Blueberry Lane Pictures (Before/After)

Most of you have seen these on Facebook, but I know there are some Chiodo Chuckles fans who don't do Facebook. To answer some commonly asked questions...
1. We used Hope Kitchen in Bridgeport for the cabinets & countertops. We chose natural maple cabinets. No stains, no glazes...had NO IDEA the amount of decisions (and money!) involved in choosing cabinets. What a headache. But when it came down to what we wanted to spend...our selection was small. So the natural maple was the best for our buck. And we got UbaTuba granite. It's a black/dark green/dark blue granite. I love it. And the appliances are good ol' Lowe's Frigidaire Gallery...it was a stainless steel suite of appliances on sale. Jason picked them out all by himself. He did great!
2. We did all the demo work in the house...took out all the old cabinets, flooring in the kitchen, knocked down some walls. We just had hardwood floor put in the kitchen which when the whole house (all hardwoods) was sanded and polyurethaned...it blended right in. Other than the floor, Hope Kitchen installed the cabinets & the countertop. Everything else was us.
3. Paint colors: In kitchen/dining area: Benjamin Moore Tuscan Red. I think this is my new favorite color of paint. It's like a rusty red, and it goes great with the cabinets and granite. In the living room: BM Concord Ivory (my next favorite color). In kids rooms, I used Behr colors-yellow for Abby, blue for Ben. And painted the playroom an apple green color from Behr. Bought a green...way too bright. Took it back and they added in 8 oz. of white paint to lighten it. So it's really a no name paint. Kinda matches Behr's Asparagus color. Anywhoo....Jason doesn't like it so I'm sure it will get repainted at some point. Anyone who comes over says that they love it. We'll see.

Double the Giggles! Double the Fun! Abby & Ben turned Four and One!

At the end of July, we celebrated Abby's 4th birthday and Ben's 1st Birthday with a combined party at Boothe Memorial Park in Stratford. Invited lots of friends and family and had a wonderful time. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs; served lots of sides including fresh, hot corn on the cob. And topped it all off with some fun games: water balloon toss, watermelon roll (relay race with rolling watermelons...kids loved it), and 3-legged race. It rained the day before the party and the day after the party...but we had a gorgeous sunny day on our day. Yeah!

Back from Summer Break

Time to update the ol' blog since my last post was in July. Way too much has been going on so I'll give the shortened version on it. Basically, I've been crazy busy. Thought I was busy before....this is a new kind of busy. Where your feet hit the ground running and don't stop all day until you fall back into bed way past your bedtime. Every day.
We found out at the very end of June that the house we were renting had sold and we needed to be out by the end of July. Jason (kinda) bullied them and said, "No way...can't be out until the end of September." When all was compromised, we were out by the end of August. In the meantime, we had found our house to buy on Blueberry Lane. So for the rest of July and the 1st 1/2 of August, I spent lots of time packing, organizing, throwing away, etc. Then we closed on our Blueberry Lane house in mid-August and got even busier than before.
The house was built in 1965. And the inside looked like....1965. The original red shag carpet, brown plaid wallpaper in the kitchen (on the walls & ceiling). Paneling. Pink bathroom (tub, toilet, sink, tile, wallpaper). And my favorite, a built-in bar in the lower level that was decorated with Viking memorabilia. So when we closed on the house, we immediately went to work on rehabbing the kitchen. We literally had some blood, sweat, and tears going on.
So from mid-August until August 31st, we spent every free moment working on the house to get it ready. And then August 31st, we officially moved in. I have to say...I'm pretty good at not sweating the small stuff. I'm organized; I use my critical thinking skills; I have good time management. But moving with a 4 year old and a 1 year old while working part-time...it kicked my butt from one end to the other. I had my moments of being so overwhelmed and short on time...I really thought we weren't going to pull it off. But we did, and life is getting back to normal. Well, the Chiodo normal that is.

Blueberry Lane

Our almost two years of renting are about to come to an end. After selling our home in West Haven (on a busy street, with a tiny yard), renting for 20 months and waiting (hoping and praying) for housing prices to come down in this most expensive state...we are about to become homeowners again.
We found a home on Blueberry Lane in Stratford that is going to be perfect for us. It was built in 1965 and the inside looks like...1965. Brown kitchen, red carpet, and a pink bathroom. We put our vision goggles on and saw a home that was meant to be ours. It's smaller than we were looking for; but in a strange way, I'm kinda excited about the smaller size. We are going to SIMPLIFY: getting rid of excess furniture, cleaning fewer toilets, paying smaller utility bills. Sounds good to me. The yard is really what we fell in love with. It is on 1/3 of an acre (which is a nice, hard-to-find size around here). We are going to love seeing the kids run around in the backyard, planting a garden, and even putting an American flag on our flagpole. I will attest that having a bigger house on a smaller yard is not all it's cracked up to be. So we're going for the opposite effect...and I think it will be just dandy. And I got a deck (a first for us) and a fireplace (another first).
Hopefully we'll be moving around the beginning of August. We'll be rolling up our shirtsleeves and making our house a home. And I get to paint! Twenty months of white walls has about sapped out my creative juices. I'm so excited!
We'll keep you updated on our exact date to change our address.

Our Little Ballerina

We had Abby go to The Little Gym for a few sessions of ballet, tap, and gymnastics. She LOVED it. This was the show they put on for the parents on the last day of the session. She was just too cute...

Strawberries and Summertime Fun

At the park with cousins for Grandpa & Grandma Chiodo's 65th Anniversary Party:





Strawberry Picking at Jones Family Farm:






Ben trying out breakfast at the kid table:



At the playground...Abby on a ship "looking for pirates!":





My bargain of the summer....a Pottery Barn Kids kitchen from Craigslist: