Monthly Archives: January 2013

What I Wanted To Do…

What I wanted to do today was post pictures of our Living Room before and after. What I’m actually doing is nursing a sick kid. He moans. It’s the man cold in boy form. And it ain’t pretty.

What I wanted to do today was show you how pretty my Living Room is. What I’m actually doing is hoping this set up…

Thaws the pipes to our upstairs radiators that are frozen. No heat in Vermont in January is fun.

What I wanted to do today was show you this rug:

But I can’t because last night entailed an epic pillow fight and some certain children didn’t clean up after themselves. What I’m actually doing is reading Duct Tape Parenting and realizing my kids need more training. I realize this because I am constantly cleaning up after them and quite frankly, I’m sick of it.

I’m the mom, not the maid.

I’ve let things slip, taken over too much control. Not expected everyone to do their share around here. So I’m leaving the messes they create. I spent my weekend ignoring scenes like this:

Biting my tongue so hard I may puncture it. I’ve asked once. And that’s all I’m asking. Which is why my dining room looks like this:

And why my evening last night looked like this:

That’s me hiding in my bedroom drinking a glass of wine while the children destroy the house.

So far the messes don’t last long. It takes them a day to realize I’m no longer coming behind them to clean up. Now it’s Monday and I can’t touch any of this. Nope. Not even this delightful collection at the bottom of the stairs:

If you need me, I’ll be rocking in the corner, thinking about all the things I wanted to do today.

PS: this book I’m reading is so great! It’s like taking Love and Logic parenting up a notch and adding some great twists. I’ll be telling you more about it soon! Just, obviously, not today.

Kids Birthday Party Madness…

Where I talk about despising kids birthday parties at the arcade pizza place. You do too. Don’t lie.

Kids Birthday Party Madness…Please make it stop!

Kids TV Shows…Am I A Hypocrite?

My boys’ new favorite show is Survivorman on the Discovery channel.

We are generally pretty picky about what we let our boys watch. We don’t watch Spongebob. We don’t watch those dumb teenager comedies. I just don’t feel like my young boys need to get caught up in shows about boyfriends and girlfriends and all that drama. I also don’t want them thinking that is how life and relationships actually work. When they are a little bit older and able to distinguish between real life and drama meant for tv, then we’ll revisit that genre of shows.

Or not.

As for Spongebob and the like…

Just. No.

But then I stopped and wondered if letting them watch Suriviorman where I knew there might be a swear word thrown in here and there made me a hypocrite?  I thought about it and decided that no, it would not! Or maybe it does and I just don’t care. You want to know why? I’m glad you asked!

Because I would rather my kids be the kind of people who say OH SH*T when something scary or startling happens than to be the kind of people who call others stupid and idiots when they don’t agree with them or think they have made a mistake in some way. I would rather them learn about surviving in a dessert and eating snake brains than watching two diva disney stars kiss while the audience ooooohhhhs. Does that make me crazy? Maybe.

Don’t worry though, if you let your kids watch those other kinds of shows, I will not judge you. I might think “Oh sh*t you let your kids watch what?!” But I will never call you can idiot.

That would just be mean.

Dining Room Renovation Before & After Pictures

When we first looked at this house the biggest disagreement we had was about where the dining room would go. There is a space off the kitchen that I am guessing is supposed to be the dining room, but it was just way too small for us and our large table. My original thought was to have the table right in the kitchen such it was a good size. Matt’s idea was to put it in the living room area. I did not like that idea for two reasons. 1.) It was right in front of the bathroom. That felt awkward to me. 2.) You had to walk out of the kitchen through a doorway to get there. It felt disconnected. I wanted the eating space and the kitchen to flow. But the more I looked at the kitchen, the less it felt like that idea worked. It would be cramped. Finally, Matt was able to convince me to put it in the other room when we found the perfect light to hang over the table. Yes, a light changed my mind about the entire flow of the house. Whatever, I’m fickle. So here are the before, during, and after pictures of the space we use as our dining room. Which I happen to LOVE. Yes, my husband was right. Enjoy your moment, husband. It doesn’t come often.

This doesn’t look too bad, but what you can’t see is that the while stuff on the wall is textured wall paper. It came off in tiny flaky pieces. We even found some that we think was from the 1900’s! The hole in the wall is where we started digging to see what was underneath. All plaster. Yikes. Also, old stained carpet. Yuck. There are two doors at the front of the house. We do not use this one at all. 
One day we’ll take it out completely.
We ripped up the carpet but the original floors were not salvageable and the floors were uneven. 
We had the entire first floor sub-floor redone.
Here is the same wall at the beginning of what I’ll call hell week. The walls under that wallpaper were falling apart. It was a mess. I cried. Um, often. The cost to hang drywall was over our budget and I didn’t want to take down the wainscoting because it was original to the house. So my husband and my mother-in-law took on the job of smoothing them the best they could with sheet rock mud. 
Layer after layer, they smoothed and sanded.
And smoothed. And Sanded.
Until it finally looked like a wall!
Do these walls look amazing, or what?! 
My heroes did such an amazing job that you can’t even tell that they are plaster!
The only thing in this room that didn’t get done was hiding the smoke detector wires. We hoped to fish them behind the wall but it turned out to be a larger job than expected. So the wires are hidden behind a plastic strip for now. I have plans to paint the strip the same colors as the wall. 
I did that in the living room and you can’t even see it!

Here is the other side of the room…
The door on the left is for a small under the stairs closet. The door and door knob are original to the house so I really love them, even if they don’t work that great!
There were two half walls on the other side of the room which is the living room. 
(There’s a quick sneak peek of the living room here!)
We had those removed to make it one big space.
When I think about the work that went into this room, I am amazed. I remember sitting on a plywood floor with a wall that looked like it had been destroyed thinking there was no way we could ever eat there. But here we are! And we love it. We love it so much! I look forward to sharing many meals here in this space for years to come!

Details:
Tan color: Cafe Latte by Glidden at Home Depot
Blue color: Coastal Vista by Behr at Home Depot
Light fixture at Home Depot
Rug: Better Homes & Gardens at Walmart

My Surrogacy Story

Did you know that I was once a Gestational Surrogate? It’s true! It’s not something many people know about me but it’s a very important part of my life. The pregnancy didn’t end the way we all hoped, but the experience changed my life. To read more, check out my post at Burlington Vermont Moms Blog

Journey To Motherhood: The Less Traveled Road of Surrogacy

Tenzi! Game Review! Giveaway!

I wrote a review of our new favorite game, Tenzi for Burlington Vermont Moms Blog. Check it out and enter for a chance to win a new game for yourself!

Creative Habitat Review & Giveaway!