The Girl's Room

Well, here we are- the day I have been waiting for far too long. I can finally post on the blog that all sawing, hammering, painting, caulking, blood, sweat, and tears has ended in connection with the girl's room. We are done, DONE I SAY! I guess we aren't totally done, we still need to buy furniture and decorate but I will take that over painting beadboard anyday.

I sort of forgot about taking before and after pics until after we had started. At this point in the game, we had already painted the ceiling white.


If you look closely at the back wall by the shutters, you can see the crayon artwork that we happily covered up with beadboard.


And obviously I forgot about taking more pictures as we went along. Beadboard is up, shelf is partially up, some beadboard painted, some not.

Well if he isn't just the cutest handyman I have ever seen! Dave is becoming quite the expert (whether he wants to or not...) at all these wainscotting and home projects we have been cranking out. I love it! Thanks Dave!

And we're done! (Sorry about the crooked picture)

Sara's bed just looks so tiny over there in the corner.

I know, all these pictures look the same- just giving you more perspective.

A closer look at the shelf. We were going to do something more elaborate but by the time we got to it, we just wanted it done. This shelf was super easy and looks pretty darn good.

The girls were quite excited last night when I officially declared their room finished. Sara was elated to have her bed moved back into her room. She was running around the room in circles yelling "It's the happiest day ever!" Livvy followed suite and ended up running her little head smack dab into the wall. I took this picture of Olivia this morning- please don't be too distracted by the breakfast and boogers all over her face (daddy cleaned her up from breakfast, and no, I'm not complaining- just sayin'). See the three little lines right above her right eye? We like to call that "beadboard head". Not pretty.

Valentine's Day

I really like holidays. Give me a reason to celebrate, I'll take it. We tend to make this a family holiday around here more than anything else. Cuz really, fighting crowds of people just to eat at a restaurant, watch a movie, or do whatever else with my Valentine does not make for a happy holiday Natalie. After something like that I am definetly not feeling the love, if you know what I mean.

Because we (meaning me) like food around here, our festivities are centered around eating. Every year I have the kids help me make chocolate dipped strawberries. Last year they were covered in chocolate from head to toe and loving every minute of it. This year Taylor attempted to dip one strawberry, announced it was too hard, and took off. Sara hung around watching me so she gets all the credit this year. They didn't turn out exactly beautiful but they tasted great!


We have a Valentine Dinner every year. I decorate the table, we open presents, eat dinner, and have ourselves a fabulous time. Dave pulled out the tripod to get a picture of us all together. I don't know why I bought a white tablecloth. I sat down, looked at it, and wondered why I didn't buy a pink one. Oh well, there's always next year.

Livvy isn't exactly patient in the food dept. She can't stand to see something on her tray and not have it in her mouth. This baby has an eagle eye and spotted her chocolate covered strawberry and heart cupcake on her tray. She was trying her darndest to get them off her tray and into her belly. I finally just put her in her chair and she managed to devour her strawberry and cupcake before any of us had even taken a seat. Yes, that means she did not want to eat her dinner but hey, it was Valentine's Day and this child was livin' large. Here she is covered in holiday bliss and saying "cheeeeeeeeeeese".


She was thrilled with her Valentine gifts. Once she saw the baby doll stroller she screamed until we got her down and let her push it around.


Sara has been begging for a prince for all her little barbie princesses. I haven't been too interested in getting her one. The other day I asked her exactly why she wanted a prince doll and she told me "so they can dance". Well if that just isn't that sweetest thang- as long as dancing is the only thing going on... And so, she got her prince... and a fairy princess too. I found the prince on clearance and noticed that he had fairy ears and wings. Great. I know she has no fairy barbies so I added a $4.00 fairy barbie with wings. You never know, the other barbie dolls might not have been so accepting of the fairy prince and his fairy ways. My motto- always prepared. Do you like that she changed into her Belle Christmas Dress for our Valentine Dinner?


As far as Taylor goes, the kid needs nothing. Okay, none of my kids really need anything but you know what I mean. He is currently addicted to the Lego Star Wars game on the Wii and that is all the entertainment he needs. However, I did manage to find something right up his alley- a Red Power Ranger! He was a Red Power Ranger for Halloween so he holds Red Power Rangers near and dear to his little 5-year-old heart. It's kind of nice because he's old enough to actually understand toys now and how they work. He used to like the idea of the toy more than the actual toy- he gets it now and so I feel like I get more bang for my buck. Love it! Oh, and I love this kid too- once again, posing for the camera. He got a new sports t-shirt too, in case you are wondering what he is holding in his other hand.


And for my special Valentine, I managed to surprise him with the Leatherman Skeletool- it's a new 2008 multi-tool that is light weight and perfect for backpacking. And really, the only reason I knew that he would like this is because a few weeks back he was looking through Backpacker Magazine's 2008 Gear Guide and mentioned how cool he thought it was. Gifts for Dave are not easy to come by so I have to be on my toes.

After dinner we trudged through snow and ice throughout the neighborhood delivering Valentine treats to our neighbor friends. The kids loved it!

At the end of our evening as Dave and I were kicked back and chatting, he said to me, "I hope you know, I took you at your word and didn't get you anything for Valentine's Day." To which I jokingly replied, "You didn't get me flowers..." His response, "Well, when I was at the store I couldn't find any." So I said, "Seriously Dave, it's Valentine's Day and they were out of flowers?" Slightly reluctantly he said, "Well, they were out at the Circle K". I just had to laugh. I am so glad that Dave is my Valentine. He is the best and I wouldn't trade him for the world, not even for a bouquet of silly flowers.

the ugly stick pays a visit

Operation "reclaim my life"

Since it's snowing sideways outside right now (a sight I don't see that often since moving from Wyoming), I figure I'm hunkered down in the house and can finally take a minute to pay some attention to my long-neglected blog.

I've been a tad bit side tracked these last few days by what I like to call "operation reclaim my life". It all began when I cleaned the laundry room last week. It may not sound like that big of a deal but if you have ever taken a gander into my laundry room you know what I am talking about. I have a little counter where I tend to pile up all my "to do later" things. And then if people are coming over on short notice or not so short notice, I pile the excess in there. It all becomes a laundry room cess pool- Christmas bows and wrapping paper, the kid's coloring stuff, expired gymbucks (grrrr...but my own darn fault), toys I have been collecting for the nursery at church, bags of unfinished craft projects purchased in October for me to complete for all the holidays- ha! Cesspool. No joke.

So with the laundry room all clean, I took one day and tackled all my laundry. It was awesome. I actually had a day at home where I washed and folded all the laundry in the same day. As it came out of the dryer, I folded it. I was beaming with pride and joy.

And then there's the girl's room. A project in the works for 3 months. A nightmare- not because it has been difficult, but because who has the time for projects? With season football tickets, birthdays, holidays, basement finishing (still in the process and will be forever, I'm sure), an 18 month old, and a big fat pregnancy, not a good time to start a project. Someone please remind me of that next time BEFORE I start a project in November. Right. My mom came over the other day to watch my kids so I could paint. I would have finished had I not blown the light socket out. Sparks. Smoke. Not pretty. Past 3:30 you really can't paint depending only on outside light. It just isn't bright enough. But hey, I AM ALMOST DONE! It's a darn miracle. All three of our kids have been sleeping in the same bedroom for 3 months so you can only imagine the joy I am feeling at the thought of them being separated and being able to reclaim just a tinsy bit of my sanity. Pictures later.

I actually finished one of my crafty holiday projects that I de-junked from my laundry room. I thought to myself, "I've missed Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas- I can get the Valentine project done. And I did. Two days before Valentine's Day but who's counting? It was the super easiest thing ever- it was just a matter of finding a child-less minute to do it. And no, I didn't find one of those. Livvy was touching the wet painted wood blocks and wiping the paint on the counter. Then she snapped one of the letters in half. As long as she was having a good time...

I finally bought a mirror to go above a piece of furniture in my entry way. I've had every intention of doing this since the furniture arrived in October but you know, in all my spare time, I wasn't looking too hard for a moment to ram all my screaming kids in the car and head to every overstuffed interior decorating store around. "Yes lady, I see the 'you break it, you buy it' sign, thank you very much." Yikes. Big mirror + Costco= awesome price. I love it!

And you should see the D.I. bags I have packed and ready to go...

Cleaning, painting, shopping, organizing, purging- all of these things have been coming together to make things good around here. We are finally recovering from the holidays and it's what- the middle of February? That's right. I'll take it when I can get it.

More winter fun...

Sunday was a snowy, blustery day- so snowy and blustery that they canceled church. Somehow this all happened after Dave was up and had attended 2 1/2 hours of meetings, starting at 7:00. I did not envy him. Anyhoo, after arriving home he was quite the good samaritan, threw on all his winter gear, and went out to snowblow the neighborhood.



Seriously, gotta love the goggles..


I really had to laugh when Dave came in all soaked from the snow, pulled off the coat, snow pants, goggles, and hat to reveal his church clothes underneath, tie and all. Do most people remove snow in their church clothes? I mean, at least take off your tie! I shouldn't jest, maybe the tie was offering all the benefits of a scarf and more. Funny guy.

Taylor had a good romp in the snow too. Here are a couple cute ones of him:


Look at that gap between his front teeth! He used to tell people that he lost a tooth there. But you know, that was waaaaay back when he was four.

Frosty's Demise

It snowed earlier this morning making it a perfect day for the kids to play out in the snow.

Livvy actually wore this hat (which is mine and therefore WAY too big) for longer than 2 minutes. It was very exciting. But yes, she did take it off. Stinker!


Sara loves the idea of all the winter gear but once she is outside it slowly starts to disappear from her body. As soon as she sees snow falling from the sky she runs to grab this princess hat, but once she is out in the snow, it comes off in 3 minutes (or less).


Dave helped the kids put together a snowman which Sara chose to name Frosty. Real original.


Look how cute our Frosty is- equipped with blueberry eyes and a carrot nose! It was a very exciting and proud moment for Sara until...


Livvy decided to enjoy a Frosty Feast. She began eating Frosty's facial features, starting with his carrot nose. I should have thought of this in advance. Food makes Olivia's world go round and not even Frosty can stand in the way of that.


Still not satisfied, here she goes in for the blueberry eyes:

It really is a shame that I didn't get a picture of Sara's face- she was mortified.

a confession

I have to admit I have been keeping an itty bitty (yet growing rather quickly) secret. This secret comes in the form of a little 12 oz (as of today, of course) baby BOY growing in my belly!! We are excited (okay, elated!- backflips, cartwheels...) and also quite possibly crazy.

Dave came along to the ultrasound today, you know, to ask the important questions and keep track of all the finer details. Upon locating the babies "business", Dave asked the ultrasound tech to take a measurement. Seriously. I can't take this guy anywhere... But really, if the baby would have held still for 2 seconds I think she may have tried. Ha!

Let the shopping begin!