Look who turned 5!

Last Friday, we celebrated Ross' 5th birthday. He is such a ham...and a handful. Grandma & Grandpa B. came for the weekend and wore all the kiddos out (they are all upstairs sleeping soundly as of now). We had a good time celebrating, though didn't do anything major -- just hung out, enjoyed good food and played. Ross got Just Dance 3 for his birthday, so we did a lot of wiggling this weekend!

Here are a few snapshots from Ross' big day!

(As a total aside, look at that cabinet...ugh! It is an antique and is really beautiful, but that picture really shows badly where the paint -- paint that has probably been there for 50 years -- ran down from the inside of the cabinet to the outside. I've been dithering over whether or not I should re-paint the inside, including that back piece that is currently not painted but does have paint on it. I didn't want to ruin any value the piece might have by modifying it, but I'm definitely going to have to do paint it now!)

The living room is done!

So, one of the other reasons that I haven't posted in ages is because Jeremy & I were buried under a pile of paint brushes, rollers and a massive ladder in the living room. It took us about 6 weeks, but we got the living room painted (hallelujah!).

We had contemplated hiring a painter to do this room, because it has vaulted ceilings, an open stairway and is just down right huge. In the end, though, we decided to do it ourselves, mostly because we've never seen a "professional" paint job that we were happy with.

We had to buy a new ladder -- one with the legs that adjust for stairs. It was really rather cool, but extremely heavy. And even buying the tallest one we could get (without spending $1500), Jeremy could just barely reach the worst spot in the room (the wall over the bottom of the steps, where we couldn't sit the regular extension ladder and the new ladder was extended as far as it could go).

The ceiling was AWFUL! We sent the kids to grandma & grandpas for a long weekend and the two of us probably put 25 hours each into it. Needless to say, the next time this room needs painted, someone else will be doing it.

So, anyway, here are a few before pictures. Note the lovely paint job in the 2nd picture (and that was not the only spot that looked like that)...that is exactly why I was so anxious to get the room painted!

And here are a few after pictures:

I LOVE it!!!! The blue/grey is exactly what I was looking for. Now I can't wait to get the rest of the 1st floor finished, especially since the kitchen looks particularly shabby sitting next to the living room now!

Well, hello there, 2012!

Looking back at 2011, we had quite a year. We said goodbye to active duty, a steady paycheck, our best friends and having grandma & grandpa down the street. And we said hello to a whole new life, city, business, church and many new friends. I really can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm really happy right now. Change is usually something I don't do well with. I was expecting it to take a good 1 to 2 years before we really felt settled here, but we've been here just over 6 months and we're past those awful days of transition where I was pining for our old home.

We spent New Years Eve with a group of friends from our new church. It felt so wonderful and comfortable and I truly feel at home with these people. I am perpetually amazed by how welcoming everyone here has been to us!

I'm looking forward to enjoying a much calmer 2012 -- a year in which we can continue to set down roots here in our new home. And I'm continuing (or refreshing) a resolution from a previous year, which is to get cards and correspondence out in a timely manner! I did better for a while, but then we got busy with the move. (And, I don't care if some of you think resolutions are silly, I think this is a great time to take stock of the things that might need improved in our lives and to make some reasonable goals and plans to address those issues.)

Wishing everyone a very blessed 2012!

Mean!

So, needless to say, I am well aware of the fact that my blog has fallen by the wayside over the last several months. And I miss my blog...I miss the writing, the outlet for joys and frustrations, and the chance to record the comic strip moments that are our daily life right now.

I'm not sure why I've become so detached from it, though if I have to be honest, I know a lot of it has to do with my overwhelming frustrations with people (yes, I said people). This feeling of frustration has been brewing in me for the last several years, though it seems to have come to a sort of head lately. Do you know the song "Mean" by Taylor Swift? The chorus pretty much sums up what I want to say to the world right now. The chorus is essentially this, "Why you gotta be so mean?" I think letting the blog slip was just a way of cutting ties with other people and this cycle of meanness that I see everywhere I look.

I think I've had about all I can take of hard line attitudes that diminish other people's dignity. I'm tired of people using politics, religion, parenting, finances and other hot topics to berate each other. We all have opinions, and of course we think ours are the correct ones, but that doesn't mean we should stop being civil with each other.

Anyway, I will step down off my soap box now. And I'm going to do my best to get back in the habit of daily writing, because maybe I can be just one little light of joy and happiness shining in this grumpy old world!

More stripes!

I'm just way behind on updating this. It took me the better part of three weeks to complete this project, but I have our guest bath painted. While I was at it, I painted the pantry because it needed it. And I do mean that it NEEDED to be painted. The shelves were unprimed and unpainted MDF, which can be destroyed easily with just a little bit of water. I've been worried that a bottle would spill and we'd end up needing to rip out the shelves (which are very thoroughly nailed in). I also painted a small hallway area off the master bedroom. I did this to test out the color we choose for the great room. I didn't want to find out after we started the great room that we didn't really like the color (and I LOVE it, by the way).

I don't love the fixtures in the guest bath. I usually like very clean simple (though not necessarily contemporary) designs. The fixtures and hardware in the bathroom are just the opposite. Most of it I left alone, but we did splurge for new sconces. The old ones had vines wrapped around the glass globes and I absolutely detested them. At first I thought I would try to reuse them (because, after all, we reserve that bathroom for guests so we really don't look at them very often). However, after I took them down, I just couldn't bring myself to put them back up.

Here is the before (from the realtor's pictures, as I forgot to get a good shot before demolition):


And the after:

The stripes were a total pain in the you know what. The painting wasn't bad, but the taping off is time consuming (especially since I am totally OCD and spent an excessive amount of time making sure they were perfect). The dark stripes, by the way, are the same color as the kids bath and the light stripes are a light gray from the same color family.

I really like these colors -- they are much more "me" than the peachy beige that was here when we moved in. I can't wait to get the great room finished, which I started working on two days ago. It is going to take FOREVER because of the vaulted ceilings. I'm still working on patching and sanding off rough spots. Maybe by the end of the week I'll have all the prep work done and will actually be able to paint! My goal is to have the room painted by Thanksgiving (so that it is in good order when our holiday company arrives, but also so that I can put my Christmas decorations up).

So that's what the problem is...there is something wrong with his brain!

Yesterday was one of those parenting days (or, more accurately, evenings) that leave me in need of a good stiff drink at bedtime. Ross (why is it always Ross?) had a little incident. He's, obviously, been potty trained for a very long time. Lately we've been having accidents -- about every other week or so -- because he gets too busy to go potty and can't make it there in time (though luckily he can usually make it to the bathroom, so it is the bathroom floor bearing the brunt of this problem). He's also taken to not telling us about these accidents, because he doesn't want to get lectured (or yelled at, if I'm being totally honest). Sometimes he'll try to clean it up himself and sometimes he just goes on with life and pretends that his pants really aren't wet. Unfortunately, he's at an age where I don't hover over him every second of the day so sometimes he goes on playing in his room or in the basement playroom for quite a while before I catch on. Yeah...can we just all say "ewwwwwww" together. I am having an overwhelming urge to bleach every inch of my house RIGHT NOW.

Anyway...back to last night. We finished dinner rather late, so the kids only had about a 1/2 hour to play between the end of dinner and when we started cleaning up for bed. Most of that time I spent doing the dinner dishes. As I was getting Ross undressed, I noticed that he had poop on the FRONT of his underwear. Yeah...not a good sign! I continued to investigate (watching in horror as chunks of debris fell out on his bedroom carpet), only to realize that he had poop all up his backside. I asked him if he pooped his pants and his answer was, "Yeah, the last time I went potty, but don't worry, Mom, I cleaned it up." Sure, Ross, sure you did. Now, what was especially funny was the way he said it, as if he was telling me something nice and pleasant, just the same as if he were telling me that he put his shoes away and made his bed.

I marched him to the bathroom to put him in the shower and then realize that, yes indeed, he had made a huge mess in the bathroom and, yes indeed, he had attempted to clean it up. There was poop on what seemed like everything, especially the floor. So, while he was showering I took the time to really clean the bathroom, getting more ticked off with every passing second. I got him out the shower and laid into him with a lecture on his needing to tell his dad and I when he needed help. I asked him, "Why didn't you tell me you had an accident?" His dead serious response was this, "I don't know, Mom, there must be something wrong with my brain."

And that did it. You can't yell when you're laughing (on the inside anyway). How can you be mad at that? I vacillated all evening between feeling bad that he might think there is something wrong with his brain and utter amusement that he thought he could claim brain damage as a good excuse for making a massive mess.

Sigh...what am I going to do with him? And, as a side note, between the Ross messes and the fact that Lucy has taken to playing in the bathroom sink, I'm actually considering locking the bathroom door so that the kids have to ask for my help each time they go in so that I can monitor the situation better. That sounds like a punishment for me more so than for them, though...

Three!

I'm not exactly sure where the time has gone, but somehow my little baby turned three today. I feel like we are in a time warp...the last time I remember breathing properly was on the way to the hospital when we were having Reid. Since then life has spun out of control, the chaos gaining momentum with each child added. I wonder when I'll feel composed again?!

We kept it fairly simple this year. Since we don't really know anyone here yet, it was just a family event. I made her ice cream cone cupcakes (which were kind of gross because I under baked them). We also made cupcakes for her to take to school (surprisingly, the preschool allows homemade treats) and a few of the spares got thrown in the mix at home tonight.

She was very concerned that we were going to damage her cupcakes!

Daddy surprised her (and me) by bringing home a lovely bunch of roses as a birthday treat! They are some of the prettiest roses I've ever seen...good job, Daddy!

And, of course, we spent an indecent amount of time taking photos today (I took about 125 of her!). For whatever reason, I have a hard time getting photos that really capture her well. I think my issue is that she poses and I don't like posed smiles. I like catching them while they are talking or making faces or playing. She insists on standing straight up, looking at the camera and saying "cheese" with a phoney smile. I spent an excessive amount of time trying to get her to relax today.

So, here is one of my favorites:

But I love this one, perhaps because I know what she is really doing. Ross is standing right next to her coaching her on how to make a proper silly face and she is trying, with all her might, to please him. It was really quite comical!

Happy Birthday, to my sweet, pink loving, little girl!