Home improvements...

For those of you who don't know, we bought and moved into our first house when I was 8 months pregnant last June. Yep, we were either very ambitious or a little crazy! With the help of our families, we got everything moved in and pretty well organized with three weeks before little Di's arrival. We even managed to put together a kitchen island and shelving from IKEA, hang a few pictures and lighting fixtures, pressure clean the back porch and repaint the front door. But that was about it - the main focus was on just getting moved in (and I wasn't much help, waddling around in the summer heat with a huge belly!) And so we did it.

Then came the whirlwind that a newborn brings. Decorating and home improvements? Forget about it! Those of you moms (and dads!) out there know that when a baby is born, just taking a shower, doing a load of laundry and maybe some grocery shopping is a big accomplishment.
Now that the new baby fog has (mostly) lifted and Diana is approaching her 9 month old birthday, we have started to focus back on our "new" house (even though we will have been living here a year this June)! We've planted a Meyer lemon tree and a beautiful bottleneck palm that we took from Danny's parent's house when they moved two weeks ago. With the help of my mom and grandma, we found the matching dresser to our bed from IKEA (in the sale room!) so we are one step closer to having some semblance of a master bedroom set. We've hung some pictures given to us by Danny's parents and moved a few we already had with the help of our interior decorator, AKA my mom! We even had a garage sale a few weekends ago and got rid of some long overdue "stuff" we had lying around. Next up is cleaning out the mess that is our garage. Whew!
Being homeowners is definitely a change from renting, but it's a great feeling knowing that the time we invest in our "home" is ours and only ours to enjoy with our family.

(Pictures: Top left: Our new IKEA dresser and picture in our bedroom, Left bottom: tiny fruit is starting to grow on our Meyer lemon tree, Top right: Diana's play area gets a makeover, Bottom right: trying our hand at growing basil)