Bunk beds, Ikea and beach fun

I haven't updated much because things have slowed down a little, and at the same time, it hasn't.

As far as updates go, we haven't bought much as we now need to focus on getting our first mortgage payment ready. Oh joy!

Thanks to Mom's money though, we have been able to buy a bunk bed for the boys. We went to Ikea today to pick it out--it was a lot of fun! I haven't been to Ikea maybe 5 years or even longer, so it was a treat to go. We dropped the kids off at Grandma's and me and Dennis were able to look around stress-free. It doesn't happen very often when we can go shopping without the kids!

I also picked out a really fun utensil holder for the kitchen. I can't find a picture of it online, so I'll just have to show you once it's assembled. That's one thing about Ikea--nothing is assembled!

The bunk bed is very simple with no cute little add-ons that bunk beds have these days. By "add-ons", I'm talking built in dressers, slides or stairs. I mean, it's cute, but really--what has happened to just simply bunk beds? All those add-ons drive the price up so much. It's also the reason why we couldn't buy one off of Craigs List; apparently people like those add-ons and now they're trying to sell their bunk beds that cost them a fortune for only a small fortune. So that's why we just went to Ikea to buy one. Dennis will be assembling it later so I'll get a picture for the next blog post. Now that it's finally here, the boys are so excited to sleep in their bunk bed!

I finished painting the living room this week, and I have to admit, I'm getting a little tired of painting! But now that it's finished, the living room looks so much better. I suppose it looks a bit on the bland side, after all those bright and contrasting colors, but once we get the new floor in, the walls and floor will compliment each other nicely, I think.

Before

After

Oh yes, the floors. We are still waiting for our phone call of when it will finally be installed. I have given up on waiting every day, as it is pointless. I guess the way it works is that once you pay, the order the materials and once the material ship in, they call with a date to put in the floors. Still, it's been a week of waiting so I might give them a phone call today just to check the status.

Dennis has been doing a lot of yard work and I wish I had a "before and after" picture to show you of the good work he's done. The patio that is under our balcony was a complete mess with garbage, dirt, weeds and dog poop and I didn't even want to be near it, which is why there's no "before" picture. But now it's completely clean, including all the weeds! We can now plant some plants under there and possibly make it into a 3 season porch. It will look really nice (in a year or two.)

Our next plan is to trim some of the branches off of the trees in our backyard. I know that doesn't sound like much, but if you saw our backyard and all the huge trees in it, you would see why this is a relief to us. The trees around here are so big and tall that at this time, we can't chop them down because of the cost it would take to haul such big trees away. What with all the shade, the lawn never dries out from all the rain and so it has been literally a muddy swamp since we moved in. Max is very drawn to the mud and even though we have told him a hundred times to stay out of it, he is always attracted to it, and covered from head to toe every day. You don't know how many clothes and shoes have been ruined by this mud; I have even bought the kids flip-flops to save the shoes. I will be very happy once those trees branches are cut and we can dry out this yard hopefully for good.

Last, I convinced Dennis to take a morning off of yard work so we could go to the beach. It turned out to be cold (of course!) whereas it's been pretty hot for a while. But the kids still had fun. The beach here is small, like everything is small around here, but it's a pretty nice beach. We bought a season pass so we better be going a lot this summer.

Next week is the 4th of July. How we're going to celebrate it while staying on a strict budget is still up in the air but we are going to celebrate it somehow. All work and no play means a very boring summer which make for very crabby kids!

I will post the bunk bed once it gets up!