Spring has sprung!

I've been very impatiently waiting the past few weeks for my giant cherry tree in the backyard to bloom. My mom kept telling me it would open on April 1st. She was absolutely positive about it. Well, sure enough on Sunday morning I peeked out the window and saw tons of little white blossoms. They're so pretty I can't even stand it!

I'm so happy Spring is finally here, and I'm so excited to get out in the yard every day and do some yard work and enjoy this fantastic weather!

Hot Mama

Back in 1993 my mom went to GlamourShots to get some pictures taken. She's going to totally kill me for this, but check out my smokin' hot mama: 

Crazy to think she was only two years older than I am now in this picture. 

Love you, Mom!

Nesting. Times a thousand.

We've officially been in our house for two weeks now, and we've been busy, busy, busy! I've finally got a little bit of time to post an update and a photo tour of the house, which I'm really excited to share with everyone!

I suppose I'll just start with the outside of the house, which really was the area that needed (and still needs) the most help.

Here's a little side-by-side of the before and after of the front of the house. I repainted the mailbox, which was white and rusty, and Sean put up new house numbers and replaced the old, dirty porch light.

(click to view larger)

It's amazing what an impact just a few little changes can make!

One of the first things I did the weekend we moved in was to get some seed down on the front lawn. Unfortunately the one side of the yard was mostly mud. I found some neat stuff that looks like blown insulation that you spread over blank spots in your lawn that theoretically will start to sprout grass in one to two weeks. I hope it works well, but I haven't seen any grass come up yet.

I also put down some pavers to make a path from the driveway to the front door and I think it turned out really well.

Under the carport was a really ugly, ramshackle shed that was just gross and a major eyesore. Last weekend I spent half the day Saturday tearing that sucker down and it looks SO much better now.

The backyard needs tons of help as well, and I've started by tearing off the ivy that was growing in the back corner of the house, raking out some of the flower beds and grass, and spent a whole day and a half pruning my poor, over-grown apple tree. It still needs lot of pruning, but it looks a lot better than it did.

We've obviously been a bit overloaded with lawn waste and construction materials, but luckily thanks to my aunt I knew exactly what to do. We went to Home Depot and bought a couple of these:

They're called Bagsters and they're like giant Ikea bags that you can fill with garbage, building materials, and lawn waste. Each bag holds up to 3,300 pounds of material, and when it's full you call Waste Management and pay to schedule a pick-up. They come with a big truck, pick up the bags with a crane, and haul them away for you. Easy peasy!

When we moved in, Sean got up on the roof to check out the state of the swamp cooler. Unfortunately the last owners didn't drain it before winter hit, and it was completely destroyed inside. We decided we'd bite the bullet and just have central air installed. I found a great company that was really fantastic and professional and they had the whole system installed in one day.

They're actually here as I'm typing this to remove and cap our swamp cooler for FREE. I love free.

How's about a tour of the inside now?

I'll start with the living room. This room didn't need much work aside from needing drapes for the massive twelve-foot wide picture window. This window is one of the things I love most about this house. The natural light throughout the whole house is just a breath of fresh air, and I love that I don't have to turn on a single light in my house all day. I also love the beautiful, original hardwood floors.

Pricing out drapery rods for this window was really stressful; even buying an unfinished wood dowel at a hardware store was going to cost at least $50-60. So I took a cue from Pinterest and bought a long PVC pipe, spray painted it with a spray paint that adheres to plastic, slipped on my grommet-topped drapes, and hot-glued finials on the ends. Total cost for the PVC and finials: $16. Not bad!

 Next to the living room is the dining room/kitchen. I'm absolutely, positively in LOVE with my kitchen. There's just the perfect amount of space, tons of cupboards, and a brand new gas stove, dishwasher, and HUGE fridge. I loved cooking before, but I REALLY love cooking now.

There is one full bathroom upstairs. It's pretty small, but works perfectly for us. Sean hung some floating shelves above the toilet for more storage, and I love the vanity and modern sink. I'm not a big fan of towel bars, so I removed the one that was there and replaced it with hooks for each of our towels. The thing I love most about the bathroom: having a window! I love having soft, natural light in my bathroom, especially when I'm putting on make-up (ladies, I'm sure you can relate).

On to the bedrooms! I'm not going to even bother showing you the master bedroom yet because it's a DISASTER, but here are some pictures of the boys' rooms.

Taylor's bedroom has two big windows, allowing a ton of light to come in during the day. I think it makes his room look so colorful and cute! (Sorry for the unmade bed; I was too lazy to make it before I took the picture).

Tay's favorite part of his whole room: the side of his closet that hold all of his games, puzzles, and art supplies. He loves that he has his own space to go and work on projects. One day last week he was in his room alone for almost an hour and a half, just coloring and drawing and doing puzzles.

Here is Ollie's room. I love that he has his own space now and that I can leave his bedroom door open all day and he can play in there unsupervised. No choking hazards, no uncovered outlets, none of Taylor's toys that he's not allowed to play with. Just lots of toddler toys, a plush green rug, and a beanbag chair that he loves to sit in and read books.

My boys are both thriving in this house. They are so much happier than they were being cramped in a tiny apartment, and because they are so much happier I am too. Staying home with them all day has become such a pleasure (for the most part) instead of something I just had to get through. Amazing what just a change in environment can do!

Now on to the basement.

The first room downstairs: the ugly but very useful laundry/furnace/storage room. I have never had this much storage in my life, and I am beyond happy about it. All of our seasonal items, old baby stuff, camping equipment, and other miscellaneous "stuff" can be easily stored and organized in this room, and that makes Mama VERY happy.

Across from the storage room is a big family room, which I currently call the "room of nothing" because we have nothing to put in it aside from some random things I'm planning to sell and my elliptical machine. Eventually this room will be a media/game room with a sectional, projector screen, game table, and bar. That'll be a couple of years down the road though.

Oh, and you're probably wondering why the carpet is pulled up in this picture. I'll explain that in just a bit.

At the end of the family room is another massive storage room, hereby referred to as "Sean's domain." This will be the room where he'll organize all of his electronic and computer equipment, tools, painting supplies, and anything else he wants. He's so excited to finally have all of these things organized and accessible, rather than just shoved in random bins wherever we have a little bit of space.

At the end of the hall downstairs is my favorite room in the house: my CRAFT ROOM. To say I'm excited about having a craft room would be a dramatic understatement. I have longed so longingly long for a place where I could permanently set up my sewing machines, dress form, and the rest of my craft supplies. It needs some paint and maybe another shelf or two; but this right here? Heaven.

Across from the craft room is what I refer to as the "guest suite" because it has a three-quarter bath attached to a guest bedroom. This is currently the state of the bedroom. Empty.

Eventually we'll have an armchair and side table in the little reading nook, and a sofa and large ottoman for lounging/sleeping. My sister is very excited about this, and I'm sure as soon as the room is finished she'll be the first to book a stay.

Here is the guest bathroom. There's a vanity outside of the room with the toilet and shower. I think it looks like a hotel room and will be great for guests.

Now about that whole carpet issue in the family room. A couple of days after we moved in, Sean noticed that the carpet was completely soaking wet - not a good sign at all. He was able to trace the leak to the ceiling in the guest bathroom shower. When he pushed on the ceiling it collapsed under the weight of a massive amount of water.

Yep, I just about had a complete mental breakdown.

Sean called our realtor to see if there was anything we could do as far as getting the seller to fix it, but because the house was sold "as is" and we had no home warranty, there was really nothing we could do. However, he said he felt really bad about our situation and would come over to at least help us find the source of the leak. He brought an industrial dryer to dry out the carpet and pad, then helped Sean trace the leak to the tub drain in the upstairs bathroom. The drain was not installed properly and so every time we had used the tub or shower, a good majority of the water was leaking down into the ceiling and walls of the basement. Oye.

Well that saint-of-a-man spent the entire weekend working on that drain and just couldn't repair it. He could have told us to call and plumber ourselves, but instead he took care of it himself. He paid for a plumber to come and replace the entire drain assembly in the tub, and as if that weren't enough, he came by when the carpet was dry to re-tack it down for us, then hired a drywall guy to come and fix the ceiling in our shower!

Can you believe that?? He is seriously such a life saver and I don't know what we would have done without him.

Aside from that stressful hiccup, we've really enjoyed settling in to our first home. I always have a hard time feeling comfortable in a new place, but now it really is starting to feel like home to me. We love our neighbors and our neighborhood, and we love spending our weekends at Home Depot and doing improvement projects. We've still got a pretty long list of things to do before our housewarming party next month, but it's coming along really nicely! Life is just so good right now.

The finish line is in sight!

We got a call from our realtor this morning informing us that we are officially in underwriting and we'll close on the house some time next week! I am so excited to finally move into the house I've been daydreaming about and space planning for and driving by at least once every other day. We've been lucky to only have a few little hiccups along the way so we can close quickly.

It's been so hard living in this apartment knowing that a spacious five bedroom house is sitting vacant just a few blocks away. The kids are so cooped up and it's getting worse every day as we get more and more buried under mountains of moving boxes. It's also been difficult not really knowing when we're moving. I'm such a planner and it makes me crazy not having an exact moving date.

Now that we know we're for sure closing next week I'll be spending my weekend packing and buying drapery rods and researching which fridge to buy. Fun stuff!

I'm so excited to finally be in our own home! It feels like such a long time coming and part of me can't believe it's really happening. I feel so grateful that Sean and I can purchase a house for our kids to grow up in and that we'll finally have enough space to spread out!

This is probably the last post I'll make until we move. As soon as we get somewhat settled I'll post an update with pictures of our new place. Wish us luck!

Great News!

After nine apartments in almost ten years,

and pulling out of not one but two home purchases, 

the Nichols family is finally buying a house!!

We are just absolutely over-the-moon ecstatic about it. We'd decided at the beginning of the year to start looking at houses (for the third time) and we've found the perfect place for our family. We've been so cramped here in our apartment, and although we love it we just need a place that we can grow into. We found a sweet little 1960's brick house in a really nice part of Orem and fell in love with it. It's been completely updated and has five bedrooms and two bathrooms, tons of storage, and a great yard. I'm so excited to have the boys in their own rooms, have a place for guests to sleep, and finally have a craft room!

I wanted to blog about this earlier in the process, but we wanted to wait until the inspection was over before we really got our heart set on it. Our inspector took a look at the house yesterday and just confirmed to us that we're buying a great home. It's obviously an older house and has it's quirks and things that need to be fixed up, but we're excited to finally be doing work on our own home. Taylor is so happy about it and asks me every day if we can move in yet, and to be honest I'm just as impatient as he is! We're just starting to pack and we should hopefully close on the house in just a couple of weeks. My mental checklist of things that need to be done keeps getting longer, and with it my anxiety is growing. But I know that this is the right move for us; it's a great time to buy, we got a great deal on the price and interest rate, and we just plain feel good about it. 

Hopefully we'll have the place ready for a housewarming party some time in mid-April. I'm so excited (how many times am I going to use the word excited in this post?) to share this next chapter in our lives with our friends and family. 

I'll try to keep the blog going steadily, but you may not hear much from me in the next month or so since I'll most likely be buried in moving boxes and cleaning our apartment. But I'm sure I'll make it back quickly with lots of news about our new place!

Okay, I'm going to say it one more time...

I'm so excited!!

Longest day of my life.

1:35 a.m. - Oliver wakes up crying. Sean goes in to comfort him and he starts coughing really hard, can barely breathe, and throws up twice. Once we get him calmed down, I rock him in his room until I can get him back to sleep.

3:00 a.m. - I finally get him back to sleep in his bed.

3:05 a.m. - He wakes up again, screaming and coughing. Sean goes in and rocks him, can't get him to calm down.

3:40 a.m. - I call the night nurse at our pediatrician's office. She says if he's having trouble breathing to take him to InstaCare.

3:50 a.m. - Sean gets Ollie bundled up and takes him to InstaCare, only to find out that it's closed. Oliver falls asleep in the car, so Sean drives all over Utah County while he sleeps. I fall asleep on the sofa for a little while.

6:05 a.m. - Sean gets home with Oliver. I peel myself off the sofa and get Ollie some breakfast while Sean lays down for a while.

8:20 a.m. - Sean gets up and gets ready for work. Oliver is rapidly getting worse. I call his pediatrician and set up an appointment for 10:35 a.m.

9:00 a.m. - Sean leaves for work. Oliver is very upset, tired, and coughing like crazy.

9:15 a.m. - I pile both kids in the car and go for a long drive so Oliver can rest. Stop at McDonald's to get a Mocha Frappe so I can stay awake.

10:35 a.m. - Ollie's doctor's appointment. The doc says he has very severe croup. Suggests we give Oliver a steroid shot and says I have the option of taking him into the hospital for breathing treatments. Because Ollie is having such a hard time breathing I decide to go ahead and take him to the hospital.

11:00 a.m. - We start a breathing treatment with Ollie in the doctor's office because the hospital doesn't have a room for us yet. He screams almost the whole time.

11:30 a.m. - Nurse gives Oliver a steroid shot. Doctor says we can head over to the hospital.

11:50 a.m. - Checked into the Pediatric wing at Utah Valley Regional. Nurses take his vitals while he screams his guts out. We're told they'll have a room for us soon.

12:30 p.m. - Steroid shot is kicking in and Oliver is perking up a bit. Still waiting for a room.

1:00 p.m. - Ollie is getting restless. He drifts in and out of sleep, but wakes up coughing really hard and wheezing.

1:35 p.m. - They finally have a room for us. Oliver is insanely tired but likes wandering around the new room. Sean leaves to go back to work.

1:50 p.m. - Five nurses (yes, FIVE) come into our room in robes, masks, and gloves, scare the heck out of Oliver, and attach monitors all over his little body. When they leave I finally get him to relax and take a little nap while I rock him.

2:30 p.m. - Wakes up crying and coughing. I can't get him to calm down and I'm starting to get really frustrated about the fact that they haven't started breathing treatments yet.

2:45 p.m. - Get him back to sleep again.

3:15 p.m. - Wakes up and doesn't know where he is. Starts sobbing again. I try really hard to keep him happy, but he keeps pulling at the monitors on his body and pointing to the door.

4:00 p.m. - Still no breathing treatments. Oliver's breathing has improved a lot from the steroid shot. I know his croup is manageable and I just want to take him home. I finally work up the courage to talk to a nurse about getting discharged.

4:10 p.m. - The nurse comes in and says the resident doctor wants to talk with me before discharging Oliver.

4:50 p.m. - Resident doctor finally comes in, talks to me for a while and checks out Oliver. Ollie starts screaming hysterically again. He says he's sure Oliver is probably fine to go home and that he'll draw up discharge papers. He says we'll be out "very soon."

5:20 p.m. - Neither Ollie nor I can stand the monitors all over his body and I pull them off so he can walk around the room. He's happy about that for a while, but then goes over and starts banging on the door and screaming to be let out.

5:35 p.m. - The nurse finally comes in with discharge papers. I quickly sign whatever they push in front of me. He gives me a questionnaire to fill out to let them know what they can improve. I don't fill it out because they don't want to hear what I have to say.

5:45 p.m. - After six hours in the hospital for absolutely no reason, Ollie and I are finally on our way home.

6:05 p.m. - We're finally home. The house is clean (thanks to my mom) and there's lots of yummy Sonic for dinner (thanks to my hubby). I scarf down way too many onion rings and popcorn chicken then collapse on the sofa. Ollie eats almost an entire grilled cheese sandwich and fries and is still hungry.

6:30 p.m. - Ollie is really grouchy and tired. Sean tries to keep him entertained while I rest for a bit.

6:50 p.m. - We head upstairs to put Oliver in the tub. I set up a humidifier next to his crib.

7:15 p.m. - I get Ollie out of the tub, dried up, and into some footie pajamas. I slather his chest and nose with VapoRub and give him a dose of Infant's Tylenol. We read stories and he nurses before bed.

7:35 p.m. - Oliver is in bed asleep. I'm completely physically and mentally exhausted. I'd like to think that Ollie will just sleep the whole night, but I have a feeling he'll be up a lot tonight.

This was seriously the longest, most stressful day of my life. So glad it's over and that Oliver is at least feeling a little better. Now I'm off to take some cold medicine (oh, did I mention I'm sick too?) and zonk out. We'd all better get healthy soon or I'm going to lose it. I've had my fill of sickness for the entire year.

Still sick.

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately.

The boys and I are sick.

Still.

I'm starting to think I'll be stuffy and achy for the rest of my life.

But even though I'm doomed to an eternity of runny noses, humidifiers, and cough syrup, I thought I'd at least do a post to tell all you out there that read my blog (all two of you. Hi Mom and Dad.) what we've been up to while cooped up in our germ-infested house.

The Nichols clan has been busy

Making collages…

Drawing pictures of Angry Birds...

Waiting for snow…

Drinking healthy spinach smoothies…

Driving up Provo Canyon to get some fresh air and eating yummy dinner at Dairy Keen in Heber…

Singing in the tub…

Making messes…

Making fresh-squeezed orange juice...

And watching movies in a blanket fort.

I've also been going to Karve four to five times a week. It's been a great way for me to feel a bit better and start getting in shape. It's definitely working too; in two weeks I'm down six pounds! Woo!

I've also picked up a new hobby - crochet! I've been knitting for a few years now and decided to try my hand at something new. I've had so much fun making baby clothes for my aunt's soon-to-be new baby, and now I'm working on a couple of throw blankets.

Well time for me to load myself with vitamins and climb into bed. I'll post regularly again when we're all feeling better.