the paint fairy

The paint fairy has been very busy over the last week or so. Picking out paint colors, trimming, rolling, etc. and I'm happy to report that the front rooms are primed and ready for paint! I know this is not very exciting to anyone except me ... and as far as the identity of the paint fairy ... well lets just say she only works during nap time and that she looks a lot like me :)

I never thought I'd be excited about brown paint, but I'm excited about the neutral tan-ish/khaki color that we are using in the front room. One of the pictures I uploaded has a small swatch of it, but it's probably hard to tell. The front rooms (entry, living, hall) didn't NEED to be painted, but I WANTED to paint them and it was a perfect opportunity - floors are being replaced in a few weeks so no need to cover the floor and all the baseboards had to come out for the floor installation so trim time was cut in more than half! We are going to do a darker green accent wall, but haven't officially decided the color. I'm hoping that will be an easier decision once the other walls are painted.

Last night the new doorway was supposed to go in, but the guys found a minor problem -- the gas line to the fireplace runs right across the spot where we want the door! So, they are working on a solution to that, but did cut out the sheet rock so we can at least see where the door will be soon.

I added a few pictures to the remodel album from last night and my painting and today:

From Home Remodel Fall 2009

And while I'm thinking of it, here's a few cute stories about our big girl:

• My mom called 2 nights ago and told us to take J out to look at the moon. It was a full moon and really low in the sky ... beautiful. Well, J LOVED the moon and would have stayed out there all night if we'd have let her. We went outside about 7 times to see the moon, and when we'd come inside she'd repeat "moon" over and over again and look intently at us (making sure to make eye contact - this is key) and say "moon" ... how can you refuse that?!?! Last night we looked at the moon again. She took her My Little Pony outside with us to see the moon and held her up so she could see it :) She knows that the moon sleeps during the day so when we were outside this morning she told me "moon ... and then made a snoring sound".
  
• Words are becoming more and more clear and it's amazing to see the connections she makes between things and what she remembers. Yesterday we were playing outside and I couldn't figure out what she was saying. She kept pointing to our neighbors house and saying something that sounded like juice ... turns out she was saying "joe" - our neighbors name! Then after her nap yesterday, I had made a barrier of chairs to the entry way to keep her away from the wet paint. We discussed that there were 3 chairs in a row ... well 10 minutes later I find her sitting on one of the chairs happy as can be and she points to the chair and says "chair" very clearly. This morning as we were making our way through the messy garage she pointed to a gallon of paint and said "Dan" a couple of times. We went to the paint store with my sister (who she calls Dan) yesterday so I said "Yes, we went to the paint store with Aunt Dan yesterday and got some paint didn't we?" To which she responded "sssssssss" which is yes in J speak!
• She got one of those color/shape sorters from grandma a few weeks ago (with pegs for different shapes, each shape has a different number of blocks that go on it) and has mastered it. She knows which peg to put the different blocks on (by matching the colors) and if she starts to put a block on the wrong peg she says "nooooooo" and takes it off and puts it immediately on the right one! Basically she's a genius - a really sweet and adorable genius!