Remember When? (Kind of like Memory Monday, but the TOTALLY CHEATING Version)

Hey!  Remember when I whined and complained about wanting to paint my downstairs family room?  Remember that I wanted to do it last spring, and that didn't happen, and then the summer flew by me, and then I was totally going to paint Labor Day weekend, but then that's when Pete got his 6th kidney stone?

Remember blah white walls with hundreds of dings in them?

Now there's a new memory to replace the old! 

Behold:

Okay, I don't know if it's showing up very well, but that would be a freshly painted beautiful blue wall!!!  My awesome sister Kar and I decided that we needed to help each other out in the painting-our-rooms-in-our-houses endeavors.  Because on our own, it seems to be an insurmountable task, but with two people doing it, it doesn't seem so bad, and then when you do it it gets done way faster.

I cleaned.  I fixed dings.  Lots and lots of dings.  I haven't put up my pictures again yet, but that shouldn't take long.  It looks so, so good!

Oh, and because I'm a nerd, I didn't get any action shots of us actually painting, but my sister did.  Also, Pete took the kids out to dinner and a movie to keep them out of the way, which was a HUGE help.

Okay, so also, remember when I was whining about having a messy kitchen all the time?  And how I need to change my habits and become better at what I do?  I've been working really hard at this, and though I haven't been perfect, I've been a lot better.  I've been trying to stay on top of laundry (this last week, not so much), and staying on top of dirty dishes.  So today...

Behold:

This is my kitchen with a freshly mopped floor.  The dishes are all done.  The laundry is running as I type.  I dusted and windexed.  I tried to snow blow, but I couldn't get the machine started, so I tried shoveling, and it kept blowing back on me, so I'm going to have to try again later today or tomorrow.  My chicken is cooked for tonight's dinner.  My floors are vacuumed.  I am the master of my fate!

YAY for new "memories"!

Before and After

My kitchen before:

Monday morning. This is what happens when I neglect my dishes all weekend, because of painting, and attempting feebly to eek out a relaxing Mother's Day for myself. Needless to say, if I'm not the one doing it, it doesn't get done.


My kitchen after:

Monday afternoon. Ooooh, sparkly!

Curtains before:

I've loved having these curtains where they've been for the last 4 1/2 years. But, it was time for a change, and ever since I got blinds for my front bay window, um, windows, I had been wanting blinds on the back.

Curtains after:

And now, I moved the curtains against the sliding glass door. It opens up that area so much! Now I get to fix all the holes in the wall, but at least I have the stuff out because I'll have to fix holes in the walls downstairs when I go to paint there in the near future.

Little boys' hair before:

Brock's hair grows into a ducktail in the back-it kind of goes sideways towards his neck. And Troy's grows very flat. He looks like Julius Caesar.


Boys' hair after:

Nice and buzzed! What handsome little fake smilers.


Ivy's room before:

Winnie the Pooh themed. Which I loved having for my babies. I made a couple of cross stitches, I got some Winnie the Pooh gifts, and because we were super extra poor when we had Jakob and Brock, I got a coloring book, and colored some pictures and put them on paper. When we moved here (when Brock was still little), I painted two walls solid green, and two walls green, but spongy. And I loved it. But again, time for a change.


Ivy's room after:

VERY purple. Pete calls it lavender. It matches the purple on Ivy's princess bedspread. I don't have anything on the walls yet. I was going to do a stencil of pink butterflies and flowers, but the paint bled underneath the stencil, and it got all smeary. So I'm thinking I'll go vinyl or something. Or get some princess posters. We'll have to see.

"Gay" Aerobics and Other Random Life Events

Random 1:
Yesterday I:
-washed 6 loads of laundry and folded 9 loads
-unmade, then made 4 twin beds and a king bed
-patched a hole on my jacket, and darned some socks
-went to part of mutual
-vacuumed my whole house
-loaded and unloaded my dishwasher, twice
-did a little sudoku
-took out two huge bags of garbage
-cleaned up two dead mice in my garage
-along with the usual (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dirty diapers, fixing hair, fixing lunches, helping with homework, etc.)

I just wanted to document how I pretty much rocked yesterday, so I know that I actually can have the energy and time to get a whole lot done.

However, I did not exercise, because my back was killing me. I think from making the beds. Oh, and from P90X.

Random 2:
One day, Pete came home from work and said, "We should start doing some gay aerobics", and did a little disco-esque move. And I thought, Richard Simmons? But he meant just some sort of aerobic exercise. So we got a copy of P90X, and have been working out ever since. It's a lot of yoga, with some weights, and a whole lot of push ups. Each day of the week is a different workout, and it gets jumbled up after three weeks. I could barely do parts of the ab ripper one, we only did about half of the 90-minute yoga night, and my "weights" for the arm day were little tomato sauce cans. (Hey, when you haven't worked out in who knows how long, you gotta start out slow.) And even though my back was killing me last night, it's been good. It's only been a week, and I feel like I'm sleeping better, and I have a bit more energy, which is probably why I could do so much yesterday (though today, not so much).

Random 3:
The other day I decided that I need to take more pictures of my kids. The spur of the moment ones are the ones that seem to really capture my kids' personalities.

I love this picture of Brock and Jakob. My kids were all taking turns telling "secrets" (mostly just whispered nonsense words) at dinnertime, into each other's ears, and into mine.


I also love this picture of Ivy and Troy. Taken the same "secrets" night. Blue eye heaven.


Random 4:
I'm getting the urge to paint rooms again. I don't know why I get motivated to do inside improvements when I should be feeling the need to work on outside stuff. Though it's still been too nasty and cold and freaking windy to do anything outside, anyway, so maybe it's just fine that I want to do inside stuff.

Anyway, I'm hoping to paint Ivy's room, this weekend. Stay tuned for that! (And I promise I'll be faster at posting. I've been sucking it up lately.)

I also want to paint my downstairs family room, though that's going to be quite the undertaking. I'm hoping for maybe next weekend...ish. (Hey, if anyone out there reading this likes to paint, and you aren't a crazy stalker, feel free to come help me.) And other future projects: making new bedspreads for my three boys, and painting their rooms, too.

Random 5:
I checked out community classes for learning guitar. Turns out they don't teach beginner guitar in the summer. Grrr. So hopefully this fall...

Random 6:
Just spent oodles of money on our minivan on Monday. One of the break pads was totally worn away. And we needed new tires. I really hate spending money on things like that, even though it's inevitable.

Random 7:
I'm starting Brock and Troy on chores-cleaning up toys (which they already do) and helping me dust and windex. They were REALLY gung-ho about it. And Important Kid #2 (Ivy) had to help as well. She cried and cried until she got a rag, and absolutely fell apart when we were all done dusting. Yesterday she was pointing and kept saying "bill! bill!", and I thought she was looking at something outside. Finally she got down from the chair, pulled out a washcloth from the drawer, went back to the table, and starting wiping up the spill that was there that I hadn't seen. Such a little cleaner. Are all girls like that? Because my boys sure as heck wouldn't have cleaned up a spill-they would have spread it around and made the mess bigger.

Random 8:
Memo is getting declawed tomorrow morning. The stinking cat sunk her claws into our new couch. She'll probably hate us for a while, but I'd rather have that than clawed up furniture. (We've tried the claw stand thingies. She doesn't care about those a smidge.)

Well, I'm off to do some more "gay" aerobics with my hubby. I think it's legs and back tonight. Hoo, boy.

Charlie (Brown) and the Chocolate Factory

It's done! And it's beautiful!

Oh, I'm talking about painting in the living room and kitchen. See?


(Here's the before shot, if you wanted to compare. Before: white walls. After: chocolate walls.)

And if you don't believe me about the chocolatey-ness, here's my chocolate milk next to the lighter of the browns:


The chocolate milk extends into the one wall in the living room, and the dark chocolate is above that and on the opposite wall. YUM!


Though, I can't decide if I want to sit and try to touch up every single tiny blob by the top of the big wall. It would literally take me hours, and you can't tell there are little blobs unless you're right underneath the wall looking up. I mean, can you tell in the picture?


Well, I can't, and maybe that's all that matters. I'm so glad to finally have some color (albeit brown) in my life! Thanks, Kar and Mom, for helping me paint, and Pete, who (mostly) kept the kids out of the way.

Painting the Roses Red...

...or the rooms yellow! This is a YAHOO! post, by the way. So you'd better share my enthusiasm, dangit! I've been SO busy this week! We've been trying to get our other two bedrooms downstairs finished to make room for the new baby coming. Saturday after my baby shower April came over with her little fam. She and I primed one room while our hubbies took care of the kids and played Rock Band. Then that night Pete primed the ceilings.

Then Tuesday my awesome mom came over and we painted, painted, painted! What's funny is I bought some paint called "Antique White", which is what we have in the rest of the house. FYI, not all Antique Whites are created equal. It looks more yellow than white, though depending on the light it seems more of the antique white. Here's our primed ceiling (primed in white) and the newly painted walls:



Yellow, huh? But I like it, I really do! And with the ceilings the same color now, thanks to Pete's expertise at ceiling painting, it looks great. Then Thursday morning Carpet Mart came over and put new carpet down. YAHOO!!! Now our rooms really are rooms!




Granted, we still have to set stuff up, but last night we put Jakob and Brock in their new room. Jakob had been asking all week if he can sleep in his "new big room". He's worried about the books that we read to them and keep in their old room on the shelf, and also about his clothes.

While we may or may not figure out the book thing right now, I bought a new dresser for the boys' clothes. Last Friday night when it was time to get ready for bed, Brock decided to be a big helper and get his pajamas. We've kept Jakob's clothes in the bottom three drawers of a dresser in their old room, and Brock's clothes are in the top two. So Brock proceeded to pull out the drawers to climb up to get his jammies, and the whole thing fell over on him! Luckily he was unhurt, but it really freaked him and the other boys out. Since we needed a new dresser anyway, I got one that's 3 drawers high and 2 drawers wide; one side will be Jake's and the other Brock's, and they can both reach their stuff. Another YAHOO, please!

So we're well on the way to getting everything settled. I can't wait to have a scrapbook room, the baby's room set up, and the boys' dresser together. And if my dang pelvic bone would stop hurting, maybe I can get it all done today. Even if it does hurt, though, we can probably get most of it done anyway. As the nurse said while I was in labor with Jakob, "Breathe THROUGH the pain." And I replied, "Yeah, right! Give me the epidural!" And hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be having that same scenario! But today...no epidural; maybe some Tylenol though. YAHOO for nesting!