Mean Muggin' Santa

So the past few months Lincoln has developed into this bashful little thing. Instead of just hiding his face (which he does also) his reaction to people he isn't familiar with is to give them dirty looks. We call it his mean muggin' face. He does it GOOD. Granted, hes pretty much been doing it since birth, he just never did it as a reaction to being around new people before. It's pretty hilarious...sometimes. Other times I feel awful and apologize because I don't want the people to take it personally.

Well, now onto Santa. We are big, and I mean BIG, Christmas people around here. We usually decorate the first or second week in November because Christmas just makes me happy, I LOVE it, and with as much effort as I put into my decorations I need to enjoy them longer than just 30 some odd days. So we have been decorated over here for a couple weeks now, and I knew I wanted to take Lincoln to visit Santa soon. Mainly because I knew the lines would be shorter. Bass Pro Shop has had Santa for about a week now and we made the mistake on going the FIRST night. My thinking was "perfect, first night no one will be there". WRONG. Every person in Southern California was there. Apparently they had a whole event that night and so we had to turn around and come home. I was super bummed. So we decided to make the trip down there tonight hoping for a small crowd, and that's exactly what we got! A whole FOUR people in front of us. With a toddler a short line is a must. Especially Lincoln, he is SO energetic and never stops. Ever!

I was worried for poor Santa though. I knew what would happen if we tried to sit him on his lap. I didn't want to do that to Lincoln either. Sure, crying pictures with Santa are hilarious...10 years down the road, but I wanted Lincoln to have fun, not cry. We attempted to have him walk up to Santa and there it was...the mean muggin' face. My Dad picked Lincoln up and decided to just take a family shot instead of forcing Lincoln to get on the big scary red guys lap causing melt down central.

We got to look at the photo after it was taken, and there it was. The mean mug. A slightly less dramatic mean mug, but a mean mug none the less.

I asked the girl if that was the only shot they took, she said it was the best one and once I got home and saw it on the computer screen I realized MY EYES ARE CLOSED! CLOSED! I was so bummed. It was a great shot, but oh well. 

We then went and road the carousel after Santa which he really enjoyed and then went and had dinner. It was a great night! Mean muggin' face and all.  

A new beginning!

We have lived at the ranch now for about 3.5 years since my parents retired. While we did enjoy it before we had Lincoln, once you have a baby, the responsibilities got fairly difficult for us. Also, to be honest, the ranch was my parents dream- not ours. Its definitely a 24 hour job, 7 days a week. Well the time came where we all came to the conclusion is was time for everyone to "move on".

We started house hunting in early-mid October, and crazy enough we found our home within only a couple weeks. We only saw a handful of houses before we found ours. Everything in our budget was small. We would have had to downsize from the ranch. Which honestly would have been tough, especially if down the road we decided to have another baby. Then one day, my mom found our house online, the next day we looked at it and I just knew it was "the one". It was also larger than any house we had seen (in person or online) and it had no HOA fees!

When we did the first viewing it was all very exciting and you didn't notice all the "issues". The next time we went back to the house was for the inspection. Then you started to notice the way the sellers did things here and there. The paint for instance was pretty bad. They didn't cut any of the edges of the walls and it was SO sloppy. It looked as if a child painted the house. Paint got all over the closet doors, the ceiling etc. It was pretty bad. AND they painted on top of every hole or nail in the house, and there was A TON of holes and nails. I've never seen a house with as many holes as this house has, and I'm not talking nail holes (although there is PLENTY of those too) I mean just random holes! Anytime they "repaired" something they did it wrong. It was just crazy.

Then, we went after we got the keys and the house was empty. OH MY GOODNESS. Then you REALLY saw all the...imperfections to put it nicely. They didn't clean at all before they left. Actually, pretty sure they hadn't cleaned anything in like...a year, maybe longer? Not exaggerating. The ceiling fans had what seemed like an inch of dirt on them, the kitchen cabinets still had things left in them (including general GRIME and dead bugs) they left broken computers in the closets, and even hard drives in the backyard. Cigarette butts EVERYWHERE outside including just lots of trash in general. And the best part was THEY PAINTED AROUND THEIR BED in the master bedroom. Crazy crazy crazy. But to be positive about the situation, now we have the opportunity to make it our own.

This house is going to be going through quite the transformation process so I figured it would be a great opportunity to blog it all! We won't be able to do EVERYTHING we have dreamed for this house before we move in, but since we won't be moving in officially for a few months we will be able to do a ton before then.

I wish I would have gotten some TRUE before pictures of the house, but we have already taken down so much crap so its more of an in progress look of the house but I think you will get the idea. Overall we are SO EXCITED and cannot wait to make this place "ours".

So, here are the "before" pictures!

The family room

 

The formal dining room 

 

 

LARGE Kitchen Window

 

Lincoln helping grandpa!

 

 

The kitchen. (And grandpa)

 

 

Awesome patch job they did in the family room.

 

 

The office closet.

 

 

Bleach anyone? Yuck.

 

 

Office closet.

 

 

Backyard

 

 

 

Awesome piece left behind. (Not sarcastic, I actually love it haha)

 

 

 

 

Kitchen

 

 

Dining room ceiling fan, plan to paint this and get rid of the awful brass.

 

 

Formal living room.

 

 

LOVE this light.

 

 

Linen closet upstairs.

 

 

Guest bedroom closet.

 

 

No, that isn't painters tape left behind. That is actually paint.

 

 

 

 

Upstairs bathroom

 

Awesome paint job.

 

 

 

What I call, the cloud room.

 

 

 

 

The master bedroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside one of the master closets. Not even going to attempt to clean that. Going to rip that shelf out and put our laundry basket in the "hole".

 

 

Entryway.
 

 

Total 80's fireplace. Still figuring how what to do with this bad boy. Because it is AWFUL.

 

 

Skylight type feature in the kitchen.

 

 

 

Downstairs bath.

 

 

 

So there you have it! Can't wait to see this place transform! It has SO much potential and cannot wait to make it ours.