Halloween 2011

All my cuties but Miss Oldest (who was too cool to dress up).  L-R: The young Jedi who wanted to wear shorts, a mad scientist we picked up off the side of the road, the cutest Batman in the world--who brought in the largest haul of the entire crew (cuteness matters), a 2 month old lion, a fairy princess with her wings on upside down. 

Sugar caught on very quickly and loved it.  She would run to the door and say, "Give me trick or treat!"  Then after  getting the loot, would add a truly sweet, "Thank you!"  We tried to coach her to say just plain Trick or treat, or even Trick or Treat, please, but to no avail.

Nutmeg's Debut

Megan Hope arrived on Friday, August 12th at 4:45 in the afternoon.  She weighed 7 pounds even and was 20 and 1/2 inches long.

My brother Mark and Lori and Claire arrived the next afternoon and Mom and Dad soon followed.  Mark and Lori stayed over night and Mom and Dad helped out all week and worked so hard that I told them that the next time they come we are going to leave my house with all its projects and rent a house at the beach.

Of course, the main event was Nutmeg.

In the hospital

Just one day old.

Little pea in a pod.

Lots of hair.

Peek-a-boo.

My favorite newborn picture.  Sure beats the hospital pictures that you pay for.

Cousin Claire and Aunt Lori

Nana and G-pa with all their grandchildren!

I LOVE this shot.  The expressions are PRICELESS!

Perfect.

They worked so hard all week and this is the only picture I got of them.  Mom painted until she was sick of wearing painting clothes.  

Big sister is thrilled.

After.   Notice the extra kid in the window.  HA!

First Day of 7th Grade

Dora Meets Reality

Conversations in the car are often an adventure.  The kids talk about everything and I hear it all (selectively).

Recently, Gem and Shakespeare have had a lot of dialogue about the inconsistencies in cartoons--specifically, Dora the Explorer.  Other cartoons are fodder for critique, but Dora is most prevalent in our house right now because Sugar is addicted.

Overheard:

Gem: "So, if Dora brings the moon to the king and queen, does she understand that the gravitational pull of the moon will cause total catastrophe for the earth as it gets closer?"

Shakespeare: "Yeah, and how is she going to breathe in space, anyway?  I don't see her wearing any space suit."

Gem:  "I'm glad that dinosaurs are extinct, because teaching toddlers to tip-toe past a T-Rex just wouldn't be cool."

Gem: "So what is with a little girl and her monkey being allowed to run all over the place with no adult supervision?  What kind of mother lets her kid go over the mountain, through the spooky forest and to the island?"

Ha!  I love these kids.

"Bunk Beds"

He was the mastermind.

She was the guinea pig.

Then he tried it out.

Ah, yes.  This is the way it works--bunk beds.

Breakfast on the Banister

Is there really any other way to enjoy dry cereal?

Dining Room

Here is our dining room right now.  It used to be my school room.  I'm still hoping to disguise a bit of school room by using the bookshelves for some educational stuff, maybe in baskets to hide the ugly.

This can serve as my more recent before picture.

Today I raised the bookshelves on 2x4 frames and put base trim around the bottom that matches the room.  Now they look more built in--no pictures yet.

But I'm also throwing around an idea.  Can you guess what it might be?  It's like a puzzle really.  I think it would be rather unique--a conversation piece as long as it's not too DIY junk shop in the end.  I hate to chop this baby up only to have it backfire on me, but it is a piece of furniture that we're not using--don't even have a double mattress.  I'm going to build something for that space anyway and this would be a cost effective, hopefully attractive option.

A bench from a bed.  Hmmm.

Pinterest

If you haven't discovered Pinterest yet, welcome.  If you have, you're already pinning and having a grand time.  Looking for inspirational ideas for your home, wardrobe, kids?  Look no further.

Pinterest is a web site dedicated to gathering pictures of stuff.  In my account, I have 6 folders dedicated to home decor, kids, great ideas, etc.  If I see something interesting in the browsing section, I can pin it to my folders.  In just two weeks I've filled the folders with such fun things.  And with a great Pinterest phone app, it's been my best friend in Dr. waiting rooms recently.  I love browsing through the stuff and gathering the ideas.

Here are some examples of what I've found.

Included in my great ideas folder:

I must do this--now!

Tension rod, brilliant!

Um....yes.
And it's at Ana-White--building plans with measurements and cutting diagrams included.

There is another picture of one built into a cabinet with doors to hide the baskets.  Like it better.

My mom is looking for bunk bed ideas for her basement.  No problem.

Simply search for bunk, and about 80 pictures pop up that have been pinned in the last few days.

Or how about home decor ideas that inspire you?

I like this kitchen, light airy, great details.
 I adore transoms and think they should be in every house.

I also love high contrast with punches of color.  Clean lines.
Yes, this is me.

Or maybe it inspires others in your life.

 I actually found a room that Gem likes.  It's okay at least.  Planning on implementing some stuff from here.

And here.

But maybe you are a quote fan.  I have an entire folder dedicated to signs.

I've laughed for two days about this.
Is your sense of humor like mine? Jon didn't get it, but Gem laughed.

Can you read this one?  When I blew it up, it looked all pixily.  The punch line says, "correct punctuation can save a person's life."

So, go pin and enjoy.

Here's the link to my files if you want to check them out.

A Room for Living

Our previous living room was a play room--nothing else, just a place to play.  It was painted an obnoxious yellow in preparation for the circus tent theme that I was going to do but never got to.  I had babies.

But now we're heading toward putting the house on the market and I think that the circus tent room just isn't going say "home" to anyone who walks in my front door and looks to the right.  So, over the last couple of months we've made some adjustments.  If you've seen the before, here is the dramatically different after, complete with new carpet that was installed Tuesday.

This picture captures the truest representation of the paint color--Rice Grain by Sherwin Williams.  Nice soft neutral with brown and yellow undertones, but not too fleshy.

I love the big pillow on the chair.  It pulls the coral lamps and the bits of orange around the room together.  I never would have imagined that I would go for orange as my pop of color choice, but it's really nice.  Also, that frame above the chair is actually two frames that happened to fit perfectly inside one another.  Couldn't have planned it better.  I always thought that the boy with the broom looked like a girl.  Sorry, Rembrandt.

Love the lamps and pillows that I picked up at TJ Maxx.
The matching lamp is on the desk.
I had a stockpile of gold framed art in the attic, so I went with that and I think it works.
It's a bit more formal than I care for, but it was the right price: free.

Great rug, compliments of Jon's parents when they moved from their Georgia house.

Probably need to pull the couch forward a little more.  I love that it floats in the room--no pushing everything up against a wall.

Well, that's the grand tour of that room.  Next up on the project list is the dining room and the girls' room.  Farther down the road is the boys' room.

All this and a baby on the horizon.  Went to the Dr. on Wednesday and had an ultrasound--everything looks great.  Still a girl.  She's about 5lb. 15oz. right now.  Two weeks, 3 days to due date.

Transformations and Annie Sloan Paint

My boys would get excited at the first part of that title.  Their minds would immediately flip to transformers.  But I'm talking about a different transformation.

Bunk bed.  $100 on Craigslist.  Notice the shiny spots on the top bunk--dinosaur stickers peeled off but the sticky stuff left.

Side view.  Please disregard the garage mess.

Ugly rail on top.  Uglier rail (metal) on bottom.

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  One quart = two coats on this bed.  No sanding or priming. They advertise that it will even go over lacquer and polyurethane with no problem.

After one coat.  This had me sweating.  You can see right through it.

And here are some crackled dinosaur spots.

Two coats!  What a difference.

I did three coats on the panels but only because I'm picky.  The brush strokes didn't totally disappear, but definitely smoothed out as they dried.

Then I took a sanding block to the whole thing and distressed the edges.  Lightly sanding the panels really made a glassy surface.

Distressing is something I've never done before, but I found that I liked the result and even had fun building some history into the piece by wearing it down more in some places. 

 Finally, I went over the whole piece twice with Minwax furniture wax to seal it.  Could have done poly, but the paint manufacturer recommends the wax so I went that direction.  Gem helped.

I'll show the final reveal when I place it inside and dress it up a bit.  The dinosaur spots did stay crackled, but considering that I distressed the whole thing, it doesn't matter much.  Overall, I'm happy with the Annie Sloan paint even though it did cost $34/quart.  Not having to prime or sand saved me so much time and energy.  I love that feature about this paint.

The other day, a friend was over and commented that it looked like something from Pottery Barn.  YEA!!!  We'll see what you think when I do a final reveal.  I'll wait until I move it inside and dress it up a bit.  I have to paint Gem's room when we get her queen size bed out of there.  

The bunk will move in and Gem will be sharing with Sugar.  We're almost ready for #6 to make her appearance.  Still tossing around names.  I'll have to take a family survey for her blog name.