Life Lately...

Rich bought me a new bike!  Isn't it the absolute most perfect spectacle of a bicycle you've ever seen?

Grammy and Grandpa Cole came down for a visit!  Here we are one night chilling and watching a movie.  We had a great time with pretty decent weather, a lot of talking and laughing and corned beef...and an awesome little excursion to downtown Westerville for antiquing, Old Bag of Nails and Graeter's.  Can't wait to see them again.  Love you guys!

Figuring out Lena's hair for picture day at preschool.  We haven't gotten them back yet...my baby's first school pictures....I can't talk about it anymore. 

Sam modeling some cool mirror shades while we were Easter outfit shopping.  Notice his poor front tooth sticking out...both front teeth have been loose for a couple months now, but that one little booger of a tooth is so loose that it sticks straight out now...mommy's little hillbilly. 

Lena's very first ballet recital is coming up in May!  I can't believe it.  Here she is modeling her recital costume.  I don't think she likes it very much...do you?

My big stinker finishing up his homework at Starbucks with me one morning while Lena was at preschool.  He brought one of his light-up things in so we could have a candlelit breakfast together...love that boy.

Sam at soccer practice.  If you look at this picture blown up you'll see this biggest, buck-toothed grin on that boys face.  He's really taking to soccer, figuring things out pretty quickly, staying interested and engaged.  I think we might have found Sam's sport?

Hanging with my girls several weeks ago at Molly's house.  I would post one of all three of us, but they all turned out terrible and I have been forbidden to post them. :)  These girls rejuvenate me.  I love them and am so grateful for their presence in my life. 

At Mom and Dad's over spring break with one tiny little babysitting kid.  My children were very funny around me when I was showing the baby any attention.  They both wanted to sit by me, share their treats with me, asked me how I was.  LOL.  Maybe I should consider having another baby just to make my kids behave like good little humans...on second thought...I'm just too tired.

My amazing husband...I said to him one day, "Hey, I posted a picture on Pinterest of a great step-backed Adirondack loveseat that would look awesome on the front porch."  When I got back from the overnight at my parents' house, this is what the kids and I saw on the porch.  Whamo.  Done.  He built the thing so fast and beautifully...he's a magic man. :) 

We're planning on painting our front door a light turquoise this weekend and will paint this loveseat to match.  I'm so excited to see the finished product!

We took a mini-spring break getaway to a hotel at Polaris that had an awesome indoor pool and hot tub.  First we stopped and ate a big breakfast, then went to watch the new Muppets movie, and finally checked into the hotel. The kids were chomping at the bit to get there, God love them.  They love hotels.  It was a grand adventure for our little ones. :)  We swam and had fun at the hotel all afternoon and evening and then headed back out.  The hotel deal gave us a $50 card to use at the new Dave & Buster's down the street, so after a nice dinner, we went there and had a great time playing games and winning tickets!  We got some more pool time in the next day before check out and then it was onto Cincinnati....

 

...for our very first Ikea trip!  Whoa.  That place blew our minds.  We bought some things we absolutely couldn't live without and got some cool ideas for furniture that Rich could build (which would be much higher quality than what they offer there).  But that place rocks. 

 

They are very smart about how they have the showrooms set up, placing things for kids to look at and play with everywhere.  I think our kiddos had as good of a time as we did.    

 

And the kids started swim lessons!  This class was their first together, but I have since had to switch Sam to a different class due to his soccer schedule conflict.  Anyway, I was glad they were together for at least the first class, because Lena started to cry when we stood her in the water and backed away 5 feet to watch the lesson.  She hasn't cried for a drop-off since she was very little at the church nursery.   

She turned and gave me that sad face, started to cry and ran to me.  I just lovingly shoved her back toward the water and asked Sam to hold her hand, which of course he did and told her that everything was ok.  10.1 seconds later she was holding the teacher's hand and tromping around in the water with a huge happy smile on her face. 

They both had a great time and seem to actually be learning things.

So busy, these days of learning and experiencing and growing.

Newton's First Law

Objects, or in our case, a family in motion stays in motion. 

 

And, man, we are motioning all over the place these days.  For instance...

 

How can tomorrow be April?

 

March blew through our house like a tempest. I turned around and, hey...wait...what...was that...?  Yes.  That was March. 

 

April will undoubtedly move faster still, with school and work and church and swim lessons and soccer and ballet and band all wrestling with our precious time.  And then there's Easter.

 

Sigh. 

 

Why all this motion? 

 

These precious days of our young kids growing and learning and experiencing and enjoying and absorbing...they are becoming blurry (and not just because my memory sucks). Time just moves too darn fast.  Add activities to the mix and, well, it just accelerates.  Because we're moving more.  And faster.  And I don't like it. 

 

We want to cultivate in our kids a love and appreciation for socializing and hobbies and sports and art and music.  And we are blessed to be able to offer them those opportunities.  But Rich and I always said we didn't want to fill every moment of our kids' days with an activity.  Because they need time, and selfishly so do we, to just...be.

 

Be.  Still.

 

 

To play, catch bugs, hop scotch, ride bikes, sing songs, fish, be goofy, read, watch movies, talk, listen, learn how to tell a good joke, truly be part of a family, foster strong friendships that will stand the test of time, acquire the skill of finding contentedness in the quiet alone times that can only be found when you're not running from one place to the next. 

 

It seems that my attempt at striking that balance resulted in an epic fail for the month of April. 

 

Oh well.  Live and learn. 

 

The kids will enjoy everything we signed them up for.  Rich and I will enjoy watching them make memories with friends and games and recitals.  The logistics may bite the big one, but hopefully we'll be able to get everybody where they're supposed to be at the right time and have fun while we're doing it. 

 

I have been told that this will only get worse as our kids get older, as they become more interested in different things.  And that's fine.  I want and will do what's best for them. 

 

And part of what's best for them is finding balance in their lives. 

 

They don't always need to be going and doing.  We get enough of that as adults when responsibilities fill up our days instead of long talks and good books and lazy warm afternoons spent with loved ones on blankets looking for animals in the clouds.

 

I Have the Fever

“It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

- Mark Twain 

 

I have the fever, all right.  The spring fever.  My heart aches, I want it so...but today's low is 6 degrees, so there's that. 

 

Yesterday's 65 degree false spring stayed the insanity this winter has been backing me toward, for awhile at least, shouting SPRING IS ALMOST HERE!  HANG ON FOR A FEW MORE WEEKS!

 

So I'm hanging...barely hanging...hanging with an achy heart in want of spring, but hanging still. 

 

These two help me hang a little tighter, because the joy they exude on a warm false spring day shines nearly as bright and high as the sun.  And I bask in it. 

     

Third Time's a Charm...and Dining Room Update!

Yep.

We painted the hutch. 

Again. 

I know, I know.  Don't be so judgy.  :)

The distressed green looked good with our old boring tan and cream walls.  But my awesome husband has nearly finished his upgrades to our dining room and, with the updated gray walls and amazing white wainscoting, well, the green hutch just wasn't cutting it. 

But this time is the last, I swear.  Because now I LOVE this hutch!

And guess whose idea it was to paint it gray? 

That's right.  My sister. 

She's so smart.  Seriously.  She needs to have her own decorating show.  She's so much better than me at knowing what will work, judging color and patterns, at making a room make sense and look perfect and fresh.  I just kind of go with what I'm drawn to and, while sometimes that works, sometimes (like with the hutch the first two and a half times) it doesn't.

Oh well.  Lesson learned. 

Me being me, I still wanted to keep color in there somewhere.  What can I say.  I'm just a colorful gal.  After trying a few (...or maybe five...feel free to judge at this point...) other colors we had laying around the house, I ended up just flip flopping what was already on there - green to the inside and gray to the outside. 

What a difference that flip flop made! 

So, to recap the long journey (and several inches of layered paint) that my poor hutch has endured over the past month, a photo dump:

Beginning:

 Terrible mistake:

Not quite right:

Sanded/distressed:

Gray Love:

And can we talk about the awesomeness of my husband for a minute?  Just look at this room!

I mean, dear lord in heaven.  Rich did an amazing job with this with his good taste, sense of knowing what will work, mad carpentry skills, motivation to do it right instead of just quick and/or cheap, crazy work ethic...and he looked good doing it. :)

...I can't help lovin that man of mine...

Before (tan and cream walls, brown chair rail):

 

During (trimming out entry ways, figuring out paint):

 Building wainscoting:

After (light gray walls, white wainscoting and entryway trim work):

 

And gray hutch:

The room looks so much brighter and bigger and taller now, not to mention updated, fresh and finished.  Love!

Rich, thank you so much for your diabolical levels of awesomeness!

Lent

Do I give up cursing (again) for Lent this year?

Or do I attempt the 40 bags in 40 days Lenten challenge (which Lori has done for a few years now), where you de-clutter one small place in your house every day of Lent?

Maybe both?

I don't want to set myself up for failure, which I'm afraid would happen if I tried to focus on two areas of discipline for Lent when, so often, I epically fail at only one.  But Lent is a most sacred time for me.  Easter replaces our pain and shame with hope and joy, reflected in nature as the warmth of spring wakes the plants and trees and animals from winter's sleep.

It's my favorite religious season. 

It's my favorite season season.

And it makes me want to honor God and fix my mind on him during this time in a sacrificial way. 

Refraining from cursing and de-cluttering my house a little everyday would definitely be sacrificial for me. Which seems silly to say in light of the life of sacrifice Jesus lived and his ultimate sacrifice for us...but I am an immensely, intensely imperfect woman and my sacrifices, while difficult for me, could never begin to compare with those of others - especially Jesus.  So I don't do that.

I'm realistic.  But hopeful. 

So I'll try to do both. 

Just pray for me - a potty-mouthed, working, tired wife and mother of two young ones whose cursing and clutter are somewhat ingrained in who I am. 

I'll need it!

Catching a Breath/Photo Dump

Most of our extra time these days has been spent working on the house!

I'm painting furniture, Rich is doing all the hard work updating the dining room and, next, the kitchen. This house quickly, almost immediately, felt like home when we moved in last fall. It's such an awesome comfortable place as-is.  But we started dreaming of plans to update/freshen up each room during our first walk-through and it's exciting to start to see those changes happening.  

 

Before:

During:

Rich is building wainscoting for the dining room, a more casual style that reaches higher up on the wall than most with a little shelf at the top.  It and the trim around the entryways will be white.  The top of the wall will be gray/taupe.  He got that painted last night so he can start putting up the boards this weekend!

 

He's putting wainscoting with coat/bag hooks on the opposite kitchen wall to tie it all in, since it's basically the same room.  And we'll carry the same colors through the kitchen and put up white subway tile backsplash with gray grout to finish it up. 

 

I'm so excited!  Just a little facelift to update it a bit, without going all out or changing the structure of the place. 

 

In the meantime, to add some color against our very neutral walls and tie in the colors from each room a little, we've been painting furniture too - our hutch, a new/old table my parents gave us and a couple of mirrors.  I haven't taken pictures of the table and mirrors yet, but I like them (kind of on the fence about a mirror color...we'll see how that plays out), but the hutch...oh the hutch. 

 

Here it is before.  My brother in law built this hutch years ago and I haven't painted it once in all those years.

 

We made up for that this time.

 

Sigh. 

Our first attempt at matching colors from a photo we liked turned out really, really bad.  What the hell were we thinking?  It was such a waste of money, but we learned a valuable lesson - always buy $3 samples first! 

Our next attempt was closer, better contrast, more earthy colors that better match our style, but still not exactly right. 

Ugh. Seriously? 

I had my oh-so-wise sister over for lunch one afternoon and, when told her I wanted it just a shade or two lighter/brighter and was going to repaint it again, she suggested that I try sanding it down a bit, which would make it look distressed, which is a style I like, plus it would take some sheen off and lighten it up, since the color under it was much lighter.  She's so smart.  It worked like a charm and we love it now!  Here it is finished and back in place.

 

The curtains I got awhile ago updated and added color, as do my throw pillows that I have a slight obsession with...I love me some colorful throw pillows.  

 

I've also picked up a few things here and there to pull our colors into the kitchen, family and living rooms. All I can say is God bless Home Goods.  These things would have cost a fortune anywhere else, but I didn't pay over $15 for anything.  Here are a few awesome find.

 

Before all the work began, we had a little Valentine's Day fun with the kids.  We decorated (and by decorating I mean we threw some confetti down, cut out some paper hearts and hung them around the house) the night before and set up their little gift bags.  

We got them a few little cheap things (pencils, erasers, little clipboards with notepads, tiny chalkboards...they are constantly writing notes/drawing pictures and taping them to our walls...seriously, I have to take a picture of our walls sometime. It's absurd), which they loved almost as much as the candy.

 

But what they really loved was their books! Lena got Frozen and Sam got The Lego Movie.  

 

They both loved them so much they slept with them for a few nights! 

Especially because we took them to see both movies - Frozen a week or so before and The Lego Movie a few days after.  We all loved them, though Lena and I, of course, were more excited about Frozen...we're still singing the Let It Go song...a lot...I mean to an alarming degree.

My Valentine's Day gift from Rich...beautiful spring flowers, along with a card with a lovey, gushy note inside...this man knows how to keep me happy. 

A few candid shots during our seemingly constant running between schools and errands and work and playdates and band rehearsal and ballet and church.  And the kids aren't even involved in many activities yet.  I don't know how my sister and Molly do it with three older kids involved in 100 things each!  It's exhausting just listening to their schedules.  So right now I'm just savoring these young days which still retain some semblance of free time. 

Sam posing with the drawings he worked on from a book that teaches you how to draw things step by step.  Mom and Dad got it for him for Christmas and he's really been enjoying it! 

Last Saturday was so lovely and warm and sunny.  Sam had a playdate early that afternoon and, when we got home, we found Lena outside on her bike playing with the neighborhood girls. I don't think I've ever seen my baby girl so happy.  She adores those girls down the street, who are only a couple years older than her and think she's the sweetest thing ever.  :)  Sam joined them all and they played outside for hours, riding bikes up and down our dead-end street, jumping on our trampoline, enjoying snacks and drinks while decorating our front porch...it made my heart warm thinking of how much fun my kids will have through the years in this neighborhood with these people.  It's why we moved here and it's so awesome to see it coming to life. 

Can't wait for spring!!