foods I have been looking into eating more gluten free foods when I can...I'm not strict with it but am introducing some foods into my diet. So, my first gluten free loaf of bread was created yesterday!

I used some pre-mixed gluten free flour from Kinnikinnick and followed their directions for a sweet bread loaf and then added some quinoa and cinnamon to the mix as well.  Turned the breadmaker on and a couple of hours later...delicious!!

Even the hubby ate it with no complaints:) Maybe I'll try it with some raisins or dark chocolate chips next time! Mmmm!

Carlee was pretty jealous of the bread but found a remote to gnaw on instead:

Five and a half months and getting more fun by the day:)  and with two hours naps having become a regular occurrence, Mom is having a great time too;)

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