Artwork!

I had to take a pic of this! This is Carter's first real painting. He loves artwork, but usually it's pretty abstract! LOL. He did this one a few months ago (right after he turned 3) and they've had it up displayed at preschool. His teacher tells me that it's pretty impressive for a 3 year old to draw a person with the face in the right proportion and to be concerned with all the body parts. WTG Carter!

My favorite part - above the eyes there are two lines. I thought it was hair. Carter told me, no it's eyebrows. He didn't need hair. He NEEDED eyebrows. The kid is weirdly obsessed with eyebrows. Makes me laugh!

First Sushi!

Steve and I love Sushi! We used to frequent a really awesome "all you can eat sushi" place when we lived in Montreal. They had a super selection, and were always great to bring Carter some plain rice or chicken with our meals. Sigh...miss that place...and the scallops they had there...

We haven't ventured much into trying to find a kid friendly place in SF yet. We do LOVE this one place in the city that has a menu and an all you can eat option (that's always good for Steve...he can eat a lot of sushi!). If you live in or near SF I'd recommed it: Sushi Hunter
I also love that they make it super fresh and special for me since I can't eat sesame seeds. I have to go somewhere that will accomodate that, and some place/premade pkgs, don't. :(

Last week we decided to try Sunny Sushi in San Bruno. Mmm! It was good - and they had rice and chicken for Carter (which he thought was very yummy...although, unlike in Montreal, it came with a $13 price tag - ouch!).The sushi was good though, lots of selection, and they were accomodating with the sesame issue. Carter decided that he wanted to try sushi as well, so we ordered him a vegetarian california roll (yeah, no, we didn't feed our 3 year old raw fish). He initially wasn't too sure when it was delivered to the table - and actually threw a bit of a fit over it ((eyeroll)). Pretty soon he decided to try a bite, and he LOVED it! Here he is with his first bite of sushi!

...and his chopsticks...those were fun!

Overall, I don't think we'll be trying the eat out sushi again any time soon with Carter. Who wants to babysit so we can go?? ;)

A little cuteness!

I figured I better throw a little cuteness in with all these nasty house photos! ;)

Since I haven't been to creative lately, he's a sweet photo of Carter from Friday morning. Here is is a playgroup with the newest member of our Mother's Club - baby Riley. He's about 2 weeks old. Carter was so proud to hold him!

He just got up and crawled away...

Today (Saturday), Carter went to play at a friends for a few hours and Steve and I got back to work. In about 2.5 hours Steve got down a considerable amount of wallpaper border from the house...sadly, it didn't seem like a whole lot for the amount of work it was... :(

I went around and washed down ALL the walls and baseboards with bleach...wow, they look better! Following that I did a little more work on the windows....then came my dreaded job. Honestly, the MOST dreaded job of the entire house. The laundry closet. It was nasty! The cupboard doors on the outside were bad, and it took me at least 30mins to just get them clean...then inside.

Look at the little friend I made...Okay, he wasn't soooo little. I realized the photo I took didn't look nearly as spectacular until I put my size 8 foot next to it...yikes!! Lots more to do...but we're making progress!

At least I went in today to see my new (extra deep!) bathtub in place and ready to be tiled in! Looking forward to actually using it....

Talk of the Town? :P

So, we figured when we bought our new place that the furnace and ducts would need cleaned from the fact that it was none to clean to begin with AND 3 dogs lived in the house.

That was an understatement!

We had a full furnace and duct cleaning done today, and THIS is what they found in ONE duct. Needless to say the company earned their money! LOL. They recommended a full duct sanitize and antibacterial treatment to go along with the cleaning (we we took!). Steve stayed while they did the job, and he's pretty sure the worker is going back with some stories to tell tonight! He was pretty impressed (well...grossed out impressed :P)

Before Pics!

Below you'll find a few photo heavy posts of our new house! These are the before pics...

What's in store? The entire house is getting repainted. We're doing the walls, the ceilings, mouldings everything in one color just to freshen it all up and get it clean. I've spend a lot of time the last couple of days cleaning the walls and prepping them for painting. A little farther down the line, we're going to go back and add a splash of color, but for now everything is going to be "natural wicker" which is a very light taupe color. Pretty neutral. Bathrooms are getting totally overhauled - with new lights, fixtures, toilets and vanities. The kitchen is getting a facelift for now with lighter cabinets and new appliances. EVERYTHING is getting cleaned. Ick, it's bad!

Here's the powder room on the main floor. The previous owner painted this herself, and as much as it's nicely done in detail...sooooooooooooooooooo not me. The whole bathroom is getting a makeover! It's actually getting more of a makeover than we expected. We thought we'd just paint over the walls, but our contractor gave us a lovely bit of news this morning. This mural is painted OVER wallpaper, and it's stuck on! So, he suggests in interest of time and money we take down the walls and start over with new sheet rock. C'est la vie... View up the stairs from the front door.

View down to the living room from the landing on the 2nd floor.

Carter in his new room...small but sweet (the room AND Carter)

The view of his room from where Carter was standing in the last pic...his room will also be painted.

The spare room and my studio...nope, it won't be pink either...

The view into our room from the spare room - the bathroom is on the right. Once you go in, Steve's closet is on the left and the door up on the right is the master bathroom.

Our room from a little farther in... (that's all the contractors stuff on the floor!)

Our room from beside the window.

Built in cupboards and window seat (with storage underneath) in our room.

View from our room - Bay view....realllllly got to wash the windows!

Photos!

I don't want to overwhelm Blogger and lose my posts...so here's some more before pics!

This is the dining room taken from the living room. The living room, taken from the same spot as the last pic (the room "L"'s.)

Looking up to the 2nd floor.

The family room from the kitchen (it has a lovely view of the garage! LOL). Tne cupboard is where the washer/dryer goes.

The dining room looking into the living room.

Kitchen from the dining room (littered with cleaning and reno supplies and a few snacks)

Kitchen from where the fridge goes. We are redoing the cabinets to a light mocha color and getting new appliances.

Kitche view from the other side.

Kithen view from the family room

View from the living room window...I cleaned this one before I took the pic! LOL

Backyard from the patio door...needs a lot of cleanup.

Carter seeing what I'm doing ;)

View from the backyard.

Garage interior..this one is just for dad, since I knew he'd want to see! :P