Quick Catch-Up

It's been a while since I posted, so here's a quick recap of the last week or so in the Rollins househould...

We didn't have any damage other than downed limbs and a soggy yard from Fay. Lots of wind and rain, but overall it wasn't bad here.

We made an overnight trip to Melrose so we could visit with Papaw and Lillian (Jared's grandfather and his girlfriend) before they headed back to Bradenton. We enjoyed hearing about their trip to Indiana to visit family, and Charlotte enjoyed all the attention. She also really enjoyed "Mr. Bear", the stuffed bear that somehow or another ended up being passed to Mom and Dad. He's usually dressed up for the upcoming holiday or season, so of course he was sporting his Gator shirt! Charlotte had a great time giving him lots of [bear] hugs.



Charlotte started getting a stuffy and runny nose a few days ago and is still fighting off a cold. She slept through the night last night but that was the first time in several days. Her nose was getting so stuffed she couldn't breathe through it, which made sucking her thumb difficult. It was so pitiful :( The cold was passed to Jared, but it seems like he might be rid of it before Charlotte is.

On Saturday morning, my mom stopped by with some friends for a few minutes to see Charlotte (Jared and I don't get visitors anymore... Charlotte gets tons though!). Later in the day we went to a friend's house here in Jax to watch the Gators put a nice thrashing on Hawaii. Austin and Ashley are fellow Gator grads and are as equally obsessed (if not moreso!) with the football team, so it was a lot of fun. Another couple, Jeff and Lynn, and their little girl, Andi, were there too. Andi is a couple months younger than Charlotte and Charlotte seemed to think that Andi was her toy. :)

And then Saturday afternoon Charlotte and I went to the booming metropolis of Hampton to celebrate my Grandma's 85th birthday (Jared was feeling too crummy to go)! She slept the whole way there and home, which made the trip much more pleasant. Unfortunately, while we were there she was not in the best of moods so she wasn't too keen on being passed around the family. Here she is (in her Gator gear!) with her Papa.


Charlotte is getting into just about everything within her reach and she's started lifting her leg to try to climb to whatever may be just out of reach. She's even gotten herself stuck a time or two underneath the hutch in the kitchen reaching for something. She's very curious and very mischievous. She's also started waving, which is so funny to see. It's not a small dainty wave of the hand... she gets her whole arm into it! It looks like she's pumping water from a well.
The past few days she's had a new fascination with looking out the window in the office.


She's starting to make the "mama" sound, but I don't think she's saying it in reference to me. But the fact that she's said that before "dada" gives me hope that "Mama" will be her first word!

Well I think that's it. We hope everyone enjoyed their nice long weekend! I'll do my best not to be such a blog slacker in the future!

Fay, Fay, Go Away

Fay is upon us so we're hunkered down in the house waiting out the storm. Jared's office closed early yesterday afternoon and is closed today so it's nice to have him home with us. It was raining off and on yesterday with high winds but didn't get too bad until after Jared had gotten home. I think it stayed that way throughout the night and it's been raining all day so far with the winds picking up here and there. We haven't lost power (or cable!) at all yet so it's been a nice day to stay on the couch wrapped up in a blanket. We had planned to leave for Miami this afternoon to visit Ryan & Anette (Ryan is a friend of Jared's from high school), but with the weather like it is we've decided it would be safest to stay home. I think the last time we saw them was the Saturday after Thanksgiving when they came over to meet Charlotte and watch the Florida v. Florida State game. Hopefully it won't be too long before we get to see them!

Here's a short clip of the rain coming down in our back yard. The pond is up higher than it has ever been and our side yard is covered in water. But I don't think we'll have any damage or major cleanup so we're grateful for that!

Ta-Da!

After a long evening of putting away and cleaning up, the kitchen is finally finished... almost :) We still have some minor touch-ups on the cabinets and we're going to get new lighting panels (ugly as they are, we don't want to take on the task of new lighting any time soon), but the kitchen is finally put back together with everything in its place! And we could not be happier with how it has turned out! It is amazing how one can of paint and some new hardware (and lots of hard work) has drastically changed the look of the space.

I enjoy doing projects like this, but I am so thrilled to have a working kitchen with clean counter tops again. I think we'll stick to watching the HGTV and DIY channels for a little while. I'll make some new curtains after not too long and we'll eventually get a new exterior and pantry door (both painted a fun color to match the new curtains), and even a little further down the road we'll get new counter tops. But for now, we're really happy with our kitchen!

Charlotte "helping" us clean up


Inspecting our work

Almost Finished...

The kitchen has come along nicely and is looking great! I was hoping to have everything back in its place and all in order tonight, but that probably won't be done until tomorrow. The cabinet doors are all on, the drawers are in, and the knobs and handles have all been put on. So tomorrow my tasks will be to touch up some of the sides of the doors, put everything back into the cabinets, and clean up! The kitchen floor is disgusting and the carpet needs a good shampooing too since we've been walking in and out so much. I'd like to get all that done tomorrow, but I know that most likely will not happen.

Hopefully we'll have pictures to share tomorrow evening of our new kitchen!!

Kitchen Renovation

Jared and I have been wanting to do some kitchen renovating for a while, and yesterday afternoon we decided this was the perfect weekend to do it! So I called my mom to see if she could come play with Charlotte and keep her occupied while we worked, which she was more than glad to do, and if we could borrow her and Jerry's power sander and paint sprayer. Jared called Dusty to get the paint info that we needed (for those who don't know, Dusty runs a painting business and is our hook-up for a discount on paint!). So last night we made a trip to Lowe's to get the new hardware and some painting supplies and we did as much prepping to the cabinets that we could.

This morning we were up bright and early (courtesy of our alarm clock, a.k.a. Charlotte) and finished some last minute prepping. Jared went to Sherwin Williams to buy the paint and as soon as Mom and Jerry arrived with their tools, we got started. In the perfect world we would have finished it all today... but that's not where we live so that's not how it happened. But we did get a lot done and are very confident that by Monday evening, we will have doors back on the cabinets and drawers back in their place.

A while back when Jared first mentioned to Dusty that we were wanting to paint the cabinets white, Dusty suggested "Antique White". We trusted his opinion and didn't realize until we opened the paint can that neither of us had actually seen what "Antique White" actually looked like. Luckily, we love it, even moreso than the whiter version that we had in our heads! Thanks, Dusty, for all the info and the great recommendation for the color. And thanks for not telling us that "Midnight Maroon" is a really nice shade of white that would look really good in our kitchen (we wouldn't put that past you). :)

Mom and Jerry were a huge help too. They played with Charlotte all day which allowed Jared and I to work (and work, and work, and work...). They wore that little girl out with all that playing- she went to sleep so quickly after being put down tonight! And the tools they let us borrow have saved a ton of time, so we really appreciate them coming up today, especially on such short notice!

Here are some pictures from yesterday and today. I'll try to post a few more tomorrow evening and Monday when (hopefully!) it'll all be done.

Before...

Everything but the kitchen sink has been removed from the kitchen!

All the doors and drawers removed

All laid out and ready to be painted... (This is the messiest the garage has ever been!)

Priming the doors

The garage at the end of the night

These are now my official painting shorts... I accidentally squatted on a drawer (Jared's caption for this picture is "We've been painting so much that she's now farting paint..." Boys are so gross.)

The kitchen as is now... such a mess!

In The Lord's Army!

Saturday Night Fever

Charlotte and I had an eventful morning yesterday- we took a quick trip into Keystone for a baby shower for Kristin Hubbard, a friend from our old church. It was nice to see her and share some of my birth story and the truth that no one ever tells you about childbirth! There was a really nice turnout so I also saw some of our old church family (at least the ladies of the church family since the men don't do things such as baby showers:). Of course, they were not nearly as happy to me as they were Charlotte. When you have a baby, you lose your identity - you become your kids' mom :)

We got back home to find that Jared had been doing a ton of work outside. He took out a lot of bushes in our front yard that really opens up the front entryway. And he trimmed back some other plants, and he cleaned off the porch roof and gutters. It was pouring Friday night and we noticed some water not making it all the way to the end of the gutter but was spilling over in front of the sliding glass door in our bedroom. It was collecting in the track of the door but luckily it wasn't so bad that it made its way onto the carpet. After cleaning the gutter and adding a screw, we shouldn't have the problem any more. He was wiped out by the time he finished!

And, of course, Charlotte got a new boo-boo. With her newfound mobility, boo-boos and scratches are a daily occurrence, but yesterday she hit her eye on the coffee table pretty good. The wailing that ensued was pretty dramatic, but for the ding and bruise she has, it was probably warranted. I felt so bad for her.

Then, around 6:00 we decided we were going to head to the beach and walk around for a little while. We live so close to the ocean but Charlotte hasn't been there a single time. We had everything ready to go and I was just changing Charlotte's diaper before we were going to leave, and I noticed that she seemed a little warm. I took her temperature (which she did not appreciate!), and the poor thing had a fever of 101.8. I called the doctor who told us that it could be a number of things as fever is the first symptom for practically everything, so to give her a warm bath with some peppermint oil in it, nurse more frequently, and try some Tylenol or Motrin if the fever didn't go down within an hour after the bath. Jared was put on cuddle duty while I ran up to the health food store to get some peppermint oil (although I ended up getting peppermint extract for putting in food rather than the essential oil for bathing and such things. I don't think Charlotte got any of the bath water in her mouth but if she had, she would have had minty fresh breath!).

When I got home she ate dinner and had her warm bath. I took her temperature again (and again, it was not appreciated), and it had come back down to normal. Then she got a short burst of energy and played with her toys for a little before bedtime. We even saw a few smiles from her so we knew she was all better. At almost 9 months old, the only sicknesses of any sort have been the sniffles, constipation, and this one fever. When she isn't feeling well, she gets very "cuddly" and just wants to snuggle, which is sweet since the only other time she does that is when she is really tired. All other times, there are just so many more things for her to do. She got a good night's sleep and we are so glad she's feeling better this morning. My diagnosis is that she just had a little "Saturday Night Fever". If we see any platform shoes or polyester suits in her closet, we'll know what they were for.

Weekend at Grandma's

Forgive me for being a total blog slacker... I have no excuse other than my own laziness :(

Last weekend we took a trip up to Port Wentworth, GA to visit Jared's Grandma. We found out last week that she has a malignant tumor behind her tear duct and will be having surgery on the 14th. So with that news, all the Rollins gang decided to head her way and cheer her up! I don't know if we cheered her up or just wore her out, but we had a great time (and hopefully she did too!). We had seen her and Uncle Bennie a few weeks before at the family reunion, but really didn't get to spend much time with them because there were so many people there, so it was nice to just to be able to sit and talk with her and the rest of the family for a while.

After visiting with her on Saturday morning, we went into downtown Savannah for some sight-seeing and dinner. We were hoping to be able to go to Paula Deen's The Lady & Sons, but around 2:30 or so when we were there, they were already booked for dinner. And even though we all agreed that it would be nice to eat at someplace distinctly Savannahian, we ended up having dinner at Tony Roma's. :) It turned out great though because we were the only group seated downstairs so it was nice and quiet (as quite as it can be with two babies and a very lively three year old!).

We went to church with Grandma on Sunday and shortly after lunch and birthday cake for she and Uncle Bennie, Jared, Charlotte and I headed back home. Unfortunately, Charlotte is still not a great traveler. She had a tantrum in her car seat for about 30 minutes on the way home. We stopped for gas and Jared hopped in the backseat with her and she was fine from that point on (as long as she was holding her "Comfort Cross"-- whenever she dropped that, she started fussing). And before we take another overnight trip, I'm going to have her "practice" sleeping in her pack and play during naptime. She did not sleep well either night in the hotel and ended up in bed with us for most of both nights. ::Sigh:: If any moms have any suggestions for this problem, feel free to share!

Here are a few pictures from the weekend...

Charlotte and Grandma (Thanks for the picture, Arin!)

Charlotte's Corner!

Gator Bait!

4 Generations of Rollinses

Charlotte and Uncle Bennie