Before and After Pictures of our house

I am finally getting around to attaching the before and after pictures of our house. We still have a few more projects that we want to do, but here is what we have done so far. You will notice some themes in the previous owner's style and our style...or rather our lack of style :)

Previous owners = bold colors, a lot of personal touches & things hanging on the wall (a benefit of living in the house 30+years) and just a dark house in general (i.e. lack of lighting inside)

Walt & I = light conservative colors, almost NO personal touches or things hanging on the wall...we just haven't gotten around to it yet :), and we have added a lot of lighting because I like it light & bright!

BEFORE > Outside of house

AFTER > Outside of house - we got a new roof, new front door, and painted the house a light green
I don't have a "before" of the stairs, but it used to be all carpet and we took it out. We also painted every wall surface and took out the popcorn on the ceiling. We also replaced the carpet in all of the bedrooms.

BEFORE > "Formal Living Room"

AFTER > Playroom - we took out the carpet and put in hardwood floors (which you can't see because of the floor tiles) and the room had no light before and we put in 6 recessed lights

BEFORE > Guest bathroom

AFTER > Guest bathroom - we took out the shower glass enclosure because it was hard to give the boys a bath and got a new light fixture and mirror.

BEFORE > 1/2 bath

AFTER > 1/2 bath - we took out the wallpaper & got a new mirror

BEFORE > Family Room

AFTER > Family Room - put in recessed lighting...and added a cute baby (aka Dillan in the swing)

BEFORE > Kitchen

AFTER > Kitchen - Walt added the backsplash to the right of the refridgerator to match the rest of the backsplash and we bought a stainless steel refridgerator to match the rest of the appliances. Other than that, we didn't have to do anything.

BEFORE > Dining Room

AFTER > Dining Room - got a new light fixture and put in hardwood floors

BEFORE > breakfast area with door to laundry closet

AFTER > breakfast area - we replaced the rotting sliding glass door with french doors and replaced the light fixture (not pictured)

BEFORE > Laundry closet

AFTER > Laundry room - we utilized an exterior storage room to turn the laundry closet into a laundry room

BEFORE > Master Bedroom

After > Master Bedroom

BEFORE > Master Bath

After > Master Bath - new mirror, new light fixture, new vanity, new tile on floor and in shower, new glass enclosure

BEFORE > Master sitting room / 4th bedroom

AFTER > Master sitting room / 4th bedroom

BEFORE > Jackson's room

AFTER > Jackson's room

BEFORE > Dillan's room

AFTER > Dillan's room

Ok, that is it for now :)

1st day of school, Visitors from Texas, and More...

I am way behind!!! So here goes...

Dillan is now 3 months old, but I never posted his two month old stats. He is still a big boy!!!! Here is his information from his 2 month appointment:

Height: 24 inches (90th percentile)

Weight: 13lbs 6.5oz (90th percentile)

Head: 41.8cm (90th percentile)

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Dillan is a very healthy and happy baby boy!!!!! He smiles a lot and is very patient and content! He has made progress with the sleep training. He does really well at night and does fairly well putting himself to sleep at nap time initially, but then wakes up around 30-40min. So I have been getting him and putting him in his swing and he sleeps another 2 or so hours. Obviously we will have to work on that at a later date, but for the moment we are just going with it :)

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Here was our proof that Dillan was not one of those babies that was ok taking a 30-40min nap. We got him and he fell asleep while Walt was holding him up. See 2nd picture :)

Watching tv with Daddy (i.e. Walt took this pic)
Jackson started a 1 day a week program at our church. He goes on Fridays from 9:00am-1:00pm. This is a picture of him on the first day. He has only gone a couple of times, but the teacher says he has done well.

Here is Dillan on our way to pick up Jackson from his first day!

My boys!

Jackson is always putting on our shoes. I thought this was quite the look!

My friend, Jennifer, came up for a visit. It was so great to see her! Here is a picture of her with Dillan. I tried to get one of her with Jackson, too...but he was on the go :)

Jennifer & I

Walt's parents also came in town b/c Walt's sister, Alex, had a beautiful baby boy! We did not see his parents much because they obviously stayed with Alex to help out. However, they did come over one night with Alex's two older kids. Here is a picture of Addie and Jackson. Jackson LOVES Addie. She is always so sweet to him and plays with him. I wish I had a picture of baby James, but I only saw him briefly and did not have my camera with me. Then Jackson got sick so we haven't seen him again...but soon!!!!

Sweet Dillan

Dillan loves playing on his gym mat

Dillan is always trying to get his hands in his mouth. He will take a pacifier, but usually ends up spitting it out to get his fingers instead.

As I mentioned above, Jackson got sick last week. He started running fever on Tuesday and then developed a cough. Apparently, he has croup so he is on a round of steroids and doing his breathing treatments. He watched A LOT of tv this week! In the picture below, he was watching a show and I went to unload the dishwasher. I came back and found him like this. Sweet baby boy!!!! I guess I can't call him a baby much longer! He is almost 2!!! It goes by so fast!

In addition to a lot of tv, he spent most days in his pajamas and house shoes.

Dillan playing on his gym mat

Dillan rolling over. He started rolling over several weeks ago, but I am just now getting it on video. He can roll over by pushing off with his arms (but that sometimes happens by accident) and by pushing with his legs as seen in the below video...it is very intentional :)

11 weeks

Dillan is 11 weeks old today! I hope everyone is having / had a great Labor Day weekend. Our weekend has consisted of Walt and Jackson making trips to Home Depot and doing projects outside and my weekend has been focused on sleep training with Dillan. I definitely got the short end of the stick! I hate sleep training! I hate having to listen to that sweet baby cry. Thankfully we have seen some progress...earlier than we did with Jackson...so that is good, but Dillan also seems to have issues transitioning between sleep cycles and so he is waking anywhere between 30-45 minutes. He does fairly well going to sleep initially, but getting back to sleep is another story and I am not quite sure how to help him best overcome that. Prayers for wisdom and guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Such a happy boy Our best attempt at a picture of Jackson & Dillan.

Hard at work on one of their projects
Dillan hard at work :)
This picture was taken prior to sleep training. It makes me a little sad that the days of holding him while he sleeps are over :(

Dillan sitting in the bumbo seat

You wouldn't know it from the pictures, but he likes the bumbo :)

Jackson also thought the bumbo chair was fun! Playing on the gym mat

Jackson picked out a balloon at Wal-mart. It was a birthday balloon that had STARS! He loves Stars! Sweet Dillan

He has beautiful blue eyes! I love his grin!

Such a cutie :)

Tummy time! Dillan rolled over a couple of weeks ago (from tummy to back) and has done it several times the last week. So it looks like he may have figured it out!

What the boys are up to...

DILLAN:

* He is a happy boy. He loves interacting with you and will grin at you. He just recently has started "laughing" a little bit. It is so cute! He is ticklish right under his neck. I will try to catch it video.

* As mentioned above, he has rolled over from his tummy to his back. He can also roll from his back to his side.

* He LOVES Jackson. He always smiles when Jackson is talking to him. Of course, he loves his mommy and daddy, too!

JACKSON:

* You know how little children repeat the words that you say back...thinking that is the correct way to say the phrase. Jackson does that a lot and it is super cute. He says, "hold you" (when he wants you to hold him), "hold him" (when he wants to hold Dillan), "with me" (since we have a 2 story house and our play room is downstairs and the bedrooms are upstairs, I quickly discovered that Jackson did not want to be left downstairs in the play room while I put Dillan down for his nap. He would cry and it broke my heart because he didn't understand. So since he is still so young, I will ask him if he wants to stay and play or come with me...he always says "with me". It hurts my heart a little bit. Granted it makes putting Dillan down a little trickier because Jackson also doesn't understand how to be quiet :) But we will all figure it out :)

* Jackson and Dillan were in the playroom and I went to grab something from the kitchen which is right by the playroom and when I came back in the room, Jackson had his hands under Dillan like he was trying to pick him up and he said "stuck"! Thank goodness he was "stuck"!

* Jackson is a great big brother. He is always giving Dillan kisses and asking to hold him. He also tries to give him his pacifier and when he spits up (which is all the time), he will grab the burp cloth and wipe his mouth...both of which we try to discourage, but are also very sweet :)

* Sometime when Dillan spits up, Jackson says "Uh Oh!"

* Jackson is getting better with his colors and know his shapes. We are having fun working on letters and numbers.

Jackson playing baseball

Sweet Dillan

Here is my prayer for today. May Jackson and Dillan one day confess with their mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in their heart that God raised Him from the dead, and be saved (Romans 10:9).