HOME! SWEEET! HOME!!!

We made it FINALLY! The kids and I (accompanied by my parents) finally got to go home. Curmudgeon too, though he'd been in Kansas for a while, still hadn't been able to live in our house until we came just 2 weeks ago.
Major renovation has been going on since we closed and just as soon as the place was liveable we moved right in. The basement/foundation had to be completely shored up, all the wiring redone, various and sundry other things throughout the entire house. Almost all of it happened before we arrived and now we've got major projects to look forward for the next several years. I've got a few pictures here to show what's been going on since we arrived.
With all the rewiring every single room has big plaster spots all over so we'll end up repainting everywhere but have only tackled the living room so far.

It may be hard to tell because the angles are so different, but the living room used to be a fairly neutral fawny brown. It was actually a pretty nice color, but I felt it made the room feel too dark so we chose a light blue to brighten the place and give it a bit more air. Eventually--one of those long-term projects--I plan to do a William Morris-esque stencil in an opalescent paint over the blue...but that'll probably be a long time coming.

My dad was able to stay with us for a week so I put him to work. He built a sandbox for Happy in the back yard, fixed our uncloseable front door, and built these beautiful shelves for the living room. We ran out of time, lumber and paint so we weren't able to finish them, but he's planning a trip back soon so I'll post new pictures when they are all finished.

Do keep in mind that we just moved in, so boxes are still everywhere and we're still living in a bit of a mess, but things are looking better everyday. I kept getting requests for photos so I figured I could't wait until the house looked perfect or you'd never get to see any of it!

I'm pretty excited about the new floor in the bathroom. Obviously we need to repaint (the workers repainted the trim around the window and medicine cabinet but didn't bother to use tape anywhere so we've got these white halos around the trim in every room. Looks pretty bad right now, but the floor is great!

As for the rest of life, we're SO happy to be back with Curmudgeon. The kids and I had a great summer with my parents and seeing so much of my family, but it was really hard to be separated. Chubbles is walking all over the place now and has eight teeth (half of them just popped out in the last two days!) Happy finally speaks English--no more nonsense syllables for him. It's words all the way now and it's been so great to see him learn and process things then talk about them. 

All for now and happy to be back to normal life.