Yay! We got the 'Belle' House!

So if anyone actually reads this thing you will see that I posted awhile back pictures of some of the houses I liked, but didn't end up buying for one reason or another. Well....I changed my mind and decided to roll the dice on one - it is old, really old but it is so charming and I fell in love with all the carriage style windows and french doors and...hello...anyone who knows me knows I drool over white kitchens. The lms description which described this house as "reminiscent of Shaker Heights architecture" may have had something to do with my change of heart as well. My family, and brother-in-law in particular, kept teasing me for trying to find a Shaker or Cleveland Heights style home in Mentor - but I did it :) When Ashley +Ashley Keene started referring to it as "The Belle House" because we thought it looked exactly like what Belle from Beauty in the Beast would live in (minus provincial town; substitute busy suburb) it was pretty much a done deal. Shannon and Greg got in my head saying just how much they could see me making the house my home and pointing out the various bohemian touches throughtout. The tipping point for me was when my friend +Lisa Dionisi Whitehead resent this listing to me with a message saying "I found the perfect house for you" having not known I had already looked at it and actually rejected it for various "more practical" reasons.

So here it is followed by some of my dreams for what it will eventually become:

So eventually I want to re-add decking onto the flat roof over the garage. Picture this:

Here is the kitchen now:

And when I'm done with it:

 

Add even more white and some aqua accents

And here is the dining room now:

I want to pull the aqua from kitchen by wall papering above the chair rail (see my vision below) and wainscoting under:

And the one thing I actually hate about the house is the big wall mirror in the living room:

+Ashley Keene and Scott are redoing it for my housewarming gift! Yay! So grateful! We are thinking something like the below:

I love white brick too

So pumped and so excited to blog out the process. To all of you who listened to me bitch, watched me cry, and witnessed me break down into complete melodramatics along the way (you know who you are) thank you for standing by me and stay tuned for one kick-ass gratitude dinner party honoring all of you!

Pic below has since been updated - 27 days till we get the keys and I get my pup back!  Woot! Woot! 

Checking things off...

So I've been able to already check some things off of the bucket list I posted a month ago! Yay for me!

One of those items was taking Olivia to the International Children's Festival which was A-Mazing!

First of all where can one go these days and expect freebies - and lots of them! Not many places, but we left with a whole bag of goodies from the festival. Here as a breakdown of our day.

Arrived at around 11 (paid $10 bucks to park) and bought tickets to the 11:30 showing of The Star Keeper (an hour run time) which is described as follows in the program:

As he is lighting up the night sky, Pierrot accidentally dislodges a star from the heavens. Luckily, Pretzel notices and puts the fallen star in his big basket. However, his adventures are just beginning. To return the star to it's proper place, he must climb a spider's thread, cross the dormitory of dreams, dive to the ocean depths in pursuit of a pearl-fish, and resist the bewitching charms of the bubble tamer. In the end, it is Daisy Bygone, a very old lady, who brings this fabulous story to it's conclusion.

The show was held in the idea center whose theater is small and intimate which is great for the kids. There wasn't a bad seat in the house, although there were a lot of empty ones :(

Theater Entrance: What kind of smile is that? lol

My favorite puppet was the huge giant whose tummy was a stage where we got to see a tap-dancing spider perform among other things :) Here is a highlight reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kisC34uVJvI. Olivia got restless and I was exhausted so I may have rested my eyes for a minute or two, but seeing the larger than life puppets and the talent of the puppeteers was so worth the ticket prize of only $15 a ticket.

Next we headed to the basement of the idea center where Olivia picked up her passport. You had to visit  4 or 5 "countries" located right along the theater strip and then were rewarded with a free ice cream from Rothschild Creamery. Liv got to make a sock puppet and a princess crown, spin a wheel and win a stuffed moose (which is so super soft), and walk away with new shades and a Browns stocking hat (unfortunately, it is too small, which is sad because it is totally cute) all at no-cost to us! We just missed the free bubbles and finger-painting. (You could also take advantage of a free lunch for kids at Hofbräuhaus - I mean really?!?! How cool is that?)

Below is a pic of our free caricature drawing! Olivia looks a little older than 5, but I still love how the pic turned out.

Next we headed over to the CSU art gallery which featured The Art of Autism: Exploring Self Expression. Most of the art was created by young children and it was so cool to show Olivia the art of other 5 years old on display! She enjoyed the subject matter of many of the pieces including Minecraft creatures and whales :). This exhibit was particularly meaningful to me since for many years I was an ABA therapist working in conjunction with The Cleveland Clinic Center for Autism to help children on the spectrum.

After breaking for our ice cream prize, we headed over to the US Bank plaza where there was a magician, balloon animals, face painters, and a band (we missed the set on this one and didn't hang around for the second show)...oh, and a miniature pony named Petie (we now own his trading card)!

We ended up leaving around 3 and probably would have stayed another hour had Paper Planet not been sold out :(. It was an interactive exhibit that allowed families to fill a paper world with their own paper creations.

All in all it was a fantastic day that cost us only $42 total including a few bucks for the caricature tip (so much more cost effective than Disney on Ice where one is charged $20 to stand with a cardboard cut-out of a princess - NOT EVEN A REAL PERSON IN COSTUME PEOPLE - CARDBOARD! and that is on top of the $70 ticket price per person) I can't believe how not crowded it was for such a beautiful day in Cleveland!

Can't wait till next year!