Our House

So the question Don and I hear the most (besides what gender our baby is,) would be when are we going to be invited to see your house or when will you post pictures of your house up so we can see it. Well, today you get your wish! Well... to see pictures of the house that is. Before we delve into the pictures though I want to give a special thank you to everyone who helped us with this HUGE undertaking thus far. We had A LOT of help so if I missed anyone please excuse my error.

Thank you to Ben Smith for all the plumbing services you have provided for us. Everything from installing our bath tub/toilets, helping Don demo the kitchen and bathroom as well as hooking up plumbing and such. That was such a huge help. We could not have done all that ourselves seeing as we don't know the first thing about plumbing. :o) Ben Smith is currently trying to start his own plumbing business. He is a hard worker and a great plumber. I would highly recommend him to anyone. Once you get your website Ben, let us know and we will post a link to it.

Thank you to Ray Basso for helping us with our A/C. From the first time we turned it on and it leaked all over our kitchen and laundry room floor... you really saved our butts. Thanks for coming over and fixing the condensate lines so it wouldn't leak anymore. Also, thank you for coming over and hooking up the unit properly/sealing the hole the previous tenants created when they tried to install the A/C unit themselves. You were a huge help. Ray Basso also owns his own heating and air conditioning company. Of course we would highly recommend his services too. Everyone we have recommended him to has been very pleased with his work as well. His website is http://www.airflowsd.com/

Thank you to Daddy Don! He provided us with much needed tools and of course knowledge and help. My Don was constantly calling his Dad for advice and help on various projects. We are so grateful to have that outlet to turn to. He also helped Don install the cabinets in the kitchen and the floors down stairs among many other projects we had going on. We didn't know the first thing about doing any of that stuff and he came right in with the right tools and helped his son get the job done. Thank you so much!

Thank you to Willie Carbajal too. Willie is Don's Uncle and he was a huge help when we installed the floors down stairs too.

Thank you to Joey Dene' and his crew for installing the carpet upstairs. We love it and couldn't be more happier with the carpet. The carpet that was in there before was nasty! The first day you guys laid it down I full on laid on the carpet and didn't want to get up. Plus I absolutely love the smell of new carpet!

Thank you to Don's Step Mom Amy Horn for coming over many days to paint, paint, and paint some more! You helped paint so many rooms, doors and molding in our house. You were a huge help. And you were the only one brave enough to scale our vaulted ceilings in the stair well. Even though the boys all chickened out, you said no problem and got up there and got the job done! It looks beautiful too! You were also a huge help when we moved. Thank you so much, you rocked!

Thank you to Don's Mom, Gina Horn. You helped with many things too. From painting, to moving to helping us unpack and finding places for all our crap. You helped motivate us to do a lot of stuff when we just wanted to give up. You were a huge strength for my husband when he was ready to say forget it, I am done. Especially with the painting! I know he was so fed up with it by the time we got to the kitchen. He was so over it and I was so busy with my weddings that it seemed like it would never get done. You came in and said "let's get it done, give me a brush and let's finish this." You also gave us great ideas for decorating. I had a lot of fun going shopping with you and finding things to make our house more "homey." You still are in the process of helping us with that... namely our curtains, downstairs bathroom and soon to be our baby room!!! You are awesome!

Thank you to Don's brother Jon Horn. Jon came over on his day off to help me paint rooms too. Namely the baby's room so your soon to be nephew or niece thanks you too! :o) That room was a pain too since it was all blue including the ceiling. He also helped paint other parts of our house. I am also grateful for you helping us move. Jon went out partying the night before and didn't come home till 4 in the morning and than got up early to come help us move. Now part of me doesn't have much sympathy since you knew you had to get up early the next day and you still stayed out late... but I can appreciate the dedication you had of still coming inspite of you feeling like crap and wanting to just sleep. Most people would have said "screw it, they can handle it themselves, I am going back to bed." But you didn't and you hung in there like a trooper. Plus I think you were still a little buzzed and you were just funny to have around as always. Thank you for hanging in there for us. We really needed the extra man hands for the big items. Poor Mike would have been all alone trying to do all that with Don. ;o)

Thank you to Don's other brother Mike Horn. You helped Don a lot too when you could have been doing other things during your summer break. I know Don really appreciated the help. You were also a huge help during the move too. Don has some great brothers!

Thank you to my nephew Craig Hildebrand. He came over to help me paint our living room too. You were great!

Thank you to Don's cousin Dustin Rowland. You came over as well and helped Don do a lot of painting too. Plus you helped during your summer break, so that was way cool of you to take time out of your summer vacation to help us as well

Thank you to Marcia Parkes, our realtor. She was truly a Godsend! One of the best realtors ever. I would highly recommend her. I can not begin to tell you the roller coaster ride Don and I went through when we bought our house. Mostly because it was a short sale and short sales are basically a nightmare. The only reason we got through it was because of Marcia. She was constantly calling me and updating me on everything. Even when she had nothing to update us with, she still checked in on us. She was just great and she was a fighter! Man it was a nightmare trying to deal with PUD's, the title company and HOA issues from the previous owner. It was a bigger nightmare for Marcia since she was at the forefront of it all. But she had our back the whole time and fought for us. She truly went above and beyond the call of duty. I can't thank you enough Marcia. If anyone is in the market to sell or buy a home in San Diego, I would highly recommend her. Her website is http://www.marciaparkes.com/

And last, but not least thank you to all the wives who sacrificed their husband's time to come help my husband! I know it was a burden on you guys as well to not have your husbands at home, so thank you. It did not go unnoticed and we appreciated it very much.

So in closing, Don and I are just so thrilled and grateful for wonderful friends and family who came together to help us make this all happen. You guys are wonderful! Thank you so much. And now... here are the pictures!

This first link goes to the before pictures/remodel pictures of the house:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mandi.horn/OurHouseBeforeAndRemodelPictures?feat=directlink

The second link goes to the after pictures of the house:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mandi.horn/OurHouseAfterPicturesOfTheRemodel?feat=directlink

Pregnancy Update

So the latest and greatest... Today I am 23 weeks and 1 day pregnant. We have 16 weeks and 6 days left until our little bundle of joy will be here!!! We can't wait! So far everything is going great, no complications and the best part is the morning sickness is GONE!!! Yes finally GONE!!! It really wasn't that bad for me compared to other people seeing as I was mostly just nauseous and only threw up 3 times, but it still was not fun so I am excited it is gone.

We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and our baby is already taking it's Daddy's side... Don thinks keeping the gender a surprise would be the coolest thing ever. We don't exactly share the same enthusiasm with that. So the plan was I would find out and he would be surprised. Well the baby decided not to let us see... so it still remains a mystery if it will be a he or a she. No worries though, my doctor said he will order another ultrasound towards the end of the pregnancy. Don and I have yet to decide if we will find out than so we shall see. Stay tuned to find out!

So here are some fun facts about our baby's development at this stage in "it's" life:

The baby is about 1.1 lbs, which is about the size of a papaya. The baby is still making remarkable changes at 23 weeks. The skin is still quite red and heavily wrinkled by the end of 23 weeks. The baby can often hear loud noises in the womb from now on, so it may move around a bit when you are in an environment where loud noises are quite common.

The baby is about to chub up a bit. It's saggy skin will start to fit it's frame as fat deposits fill things out. Beginning this week, it'll start to pack on the pounds (which means I will, too!) and by month's end it'll be double the weight it is now (though I won't be — whew!). Right now, the baby's organs and bones are visible through it's skin, which has a red hue due to developing veins and arteries beneath. But once those fat deposits settle in, the baby will become less transparent, too.

As you can tell, I finally took some pictures of my ever growing belly. I have been putting it off since I didn't think I was showing that much until a month ago and I wanted to take pictures when it was obvious that I was pregnant, not just fat. :o) Since than Don has been pushing to take pictures of it and he even went as far as taking candid pictures of me yesterday when I wasn't paying attention. Definitely not fair! I figured I better have him take some pictures that I like instead of taking unflattering candid photos of me at my worse! Those will not be posted due to the "model's" non-consent! I thought he did a great job of taking these pictures though. He is quite the little photographer too!







On a side note, Don and I celebrated our 6th anniversary yesterday! It has gone by so fast and it will go by even faster once the baby comes. We kept it low key... we had breakfast together in the morning and than cleaned our house/organized more of our stuff. Yes I know, lame... Well the cleaning/organizing part is lame. But it was nice spending time in the morning eating yummy food together! Than we went to Grandma Krafft's house later that night to celebrate her birthday. When Don and I picked our wedding day, it just so happened to be on the same day as his Grandma's birthday. Before we had a chance to change the date, she insisted that we keep it that way. She wanted to share the day with us, so we did and it was nice! We had dinner with the whole family and just enjoyed each other's company. Don's Aunt Paula even came out from Florida to join in on the celebrations. That was a fun extra surprise for everyone. We also found out today that Don's step sister had her baby yesterday, so it was an eventful September 6th with many celebrations going on all at once.

I ended up taking the whole week off of work this week because originally before Don lost his job, we had planned on going somewhere for our anniversary. Obviously things changed... so our plans of going somewhere turned into staying home. I think they call that a staycation? :o) Which is actually kind of nice. I have grand plans of updating my photography website, working on our house/unpack more stuff and organize... and finishing all my wedding/photo shoots I have pending. So this will be a much needed time for me to finish my to do list. I am so excited and can't wait till it is all done! I will be starting all that tomorrow since I have lots of updating to do on our blog. Very important stuff you know. :o) My next post will be pictures of our house. Yes, finally before and after pictures of the house! Stay tuned... If I don't get interrupted or distracted I may finish that today. Making dinner right now may be just enough of a distraction to lure me away... ;o)