extreme home makeover

doll house edition. a few months ago, the fabulous D'Ortenzo girls gave zella a doll house that they no longer played with. she was so excited! all the way home from their house, i heard the following sentences about 100 times:
mommy, i just love my new doll house!
i can't wait to play with my new doll house!
why did they give me their doll house?
i love it!!!
i love my new doll house! (this one i got over, and over, and over........)
and i think my favorite one happened as we were pulling into our garage after a 45 minute drive home...
we need to visit Olivia more often!!
this house was well loved. and she loved it right away. she played non-stop with this house. we moved it into whatever room we were in. she loved to decorate it. her little ponies and littlest pet shop animals lived in it. she didn't care about the graffiti. in fact, she now knows how to spell Mario.
after Christmas, zella was occupied with all of her new toys. i decided that the house needed a make-over. the previous home owner had decided that they needed a new place and i realized that most of the work was cosmetic. i tried spray painting the house. however, the graffiti was written with crayon, and ball point pen. both bleed through paint, badly. so i went up to Lowe's and was amazed what they sell in a spray paint can! you can get chalkboard pain in a can!! i was loving this isle. i think i gathered more ideas for future projects. back to the house. i picked up 3 cans of spray primer and 3 cans of pink spray paint. the primer worked like a charm. it did take a full day to dry in between coats because it was cold. if it was summer, it would of only taken 10 min. i moved onto the pink. this took a few more days. after we got the paint done. my original plan was to put scrapbook paper down on the floors. but since the floors did not have any kind of a finish on them, the spray primer and paint caused it it curl in some places. i realized that if i just put the paper down on it, it would be bumpy and lumpy. so i realized that i would have to put some kind of a sub-flooring down first, and then the paper. after telling this to charlie b, he said that he would lay down some wood flooring for us. i was so excited when he said this. then we ran into this problem. the floating wall on the 2nd and 3rd floors was going to be difficult to work with. so after some discussion with my flooring contractor, we decided to take out this wall. doing this would take our house from a 5 bedroom house to a 3 large room house.

we weighed the resale value, and knocked down the walls.

here it is after the walls were taken out.

charlie b, my flooring contractor, then proceeded to lay the wood flooring in all 3 levels of the house.

i think it turned out beautiful! my lighting contractor, charlie b, strung some lights throughout the house. i still need to wall paper the walls.

today zella and i will be going to the fabric store. we are going to pick out fabric for our window dressings. i don't know how to make them... yet. if you have any ideas, let me know. i will show more pictures of the house when i have the wall paper is in. wish me luck

jill b

she...

turned 5!!

made us a family, a party of 3.

adds so much joy and happiness in our lives.

is growing up way too fast!! i am so blessed to be her mommy. my life completely changed the day we found out we were pregnant. i can remember that day so clearly. it is not the normal average day that one finds out they are pregnant. our story began 4 years before. those 4 years were long and painful. i felt like my life was on hold. i couldn't see beyond us having a family. we turned to Dr. g. she was amazing, nice and sweet. she cared about us as a family when we were just a party of 2. i was never a number. the office staff always used my name and were always friendly. we had just done our transfer 2 weeks before, and i had one more day to go before i had my first beta, blood test, to see if our ivf cycle had worked. i was laying in bed and i was so curious to find out. i got up and found a pregnancy test deep in my bathroom cabinets. i used it. and watched as the two lines lit up. i couldn't move. i called charlie b and told him. he was silent, followed with "really, no really?" i called the doc. and told them what i had done. i asked if i could come in to get the blood test today, instead of tomorrow. they said come on down... i called Cari, and i think she got to my house in about 5 min. we drove down town without saying much. now i know that a at-home pregnancy test can not have a false positive. so i was so excited, but i had experienced so many negatives that i didn't want to even dream about a positive and all that came with it, until i heard Dr. g. say that my blood test was positive. the blood draw took less than 5 minutes and i gave them my cell phone number to call. they told me that if they didn't call me by 4pm, to call the office. as Cari and i drove home, she asked me how i could be so calm. i told her that i have been at this point so many times, that this was just something that i did. i can't remember what i did to pass the time that afternoon. but about 3:45 i walked across the street to my girlfriends house. since they hadn't called, and it was getting close to 4, i was starting to lose hope. i needed somebody there with me to make that call. charlie b was at work. my mom was at work, my sister and dad were working. Kim was home. so we sat on her couches and stared at my cell til it was 4pm. i looked at her, she smiled and told me i can do it. i called the office and spoke to the girl who makes the apts. when i told her who i was and that i was told to call if i hadn't heard from them. she said"I'm sorry Jill," i jumped in and said "your sorry that i am not pregnant, or that your office didn't call me. and she said "oh, no. I'm sorry that i didn't call you earlier because, sweetheart, you are pregnant!" i looked at Kim without saying anything. and the tears fell down from my eyes. i said "really?" and she reassured me that everything looked great, and my beta numbers were fantastic. i was instructed to come back in 2 days to take another blood test. i got off of the phone, placed it back on the coffee table, and sat there. i turned to look at Kim. she had tears down her face and had the biggest smile on her face. she heard the whole conversation and was so happy for charlie b and me. i said, "i can't move, i am afraid to move." and we started laughing and crying. i then walked across the street to our house and called charlie b. he was so excited! so technically, charlie b was the second person that found out. and by the time charlie b got home, more people knew. my sister was the 3rd person that i told. she was in Michael's, shopping. when i told her, she started screaming!! and i was laughing. i then called my mom at work, and my dad at home. at the same time, charlie told several people and when he got home, we went over to his parents house and told them. when we got home, Jeff and Veronica brought over a dozen of pink roses.

our lives have been forever blessed. our journey to zella was crazy. worth every minute and every pretty penny it took to get her. i can't imagine my life without her. she is the sweetest, funniest little 5 year old that i have ever met. she always has a smile on her face. it is because of her, that i get to be a mommy, and charlie b a daddy. because of her we are a party of 3, a family. i love her so much that it hurts. sometimes i look at pictures of her when she was a baby, and my heart aches. to me, she is the most beautiful little girl i have ever seen. she is so full of life and hope. and she has all of her future to be and do whatever she wants.

i love you so much baby! you make me so proud!

jill b

did you hear that?

this is the first Christmas that zella really gets it. we have had so much fun with her this year. she understands the concept of Santa and is still scared to death of him. we did make it to the mall to wave at him this year. i gave up on making her sit on his lap. she just wasn't having it.
so last night we were at my parents house for Christmas eve. and on the way home we were telling zella that she needs to go to sleep when we get home so that Santa can come to our house. we told her that Santa can only come if she was asleep. so we got ready for bed, brushed teeth and i was tucking her in, going over our bed time rules. go to sleep, stay in your room. the usual. i was telling her that we had a big day on Christmas. we were going over to grandma and grandpa's house, we need to go to... this is when i stopped my sentence suddenly and turned around towards her window, as if something had startled me. i turned slowly around back to her and said,
"did you hear that?" her eyes got really wide and said
"what?"
"I think i heard some jingle bells..."
"what?"
"i think i heard some jingle bells... do you know who has jingle bells?"
"no"
"Santa..."
ok, so now i have her attention, i go back to telling her that she needs to go to sleep... i do it again...
"did you hear that?"
eyes as big as they can get, huge smile
"yes, i think i did mommy..."
i say, "lets go look out the back window to see if we can see Santa..."
we jump out of her bed and run down the hall, through the living room and jump on the couch that faces our backyard. we stick both of our noses on the window and look. i leaned back just a few inches so that i could watch her reflection in the glass. her little eyes were darting back and forth, trying to see something.
"did you hear that?"
"yes, i did!!"
"quick, you have to be asleep for him to come to our house, he is waiting on you!!"
she jumped up off of the couch as fast as she could and ran down the hall, back into her room and jumped back into bed. i was right behind her. she then asked me
"what do the elves do?" and i told her that they make the toys. she said
"no, what do they do in my house?"
"they make sure you are asleep so that Santa can come by..."
she thought about this and then yelled
"i love Christmas!!"
we laughed and i told her to go to sleep now
"did you hear that?"
and she got a huge smile on her face and i said good night and left her room.
i stood in the hallway for a few minutes, my heart was so full of happiness it was about to burst. it was so fun for me to experience the magic of Christmas, the excitement of Christmas with her. and i wondered if my parents had this much fun with my sister and i. i hope so, because it was fun!
or, i guess i should say
it was magical!!
merry Christmas
jill b

i hope you enjoy today like a 4 year old.

bath time antics

i have a girl who loves to take a bath. she is always up for entertaining me while i am watching her. sometimes i will bring in a magazine, or a book to read while she plays in the tub. but i always end up taking pictures of her. she is her silliest when bubbly. the first picture is my favorite. it always makes me laugh.
miss sassy,this smile reminds me of the cheese commercial they run every Christmas season. it starts out with no presents under the Christmas tree. then you see Santa putting packages under the tree. all the while the little girl is watching him work. then in the morning, the little girl's parents come into the living room to see massive presents under the tree. bikes, a car. tons of big ticket items. the dad turns to the mom and says something about Santa really liked the cookies they left for him. and the little girl says no cookies, i left him cheese...
and then smiles just like the smile above.

and this is usually the last smile before she wants to play.

jill b

birthday and christmas cards

so here is our christmas card. i had them printed in black and white. the hats were supposed to look like it is cold here. but i think they still look cute. we ended up taking the photo in our living room. it looked kinda like the one below. i made this photo stand for charlie's birthday, he put it on his desk. it is a book that flips up and has other photos behind it. he loved it.

jill b

better late than never...

I'm talking about Halloween pictures. we even celebrated Halloween 2 days before the actual holiday. so i was early with pictures, just late in posting.
this year, zella was a black kitty. so cute. her first costume was to be aurora, sleeping beauty. she talked about being aurora since last year at Halloween. so a couple of months ago, we found an aurora costume at Costco. so we bought it. she didn't want to try on the costume. so about a week before Halloween, i decided that we should try on the costume to make sure it would fit. i also wanted her to be used to wearing it, which would up the chances of her actually wearing the costume on Halloween. (see last year's post about Halloween). lately, when anyone tells her she looks cute or pretty, she gets really embarrassed and doesn't want to wear that outfit anymore. so i was trying to avoid this on Halloween. so, back to me trying to get her to try on her costume, we talked about it, nothing. i showed it to her. nothing. so, i put it on her. she didn't like this and proceeded to cry. realizing that this same serrano would happen on Halloween, and would make me a bad mommy, i made an executive decision to return the costume. so i did. and we had no costume. i was telling grandma about this and she said that ella, (zella's cousin) was going to be a kitty. i figured we could do that, because, what ever ella does, zella wants to. and it worked. so, long story short, we were a kitty...

the world series was on when we were over and grandma and grandpa's house. it was the Phillie's vs. the Yankees. Matt is a big time Yankee's fan and charlie b wore his Phillie's jersey . both jersey's were worn in actual games played by uncle Tommy Barrett.

and here are the two little kitties. too cute. we had a great Halloween. just a little bit of candy, and a lot of fun. thanks grandma...

how do you say thanks?

i was raised in a patriotic family. we always watched fourth of July celebrations. i always said the pledge to the flag. always took my minutes of silence when thinking about our veterans. and my father never allowed a jane fonda video in our house. i married a patriotic boy. we painted a giant (floor to ceiling) United States flag in our garage after 9/11. my boy loves all airplanes and watches many documentaries on the army, navy, and air force. we both have grandparents that served during war times. with all of that history between us, how do you say thanks to all of the service men and women who sacrifice everything for us to be safe?

a few months after zella was born, my sisters kids (the greatest nieces and nephew ever) came over and stayed the weekend with us. some of our friends asked why would we take on 3 more kids and a new born? because they are the best kids ever! they helped me do the dishes, and fold towels. leah, helped make dinner and they cleaned up after. they played with/held zella for hours upon hours.

during this weekend, we took the kids to the annual Luke-days. this is on the Luke air force base and they open up the base to the public. they have all kinds of air planes and old air planes on display. you can take pictures and go inside some of the planes. there are all kinds of air shows that go on that day. there are soldiers every where and alot of veterans. it is truly amazing.

it was in march of 2005 when we went. and security was extremely high at the base. we waited in line for an hour to get onto the base. there were people every where. there was a little boy behind us, about 5 years old. and the whole time we were in line, he kept asking his mom and dad when he could see his soldiers. they kept telling him, soon. as we got closer to the front of the line, you could start to make sense of the lines and all of the security that we would be soon going through. and the little boy kept asking about his soldiers. we began seeing sings about what would and would not be allowed on the base. after a few of these signs, and closer to the front of the entrance, there were soldiers. all dressed up and looking amazing. standing guard by the security tables. we had been talking to the people around us and had talked with this little boy in line behind us. he was so excited to see his soldiers. as we got closer to them, the little boy broke loose from his mothers hand and ran up to a soldier . the boy ran right up to him, put his little shoes toe to toe with the soldier, stood up as straight as he could, and saluted him. and said in a whisper, "excuse me, soldier. but thank you for protecting my family and my country." the soldier looked down and slowly brought his hand up and saluted the little boy and said "you are most welcomed". he put his hand in his pocket and handed the little boy a flag sticker. patted him on the head. the little boy was so proud and was smiling from ear to ear. he ran back to his mom and began showing everybody around him his sticker.
i had tears falling from my eyes. and i remember being so proud of my country, so proud of my soldiers and so hopeful for our future because of this little boys love of his country.

so how do you say thank you? maybe the answer is passing the love and pride of our country onto the next generation. i pray that our country is full of little boys (and girls) who can't wait to show their love and pride they have for this beautiful country.

happy veterans day to everyone
jill b