Like a Watched Pot Belly (and Kitchen Update)

Guess what!  I'm not in labor.  I've been "practicing" a lot.  I'm not sure who to blame - me or the baby - but there was a lot of practice contractions all night long.  I promised a kitchen update earlier, but decided to use the time to have a little more fun with my girls before my "lying in" time.

• Since I was not in labor on Monday, I did a ton of house-cleaning & had/helped girls clean the playroom. That night I was up at 1:00 a.m. scrubbing the bathroom floor.
• Since I was not in labor on Tuesday, I decided to bake Christmas cookies.  That night we took some to our neighbors & sang a few carols (well one carol - Jingle Bells - several times)
• Since I was not in labor on Wednesday, I decided to make a meal plan and go grocery shopping. That night I completed an embroidery project for the baby's quilt.
• Since I'm not in labor today, we are headed to the zoo and museum.

But before I leave, I wanted to show several pictures of the kitchen renovation. 

When we bought the house, there was approximately 17 inches of counter space to the right of the stove. Most of this whole kitchen renovation has been to expand counter and storage while still having a small eat-in area.

Orientation: The stove is still in the same place. The refrigerator was moved to the opposite wall.

New counter tops. By the way, we didn't purchase laminate counter tops, Pete purchased the thin board and then cut and glued and routed, leveled and basically created counter tops.  I'm pretty impressed.

This photo was taken this past weekend.  Oh and you might want to check back with the oldest photos to get the full feel of the transformation of the kitchen.
Last Christmas it looked like this.

 Because of the age of the house, there is a huge likelihood of lead paint.  In addition to completing the counter tops, Pete chiseled the old "what color is this?" ceramic tile off the back splash so I could paint.  Then he smoothed the uneven places and damaged spots with putty, then sanded it down evenly.  To protect me, the girls and the baby, he rigged up some major plastic sheeting.  I reminds me of a scene from ET.

I was allowed to come take a peek at the progress...with the proper safety equipment of course.  :-)

Ta-da!  We'll be changing out the hardware and freshing the white on the cabinets.  And not to forget - the cork floor - yay!

Still quite a project - Pete is building a new cabinet for over the fridge and there are some floor evenness issues that have to be resolved before the cork can go in.  And the old cabinets that are seen here on the bottom right - Pete will be making new door faces so that all of them will match the original kitchen.

Hope to have some baby news soon!

Love, Carra