And Another Thing...

Snippets from our day

This morning:

Ben - Grandma was here!

Me - Yeah (?)

Ben - I knew she was here because Cattie smells like Grandma.

 

This afternoon:

Olivia - Why didn't you name me Caroline?!?! (imagine a very dramatic, exasperated voice)

 

This evening: 

Saragh - This will be your 26th anniversary?

Me - No, this will be our 10th anniversary

Saragh - That's 3 and 7, right?

Me - Ummm...  (she's five and we've never done math)

 

And a bonus:

We hear Saragh run outside and a few mintues later, the doorbell rings.  When Oliver goes to see whose there, he finds Saragh hiding under a box giggling.  Yeah, she's awesome :o)

Whew! What a great weekend!

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity.  On Friday, we went to our orthodontist's annual ics skating party.  I didn't get any pictures of this, I was way too busy eating pizza, pigging out at the chocolate fountain and ice skating with the kiddos to photograph anything.  Suffice it to say, it rocked!

When we got home, we had to bathe the girls and get them into bed so we could all get up early for Olivia's First Communion!  But first, I put Olivia's hair up in rag curlers.  It was so much fun and she looked so cute!

So when I was done, I shooed her off to bed and finished getting the house ready.  Then we were up early and bustin' our butts to get out the door on time for Olivia's mass.

Ben and Braidon served this mass so I thought I'd include ths shot of them and our beautiful church. 

Olivia in the dress my mom made for her, the sweater I knit for her and my own First Communion viel re-made to be a little more modern.

Olivia with my dad, because my dad made his First Communion this spring too!   After 40 some odd years, he finally relented and became a Catholic.  Olivia actually made her first communion at the Easter vigil with my dad.  This is technically her second communion.

Olivia with Grandma and Grandpa.

Olivia with Grammy and Papaw.

Olivia with Mama and Daddy.

It was a great mass,  Olivia got to read the second reading and enjoyed spending the morning in the limelight for her special event.   It's not very often in our house that you get a whole day just for you!  After mass, we went home and started getting ready for the party, of which I have no pictures beacause I have apparently taken leave of my senses.  I don't know what's wrong with me, people...

On Sunday, we got up and a bee-yutiful morning!  Oliver's parents stayed the night, so Oliver made french toast for everyone to selebrate Mother's Day.  It's super yummy french toast, and uf you ever spend the night at our house, chances are, you'll wake up in the morning to find Oliver in the kitchen, frying up a batch.  Yes, he deep fries his french toast.  Yum-o!

Then we spent the morning outside chatting with Oliver's parents and generally enjoying the first really fabulous day we've had this spring.

Good times :o)

Oh for the love of all that paintable...

Last week, Oliver was on "vacation".  I'm only using that word in the technical sense, because his time off work was anything but relaxing.  For either of us.  We have several events this month that will bring guests into our home and like good procrastinators, we took the opportunity to get some projects done. 

• Paint family room and set it up as the TV room.
• Paint the front entry and stairs
• Install new doors - downstairs bathroom, basement stairs, and family room
• finish up kitchen work

75% of this list has ben accomplished.  Oliver still needs to get the kitche finished up, which really means that he needs to get the wall trim installed.  Hopefully he'll get to this part this week, but if not, no biggie.

The first thing we did was paint the family room (which has also been called the fireplace room in the past).  We went with a really bold orange/poppy color and I'm still getting used to it.  I only got around to hanging a few things today, so no pictures of that room yet, but it's nearly there!

It took most of the week because we had to paint in stages (our TV is mounted on the wall, so he had to paint the new wall, move the TV, patch the old holes and then we could paint the rest of the room) and he also had to manufacture and install new transition strips for the laminate flooring and doorways.

On Friday, we bit the bullet and painted the front entry and stairway.  Since this required Oliver to build a contraption to hold his r e a l l y tall ladder and then climb up to the top of that ladder to do the cut in work, we've been putting off this project for nearly 5 years. It really wasn't that bad and didn't take very long.  We chose a color called Forsythia Blossom and I LOVE it!  It's so bright and cheerful now!  I hung pictures this afternoon, so I do have a picture of this project.

A view of the new paint color and the beginnings of my stairway photo collage.  I love the way this is turning out!

This is a crewell project my grandmother did many years ago.  The colors are perfect for this space!

Here are the new doors!  Our old doors were falling apart and ugly, so when Oliver found a super good deal at Menards, he jumped on it.  We wanted to install a door at the family room so that when the boys have friends over, they can hole up in there and not bother anyone else with their video games and general teenage boy rudeness.  

So, that's what's been going here lately.  I'll get pictures of the family room soon!

More progress in the little girls' room

Yesterday I made quite a bit more progress in the little girls' room.

I hung the B L O O M letters above Saragh's bed, bought and hung curtains (I'll be adding black out fabric as soon as I can, anything to get them to sleep in longer!), and bought new duvets.  I am so happy with the results so far.  Anna is really insistant about a rainbow on the wall, so I need to figure out the best way to do that and get it done.

The most exciting things in the room (for me, anyway) are these little spice racks bookshelves.  I really, really love bookshelves that allow books to be displayed forward facing.  I truly believe that they are more enticing to little kids, expecially pre-readers.  Book spines are boring, but book covers are exciting!  The books have already been changed out several times by Anna and Saragh since hanging these Monday night, so I know it's working.

There's a little more to do to finish up the room.  The closet door needs to be fixed so that it will close easily and the two walls above Anna's bed need some things hung on them.  I'm so pleased with this room!  It's such a far cry from the before pictures.

The corner where Anna's bed is.

The corner where Saragh's bed is.

Yeah.  I told you.

Not bad for a morning's work...

This past weekend, we worked on the little girls' room and as soon as I put the finishing touches on, I will certainly be posting about it.  But for now, I want to show you how I spent my morning.  Inspired by this post, I ended up with a completely different project.  It was so neat to see how this evolved in my mind.  You should have been there.

I started with 3 framed pictures like the one above.  I bought these a few years ago at a garage sale and they were up in the little girls' room a year or so ago, but they don't go with the new look of the room.  So, I decided to repurpose them.

I used an Exacto knife and cut out the paper backing.  You can see the background paper on the counter behind the frame.  I just picked up a couple of pieces of it at Joann the other day.

Then I seperated the matte and picture from the carboard back.  I did this because it was too hard to get back in the frame under the staples with the matte still on.

I used the cardboard as a template for my patterned paper and cut it out to the right size for the frame.

I printed out the girls' names from the computer using a "holiday" foint I downloaded a while back.  Purple for Anna and blue for Saragh, of course.  Then I cut the name paper down to a good size, centered it and glued it onto the patterned paper.  I also cut out a heart shape out of a coordinating paper and glued it onto another coordinating paper.

And then I hung them on the newly painted yellow walls!  I am so excited about how this turned out!  I feel like the little girls will finally have a nice, pretty room to live in. 

Tonight, we're going to hang some bookshelves on the wall.  This is another project that I'm pretty stoked about and the inspiration comes from this post on ohdeedoh.  I'm using four Bekvam spice racks from Ikea as forward facing book racks.  I can't wait!

Olivia's Room

We've been working on redecoratin Olivia's room for far too long now.  It was all supposed to be done over Christmas break, but as you can see, we're hopeless procrastinators.  We finally made some huge progress this weekend and I thought I'd share what we've been up to.

Oliver built a dollhouse bookcase for Olivia and I got to finish it today.

Here is the "before" picture.  I atcually liked the way it looked unfinished, but Oliver said he didn't make it to be unfinished so I had to paint it.

I painted the roof with brown chalkboard paint so Olivia can use it as a drawing surface.  I painted the body of the bookcase with white kid proof paint so hopefully it will be easy to keep clean.  Olivia and I took a trip to Joann this morning and picked out cute fabric that has the feel of vintage wallpaper.  We hot glued this to the back board of the bookcase.  We also picked up some pre-painted wooden flowers and a butterfly and used them to make a little yard scene on the side that will be visible.  So much cuter than plain white!

Here it is all installed in her room!  I love this so much!  It came out exactly as I had envisioned it and I LOVE the fabric.  If I had seen this when I was shopping for fbric, I would have made a duvet cover for her out of it. 

This is a banner I made for her a few weeks ago.  I had to wait until the new bookcase was installed becasue the old one was too tall.  It was totally worth the wait and it is lovely in her room.

So, there are a few more things to do.  I have to finish her quilt.  HAVE TO!!!  It's been sitting since before Christmas and I'm starting to feel terribly guilty about it.  I was going to have a friend quilt it for me, but I think now I will just tie it and then figure out some sort of binding for it.  I really need to get it done so keep on me about it!  I also need to put her valance together.  I'm just going to tie ribbons in various colors and patterns on a dowel and hang it.  It really just needs to cover the top of the ugle blinds so you can't see them during the day.  Oh!  We also hung her pink lights today.  She is DYING to go to bed so she can turn them on.  Hopefully Oliver will get some shelve thrown together for her closet soon so that we can get the dresser out and give her a nightstand.  Her room is really tiny and the less furniture the better, especially since we put the full size bed in there. 

I think that's it for Olivia's room!  If I can get my stuff together, I'll put up a post about the upstairs hallway (we painted it a deep, bright blue yesterday and it is quite dramatic!).

What happens when Daddy takes a snow day...

He might just pick you up and throw you in a mound of snow.

Perfect

I think I have written before here about the enormous responsibility I feel  towards raising my three daughters.  Speaking as a woman who got to where she is by a long, windy and often treacherous road, I know that it's going to be a challenge to help them reach adulthood in one piece.  I'm not going to go into a long, drwan out post at this point.  Suffice it to say that this is a subject I am constantly thinking about and praying about. 

I've been hearing this song on the radio for several weeks now and it is emotional for me each time.  I think Pink really hit the nail on the head with this one.   However, hearing the song is nothing compared to watching the video.  Pink views herself as an underdog and vastly different from many other female vocalists and I think it's somehting that she's still struggling to accept, as evidenced by her music.  I love that she's putting this issue out there and hopefully getting her point across to girls.  You don't have to be like everyone else.  You just have to be you. 

**Warning, this has explicit lyrics in it.**

 

Sickness and Superbowl Sunday

So, Oliver is sick today.  He came home from shuttling Braidon to a writing class yesterday and could not stop shivering.  So, up to bed he went and that's where I found him when I got home.  With a fever of 101, he surely felt miserable and I am stil trying valiently to be sympathetic and take care of him.  Yes, trying.  You see, I can't quite shake the feeling that I will get this too and he will be at work.  What do you think are the chances that he'll be able to stay home?  It always works out this way.  He gets sick on a weekend, when he's supposed to be running the Nut House, so I end up ditching all the things I had planned because I have to run the Nut House AND take care of him.  Then I get sick on a weekday, inevitably on his busiest day of the week, and he can't take time off of work to run the Nut House and take care of me.  Not that I begrudge him the time he needs to recover or that I refuse to take care of him.  I just get caught up in the injustice of it all.  I know this is a feeling that most moms share, so I think I'm probably in good company.  I do care very much that my husband is sick and I am hoping fervently that he feels better very soon because I know he's miserable.  I just think  that if he could get sick from 7-6 on a Wednesday, it would be way more convenient for me and would not at all disrupt the routine. 

Also, it's, apparently, Superbowl Sunday.  Who knew?  I have a feeling that the men in my life are going to be tuned to the game later today and that will leave me with plenty of knitting time tonight.  Maybe I'll go downstairs and watch something on Netflix.  Maybe I'll watch the commercials.  Who are you rooting for?  I usually choose by color, and I don't like either this year.  Horrible, really.  And we're probably equi-distant from both teams, so that's not helpful.  I know some people from both places, so that's also not going to hlep.  I just can't decide and I have to admit that I'm not that willing to spend much more time on the decision.  Ah well, hopefully the commercials are entertaining!

My Not-So-Perfect Plans...

Last week I had great hopes for getting back into a routine and getting back to "school."  Well, you'd think I would know better by now.  As I was sitting at the table drinking my coffee and alternately reading a book and knitting, the girls sauntered down the stairs and into the kitchen.  I cheerfully informed them that we would be buckling down and getting things done today.  They un-cheerfully growled at me and I chalked it up to a lack of sustenance so I fed them breakfast.  While they were eating, I went back upstairs to get dressed and make my bed, thereby setting a good example of getting back into the routine.  When I came back downstairs, this is the scene I found.  Olivia decided to write a book, Anna thought illustrating a graphic novel would be a good use of her time and Saragh was designing the ultimate weapon to take over the world (Her words, not mine.  No joke.).  Well, of course their plans for the day sounded way better than what I had dreamed up.  I mean, seriously, if Saragh's going to take over the world, her future is pretty much set, right?  It will certainly save on college tuition.  It's times like these when I wonder why I ever doubt their ability to navigate their own way in this world?  If they can come up with this kind of stuff, it would be almost cruel of me to make them abandon it.  So, I definitely learned my lesson, at least for the time being.  I'm going to continue to sit back and enjoy the ride they are taking me on.