Happy 15th Birthday, Hannah!

It seems hard to believe, but Hannah turned FIFTEEN today. Wow! I got to spend some time with her last weekend and we celebrated then with a special girls day out (lunch, shopping and Harry Potter, what could be better?).

We stopped and shot a few pictures at the park in Waterville...here are a few of my favorites:



I'm trying not to think about the fact that she'll have a drivers permit in 6 months...

And, that makes me think, have you heard the song "Teenage Daughters" by Martina McBride? I love it and so "get it". Google it if you haven't heard it...if you have (or have had) a teenage daughter then you'll probably enjoy it!

Boys!

The boys have been particularly grumpy lately, which I am positive is due to the fact that I've been very busy with unpacking and house projects. Add in the fact that it is so hot that we don't go outside much during the day and you end up with two grumpy (and extremely ornery) boys.

They've used some of their pent up energy to harass Lucy. In their defense, I'm glad to see them cooperate, but I'd prefer they not gang up on her. One day last week when I was cleaning upstairs and the kids were playing in the basement, Lucy started screaming -- not normal screams either, but absolutely terrified screams. I thought for sure that someone was hurt -- badly. I figured about the only thing that could make her react like that was if either Reid or Ross were bleeding out on the floor. I got downstairs and Lucy met me at the door to the basement, shaking and hysterical. I tore off down the steps with her in my arms and round the corner to find Reid & Ross laughing uncontrably on the floor. They had apparently been taunting Lucy about ghosts and told her one was going to come get her. Someday Lucy is going to get them back and they are going to deserve every bit of it!

A few weeks ago I joined a gym not far from home (I can get there in about 6 minutes, which seems divine after driving 25 minutes to the gym for the last 5 years). On a whim on Sunday, I called the gym to see if they had any spots open in their day camp this week, which they luckily did. I figured the boys could use some time out of the house doing fun stuff with kids their own age. The boys have been in heaven. Lucy, on the other hand, is ticked because she can't go (the camps are open to 4 years and older).

I thought things were going better this week because of the diversion, but today Ross took a pair of scissors to his quilt. To the quilt that I JUST painted his room to match. Seriously! What is WRONG with that child?

I should have kept a log of the stuff they have pulled in the last 10 days...seriosly not one of our better weeks!

Seriously!?!?

So, in looking at my window seat post, I'm seeing that the pictures are cut off. They're fine when I preview my post, but are messed up after publishing. Ugh...this is starting to tick me off! Anyway...I realize the pictures aren't very helpful...I'll have to work on this and see if I can figure out the problem!

A window seat tutorial...sort of!

I've been working on this post FOR DAYS and it seems blogger would really like me to fail at succeeding in finishing it! Seriously, I have spent hours trying to get my pictures on here and finally gave up and went with an entirely new system of posting pictures...photobucket!

So, anyway, I wanted to share the window seat project I did for the girls room with you. We used a stock cabinet as the base of the seat. I'm calling this a "sort of" tutorial, because I'm not going too far into details, but sharing the general steps we took to make this happen.

Here is the before shot of the dormer:



I started by removing the trim. Do you know how hard that was? I bought a new house -- a BRAND new house with BRAND new trim and promptly tore it apart. I literally had an upset stomach while I was doing this.

Anyway, to protect the walls, I put a paint stick between the little prybar I was using and the wall.



I realized very quickly that the little prybar wasn't going to work. There was just no way that the little toy I bought was going to get the trim off (I suppose it may have worked with smaller trim, but we have hefty deep moldings in this house). Luckily, the builder was in that day doing some repairs to the trim in the bathroom and left his nice big pry bar sitting on the counter while he was outside cutting pieces. See the difference? Once I "borrowed" his prybar, the process went quite quickly. I don't feel bad about borrowing it -- he dug around in our garage and used our saw horses without asking (and, incidentally, sat them over the spare car seat, which meant the car seat was covered in sawdust and had to be torn apart for a thorough cleaning). Note to self: don't be cheap with your tool purchases.



A side note on protecting the wall with a paint stick: it works, but not well. I kept dropping the sticks between the wall and the trim. See that little guy down there? Yeah...you can't get them out without removing the trim. I ended up with about 7 of them behind the trim before I got the first piece off, so if you are trying this, have a couple spares around.



But once I got all these little hiccups resolved, we ended up with this:



We had a major discussion regarding the carpet...do we remove it or install the seat over it? I feel strongly that the correct thing to do is to remove it. However, I was 95% sure that we would mess up the visible carpet in the process, so we decided to leave it. I figured the carpet could be cut later, when it was old and ugly and being sent to the dump anyway.

So, Jeremy built me a simple base out of 2 x 4's and screwed them into the wall.



Then we added some vertical boards. These served two purposes. One purpose is to provide support for the seat top along the wall. The other was to provide spacers to screw the ready made cabinet into, as the cabinet was smaller than the dormer space and we wanted the seat to be slightly deeper than the cabinet.



Then we added the stock cabinet that we purchased at Home Depot and fill pieces to the front. We had a heck of a time with the fill pieces...there were no precut pieces that fit the space and the store wouldn't cut them for us. They told us to get a table saw (hah, not likely). We ended up screwing two smaller pieces together instead and it worked out very nicely for us. We caulked and filled the gap and you can't tell from the finished product.



Then we attached the top. We chose the depth of the seat based upon the ready made boards in stock, so we didn't have the whole "don't have a table saw, what are we gonna do" dilemma this time. Jeremy also added a piece of trim to the bottom, too, to tie in with the rest of the base boards.



The top didn't fit perfectly, due to the fact that the walls weren't 100% square (are they ever?). So, we added some additional trim to tie into the board and batten. It worked out very nicely and the board and batten accents ended up hiding a lot of our carpentry sloppiness. Here you can see it after the trim and a coat of primer:



And, finally, after two painstaking coats of paint (which never would have gotten done if my in-laws hadn't swooped in and spent an entire weekend painting):

Another shot, showing the pink ceiling:



I must say that I AM IN LOVE with the way this turned out!!!! I can't wait to get a cushion on this thing. Pictures of the rest of the room to come soon!

Coming down off the high!

You know, I've been so pumped up and full of adrenaline over the move for the last 6 weeks or so that I haven't been down to earth for a reality check. I'm loosing altitude quickly at this point and feel like I'm just about to make a crash landing.

I like it here, I really do. But, I also hate it right now. I hate not knowing where things are or who to call. I hate the endless to-do list. I hate that my best-friend isn't around to drop in for a play date. I hate that there are boxes everywhere (and I hate that it bothers me so much that they are there).

I knew this was coming. It always does...MICHELLE DOESN'T MOVE WELL! Which is the whole point of THIS move -- this is supposed to be the last one. I just so want to be past this adjustment phase. And, really, it has gone MUCH better than I thought it would. The house really does feel like home already. The neighborhood is great and I love it. But, friendly neighbors aren't the same as good friends. I'm LONELY here. I know this is temporary.

Ok...that is probably enough of my whining and sniveling for the day. Tomorrow I'm going to the gym to get a membership -- there is an outdoor pool there for the kids and a daycare so that I can workout while Jeremy is at work. I'm hoping that some extra activities out of the house will be good for both the kids and I (and praying desperately that there is a mom at the pool that I hit it off with)!

A little peak!

I am really excited about how the girls room is turning out!!! I'm not completely done (they have no furniture except beds at this point), but I wanted to share a peak. You can see the used (very ugly) beds that I painted, the quilts (not perfect, but done) and a glimpse of the board and batten.

Busy, busy!

Actually, busy doesn't even begin to describe how the last two weeks have been for us. And, in my defence, I did try to update on here a LONG time ago. Blogger wasn't working for me the night I tried to update and after spending a lot of time (that I didn't really have to spare), I got mad and ignored my blog. So, I'm back now that blogger is behaving for me.

We have gotten a lot done around here in the two weeks since we closed, however we have about 10 times as much left to go. And, unfortunately, we're back to real life, so everything else has to happen around our daily life.

Ross is now the proud owner of a perfectly green room, which I love (and he is now complaining about and telling me that red is what he wanted). The girls' room is almost finished...the board and batten is up and painted, the ceiling is painted and the window seat is built. We have to shorten the blinds (and by we, I mean Jeremy), I need to caulk the top of the battens and I need to finish painting the window seat. It will all get done...eventually. I would like to have the paint and such supplies packed up by the end of the weekend, but we'll see. Everything seems to take 4 times as long to finish as I plan for.

Luckily, last weekend my parents and in-laws swooped in and did a ton of work around here! The board and batten would not be painted if it weren't for my in-laws. My dad painted our large storage closet in the basement and my mom kept the kids out of my hair and sorted through the kids clothes (all of which needed laundered after the handling they got during the move). And while they were all busy, I actually switched gears from house maintenance to unpacking. So, we now have a place to sit in our living room -- yay!!!

Today I took the day off from working and took the kids to the local children's museum. They all enjoyed it thoroughly (even Hannah) and were dead asleep in the van within minutes of leaving. I was completely tickled to find that we had more options of things to do today than we've had since leaving Columbus. I don't think we'll run out of things to do around here (both in our time off and when we're busy working) for a long time!