Christmas is in the Mail

So, you remember that we bought Brandon a TV and stand for Christmas? Well, our DVD player decided to stop working the day before Thanksgiving. Nice.

So on the evening of Thanksgiving, we ordered a new player on Costco. It's a blu-ray player that has a lot of cool perks to it and it was $20 off. Shipping was under $5. To save us from having to go to the store and pick it up, the $5 was well spent.

Last night, it was my turn to purchase my Christmas present. Since I decided to give my little sister my Canon Rebel xs for Christmas (at her request), I upgraded to a Canon 60D. I bought just the body since I have the nifty fifty that I got as a birthday present and it's compatible.

Since I'll be giving my sister the stock lens that came with my Rebel and I'm not thinking the lens is worth $150 to buy separate, I decided to get a lens that is better than the Canon stock but also compatible with the camera. I picked the Tamron 18-270mm.

Then we decided to finally figure out what to give Cole for Christmas. We knew that we wanted developmentally friendly toys, as we're trying to push away from media influenced or electronic toys. Initially, we thought to buy him a postman outfit so he could deliver letters (encouraging writing).

But we settled on a vet kit and a vet outfit from Lakeshore Learning.

Finally, I wanted to get him some interesting new books. He loves books and cannot get enough about animals. I decided to go classic with some of my favorite childhood books. We got him these four by Ruth Heller.

How to Hide a Crocodile (& other reptiles)

How to Hide an Octopus (& other sea creatures)

How to Hide a Butterfly (& other insects)

How to Hide a Meadow Frog (& other amphibians)

The last book we got was related to American Indians. The history and culture of how they lived over various tribes. Cole is American Indian through Brandon and we've really wanted to start teaching about that diversity.

The Very First Americans

I'm undecided on if we'll be doing a stocking for Cole at our house. My mother always over-stuffs and is planning a stocking for the grandchildren already. I'm thinking we'll skip it this year.

For my side of the family, there was a drawing. I got my sister, Crystal. I had it on good authority that she has been coveting these shelves.

I bought her one of them (mostly because they have to be shipped and to buy two, I was looking at $18 in shipping alone!). I'm sure she's going to be thrilled.

On Brandon's side of the family, I drew his father. His father is into all things fishing and I'm going to keep my eyes out for something related that he doesn't have and would enjoy.

We have to get gifts for the kids under 18 on both sides of the family. We also visit my Aunt's house on my Dad's side and there are three children there.

For my 10 year old cousin, we got Mars Sand. It doesn't get wet and makes sculptures under water. Very cool!
For my 6 year old cousin, we got some Littlest Pet Shop Lambs (they raise sheep).
For my 17 year old cousin, we're going to gift him with cash. As a teen, there was nothing I loved more than getting cash to buy what I wanted.

For Brandon's side:
Niece #1: A disney princess outfit for the princesses she got for her birthday.
Niece #2: An ice dragon webkinz (she's a collector and let it spill on black friday dinner that she wants this one very badly to marry her boy webkinz dragon).
Nephew: A lego-style Transformer kit

My side:
Nephew: We heard he's very into spy things. I bought him a pen that has invisible ink for writing secret messages. He has a special light attached to the pen to read his message.

Finally: My Parents. They're getting family photos with all of their children done professionally. And with that, I conclude our Christmas shopping. One present to go!

Winter Photos

So, we're planning some more family photos with Trizza! I'm always so excited to put together ideas for the photos and my absolute favorite part is reviewing the photos a couple weeks after.

We want snow pictures and there is so many inspiration shots by doing a simple google search for family winter portraits.

My mother wants us to go casual with black, navy blue, and gray so we pop against the snow. I haven't decided for certain what my outfit will be, but I do have a few select pieces in mind already.

I own this dress:

I own this jacket:

I'm thinking leggings in a gray with some sort of pattern that doesn't look too wild for the classic look of the peacoat. I'm loving the sweater style leggings/tights.

Also, a possible scarf and some gloves. I'm loving this scarf:

I'm not sure if I'd pair my new black, short boots with this ensemble or if this will even be my ensemble. We shall see!

I really should start planning the boys' outfits.

New TV Stand

So, I've really slacked on posting updated pictures! School is kicking my butt as it's wrapping up in the last month. That means a whole bunch of quizzes, exams, and final presentations or projects. I'm ready for the month break over the holidays certainly!

You can see the TV update here, or scroll down two posts.

And, here's some pictures of the pretty final product.

I'm quite pleased with how everything turned out. I think the stand is beautiful! I think the TV looks great on it.

(Excuse the mess of cords to the left -- the desk and its' contents are constantly being moved about)
Now to find something decorative to put on those open front shelves. Hmm.

Repairing Water Damage to the Wall - Living Room Update

So on my big list of to do's to the living room, we included repairing the water damage to our living room wall. Here's the backstory:

We told our landlord that there was leaking from our AC unit into our house. It would go about twenty minute and have a steady drip straight onto our outlet! Not very safe. Frightening, actually. It was summer and it was in the 100's and it was out of the question to ignore our AC unit. Brandon thought it was tilted forward rather than backward and that's why water was coming downhill to us. The landlord said he just installed the unit and that couldn't be it.

His solution: Put a towel under the unit so the water will be forced out the backside outside. Well, okay.

It worked! We ran it for hours and had no visible or audio of water dripping. Hurray! But it was unsightly. The next morning when we came out to our living room, we saw this:


Yeah. The water had been forced into our wall, underneath the paint forming a huge pocket of water. The landlord was e-mailed pictures of the damage and he told us to break open the water sac, let it air dry out and we could repaint later.

Brandon has been painting with his father for close to 10 years now. He did not think this was a good solution. With the landlord's permission and our promise to pay if we further damaged the place, Brandon and his dad agreed to fix this themselves.

With his father, they broke the caulking on the frame around the unit, unscrewed it and re tilted the unit. Not a lick of leaking since. It was a tilt issue.

After breaking the water bubble and letting it air dry, a few things were apparent: we would have to cut off the excess paint that was now dried out and warped beyond saving. We would also have to re-mud the wall since the water damaged down to the sheet rock. In addition to re-mud, we'd need to re-texture the damaged area, prime it and finally paint over it.

Well, on this past Sunday, I told B it was past time to fix that ugly wall. His father came over with his painting tools and they got to work.

On Sunday, they:

- cut off the warped paint portion

- mixed up wall mud and applied it to the gaping hole (it was probably 6" x 24")

- sprayed new texture over the dried mud

On Monday, Brandon:
- applied primer to the new texture
- applied the first coat of paint

Today (Tuesday), Brandon:
- finished touching up the paint

And we have a beautiful looking wall. The photo appears shiny because I took a picture with the wet touch-up paint just applied. After drying, it will look like the rest of the wall.

You can't tell that there was ever a hole in the wall.

Still to-do:

- Re-caulk the frame around the AC unit
- Putty in screw holes (at landlord's request)
- Repaint the frame

I think this looks a heck of a lot nicer than the landlord's suggestion of cut it off and paint over the hole. Uhm, yeah.

TV Update - Living Room

Remember a while back when I mentioned wanting to update our current TV stand in all of its' dullness? You can see that here.

Well, that is no longer a case here! Brandon's Christmas present this year is a flatscreen TV. He's been wanting one for a very long time and we planned to get one on sale for Black Friday. Well, Costco has a great deal that my Dad recently took advantage of and has really enjoyed so today we decided to make the jump a little early. He's getting a 55" LCD HDTV. To say he's excited is a bit of an understatement.

But a new TV means a new stand necessary. I spent the better part of a hour or so online looking at Ikea, Target, even Walmart for a stand that met my criteria (or close to) at a price that wouldn't rival that of our TV. I finally resorted to google and found a website, tvstands.com. They offered wood furniture in color tones I'm looking for with a huge assortment with free shipping. The price ranges are quite reasonable compared to the other places I was looking to shop.

My criteria:

- Cabinets (I want to "hide" our xbox, cable box, and DVD players)
- Open shelving for some decorations
- Black or very dark finish
- Must have some height
- Any hardware must be silver
- Must be at least 60" for dead table space on either side of TV
- Price must be below $300, preferably less than $270

I ended up settling on this:

I can handle the tinted cabinets over just clearly see-through ones. I love the space for storage and for electronics. I think this TV will fit into our house quite nicely. Now, if I can just talk the boy into refinishing my other furniture to match!

Now, we have a 55" TV sitting on the floor of our living room while we wait on a stand to arrive.

I'll post pictures whenever we get around to assembling our new stand and settling our living room again.