I'll start with the basement. We are thankful that we have not had to hire much outside help so far to finish the basement. Jeremy and his Dad studded it, Jeremy and my Dad ran the electric, Jeremy, my Dad, our friend Raun, and my brother hung the dry wall, and just last week, we hired someone to finish the drywall. Jeremy is downstairs slaving away as I type this, putting primer on the walls. He is desperately trying to at least get the room painted before our little guy arrives. There is still much to do (ceiling, floor, figuring out how to heat/cool), but we are really pleased with they have been able to accomplish so far!
Cora had her first real haircut in January...yes, I'm a bit behind. :) I have cut Cora's bangs numerous times and evened out her hair when she was little, but this was her first professional haircut. For those who aren't around Cora much, she is very shy around people she does not know. She has been known to try and cover her face with her hands or jacket if a cashier talks to her, which is an improvement from the total meltdowns that she has had before. So, the thought of taking her to an unfamiliar place for someone to come after her with scissors was a bit overwhelming for me. We were fortunate that our friend, Kirby Kitchen, was willing to come out to our house to give both Cora and Mommy a trim. I let her trim mine first, hoping it would help Cora feel more comfortable. When it came time for Cora's haircut, she did great!! It helps that she likes Miss Kirby. :) We didn't cut a lot off, just enough to try and even it out a bit.
I am also happy to report that I successfully defended my dissertation on January 20th! I was really nervous about the whole thing. It started with me giving a presentation of my dissertation work, which was supposed to be 45 minutes long. My presentation was closer to an hour which I like to attribute to the fact that I just had so many fascinating findings to share! :) After the presentation, I waited for my committee to converse with each other, and I was then invited back in for a time of Q&A. This was probably the part I was most nervous about. We talked for probably 45 minutes or so, and then I left again for my fate to be determined by the committee. My adviser, Joy, then came to get me and told me I passed! After the years of work and all the stress of the defense, it really was kind of anti-climatic. It was over just like that. It is such a relief to have that behind me, and I am so glad I persevered and finished.
While we were in Lexington for the weekend, we stayed with our good friends, the Waldroup's. Dana was a great babysitter while we were having to do school stuff, and Cora had a blast playing with Joshua! I am ashamed that the only picture I took all weekend long is the one below:
Those two ran around and had so much fun together - it was exhausting just to watch! We were also so glad to get to see several other friends while we were in town visiting. We are grateful to be back home close to our families, but we do miss many of our dear friends.
We also have done a lot of work on the nursery since the new year. We had decided on a theme for the nursery - Carter's Monkey Rockstar. We were able to use a lot of brown pieces from Cora nursery, and then mixed in some of the decor from the monkey rockstar line. Because the monkey stuff matched the already beige walls, we decided not to change the paint color. Instead, I decided it would be fun to have one accent wall painted with stripes. I set out to design the accent wall using windows "paint" to experiment with different color combos etc. The next step was measuring the wall in the nursery to see how long it was, decide how many repetitions to paint, and figure out how wide each stripe needed to be. Finally, I measured on the wall and marked where each stripe began/ended. With the help of my very patient husband and mom, we were able to eventually mark guides for the stripes up the wall and used frog tape to tape off the stripes. I was wise enough to plan to have a beige stripe between each color, so we were able to paint all of the lines after only one tape job. It ended up being a lot more difficult than I had anticipated!
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| Starting on paint after hours of taping :) |
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| Taking off the tape was terrifying, but it did great! |
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| Finished wall |
We were so blessed by our family and friends who bought stuff to help complete the nursery and also to buy us lots of boy clothes, blankets, and towels to help us prepare for Micah's arrival. That will be covered in the next blog entry. :)
Love the nursery! The accent wall looks amazing!
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