Guest Bath Remodel & Easter 2011

The past 2 weeks have been a little crazy around here as we have been remodeling our guest bathroom. Mainly the bathtub, surronding tile, and some of the fixtures in the bathroom. We hired a contractor that Jacob knows pretty well through work and he then had either his people or sub-contractors do the job. This involved the demolition of the bathtub and tile, installing the new tub and fixtures, fixing the drain problem in the foundation, setting up all the plumbing, putting up new sheet rock and backer board, installing the tile, and lastly painting the bathroom. Everything went pretty smoothly for the most part. It was just a bit of a pain having people in our house for about 10 days and having to come and go at certain times. Plus the loud noises scared the girls so we couldn't be in the house when anything loud was going on, which was most of the time. But, we made it and now have a beautiful new bathroom. Yay! The reason we had to do this remodel was because the bathtub was not installed correctly when the house was built (apparently this happens a lot with newer construction), and there was a nasty slow leak underneath the tub that had leaked out into our hallway and the doorframe of the bathroom. Needless to say, we would of rather spent our money on something else much more glamorous (like a new living room set), or fun (like a couple of vacations), but we are finding out that sometimes you just have to bite the bullet being a homeowner and take care of business.

Old bathtub and surronding tile.


Old bathtub with rusted spot. This spot is not actually what was causing the leak, but it sure didn't look too good. It was actually leaking underneath the drain.


Old showerhead.


Old bathtub handle and faucet.


Old sink faucets.


No walls up. Kinda creepy looking!


Tile and sheetrock taken down.


Our new bathtub, yay!!!


Sydney being silly playing on the workers drop cloths.


The girls thought it was SO fun to run up and down the hallway on these cloths!


Tile in process. Looking good...On a sidenote, it took me a long time to pick this tile out. I literally went to the tile store 3 times for a couple of hours each time, with girls in tow, to figure this out. I never knew it would be so hard to pick out tiles, grout color, paint etc. Probably made it just a tad bit harder having a little 1 year old to run after (all over the store the entire time) while trying to make this decision! After finding out that the tile on the floor in the bathroom was discontinued (go figure), I had to pick another one. I could either try to pick something else out that was a close match to the floor tile, but not exactly, or go with something different that contrasted the tile floor. So, I ended up going with a contrast. But, I was able to find 6 of the same floor tiles, in a smaller version, leftover in the garage from when the previous owners tiled the kitchen backsplash. So, I had the tile guy put a few of those in to bring it all together (the tub and the floor). I think it turned out pretty nice.


New showerhead. I love it!


New bathtub handle and faucet. Much nicer!


Our new bathtub and surronding tile with fixtures all complete! So happy about the way it turned out!


New sink faucets. SO happy to get the old nasty ones out of there!!


New towel hook I had put in and new toilet paper holder. Minor things, but I'm still excited about it!


Trying to pick out a paint color for the bathroom, for the 2nd time! So, unfortunately I made a mistake in picking out the paint color for the bathroom. I was really wanting a light/medium brown. But, I picked some sort of pink/peachy brown and hated it! I wasn't home when they were painting so when I got home and saw the entire bathroom in this awful color I had no idea what to do! Should I just leave it and hate it? Or see if they could re-paint it? Luckily the contractor said he could easily re-paint the bathroom for a fraction of the cost. Thank goodness because I was not liking the new bathroom at all and I did not want to feel that way after putting so much time, money and effort into this whole project! Thankfully I did pick the right color for round 2 and now I love it! It's exactly what I had in my mind!


The girls new tub is ready to go with their body washes, shampoos and toys. Yay!


The girls taking a bath in their new bathtub for the first time, woo hoo! They had not bathed in here for 3 months!!


Sydney enjoying her new bathtub.


*EASTER 2011*

Jayda on her way into school for her Easter party on the Thursday before Easter.


We went to Huntsville for Easter weekend to spend time with the grandparents. The girls got to go on 2 Easter egg hunts, dye Easter eggs, ride on their 4 wheelers, eat lots of candy, play with the new baby ducks, and play with their cousins. They had lots of fun over the weekend!

Nana and Pawpaw got the girls 8 baby ducks for Easter to play with. Jayda LOVED them! Especially the "lellow" ones.


Jayda showing Sydney one of the baby ducks. Sydney was not too sure about them at first, but did come around to liking them and even picked one up by it's neck!


Jayda found a golden egg at Oma's house! Yay, she was so excited about this!


Sydney hunting for Easter eggs at Oma and Oupa's house.


Sydney eating some chocolate she found in one of her Easter eggs. She loves candy!


Dying Easter eggs, so fun!


Jayda shaking up one of her eggs.


The girls having a blast on the 4 wheeler at Oma and Oupa's house. This was Sydney's first time to take a ride. Guess she'd watched big sis enough and wanted to give it a try.


Jayda trying on her new shoes from the Easter bunny!


Sydney trying some Peeps that the Easter Bunny left her, yummy!


Daddy pushing Sydney on the swing after church on Easter.


Our little family. Easter 2011.


Me and my sweet girls on Easter sunday.


The girls enjoying some Easter candy outside on their bench.


The cousins, minus 1, all ready to hunt for some Easter eggs at Nana and Pawpaw's house!


During the egg hunt at Nana and Pawpaw's Sydney again found one egg with some candy and was done hunting. She was much more interested in petting Harley than looking for anymore eggs!


Sitting outside watching the ducks swim in their little pool after hunting for eggs.


Sydney loved pointing at the ducks and trying to grab them.


Jayda used her Easter money to get a new bike! She loved it for a few days, but after realzing that her feet can't touch the ground on the new bike and taking a few falls, she's gone back to her little bike for now. Think she just needs to grow about 1/2 an inch and she will be back on it in no time!



*A few extra pics!*

Sydney was having fun playing the drums at the zoo like the big kids.


This is all Jayda wanted to do at the zoo, "walk on the water." Apparently there was a big festival at the zoo the last time her and daddy went and lots of kids were walking out in this water, which isn't even in the zoo. It's just outside of the zoo by the Memorial Hermann park.


Sweet girls being silly in the bathtub.


Sydney thought something was funny!


And this is what I turned around to see at the dinner table the other night. Just lovely Sydney!

Popsicles, Sprinklers & Easter Egg Hunts!

I think the title of this post pretty much says it all! I've taken a bunch of pics this past week so I wanted to put some cute ones up!

The girls playing in mommy's pots and pans, again! This is Sydney's favorite thing to do! She will even take her snacks into the cabinet and eat them in there. And, this morning she put her little pretend coffee pot in the same spot and closed the door. She climbs into any kind of pantry, closet, cabinet, hole that she can find! Apparently she is taking after her mommy because I used to do the same thing when I was little.


Sydney got a popsicle, all by herself, for the first time last week and absolutely loved it! The girls thought it was funny to take bites of each others popsicles.


"Mmmmmmmmmm!"


LOVE this picture of the two of them!


So cute!!


Yummy!


Last weekend we went out to Oma and Oupa's farm in an attempt to get some pictures of the girls in the bluebonnets! Unfortunately we were not successful, but we did still have fun playing with Oma and Oupa!

Oma got the girls new rocking chairs at the farm and they both loved them!


All dressed up for pics in the bluebonnets and checking out the cows outside.


They both love rocking in their new chairs!


Sweet girls sitting with Oma!


We could not find bluebonnets anywhere in Brenham, Chapell Hill or Washington on the Brazos, so we thought we'd try to take some cute pics of the girl up on a hill at the state park. However, the girls were not in the mood to take pictures, at all!


Jayda's expression just says it all. "Huh?"


Sisterly love.


Sydney loved playing in the rocks at the Washington on the Brazos playground.


And Jayda loved the big tall and speedy slide at the park!


More popsicles! I'm sure I am going to have a TON of these pics by the time summer is over...and it hasn't even begun yet, yikes!


Yay for pop-pops, as Sydney would like to call them.


And another pop-pop pic. They're just too cute, I can't resist!


Checking out the flower bed. She loves to do this also!


And then it was time to break out the sprinkler! Can't believe how hot it is already getting and it is only April!!


Yay for water!! Sydney LOVES the water just like her big sissy!


I took these pictures yesterday before we went to pick Jayda up at school. Sydney was having lots of fun playing in her room.


"Cheeeeese Mommy!"


Singing along to her activity table. Sydney loves to sing along with music or whenever someone sings to her. It is the cutest thing!


"I'm stuck Mommy, help!"


"Here's the lotion mommy."


Jayda stuffed her Easter eggs with candy this morning for her playgroup Easter egg hunt. She loved this!


And so did the little munchkin! She just climbed right up, reached in the bag, pulled out a candy and put it right in her little mouth. What a mess!


We had our playgroup Easter party this morning at one of their friends house and they had lots of fun playing, hunting for Easter eggs, and having a yummy lunch! We also took Riley with us to the party today because Michelle was not able to come. So glad we went and the girls had a blast!

The girlies playing in the sandbox. This was lots of fun!


Sydney had to come over and check out what was going on in the sandbox.


Sydney and her little friend Allie were having a little fight over the baby stroller. Sydney has this exact same stroller at home that she pushes everywhere and I'm sure she thought it was hers. I thought it was too funny!


And Allie got it and took off, so hilarious!


Playgroup friends ready to hunt for Easter eggs!


Sydney found an egg while the rest of the group was taking a picture beforehand and opened it up to find candy inside. So, she didn't hunt for anymore eggs, just stood in the same spot the whole time and ate all the candy in that one egg.


Jayda counting how many eggs she had in her basket.


Riley looking around for more Easter eggs!


The girls checking out their loot!


Sydney still standing at the same place eating her candy.