A short trip to KL

Here are some pics Mike took on his recent trip to Kuala Lumpur.

His meetings were at the Hilton KL. One of his daily activities after work was hitting up the water slide with a few of his coworkers.

Here is the view from his room.

On Saturday he went to the Batu Caves--a Hindu sacred place with lots of shrines. To get there you have to climb up 272 stairs.





Mike: "Goodbye KL, see you soon."

Visit to Baltimore

Here are some fun pics from Eric and Courtney's trip to Baltimore.


Andrew and Eric are buddies. There is no other way to explain it. Ever since he was a month old, he would stare at Eric's face for hours.

Andrew and Courtney also are buddies. Their relationship grew even stronger when she let him help bathe Maggie (which shows how patient Courtney really is).

This was our first time meeting Maggie. She is such an awesome dog--well behaved and so well trained (Good job Courtney! I would say good job to Eric too, except he has been working 100 hour weeks lately, so I figure Courtney must be doing most of the heavy lifting).

One afternoon we met Mike for lunch in Fell's Point. We went to BOP (Brick Oven Pizza)--interesting restaurant name since "bop" is also the word Andrew uses for grapes and kiss (and about five other words). Please note how Andrew is actually turning toward the camera in the photo which is pretty remarkable.

In the rest of the pictures Andrew was doing this (below).

Check out our handsome high-rollers below. I think the brain power represented in this picture could light the city of Baltimore for a month.

After BOP (not the grapes or kiss kind of bop) we made the pilgrimage to Pitango. Mike was so excited for me to try the Cardamom gelato, and was quite disappointed when I declared that the dark chocolate was still my favorite.

One of my favorite Fell's Point landmarks (although we've never eaten here):

When the weekend rolled around we headed to Mt. Vernon. We have a season pass (though this was only the second time we've gone).

We spent most of the time searching for the animals to show Andrew and we finally found them around the side by the gardens. We got to watch the sheep being sheared. I think we took more pics of Mt. Vernon but they must be on E&C's camera.

Thanks for visiting E&C!

Fun shower for Abby

We had a fun shower for Abby last month (I am just now finally posting the pictures). Abby actually is a month ahead of me preggers and as of last week she just had her baby. It is her second boy!

Abby's first shower when she was preggers with Jackson was such a bummer (we didn't know her then) so we got together to have a real baby shower for her with all the dumb and silly baby shower games (including the smell the candy bar smooshed in the diaper game--her request).

Congrats Abby!

More on Andrew & the Szmurlo's visit

So I was going to do a post on the Szmurlo's visit but I just checked their blog and Courtney has done the most wonderful job covering the visit on several (4 or 5) posts! She has all these pics and videos of Andrew and Maggie and it is pure heaven to read. It makes me feel like I should do posts in such great detail! Check it out http://theszmurlos.blogspot.com/

5K

This weekend I am proud to report that I did a 5k. I'm on the left in the pink. I was worried I wouldn't make it being 8 months pregnant but I did. I walked as fast as I could--which wasn't very fast--and at the very end I ran with Darcy to the finish line. Mike missed all the festivities since he was in Asia but he is back now and I will post pics soon.

KL

Mike is in KL this week. For those of you who have no idea what KL means (like me), KL is short for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

KL is where his company's Asia HQ is located. When we were skyping today I asked him what it was like, and he says the weather is a lot like Hawaii. He promised to take pictures.

Andrew at 18 months

Lucky for us, Eric and Courtney came out to visit! We were so darn excited because we not only have not seen our Chicago friends for almost a whole year, but also because we hadn't yet seen their new dog, Maggie. I will post more pictures of our adventures together once I get all the pics downloaded. In the mean time, here are some pics Eric and Courtney snagged of Andrew throughout the week.

Congratulations to Kate & Alex

Mike's adorable sister Kate got married this past weekend.

It took about ten people behind the camera to get Andrew to smile like that (above). The rest of the time he looked like this (below). I am pretty sure that was due to the jet lag and lack of proper nap.

Here are the Featherstone girls (minus Kate).

I let Emmie hold my red purse and she thought she was so grown up. She is so cute.

Here we are taking professional pictures before the reception.

Here are Kate and Alex cutting the cake and a few more snapshots from the reception.

As the reception wore on Emmie and Andrew (cousins) did their best to entertain themselves.

They were constantly trying to join the string quartet.

Andrew loved to run around the tables so someone constantly had to chase him. When he got tired of that game, Andrew found his own little fort under the table.

Here is a Featherstone (Mike's brother Scott) and a Smith (Alex's sister) gathering up all the gifts at the end of the night.

And last but not least, I loved how Emmie was so excited to hold the bouquet of flowers. It was a fun day. I wish I had more pics of Kate and Alex so I can't wait to see the professional pictures!

Better After

Our latest project was a new dresser for Andrew. We really wanted this Land of Nod dresser (of course only $799).


We looked for weeks (maybe months) to find something more a bit more financially manageable through both Craigslist postings and Goodwill stores. Finally last Saturday--as we were beginning to give up hope--we found this tall pine dresser for $35 at Goodwill. We were lucky enough to be standing right there when they brought it out and said "we'll take it!" Our fabulous friend Summer was kind enough to drive out and help us transport it home.

BEFORE

We decided the dresser would look best in a light gray blue. We opted for spray paint (as opposed to brush painting), so we could finish it in one day. We found Rust-oleum's "Slate Blue" spray paint at Home Depot. We used the same brand's gray primer to prep. Below is a pic of Mike spraying the dresser on the grass in the back of our condos--we have no yard or garage of our own.

DURING

After painting, the dresser needed a bit of work. First, if you notice the clamp on the bottom left, there was a split in the wood that Mike glued back on with Gorilla Glue. Second, the dresser was a little wobbly, so we bought a new piece of 1/2 inch plywood and screwed it onto the back (that wasn't cheap--$18 at Home Depot--but it was worth it to maintain the structural integrity). Lastly, we were also trying to decide whether to keep the wood dresser knobs or find new ones.

We left the dresser to air out in our room for a few days so it didn't pollute Andrew's room with paint fumes (it takes a few days).

Today we finally changed the knobs and added it to Andrew's room (see below). It is such an improvement from his previous dresser. He was using a broken one from Kmart that Mike had from his bachelor days.

AFTER

The pictures from my iPhone aren't fabulous, but the blue color is actually really cool in person. We are happy to finally be finished with Andrew's room--until the next baby comes!

Before and After

My good friend Katie is great at updating old furniture. Mike and I have decided to replace our old flimsy Ikea stuff with solid, good quality furniture that will last, however we don't have a big budget to work with.
Katie showed me some fun blogs (Better After and All Things Thrifty ) which give tons of good ideas and tutorials on how to update your furniture on a budget. Katie also helped me realize that my very first project should be something small and more manageable.

Mike & I have been using Ikea tables as nightstands for almost four years now, so I figured nightstands would be a good place to start. I found the above nightstands at Goodwill for $6 each.

BEFORE

First I primed them (no sanding needed according to this tutorial). The trick here is to prime them with a tinted gray since I was planning on painting them a darker color.
Second I painted them. I painted them a dark brown/black that I found in the Martha Stewart paint collection. The first coat was still too brown, so I took the paint back to Home Depot and they darkened with more black it for free.

AFTER

I went through several sets of drawer pulls (I was looking for ring pulls which are hard to find--first I ordered some online but they were the wrong color, then I went to a specialty hardware store but those weren't quite right either). I finally gave up on the ring pull idea and ended up with these ovals for $3 at Home Depot.

Voila! New nightstands.