Home improvement on steroids

(Obnoxious amount of pictures here. Sorry.)

NESTING. Holy cow, the nesting with this pregnancy! It is OUT OF CONTROL. In pregnancies past, this faucet of baby prep consisted of some light dusting, maybe a bit of reorganizing and possibly an extensive day of laundry. THIS pregnancy though (!!!) - Home Depot has become our actual residence. In baby Grace's second trimester alone we've brought home a miter saw, this huge air compressor nail gun thing, a jig saw and several (SEVERAL) boards of various types of wood. From about 15 weeks until now, 28 weeks today, I've painted more walls than should be humanly allowed in such a short time frame and without the help of professional workers. IT HAS BEEN NUTS.

So what have we done????!!!!!! I shall start at the beginning of our extreme adventures in nesting, when the "Baby List" was fresh in my mind (and not driving me crazy). First up, Carter and Kota's room!

1. "Big kids'" room

^^^It went from depressing green and sickeningly light grey, to the shiplap whiteness and same-relaxing-grey-as-our-master-bedroom. I just love every bit of it! Sure the room is very short on space, but hey, what can ya do? At least it's an enjoyable area now! This was our first go at shiplap. Chad and I were both shocked on how much we liked the end result. You know - not all DIY's come out the way ya like! Glad this one did.

2. Fireplace/entertainment center

^^^The reason we even DID this project was kind of a funny story (not so funny at the time): When we went to get the shiplap for the kids' room project, Chad had told the Home Depot guy the wrong measurement - so that meant we had 14 boards that were 6"'s too short. We tried to make it work in the kids room by just nailing it all to the wall and smoothing the awkwardness over with wood filler, but after spending 1.5 hours on just the top board alone, we knew that we were just going to have to bite the bullet and go buy 14 MORE boards with the correct measurement. So anyhoo, the 14 wrongly-cut-boards were just lying in our garage, so Chad and I decided to tackle this "small" project one night when the kids went to spend the night at my parents' house for some summer fun. WELL. Duh, it took over our lives. Chad had to take off the weird molding that surrounded the original TV hole thing, then move all of the electrical. Next came building a frame of 2x4's in the TV hole (my idea! I felt so cool!), and then came the shiplap. Next it was filling in the nail holes, painting, mounting the TV, new lighting and Chad's "dad gift" to himself: a sound bar. All was GREAT until we went to test the finished product: If you flipped the switch Chad had wired for the lights, one lighting sconce went on, the other went off! Flip it again, THEY SWITCHED! At the end of a very long project, this was NOT what he wanted. Thank goodness though, because the next day at work Chad talked to an electrician friend who told him what was up and all was fixed. Bahahaha - DIY AMIRIGHT?!

3. Chad's side table

^^^This was a slightly unnecessary project, but in my nesting mind at the time, it was EVERYTHING. So when we redid the kids' room, I wanted to move Chad's side table/white dresser out of our room (never liked the look it brought to our room anyway) and into the kids room for more storage in preparation for their play room turning into a nursery. Chad was kind of like "so... why are we doing this again?" about the whole project, so I took it on solely while he was at work. I felt so great cutting all of the wood for it with the newest garage-team-member, the miter saw, all by myself in just 7 minutes! Life changer! Next I screwed all those wood pieces together, half-heartedly sanded it (I loathe that part of wood working), then painted/stained the whole thing - all in one day! Felt pretty cool 'bout it.

4. Grace's nursery

 ^^^THIS TOOK SO DAMN LONG TO DO! After the extensiveness of the kids' room, fireplace and table projects, I decided to mozy on into another undertaking, but this time I vowed to just do it "in my spare time." HA! Let me tell ya something: if there's no sense of urgency to get a project done, it will simply TAKE TOO LONG TO DO. I should have just gone balls to the wall and busted it out in a day or so, that would have saved me a lot of annoyance. Anyway, first I primed below the chair rail where there was a darker pink, then I got started measuring out the stripes. We knew we were going to be putting in curtains with a horizontal stripe pattern to match the kids' curtains, so that's what I went off of. Next I waited for my MIL to come help me out, where she did all of the fine-tuning (work with the brush), I then started in with the grey (same grey as kids' room and master) under the chair rail, and waited for my two coats of white stripes to dry above the chair rail. Next there was meticulous taping that went down, where I had to RE-PAINT over the tape with the white so that way when I went to paint the grey, it wouldn't bleed underneath the tape onto the perfect white line. IT - WAS - MADNESS. Anyhoo, I just had to get that damn room done. Now I love it, but truly, these projects "in my spare time" need to not happen ever again.

5. Our bathroom

^^^SO! We still had shiplap left over from that accidental cut situation, so in order to rid our garage's floor of it, we just plowed ahead and prettied-up our master bathroom's tiny toilet room. The kids were on a multi-night sleepover with family, so I just decided to DGAF and bring the miter saw IN THE HOUSE to get my cuts - bahahaha. Seriously with that decision? I'm still finding sawdust everywhere, even after an extensive cleaning. But honestly, there was no way this pregnant woman was going to spend time in that hot garage cutting - nope, no way. So it started out with shiplapping behind the toilet, painting that THE grey and then hanging those shelves. Once it was done though, I felt like the rest of the teensy room needed to be grey as well, something I'm glad I did but man. This REALLY tired me out - more than the other projects seemed to. It was becoming clear that I seriously needed to calm down on all of this home stuff. Like CLEAR. My body was/is sort of mad at me for all of it. So glad this got done, but seriously exhausted. 

5. Minor things done while those other projects were happening: curtains, fans, lighting and shelves

^^^One of the things we learned to seriously loathe while living here is the curtains the previous owner had up - it's not that they were ugly, it's that they seemed to all break within the first 6 months of us being there! I have no idea why - they were relatively heavy duty! I don't know. But anyway, we've replace all of those blinds with curtains which seem to be easier for us. We have the final room's curtain's hardware and panels sitting on the kitchen counter right now. I think Chad and I are just a bit shell shocked from the rest of these projects to actually install them hahahaha!

One of the main things we needed to do in our house was to improve the lighting situation in all of the rooms. EVERYTHING was lit by the one fan that hung over the dining area, so we've been slowly adding lighting in the forms of sconces, chandeliers, fan-moving-arounds and installation of lights on existing fans. The only two rooms left are the front "white room" and the baby's nursery. Go Chad!

Those shelves we put up in the kids' room went tandem with the master bathroom throne's room make over. It's part of the solution to the old play room becoming the nursery. As trophy collections and book selections evolve, I may throw 2 more up in between those three in years to come. We'll see. I literally can't even with thoughts like that. 

One of the major things left on our Baby List is outdoor furniture, which we intended to make ourselves. However, I just don't know if I can hack that! If we make it ourselves, it's going to require engineering, putting-together, sanding, painting and staining. Literally.... not sure about that. But at the same time, I want that to get done! But after all of these projects I've learned one thing: CHILL OUT! Bahahaha! Glad they're done though, and glad we love our little home that much more.

My 10 year high school reunion!

Well gosh dang, life has been pretty fantabulous lately. One of the best thangs that's happened was this last weekend where we went to my 10 YEAR HIGH SCHOOL REUNION! Holy cow, what a fun event that was! I mean seriously? Whoever came up with the idea to get a bunch of 28 year olds who may or may not feel awkward about being in a room together was a true genius. Oh man, it was so much fun from the beginning of preparing for the event until 12:30 that night (next morning? We're wild) when Chad and I mozied on into my parents' house after tons of crazy socializing.

One of the most awesome parts of the whole thing was that one of my best friends in the entire world was coming into town beforehand, freeing us up to shop for our dresses. It truly felt like we were going to homecoming or something! We shopped ALL day at the Spectrum where I got a dress which I agonized over after purchasing: was it too short? Not fancy enough? Would I be comfortable dancing in it? Too bohemian? Just right? Would the wedges I was planning on wearing with it be too casual? Too "done up?" I mean!!!!!!!!!! HOMECOMING!

So that particular Spectrum day Jenna couldn't find a dress and I went home still questioning the short baby-doll 90's get-up I had secured at none other than Forever 21. We were both a little depressed that shopping as 28 year old mothers didn't produce the same joy that shopping as 18 year old high school-goers would have. The abundance of crop tops did not help our feelings of slight perturbedness either. The next day I ended up going on a whirlwind shopping trip in Corona and Jenna went shopping at the MV mall where we both got lucky, finding our much-thought-over dresses. We were in business!

Two days later, reunion day, Carter and Chad went to hockey, Kota and I got our nails done, and then off to MV we went for the night! I (stupidly)  had a few sips of coffee around 5:15 pm to give myself a little boost and then started getting ready (again, Homecoming style! Parents' house for the win!). The kids were happy as can be watching cartoons as Chad and I left to go pick up our date: Jenna! We OF COURSE had to relive high school, so we went to Del Taco where we sat in mine and Jenna's booth. Next was a quick stop by the liquor store where I mothered it up in the front seat while the others drank, total high school style, in the backseat of the truck. I MEAN.

As we got out of the car, Jenna and I all of a sudden got very nervous! Ahhhhhhh!!!!! What was happening? We were going to our 10 year high school reunion! I felt very fortunate to not have had any major heart breaks or embarrassing moments (that I could recall) with the good ol' chaps in my class, but still! It was slightly nerve racking!

As soon as we rolled up to the ol' guest list table though, it all smoothed out. I even saw someone in my sorority there! Hahahaha! I had no idea she was a 2006er with me! What was crazier was that I later found out via her snapchat that we were on Prom Court together! Who the heck knew???!!! So that was a great start to the night! As soon as we entered the actual building it was socialization on steroids. We were immediately chatting it up with hundreds of people. Literally it was my favorite social situation of all time. The niceness! We were all so nice and awesome and interested in one another! So much fun!

There was even one guy there who had lost SO MUCH WEIGHT that I literally had no idea who I was talking to. I tried to look at his name tag but I couldn't tell who it was!!!! Obviously that is a good transformation for him - I just couldn't get over how there was a human there I couldn't recognize! What a classic 10 year high school reunion moment!

Anyhoo, the event ended at 11:00 pm, so making it until 10:45 in my heels was a major win. I'm pretty sure the coffee had something to do with that. Chad told me as we left how insanely different this pregnancy was - he was positive we would not have lasted the entire night during Carter and Kota's incubation periods. I felt pretty dang cool making it that long too! So Chad and I dropped off Jenna at her parents' house (serious high school vibes) and then headed to Del Taco AGAIN - we were soooooooooooooooo 18 years old that night!

We got home around 12:30  where we found our sleeping babies and I immediately hopped in the shower to relax my then-sad feet. Then we cracked down on our loot. Welp, Del as 28 year old mostly-clean-eating humans is NOT the same as Del as 18 year old fast-as-heck-metabolism humans, so after a few bites the two of us called it quits. YUCK! Hahahaha!

That night I could not sleep in the usual bed we sleep in at my parents house. I could not get comfortable to save my life, so I heave-ho'd out to the couches where again, there was no sleeping. I kept thinking my brain was on overdrive thanks to the fun we had at the reunion, but then it occurred to me that it was probably the dang coffee. Oh well though. One sleepless night in the name of the amount of fun we had was very worth it. Baby girl was also kicking during the whole event! Fun was had by all! Wooo!

Good ol' 4th of July

Some humans live for this holiday - I am not one of them. Ever since we've had kids, it's just never been a particularly fun 24 hours for me! Yes fireworks are a blast, but the build up to them? Heat. Sweat. Schleppin' kids around. Tiredness. Sometimes too much food. Sometimes not enough food. Hours of waiting for the sun to go down. Kids crying. Possible sun burns. It's a lot with little ones!

But anyhoo, in the last few years I've really tried to perk up and not be such a dud leading up to America's birthday. It really has helped that we have a prime time view of Corona's fireworks from our backyard, so 2015 and '16 have been spent here at our hizzouse instead of battling the 91 and other gosh-forsaken freeways on a holiday. This year, since the actual day fell on a Monday, it was actually the best weekends of celebrating the 4th we've had in years.

Corona had their annual celebration on the 2nd, a Saturday - a fact I was initially perturbed about but then realized that it opened us up to tons of other fun times for Sunday and Monday. So Saturday we got out of the house around 8:50 am, parked about a quarter mile away from home in Daddy-o's new truck that we're all super in love with (Silvy the Silverado), and met a few friends on Main Street to enjoy a little old town USA fun. It was Carter's first time seeing the parade, so it was the Cisneros 4 all together (as opposed to last year where it was just Chad, Kota and I parade-watchin') - one last Independence Day as The Originals (aka pre-baby girl).

Once we met with friends, we were all in all 3 kids, 2 babies in strollers, 2 pregnant ladies, 2 dads (the other dad had work in the morning) and then 1 normal mom who had been pregnant last year (trying to make sure that that baby who was now one of the ones in a stroller didn't burn thanks to the blistering hot sun). We were a cute sight, except for the fact that we were slowly melting and dying. By 9:10, I was ready to call it quits! We held on a bit longer because duh, we couldn't split mere minutes into the celebration, but we were a group of ticking time bombs. Around 9:40, Chad announced that we could get through 3 more floats and then we were all going to call it a day. By the time we reached our car, it was 10:10 - I thought it had to have been at least 12:30! We were ALL wiped out. The moms, the dads, the kids. The heat had SUCKED THE LIFE OUT OF US. Our family returned home to relax before a few of those same friends came over and I just COULD NOT get over how exhausted I was! It was unbelievable. I irrationally came to the conclusion that I simply wouldn't be able to fall asleep in the middle of the day, so I just stumbled through the house with a sour look on my face, regretting the fact that I had to mop the floors before company entered our home.

Around 1:30, Chad looked at me and commanded I go get some lay-down time in. Thankfully I acquiesced, but it still didn't matter. By the time I "got up" around 3:30 to do the floors, I still could not snap back. Chad told me not to worry about the floors, so again I acquiesced, trading in my sparkling clean tile dreams for a quick Clorox Bleach Strip swipe of a some mud Snow had dragged in. Floors = done.

I felt kind of guilty knowing guests were coming over in my overly-exhausted state, but then realized once they got there that one of them was 37 weeks pregnant - she too was exhausted. So the two of us sat on the couch and basically didn't move until fireworks happened later on that night. The kids swam in our teensy backyard pool and all was well. The food was great, and we all had a blast.

Sunday was WAY better on the energy front, thank goodness. We headed over to a friends' home and had an absolute blast. The kids swam their little hearts out, there was a water balloon fight and s'mores happened - MAJOR WIN! We all had so much fun and the best part?  None of us felt wiped out or overly exhausted afterwards, a true 4th of July weekend miracle!

On Monday, the actual holiday, my sister texted me and asked what I thought about mexican food at their pool later on in the afternoon. That sounded amazing to us, so we skipped on out to Ladera Ranch for some holiday fun. It was so funny though, because all 4 of us had worn out our red, white and blue apparel so we had nothing festive to wear on the actual day of the 4th. My low energy seemed to have returned, but this time Chad and the kids joined me in exhaustion. We left the LR around 4:30 because we simply could not see ourselves making it peacefully all the way until 9:00 when fireworks were to start.

So us C's were tucked into our comfy beds by 8:30 on the 4th - a wonderful way to celebrate if you ask me! So yes! Now that the 4th seems to finally be getting better on the family management front, we're throwing ourselves back into the trenches of babydome next year. Bahahaha!