What a weekend

The weekend started with a blast.


And stayed on track.






Sometimes we were puzzled.


But, we got what we always wanted.



More birthday and Christmas pictures to come.

Yoda's Birthday

2 Years

Yoda turned 2 years old!  

This is often where he sits playing with his favorite things: trucks, tow trucks, race cars, sippy-cup and his bunny. 

Tomato Cage Tree

I saw this idea on the web and since I had just taken down the garden, I decided to put off finding a place for the tomato cages for a few more weeks.  A few ribbons and lights.  It probably won't be our only tree and it will probably go outside, but for now, it's just a funny tree in our living room.

More of the office

There are a few more changes we have made to the room formally-known-as-the-dining-room.

It's funny how things turn out, here's how things have gone so far:
I think of an idea,
I wait 3 years to mention this idea to Greg,
Greg says it's a great idea,
I finally get around to doing that idea. 

So here's what we've done:

We put in the great shelving from the Container store.  I love it, I can keep stuff out of the hands of little ones, get a little more organized, and keep a bit more of my sanity.  Plus there's lots of desk space for the kiddos and their homework.  Easy access to recycling bins, crayons, etc. 

Next, I spent a few days rewiring the room so that the cable and the phone jack would be on this wall instead of the other wall.  That's right I said I rewired the room!  Impressed?  I did get instructions on how to do this from my dad over the phone, thanks again Dad! 

Something I didn't see happening was that this room has become a second TV rooms of sorts.  We end up watching movies and stuff on the internet and so the computer room needed more comfortable seating.  Greg took a day off and we headed to Ikea.  We came home with a couch!  Here the kiddos are comfortably sitting in the van while the couch is in front of them covered by the Star Wars quilt.

And here we are enjoying a cozy seat and watching a show.

 As I sat watching a show once, I realized how close we are to finishing this room.  One easy fix was the curtains.  I'm not a fan.  Since we end up spending time in here at night, I feel like we are on display for anyone outside this window.  Something had to be done...

I finally decided on a window treatment.  This was not an easy decision for me.  I feel like anything I buy will end up being a toy for the children in the house, so anything with a string was out.  I have a feeling that these won't last forever, but they work for now.  They let in a bunch of light, while blocking out anything we may be doing in the office (say staying up late watching old episodes of 30 Rock).

Yoda Invents a Game

"Maybe he'll be Famous."
That's what Parker said after playing the game they call "Whoa."

All you need is a camping mattress pad and a maniacal laugh.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 Mimi keeping it real with the crazy outfits.  And yes, she went to school this way.  Let the 6th graders laugh, she won't hear me telling her to change:) 

Who has two thumbs and loves this giant nativity scene?  This baby! 

Kitchen Update

So here's a few shots of the kitchen these days. I can't believe how much more we still have to get finished.

But nearly everything is painted.  We went with my favorite paint, Benjamin Moore.  They have a paint that's perfect for cabinets, really durable but soft to the touch.  I scrub at it and it stays strong.
Reasons I painted:
1)They had already been painted.  I didn't dislike the paint color, but I didn't love it either.  I figured that if I was going through all the effort to fix up the kitchen, I'm not going to fix up paint I don't love.
2)It was really tough to get every bit of paint out of the deep wood-grain so I simply could not have stained and varnished them.
3)Don't forget the scrolled-in design that I also didn't love.  I spent HOURS using wood filler to fill in that crazy line.  My high school shop teacher wouldn't be pleased with the 32+oz. of wood filler I used.  Sorry Mr. Barbone. 

Also, the Craig's List microwave is now in place. 

And while my mom was here she created a floor cloth.  From some of the older posts you can see the hole in the vinyl flooring.  I can't seem to decide on which new vinyl flooring, so I happily put this decision off by covering it up!

Here's how she created the floor cloth:

Mom bought a couple of yards of tan denim from the fabric store, washed and dried. 

She primed it with just normal wall paint primer

Hemmed the sides

Painted her design  

The last step is covering the whole thing with some clear polyurethane.   

I have lots of wall paint, primer and poly from other projects and from the former owners.  

Every time I got my camera out, the kiddos jumped in the shot.  Things look better with them anyway. 

Greg and I struggled to get this crazy cupboard up. It's one from the garage (long ago a family that lived in this home moved it out there).  After all the work we did, we realized that it sticks out into the kitchen about 1/4 inch more then the cabinet right next to it.  It had been a pass through cabinet (doors on both sides) and was mounted above the breakfast bar, so it's built a little differently and therefore bigger.  Shesh...

More to come...

Pumpkin Patch 2011

I called the last post 500 because I thought it was the 500th post, but I was wrong, this one is.  And by coincidence the sign above the kiddos' head reads 5.00, take away the . and you get 500!  Isn't that interesting...not really?  uh, sorry, here's the real post this week:

Because my kiddos are incapable of:
Sitting
Smiling
Looking at the camera
Enjoying getting their picture taken
individually or all at the same time, these are the pictures I came home with after visiting the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. 

500

We were laughing so hard at this. All for different reasons of course.

correct-a-mundo!

Me:"You are correct!"
Parker:"...a-mundo!"
__________

Mimi(when it was time to wake up):"Did it BE the whole night?"
__________

Mimi (finding a small toy to take to school for pj day--she found a plastic dinosaur):"I don't want something too small or else the whole class won't see it.  I'll hang with this.  I want to bring this Dinosaur, since I don't have a fluff pet."

Neighborhood

As we walked home a teenager in his car drove by, his car had loud music and this got Mimi's attention:"That car was starting to bump!"
__________

That day that Mimi had curly hair she asked our neighbor:"Did you notice my hair?"
He was nice enough to notice that it was quite curly.
__________


Yoda was invited to a neighbors' 2nd birthday party. (The son of the neighbor who noticed Mimi curly hair.) Here he is looking good for the party. It was quite eventful--Elmo showed up! Yoda would have NOTHING to do with him. He didn't cry, he just wanted to say "hi" from the safetly of my arms. After about an hour Yoda didn't mind that Elmo was in the room, but still wanted to keep his distance.



Then it was time to go home and for Elmo to leave. All the kiddos at the party were curious where Elmo went. All the adults tried to explain, with no success. The reason that all the kiddos finally understood was that Elmo had to go back to Sesame Street. Here Yoda is telling Greg about Elmo.  He's saying "Momo treet!"="Elmo Street!"