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To the Zoo

The baby and I went to the zoo today. Prior to this, if someone asked me about taking an almost-six-week-old to the zoo...I'd reply that it's a stupid idea.

But when my sister-in-law called me this morning to see if I wanted to join her and her two kids (almost three years and almost one year), I jumped on board. I really went to hang out with them, and it just happens that my baby goes everywhere I go. Seriously. I went swimming at my in-laws' the other day and it felt so odd to leave her inside with my mother-in-law for a whopping twenty minutes. :) How am I gonna survive going back to work??!!

Anyways, the weather was quite nice, and I enjoyed watching my niece play and look at the animals.

It will be so fun when my girl is older and we can do fun stuff together (like my sister and her son's Themed Thursdays!). And when she has siblings and they can be best of friends.

However, it's also so lovely that she's so tiny and precious and I love her and could snuggle with just her all day.

Maybe she shouldn't grow up.

When does a SAHM's workday start?

I'm starting my work shift a little late today. :) I mean, I know stay-at-home moms are always on duty, but I feel like I should devote some amount of time to checking things off my to-do list.

This morning I posted a status on my facebook:

on the agenda for today: price our donations for the School of Saint Mary's yard sale, pack for our trip to visit Mary's grandparents and great-grandparents, clean the hall bathroom, address thank you notes to mail Monday, and research diaper sprayers - surely I can find something that'll work that's less than 45 bucks!

Then I promptly went back to sleep. I can't decide if getting too much sleep is making me tired, or if taking care of a newborn is catching up to me. Last night I got into bed a little after midnight. I didn't get up for the day until close to eleven. The baby and I woke up at two, four, six, and eight. Roughly. Each time she went back to sleep quickly after nursing, so that was nice. After the last feeding she was pretty ready to be up for the day (and I say that loosely as she still sleeps a ton!), and I was not. She wasn't happy in the co-sleeper and even though I've fallen asleep with her in my arms in bed, I don't like to. Luckily around 9:15, Mr Oh heard us, and volunteered to move to the recliner with the babe. What a dear.

Anyways, after getting out of bed for the day, I showered, made lunch, ate lunch, and....that's about it. Oh, I also took a mini-nap.

Now it's almost six and time to start crackin' on my list of things to-do!

Should I Merge the Blogs?

I'm considering morphing all my blogs into one.

Currently, I have three. Wait, does my Xanga still count? ;) Or my old, old Xanga with the posts that I privatized? Haha!

1. The Oh House (formerly known as Two Ohs and a Dog, but now Four Ohs and a Dog live here, and it seems like a lot of work and confusion to update the number of Ohs and/or Dogs as life changes). I started this blog because I wanted a house. I was going to record all the things I wanted in that house, to do to that house, to buy for that house. Basically, I was probably just gonna copy links and ideas from ApartmentTherapy.com. And maybe make some mood boards. I thought it was for dreaming. Then we got pretty impatient, and very cramped, and we bought a house a lot quicker than we originally thought.
   
2. The Food Connoissorges. I came up with the name and concept before we were even married. I thought it would be really fun to experiment in the kitchen and write reviews of restaurants. And it is, we just didn't do it much. I'll probably never be a foodie, but I still would like to expand my horizons in the culinary world.
3. My personal finance blog. This one I won't post the name or URL, because, well it's personal. I love reading personal finance blogs. It's the area that I'd most like to gain knowledge. When I first started (back when we were saving for our house) it was a fantastic place for me to post budgets. Oh, budgets, how I love you.
   

If I committed to just one blog, I feel like maybe I'd actually commit to it, you know? I've recently started blogging almost daily, but before it was much more sporadic. I'd like to post regularly, so that I have a record of what's going on.

Which brings me to what would I blog about?

Well, it makes the most sense to me to keep The Oh House going. The title really encompasses a lot more than just home design. I could still post about that kind of stuff, but also throw in any cooking or baking I might like to share, and a little about personal finance. Of course, I wouldn't be super specific about finances, because even though my blog name is Mrs Oh, the few people who read this know who I am.

Which then brings me to, should I stay semi-anonymous? Like I said, people know who I am. But if strangers came across my blog, do I care if they know my first name? Do I care if they see pictures of my kid? Do I care if they know what city I live in? I'm really not sure.

I was about to type "If I stick with this blog, should I keep it on Blogger, or move it to Wordpress, or figure out how to put it on my own domain?"...but I just realized, I am sticking with this blog. I might "re-start" it, but The Oh House wins!

Stuff

We have too much stuff. That's not really surprising, right? I think most people would agree that they have too much stuff if they really thought about it.

Luckily, our parish school is having a yard sale and is requesting donations to be dropped off next weekend. This means we have a deadline and a perfect place to send our stuff!

Stuff that I'd like to get rid of:

-Clothes (currently I share a closet with the baby and a dresser with the husband and we've gotta pare it down)
-Shoes (maybe some other large-footed woman out there will find happiness in my castaways)
-Bags/purses (once I get a new purse, I use it until I get another, I never really go back)
-Empty Photo Albums (I think I put about five in the box)
-Books and DVDs? (still thinking about these...)
and anything else that we won't miss


It was my goal today to go through all of our clothes, but I didn't even really start. I did however, wash four loads of laundry, finish dusting the Expedit bookshelf, help Mr. Oh organize our new kitchen and utilize our new cabinets, and started destroying the guest room closet in an attempt to clean it out.

Speaking of the guest room...I currently like two things about it:

1) A collage of Fresh Ink greeting cards that Mr Oh and I gave to each other during our dating years. (Sorry about the flash on the glass...I have no idea how to turn the flash off on our DSLR.)

2) The bedding.

Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll like a whole lot more of the room and give a full tour.

Series of Baby Photos

I have decided to document our little girl's growth with series of photos.

The first series is her "by the weeks". Since she was born on a Friday, we take her photo each Friday. To keep a consistency with the theme, we put her on a giraffe playmat. Her outfit will change, and the actual location of the playmat may change . We normally take the photo in our entryway because of the natural light, but, for example, on her second Friday we ended up being stuck in the hospital while they started her on some heart medication.


This photo is when she was one week old. We used it for her birth announcement. What a cutie! My plan is to make a photo book after she turns one with just these weekly photos in it.

A second series of photos we started today, is our baby girl "by the months". I love our bedspread and thought it would make a great backdrop for each shot, especially if she was in a plain white onesie. After the 12th photo, I'll make it into a photo collage to frame. Here is our precious little one today, at one month!

And since we'd hate for this fun to end when she turns one, the final series will be "by the years". We haven't decided what will be the consistent prop in the photo, but it has to be something that will be easy, portable, and last for a very long time. We'll probably end up using a stuffed animal. Giraffes are our favorite. She has a giraffe driving a strawberry car that we bought at IKEA when we were pregnant. I like it because it's small and the strawberry has significance to a nickname. We also have a five-foot tall giraffe in the nursery that would be neat to use, but what if we end up being on vacation for her birthday? We wouldn't want to lug it around, and I hope to be as accurate as possible with the timing of the photos. I guess we have another 11 months to decide!

I got the idea for these series from two of my favorite bloggers: John and Sherry at Young House Love. Here's their post on how they take weekly photos of their darling girl.

China Cabinet

We've been married almost two years, and until tonight, our china has resided in the department store boxes it was shipped in. We did pull out a few plates and the serving pieces for Easter this past year, but then back to the boxes they went.

Did you know china cabinets are expensive? Like, seriously expensive. We've done a LOT of furniture shopping in the past year, and even more furniture browsing, and every time, we look at china cabinets, hutches and sideboards. It seems like the ones we both like, that seem to match our dining room table, average about $1500 for new. We also have looked at antique and second-hand stores (where you can find ones in good condition for around $500), but never saw any that we liked too much.

I had occasionally checked Craigslist, but only once had a cabinet piqued our interest. It was an antique wardrobe with crosses carved on the front. The poster said it was made by monks. We were about to inquire about it, but it was fairly expensive, looked a little too large, and would require alteration in the interior to add shelves for dish storage.

Then, the other night, thanks to the Craigstlist app on my iPhone, I found one that I liked priced at $150. Yesterday, after emailing the seller and getting more info (like the fact she lived two blocks from us!), my brother-in-law (henceforth known as Uncle Oh) went with me to check it out. I still liked it, so we negotiated the price to $125, and Mr Oh and Uncle Oh went to pick it up today. The top hutch section wouldn't fit in our SVU, but the woman let them drive it over in her van.

They got it over, cleaned up a bit, and we put our china in it.

I really like the style. I'd call it...mid-century modern meets country? The hardware on the cabinets and drawers is my favorite.

Here's a shot of our china. It's Mikasa's Parchment.

We were going to register for the Parchment Blue, but it wasn't carried locally. It probably is better to have a very neutral palette, but I sure liked that blue.

Favorite Things: IKEA Expedit

Last night, when the baby was sleeping oh-so-nicely, and I couldn't seem to doze off, I made lists of things to blog about it. Unfortunately all of those ideas require photos I haven't taken or time I don't seem to have right now.

But as I was doing a little housecleaning this afternoon and evening, I saw all these things in my house that I love. A tea towel that hangs by my kitchen sink. The painting my brother-in-law created for our dining room. Two vacation photos blown up to poster size that hang in the living room. I thought I could make posts about my favorite things in my house...

The first large piece of furniture I have ever bought was an IKEA Expedit. They are one of the kings of bookcases. Just google image search it and see how versatile the storage options are.

I bought the Expedit before Mr Oh and I were even married, and he was the lucky one who got to live with it until our wedding day. (He also was the unlucky one who assembled it.)

This random old post shows the Expedit in our old place. There it held mostly books and a lot of dust. That is still pretty much its purpose in our current house.

Tonight I dusted about half of the thing. Although, first I dusted its entire little brother, which serves as our TV stand.

As much as I love our big Expedit, I doubt it will move on with us to our next house (whenever that may be). One, it was a pain to move. Once assembled, a lot of people do not recommend disassembling it for moving because it could affect it's stability. Two, as great as it is for storage, I'm not currently a great storager...meaning, it usually holds books that don't get read and picture frames that collect dust. Maybe someday I will use it more...usefully, but if not, I'll be fine with leaving the clutter behind.

The Expedit is one of my favorite things because it was my first big furniture purchase, it's from IKEA (which my husband describes as an amusement park with furniture), and it's tall - like me.

The Finished Kitchen

Well, I had to admit to myself that my kitchen will never be as clean and clutter-free as I'd like for the big unveiling, so after I semi-cleaned up after making dinner and baking cookies tonight, I snapped these pictures.

View from the dining room.

View from the kitchen sink. (We still need to add our hardware to the cabinets.)

Pantry Organization

Well, I should be posting the glorious "after" pictures of our kitchen improvement project, but the area is not quite as photogenic as I'd like it to be right now. :) You can catch a sneak peek at the painted cabinets and the laminate counter in this post, as I proudly show my organized pantry.

Our pantry is not the most attractive or functional closet, but hey, it's a place to put some food. I didn't take a picture of the terror inside the closet before I cleaned it out, but here is all the food piled up on our new countertop. Because our pantry had gotten so full and unorganized, it was easiest to just pull everything out and start from scratch.

When I put everything back in (welll, everything but the couple things that were no longer good...it's so embarrassing when nonperishables perish, right?), I grouped items by category. Top shelf = breakfast goods (cereal, pancake mix, oatmeal, jelly). Also on the little ledge on the top shelf's left side is our drink mixes (cold brew iced tea, Crystal Light knockoffs and Kool Aid). The second shelf has a few small groupings: items that are backup for the fridge (dip, mayo, relish), baking mixes, salad toppings and dressing, and then a nice pile of pudding and Jell-O boxes. The third shelf has all canned goods grouped in order of beans, vegetables, tomatos, soups. There's also ready-to-heat soups and more jars of peanut butter than any house should need at one time.

The last shelf is a little more mish-mash...from left to right: crackers, gnocchi (one of our favorite pastas and a super easy meal), boxed meals (like Hamburger Helper), boxed sides (like scalloped potatoes), broth, bread crumbs, and taco shells. In the middle we have sauces (one marinara and three alfredo, oddly enough) and the basket contains things for baking (food coloring, icing, cupcake liners, and birthday candles).

The very bottom of the closet contains a metal kitchen cart that we've had forever. Previous to this makeover, the bottom of the pantry held lots of useful things like a dish drainer we never use, several bottles of flat soda, piles of plastic bags, and four bottles of margarita mix. Sticking this cart in there was the only way I could get several more food items stored properly. The top pull-out drawer has pastas, the second and biggest has bags of chips, and the bottom drawer hold potatoes and onions. Now, when I say "sticking this cart in there", I really mean "taking the thing apart and reassembling because it wouldn't fit through the door frame". Really, I just had to take off the wooden top and screw it back on once the metal frame was inside. Although, it was more difficult than I thought, and I only put one screw in each corner, when there should be three. The thing's a bit wobby and I'll probably crawl in there someday soon when someone else is around to hold the baby. Or, I guess I could just wait until she's old enough to crawl in there and do it for me! ;)

The base cabinets installed...

An Open Floor Plan

Here are some photos with the wall gone. It was so weird seeing the rooms like this for the first time!

Kitchen Re-do

We have a U-shaped kitchen, and it's pretty tiny. When two adults are in there trying to cook, clean, or just grab a drink, it's hard not to run into one another. Things got especially crowded when you tried to throw in another person* or complete large tasks, like getting ready for a big party.

To help open things up and provide much needed counter and cabinet space, we decided to knock out a wall.

This wall:

This view is from standing with my back to the kitchen sink. To my right is the fridge, to the left is the dishwasher and stove/oven. The door on the right in the picture is to our pantry. It desperately needs a makeover. That is a task for another day.

Another view:

In this shot you can into the dining room. It's the room through the doorframe on the left. Straight ahead, past the fridge, is one entrance into our big living area. It used to be a two-car garage but the previous owners converted it.

Here is the dining room side of the wall. You can see the entrance into the kitchen area on the right. Technically our dining room is the living room (because technically the living room was a garage), and there is another dining spot next to the kitchen. It's a small little table that nestles so nicely next to our bay window.

And there, the last shot of the wall before it is history....

*Speaking of another person...our household has doubled recently! Not only did we welcome our baby girl three weeks ago, but Mr Oh's brother moved in. He'll live with us while he's going to school this year.

Preparing for Mary

Our daughter is due to arrive in about two and a half weeks.

Mr Oh brought up the idea of settling into a routine of family prayer once we have a child. We decided to make a place in our house where we could sit and pray the rosary, both in English and Spanish, once a week.

So, we went to a local Catholic bookstore and bought a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.


We found a corner shelf on sale at another store and set it up in our dining room.

And we ordered some prayer booklets online.


After throwing in some other books we owned, a candle, and some fresh flowers...our little altar is set!

One Year

Skimming over the few posts I've made on this blog, I realized that we have owned our home for one year! Boy, has the time flown.

I clearly have slacked in the blogging department (I also have a food blog and a personal finance blog that have been neglected), but I hope to get in the habit of posting much more frequently.

To start us off again, here is a picture of the room that currently gets most of our attention...




...the nursery! That's right. I'm just three weeks away from our little girl's due date. :)