Things I Learned on My Trip - Part 4

4. I'm good at moving logistics. It's a gift.

Kristen helped me move into our house in San Antonio and she has since told me..."You are a beast."

I am relentless. Unnecessarily ruthless. Brutal even. Troy does inventory (checking off boxes and furniture as they come off the truck) and I immediately start unpacking the kitchen. Here are my moving logistics.

My MOST important piece of advice: ASK THE MOVERS TO UNPACK YOU. They will take all the garbage (boxes and packing paper) with them and break down all the boxes. Then you don't have to do it or arrange a later pick up. This forces you to put stuff away because it is everywhere. They won't put a thing away and will overturn boxes and you'll have stuff all over your floors. But as they take out your dishes and glasses, put them away. As they unpack your wardrobe boxes, hang everything up. Immediately hook up your washer and dryer and start washing your sheets and towels.

As they unpack you, you will feel overwhelmed and wonder how you have so much stuff. Just pay attention to the task at hand. Try not to START another room until you are done with your priorities. NEVER go up or down stairs unless you are carrying something. Put all your shelves into bookshelves so you have a place to stack stuff. Make sure your "parts box" (with brackets, handles, screws for beds, remotes) is in your car and not on the truck so you know where all your hooks, nails, brackets, etc are located. Especially for beds, so the movers are dumping boxes onto beds and not on the floor.

By the end of the day 1 and all of our stuff is off the truck, I aim to have the kitchen COMPLETELY unpacked and put away with all the beds clean and made up for sleeping.

On day 2, I can do the grocery store run since the kitchen is completely done so we can eat at home. Which is a huge time and money saver when you are moving. And probably have been eating out and doing fast food for a while. By the end of day 2, I have the living room, master bedroom/closet and bathrooms unpacked.

Day 3 is the "leftover" day. That means the less important rooms for required for daily living. Things like an office, guest room, linen closet, etc.

Day 4 is hanging pictures on the walls, curtains up, and leftover organizing (decorative shelves, candles, junk drawer).

We followed this model with Kristen's home, but did not do a day 4 because she wanted to make some of those design/decor decisions when her hubby was there. He wasn't there on monday morning when we received her household goods because he was TDY for a school for his new job the whole week. So we did it all ourselves. Because we rock.

She was like, "Dude. I wasn't expecting to make this much progress on the house in 3 days. I thought you were like this (translation of "this": a slave driver) because it was your house and your stuff. But we killed it."

We even made a trip to Babies R Us to buy nursery furniture on the morning of day 2. Since their baby was born October, and they knew they were moving, they didn't want to buy a nursery set just to move and have it get beat up before getting a change to use it. So they decided to wait until they got into their house to pick something. Unfortunately, I asked the movers to unpack EVERYTHING in the house, which meant in the nursery (and the office) they overturned boxes and just left PILES and PILES of baby stuff all over the floor. I thought Kristen was going to stroke out. Especially when had to lug that baby dresser we just bought at Babies R Us up her stairs. I really thought we were going to die. It was the hardest I have worked out and the quickest I have ever broken a sweat in my entire life. Ever. I might have been in fear of Kristen's life, who was on the lifting and pushing side of the dresser on the way up the steps.

Her movers came monday morning and we were done wednesday night. House completely done, other than the day 4 list, which she and her hubs are going to do together. Well, the garage needed some work. But we had to leave something for her husband right?

Christmas Morning at the Barnes House!

When we woke up Christmas morning (Avery slept until 8:30!!) we came downstairs to find that Santa came for a visit. Santa doesn't wrap Christmas gifts at our house, so he had left everything down in the living room on the sofa!

He enjoyed the cookies and milk:

The tree was trimmed and surrounded with presents :)

Here is the activity cube that the elves snagged and a bunch of stuffed farm animals. Santa (Troy) felt it was necessary to set up the mommas and babies in a "natural" state. Aka eating/nursing. Which I thought was HILARIOUS:

And here is Avery playing with her presents from Santa. I promise she was super excited. This was the only picture where she wasn't moving with super human speed, blurring up the camera.

And here is Avery playing with her kitchen for the first time!!! She LOVES IT! We let her play for about 30 minutes until we ripped her away to open gifts from under the tree.

I helped her put on the hat and apron and she was ADORABLE! She was intensely concentrating. I couldn't take it. SO cute. Look at her cooking mommy a breakfast souffle:

Here is a video of her playing:



We finally dragged her to the front room to open presents from family that arrived in the mail. Here's what we all made out with:

Some of Troy's include (you can see most of it in the picture):

1. A box of 3 Dremel tools
2. A HUGE bottle of ranch (OMG Dick and Emily...DYING laughing)
3. The new Ken Follett book
4. 2 Dave Ramsey books
5. Remote control helicopter
6. Season 1 of Duck Dynasty
7. Clothes (northface fleece, a running top, and 2 casual button downs)
8. Random fun (Chick-fil-a gift card, tervis cup, catch phrase)

Natalie's summary of gifts include

1. Random clothing articles (pajamas, a homemade scarf, a couple shirts)
2. 2 puzzles
3. 2 DVDs (Pitch Perfect and Dexter Season 6)
4. Giant 31 Barnes embroidered bag for organizing things
5. Gift cards (Amazon, VISA)
6. Various doo-dads (pocket calendar, cards, decorative wine corks)
7. TRENDY TOPS!!!

AVERY CLEANED UP! I could not believe how generous our family and friends were.

1. A homemade sock elephant and hanging letter "A" to match her nursery
2. Red Riding Hood puppets and book
3. TONS of books...I LOVE YOU GUYS FOR THIS
4. New floating bath toys that make fountains

5. Doug and Melissa toys...TONS - 4 puzzles and stacking blocks...LOVE WOODEN TOYS
6. A bouncing Benny. Avery is in love with this toy right now:



7. A dancing and singing Santa. We actually had to hide this in the next room so that we could continue opening gifts. She played with it for about 10 minutes before we took it away:



8. She got A TON of clothes. 2T and 3T clothes. Major win for Mommy. And her bank account. Troy's grandma pretty much cleaned up here. Ask and you shall recieve :)

9. Aunt Taylor got Avery a dress up box. She came to visit about a week ago and got the box and started filling it with TONS of dress up things. A feather boa, princess outfit, 2 purses, 2 hats, some shades, fairy wings, etc. Avery LOVES it. She is super into hats and necklaces right now.

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas and we are so grateful to everyone who spent time and money buying/mailing things. We love you all.

DIY Play Kitchen Part 4: The Reveal

Here is the planning of the kitchen.

Here are some decor decisions for the kitchen.

Here is the cutting and painting of the kitchen.

And here we finally are...at the big reveal!! And Troy and I could not be more proud!!!

We hung the art from part 2 to cover the hole in the back of the cabinet. There is a $1.99 towel bar from Ikea with S-rings for hanging utensils, pots and pans, and hot mitts on. We got 2 tap light from Lowes (one for over her head and the other for inside the oven). And there is a basket under the sink to contain the crazy from Target. With all of the food components, it was starting to get a little crazy.

Here is a little close up shot of the stove top and sink.

This is a close up of the bottom of the cabinets, the plexiglass installed (gorilla glue on the back), and the knobs...AHHHHH!

Here is a little bit different angle. Can you tell we're proud? It was definitely a group effort by Mom and Dad...ahem, Santa and his elves ;)

I would like to thank:

1. Laura, for picking up most of the kitchen food from Ikea
2. My dad for helping Troy with the manual labor portion
3. Wendy for getting the pots and pans that were sold out when Laura went to Ikea
4. And Troy for letting me purse some bigger projects lately :)

Without you all, this may not have happened and you all had a hand in this great gift for Avery and she loves it!!! I am writing this post on Christmas Day while she naps :) I just couldn't wait to share!!!

love you all and Merry Merry Christmas!!!

I'll be back tomorrow with Avery's Christmas and a round up of gifts for Troy and myself! I have videos....

DIY Play Kitchen Part 3: Drilling, Cutting, Painting

You can read about the planning here.

You can read about the decor here.

Since then, my Dad has come for another visit and the hole for the sink was cut. The hinge for the oven was switched from the side to the bottom. The hole for the plexiglass piece for the oven was also cut and sanded. The wooden trim was added to the top to cover the weird mounting brackets.

Progress here:

All of the holes have been caulked. All of the holes that are needed (for dials and handles) are drilled. And ready for paint.

I picked a can of white semi-gloss paint and primer in one that cost $7. Laziness people. I'm not painting twice. I picked semi gloss even though I did a coat of clear on the top. The semi gloss is nice and shiny and very easy to clean. It's the kind of paint used for trim in houses (you know where fingerprints are). I picked a tester can for the color for the "countertops" and then to paint the trim at the top for $2.95. I already had brushes and the clear finish from other projects.

It's a little yellow-y because the garage light is kind of orange.

Here is an up close of the oven door (that got the most work) with the caulked holes painted over, the pre-drilled holes for hardware and oven dials, and the window cut for plexiglass.

And here she is from a different angle. We are planning to put together all of the details seeing as Christmas is tomorrow.

Best Goodwill Find to Date...

I found this guy at Goodwill while my sister was visiting. FOR 5 DOLLARS!!!

Isn't it a beautiful beautiful toy?!?!? I love that it's wooden. It was a hot mess when I snagged it off that concrete floor...But here she is all clean.

I took some serious Clorox wipes to it. Like half of a container. For real. So Avery is going to have a blasty blast with it. I figure Santa's workshop makes wooden toys (mostly) so this fits right in with the wooden toy theme we have going this year for Avery's gifts.

Wooden play kitchen?? CHECK!

Wooden activity cube?? CHECK!

It makes my OT heart so happy with all of the cognitive, gross, and fine motor things for her fat little hands. The top has the bead wiring and little tracks that you move animals through.

One side has 4 little doors that open and show an animal and the word. One side has these knobs that slide up and down through these long tracks. One side has all of the letters on little blocks and then they spin and have a picture of a word/animal that starts with the corresponding letter. The last side has blocks that spin on axels shaped like triangles that match up (top and bottom) to make an animal.

I cannot tell you how excited I was about this find. Truth be told, I AM A TERRIBLE SANTA! I already let Avery play with it. And then Troy saw us playing and we stashed it in the guest room when she wasn't looking...too bad she knows how to open the door and still plays with it when Troy isn't home...MUAHAHAHAHAHA. Seriously though...I'm the worst Santa ever. Hopefully she won't remember this next year and be all "SANTA ISN'T REAL" when she's 2 years old. Bad mommy points right there.

I retails on Amazon for $89.99. HELLO!

It retails at Target for $62.39. I think we can all agree that I got a great deal. WAHOOOOO

PS. After Christmas, we'll do a full gift round up of things that we got for her for curious minds.

My Friend Wrapped ALL of our Christmas Presents. And I Baked. And Burned Cookies. And Suck at Decorating Them.

I had a much deserved girls night this week. And it was a productive one :) Filled with Christmas-y fun! And wine. And movies. And cookies.

My friend Katie loves wrapping Christmas gifts. I hate wrapping Christmas gifts because why spend so much time doing something that gets ripped open and thrown away in seconds? I love baking Christmas cookies. Katie hates baking Christmas cookies because it's messy and makes tons of dishes.

Katie wrapped all our gifts. I baked all of the cookies. Win-Win.

I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, sugar cookies, and chocolate chip cookies and drank wine. Katie wrapped 40+ gifts and drank wine.

This is Katie relaxing and wrapping gifts...it literally took her almost 2 movies to finish them all. We watched "The Holiday" and "Elf."

I made a big mess. I have NEVER used cookie cutters before. Ever. And I SUPER suck at decorating them. I actually burned a batch...ooooops. Too much chatting and laughing.

Evidence here. Luckily, Katie opted to take hers home and frost them later. Or she would have ended up with a hot mess.

Needless to say, we had a good time and both got something tangible out of our evening. Win-Win. Am I right?

So, to my family and Troy's family: You can thank Katie for all of your gifts being wrapped. You're welcome.

They got mailed yesterday. Be on the look out! We were "that family" in the post office. I swear. Military families should get discounts at the post office for Christmas mailing. We mailed 7 boxes and 5 flat packages. UGH! And we packaged most of them IN the post office. With a toddler. Let us all pause to imagine the chaos. You. Are. Welcome.

Anyone else hate wrapping presents? Or hate cleaning up baking messes?

We Are Swingers!

Get your mind out of the gutter! We got a swing set as a belated birthday present for Ms. Avery's 1st birthday. You know, cause we were living in TLF. As much as we LOOOVED it (read sarcasm), there just wasn't room to have a swing set delivered there.

I was looking at swing sets when I realized that we were going to have a yard. Oh. My. Gosh. Some of them are SO expensive. Like many thousands of dollars. Which is straight crazy. Especially when you move all the time and they get broken down and put together multiple times.

My Dad and Elaine (Grandpa Geno and Gigi) sent a swing set to us about 2 weeks ago. Over Thanksgiving, Dan and Laura came to visit and while the girls went to the gym (Avery included), the boys (Jameson included) put the swing set together.

Avery LOVES it. It is the perfect size for our yard. I was worried that anything big would take up all of the astroturf and there would be no room for running and playing ball with Optimus. My worries were ill-founded. The size is perfect. Here she is in all her glory. I love that Avery is still a little too small to enjoy all the parts of it. It means that she'll grow into it, but any future kiddos that we have can still enjoy it too with the slide and baby swing (for kids up to 4 years old). We had considered getting a Step 2 swing set, but they were expensive and then we would have felt the need to buy a "big kid" swing set for Avery when she was older, while having to keep the smaller one for littler kids. This just makes sense for us right now.

It has a slide, 2 swings, and a teeter totter swing. Dad and Elaine bought an extra baby swing that was changed out with one of the big kid swings. We were pretty excited that they did that since Avery is still a little small to grasp the whole "don't lean back or you'll fall off" concept. We sat her on the big kid swing (she was determined) and did pretty well, but when she decided to sign "all done," and let go of the chains, she totally almost did a face plant right into the turf.

She LOVES the slide. She goes down sitting up, face first, and backwards. She's hardcore.

She prefers to hold our hands when going down the slide on her bottom. It picks up some serious speed and she learned that the very first time she went down. She went FLYING and was going so fast, I was worried she was going to shoot off the slide into the side of the house and impale herself on the hose spout. No worries. That didn't happen.

Now she just holds out her hand when she wants to go down:

But, if we don't get there fast enough, she just turns around and goes down backwards or face first. Because THAT'S not scarier than just sitting on your butt, right?



We live in a great community with lots of parks, but having an area to play at the house is great. Especially if it's overcast and I'm worried that we might be at the park that long before she gets cold or it gets dark.

We have had a couple play dates at the house in the past week also and so far, the swing set gets 2 big thumbs up! Or 5 Amazon stars.

DIY Play Kitchen Part 2: Decorations

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!

Troy and I are building Avery a play kitchen out of an overhead kitchen cabinet I snagged for $39 from the Habitat for Humanity Restore. You can read about all the details here.

Since then, I have made some decisions about decorations and color.

I was on the fence between hanging an outdoor photo and curtains to cover the hole in the back of the cabinet or hanging art.

I decided to go with art. I headed over to Michael's with some online coupons for ideas. I ended up snagging a 3 frame picture frame that was 7.99$ and using a 50% of 1 item coupon.

I painted on some paper, red acrylic paint and a brush that I already owned. This is what I came up with. It is going to hang down longways with the spoon at the top to cover the hole, which will be right over the sink.

I also grabbed some "oven burners" while I was there. In the wood section, there were raised circular trivets for about 50 cents a piece, so I grabbed 4. I didn't have any grey paint, so I just mixed some up at home with black and white and painted all 4. They will need a good coat of clear finish, but overall, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

This should give you a mental image of where I'm going with this whole thing. We also found a jig saw for cutting the sink hole and "oven door" for the plexiglass. All I can say is THANK GOODNESS my Dad is here this weekend. He says the sink is going to be tricky, so I'm glad that he's here to help with some of that. Once we get the kitchen configured, I can get to the FUN stuff. Painting and accessorizing. You know, the girly stuff :)

I already got the paint colors for the kitchen (paint and primer in one for us lazy DIYers) and picked up some tap lights for inside the oven and for overhead. I also got a small 8x10 piece of plexiglass for the oven window.

Laura came through with all the bakeware and food but we are short the pots and pans.

She sent me this picture from her Ikea run:

THE WHOLE SHELF IS EMPTY!! You can see the bakeware in the picture to the right. Don't worry, my friend's mom is running by Ikea in DC to get those so that Avery can make us some macaroni and cheese on Christmas day. SO EXCITED!

But as a side note: HOW DOES LAS VEGAS NOT HAVE AN IKEA?!?!?!? That is just crazy town. The closest IKEA is in southern California, almost 4 hours away. Annoying. And Ikea doesn't ship a lot of things. Furniture mostly and almost none of the smaller, cute, and functional things. Sad face :(

You Are My Sunshine!

I received a present in the mail last week. And I love art. LOVE. My mom is obsessed with this website called fab.com and she is constantly "did you see this?" or "did you see that?" I already have jossandmain.com and onekingslane.com updates, so the last thing I need is another discounted website to shop on.

Little did I know, my mom had been doing some shopping of her own. And I got this beauty delivered to my doorstep last week. Avery was super excited about it too. But for a totally different reason. The packaging was light saber shaped. So Troy and Avery played Luke and Darth Vader in the foyer. No video. Sorry.

Anyway. Here he is in his framed glory:

Now. Backstory. I don't remember this, but apparently my mom sang "You Are My Sunshine" to me everyday, all the time, when I was baby/kid. This is a super thoughtful gift from her. She was all teary eyed about it over the phone when I opened it. I felt kind of bad because I don't remember it, but then again, I don't remember a lot of things from my childhood. I know there are people who remember their 1st birthday, but I LITERALLY remember nothing until I was in 2nd grade and got my tonsils out and stayed overnight in the hospital. That is the first memory I have. And it was traumatic. Sorry Mom. My first memory is of me being abandoned by myself overnight, in the hospital, with fire in my throat.

But that is neither here nor there. Mom, I LOVE THIS PRINT. It's totally gorgeous. I love the dark teal color. And it's HUGE!! It's a 22 X 30 inch print. The paper quality is amazing. It is SUPER thick, quality paper. And I love that it is meaningful for mom and me. I just wish I had a memory of the meaning behind the gift.

So you walk in the front door and this is what you see. Right to your right. Pretty right? On my new (okay, technically it's old) craigslist buffet. And we all know I love Craigslist.

And here he is from the front angle. Perfect, right? Pretty good scale for the buffet. He didn't come framed, so I did have to buy a frame. I snagged it from Michael's for 55% off. WIN! And then I had an additional 10% off coupon. DOUBLE WIN!

Anyone received a great gift lately? Or gotten a sweet deal with a coupon?