Monday, July 30, 2012

A little project

I took this from the playroom portion of the attic and put it in the unfinished area that is to be my office/craft room. It will be baby steps finishing it. I ditched those cabinets and just kept the drawers and top. Makes the playroom more open too!
Before
after

Thursday, July 26, 2012

A little break from school.

I have a small break, just finished my Gero class on Tuesday and we don't go back until Aug 27th (which is the same day the kids start back).  I'm excited to have a few weeks where I can work on some things.  Of course, I have to send the kids to the sitter to get much of anything done because they're evil.  No, they're not evil, they are just kids, who run behind you and dirty as quickly as you try to clean and organize.

Kitchen paint color on the one part I've finished.
I've gotten rid of a ton of kid's clothes and I keep finding more to get rid of.  It feels good to purge some stuff. :) 

Yesterday I cleaned my room that the kids had managed to destroy.  Then I cleaned their rooms, vacuuming and all.  And then I locked Josh's door so he can't get in it.  And wished I could do the same thing with Nora and Charlotte's room.  I also took all the toys on that floor to the attic.  My goal for the weekend is to get the attic bars up and to get a half door made to separate the two areas.  The one area will eventually be storage/my craft space/office.  The other half will be all play room.  I'm thinking the toys from the living room are about to become very scarce as well, which makes me happy.  It's not that I dislike them, I dislike them all over the floor, discarded and forgotten. 

I made a new rule today that I read on the internet, it is "if you're in the same room as I am when I'm working, you need to work as well".  The crayon (yes, Josh) on the door to the basement was cleaned off, as well as smudge prints and Josh also started cleaning off the back door.  I'm thinking this is the best rule ever. :)

I will leave you with a picture.  Just because I know you'll want at least one.

I am going to be sewing some things soon, a bridal shower gift, some kitchen curtains for my house and I'm going to be working on my quilt again.  But, I also need to finish up the kitchen painting.  I feel like we're finally starting to get somewhere though. :)


Sean, Nora and Josh swimming at a party last weekend.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

A few projects that have happened at the new house

We started off with refinishing floors in the dining room and living room for our first project. 
Before - you can see what the area rug had been hiding

During - Sean hard at work
during

After living room with a preview of the new paint color (the grayish color).  Yes, you can see the different kinds of flooring used (yeah, we know, kind of odd, it threw us for a loop too), but we just haven't bought an area  rug to go over that area yet, but once we do, you won't even know it. :)  The dining room you'll see because (in my opinion) area rugs and small children who throw food on the floor at every meal) do not mix unless you have a dog waiting for the scraps. ;)  When the kids pass that stage in their lives, we'll happily buy another area rug for under the dining room table. :)

Yes, it's been a long time...again.

My only excuse is being incredibly busy.  If you want to skip all the writing, jump down for photos. :)

I'm almost done with my summer semester.  This class wasn't too bad, just lots of paperwork.  It was really a waste of a class.  They should have let me take OB for the full ten weeks. :)  I enjoyed OB, but that was a crazy five weeks of busy, busy, busy!  It was around 10 chapters a week of practice tests, paperwork and a test each week (two the last week, with the final!).  I missed an A by a few points and was disappointed, but I also didn't read any of the chapters fully.  I skimmed, I dug around when taking practice tests, etc, but I didn't truly read, because I didn't have time.

Because you know, I have three kids. :)  Nora finished Kindergarten and is super excited to start First Grade in the fall.  We took out her uniforms and tried everything on.  We officially have one pair of plaid pants that fit, two plaid jumpers and one pair of navy shorts.  We have a ton of white shirts that fit and that will be soaked in oxyclean starting this week for the knit ones (the cotton ones are mainly perfect, probably because I didn't want to iron all the time so I used the knit ones more often, especially for the ones not under the jumpers, lol).  Her one blue sweater vest still fits as does her one blue sweater.  Children's Place has a super cute sweater that I would have totally paid the $20 for but it's short sleeves!  What the heck is up with that?  We need it for fall, winter and spring and we need it with full sleeves!  We'll need more tights as she outgrew almost all of hers.  I'll look around for those on sale, last year I found them at Walmart for like $1 per pair.  I also need at least one pair of blue pants and another jumper or two.  I will look at the school's resale shop for the jumpers as they're $5 there, instead of $40 from schoolbelles.  I picked her up some super cute headbands that I think she'll actually leave in her hair at Children's Place for her birthday next month.  Yes, I know, I'm a totally cool mom buying school hair accessories for a birthday. /sarcasm.  I'm also a student, which translates to poor. ;)

Nora's Kindergarten Graduation - 2012
Josh is quickly nearing four and I've officially taken all 3's out of his closet and drawers.  My little man finally went through a growth spurt and is hopefully taller this year, since he wasn't even 50% last year for height.  He frustrates me and causes me to melt all within a few minutes, daily.  I hope four is better for us, I remember it being a better age for Nora, so I'm hoping it will be for Josh too.  Three has certainly been frustrating for me.  We're heading back to the Neurologist, she mentioned that he was sensory seeking when he walked on his tip toes last year and now we see even more signs of that.  On the plus side, his vocabulary has totally taken off. :)  It's still sometimes difficult to understand him, but he's making great strides all the time.

Josh - Lakeview Park July 4th 2012
Charlotte is almost 18 months and still my little allergy baby.  We recently did a dairy trial and it failed miserably.  I will miss you cheese, oh how I will miss you.  She babbles often and is starting to say more and more words.  She's very laid back and is always taking things in. I know the next six months are going to be awesome, it's one of my favorite ages as they start piecing their world together!

Charlotte - Lakeview Park July 4th 2012
Sean's job is going well, next month it will be one year.  It's been such a blessing for him to work for a stable company, you know, that gives health benefits and such!

As for me, I'm busy with school and kids.  Additionally, I'm also training for my first 5k.  I never thought that I would enjoy running (okay, slow jog), but I do.  The first mile I have to convince myself to keep going and then it's like I hit a sweet spot.  I put Josh to sleep, get Nora settled and then leave the baby with Sean and run. 

And where do I run?  In my great new neighborhood.  You see, we moved in May.  Which is another reason I've been busy.  I'm busy trying to finish unpacking and creating ways to keep my son from escaping the house.  He is a houdini!  And painting.  We still have to paint the basement and finish the kitchen and LR/DR combo (DR only needs rolled for a last coat but I had run out of rollers and LR just needs some cut and I'm too short to do it, lol). 


Side view of new house
Front view of new house


Becky and Alan, as well as my mom were all here over the 4th of July.  It was great. ;)  She has a lot of pictures of the visit on her blog too (which is on my sidebar).

Sean, Nora and Charlotte at the Grafton 4th of July Parade
All the kids loving on Aunt Becky
Nora and I at the end of the night before we left Cedar Point




I have a tracker on here and am surprised to find that I get daily visitors, despite only posting once this year (this will make twice) and a handful of times this year.  Weirdness.