briefly -

1. new bedroom is going great. except that the school bus stopping across the street wakes Evyn at 7:47 every morning. which isn't so early, I guess, but we're so used to her sleeping until 8:30 - 9:00!
2. got the estimate from the second builder. $9k more than the first guy. but the first guy didn't give an itemized allowance list. pretty sure we're going to hire the first guy, if he can supply some more details and tweak the plan for us.
3. Evyn has croup. she's doing well but every time I hear her hoarse little cough it sounds so awful I want to cry.
4. 60 degrees here today! we got outside, did some raking, fed the birds, Evyn got muddy. fun!
5. Christmas party season starts this Saturday! we have two events to attend that day. and we haven't even started our cards yet!
6. no photos, sorry. here is one of Evyn's computer drawings, just to pretty up this post :)

it's beginning to look a (little bit) like Christmas

not happy to have to wait for the lights to be strung


finished! a real team effort.

Turkey Day practice run

I had to post these for Grams & Pops (Scott's parents). Sunday they hosted an early 'Thanksgiving' meal for us, Scott's sister & Rick, and Scott's grandparents.
While we were there I noticed a huge stack of papers - copies of our blog that "Pops" prints to take home, since they don't have internet access at their house.
I figured if they are going through that much trouble to keep up with our page, I should take a few new photos to post just for them!

After dinner, playing a hanging monkey game - the adults got a little carried away with strategising over a kids game!




And for my friend Diana, one of the rare recent photos of ME (Julie), taken by Evyn as I was posting last night's post-dinner blog entry:

runnin' on (paint) fumes

Whew! The house smells of paint. I don't remember it bothering me this much during any of our previous renovation projects. Evyn's "new room" has a new, dreamy sky blue ceiling. Our office, meanwhile, is in bits and pieces, scattered between several rooms and the hallway.



Here's the wall we're going to be painting pink stripes on. Any suggestions on how wide the pink stripes should be, or how far apart? It's not quite 9 ft overall, including the closet doors (which will be white). So a couple stripes on either side of the doors, and then the same pattern repeated on the interior of the closet.



Pictures below from Saturday's painting session - Scott priming and painting, Evyn patching and dancing to Joe Jackson (her favorite), and other silliness - including the photo she captured of her Daddy (who will kill me when he finds out I posted it).