In April I pretty much fell off the grid because....
WE FOUND A HOUSE!
And we moved.
Plus I'm very pregnant (due date of July 15!)
And constantly chasing a toddler.
And working part-time outside the home.
I'm just now resurfacing to catch my breath....
just in time to get swept under by the tidal wave of a newborn baby.
I like to use this blog as a sort of journal to remember what each season of life felt like.
If I had a name for this season, I would call it crazy town.
Below are some of the highlights from our time in crazy town.
1) The Move
I've never been so thankful for Daniel Tiger. PBS Kids, ALL THE PARENTS salute you.
The closing date for our new home was Thursday April 30th. Which happened to be THE DAY BEFORE we were scheduled to leave for our first weekend as a couple away from Adelaide on a little baby moon. So we closed on a Thursday (yay home ownership!), and promptly left at 7 a.m. the next day for a fabulous four day siesta in Florida...
...and then came back to a very harsh reality where we packed like our lives depended on it because movers were scheduled for that Saturday.
I was still shoving things in boxes when the movers showed up.
We did make it out. Only because Chris is amazing and worked his tail off. He spent several nights at the rental until midnight making sure everything was ready for our move out inspection - cleaning, patching nail holes, etc...while I worked at our new place.
We still have unpacking to do, but we are making as much progress as we can day by day, and all the main things have found their place.
Are there pictures on the walls? Nope.
Are all the projects done? Nope.
Do we still have a long list of furniture we are hoping to purchase at some point? Yep.
But these are minor details and they will get done when they get done.
2) The Great Paint Color Debacle of 2015
So many colors. So little time.
Paint colors are hard, man.
And I apparently really stink at choosing them based on those litttttttttle swatches and hours of research.
As of today, Chris has already painted the nursery TWICE, and he is currently working on a third attempt at getting the nursery painted a gray THAT DOES NOT TURN BLUE.
This is the nursery. Definitely looking ready for a baby!
Earlier this week, a contractor innocently dubbed our nursery "The Blue Room" to help him remember which room was which. He had no idea this "blue room" was a current thorn in our side, and when we heard his nickname, neither of us could stop laughing about it.
But really, it is THAT blue, that it could appropriately be dubbed the BLUE room by a complete stranger.
I had anticipated selecting a gray would be challenging, and I had done a lot of research on the best way to choose a gray. There are a ton of tips out there, and I used many of the suggestions I found online regarding how to narrow down the color. Tips such as putting the color on a white poster board and moving it around the room in different light so you can see how it changes, and looking at the color in relation to the other colors on the strip to understand undertone and then also comparing it to the neighboring paint strips.
Ultimately, what I learned from our very painful first world problem painting dilemma, was that we will never again think we've decided on a color until a sample goes on the wall.
In the interest of having certain things done prior to baby, and trying to allocate Chris's already limited time on select projects and nursery preparation (ha!), we went ahead and hired professionals for some of the more challenging rooms in the house, (like the living room which had textured paint that was painted OVER wallpaper), and Chris "the paint man" Schroeder has signed on to doing the secondary bedrooms, bathrooms, and laundry room.
And, you know, apparently painting the nursery THREE times.
Did I mention Chris hates painting?
I don't mind it, but I'm no help right now since I'm 38 weeks pregnant.
Maybe I was being super hormonal, but trying to choose a gray for our main living areas after our complete fail on the nursery color felt impossible. As evidenced by the NINE samples on the wall in one of our rooms.
Gray Samples for Days.
The colors would change drastically depending on the light and time of day. I already tend to suffer from analysis paralysis, and this just added to my paralysis probs.
We ended up with three different grays on the main floor because certain grays would work in one room, but wouldn't be quite right in another room. We ultimately found Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter, Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Gray, and Sherwin Williams Anew Gray to be exactly what we were looking for. PRAISE!
3. The Circus of Contractors
This space looks very toddler friendly, yes?
Lexi took it as her responsibility to let the entire neighborhood hear about our parade of "visitors".
When we moved into the new house, we had a list of projects we wanted to do to make the home feel like ours prior to the arrival of baby. At the very top of our list was repainting nearly every room in the house, and getting some minor inspection findings fixed.
There were a couple weeks in June where we had anywhere between 4-6 different people in/around our home doing plumbing, painting, mudjacking and other random repairs. It truly felt like a circus for awhile where I didn't know who would be coming and going when, but the dust has finally settled (seriously, there was a thick layer of dust EVERYWHERE) and we are thankful to have all these things taken care of.
4. Preparing to Welcome the Littlest Schroeder
Several weeks ago, in the middle of the circus of contractors and the paint color debacle, our doctor had some concern about my measurements related to baby - I was measuring small. This didn't necessarily surprise me since the most common thing people tell me regarding my pregnancy is that I don't look <insert any number> weeks pregnant. The doctor questioning my measurements and ordering an extra sonogram (because at 33 weeks I was measuring what the doctor would expect to see at week 29), was definitely concerning. God is good, and thankfully our prayers were answered by a sonogram in week 35 that confirmed baby Schroeder is healthy (measuring in the 33rd percentile, no less!), fluid levels are good, and baby is head down and riding very low. We are so grateful that everything looked good at that sonogram. So, so, grateful.
We are still waiting to find out whether baby is a he or a she! I am actually really enjoying hearing all the predictions, and I think it will be so fun to find out the day of the birth.
If it is a boy I am all ready to deck out a nursery in airplane decor, and if it is a girl the nursery will be sweet and feminine with grays, peaches, and pinks. Even though we are waiting to find out the gender, I still wanted the nursery to be gender specific, so I have a "design board" (read: Microsoft Word document) ready for each gender. Last week I was at HomeGoods and I could not help myself when I found a bunch of adorable airplane decor at a good price - I had to get it! I reasoned that if it's a girl, we will just need to make a bee-line back to get it returned within the 30 day time limit. We are so close and if it does end up being a boy, I will be thankful to have a little head start on some cute decor.
That's our life in a nutshell lately. During these final days as a family of three I am trying to balance all the to-do's with spending intentional quality time with Adelaide. Our house could definitely be cleaner, our walls more decorated, and our dinners more elaborate. But when I hear "SLIIIIIIIIDE!" from the backseat, I'm probably pulling over at the nearest park to grant the request.
Here's to summer!
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