then it was my bday!

i'm beyond ancient now. let's not talk about it. we did however get to go to california to celebrate and it just so happened that my cousin tara's wedding was the same weekend. so we stopped by.

she looked great and her husband looked so happy! he's been in the family for years and now it's official. he is welcome to the christmas gift card game this year.

it took about 150 hours after the ceremony for the party to start. we got a little restless in the cocktail holding room and after addie pulled my grandma's wiglet off, we knew it was time to head outside.

amber got some pretty serious nagging about not wearing navy.

finally the party got started and addie got the best dinner! her chicken strips and fruit looked delish. just look at how much she's enjoying them...

i'm surprised she wasn't hugging everyone after every bite.

my grandma was high on painkillers and we're pretty sure she swiped someone's champaign, but she was having a great time until her arm hurt too much and she had to leave. she was the life of the table though!

my mom was all about making dreams come true as usual so we got to go to cafe rio for my bday! it was awesome. and i saw several bloggers i stalk there, so that was awkward.

david needed a haircut.

we're still impressed that tyler finished a 3 lb pinto bean only burrito in 1/2 an hour. he loved it.

they loved it.

and andie was rocking the biggest hair i've ever seen on her.

this reminds me of my college days. i miss cafe rio 4-5 times a week.

then we went to carlsbad for a few hours. it was so fun, too bad it was so cold and no one got tan.

pool hotties.

then we headed to extraordinary desserts for some breakfast. (we're still not sure why mom was so into breakfasts the whole weekend)

beats bagels and eggs any day of the week.

i really wanted to get a pic with the new baby and david1 and laura, but seeing as the baby is days old, they didn't make it. maybe this christmas? i'm working on my collection of this picture as well as christmas stairs pics. it's going to be great.

tyler always has a bf over there. especially when they heat up his invented chocolate decadence dessert.

$40 dollars a day. yum-o.

we were working on getting her to smile with her eyes open. it's not working.

cool baby!!

my mom and i also worked on our antique mercury glass ornament garland for christmas, they are going to look amazing, visited with grandmas, shopped, celebrated babies birthdays, met the newest addition to the hansfield fam and hardly slept at all. i can't wait until our next trip home.

the visit that would never end...

andie and my mom came to visit us a few weeks ago and while my mom only had to deal with the hottest and most humid weekend of the year (i'm not kidding--all of the plants that we bought died within 5 hours of being outside) andie had to be witness to the craziest storm we've experienced here. but before all of that drams, we had some fun times.

my mom loved shopping day. we even went to a coldwater creek to keep her in a yesful mood. however, she hated milwaukee's anthro. and i do to, especially after the 2010 knob fiasco.

mom basically flew in, took us out to eat, got us some housewarming goodies and took off. leaving andie with us for another week.

we took her to eat a lot and watch a lot of shows, some super lame (leap year... wtf?) and some great (inception... i swear we saw this opening day, i'm not jumping on the bandwagon facebookers!)

2nd fav pic of the trip. you have no idea how awkward it was to get this shot.

she ordered an appeteaser taller than her, i think they should have given her a sombrero to wear because she is probably the only person to ever have ordered this. andie vs. food.

pizzeria piccola. it's like pizzeria 712 only good. and less annoying.

1st favorite pic of the trip. every time i see this picture i die.

then there was storm and the city water backed up into our basement causing a few thousand dollars worth of damage and lost property and ruined andie and david's thursday.

we took andie to cheesecake for her farewell dinner because it was pouring rain and we wouldn't be able to make it downtown with all of the roads being flooded. we also got some of the most uncomfortable pedi's of our lives during the storm. yikes.

then my mom told us andie's flight was on one day, when it definitely wasn't. so dinner was on her. we love takara--at least this time no one was complaining about bones in their filets.

so we had andie check in at the airport and check her bags, then we took her back with us for some fun because her flight was delayed a few hours. we finally dropped her off at 11 and around 2am she was on her way. a few hours later my new niece was born and she's adorable and we love her. and she sleeps a lot.

we've been busy...

we bought a house... and it was a disaster! so we've pretty much been working on it everyday since memorial day, give or take a few weeks of vacay.

this is a lovely glass block window that led from the dining room to the kitchen. that definitely had to go. notice the mirror pieces framing it.

this is the color the previous owner decided to paint every possible door, window frame, baseboard, cabinet, you name it! i think he just loved home-depot as much as we do.

this is a grainy shot of the bathroom. trust me, you don't want to see anything more than 2 megapixels worth of that. notice the saloon door that leads into the shower area.

here is the nasty sink. i wouldn't even wash my hands in it.

sick kitchen.
so basically the previous owner hadn't dusted or cleaned anything in 45 years and he must have lived with a sasquach--that is the only logical explanation for the amount of hair that was in this place.

about 100 consecutive days spent at home depot and/or lowes, here's a little taste of what things look like now and it's definitely not finished.

this is the kitchen... or a few views of it.

as always, dishes in the sink.

this is just a close up of the backsplash for those of you readers who have not visited.

this is the dining room now. those cabinets do have doors, however they are in the basement at the moment.

view from the front door, the living room.

other view.

hallway. duh.

bathroom

it's still a work in progress. in fact, i am trying to get the bedrooms finished this week. should be a challenge.

anyways, come visit! it's not a disaster zone anymore. i promise we won't make you work either. (sorry andie for having to scrape grout off of the bathroom floor for a week. you're next visit will be much more luxurious)