house projects

A couple of months ago we formed a "co-op work group of sorts" with some of our friends. Each month we go to one person's house and spend a Saturday working on whatever project they have for us (painting has been a popular one thus far). The couple provides breakfast and lunch for all of us worker bees and then we get as much done as we can that day. The next month we rotate to the next person's house, etc. (It's a great idea and we highly suggest you form your own work co-op!!) August was our month (well, really, July was our month, but it just so happened that we weren't home for a single Saturday in July!! So, we postponed until August!) Our projects were:
1. Putting the recently stained and finished cabinet doors on in our kitchen, along with the hardware.
2. Changing out some light fixtures in the kitchen (this had to be delayed due to some problems that were found when the old light fixtures were taken down!!)
3. Painting our entry way, hallway and living room in "Classic Taupe" (from Behr).
4. Painting our master bedroom and bath in "Valley Mist" (from Behr).
5. If we had time we were going to move on to our current office, but what will be Lily's new room when baby #2 arrives...but we ran out of time, so that project (painting it purple) will have to wait until a later date!!
All in all, we got a ton of work done and we are really happy with the results!! We still haven't found time to start hanging up our picture frames and decor, but it will come, eventually! Here are our before and after pics from that day:

We love the Strands!

For our last destination in Arizona, we stopped in Surprise for a visit with some of our favorite people, Scott, Beth, Kylie and Torie Strand. The Strands used to live in Santa Maria, in fact, Scott was our youth pastor when we were in high school. They moved out to Surprise about 3 1/2 years ago to start a church, now called Adventure Community Church. We have been able to visit them a few times in Surprise now and we usually spend a good portion of our drive home talking about how great they are. Lily loved hanging out with the girls (she wasn't so sure about Scott until the day we left, when he finally got a kiss!) and I am pretty sure they loved her!

next up: Gilbert, Arizona!

So after our first stop in Tucson, we headed north to Gilbert, Arizona to visit our wonderful friends, Frankie & Diana Miguel. They have a beautiful new little daughter, Della, who we got to meet for the first time. (Consequently, Lily also started calling Della, "lella", I guess that's the sign if she really likes a baby!!) Our great friend Jeanette also flew into Phoenix with her son Haakon while we were there, so it was a big party at the Miguel house! Jeanette, Diana and I were all roomies in college and it had been a while since we all got together. We had a great week, full of babies and memories. It was crazy hot while we were there, so we didn't take the little ones out much further than the pool most days, but one morning we did venture out to the Phoenix zoo. We only stayed for a couple of hours (we were sweatin'...a lot!)but it was Lily's first trip to the zoo and she really enjoyed it. Her and Steve went into an exhibit where they could get up close and personal with the giraffes. Lily even started to say "ahh ahh ahh" when she saw the monkeys! Too cute...

vacation in tucson

At the end of July/early part of August we headed out on our first "long" road trip with Lily. We first drove to Tucson to visit with my parents. Lauren, Denny and little Dennis also met us there and we had our very own Fitzgerald family reunion =) It was so fun to watch the little cousins play and interact. Lily even started calling Dennis "nenny"...it was awesome! We had a few days of ultimate relaxation, hanging out in a wonderfully air conditioned house, then out to the pool at our leisure. We loved every minute of it.

future photographer

Lily LOVES to play with our camera. Thank goodness for digital cameras and the fact that we can let her take as many pictures as she wants and just erase all of the pictures that are pure white because she held the camera about a centimeter from her nose!!! Here is one of Lily's best self-portraits so far, I think it really displays the joy that she has when playing with the camera!!

A Quilt For Baby

I just wanted to let you guys know about a new place for you to go to find a cute quilt for your baby or baby shower gift! My mom has started up a website selling beautiful baby quilts that she designs and customizes especially for you...you may even see Lily and her quilt on there if you look hard enough! So check it out and give my mom some business:

http://aquiltforbaby.etsy.com