My Eric Carle inspired paintings

In the fall I think I posted about our afterschool cousins art class we've done.  Basically Ethan's school doesn't have an art teacher so he doesn't get much art.  And I'm not that great at it, but Taylor's cousin has a degree in art, and 4 little boys of her own, so we started doing a weekly art class together.  The little ones play and then Ethan and her 2 oldest do a project.  One week she had them all print a picture of an animal off from the internet and bring it. 

I picked a ladybug, bunny, and a butterfly.

Then they talked about the different colors in the picture they'd printed and worked on mixing colors to make the right shade.  They painted strips of their mixed colors onto watercolor paper using just a basic set of watercolors.

Then sketched out their animal on another paper.

Cut up their colored strips into smaller, random shapes, and then started gluing them on to recreate their printed out animal.  This whole process in photos I actually just did in the past few weeks not while the boys were doing theirs.  But his cousin did a bunny rabbit and it was so adorable that I had the thought- if I have a girl I want to make some of these to put in her nursery.  And magically it IT a girl and I just couldn't NOT make some pictures.  I call them Eric Carle pictures because it's kind of the same way he illustrates his books.  And I LOVE his books.  I love the text and the pictures and I think they're just terribly clever.  So I don't mind copying some of his genius.

So here's my ladybug.  I had to do one since there's ladybugs in the bedding and they're kind of a cute girly insect.

And there's dragonflies in the bedding too but I liked a butterfly more.

And his cousin's bunny was so cute that even though it doesn't have any red or pink to really pull it in, I just couldn't pass it up.  So I created them all the same way painting strips of watercolors then cutting them and gluing them on to create the effect.

Then I modge podged them to keep the pieces all together and it actually added a nice sheen to them.  And then framed them.  you can't really tell but there's fun stripes on there.

And then hung them all in the baby's nursery.  I LOVE them!  And kind of nice to have something personal in her room.

Our very old/new to us/whose been growing pot in my basement storage room

So the remodel or whatever you want to call it was supposed to be done in February- and for the most part it was.  Painting was done, carpet was in, and furniture even was all there.  Of course I'm still working on decorating but that will take me YEARS.

Then in March Taylor's dad decided to pull out a car he's had stashed in his storage unit since the 80's.  I'm not kidding.  A teal green Probe.  Not even sure what that it but it's apparently the first "cool" car his dad owned and he couldn't bear to part with it so he put it in a storage unit.  And now he's for whatever reason decided to resurrect and restore it in all it's 1980's glory.  And that freed up A LOT of space in their storage unit.  

When we bought this house from them, one of the conditions was that Taylor's mom could continue to use the storage room to store all her things.  Which was fine.  We had more rooms and space than we knew what to do with- especially after being in a 900 square foot apartment in DC with 2 kids.  So we used one of the downstairs bedrooms to store our stuff and left all of her stuff in here:

The actual storage room- not finished, lots of shelves, meant for storage.  I actually don't recall if I ever even went in their before this year.  But once all that room in their other storage unit was freed up, and since it has been 2 1/2 years of her stuff being in our house, and because we really would like to use that extra bedroom now, we helped her move her stuff out.

And I discovered this!  A random teal green refrigerator door in a cinder block wall.  Very retro and cute- but bizarre.  At first I thought it was a tornado or bomb shelter, but we don't exactly need those in Utah very often.

So I opened it up, and stuck a lamp in since there was no light.

And found this:
3 shelves on each side and across the middle... FULL ... OF... DIRT !?!?!?!?!
What!?!?!?!?
Seriously I called my mom to ask if she thought someone had had a secret pot farm in my basement.  And when I asked Taylor he said it could be because the house owner had previously lived upstairs and rented out the basement to college boys.  The little brother of a guy he works with actually lived there.  So Taylor asked this guy and then a few others at work and it turns out this home belongs in Idaho.  With all the potatoes!  Who knew?   This is a root cellar!
Apparently very common in Idaho where you harvest the potatoes once a year but eat them with every meal and they need to last 365 days.  So... you put them in a cold, dark room IN DIRT and they don't grow.  They occasionally go bad and explode (gross! this is apparently the only time most of the guys at Taylor's work who are from Idaho said they ever heard their mothers swear).
So no pot farm here.  Just old dirt... for potatoes... lots and lots of potatoes.
Unfortunately we don't eat many potatoes.  And I'm kind of in to just buying them at the store when I need them.  So maybe we can use this room for something else.  Unfortunately WHO KNOWS how old this dirt is.  And really how do you get rid of THIS MUCH DIRT... INSIDE!  And what's growing in it?  Is it from the 60's?  Are there bug larvae in there?  Or crazy old diseases?
I don't know.  And since I'm pregnant and not really sure how to deal with it anyways...

I'm just going to shut the cute little teal vintage refrigerator door (complete with tiny egg slots I might add).

And I'll just be content to use the rest of the plentiful storage room.  Dirt removal- project for some other year!

And for now, we have a freed up downstairs room that the kids aren't old enough to use as a bedroom and I think it was meant to be an excercise room anyways, so we'll use it for that will the other stuff we inherited from Taylor's parents. (ignore the boxes and extra things to be recycled.  Our one weekly can gets filled up pretty quickly so we're just slowly wittling down this pile).

And maybe one of these days we'll get all the doors in our house re-keyed so we can actually open them.  This door downstairs has never been opened by us and to my knowledge not by Taylor's parents either- so that's at least 11 years.  But it would be pretty fabulous if my kids could come in from outside...

walk past the excercise equipment... get a drink from the built in water fountain (really?  who puts one of those in their house, but hey we'll take it)... and use the bathroom... and go back outside all without stepping on my carpet!  Sounds like a plan for next summer!

My favorite room

You might think it's up for debate which is my favorite room, and currently the baby's room might win out just because I'm in love with all the pink and red, but truthfully this room is my favorite.  

I tried to search through old pictures to give you a before shot (since I was crazy and didn't take before reno pictures) and sadly this is the best I could come up with on short notice.  We inherited everything except the toys and cute kid from Taylor's parents- and what a blessing to have all the furniture we needed, but it was their used furniture and then we used it (our kids aren't that clean either) and it was time for a change.

The rug on the floor covered (and hid) the really nasty carpet.  The couches didn't match.  And the walls were a very dingy, dirty off-white.  This room was an addition someone did in the past 50 years.  It used to be an outside deck.  We know because the walls are painted brick and the openings are where windows and old large glass doors used to be.  We're glad to have the extra space but ready for an update.  

Our choices in paint were somewhat limited.  We could paint the brick white again, or pick a whole new color that would still just be painted brick.  Neither option was that appealing especially after having lived in the east where so many old homes have beautiful red brick exposed walls in them.  So after much discussion and much trial and error (and many sample color buckets tested) we settled on this.  We sprayed all the bricks a dark gray and then hand-painted the tops red.  Most people are fooled by it.  Those who aren't ask if we sealed the bricks or put some kind of a protective coat on them.  They're shinier than normal bricks is all.  But I LOVE the effect.  I'm slightly color obsessed if you can't tell after seeing 1 yellow, 1 blue, 1 green and tan bedroom and of course you can see the yellow office in the background.  I like color on walls.

Here's a closer-up shot for you.

This room is my favorite room because of all the windows.  It's actually the perfect location for a sunroom in the north.  The windows are south and west facing.  In the summer when the sun is directly above us not a single ray of direct sunlight comes in.  I can lay on the couch in the afternoon and be perfectly cool.  But from October through April because the suns goes so far south, there is direct sunlight that reaches more than halfway into the room and really warms the place up- PERFECT.  This room is always 5-10 degrees warmer in the winter and absolutely the perfect afternoon napping place in the sun.  Plus it's nice to really be surrounded by views and sunlight in the dreariness of winter.  I also love this room because it's right off the office and right off the dining room.  It's where my kids want to play while I cook and clean and get things done.  It's so nice to have them close by instead of all the way downstairs.  It's also nice to not have their toys dragged all over the main floor- they can all stay here!

In addition to carpet and paint and furniture we finally indulged in blinds.  The bedrooms all had blinds when we moved in but the rest of the house didn't.  And the rest of the house is ALL windows.  Don't get me wrong- I love windows but it kind of felt like living in a fish bowl especially since our 2 story house on the hill overlooks the neighbors 1 story house.
Taylor really wanted to turn this room into more of a family room and less of a toy room.  For now I don't want to do that since it's so nice to have toys upstairs and in a contained space.  In a few years when they're older I'll probably give in and this can be a nice family hang out spot.  But since I got to keep the toys, I let Taylor get the huge-o couch he wants down the road.  He remembers fondly bringing homes tons of friends for lunch or on Friday nights to hang out and because he had the "cool" house all his friends were happy to come over.  He's convinced we need this much couch space.  We'll see.  For now of course we don't but it is nice to have.

To make this less of a toy room we tried to hide the toys as much as possible.  Not much we could do about the larger toys which they really do use all the time, but at least all the little pieces and people are hidden in boxes.  One random added benefit has been that since they can't SEE the toys without pulling out the boxes, they kind of forget that they're all there and they've stopped dumping multiple buckets.  Mostly they grab a bucket and dump it and play with what's inside.  I rarely have to sort or put more than 1 bucket away.  How nice is that?

It's been kind of funny to watch the couch get used.  Even with almost 12 feet of couch space, these cute brothers prefer to sit together.  This is ALWAYS how I find them.  Sunday morning our routine is to get up leisurely, eventually have family breakfast, then get baths, dressed, clean up, etc.  But inevitably one kid is done before another.  When they're ready (and so we can get ready and they won't destroy their outfits while unsupervised) they get to watch a movie.  Most often Miles is first, then Ethan, then Isaac and every time I come out I find them sitting like this, all clumped together!

Taylor's like the pied piper.  First one kid joins him.

Then another.

And finally the third joins in.  Nice that they want to be close!

Just waiting for something tiny and pink to arrive...

When we moved in 3 years ago, my one splurge was to paint the baby's room that Miles was going to use.  I knew he was a boy by then but was still hoping down the road we'd get a girl so I tried to go somewhat gender neutral.  And now that my dream is finally a reality I'm really happy with how the "girls" room has turned out.  I'm not sure I'd want an entirely pink room anyways.  

I fell in love with a bedding set that has pinks and reds and greens and lady bugs and dragonflies.  Very cute and soft and fuzzy (lots of that minky fabric) but not overwhelmingly pink.  So here's her room- just 2 1/2 weeks ahead of the deadline, but we made it!

Miles was my constant helper.  I find I have most of my day's energy in the morning and since the other 2 are at school, Miles is lonely and mostly follows me around and "helps".  I actually LOVE having a cute little helper as long as he's not too into things.

Mommy is measuring the walls so that's what he does too.

I love all the white trim in this room.  The rest of our house has a lot of dark wood and black/brown frames. It's nice to have white as a bright accent.

Taylor got me this sign the first year we were married.  Oops I don't remember for which holiday.  I've never really hung it up but suddenly it fits perfectly here with it's original red frame and girly writing.

So the bedding set I found dirt cheap on ebay but of course it was in need of some adjusting- like for starters the one window is WAY too long.  I also wanted to add more red to the pattern so I cut all the pieces apart, added red fabric and sewed it all back together.  A LOT of work, but worth it because it adds more of the color I wanted.  The long, red part isn't closed except at night but I couldn't get a good picture with the sun blaring through.

I also ended up adding a strip of red to the crib skirt since I like hiding baby equipment under the crib while she can't climb out yet and the mattress is up higher.  I only added it to 2 sides so when we do lower the mattress I'll just swing this long side to the back and I'll have the right shorter length ready to go!

With Miles, I basically got the room painted and then he was born and we've just been living with bare walls.  It was nice to take the time to really decorate more in the room- and to make it more functional with shelves/storage.

I have learned it is wise to put the creams and powders up high.  Taylor's mom gives me a beanie baby when each baby is going to be born.  So far I have 2 pinks and 3 blues!  That one on the left is actually Ethan's pink bear!  Too cute not to keep though.

And the Olivia pig is also a leftover from Ethan.  I got it from someone at my first pink shower 7 years ago and since we were going to name Ethan Olivia, it just kind of got saved somehow.  Plus it's cute and Miles is currently "in love" with it.  He takes off it's "neck-is" and then carries the "piggy" around like a baby.  The red flowers are just red napkins folded up and opened.  So easy, but a nice red accent.

And this has got to be one of my favorite parts of the room.  I have NEVER hung the boy's clothes up.  They're just not that cute.  But baby girl dresses?  So adorable.  I can't resist!

Is someone ready for her first wedding?  Taylor's sister is getting married 9 days after my due date and someone gave me this amazing dress at my shower.  Add a headband and she's ready- except that at 9 days she'll be swimming in it.  Oh well.  Too cute to NOT put her in!

I found this when I was going through all the pink clothes I saved.  This is the outfit I was planning to bring Ethan home from the hospital in.  Still with tags!  And even funnier- the tag even says "SPR '05".  Yep, that little piece of pink cuteness has been waiting 7 years to be put on a baby.

And soon it will be!  We're ready to go.  Hospital bags are packed.  Isaac prayed this morning that the baby would come today.  Can I get a collective worldwide AMEN on that one?!?

The Boys Room

Changing up the boy's room was almost a necessity with the new baby coming.  We have 3 bedrooms upstairs and another 2 that could be bedrooms downstairs (they're currently used as a storage room and a guest room with no fire exit- window well with a grate that's soddered shut and door next to the 2 furnaces in the home- so nope, no kids get to sleep there yet!)

I'll let Miles share with the baby once she's sleeping through the night, but for now all 3 boys get to be together.  Which wouldn't have worked before when Ethan and Isaac were literally on the floor with just matresses.

So just in time, we painted the room a fun blue and hung up all the twirly ceiling things we've collected/been given over the years that have been in boxes.  And Miles crib (along with the tent to trap in him) got moved in.  And new dressers to fit all the boy clothes.

The one issue with putting them all in the same room is their different sleeping schedules.  Miles still takes and nap and sleeps from 7:30 at night to most days after 7am.  Isaac can keep the same night schedule but Ethan needs a lot less sleep.  Sadly I'm a mean mom and since he doesn't yet know other 7 years olds get to stay up, he still goes to bed at 7:30... he just doesn't fall asleep then and so they often end up playing.
Solution:  reading lights!  Miles is trapped in his tent and if the big boys ignore him he gives up and goes to sleep.  Ethan and Isaac get to pick a few books and then Taylor found an ingenius device at Home Depot that the lights plug into so they only can be turned on when we set the device to let them.  So they get light from 7:30 until 8:30 and they automatically turn off.  By then one or both of them has already passed out and even if they haven't they're pretty ready to sleep after laying down and reading quietly for an hour.
So far the lights work about 3/4 of the time.  And when they're just in a mood to play, they lose the lights.. and other privileges the next day so we're making it work.

We knew we needed/wanted bunkbeds for the space and we ended up getting the stairs since they're still so little and one of them occasionally holds it too long and RUNS to the bathroom.  I'm happier with him bounding down stairs than jumping or sliding down a ladder when nature calls- plus there's more drawers in the side and we can never have too much storage.

We got our outside lights fixed last summer which has been great for security but bad for little boys going to sleep with lights blazing right outside their room.  So one of Taylor's requests was that I make them some blackout curtains.  I found a cute pirate fabric and added the blackout backing and tadaa! dark room- even in the middle of the day!  Necessary since we live so far north and from June to August it's light at 5:30 and not dark until almost 10pm.

And since we're doing a lot of reading in this room lately we found room for a good sized bookshelf.  I kind of love that the top 2 shelves are chapter books.  Ethan has a growing collection.  I keep trying to convince him to try something OTHER than Captain Underpants but he and Miles think they are absolutely hilarious.  Seriously?  When Miles takes his nap I let him pick a book or two to take in his crib with him to look at while he falls asleep.  He almost always pick Captain Underpants.  He can't read but man does he love to laugh at the pictures.  BOYS!?!

Master Bedroom

Sadly when we started the whole new carpet/paint everything phase, I was more excited and focused on getting it all done in time and forgot to take good "before" shots.  So you get "after" shots and you'll just have to imagine the nasty carpet and bare, unpainted white walls (maybe it's better that way  :).

One of our main issues in our master bedroom is storage.  We have the same closet space that the boy's room has, unfortunately our clothes are twice as big and twice as plentiful as theirs.  So we've been overflowing for a while.  IKEA to the rescue.  We found these fabulous closets there that fit right against the wall and hold SO MUCH STUFF!  

And then for the first time in our entire 8 year marriage, we bought furniture!!! Don't get me wrong, it was great to be cheap and get things off craigslist- even our bed mattresses :) and it was even better to just inherit furniture in our house that Taylor's parents didn't want or need any more.  So nice while we were paying off student debt to have everything we needed even if it wasn't nice or new or really ours.  But it's nice to have a bed frame and furniture that matches.

Unfortunately our bedroom is the least done of all 4 rooms.  I picked a pale yellow for the walls hoping to find a comforter in navy blue with some yellow highlights.  Sadly- THEY DON'T EXIST!  So we're kind of on hold until we can find something to go with the walls cause they are NOT getting repainted.

Maybe the BEST birthDAY ever

Ethan would probably agree this was his best birth-DAY to date.  Every birthday is fun but somehow the universe intervened to make this one absolutely wonderful.

First up:  opening presents as soon as we're fed, dressed, and ready for school.  Like the wrapping job?  Yep, blankets and Christmas bags since they were the only ones big enough to throw things in easily, and no tissue paper.  But hey, that's how I roll 24 hours after having the flu and being 37 weeks pregnant.  Can I just say contractions and the stomach flu are pretty terrible together.  And being 37 weeks pregnant and being that dehydrated is not fun either.
Luckily the presents were already bought and luckily my 7 year old boy could care less about wrapping.

 A new scooter we promise not to leave out in the rain :)

And Star Wars... cause he's pretty obsessed with them (and even though Taylor makes fun of me for it, because Target had a FABULOUS sale on them... seriously all 3 for less than $30)
After presents it was off to school where no schoolwork was done because Ethan's whole school took a field trip to see Beauty and the Beast.  He got to ride the bus there and then walk back with his class.  And then they had recess.  Let's just say, a very happy boy.

And then even before they could go to lunch or do any work, dad swooped in to take Ethan to "take your kid to work day" since it just happened to magically fall on his birthday.  Look how cute and matchy-matchy they are.  Taylor would like to interject that when he used to go with his dad to work on take your kid to work day, he spent the whole time bored out of his mind in boring meetings.  Nowadays, you take your kid to the meetings and everyone let's their kid play on their smart phone or tablet the whole time.  And Ethan and the others with him were no exceptions.  Maybe not a good reflection of what work is for adults, but pretty fun to go to lunch one-on-one and get to go along and be treated special- especially on your birthday!

And as soon as "work" was done, it was off to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner and games since that was Ethan's choice.

Whacking moles somehow not as cool digitally but Isaac doesn't know the difference.

Grams and Ethan are on the far left.  Grams LOVES Chuck E. Cheese- mostly because she loves skeeball.

And Miles will play anything if there's a ball.

And of course- the best part at the end- tickets and cheesy prizes.

Ethan's day turned out to be so jam-packed with fun that he didn't even get to open the presents and play with them.  Luckily in Utah, Fridays are short days at school so after taking doughnuts in to share with his class, he got to spend all afternoon playing with his new toys.

And since many of the family members missed our Chuck E. Cheese outing, Sunday family dinner because Ethan's family birthday celebration.  Miles makes himself at home the second he gets next door.

And he loves playing along with Taylor while we get dinner ready.

I'm a little too pregnant to get talked into making a cute cake so Ethan picked pumpkin pie.  And since I'd seen cute, tiny pumpkin pies on pinterest I decided to copy.  Waste-of-time!!!  So much more work and okay they're cute but they still taste the same and a 7 year old isn't impressed with the extra effort.

Taylor LOVES doing this with the whipped cream.

And of course Grams and Grandpa gave Ethan more Star Wars and this time it was a huge lego ship which thankfully Grams was kind enough to help him put together- for 3 hours!!! It's now on display on his dresser and will NOT be touched by little brothers.

Seriously!  3 hours.  That's one good grandma!