Thoughts

Look who dressed herself!

4/30/10

So here I am in the middle of the night again, folding laundry and blog hopping when I should be in bed, but I can get SO MUCH done when the kids are asleep! I was having random thoughts, so I decided to put them out there.

1. Madelyn only has one month left in preschool. What on earth am I going to do with her all summer long?!? Cedar City is building an awesome aquatic/recreation center, but it won't be done till December. As if we're going to be hankering for a swim then. Actually, Madelyn will. And the weather probably won't be much different--it snowed off and on all day today. What the heck is up with that? Let's have some spring, please! Then she can at least go outside and play in the dirt/mud. This fickle weather is holding up our backyard landscaping project (although that is why my floors got done last week).

2. Madelyn is getting more creative in her prayers. Lately she has prayed that she won't have a lot of wax in her ears, that the flowers will grow outside, that the worms will help our flowers to grow, that daddy can work all day and all night, that Mister (Luke) won't bite us with his sharp teeth or grab her hair every time of the day, etc. I've got to jot these things down as soon as she says them because she's got Mark and I giggling at all her 5-year old concerns.

3. Madelyn went to the dentist yesterday and did really well. I was glad I didn't have to shell out the $$ for her to refuse to let them clean her teeth again. She has no cavities (this time) but has a "shark tooth" growing behind one of her baby teeth. Crossing our fingers that it will move into place on its own....

4. Later that day (this is apparently turning into a Madelyn post) we went to St. George and she kept wandering away from me in TJ Maxx and at one point I looked for her for 20 minutes, circling the store, and finally found her in the luggage dept. inside a shopping cart with her sandals (because you see--St. George has nice weather) off. She said she was waiting for me to go sit on all the chairs with her to see which one she liked best. She is so INDEPENDENT sometimes it drives me crazy.

5. ...And then today she was up on the ladder again (in her footed blue princess jammies, with snow swirling around), trying to follow Mark onto the roof where he was installing a new TV antenna, and then trying to follow him up into the attic. When Mark's around, she attaches onto him and won't leave him alone for anything. It's nice for me! He also took her to the library and to Radio Shack. His days off kind of turn into daddy daughter days a lot of the time.

6. One more thing--I am STILL cleaning from the flooring project and I am officially sick of it! I feel like I've worked all week long, but with all my regular chores of cooking, dishes, laundry, feeding, changing and entertaining/lugging around the baby, paying bills, etc., I am not too happy that I also had to empty out my whole lazy Susan and wipe down all my baking supplies, totally empty and wash everything in both of my utensil drawers, all my pots and pans, all my cutting boards, go around and vacuum all my blinds, wash everything that could possibly go in my washing machine, sweep, (and did I mention dust), mop, wash the walls and the windows, etc., etc., etc. Tomorrow I might be able to finish getting the rest of the living room cleaned, all my stuff back in place and pictures on the wall, and get caught up on laundry. Oh, and go to the post office and back to the library again because Madelyn forgot to bring home any books. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Can I have a perfectly clean house for just ONE day???? Is that too much to ask? I have (crafty projects, books to read, movies to watch) stuff to do!





Feelings vented, laundry folded.....time for this mama to get some sleep. Right after I go write a grocery list and straighten up the living room....

OKAY, okay...

4/28/10

I dropped everything today to get the kitchen clean and floors washed so I could show you (you whiny people, you know who you are) this:

Ta-daa!
(I wish my kitchen always looked this good. I assure you it usually doesn't.)

This was before...

Mark: "Thank goodness that's over so I never have to do it again."

I am already loving that I can walk in the kitchen barefoot now. In my opinion, tile is pretty much the equivalent of a concrete slab in comfort and ease of cleaning. Tonight, washing the floors (which is a chore I HATE) wasn't even that bad!

The colors seem to look different in all the pictures depending on the lighting. Which I guess explains why when we were looking for flooring and would order samples online that looked like a good match, they were totally off. Plus I had no idea what kind of wood or finish our cabinets were. But when I was on top of the counter today, I saw on the very top of the cabinets (covered in dust, of course) that they are labeled "rustic maple with copper stain". OH. That might have been handy to know about two months ago.

Anyway, I am still not done cleaning and dusting yet. It is still going to take me the rest of the week and a vast amount of Lemon Pledge to get back to normal. But I persevere.

Luke turned seven months old (!) on Sunday, so I've got to record his stats:

Weight: 18 lbs. 9 oz. (Already a pound heavier than Madelyn was at 12 months...)
Length: 27 inches

New skills: rolling across the room, sitting up, feeding himself finger foods, spitting, banshee screams, drinking from a cup, slapping things, recognizing his name. Actually, he recognizes "Mister" but not "Luke". Hmm.

I am so lucky to have such a happy, good (big) baby. Today was kind of tough because he is cutting his top two teeth (seems a little early for those, but what can you do) and his tummy hurt because I stupidly gave him barley this morning. He apparently can only tolerate rice cereal--oatmeal gives him a tummyache, too. But we all just love him to pieces and he is a major mama's boy, which makes me feel soo loved.

He is sleeping well through the night--usually about seven hours--and I finally put him in his own room (now that it looks so fabulous and everything). It's been a few weeks now and we're both used to the arrangement. I loved having him close by but he's old enough to be down the hallway. He's growing up TOO FAST!

Haha..love the eyes closed

Luke has discovered that his voice can go supersonic and up to 100 decibels. Known as his banshee/bottle rocket/Ringwraith screams, he likes to sit in his highchair and shriek at the top of his lungs just for kicks. Madelyn eggs him on, of course. At a certain time of night, she gets especially wild and monkeys around trying to get him riled up. They are a perfect match because he loves to be entertained and she loves a captive audience. In the meantime, my ears hurt a lot.

(Falling asleep in the high chair--must be bedtime)

Now I too must go to bed--I have an exciting early dentist's appointment for Madelyn in the morning AND rain, wind and snow are in the forecast! I cannot wait!!!

You too can have a dust filled home! And a fabulous floor!

4/25/10

I don't have a big reveal picture yet for you since I'm going to be dusting from now until Kingdom come, but our floor project is mostly done! We (meaning Mark) gave our tile the heave-ho in our kitchen and are now the proud owners of "slippery floors," which Madelyn was bragging about today in Primary. It's been messy, loud and the house is still a wreck, but the worst part is over. Sorry about all the pictures--I documented the process as well as I could so Mark can always go back and revisit his three, nay, five days of misery!

Night before:

Her Highness is overseeing things. And no, nothing on this green earth can keep Madelyn off a ladder. The taller, the better.

Day 1 (Mark, after having attended an infant resuscitation training at the hospital for nearly seven hours, PLUS a staff meeting):

He christened the project by immediately slicing his thumb open on a sharp piece of tile and getting blood all over the place. After which he got his gloves and protective eyewear on.

It was my job to keep Madelyn out of harm's way. (Except that that's exactly where she wanted to be.) Goodbye boring, beige, hard to clean, rock hard, freezing, unforgiving tile!!

The remaining thin-set mortar that had to be ground off

Day 2:

....like this! Can't you just taste that dust?!? MMMMMMM! By the way, it was 35* degrees outside. Which made having the windows open and fans blowing and furnace off just that much more enjoyable.

Even though we had thusly sealed off the kitchen, tile dust got everywhere. Every stinking square inch of the house. It covered the dishes inside my cupboards. It covered the whole living room. It got into the bedrooms. It got inside the closed microwave, for crying out loud.

Trying to lay low with the kids in Madelyn's room...

Are you feeling sorry for Mark yet?

Day 3:

Green foam underlayment. So entertaining!

Dun-dun-dunnn....it begins. At this point, I had to leave for a regional Relief Society conference where Sheri Dew was speaking. The laminate we got is Lamipro Regal in Russet Olive. It was only $1.49 a square foot at our local Pioneer Floor Coverings. Although it took almost three weeks to get here because it had to come from California. Via railroad. I know--you didn't even realize people still use railroads for stuff.

...A couple hours later. A HUGE thank-you to Mark's brothers David and Paul and my sister-in-law Nikki for coming to help us. Mark said it would have taken him another three days to lay this by himself.

Thankfully, our garage didn't get blasted with tile dust. It got blasted with SAWDUST. One of these days I may be able to see my belongings without a thin film of particulates.

After many hours of hard work, determination, and a large amount of Talking Heads, Alice in Chains, Led Zeppelin (which, coincidentally, is excellent painting music) and pizza, the job got finished. With one board to spare--which was simultaneously awesome and quite scary.

Mark: (collapsing on the floor) "My knees!!" I want you to know I gave him back massages before bed two of these nights. With lotion and everything.

This is exactly how I like my living room. Look--you hardly have to go five feet from the couch to get to the fridge! How fun is my house right now?!

Madelyn apparently rolled off the loveseat in protest (grouchy and tired after an exciting trip to the landfill with Mark) and then just stayed there. We didn't know where she had gone till I spotted her feet sticking out between the couch and the loveseat. She was fast asleep. Looks comfy!

Today (Mark, after having stayed up till 1:00am trying to finish the trim and moving appliances and then "teaching" 10 deacons in church and wrangling the baby, who is teething again):

ZZzzzzzz

And that's all for now, folks.

Beige No More Part I

4/21/10

*Sorry--another long post!

My house is beige. Outside and inside, the walls, the tile, the carpet, all BEIGEBEIGEBEIGE. Sooo boring. Whoever built this house must have wanted to play it safe. So my goal ever since we moved has been to get some color into this place. Finally--I have something to show. We painted the kids rooms** a while ago but the finishing touches weren't done until now. (Actually, I still want to put in ceiling fans and crown molding, but Mark says that'll have to wait.)

**I didn't want to act like my kids don't have a ton of stuff and hide it for the pictures. This is really how their rooms look. Except that the colors are hard to get accurate because of lighting issues.

Madelyn's room before

...and after!

Bed was primed and then spray painted with Rust-Oleum's Painter's Touch Ultra Cover 2X in Gloss Ivory. Blue wall is satin Behr in Ice Folly (510E-1). We got all our paint at Home Depot.

Night stand was spray painted with Rust-Oleum’s Painter’s Touch Ultra Cover 2x in Gloss Berry Pink. I need to give a plug for this particular kind of spray paint. It really does give you "2x" the coverage so the paint ends up ON the furniture instead of wafting away in the wind. And... Behr is the way to go for interior paint--it's the top rated brand by Consumer Reports and we never bother getting anything else. Trust me-- you don't want to have to do five coats with el cheapo paint!

Table before... (which I found at Bed, Bath and Beyond on clearance for $15-20 or so three years ago. Madelyn has given it quite the beating.)

...and after! Table and chairs needed a THICK coat of primer and many, many coats of Krylon Gloss White spray paint. Pink wall is satin Behr in Southern Beauty (140C-1) and white wall is satin Behr in Silk Pillow (PWN-15). The decals I found at Robert's when everything in the store was 50% off, so I got this set of two for $20 when they were normally $40.

This was a $50 collage frame I picked up at my Hobby Lobby in ABQ for $5 on clearance (Woo!) and have been hauling it around ever since. I finally put some pics in there from my Easter photo shoot and put it in Madelyn's room. It's kind of scratched up, but I don't think she'll notice. Luke is always so excited to see pictures of himself and his sister.

I got her polka dot curtains at Wal-Mart for $20. I originally also had a dark pink chiffon curtain in the middle, but when the light shone through the window, it bathed the whole room in an eerie, reddish light. So I decided it looked better without it.

Now for Luke's room:

Before...

...and after!

All we did to his room was paint with satin Behr in Frozen Pond (UL220-15) and put up some white curtains, but it looks pretty nice, no? Mark and I both like the color because the gray-blue reminds me of Luke's eyes and Mark says it reminds him of a stormy Atlantic from his surfing days. We still have a half gallon left that we could do something with...

A big THANK YOU to my friend Brooke and her fabulous decorating blog All Things Thrifty. She's the one who clued me in on how to spray paint furniture (which I did mostly to hold me over until my New Furniture Dreams come true). She is seriously so talented. She posts new projects, tutorials and ideas almost every day. Check it out!

We have a lot more big projects coming up.

We got our laminate flooring today! Hopefully Mark will be able to knock out the tile and get this installed this weekend. Then we have the backyard landscaping project:

Madelyn woke up this morning and said, "Oh, good! Mud to play in!" (...which she went slopping around in, got stuck, and fell over.) Our goal is some grass, some gravel, a shed, and maybe a bigger patio. Mark already built this nifty gate all by himself:

What a beaut, huh? (There's a weird sun flare on the picture.) He's going to build one for his parents, too. He sure is a handy guy to have around.

I also have plans to spruce up the master bedroom and bathroom and our entryway. And does anyone have ideas on which walls I could paint in my great room? There's no separation between the entryway, the living room, the dining area, and the kitchen. I am perplexed. I want a few walls to have a different color, but I don't know which ones. Please help!