New and Improved...

We moved! Please come and visit!  A Little September Love's new home.

http://alittleseptemberlove.blogspot.com/

See you soon!

Welcome to the World Finley William!

After close to 6 months of blog hiatus we (all three of us!) are back.  We thoroughly enjoyed our little hiatus as we prepared and celebrated the anticipated arrival of baby Finn.   Thank you to all of our family and friends who so graciously showered us with gifts, parties, prayers, dinners and encouragement over the last 9 months.  We are so excited that Finn finally arrived (more on that later) and can't wait for him to meet and spend time with each of you.  The best is yet to be!


So now, with out further adieu...Welcome to the world Finley William Stoks! And thank you to Auntie Ashley for capturing all of our excitement! 

Finley was born at 12:15 AM Christmas morning, weighing 7 pounds 12.5 ounces.  We couldn't be more in love!


Here is the recap of Finn's arrival. Earlier in the week, after a doctor's appointment and a rather frustrating update on the babies progress, my doctor had told me that I'd probably be waiting until after Christmas to welcome my little gift.  So after a few tears of impatience I decided that I would try and enjoy the last few days of being pregnant. Which I did.  I broke a few "bedrest" rules and made Christmas cookies, wrapped gifts, took Oliver for a couple walks around the block and even did a little swimming (I was pretending to be at peace with the waiting, but I figured a little activity might get things moving :) ) No such luck!  


Which brings us to Christmas eve morning.  Barrett and I have a little tradition of celebrating Christmas by making breakfast, opening our stockings and lounging around watching Christmas movies the morning of Christmas eve before the full-blown festivities begin, so that's just what we did.  We slept in, slowly got up (believe me I was getting real slow rolling out of bed), thoroughly enjoyed some homemade carmel rolls and started a Christmas movie.  I took a little nap in the middle of the movie and about halfway through the movie I got up from the couch for a minute....hmmm that doesn't feel normal!  Could my water have broken?  To be honest, I wasn't sure.  So after a quick check with Auntie Kris (my very own pregnancy expert! THANK YOU!) We decided we should probably pack our bags and head to the hospital.  It was very anticlimactic, no rushing around or racing to the hospital, I even showered so that I'd be photo ready when Finn arrived.  Yes...I'm so vain!  


We got the hospital and got all checked in around 1PM, the nurse confirmed that my water had actually broken and the babe was on his way.  So we called Auntie Ashley and she notified the fam!  It was really fun and super exciting!  

After some walking and about 5 hours of labor I decided that it was time for an epidural.  I had the most wonderful nurse who made sure everything was working perfectly!  So perfectly that when the first epidural didn't work she assertively called the doctor back and insisted that he try again.  Whewwww relief!  

From there things progressed just perfectly, literally, by.the.book. And after about an hour and a half of pushing and encouragement from the two best cheerleaders in the world (THANK YOU AUNTIE ASH, and the SWEETEST HUSBAND EVER!)  Finley William Stoks made his grand entrance, on his due date! Words cannot begin to describe how perfect and sweet he is and I love him and Barrett more and more each day.  I am so blessed and cannot imagine life any differently!  I am so lucky!

We have been loving our new little family, Auntie Ashley snapped the following pictures of sweet Finn at 6 days old.  We hope you love the pictures as much as we do!

 I know, I probably shouldn't let my puppy kiss the baby but I couldn't resist the photo opp!

 And Vogue!

 Love my boys!

Finally!

Finally!  Yay the moment you've all been waiting for the remodel is almost finished...just two bedrooms to go.  In the meantime, here is the update.  We even have a couple new additions and we're not just talking new paint colors.  Let the grand tour begin!

Here is our remodeled kitchen, so much more open than before.  A reminder of what updated.  First, we removed a large section of counter top/cabinet space to facilitate more movement and flow in the room.  We contemplated adding a little butcher block stand in the middle like this:
But decided to hold off for now, we like the openness of the kitchen as is.  Then we...
1. Touched up a repainted cabinets
2. Added new counter tops throughout
3. Ditched that BEAUTIFUL NASTY white linoleum/white carpet (who does that... seriously and in a kitchen of all places)
4. Repainted (LOVE) the color!
5. Added our shiny, new appliances.  Thank you wedding guest for the $$$ and Craigslist for the deal!

Here is a view of our rearranged space.

Remember the refrigerator, stove and microwave occupied this space before.  It was a little cramped, so we relocated the refrigerator and added a section of prep space and cabinets to store our dishes.  We also removed some doors off the cabinets above to create a book shelf.  My collection of cookbooks is growing!

Next up the dining room.  We continued with the new wood floors throughout the entire first floor, with the exception of the bedrooms.  We also added new base boards and painted any existing trim white.  The biggest change in this area...can you find what's missing?  That's right we removed an the useless closet on the end of the fireplace, and who knew that would make such a difference.  It totally changed the shape of flow of the room! One of the best ideas of the whole project!  Here is what else we did in this space:

1. Painted the fireplace (Woooof! No small feat, about 30 coats later, I think Barrett finally had it finished)

2. Removed the yucky white carpet again, and added beautiful wood floors.  Oliver is still figuring the traction part out!

3. Painted all the trim and added new baseboard.  Including our enormous bay window.

4. In an effort to prevent the neighbors from witnessing my morning peep show, when I cruise in a towel from the bathroom to our bedroom, we also added some blinds! THANK GOODNESS! That was getting to be a tricky stealth move!

Next up, another favorite part, probably because my super sweet and amazingly talented husband made it....ta dah! Our new banister!!! SOOOOOOOOOOO much better than that rod iron thing we had.  Which we somehow managed to ditch via Craigslist after Barrett showcased his stellar marketing ability by advertising it as a great garden piece for trellis to crawl! Ha! We literally had about 5 people wanting to buy it within the first 30 seconds of posting! I'm just thankful it found a new home!

When this area was completed with new paint, banister and floors there was one thing that needed to be improved.  We had a very large and blank wall, so we decided to do a little picture project.  We collected  our favorite pictures, new and old, cards, notes, paintings, invitations, old plane tickets and made a photo collage of all the things we love and have special meaning to us.  Watch as the wall continues into the next room as well.  We LOVE it!

The bathroom update.  First, removed the blue curtains, shower curtain and striped wallpaper.  Up next, 

paint the cabinets and the walls and add a pretty tile back splash! Isn't Barrett amazing? I hope he can continue the back splash skills in the kitchen in the future.  We also switched out the hardware on the cabinets as well as the fixtures and lined around the top of the shower with the same mosaic tile.  

Much improved!

Onto the living room! Here we go with the guessing game again, can you decide what's missing?  Well there are a few things, but the most drastic change came from removing/filling in the door that used to be at the end of the room.  We figured we didn't really need two entrances into our porch, so we filled one in and just like the closet, it completely changed the entire shape of the room.  Who knew?  Again, we added new white baseboards, and flooring, scored a fabulous rug THANK YOU IKEA!, painted the walls, removed the track lighting, painted the fireplace and using my favorite craft tool (Spray paint) updated the fireplace faceplate, swapped our upstairs furniture with our downstairs furniture and added a really pretty mantel, that again, my handy husband made!  One thing left...we are hoping to find a picture of the Flatirons to blow up and transfer to a canvas for the back wall, which is looking pretty boring and dying for a little piece of Boulder.  Let us know if you'd like to share!

The photo wall continues!

So that's all for the additions in terms of the house...well for now anyway, we have a few things left, including finishing the bedrooms and re-carpeting the stairs, but pretty good for a couple of months. We were busy which is probably why I neglected to updated for such a long time.  We also added a few new family members.

MEET STAN!

He is the latest edition to the Stoks' household.  Supposedly he is a Papillon Poodle, but we're not so sure.  Other than his ears, nothing on him looks to be Papillon or Poodle, especially his hairdo, which at this point looks more homeless than designer little bread.  But we love him nonetheless.  And he's absolutely hilarious and SUPER FEISTY! I think Oliver is finally forgiving us for bringing him home, that, or he's just hopeful we'll return him soon!

And last but definitely not least...BABY STOKS!  Yep, that's right, we didn't believe it at first either.  But it's official, Baby Stoks will make HER (I'm hoping...way too much testosterone in this house) sometime around Christmas.  Until then, it looks like there is no rest for the weary as our bedroom remodel looks like it will now be a nursery remodel.  Prayers for continued health and growth are always appreciated.  She can't wait to meet her Aunties and Uncles and Cousins in California and Colorado soon! 

Baby Stoks-10 weeks! Arms and Legs and 2 hemispheres of
the brain! YAY!  

Day...there have been to many to keep track of! We're making progress!

Some people are blessed with more patience than others...me not so lucky.  Barrett, very lucky! As mentioned before, I am, lets just say getting quite antsy for the dust to depart from our life and to begin my favorite part of remodeling... decorating and unpacking all of our things that have been hidden away in our junk bedroom for the last month and a half.  With my impatience creeping in and a whole week of spring break free to finish up I got a little excited and a bit over zealous and oops, I accidentally painted the ceiling a bit.  Not much, but Barrett, being blessed with the patience "gladly" retraced my less than meticulous painting performance.  It looks beautiful.  Here are a few pictures to update on the progress. Enjoy!

We read a few blogs before trying this one on our own.  All of the blogs said that by the time you finish you'll be doing the happy dance because the brink is painted!  My dancing shoes are ready! 

 Are you guys done yet?

 Goodbye yellow kitchen!

 Unpacking...

Take note of that fireplace, hopefully the next update will include a finished/painted fireplace, 

and a snap shot of our dance moves!

 New banister and painted trim! Yes!

 Happy halfway! One side to go!