Room Makeover Day!

I am soooo excited! This morning the secret guest arrives from MN for Evie's 10th birthday on Sunday, and we will work all day transforming her room into a hip pad to grow with this new 10 year old into teenhood!

I cannot wait to show you in pictures what I have been preparing for since last August...I only hope the vision in my mind becomes a reality by the end of the day!

E has a sleepover tonight so she won't know about her surprise guest until tomorrow morning when we pick her up and bring her home for the room reveal. I will try to get up pics of the room sometime tonight and then pics of the room reveal and special time we have planned sometime later in the weekend!

WooHoo!

Home Improvement

The Hubs and I have been home improving the last week as a means of therapy. We spend more time together and are more on the same page when we have common projects to accomplish.

I am in decorator mode right now. I go through it a couple times a year when suddenly I must have change and I must have it now! I usually pull something from my master "things I want to change in the house" list and have at it.

This last week, it started with my husband coming home and changing out the shiny gold door knobs and hinges to dark bronze in the basement because we have been wanting to upgrade down there a bit and he knew this was the kind of door hardware I wanted in the whole house. He also has been busying himself the last couple weeks in our basement storage area, cleaning it out, laying carpet and attempting to create a workout room for me...(is that a subliminal message??)

It extrapolated into going out and buying a new vanity for the basement bathroom, and then the door knobs and hinges in dark bronze for the main level. From there it lead to replacing the solid door going down to the basement with a glass paned one, and somehow this also led to ripping up the carpet going up the front stairs. (We have a house built in the early 80's so there is always an updating project to keep us busy.)

Somehow this all led to me rearranging the family room furniture. And the living room. Oh and simultaneously I was painting my daughter's room in anticipation of the Big 10th Birthday Room Makeover this weekend...can't wait to "reveal" it to you readers, too!

I happily ignored the mountainous pile on my kitchen desk, the laundry, dust, toilet rings, and general crap that lays all over the house while I entertained myself with these fun projects.

So here is the status of all these projects:

Door hardware on basement and main level: completed and FABULOUS! What an upgrade!

(Door hardware on upper level: pending as we wait for money tree to grow more leaves)

Storage room to exercise room: in progress

Glass paned door to basement: painted and hung, paint scraping of glass panes still not finished

basement bathroom vanity: done, but water doesn't work, need to resolve

10th bday room: painted bright green and turquoise, full blown makeover to commence Friday with help from surprise guest arrival

Front Stairs: yeah, those...a work in progress. There is currently no carpet and Hubs has been diligently pulling out the 12,657 staples in the wood. Our plan is to paint the railing and the treads black, the rise white and put a carpet runner up them...anyone know what the latest, most current look is for wood stairs?

I do have pics but have not loaded them yet...I'll get to it, I know pics are worth a thousand words!

Photo Story Friday

I am confused by the linking process, but I got Photo Story Friday idea from The Semi-happy Homemaker's blog (see link on right).

I give you...SILLY SHOTS:

A great, calorie-free recipe...

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Talk to God about what is going on in your life. Buy a lock if you have to.

3. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement,

My purpose is to__________ today. I am thankful for______________'

4. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.

5. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli , almonds & walnuts.

6. Try to make at least three people smile each day.

7. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

8. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.

9. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

10 Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

11. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

12. You are not so important that you have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

13. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.

14. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

15. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

16. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, what will this matter?'

17. Forgive everyone for everything.

18. What other people think of you is none of your business.

19. GOD heals everything - but you have to ask Him.

20. However good or bad a situation is, it will change

21. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch!!!

22. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

23 Each night before you go to bed complete the following

statements:

I am thankful for__________. Today I accomplished_________.

24. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

25. When you are feeling down, start listing your many blessings. You'll be smiling before you know it.

(disclaimer: I did not write this, it was emailed to me by a friend)

What I've got up my sleeve...

...for the birthday extravaganza that is fast approaching.

Reminder of when I had my children:
Feb. 1, 1999
Feb. 22, 2001
Feb. 28, 2003
Mar. 12, 2005

I'll save you the calculating and just tell you...it's May people - husband's birthday and our anniversary, now you know.

Anyway...

I want to regale you with all the fantabulous details I have planned out for E's Feb. 1 shindig, not only the room makeover details, but how the whole weekend is going to go down for her 10th, but being that she is becoming computer savvy, what with her very own email account now, and much time spent on webkins, I am afraid she would read here before the big weekend. So you will just have to be on pins and needles to read about and see the room reveal and revel with me in all the delightful details I have planned for ushering her into double digits, in a couple weeks when I post after the fact.

M's Feb. 22 8th birthday is really starting to take shape. If you read my previous party post, you will remember that I took E to Chicago for her 8th birthday, so in spirit of keeping it "even" (whatever.) I wanted to give M a trip of her own. Originally I thought we'd go to Chicago again and do Amer Girl as it was such a wonderful experience with E. But M hemmed and hawed and I realized she wanted something unique and special for her, not to just follow in her big sisters footsteps.

So we contemplated Hershey, PA for a tour of the Hershey Chocolate World, because she loves sugar more than life itself, but then my mom mentioned Minneapolis...where I grew up. At first I was against this idea because I want the trip to be all about and for M and I didn't want to be distracted by being in my home town. But pretty soon, and against my better judgement-knowing they were/are having consistent negative temps and I am quite certain M and I will die while up there-a plan started taking shape in my mind. We are going to go up there to experience winter. M is a GRIT (Girl Raised In The South) so even though I spent my first 24 years experiencing winter, she really has no idea what its about (or how cold it really feels!) Snow, ice, icicles, are a novelty to her that she longs to experience. Who am I to deny her a near death experience?

So the two of us are headed off to MN for her birthday weekend. We are staying with my mom in a hotel with an indoor waterslide park which is right next to Mall of America. We will hit the new American Girl cafe in MOA, as well as Nickelodean Universe, the indoor theme park at MOA. In addition, we will take a bus downtown to see a Children's Theatre play, go outdoor snow tubing at Buck Hill, and go outdoor ice skating at Centennial Lakes. I will be able to get a peek at my new nephew, too! We will pack a lot into 3 days...hopefully with all the moving around, we won't be still enough to freeze to death! I really am scared about that being a very real possibility!

Sarah Rosy is going to have a moon jump birthday for her 6th. We rented a Sponge Bob moon jump for our backyard and we will have many children, her whole kindergarten class as well as other friends not in her class...I think about 16 kids in all. At this time I am just thinking of pizza, snacks, drinks, and lots of jumping...but if it is very cold, I may do a fire pit for roasting hotdogs and marshmellows and serve hot cocoa in between the gleeful jumping. We will also do the requisite pinata and goodie bags, which I love to do.

Goo is having her very first birthday party this year for her 4th. Poor thing only has two friends so far in her life, but they are very sweet friends and her fairy godmother is also coming into town and possibly gma, aunty, and cousin Izzy who is G's age. Goo's party will be all about Orange...her very favorite color in the whole wide world. The invites will be orange, everyone will wear orange, all paper goods, balloons, food, games, etc will be orange. I am so excited. I am even going to blow up a bunch of orange balloons and fill the trampoline with them and let them jump around with the orange blobs.

I can't wait for my head ideas to become reality so I can show you how it all goes down in pictures. Be waiting for those posts.

Happy party planning!

Preliminary Details of a Room Makeover

My big girl, E, is turning 10 on Feb. 1. I can't believe it, I've been a mommy for a decade! We determined last summer that what she wanted most for her birthday was a room makeover. We poured over catalogs and found inspiration rooms in Pottery Barn Teen, and then Mommy used her frugal skills to recreate the looks through Target and Hobby Lobby!

I have been shopping for this room since August and I am so excited that we are finally getting down to the wire. There are BIG PLANS coming for how the whole room makeover and reveal is going to go down...but I can't discuss them here until the event takes place, because E reads here sometimes (hi, honey! Don't look any further unless you really want to see what I've been up to and not be surprised!)

I have LOTS of crafty projects that are going into the room and I got started on a couple yesterday. Evie is a budding photographer, and this fall she had a field trip to the Botanical Gardens where she took some amazing photographs. This inspired me to use them somehow in her room. I printed out the pictures on regular computer paper in full blown 8 1/2 x 11 size and then got 4 square art canvases that I then painted to coordinate with the new room colors and then decoupaged the pictures onto the canvasas. I am very pleased with the look!

I also got a simple glass vase and decoupaged some paper and ribbon onto it and then picked out an assortment of silk flowers that coordinated with the new room colors. This is going to set near her reading chair.

There is lots more to come with this room makeover, but here are some tastes to whet your appetite for more...its going to be spectacular and I will include before and after pics!

Father-Daughter Dance 2009

It was a very special evening for the three older girls and Daddy! The annual Father-Daughter dance at their k-8 school. Daddy is only one of two dads in the whole school to be lucky enough to have had THREE beautiful gems on his arm! (and in a couple more years he will have all FOUR gems on his arm for this occasion, that might be a record for the school!)

My role every year in this extravaganza is Hair Expert Extraordinaire! I always have a couple other little girlfriends come by for some hair time, so this year I did 5 little girls hair over a 3 hour period from 3-6pm! You see, I have this extravagantly expensive, special ion spiral curling iron which makes the most amazing coils you have ever seen! I wish I had a pic of how our little friend Elizabeth's amazingly long and thick red hair turned out, and how our "5th daughter" Molly's waist length blond hair looked like a coiled Rapunzel wig! I always have fun doing it!

Once everyone was ready, Daddy took them out to a very special dinner at our favorite fancy steakhouse, Stoney River, and then off to the dance they went to dance the night away. They were all giddy with excitement when they got home and it sounded like it was a wonderful night for all of them!

And back to Six...

...animals that is.

Oh come on! Is there really anyone out there that knows me that HONESTLY believed we'd go more than 48 hours without replacing poor, dead Apple?...I didn't think so! :)

Introducing Mads newest furry pig friend, Brownie (seriously, could you have denied that sweet face?--Mady's, not the pigs...okay, the pig has a sweet face to...I digress...):

Broken Vessels

My Bible study kicked off the new year yesterday with a little illustration. I had read this story http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2008/05/past-and-pitcher.html which led to the idea for our own broken pitchers.

Look at these pitchers. Aren't they lovely, all whole and perfect, the way God created us to be. But after the Fall in the Garden of Eden, sin entered the world and now we are broken, but not without hope. Because God wants to put us back together, and even in our imperfections, our weaknesses, our failures, He pieces us back together into vessels He can use and pour Himself out of.

That was the idea to focus on as the five of us gathered at my house yesterday. We started by listening to the song The Potter's Hand, and then I read the story I linked above to them. We then wrote on little slips of paper the things in our lives that have broken us and put them in those perfect pitchers.

Then...we smashed them.

And then, God helped us put them back together.

It was cathartic and cleansing and my now imperfect vessel, which sits on a shelf in my family room, is a visual reminder of who I am in Christ. Broken, yet mended and being used by the One who loves me so.

Yet, Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8













We have two crafty girls in our group...Holly and me. We got ours put together by OCDing and not leaving the table until we had something standing. The other three girls got the verse part put back together and decided that another illustration of this exercise was that, although they cannot put the broken pieces of their selves back together, God can. It works both ways...give it a try.

And then there were five...

...animals, that is.


We lost Apple yesterday. He was the first "real" pet we have lost (I just can't bring myself to count Bubbles the Fish's death as much of a tragedy). He was Mady's guinea pig and she is very sad.


To learn about how Apple and the other many animals came about, you can read here. We knew his death was coming, and if you can get past the horror of it all, it is actually a little amusing - in a sadistic way, that is.


So, the girls loved our guinea pigs and one of their favorite things to do when friends were over was to give the pigs baths in the sink. Unbeknownst to me, Mads was using hand soap on Apple, and aparantly his skin didn't tolerate that well. He started out with a rash, and then it lead to boils and sores. It was pretty gross, poor thing. Daddy was just starting to research how to help Apple our, when around christmas, Mads accidently dropped Apple from waist high and it appeared that he broke his leg, what with the leg dragging and all. She felt terrible. Then it got worse.


He started actually dragging his whole lower half of his body so we started worrying that he was actually paralyzed. A paralyzed guinea pig with skin disease. Nice. Then it got to the point that he wouldn't get out of his hut and just laid there pathetically, ocassionally wheezing. Daddy prepared Mads that he might not make it while we were in Florida, but he was still kickin' when we got home.


The saddest part was that she couldn't even hold him, we were afraid to take him out because we didn't want to cause him any pain. So basically, since we got home on Sat. we have been on a death watch. It has been pathetically sad.


Yesterday afternoon Daddy came home and went up and came back down to tell me he was gone. Mads had a friend over and E was headed to swimming, I didn't know how to handle this parenting dilema. I called the friends mom and we decided to tell Mads while the friend was there to give her a distraction and comfort.


When I said Mads I have to talk to you about something, she looked at me and said "he died?" it was very sad. Daddy put him in a shoebox and she petted him and said goodbye. When E got home from swimming we printed out the pic above and all wrote Apple a note on it and put it in the box with him. Then we went outside and buried him and told him what a good pet he was and that we loved him.


So a new parenting experience that we got through. She is still sad and crying off and on. He was a good Apple. RIP Apple.

Are we having fun yet?....YES!

Since pictures are supposed to say a thousand words, I think pictures best sum up our wonderful, relaxing, perfect weather trip to Marco Island, Florida. We are glad to be back home with daddy and have the long 10 hour drive behind us, but we sure miss the gorgeous sun, beaches and nature that God provides down there!

One day we let the older three go down to the pool to sit and they all morphed into bathing beauties before my eyes...when did this happen?

The Goo was not please that she was not allowed to partake of this big girl ritual of sun worship and instead pouted in grandpa's arms while watching them wistfully, wishing her young years away.


Family friends who also have a condo in the same building took us to a fancy dinner one night at an Italian restaurant. It was lovely and the girls were very well behaved.

Molly and the girls.
Mommy sneaks into a pic.

Gma and Gpa with the girls

Mommy and her four gems.

Three mermaids and a crab on the beach.

My four gems.

Look what you made, God! Thanks!

A little play park action.

Monkey bars and palm trees...a nice combination!

E.

Mommy sneaks into a pic taken by the Goo.

Digging to China.

Goo finishes up.

Gorgeous!

My four gems in paradise!

Gpa taking his little ducklings for some shelling.

I love this pic of the four gems at sunset...I don't know how I got all four of them in the shot on the beach with no one else in the background!

My Goo.

She's fabulous.

What a cutie.

Sunny Sarah.

My big girls.

My little girls.

What do you think is going on here? Stretching? Gymnastics? Nope. They were playing in the sand trying not to sit down on their wet butts! Didn't want to get full of sand.

Gpa and four of his 22 grandchildren.

Gorgeous.

Amazing.

My four gems.

The Goo getting braided with, what else, orange beads. All four girls got a few cornrows.

The Goo catches Mommy again.

Happy New Year! Molly and Kate got the girls these awesome Vera Bradley aprons so they can further hone their skills in the kitchen.