Kira's birthday and this old house!

As many of you know, I really have anxiety about hosting parties at my house. But Kira shouldn't be penalized for my inadequacies so I decided I needed to march forward and host a party for Kira's 2nd birthday. We invited local family and it really was packed in our small house, but it turned out to be better than I anticipated. I have noticed a pattern over the years, it seems a lot of the things I worry about never happen. :)

 I made chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes for Kira's birthday. I thought cupcakes would be a better idea for a 2 year old than cake. Kira almost never eats at parties anyway...she is usually too focused on people to be distracted with eating! What a social butterfly she is!

 Oh boy! Antshillvania II!!!

 This girl has WAY too many stuffed animals!

 Curious George! :)

She even got a Curious George Costume to wear for halloween this year, she liked wearing the hat most of all!

 Special Elmo chair!

she also got a little table and chairs to read her books, color and play with her puzzles.

 We continue to work away at the bottom floor of the house. Recently, with the help of dear-old-dad we replaced two of the 5 windows downstairs. Unfortunately, Tom will have to replace some of the drywall because there was termite activity (inactive now) that caused damage to the wood so they will have to be replaced with new ones when we get to this room.

 This is the window in my "coupon room." There are two rooms downstairs that we intend on finishing to be living space.

 This is a pic of what will stay the "unfinished" side of the basement. Tom ripped out the original beat up workbench and built this in it's place. I must say, he did a great job and I like that he is so particular when it comes to his projects on the house because it means that he will finish a job well!

 It finally warmed up enough for me to finish painting the final 1/3 of the floor. Definitely was worthwhile, since it cleaned it up in there and gives it a more uniform look.

This is the other side of the "unfinished" side. Tom ripped off the old pegboard, I scrubbed down the old mold on the 2x4 beams with bleach and then it was ready to have sheetrock put up. He finished spackling, then I painted it white. We also hung pegboard on the back wall. The pegboard will hold all our beach gear. We will be installing shelving on the newly sheet rocked wall to amplify our storage space.