Kids leave me speechless

Last week we babysat our neices, Jentrie (5), Avree (3), and Whitney (7mos). My sister, Kenna, was telling me that Jentrie and Avree are excited for the arrival of baby Mitchell. They keep talking about him and naming items after him. When we were babysitting, Avree kept looking at my stomach and then me, and then asking me to "do this" and then she would lift up her shirt-- obviously expecting me to do the same. After several requests, I finally gave in, and I showed her my pregnant belly. This is where prepositions count-- she was completely expecting to see a baby on my belly rather than in my belly. She had the most quizzical look for a minute as she kept looking between my eyes and my belly. Finally, she says, "where's baby Mitchell?" I laughed because I knew that's what she was thinking, and I said, "he's inside of my tummy."

Another second or two passes as she tries to comprehend, and then says, "do you need special glasses to see him?" Can you say, C-U-T-E? As the night passed and she realized that she wasn't going to see baby Mitchell, she kept asking me to "open it - open it - open it!" I don't really know what she wanted me to open, but I informed her he's sleeping and he'll be coming in August.

You got owned!

The past several months since we got married, Todd and I have poured every extra penny we have into paying off the car early. After months of hard work and sacrifice, that joyous day was today! I purchased the car in 2006, and now it's paid off more than two years early! Yahoo! Many thanks to Todd for teaching me that you can make more than just the minimum payment. :)

Project: Refinish

This last month, Todd and I, mostly Todd, have been busy refinishing some furniture that our friends gave us for free when we got married. We've been turning cheap, really beat-up bookshelf and dresser into a not-so-beat-up but still cheap furniture that we will use for our baby boy. For those not familiar with the process of refinishing-- stripping, sanding, staining, and laquering are a few of the steps. An added bonus for us has been replacing the dresser drawer bottoms because the previous ones had gooey stuff all over them.

Another added bonus for us is replacing the formica laminate dresser top. The dresser top is not real wood and so we can't just stain it and call it good. We have to remove the old top and order a new top from Lowe's. We ordered one but it was the wrong color. Currently, we're still in the process of removing the old top. It's very difficult to remove formica laminate! Any tips?
We've been working on this furniture on our small balcony. It's worked out well, except the acoustics of our apartment complex are such that the disk sander was loud enough to make some people pretty upset with us- and even one was brave enough to come and tell us to stop using the disk sander.

It's been a fun, educational, time-consuming, more expensive than we planned for, experience. I find myself looking at wood furniture in a new way- thinking, "that would look nice refinished." I will post more pictures when our "project: refinished" is actually finished.

Well, it's not just the furniture that we need to "refinish" - our second bedroom needs desperate attention and preparation to make it ready for our baby. Our baby is going to share his room with the food storage and other storage. We've organized this second bedroom a few times over the past 10 months, but it inevitably gets unorganized. You know how it goes.