Flanagan Clan

Today I had one of our new neighbors come to our house with a fundraiser she was doing for her school’s soccer team. One thing I’d like to do, as a good neighbor, is to help the neighbor kids with their fundraisers, so I listened patiently to her little sales pitch. Then the particular item she was selling came up: MAGAZINES. I don’t know why selling magazines has become such a big thing to sell for fundraising. I am willing to buy gift wrap, like I use to sell in grade school. I can always use more. I am willing to buy candy (especially chocolate!). World’s Finest Chocolate has a great fundraiser, and the fliers have pictures that are mouthwatering. I might even be persuaded to buy coupon books, if they seem like a good deal and I know they are for something I can actually use. I will definitely buy Girl Scout cookies. The one thing I will not, and have absolutely no interest in, is MAGAZINES. Typically the magazine selection is scarce, and there are no magazines that I’m actually interested in. In addition, I know how little time I actually spend reading magazines, unless I’m waiting in a checkout counter at the supermarket. I know I don’t want magazines, and I have no clue who actually buys them! Certain magazines have had appeal at different times in my life: bridal magazines while I was getting married, any pregnancy magazine while I’ve been pregnant, and currently I will flip through parenting magazines, though I do not tend to agree with a lot of the stuff in them. I read through World Magazine at my parents’ house when it looks interesting, and I enjoy magazines that spark creativity and provide neat ideas, such as Martha Stewart and This Old House, although I do not own any subscriptions to them. Sometimes I will even flip through Andrew’s Popular Mechanics and Popular Science. Other than that, I’m not interested. Please, if you are considering doing a fundraiser, do not do magazines!

Things have been pretty busy here at the new house. While all the boxes are gone, there are many closets, drawers and cabinets to be neatly organized and many little fix up projects to complete. Last weekend Andrew made two beautiful shelves above the kitchen desk, we repainted the kitchen, which was a ketchup red and yellow mustard theme, and I continued working on lining shelves and drawers and finding places to put everything. We definitely have a lot more room in this house, and it’s nice to not feel cramped. We have big plans for making this house better, although right now it’s pretty great the way that it is. I absolutely love this house!

This week Andrew is gone on business, and Diane is here with me. While Andrew is gone Diane is going to be painting the kid’s bathroom. The previous owners painted it a very girlie lavendar color, which we all decided definitely needs to go. We found a very beautiful teal that goes well with the tropical fish theme. Diane then plans to paint coral and brightly colored fish around the bathroom. We will be sure to post pictures when all is finished!

There is much left to do before the baby comes. I can tell that there’s a definite nesting instinct going on because I’m discovering dirt in places that I normally wouldn’t look. It is almost driving me crazy! Last week I spent over half an hour just cleaning our kitchen sink and the window above it. I wasn’t happy until it was perfect. Diane and Andrew are probably going nuts over the way I’m obsessing over the slight inperfections in the paint job they did in the kitchen. If I were allowed to paint during pregnancy, believe me, I’d have a paint brush out in a moment and begin carefully going over everything until it was absolutely perfect. I guess it doesn’t help that I’m a perfectionist!

There is not too much else new around here. Getting the house ready for the baby has taken up most of my time and energy. There are some fun things coming up in July: a good friend’s wedding, Diane’s birthday party, my baby shower. Andrew and my three year anniversary comes up on August 1st. Herbert Feucht, a very distant relative from Germany, will be coming to visit in August.  Despite all the fun we’ll be having this summer, I hope that the next 5 1/2 weeks go by really quickly (and I get everything done!) because this pregnancy is tiring me out and I’ll be so happy when our new little one arrives!

Here are a few pictures of the house. We took a whole bunch today, but since we’re still in the process of moving in, things are still a little messy, so I’m going to be very selective and only show you the least messy rooms. Once we’re truly settled in, we’ll post more pictures of some of the other rooms!!!

Patrick’s room. When Diane took this picture Patrick was taking a nap. He woke up, looked at her, and went back to sleep in his new big boy bed. Patrick’s room is quite large and could easily fit another bed or a bunk bed and a large dresser or two, making it quite suitable to hold 1-2 more children. Right now Patrick is enjoying it as a play room in addition to a place to sleep.

The other half of Patrick’s room, complete with his pack ‘n play, for when he doesn’t want to sleep in the big boy bed. I hope that Patrick will move completely to the big boy bed by the time the baby comes, so we can return the pack ‘n play to Grandma for when she has little visitors! The leapord print curtains, by the way, were left by the previous owner and will eventually be replaced at some point. The ceiling of this room is black, and will be painted white if I have time, and I’d like to add a baseball-themed wall border.

Andrew’s study and the guest bedroom, although lacking in a guest bed. We plan to paint this room a dark green at some point and add a bed as we have the means. For now it contains a filing cabinet and a work station for Andrew. This room has beautiful crown molding, which you unfortunately cannot see from the pictures. Again, the curtains belong to the old owners and will probably be changed out. Right now there are much more important things to worry about than ugly or strange looking curtains. We had originally thought about using this room for Patrick since it was a nice blue color, but since it was the smallest bedroom, it seemed to work better as a study/guest room.

The nursery, all ready for a new baby!

Another view of the nursery. Except for a few paint touchups, filling in old nail holes and hanging pictures, there’s very little that needs to be done to this room. If we ever have any girls, this will someday become the girls’ room and we’ll probably change the wall color at that point. Until we’re done having kids though, we plan to keep the same gender neutral ducky theme and baby blue walls, if the crib set lasts that long!

This is the reading room. The previous owners used it as a dining room, but since we do not own a formal dining set, we found it to be a much more comfortable den/sitting room. My parents gave us the foldout loveseat, which I once used as a bed in high school. We have also placed a Graco bassinet/miniature pack ‘n play in this room for the new baby, so I can have a place for the baby to sleep downstairs during the day. We need to get a small end table for the lamp, which is seen on the coffee table in this picture. At some point down the road it would be fun to add some pretty crown molding to this room, but for now it looks good the way it is!

Yesterday Diane and I went to pick up Chinese food at China Express, and we got an extra fortune cookie for Patrick. Here’s what his fortune was:

“A short stranger will soon come into your life, to your great benefit”.

Pretty funny, huh?

This whole past week has been a crazy time for us. On Friday afternoon, at 3 o’clock, we got the keys for the house! We looked everything over and then had my mom come to help us go over the carpets quickly with a steam cleaner, just to make sure that everything was super clean before we starting bringing over furniture.

On Saturday morning we disassembled furniture, dropped Patrick off with Grandma, sent Diane to the house to wait for our new appliances to be delivered, and finished packing up last minute items. We had three helpers come around 10 AM, and they began to help Andrew load the moving truck. From there on, most of the day was spent loading and unloading the truck, unpacking boxes, and trying to figure out where everything went. The house was a completely chaotic mess by the time the day was over, but at least Andrew and I had our bed put together! We tried to have Patrick sleep in his new big boy bed, but he was very confused and overwhelmed by the changes and began to scream his head off!

On Sunday we went to church. Patrick screamed when we tried to leave him in the nursery, so we ended up having him sit with us in the service. For the first time ever, he seemed to be happy to sit with us through the entire service. After church we went home, took a short nap, and then went over to the Kamke’s house for lunch. The Kamke’s are a family from our church (I went to high school with Brooke and Jon) who have two boys that are 3 and 4 years old. The Bankers, another family with 2 boys and an infant girl, were there, and Patrick had the best time playing with the four other little boys! Later, we went home, took another nap, and went back to church in the evening. Patrick actually went in the nursery for the evening service, and then had fun running around the church while we waited to hear the results of the vote we took after the service for the elder nominees.

Monday through Thursday were all spent unpacking boxes and trying to put things away. We figured out where to put all the furniture, unpacked and put almost everything away (although not very neatly!), cleaned out the old apartment, and figured out many different little odds and ends. It’s been a busy week. Andrew was gone pretty much all of Tuesday through Thursday, so I was fortunate to have Diane help me with everything. By Thursday night we had most of the boxes put away and the house was finally beginning to really look like a home. I still have a massive organizing job to do. Closets and drawers are filled with items that need to be organized. I am slowly lining drawers and shelves in the kitchen and bathrooms. Andrew has been busy getting the computers set up. We have several projects we’d like to do right away, like adding shelves to the desk area in the kitchen and adding a couple more shelves in a niche in the family room. I have found some pretty paint samples, and look forward to slowly painting the kitchen, master bedroom, master bath, kid’s bathroom, and Andrew’s study. I also want to repaint Patrick’s ceiling, which is black, and looks a little dark for a little boy’s room. Most of those projects will have to wait until after the baby is born, although Diane is going to paint the kid’s bathroom in the next few weeks and then decorate it with sea life and coral. That should be fun!

We are so thankful for this house. It’s really beginning to feel like home, and we are so happy to have a little place of our own for once. I can’t wait until we’re fully settled in!