sick day, er...week

Well, our 2017 is off to a bit of a second rate start. Not awful, just not first rate.

First, Wells got sick. My happy little guy was just not quite himself and when daycare called to tell me he was "just so sad" I knew something was up. Turns out he had a double ear infection. Ick! Thankfully his course of antibiotics have worked wonders on him and he's back to normal again.

A few days after that call from daycare, Elia started coughing like crazy one night. The next night, it was worse and barky so I suspected croup. I took her to the doctor the next morning and they thought it was just a bad cold. We hunkered down for a sick day from school with lots of snuggles and rest time. Three full days of fever later, we were back at the doctor and it turns out she has pneumonia. Oof.

springtime vibes

The past few days have been gorgeous around these parts, I'm talking 50+ degrees on Friday, blue skies all weekend, and sun shining brightly. We are so used to long, grey, winters here in West Michigan and it is so energizing and refreshing to have a string of sunny days to break up the gloom many of us feel by February.

We spent more time outside in the last three days than we have in months, enjoying a walk around Reed's Lake, sunny Saturday errands, and a trip to the playground on Sunday. It. Was. Awesome. 

kitchen renovation

If you follow me on my private Instagram account, you may have seen this picture:

That's right, we are in the midst of a major kitchen renovation (squeal!) and I am so excited to see the end result.

When we moved in, our kitchen looked like this:

Cute enough but it had some real quirks. Most notably, the peninsula made it impossible to open our refrigerator door fully. That's right, I haven't opened my fridge door the whole way in four years.

basement update: part one

Since we've moved in, our basement has been one of my least favorite parts of the house.  It's cold, it has weird carpet, and it's dark.  Since about five minutes after moving in, we've been talking about painting the basement white to make it brighter and more welcoming.

Here are the "before" shots of our basement.  They were actually taken before we lived here but we inherited a bunch of the previous owners' furniture and so it was in a very similar state until a week ago.

Two and a half years later, I present to you...our newly painted white basement!

Pardon the crappy iPhone pictures and clutter, I'm too excited to retake them with a real camera.

My dad spent the better part of the weekend paint the walls and ceiling of our basement and I couldn't be more grateful.  There are still things we'd like to update in the basement, like adding some color and replacing that weird carpet and the cheap vinyl floors, but I think that the painting is the highest impact element of the basement update and it has made such a huge difference already.

Elia has really been enjoying her updated place space and I've spent more time in our basement in the last week than I had in the last six months combined.

We are so excited that we will be able to use this space throughout the winter and add I can't wait to add in more personal touches.  Stay tuned for more updates!