Basement transformation

This is what our basement looked like:

We've lived in our house 18 months, and it's bothered me from Day 1.  But, since it was the playroom for the kids it wasn't our highest priority in fixing, so it's taken a while (and some convincing on my part to finally have the hubby agree that it was worth changing!) to give it a little makeover.  Nothing crazy, and we wanted to keep it to under $100.  So the carpet has to stay, but it's amazing what paint and a little time can do!!!  Here's the transformation:

Summer 2012

An amazing summer is coming to a close.  We've visited (and been visited by) lots of family, went on our first beach vacation as a family of 4, and had some great downtime at home to relax (well, as much as you can relax with an infant and a toddler who hasn't taken naps in forever)!  

May 2012 - Drove to DC to visit some of our old friends, as well as your Aunt Doris, Uncle Ray, and Uncle Doug.  Then us girls boarded a plane and took Juliet's first plane ride to Providence to visit your Aunt Amber, Uncle Chris, and their 2 dogs Zoey and Huxley (Dad had to go back to work so he drove home from DC). 

June 2012 - Grandma and Grandpa came for 2 weeks to visit and you spent lots of time with your cousins too!  We celebrated Dad's birthday, Nana's birthday, and attended a good dozen playdates with our friends.

July 2012- We went to Red, White, and Boom for the first time and Poppy got us fantastic seating at COSI for the fireworks.  You girls both loved the fireworks and enjoyed staying up late.  Towards the end of the month we celebrated Aunt Jamie's and Alex's birthday before leaving for our first beach vacation as a family of 4!  It was a great vacation week with Nana, Poppy, and Aunt Amber too!  It was the same place I went almost every summer since I was born, so it was very special for me to take you girls.

I can only hope the fall turns out to be as incredible!

Oh where do we begin!  Our last blog started with the birth of our first child Leah and continued through her 2nd month of life.

She's now almost 4 and has been joined by Juliet, who's almost 1.  I thought it might be about time to give blogging another go...

Now let me just say, I have zero illusions that there's anyone out there other than my parents who care enough to read my ramblings (Hey Mom! Hey Dad!), but this blog will one day be a gift to my kids.  More likely it will be something I'll make them read years from now as I lay on the guilt about how I did this for them so that they'd remember all the fun things we did, great places we went, yadda yadda.  (I'm Catholic - we can do guilt!)   So I guess place to start is with this summer - the summer of 2012.