Pre Christmas

I swear we are such procrastinators when it comes to getting out our Christmas decorations.  It always feels like such hard work.  Then once they're out I always wish I'd done it sooner because then we could enjoy them for longer.  This year was no exception.  Our house lights went up the second weekend in December.  Mainly because I was in Vegas the first weekend.  It was this same weekend that while Jeramie was working late I decided to tackle the indoor decorations by myself with the kids.  The boys were really excited to set up the tree. 

Wyland especially liked Baylee's Pooh book ornaments.

She's been getting them since she was a baby.

While Wyland played with ornaments, Jackson actually helped to hang them.

I'll be so glad when Wyland moves out of this phase where he pulls a face in every picture.

And again with the face!

Not this kid though!  He was so happy!

He lasted all of five minutes before he broke his first ornament.

Now pretty much the whole bottom of our tree is bare.

It looks a little funny but what can you do?  He's 1.

The finished product.

Home Life

As summer is winding down to a close, because people, it really is.  I know, I know, it's sad.  I couldn't agree more.  This summer seemed unbearably short didn't it?  It started so late and for us all with our camping it ended a little early.  Baylee started back to school this week (post to be coming soon).  Jackson and Wyland start this coming week.  Anyway .. that isn't what this post is about.  I was just thinking about how 5 years ago when we moved into our house we used to entertain all the time.  Now we NEVER seem to entertain.  So I got to asking myself why?  Why don't we entertain like we used to?

And so a list started to come together:

1.  It's expensive.  Always being the hostess, providing all that food and drink.  But now .. I think it doesn't have to be that way.  I don't think people would mind being told to bring something.  I still end up thinking that we will still provide the more expensive stuff.  Main dish kind of stuff.  But still, it should be an excuse to not entertain.

2.  We never have time.  Well this one is harder.  In the summer we are gone so much camping and then the weekends that we're home, usually half of them Jeramie is on call which means he could get called out at any minute.  That would suck.  But now .. I think this is something we could overcome too.  This isn't the real root cause as to why we don't entertain.  I don't deny this is a challenge but it wouldn't stop us that's for sure.  We'd just need to plan better.

3.  Our back yard is a freaking disaster jungle.  Well yes now we're getting there.  It's embarrassing.  My parents came to help us prepare our flower borders for plants, minus weeds.  We hydro seeded the entire yard.  It looked good for all of one summer.  Today we have weeds as tall as our fence.  It's embarrassing to say the least.  I don't think that we get much understanding when it comes to this one either.  But it goes back to how busy we are in the summer.  I'm totally open for some help or tips on this one.  When is the time for yard work?  Summer.  When do we spend many weekends away from home?  Summer.  Weeknights just really aren't going to happen.  So that leaves at best one weekend a month.  But guess what?  We have a LOT of stuff to squeeze into that one weekend.  But now .. now I guess I just want to tell myself to suck it up buttercup.  When I lived in my townhouse (where someone else took care of the yard) I spent SO much time sitting out on my back patio. I loved it.  Being able to sit outside actually really does provide some happiness in my life.  Kind of like how having a clean house makes me happy, so would having a nice back yard.  This one we just have to make the choice to do something about it.  Anyone want to come over for a yard work party?  Pizza .. Beer .. I'm being serious.....

4.  Someone once hurt my feelings.  It's true .. I have feelings people.  We hosted a game night at our house once a long time ago.  I was giving someone a tour of the house (see that's how long ago it was).  From our second floor you can look down to the main level and well .. we have a ceiling fan.  Someone said, "Dust much?"  Two words was all it took.  I was hurt that someone would point out the dust on my ceiling fan in our vaulted ceiling living room.  Seriously it's not easy to get to.  And frankly I wonder how clean her own ceiling fans were, the ones that you can't see what's on top of them.  And you know what else?  WHO says that?  Even if you're thinking it.  That is just rude and not something that you actually say to someone.  I should also point out that it's not like she and I were "friends".  You know, the kind that could joke about something like that.  Nope we really weren't there yet .. and now we never would be.  I honestly don't think we ever hosted anyone that wasn't immediate family again after that night.  But now .. looking back .. I'm mad that I let one persons bad manners ruin that for me.  I'm not saying we shouldn't clean our ceiling fans.

But really people .. I work full time.  Jeramie works full time.  We have FOUR children.  I guess if we had less kids we would have more time to clean our house so it's spotless.  But we can't exactly give them back now even if we wanted to.  When it was just Baylee and myself I would spend EVERY Friday night cleaning my townhouse from top to bottom and the shit sparkled.  But that's not my life anymore.  We are so busy all the time.  And there is a piece of me that really does just need to stop going going going 24/7.  I want to DO less.  And just BE more.  We're working on it.  Well not yet really .. but I plan to.  I was reminded of all this a couple weekends ago.  My friend asked to run inside real quick to use the bathroom.  My heart sank.  I was pretty sure the bathroom was not sparkling.  See bathrooms are Jeramie's job.  He's been working MASSIVE amounts of overtime.  Plus I hardly ever use that main level bathroom.  So it can get pretty rank before I even realize it's happening.  I was embarrassed.  But I'm just starting to get to the point where I just have to say .. F it.

It reminds me of those old sayings you would see hanging in peoples homes.  Something about how my walls may be dirty and dishes in the sink but I've been playing with my kids all day because that's more important.  Maybe that's how I feel too.  I wish I had a spotless home that someone could drop by and I would invite them in without giving it a second thought because I just knew my house would be clean.  But until that day comes, guess what friends .. my house might not be tidy.  And the toilet could possibly be a tinge yellow.  I'm not sure that I will be entertaining anytime soon.  I'm still stuck on the "dust much" comment, I'll be honest.  But we've made a lot of progress with our painting this year.  And it's getting harder to tell that my walls have been beat up by my 4 and 2 year olds being allowed to ride bikes like bats out of hell through the house. 

Just love me for me though okay?  Not for the sparkly house.

You never know.  Maybe this time next year we will have finished painting the entire inside of our house! And maybe .. just maybe we will have tamed the beast in the back yard.  Stranger things have happened.  There could possible be in invitation in your mailbox soon.

But seriously, am I alone?  Does anyone else feel this way?

Dining Room - CHECK!

So these are actually a little late being posted.

We finished the remodel of the dining room a couple weekends ago.

I am SO happy with how it turned out.

Before

No pantry.  So these shelves were my make shift pantry.

 During

My dad and Evan came to help Jeramie.

We bought 5 sets of new cabinets and a counter top.

Plus painted the old yellow walls a nice new cream.

 HA!  Don't they look so happy to be there?

After 

LOVE them.

And they're already completely full.

 I'm so happy with how it all turned out.  It really looks like there's a ton more room in there.

 Found this at Target and HAD to have it!



I'm thrilled.

We have a few touch ups left.

I plan to replace those dark red curtains.

But for the most part it's done and I love it.

We're at it again!

Decorating.

Last weekend we had a VERY busy weekend.

My mum came over and helped us redecorate our kitchen.

Before.

 During.

 After (minus window treatment).

 I love it.

To me it looks so much more modern and we've been wanting to do it for a long time.

Painted the cabinets and walls. And the ceiling.

Replaced the knobs on all the cabinets and drawers.

This weekend we moved right along.

No breaks in our house.

The dining room.

 See I have no pantry.

The above shelves serve as my makeshift pantry.

They quickly look cluttered and messy.

Not to mention it's hard to maintain food security for Baylee.

So another trip to Home Depot.

And look what's coming ...

 Mum came over for some more fun.

This is her in her "lovelies" (that's what we fondly call our painting clothes).

 Jeramie loves it too.

 And right now my living room looks like this ... boo.

 And the dining room looks like this.

Can you hardly wait to see the finished product?

Yeah me too.

It's gonna be a longgggg week.

But I'm so excited for the finished product I can hardly contain myself.

What will we be doing Monday night?  Painting.

What will we be doing Tuesday night?  Painting.

Wednesday? .. umm .. painting?

But it's gonna be so worth it.

Another project complete.

So I had this thought once we finished painting our basement the pretty blue that we did that it would be really nice to hang an assortment of beach pictures.  So one of my birthday wishes was to get some plain black frames.  So along with a lovely gift my Mike and Amber I also scored on a big assortment of frames at Walmart for only $7 on Black Friday.  This was another thing I did this weekend.  I went through tons of old pictures in albums to find some cute ones of Baylee as a baby (I had to scan those) and then chose some of the rest of us and I now have my beach wall.  I LOVE IT!!!!  It turned out even better than I imagined.  My enlargements all came out great and after I put them all in frames I then arranged them into a neat rectangle on my dining room table before attempting to hang them on the walls.  So as soon as Jeramie came back home from dropping his kids off last night I had him hanging my pictures. 

The beach always holds such a special place in my heart and now I have this awesome little "happy spot" on the wall in the basement.  It holds pictures of all of us as well as a few "scenic" pictures that I have taken myself at various beaches (Redondo Beach, CA .. Bognor Beach, England .. and our across the Caribbean).  I'm not even sure that this picture of my pictures really does it justice.

Evolution of just one bedroom.

I thought this was just kind of interesting.  Here is how just ONE bedroom in our house has been tranformed over and over again. 

This is the horrid orange the room was when we bought the house.

It's all about personal choice for sure because there is nothing about this

room that shouts comforting baby nursery!

 We then painted it pink and white for Baylee's occupation.

 And now it's current state.

Clearly this room has been through many transformations.  Multiple layers of paint.  I've noticed though that very few people blog about their decorating.  Why?  I love to see how other people decorate their nurseries and kids bedrooms.  Why am I the only one that shares?

Baby Countdown Update

So if you remember back here I was REALLY stressed about all the things that we had to do in a short amount of time prior to the baby arriving.  This past week we've done a ton of stuff.  It's been hard work.  Plus on top of that I got some nasty stomach flu bug that put me out of commission for a couple days.  I must say that it is NOT fair to give an 8 month pregnant woman the stomach flu!!  It's hard enough to get comfortable to sleep now as it is, let alone with the assistance of a miserable stomach.  Oh it was awful! 

We pretty much finished the basement this week.  Jeramie has a few things left that he needs to sort through but for the most part it's finished!  So Saturday we started early on the boys bedroom upstairs.  We were lucky because my dad was out of town which meant my mum was willing to come over and commit her entire day to helping us.  Extra hands are priceless!  Since we painted their room last week there were some touch ups that needed finishing, so we began there.  Then it was time to assemble the new dressers.  Stuff from IKEA for the most part is pretty great. It's in the right price range for us right now, especially when you have to buy things in pairs.  I don't love the assembly part though.  Plus I'm the type of person that I just want to be able to do something myself because then I can get down to business and do it on my time table.  As opposed to having to ask Jeramie to get his drill out and muscle his way through it.  While I just sit there and tell him what to do and hand him parts.  It's so frustrating to sit and feel like I'm doing nothing.  But it had to be done and in no time we had them put together.  That left us with moving all the furniture around and sorting through clothes and toys to move from one room to the next.  My mum ended up heading home around 10pm and then I just kept going and going to the point that I could barely walk standing up straight!!  At 12:30am I climbed into bed with a bowl of cereal (I had skipped dinner because of a late lunch).  Oh my was I stiff though!  But for the most part I had pretty much finished all the big stuff and the room looked AMAZING!  I didn't dig out an before pictures for you, but basically the room was pink and white with an adorable border.  But now it's all BOY!!!

The picture really doesn't do the wall color justice.

But this here is Wyland's bed.

Here is Jackson's bed.

And one of the two matching dressers.

 They now share a larger closet too.

I so love the way their bedroom turned out so much and they both seem to like it a lot too.  This was all accomplished on Saturday.  Then on Sunday we forged ahead again.  I had Jeramie at my disposal with his drill for awhile.  I had him hang a couple book shelves that I had purchased for like $6 at IKEA for Baylee's bedroom, so we hung those (which also look GREAT).  Then had him hang a couple other random things that I had been waiting to hang for awhile.  After which I moved on to the boys toys on my main level.  I sorted through every single toy, threw a ton out and reorganized them all.  Then we moved them all down to the basement.  My main level looks amazing, if I do say so myself.  There are no more toys shoved in every which corner you can squeeze them.  Which means it looks like an actual adults space rather than a kids play room.  Not to mention folding and rotating through all of our laundry for the week.  Plus I cleaned Baylee's bedroom while she was out of the house.  In many ways I had really been feeling like our house had been taken over by chaos for the past month and I finally feel like we took it back this weekend.  It meant working from the moment we finished breakfast until 12:30am on Saturday and 10:30pm on Sunday, literally no taking breaks.  I am shocked I didn't send myself into labor!  But it was so worth it.  I feel like we're finally back in control of our house again.

All that is left now is the nursery.  Thank goodness we aren't completely redecorating it either.  There are two walls that I need to remove and re-hang the wall border.  Then we will touch up (and I really mean .. only TOUCH UP) the paintwork where it's been dinged up by the boys.  I already unpacked my 1 box of newborn and up to 3 months of baby clothes that I had saved from Jackson and Wyland.  Which the good thing about that is that I now know my baby has zero pairs of socks and very few undershirts.  Guess I'm gonna have to go to Carter's!  I knew I didn't have a ton of stuff saved because while with Jackson I saved pretty much EVERYthing, after Wyland I got rid of a ton. Plus there was a handful of items that were truly summer items that there was no use for in the winter.  I no longer feel guilty for the clothes that I've already purchased for Oliver.  He needed them!  All in all it was a REALLY busy weekend but it was SO worth it.

Storage Room - CHECK

These are actually a little bit late.  But this was the update on the cleaned out storage room, which we completed prior to Baylee's bedroom in the basement.  We got rid of a TON of stuff that Jeramie had just kind of  thrown in there and then sent a bunch of stuff home with Jeramie's boys.  We realized there wasn't much point in storing all these clothes and toys for them just to get used 4 days a month. They would grow out of clothes that still had tags attached. 

Before

Before

Before

Ahh .. AFTER!

It's such a huge improvement and feels wonderful to be able to in there and find something right away.  I have to admit it now has more things in there since we finished cleaning out the living room in the basement and we've broken down a bunch of baby stuff that won't be in use for a little while.  But it still looks great!

What we've been up to ..

Well this we have been immersed completely in our basement redecoration project for the past couple weekends.  It's been so much more work that I anticipated.  It looked so easy on paper.  This weekend was no exception.  I had big goals and we didn't quite get it all done, although we continued with some forward motion.  We finished painting all the ceiling during the week, 2 cans of paint later (bummer).  Plus we worked on a lot of the trim and baseboards.  So Friday night came along and it was time to move all the bookcases away from the walls.  Thank goodness Jeramie did all that.  We were off to a slow start on Friday because Jeramie had to pick his kids up and was left to sit waiting for almost an hour.  Gotta love those moments. Plus we were having a little family birthday party for Jonathan because it's his 14th birthday (officially today).  So after doing all my grocery shopping, then unexpectedly I had to drive Jeramie's mom home because Jeramie was still hanging out waiting on his kids.  Come home and bake a cake, make dinner for a family of 7 which we FINALLY sat down to at 8:30pm!!  We're definitely going through an adjustment period for sure.  His kids used to have the run of the basement which included 2 TV's that they kept running 24/7 when they came over with video games.  Now they're down to sharing the one TV because Baylee's bedroom is down there.  So needless to say we're ALL adjusting.  I'm baffled at what 14 year old and 9 year old boys do .. other than play video games.  There has to be other things right?  I think there will be some shell shock with more changes to come, specifically a little less TV time.  Definitely isn't an easy situation at all.  It'll be okay though, things will settle I'm sure and we'll all find our own place again on those weekends.  I'm very grateful because I'm confident that by the time they come back again in two weeks we will have at least finished the basement and have everything situated again.  That's a big step in the right direction for sure.

Anyway, back to this weekend.  So Saturday morning we were up and Jeramie started working on sanding all the spakling  (sp?) I had done and then washing all the walls in preparation for paint.  I was delighted to learn that my AWESOME dad had offered up some painting assistance that afternoon!!  We were originally planning to all go to Wheeler Farm to check out their Halloween event.  So instead Jeramie and his boys stayed home, my dad came over and helped paint while myself and my mum took Baylee and the little kids to Wheeler Farm.  You may wonder how we did this considering it seemed to rain the entire day. Well let me tell you .. we seriously lucked out with weather cooperation this weekend BIG time!  More about that later.  When I came home from Wheeler Farm they had made GREAT progress on the basement and I was SO pleased with how good the color looked.  It's so much less "dreary basement" like.  Instead it's bright and pretty!!  LOVE it! 

Doesn't the blue look so good with the color of the carpet?

Taking a break Dad?

 Good little worker bee!

Almost as soon as I came home from Wheeler Farm with the kids I headed straight out to see a movie with my friend Rebecca.  Such a much needed time away for sure.  Then almost as soon as I got home from the movie we were headed back out again, Jeramie going to watch UFC fights at a party hosted by my brother.  Baylee and I were headed to dinner and a movie with my parents (while they escaped the party being held at their house).  Yes I know .. two movies in one day for me?  Crazy, perhaps the first time I've ever done that.  Then Sunday morning we got up and did some more painting.  It's been such a busy weekend and went by WAY too quickly.  I definitely need to find a better balance between doing fun things to get the kids out of the house but also finding time to just sit and relax on my couch too.  I'm estimating we have maybe 1.5 sessions of painting left, then it'll be time to hang blinds, switch out ugly cream outlets for pretty white ones, and new door knobs.  Then just move everything back to where it belongs.  The end is in sight .. I think.

Oh and can I say how totally awesome it was that I wasn't doing some of this work this weekend?  I actually got to leave the house without my children while my basement was being painted!  Jeramie and Dad .. you're the best!!

Where is the time going?

I can’t believe we are at the start of October already. So much to do and so little time. We did make a little more progress in our house this weekend. We moved a lot of Baylee’s toys down to her new room. Last Wednesday my mum came over to help sort through toys in her old room. She ended up taking FIVE garbage sacks home with her for the big trash pick up. So we’re actually getting towards the end of all the toy sorting. Then we’ll need to be taking apart her bed in her old room to deliver to my parents house. We also managed to get both of our couches out of the basement this weekend. Another big step in the right direction. Now there’s still a somewhat large pile of stuff that Jeramie needs to sort through and then we’ll be ready to just move everything away from the walls in preparation of painting.


This is our next big step, painting the basement. It was kind of a dilemma. I really want to move on to the bedrooms upstairs, however we have to make up the futon beds for the basement for Jeramie’s boys. But I don’t want to take ANYthing more down there until after we have painted because otherwise it’s just more stuff for us to have to move and paint around. Given that the basement itself shouldn’t cost too much for the minor redecorating I just want to get it over with fast. Fresh coat of paint, 2 sets of new blinds, replace door knobs and she’s good to go.

THEN we get to move upstairs. Now given that we’re down to only 2.5 months before the baby arrives this stresses me out a bit. I feel like we’ve been living in limbo for a month now. It’s EMBARRASSING to have anyone come over to our house because there’s just stuff everywhere and mess. It’s exhausting to spend every free moment that we aren’t working and/or committed to other things just hauling stuff all over. I thought at the time that it wouldn’t be a big deal carrying stuff down to the basement (thinking carrying down 2 flights of stairs is so much easier than carrying up!). Yeah, I’m sure it is. But just carrying my 7+ month pregnant self up two flights of stairs repeatedly is exhausting too!! I really want to get Jackson and Wyland’s winter clothes out to sort through and figure out what they’re missing for this year. What fits .. what doesn’t. Then I really need to pull out all my newborn stuff to see what I have, what I need. Niether of which do I have time for because all we’re doing right now is moving Baylee’s room and sorting out the basement. It’s like if I start pulling the boys room apart to get some of these answers then the one room that isn’t a disaster turns into one. And I struggle with the current disaster. There are days when I feel like everything in the house just keeps breaking and needs repair. It’s just so overwhelming. And then it comes back to .. I only have 2.5 months and counting!!! Plus finishing Christmas shopping, wrapping Christmas shopping, Halloween, birthdays, anniversary, Thanksgiving .. oh and don’t even get me started on the HUGE projects I have recently taken on at work that I REALLY need to finish prior to going on maternity leave.

Breathe .. that’s what I keep telling myself. When my fat pregnant self just wants to sit on the couch and relax .. I don’t have the energy for all this!! LOL.

The Culprit

Yep .. these are pictures of my peaches disappearing.  Do you see the size of that box??

You can see them inside the box below.

Really love your peaches wanna shake your tree ...

Oh you know what song I'm singing!  Steve Miller, The Joker.  You may know the song as:

"Some people call me the space cowboy yeah

Some call me the gangster of love

Some people call me Maurice

Cause I speak of the pompetus of love"

Well then towards the end of the song it goes:

"You're the cutest thing that I ever did see

I really love your peaches

Want to shake your tree ...."

Yep that's what I'm talking about.  This song is now stuck in my head and I'll tell you why.  So let me back up a little bit.  When we first moved into this house my mum bought us a tree. It was labeled a Flowering Almond (sp?).  It was cute, was only supposed to grow to about 5 feet tall.  We planted it in the perfect spot right in front of the window by the front door.  However, this year the tree had a surprise for us.  It was much bigger than 5 feet, weird but okay we'll just keep trimming it up and maintaining it.  Well then all of a sudden it starts growing these green things.  Yep turns out that our little 5 foot Flowering Almond is actually a 12 foot PEACH TREE.  And it was growing a whole bunch of peaches!!  After much discussion we had decided that we would allow it to run it's course this year and then at the start of next year we would dig it up.  It's a really big tree and in it's current location just isn't going to work unfortunately.  However, I have been enjoying the little bit of camoflage that it has created in that front window that I have been able to leave the blinds open all the time and let a little light in.

So this leads to part 2 of this story.  Last week Baylee's bus driver, the same lady that ignorantly allowed her to consumer her lunch every single morning for a week while on the way to school, leaving her with nothing to eat at lunch time (another story for another day), yep that lady.  She summonds my mother in law outside one afternoon and tells her, "I've been really wanting some of your peaches, can I come back later and pick some?"  REALLY?  What stranger asks if they can pick fruit off of your tree?  So my mother in law tells her she will have to ask me.  Well that was kind of the end of the discussion and I didn't hear much more about it.  So last night my mum was over for dinner and as she was leaving she picks a few peaches to take with her.  She comments on how it will be sad when they're all gone because my door step right now smells SO good.  I helped her pick some. We threw away ones that had little birdy holes in them.  So I knew what kind of ratio good to bad peaches there was.  Well I'm driving home from work tonight and Jeramie tells me, "Wow there's NO peaches left on the tree!"  Umm .. what are you talking about??  There was tons left last night.  APPARENTLY the bus driver came today with a large box.  She took just about ALL of my peaches!!!!!!!!  My mother in law said that they threw away alot of peaches that had been picked at by the birds.  I seriously can't believe this has happened.  I don't even know this lady and she helped herself to pick my peach tree DRY before I had even picked any for myself!!  I am so angry.  Who does that?  I seriously don't understand what the heck is going on in this world right now.  People are weird.  People have no manners.  People are rude.  People just don't give a crap anymore.  I know it's not all people, because I don't feel like that is how I am.  And it's not how lots of my friends and family are.  I'm just so disheartened with people lately.  So many people just don't care anymore.

So anyway, back to the peaches.  Here is what I have been left with.  This was left on my kitchen counter and is the total of what is left for my family to eat.

Yep, that's eight peaches there.

Baylee's New Bedroom

The official unveiling has arrived.  Last week we spent hours upon hours cleaning out the spare bedroom in the basement.  That and the storage room.  We were in a mad rush to get it finished because my parents had said that they would come over on Sunday and help us with the decorating.  We're still somewhat amateurs when it comes to home improvements so it's always good to have some experts on hand!  I wish that I had taken a picture of the bedroom before we emptied it because that would give you a small idea of just how much work it really was.  

Note the lack of shelving in the below picture.

 Painting all the doors in a well vented garage.

 My dad teaching Jeramie "the ways".

 The magic is taking place.

 And here it is!!!

Baylee's birthday present this month was a new dresser and nightstand.

 I LOVE the color.  It's a light blue. 

She also got new bedding.  And we replaced the aluminum blinds.

 And added some additional shelving into the closet.

Money WELL spent!

I can't thank my parents enough for devoting their ENTIRE Sunday to this.

We began at 10am and didn't finish until turned 10pm.

Next is the basement living room.