Branding, Bathtubs, and Bundt Cakes

Not necessarily in that order.

Today, Mary and Tom came over to hang for a bit and help with a few household handy items.  You should all know by now that Tom, aka "Gangsta Tom" is handy with EVERYTHING, so when our light in our basement stopped working, and it wasn't due to a bulb, we knew who we needed to call.

Tom helped Brian fix that light and install an extra one in our otherwise pretty dark basement.  We are now chock full of light down in the depths of our house which will totally make the basement less threatening and laundry more enjoyable now that I can see what I am doing.  #nomoreredsandwhites

Tom also helped us re-caulk our bathtub for the third time.  The first time lasted about 2 years, and then it started cracking.  The second time started cracking the very next day after Tom and Brian caulked...  We're hoping this go round holds up a bit longer.  Time will tell.

Speaking of Tom, since he has created many-a-masterpieces around the ole homestead, we got him a brander for Christmas.  It has his initials - T.M.E. - so that whenever he puts his handiwork together to create something spectacular he will be able to initial it.  I mean, Tom built our floating shelves, our bathroom shelf, our picture frame, and most recently a doll house for Kate, just to name a few, so while he was here we were able to see the brander in action.  It was awesome!

He heated the brander on the stove top.

Then pressed it on the bottom of the dollhouse.

It smelled like a campfire in our house and it turned out so well!

Since we were having [wonderful] company over and since I had just gotten a new bundt pan for Christmas, Kate and I decided today would be a great day to try out our very first bundt cake.  We made a lemon bundt cake and topped it with a delicious glaze and it turned out amazingly!  I am so excited to experiment more with this pan and hone in on my prowess as a bundt cake baker!

Little Miss with our first bundt cake!

Last but certainly not least, was tub time.  Because our bathtub had just been re-caulked, we decided against bath time in our tub and opted for an unusual bathing of the girls in the infant tub at the kitchen sink.  This worked out pretty well with Maya, she's still small enough to fit in the tub kinda, but Kate and I made a mess... Each time I poured water on her it spilled over the edges!

We were both cracking up and I was even able to throw in some slap-stick fake slipping humor in.  Kate was dying of laughter!  It was the cutest!  Girlfriend is all about slap-stick these days!  If ever you find Kate in a poor mood, just pretend to fall or bump something and she's falling over laughing and asking you to do it again.  I humor myself with these antics just to hear that sweet girls laughter.  It makes my heart smile every.single.time.

We also got to play with the ladel!

So that was our Saturday, in a nutshell...er, in a blogpost, I suppose.  The very best of the branding, bathtub event, and bundt cake trial!  All successes, more or less!

Little Sister's Room

Since we've found out that we are indeed expecting another little girlie, we have decided to use the same bedding and accessories that we used in Kate's nursery to decorate Little Sister's room.  I love decorating and coming up with themes and ideas and art projects and crafts to adorn walls, especially for my newest little lady, but being that my time has still been quite limited and we have all of this perfectly useful bedding and very cute decor, we decided to stick with all the same schtuff.  We'll put a spin on it for sure, but pink, green, orange, and jungle will be the name of the game still!  

If you missed Kate's nursery, you can view it here.

A couple weeks ago, we started clearing out our spare room and picking out paint colors.

Three options.

This little cutie was all monkey this morning, jumping
in the crib.  And of course had so much to say!

Light pink, middle pink, or peach-y.

We decided to go all girl and all in and selected the middle pink color! Ironically, it's a paint color called 'Sweetheart'!  Fitting, wouldn't you say!?  Kate was also a big fan of this selection, so it made our decision easy.

We've also decided to add wainscoting around the bottom part of the walls around the room.  Fortunately, Gangsta Tom has done this before and so generously offered up his handy services to help us out with this endeavor!  We just started working on it this past weekend, and we are super excited to see the end result!

BEFORE: General chaos.  Our house looks like we are losing a game
of Jumanji.  Period.

Gangsta Tom starts to remove the baseboard.

This guy is GOOD!

In no time flat, the baseboard was non-existent!

And his wifey, Mary, helped with clean-up.  These
two are a dynamic duo, I tell ya!

No home project is complete without a little bashing
of the thumb...

Or a spin around the house on our Unicorn that we
have named "Rainbow".  (Jack, you are a very good
puppy dog to enlighten us with our games.)

AFTER: No baseboard!

AFTER: Semi-put together...there is light at the end of the tunnel,
albeit dim.

AFTER: And a quick view out of the window!

We've got some plans for a little vacation soon and then we're going to hit the room decorating/general organizing of the ole' homestead hard in preparation for Sister Bear.  Stay tuned and we will keep you posted with our progress!

What an exciting time!