We thought this was the project that would never end, but alas it did!! Here is the progress and finally the finished product. We LOVE it! I can't belieive it's the same piece of furniture!!! THANK YOU JENNY for helping us get started. Seriously...it WOULD NOT have happened if you hadn't encouraged us to do it and come over to help us get started!! 
BEFORE (the quality of this picture is not great, but you get the idea!):
AFTER:
(Please don't judge my ability as a mother based on Emma's WILD hair. It was after her nap and she didn't want me to fix it. *eyes rolling*)
So, many of you have asked how we've settled in to our new house. Let me tell you a story to help you better understand when my answer comes after a brief hesitation.
This morning Jonathan left for work earlier than normal...before either of the girls (or me for that matter) were awake. Emma woke up at about 7 and I got Kate out of bed at about 7:30. While I was feeding her, Emma was playing in her room. I kept hearing something and I couldn't figure out what toy she could possibly be playing with. Well, it turns out that it wasn't a toy. It was someone in the street yelling. He or possibly she (it was hard to tell) was pointing and yelling and was very animated. I couldn't see anyone that she could possibly be yelling at so I thought, "Great, there's some wacko yelling in the street. I could call the police, but what are they going to do to someone who clearly isn't breaking the law...just yelling?" Not long after this thought, this person started taking their clothes off. "Good," I thought, "The police will come now!" So I quickly dialed 911 and told the dispatcher that there was a person in the middle of the street taking his clothes off. The dispatcher asked if it was a man, because they had some other calls about a woman. I looked closer and realized it was a woman...STARK naked right in front of my yard! Yes, she's totally naked. My neighbor Chris was outside the whole time...here's his email...
"So, ***(name concealed to save the innocent ;-) ) came to pick me up at about 7: and had his first Belmont prostitute experience. Apparently coming down off of crack is a pretty miserable thing. I was watering my front yard and this junky walks down the street mumbling to herself. She was soliciting every car that drove by and the mumbling got louder and progressively louder. *** pulls up and her voice gets louder still. She tells us that not only is she going to kill us, after we strip off all our clothes, but she was going to get into ***'s truck and take off. Well. She didn't get into his truck, but she did keep insisting that both *** and I take off all our clothes. Luckily, she let us off the hook - we were not depantsed during the affair, but we did catch this bit of hilarity. She decided to strip to nothing in the middle of my street while yelling something unintelligible and doing a little jig...What a way to start the morning! ***'s all growed up now."
This was Jonathan's reply...
"Ah, yes, I recognize her from my own ‘first Belmont prostitute incident’. At 6:45 this morning, I grabbed the Wall Street Journal from the front yard and drove to the corner of Harrill and Parkwood (50 yards from the incident [above]). It was then that the individual pictured stepped nearly in front of my car to stop me. She came up to the window and I foolishly rolled down the window about 3 inches. She put her face up to the window and just laughed and kinda snorted. I asked ‘Can I help you?’ She never said anything!!! She was CLEARLY higher than a kite!!!!
Picture for a moment a white guy in a suit with his Wall Street Journal stopping at 6:45 to talk w/the neighborhood hooker. Dude….when I think of hooker, I’m thinking of Pretty Woman."
Jonathan didn't even realize she was soliciting him! HA!
So, the police did come. By the time they got here, she was dressed. They did handcuff her and eventaully took her away. I'm not sure what happens to a person for taking off their clothes in the middle of the street. Anyone know?
Welcome to Belmont!
We love you more than you can know. Your hard work for our family does not go unnoticed. We often take you for granted and we rarely tell you how much we appreciate you, but today we want you to know how special you are to us. Thank you for all you do for us. Thank you for all your hard work so that I can stay home with the girls. Thank you for loving us like you do. Thank you for your committment to being the spiritual head of our home. Thank you that you love God more than anything else. Thank you for being my husband and the girls' Daddy. We love you!
Paintings done by Kate and Emma for Daddy...
Trimmer from Mommy...
Our neighbor across the street, Ms. Sophease, is in her 80's (she's as sharp as a tack, I tell ya!!). She has some flowerbeds in her front yard that were empty and I mentioned to my other neighbor, Gina, that we should fill them for Ms. Sophease. Gina had already been thinking about doing that, so last weekend we bought flowers and planted them for Ms. Sophease. It was so much fun and she was thrilled!!
Here are two videos of Kate. One is of her playing, but of course as soon as I got the camera out, she stopped playing. The second is of her doing raspberries. :-)