Home Improvement - Tims Edition

After nine months with a "for sale by owner" sign in the yard, we finally broke down and met with a realtor. She quickly told us what we already knew... it's a total rip-off. The buyer ends up paying more because the seller has to raise their price to cover realtor fees. But that's exactly what we're going to do... raise our price. Sounds crazy to raise the price when we haven't been able to sell it for the lower price that we're asking... but we'll see.

Anyway, in light of the higher price, we decided to do a few home improvement projects in the hopes of selling it quickly for top dollar. So, we spent this weekend installing wood (laminate) floors and I have to say that I'm totally impressed with our "professional" job. And we didn't even argue while doing it... now that's really impressive.

Not too shabby, huh?

I've also been wanting to paint our front door for a while now. It's been looking pretty weathered. After painting it, we realize how terrible the handle looked so we had to replace that. One thing leads to another. I'm really pleased with it though... makes the front porch look much better. Now I just have to put some flowers out (that I'm sure I'll eventually kill) and people will be lining up to buy.

Chris is replacing the vinyl floor in the guest bathroom with tile and that should be the end of our projects for now. Why didn't we do all this earlier? It was super cheap since we did it ourselves and now I won't even get to enjoy it long (hopefully)!

He's as Crazy as He Looks

Okay, so this picture has nothing to do with this post... but it is pretty stinkin' funny, isn't it? We have Aunt Amber to thank for this one.

So... I went to get the kids up this morning and I heard Tucker yelling "Mommy... Daddy" as I approached their room. As I got closer, I realized that someone was banging on the door trying to get out. Of course, I was totally confused because they still sleep in cribs and I couldn't imagine who might be trying to get out of their room. Yep, it was him... our little monkey, Tucker. Books were thrown about, Reese's hair bows everywhere, and he was just standing there smiling... like he'd really accomplished something. Please, oh please, let this be a one-time event. I'm totally not ready for toddler beds.

Don't Do This at Home

I have to preface this with "I do the dishes, keep a pretty clean house, and don't generally hide things in the oven." But desperate times, call for desperate measures...

I preheated the oven for what I wish I could say was this gourmet meal or something. But unfortunately, it was for bagel bites. What can I say? I'm a junk food junkie.

Anyway, after about 5 minutes, smoke started billowing out of the kitchen. I immediately knew what happened. You see, yesterday we had someone call and want to come look at the house unexpectedly. In true mom fashion, I stashed the cake pan and plastic lid (that housed some cupcakes that I finished off earlier), the muffin pan from breakfast, and an empty Tupperware container that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher into the oven. I knew the home buyers wouldn't look there.

Yep, you guessed it. I totally forgot they were in there when I pre-heated the oven. The Tupperware container and the cake-pan lid totally melted all over my oven. We had to evacuate the house due to the horrible nostril-burning fumes created by the melting plastic.

Here are my poor air bake pans... ruined by the 40 year old melted Tupperware....



Okay, this totally reminds me of another embarrassing story. I'm not sure why I feel so compelled to share tonight. I guess I need some sympathy "don't feel bad, I've done that before too" comments.

Anyway, when I was a new mom and worried about sterilizing everything, I put two nasal aspirators in the microwave sterilizer that I had for the babies' bottles. I thought, "hey... their bottles are plastic too, so no problem, right? " Yea, I learned the hard way. They came out completely melted and stuck together. Wish I had a picture of that to share with new moms.

Note to self... just do the dishes already. And don't stash things in the oven, it's a fire hazard.

Itchy Legs & Coordinating Outfits

I'm pretty sure Chris thinks my goal in life is to torture him and Tucker. On several occasions he's reminded me that boys don't wear "outfits"... and they don't sit in flowers to take pictures. Well, in the Tims family they do. This weekend, we met my best friend, Andrea, and her family for our annual Bluebonnet Beatdown. Although, I must say it was hardly a beatdown this year. We didn't have creepy kids trying to get in the photos, there was no need to bribe anyone with yogurt melts, and we didn't have to drive around for over an hour to find the perfect spot. We might just have to rename this annual event.


I wish they were this nice to each other all the time.







Don't call the sheriff. Somebody forgot to tell Tucker that its illegal to pick bluebonnets in Texas.




Poor Tucker was miserable most of the time. I didn't think about how sensitive his skin is when I put him in shorts. He was not happy about how itchy the grass made his legs.








Once again, I made sure our "outfits" were coordinating. Someone please tell Chris how much better the pictures turn out, will ya?!


Andrea's husband, Justin took most of these pictures for us. Thanks Justin! They turned out great!

Hurseee Hurseee

Tucker is totally obsessed with Horses right now. Every animal we pass along the road is a Hursee... cows, goats, and if we're driving fast enough, even large dogs. Since we pass a couple horse ranches on the way to school, Reese and I get to hear about the hursees everyday.

One of our neighbors (to be) has some beautiful horses so I was excited to take Tucker for a closer look. He was so cute... totally wanted to pet her and probably would have jumped on if I would have let him.






I think he's ready for one of his own... and so is mama. I've decided that Tucker and I will ride the hursees and Dad and Reese can take care of them. Sounds fair, right?

Oh... and don't think I was playing favorites by only letting Tucker see the horse up close... you know Reese didn't want to have anything to do with this beast. We'll keep working on her.

Go Fly a Kite

After the Easter egg hunt last Saturday, we packed a picnic and went out to the land to fly kites and enjoy the spring weather. Man will it be nice when we can just go in our back yard to do this instead of driving an hour. Pray that our house sells SOON!

I just love introducing the kids to new things... it gives me a whole new appreciation for the simple things in life...

Okay... he looks way to grown up in this picture. Really... old enough to do it by yourself? Stop growing!

Love it that the sun was in his eyes and he just couldn't keep them open. It didn't matter... he was "watching" the kite anyway.

Spring is here people and I'm stinkin' excited!

Easter Eggs and Ear Infections

The Easter Bunny brought more than Easter eggs to the Tims' house this year. I knew something was wrong with Reese as soon as she got up on Sunday morning. She wanted nothing to do with her pancakes (definitely not normal) and then just followed me around the house crying. She didn't have a fever but I could tell something was bothering her, so I gave her some Motrin (don't judge) and she was good as new.

We went to church and then over to my parents for the afternoon. Reese played for a little while and sort of humored me during picture time, but after lunch she was done. She screamed when I put her down and wanted nothing to do with anyone else. I definitely got some much needed snuggle time with Miss Cranky Pants.

She ran a fever last night and had one this morning when she got up. So, we headed to the doctor. Sure enough... double ear infections. Poor baby. The doctor told me to call if Tucker started showing any of the same symptoms and sure enough, the babysitter called me ten minutes after I left the office. Fever. Ugh. At least Dr. Ben isn't making me bring him in too.

Well... it's been MONTHS since we've dealt with ear infections and I totally forgot how horrible they are. Despite one sick kid and one on the verge, we got a few cute Easter pictures yesterday....

Chocolate + Plastic Eggs + 75 Degrees = Disaster

Our Church's annual Pancake Breakfast and Easter Egg Hunt (I use that word loosely) was the first of our Easter weekend festivities. It's amazing to me how drastically things can change in a year. Last Easter, the kids were barely crawling so we just set them out in the grass and scooped some eggs up for them. Hey... photo op, right. This year, we could hardly keep up with them...


The announcer took like 5 minutes to go over the instructions. I thought we were going to have a major meltdown if she didn't say "go" FAST.

It looks like a mad house... it was.

Reese found it easiest to set her basket down and run for the eggs. It's a good thing we were at church... otherwise, they would have been stolen.

Tucker found the goodies inside very quickly. Speaking of goodies. Hey, don't put chocolate inside eggs when you know they are going to be sitting out in the heat. Duh. What a mess... kids were covered in chocolate everywhere.

Yep, the polka dots on her dress look just like Easter eggs. Maybe I did that on purpose.

Love that this little boy was checking out her stash.

Okay, so they came away with WAY too much candy. My church has egg recycle buckets all over though, so you can empty your eggs and leave them there for next year. Totally genius. You know how crazy I would be with those plastic eggs all over my house.

I'd say it was a hit... Easter eggs, bounce house, pancakes. Saturday morning doesn't get much better than that.

More Easter fun to come!