Worst. Blogger. Ever.

I know I said I wouldn't apologize for being neglectful of this blog, but I bet no one even comes here to read it anymore so I'll throw my apology out to the universe: I'm sorry! 

I have no pics but I'll write a bit right now just because I always tell myself, "I have to remember to blog about this!" then I don't...

What's happened?  Why don't I have time to do this anymore?  I posted several times a week when I had an infant... I'd think I'd have more free time now but I don't?  I guess I allot my time differently now?  I try not to get on the computer as much during the day because it can be very distracting.  I hardly use my camera anymore and I lost Photoshop when we installed Windows 8 about two- three months ago.  I spend time on my doula blog but certainly not as much as I'd like!

Anyways, I'll continue to ramble. 

We're practically done with our kitchen remodel.  The only thing left is one little "surprise"  that I was going to finish up (Ryan doesn't know what it is- and it's nothing huge, just something I wanted to do) and I just haven't had the time to do it.  So once I get that part done (I'm aiming for this weekend) then I'll take pics and attempt to post the second part of our kitchen rennoavation.

I got sick in February for about 3 weeks.  It wasn't the flu, but it was some nasty head cold that migrated from my nose to my ears to my chest, then it finished up in a grand finale when all my previous symptoms came back at once to haunt me.  No one else got sick but me.  I think it was because I spend so much time making sure the kids eat well that I always wind up eating the leftovers and scraps and food from the pantry.  Ryan is really good about remembering to take his vitamins and supplements, which leaves me and my little old weak immune system to duke out this 3-week monster cold.  Oh well, at least my immune system is stronger now... But now I have seasonal allergies!  I can't win!  At least it's beautiful weather outside; the light streaming through the windows into the kitchen in the morning REALLY makes a difference in how I mentally feel.  It's amazing what a little natural sunlight can do! 

We took last week "off" for Spring Break.  Really, what happened was we didn't do formal school but we had a few field trips and when we came home I had Beth work on some things relating to what she learned.  So, we had sneaky school- the best kind!  We also did a special unit on studying about the Papal Conclave and about our new Pope Francis!  We were in the car on the way home from the plant nursery when they announced his name, so I pulled over and Beth and I watched it on my phone while the boys slept.  Then I gave her the phone for the rest of the trip back to the house so she could watch and hopefully remember that special day. 

We were at the plant nursery because we've started our new project (without completely finishing the first one... I know...) and built two raised vegetable garden beds and a long bed up against the side of the fence for cutting flowers and some fruits.  This has been a relatively easy project for me- physically demanding for Ryan as he's had to shovel and move several yards of dirt and mulch, but for me it's been sort of easy. ;-)  The kids have had fun getting totally dirty and sincerely helping shovel the dirt into their kid-sized wheelbarrow and moving it into the backyard.  Hopefully we'll get some food out of this!

Beth is continuing to do well with school.  She's reading very well, she says math is her favorite subject, and she would like to be an illustrator when she grows up.  She illustrated practically everything right now, so I can't say that I'm surprised- she's a beautiful artist!  I really want to enroll her in some art classes to foster this love of hers!

Luke started on a soccer team in February, and Ryan is the assistant coach of the team.  They practice every Friday night then have a game on Saturday morning.  His team consists of 6 players, and they take turns playing games of 3-on-3, so each kid gets lots of playing time and it's not a huge competition to get the ball.  As it is, they're a bunch of 4-year-olds running around and having a good time- but some of them are pretty serious too!  Luke is REALLY into knights right now, every day he slays dragons for me and then 20 minutes later he puts on his construction man uniform and asks me what he can repair around the house.  We're looking forward to the days when he can actually do some real projects!

Jack has dropped his naps.  I feel like that's made a huge impact on our days now because we don't really HAVE to be home for rest time anymore.  When we are home (most days), the kids still have an hour in which they have to go to their bedrooms so Mommy can have some quiet time, and Jack hasn't quite figured this out yet.  He's still so young to have dropped his nap- not even 3!  Luke was still napping just a few months ago!  Different kid, different needs- I know.  But seriously.  :-/  He's also very into parroting everything that Luke does, and I mean everything.  Sometimes Luke likes this and sometimes he doesn't! 

Hopefully I can post some pics soon, we are going to take pictures in the blue bonnets tomorrow!

Our Kitchen Renovation, Part 1

Literally the day after Ryan and I got back from Jamaica, in December, we started our kitchen renovation.  I have to start by saying this was a process that I was looking forward to SO much, even knowing how stressful it can be.  I went it to it feeling so lucky because I have been waiting for years to do this!  I wanted to do it in our old house, but knowing we wouldn't be there forever made it hard to sink money into it.  We very much feel like this could be our "forever" home, but in any case, it was built in 1998 and was in desperate need of an upgrade.

Last year we "started" the project by having new lighting installed.  We had someone installed four recessed lights and two pendants hanging over what I thought would be our future bar.  Then, in late November, Ryan and I rearranged some of the upper cabinets over the sink.  Of course I don't have a pic of this, but if you'll notice in these pics, the upper cabinets are different colors. There are a few new ones and we made use of one old one, and we found the cabinet that goes over the fridge on the side of the road over a year ago!  We had this plan all along!

Before- notice the sink and dishwasher placement, builders-grade cabinets, and floor with dirty grout

The countertops were laminate that crawled up the wall to make a backsplash.  Behind the oven there were some lovely silver stick-on tiles.

Dining area with the old floor.

And here's the first phase of remodel finished- the part we hired out.  Within a week, we had new porcelain tile flooring in the kitchen and all the bathrooms (from Home Depot), honed (instead of polished) "absolute black" granite countertops installed, and the (new, deep!) sink and dishwasher moved to their new homes.  We chose to forgo the raised bar behind the sink that I originally had planned, because someone told me that would date the kitchen and I was unsure of how much usable space I would actually get.

Diswasher and sink are in their new homes!

I also took the little shades off the light fixture over the kitchen table- made a HUGE difference to me- I LOVE it!  Totally free and a big impact!

For the new floor, we chose 18-inch porcelain tiles from Home Depot and asked them to install it in a "brick" pattern.

Honed granite isn't as shiny as polished granite, so it has more of a matte finish.  I love how it sort of looks like soapstone- something I considered but didn't want the upkeep or the price!

 

You can see here that Ryan added our new backsplash- a pre-primed wainscot.  He took a jigsaw to cut out the holes for the sockets, which I had already measured out for him.  But he spent the time and effort cutting everything perfectly, and glued it up using liquid nails.  He finished this project literally the day that our first round of Christmas guests arrived- we like to work under pressure around here. ;-)

You can also see in this photo our new crown moulding!  This was another huge project!  Crown moulding seems like it should be easy enough to figure out, but we spent hours and finally consulted with a friend to figure it out.  He and Ryan finished up this side, which was tricky since they added "Mr. Box," the raised part over the middle of the cabinets.  It was something we were contemplating before, but after we rearranged the cabinets and installed the new ones, we realized that the middle cabinet (an old one) was about one inch taller than the surrounding cabinets!  We contemplated several options and decided that raising it would look best.  I think maybe it's a trendy look, but we really didn't have any other options at that point!!!  And it looks fabulous, it adds that "custom" look to it.  Ryan did a FABULOUS job with it, and now he REALLY wants a miter saw to trim out the whole house. ;-)

Thanks honey!  And thanks to our friends who loaned us the saw!

We had to get up close and personal with some glue and painter's tape to hold everything together.  We also had some wonderful neighbors loan us their nail gun- would have been nearly impossible to do this without a nail gun!

Working hard getting it just perfect!

New corbels over the stove

And in this post, the last three things we also added were four corbels, shoe moulding, and quarter-round. Two corbels over the stovetop and two on the other side.  The shoe moulding, of which I don't have a picture, goes all around the base of the cabinets and adds another custom feel to the whole thing.  The quarter round is under the cabinets, where the wainscott meets the cabinets, and it was just to finish things off where they weren't quite perfect.  You really can't see it, but we're sort of perfectionists around here. :-)  Oh, and I forgot!  He also added wainscott to two raw sides of cabinets, I'll get a picture of those for my next post.

So I consider that "part 1" because it was a huge change, but the paint is what is really going to bring it all together.  Before paint, we had four different color of wooden cabinets, all next to each other.  And that looks a little unfinished, lol.  At this point I am MOSTLY done with the paint, if you're a friend on Facebook you've seen some sneak peeks!  I have one more coat of paint on my upper cabinets, then wax, and I have some unplanned sanding and priming to do.  I have gotten an awful cruddy cold, and I had planned to have this finished by this weekend (it's almost been two months in the making!) but I am not sure I will meet my deadline because I feel so awful. And I know right now that it's going to take me a looooong time to add some little decorations because I am super picky about that sort of thing.  I like for my decor items to be functional and/or very meaningful, so I have a hard time going to Hobby Lobby and picking something just because it's "cute."  I will consider my kitchen done when I have no more painting to do!

Part 2 hopefully coming soon...

Pantry Redo

Ryan and I have been working on our pantry redo for about a month now, it's been a stop and start project!  Our pantry was still the old nasty flat yellowish paint that dominated our entire home and I wanted to put cabinets in and make it "girly."  Hey, it's my laundry room and pantry, and I wanted one little super-girly room in the house!  It's not done yet because I am being pretty picky about what I want to finish it off with, but I have some ideas!

So to start things off, I didn't get a picture before we started to work, I remembered after I had removed the first wire shelf and most of the contents of the top shelf.  These shelves were (mostly) functional but definitely not pretty.  They had to go.  You can also see the beautiful paint color.

  

Next we have the opposite side of the room.  This is mostly our school stuff, games, craft supplies, puzzles, and other random kid's stuff.  The top shelf is my liquor cabinet. :-)

Ahh, much better, everything removed. We took off the hideous light fixture too, complete with dead bugs, which added more light to the window-less room.  I hope to get a mini-chandelier, if I can find one for a great price!

Fresh Paint

I've been chomping at the bit, ready to paint our downstairs, so when my mom decided to come visit and stay a few days I thought it would be a good time to paint.  In a matter of a few intense nights we got most of the downstairs done.  We are saving our two-story foyer for a professional!  We chose two Sherwin Williams colors, color-matched to Behr premium flat enamel.  The color for most of the downstairs is Dorian Gray, and the playroom is Dovetail, which is just a shade darker.  It's hard to tell a difference unless you're really looking!  The colors are gorgeous, it really takes our house up a notch and to me makes everything look a tad bit more formal- which I love! Part of me wishes maybe we'd chosen a shade that was more different for the playroom.  In a few years, when it's more of a sitting room and less of a destruction room, I hope we'll add some bead board and crown molding!  We planned on painting the foyer a dark blue, but now I'm thinking a red or maroon might be magnificent and provide more of a contrast.  We'll see...

Weekend of Firsts

Friday, September 2 was First Friday, and we had our First activity of the year for our homeschool group.  Our group met for mass (the children's First time at this parish), then went to a new park for the First time.  They had a lot of fun playing with some old friends and making some new friends!  Finally I'm starting to feel like one of the "seasoned" moms in our group, and my older children are finally old enough that they'll go off and actually play with friends instead of me having to entertain them!  A new First feeling!

Around Our House

I have so many projects I want to do around my house, I feel like I'm getting antsy!  Maybe writing it down here will help me organize my thoughts, and maybe I can get some good ideas from y'all. :-)

We have our recessed lights and two pendants installed in our kitchen, they've been completed for a month or so now and it's so nice having light in the kitchen!  The next step won't come for awhile, since it's an expensive step- moving the plumbing, new countertops, new backsplash.  Like, probably not until next year.  Honestly it's probably a good thing that we have to wait because I still don't feel like I'm completely sure of what I want to do in my kitchen.  I haven't really defined my "style" yet, and I flip-flop between a Mediterranean feel and a contemporary country feel.  I think I'd be happy with either style, really, but of course I have to consider the flow of the rest of the house!

Creating Art

Finger paints on canvas, created by Beth and Luke for Daddy's new office.

Seasonal Firsts

This past weekend we had our first snowcones of the season!  Kind of. We don't have a gluten-free syrup yet so they ate shaved ice, Beth's plain and Luke's with some Crystal Light lemonade.  They loved them just as much as they loved them last year, except Luke can hold his cup a bit better this year!  Yay!  Last year Beth was never a big fan of the syrup anyways, she usually just had plain shaved ice.  I don't know what flavor to order for her, I want to be sure she'll like it since the bottles of the gluten-free syrup Ryan found online are $15 each!

We've also started working out in the yard again, quite a bit.  I haven't gotten a picture yet but last weekend Ryan picked up some rocks and we laid out two new beds in the front lawn for more trees.  (We had a grand total of 5 trees in our actual yard before we moved in!)  I don't know when we'll plant them but we do intend on getting a few more quick-growing varieties.

Our backyard construction has begun, and quite by accident!  We've had workers on our street for about two weeks now, replacing out water pipes.  Needless to say, there's been a lot of extra dirt.  And, guess what, we needed dirt!  So we asked them to start dumping it into our backyard, thinking even though it's not the best, cleanest dirt in the world, it's FREE!

Both boys liked watching the dirt get dumped in the backyard!  Have I mentioned that Jack is making car sounds?  Pretty incredible.  Anyways, we had a total of 7 dump truck loads over the course of two days dumped into the back of our property, the lowest part (also previously known as our swamp, if it would ever rain this year).

Then, this morning I got an offer I couldn't refuse.  Thinking we were going to have to spend the next three months spreading out all of this dirt, I was starting to figure out ways how to clear up my weekends.  But, a worker (el jefe, I assume) came and asked if I wanted him to spread it all out for a little bit of moolah. Um, heck YEAH!  We had been quoted over $800 for a guy to dump 4 or 5 loads of dirt plus spend time smoothing it out.  Compared to that, plus all the images dancing around in my head of Ryan throwing out his back, all of this was looking pretty good.

We left the house for a book club meeting and when we came back our yard looked like this:

Done!  And pretty smooth too, not perfect but I think he and I can handle this in a single weekend!  I was kind of sad the offer didn't come another day though, I had wanted to invite all of my friend's kids over for a party in the dirt!  The kids got one good romp in the dirt the day before yesterday, I have a lot of pictures I'll put up in a different post. :-)

Last week

I'm not even sure how to begin to tell you of all the things we did this weekend.  Ryan had Friday, our ice day, off from work but I'd hardly say he didn't "work!"  I suppose I'll start from the very beginning (a very good place to start!).

Last Monday, January 31, was Luke's doctor appointment with our pediatric GI.  We'd been waiting about two months for this appointment, no joke.  We went in and I described my poor Luke's symptoms of chronic constipation, experiencing no relief from Miralax, and more icky details I won't pollute your mind with.  He decided to take an x-ray of his midsection, which Luke did not enjoy.  I was getting Luke dressed in our little room when I heard a gasp from the next room, and the doctor came to get me.  He showed me the xray, pointed out Luke's bones and then he said, "See all that gauzy looking stuff all over the place?"  "Yeah?" "That's all poop!"  Luke's colon was so swollen and full of, ahem, the gross stuff, the doctor said he hadn't seen anything quite like that before.  To make a long story short, Luke needed a drastic colon cleanse.  Two enemas and a 7-dose Miralax-Gatorade cocktail later, he's now pooping on a daily basis again, now to the opposite extreme.   We have to keep things running smoothly for a few months to allow his colon time to shrink back down to normal size, then maybe we can start talking about potty training!  I am so thankful I took him... Hearing him cry every time he made a dirty diaper and at every diaper change was so difficult for both him and me.  I only wish I'd taken him to the minor ER instead of waiting so long for this doctor appointment.  (Note to self: Always trust Mommy instinct.)

So my week started of filled with many, many, MANY dirty diapers.  He's probably lost five pounds!  The rest of the week went by relatively uneventful as we got excited for the pending "snow day" that didn't happen.  The good thing about an ice day was Ryan still stayed home from work, and he and I got an itch and got busy in the house.  We rearranged our bedroom, put together and organized new-to-us bookshelves upstairs in the game room (purchased from a friend!), cleaned out our closet, and still managed to maintain the household.

The upstairs looks great, I am so happy to finally have a place for all of our school and office stuff!  I wanted to paint very badly but Ryan, still traumatized from the yellow bathroom, vetoed that project.  Another day!  We've also fired out Ryan's old college computer for the kids, we hope to use it for some of Beth's learning programs, movies, and music.  First I think we need to clear it all off and upgrade from Windows XP!  My ideas for the future of this room include a sofa or two, floor cushions, a couple of projects to decorate the walls, and a long wooden table for our work.  I want it to be a dual-purpose, very cozy space that invites the children to learn on one side and read and play on the other side.

While the change in our bedroom hasn't been that drastic, I do like the furniture layout a lot better now.  I have room for a (future) pretty chair and lamp in front of the window, and we moved the desk out and upstairs so there's no media in the room.  We also still need to paint this room but again... Another day!  Sometime in the next couple of months I hope to go out and buy some nice pretty touches like candles, curtains, and art.  We will probably wait to put our pictures back up on the wall until I get around to that.

The closet clean out was nice too because we were able to find things we'd been looking for since before the move... Like my Sansa mp3 player!  We have old CDs coming out of our ears (anyone need any bad 90's country CDs?), sooo many pictures (is there any reason to keep a million negatives?) and textbooks.  Yes, college textbooks.  Why we have these, I don't know, but someone please tell my husband that he will never need these books again?

EPIC FAILURE

"Epic Fail" is sort of a trendy phase right now, used in conversations to describe a situation that went wrong. Usually when someone is using that phrase, they're describing something that wasn't really that horrible, and "fail" is more of a verb than a noun so "failure" should probably be the right word choice. Anyways, the point of my blubbering is that this post, my dear friends, is truly about an epic failure.

I had a great idea. I thought I'd be a super-cool mom and paint a small wall in my kitchen with chalkboard paint, so I'd have a fun place to write lists while the kids had a convenient out-of-my-way place to doodle and kill some time while I finished up my kitchen chores. Ryan and I agreed it'd be a fun thing for the kids, and discussed this wall:

This small wall separates my kitchen from my family room. It's small, but big enough for two kids, and not right in my pathway when I'm cooking. Perfect. So Ryan went out of town for a night and I got to work. I painted it with black chalkboard paint, two coats. It went on well, and it was really nice to see fresh paint on a wall in this house! It made me want to paint more, but that's another story! I let the paint sit for 3 days, just like the can suggested, then went to town with white chalk to "condition" it. I noticed the problem when I tried to wipe it clean.

Texture, my friends. Texture. The perfect way to kill off a wonderfulawesometerrificfantastic idea. Texture means it never really gets clean. It means nothing written actually looks good. And it eats the chalk, which leads me to my next point.

Dust. Chalk dust everywhere! Piles on the floor, dust in the carpet, dust on the bottom of socks, dust on clothes, dust on the baseboard. DUST. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THE DUST?

Something I had considered were "oopsies," like chalk getting on an adjacent wall. I didn't really mind this as much since I despise the flat, ugly, original wall paint anyway. Even a random streak of colored chalk would be an improvement.

So as you see, this was an epic failure at its best. Yes, I can admit when I'm wrong and in this case, I was horribly wrong. Bad idea. I'm trying to figure out where or how I'd recommend this paint, and the only thing I can come up with is the inside of the garage wall. That might be fun, since kids get dirty outside anyways, chalk dust belongs outside, and drywall is flat. Hmmm... I do still have about half a can of chalkboard paint left... ;-)

Weekend Project!

totally impish.

brothers sharing a play mat

he's getting very good at pushing up! he actually played like this for quite a bit of time, i didn't think he'd last too long!

"the boys"

beth helped me paint! she actually helped, and made only a little mess...

the two shelves, with the first coat of paint.

This was our last "free" weekend for a few weeks, so we took the opportunity to build one more cubby shelf and paint both of them. They're both going to need another coat of paint, and we have to paint and attach the back we're adding (beadboard that we got for free from Freecycle). They look great, I can't wait to put them in the house!

6-cube bookshelf

This weekend we took on our first building project: a 6-cube shelf, like this:

This is a bookshelf from The Land of Nod that retails for $250.00. I found plans on a great blog site called Knock-Off Wood, which assured me the project would cost under $50. So off I went to Home Depot, pulled my minivan (oops, I mean "hatchback") in next to all the trucks, and marched straight into the lumber section. Of course I asked for help, I'm not that dumb. An employee helped me pick out my boards and then made all the cuts for me, and was super-impressed that I hardly had any wood wasted and left over. I assured him I didn't come up with the plans! It's all planned out on the web site I linked to- check it out! I brought my pile of wood home, along with some 2-inch screws and some finishing nails.


Ryan and I got started while the kids played outside and Jack sat in his bouncy chair. We figured out where to put what piece and decided to modify the plans just ever so slightly to give it a little more strength. After all, this is going in the playroom!

We got the first part together using screws. I have never used a screwdriver to pre-drill the holes so much in my life, I have to say it was a little empowering and it did give me a little endorphine rush, until my wrist started hurting from manually screwing them in. Lame.

At this point, we all took a much-needed snow cone break. Unfortunately I have no pictures to prove it, you'll just have to believe me! Afterward we walked across the street to the neighbor's house for a little barbeque, then came home, put the kids down, and went outside to finish it up.

I covered the holes with wood putty and will sand it before we paint it white. We were planning to paint it today but other things popped up, so we'll get to that later in the week.

Totally awesome. I feel so proud of myself. It was really a joint effort, but Ryan let me do most of it to make me feel good! I can't wait to paint it and get it in the house, then brag about it when every one comes over! We plan to make at least one more, and maybe a tall cube bookcase, to line one wall in our playroom. Then up next...who knows! This was a very easy project for a major beginner like me, but I've been bitten by the bug and really hope that we can build more together!

Oh yes, our other accomplishment this weekend? Ryan drafting an incredible fantasy football team, ready to win us some money! Yes, that's two computers and a beer....That's what winners are made of, lol.

Last weekend

Last weekend we didn't have a huge project to tackle. Ryan and I went to Ikea with Jack to buy a loveseat for our playroom, where we had no real seating. I'd been looking at Craigslist hoping to find a deal, but the sofas we looked at were all too big for the space, and we would have wound up paying $100 anyways for an old, used sofa. I'd also been scoping out Freecycle, but those were all pretty gross! We decided to spent $150 on a brand new loveseat from Ikea that we knew would fit perfectly in the space, and it's absolutely perfect!


So now we have our playroom in pretty decent shape. I have an idea to hang pictures over the sofa, but it's going to take a little time before I get some that I like. I attempted to take some pictures of the kids the day after Ryan built the couch but it didn't go so well. When I put all three of them together, it was practically impossible to get a good one. I think I'm going to have to just get a really great candid picture, because the "posed" ones don't work out quite like I hope! Here are the three best ones, unfortunately I forgot the flash in Luke's picture and this is the best I could lighten it up using Photoshop. Beth is gorgeous as always, and Jack's picture just makes me laugh out loud!

Weekend Project!

S0ccer Tots in the morning...

This weekend we did a little yard work. (Okay, who am I kidding, we do yard work every weekend.) We have a half-acre yard but we have only six measly trees, and one of the things we wanted to do almost as soon as we moved in was to plant more trees... then we realized that deer eat everything. Especially baby tree seedlings. We added two oaks in the front yard and planted the free red bud we got a couple of years ago as a seedling, and placed heavy-duty deer fencing around everything to protect them. It was probably over 100 degrees outside, but Ryan pressed on and insisted on getting it done. The man is dedicated, but probably a little crazy! Beth and Luke played in the hose, of course!