Late Sweet Tea

It is way past bedtime, but they were having the cutest tea party together! So sweet.

Baby Sloth

Evelyn will play this game for as long as my legs can hold her. She will twist her arms and legs around my leg, then hang upside down and tell me she's a sloth. She falls off pretty quickly, only to climb back on and do it again and again. I love this game, but one day not too far away I'm sure I'll have forgotten all about this adorable game. I have to say I like it much more than 'diving whale' where she climbs over legs and then dives face first to the other side.

Breathing Pillow

Athena always finds a way to snuggle next to Evelyn when she naps. She works her way up, little by little, until she's on the pillow snuggling her head and licking her hair. Crazy kitty. It's sweet, but if she wakes up my little one while napping again I just might scream. 

Butterfly Chicken Boots

While I worked on dinner and the kids worked on homework, Evelyn kept herself happy as a lark. She used her stool to grab 'Mommy's water', put on her rain boots and butterfly wings, and sat there and listened to Elmo sing the chicken dance for a good 20 minutes.

I love that she has such a great attention span!

Birthday Horse

For their birthdays, I got both boys a 30 minute horse back riding lesson. It was a long summer so we're only just now using them. It was exciting trying to find the place, but the property is beautiful! The lesson had to start a bit late (but we got all our time plus some) but I didn't mind.

The boys had a great time! They learned how to walk the horse and make it do a little obstacle course. When it was over they got to lead the horse all by themselves back to the barn!

Naturally, even though I went back into my house to grab my camera, I set it down when I put on my shoes and forgot it anyway so all I had to take a picture was my pod. Not the best, but at least it was something.

Socks

Inspired by a friend on facebook I put socks in my hair last night to attempt 5 minute curls in the morning.

When I woke up, this is what I got. Weak waves. Lovely, but not what I was going for so I tied it back up into choice 2 from the 5 minute curls.

                                           

                                                   I like the look for the day, now just to see if it curls

Boxed Happiness

I realized a voucher I had for a MyPublisher photo book was about to expire. I started making the book a few times, but I just wasn't inspired to make one as perfect as what I know I wanted. Finally, 2 hours before the voucher expired, I put one together. I chose to do Evelyn's 4th of July Birthday with just pictures automatically put into place by MyPublisher. If I didn't like it, she could have it and at least I wouldn't of let my coupon go to waste.

My book came in today with a note saying "Happiness has arrived". It's not perfect, but it's plenty good enough for me.

Frik & Frak

After months (and technically years) of considering getting a house kitty and meeting dozens of them, we finally found our family pets, Boomer and Athena. They are litter mate sisters adopted them from SacRescue. They only do adoptions on Saturday but since I met the kitties last week they delivered them to my house tonight so we wouldn't have to wait another week.

I'm sure they'll fit right in!

Virus

Following a nasty intestinal virus I realized I need pill sorter just to keep track of my daily meds. When did I get this old?!

Princess Nap

She loves her princess pillow from Mamaw. Even on days she doesn't want to take a nap, if she has her pillow she'll lay down much easier. The funny thing about it is that she will only lay on the princess, never on the beast-and don't think for a second that you can lay on the beast either, she'll flip out. She likes to lay down and pet the beast until she falls asleep. 

Glorious Arnold

Wishing this was sweet tea flavored vodka... Still satisfying on a hot day!

A Fresh Layer

We ran out of paint but had every thing already set up (like the drop cloth) so I didn't want to put the play room back together until after I could finish the painting. I stayed up entirely too late doing just that. There's some mistakes and several places I have to go back and touch up later, but for the better part, it's done! No more icky orange and red in the play room!!! A green fireplace probably wouldn't of been my first choice, but we had the paint and it is a HUGE improvement from red and orange! I cleaned most of the mess, then resorted to stashing stuff in all the extra closets and cupboards. I can deal with those later (like when I need the space back).

I also had a free photo book (or rather, discounted that I already paid for book) coupon that expired at midnight. I've started several different books but I'm not a fan of the software and most of my books I want to be perfect. I'm not going to let this free book go to waste so I whipped up a book from Evelyn's birthday party/4th of July. There's nothing that I really need to say about any of the pictures so I could just upload the folder and let the program place them for me. I got it made and ordered around 11:30pm. I only had minutes to spare.

This afternoon my cousin from Southern California and her daughter came up for a visit. Her daughter is the same age as Evelyn and Noah and the three of them played together quite well. Although, I think my two might of had some bad influence on her. Oops.

Excuses

It's been awhile since I posted, but to be fair I have several still in the draft form all written up just waiting for the pictures. Lazy me....

Not really. I've accomplished a LOT.

Two weeks worth of paychecks, a dozen trips to Home Depot, 2 and a half days of hard work and my house in finally starting to feel like my home. We still have a long way to go, but we've done some of the biggest (literally in some cases) parts in changing it this weekend... even if some of them are kind of half-assed (meaning we didn't always have the parts we needed or the funds to procure said parts) it looks so much better. The house was half-assed and ugly before, not it's a lot less ugly! It's even inviting!

Green Finger iPod

Mawma has had Evelyn all weekend for us and the plan was to pick her up tonight, but Mom got really sick last night so I had to pick up Evelyn in the morning. That meant I couldn't clean or paint as much as I had planned (if any) but it wasn't a big deal.

I did the laundry, got the majority of the house cleaned minus the baby play room and kitchen where we were still working on painting, and picked up the missing paint all before I had to pick up the boys from school. And, that's with the drive to and from Nevada City. Some days, I AM a rockstar.

When Cliff got home we had dinner and then he watched Evelyn while I started painting away more of the orange and red. When I finished with the second coat of light green I started on our dark green wall. My least favorite part of the whole house: the obnoxious orange fire place, would be a dark green. Not that I would of picked dark green as a first choice, but I already owned the paint and didn't have another location for it and anything to be rid of the orange is a huge step in the right direction.

I wouldn't say I enjoy painting, but I don't mind it and I don't even mind trimming but I really dislike corners. Our fireplace is all corners! That thing is going to be the death of me. I'm not looking forward to the one upstairs!

Alex was watching me paint the fireplace on my ladder (wishing it could be him) and Cliff was watching Evelyn while she played her 'pod'. Then I heard Evelyn start crying underneath me (and Alex as he tried to help) and noticed her hand was completely dark green. She stuck her hand in my paint tray! To add to my joy, there- floating in my paint tray, was the iPod Evelyn had been playing with. Being up on the ladder and realistically unable to do anything in a timely manner I screamed for Cliff. What I wouldn't have given to have had a recording of those events. Absolutely hysterical!

Cliff got Evelyn cleaned up and bathed, and luckily for us the iPod cleaned off and still works (fell in perfectly flat and no paint got into any openings, thank you iPod Gods for watching out for us). I took a break to get her settled in bed then went back to painting and cleaning up the mess. The carpet got a few stains, but it had so many already, it really doesn't matter. I'm very glad we're painting before we've ever considered replacing the carpet.

The night started getting very late (Cliff had to head off to bed without me) so I finished my painting, put the supplies away, and stashed the remaining items in our extra spaces to be added to our dirty little secrets. The great thing about moving from a smaller house to a bigger house is all the storage you have. The bad thing is all the dirty little secrets you get. When you come to my house, don't look in the closet downstairs, or the garage (yet), or in my upstairs cabinets. They are all stuffed with boxes. Boxes I need to sort and put away, boxes I need to trash, just boxes I didn't want lying on my floor anymore. The problem with them no longer lying on my floor: it's much easier to forget about them and pretend they don't exist....

More photos from my re-invented house

Transforming Moon Paint

Doesn't it look fabulous! 

Our final movie was today and before it started Cliff and I set about finishing yesterday's projects. We completed the paint in entry way then opened up the can of green English Meadow paint that we really liked and had planned for the boys room (but didn't work out). We had previously put a sample patch in the kitchen and loved it except that next to the red it looked like Christmas. That was when we were trying to find a way to live with the red and only cover the hideous orange that lead us to the beautiful Chocolaty Charcoal hue in the entry way. We might have done the same in the kitchen as we first planned, but I did not want to keep the alternating wall pattern they already had. The way I saw it, a color we knew we liked couldn't possibly make it any worse than it was which left only room for improvement. And of course, since we already had the paint and no where else for it we had nothing to loose.

It took two solid coats to cover the red and orange, and in some patches three coats, but it's such a relaxing color after dealing with all that orange!

In the middle of all this painting we left for our movie (Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon - 3 good movies in a row!), and when we returned I took off my heels, covered my hair, and continued to paint. I even wore mascara for the occasion. Again, we ran out of paint so we have to finish tomorrow, but I will never again have to see this in my house!

More pictures of our orange and red purge. 

Orange Floors

We finally got the flooring to replace our dreaded dining room carpet. The carpet actually wasn't all that bad (we did have it cleaned after all), but having your dining room table over carpet is just wrong in so many ways! Needless to say, in the last two months, most our family dinners have been at the tiny tables in the kitchen.

We found some cheaper flooring that we both liked for .99 cents a sf at Home Depot. From our moving, I had collected 4 coupons from Lowes for $10 off a $50 purchase, and several 10% off coupons. 2 boxes of flooring cost $51 and change. We bought the 6 boxes of flooring in 3 separate orders and the liner for underneath the flooring separate as well (2 rolls also totaled a little over $50). Each time we used a coupon making our $200 purchase only $160. Off to a good start!

Ronnie came by to help (my nephew was selling his pig that day so the rest of the family had prior engagements) and once he and Cliff figured out a pattern to lay the floor so it would 'look pretty' they got it in pretty fast. Since I would of just been in the way I set to finish (or at least mostly finish) painting the guest bathroom. The colors are wrong, but it works for now. Since we had the wrong saw (and Cliff and Ronnie had a dining room chair double as a saw table) Dad stopped by to bring us the right one, but unfortunately we didn't answer his phone calls so he brought one we didn't need.

Unfortunately, Home Depot didn't have the parts to join the dining room to the carpeted living room, or the tiled kitchen so those are waiting for another day. Also, we need the proper nails to get our base boards back on so they are also waiting to be finished.  It is still a huge improvement from what it was!

Ronnie made it home for dinner so Cliff and I set about tackling the hideous orange monstrosity in our entry way. We ran out of paint before we got the whole way up but I'm so glad we made changing it a priority!


More pictures of all the changes (and proof that Ronnie contributed).

Double Feature

I'm a coupon junkie, not in the extreme couponing sense, but I hate buying anything without a coupon. That includes any forms of entertainment. Thanks to Groupon, LivingSocial, Moolala, and others getting great deals is easy. Almost too easy. After you purchase a deal, you get an expiration date as well.
I got a great fandango deal (I've previously used it so when it came back I got it again) for two fandango movie tickets for $9. Pretty hard to beat that price, the cash value is $21-$25, so I purchased several of them.

Then I realized on Monday that they expire on Friday (today). Cliff and I ordered tickets for two movies tonight, and 1 on Sunday afternoon (I had three expiring codes).

Baby went off to Mamaw's house and we headed to our movie date.

First up: Colombiana
I really wasn't expecting to like this one at all. Figured I could sleep through it, but as it turns out I actually really enjoyed it. She's quite the bad ass.


Then we watched Cowboys & Aliens. 
What an absurd mix! However, with the cast line up I knew it wouldn't disappoint. Awesome movie! Well, the aliens were really freaky for my taste, but the well thought out story was paired with stellar acting. And secretly, I'm a sucker for anything with Olivia Wilde. 


My movie taste might suck, but our $46 dollar entertainment was actually only $18 and I was pleased to spend every penny. 


Two movies in one night kinda felt like being a teenager again.... except my body was so much more tired and sore afterwards. 

Late Night

How can you tell her she HAS to go to bed when she's being so cute/quiet/good.

Again, I earn the title of bad parent. Maybe.