DIY - Ta Da!!!

someday we'll paint a jungle mural in the panels

How do you eat a whole elephant?  

One bite at a time.

DIY Photos

Day 3

First a tour of our sad-looking bathroom, thanks to our photo-taking cell phone.  Our camera was MIA.

cute shower hooks I used for color inspiration

the fated cabinet

trashy looking wall previously decorated with lotion by a certain unnamed child (the cheap paint absorbs everything and comes off the wall if you try to clean it)

close-up of nasty, previous paint job and rusty, old electric heater

sad-looking vanity area and the hanging storage that I love my husband for hanging up for me at the start of this project!

ugly but functional closet

cute little H taping the wall where we hang our towels

love the house...not exactly what I was looking for, but had to keep it ;)

She's very proud of that house, as am I. 

After work comes play!

ok, so it wasn't much work, but, ya know . . .

newest game: tug-of-war!

Day 4

we're done!!!

with coat #1 of blue paint, that is. . . .

;)

S took over for me when N needed to eat, and I sent H in with the cell phone to take pictures :)

after the kids were in bed I painted the final layers

sorry, no picts of me

someday I'll post the "after" picts!

;)

DIY, Day 4

We painted the cabinet doors!  Yippee!

We also painted the shapes on the wall where the towel hooks are.

I forwent the decision to return both of the Home Depot synthetic brushes in order to simply get the dumb project completed--or closer to completion, that is, more on that in a moment.  I decided to keep the 2" brush and use it, so we'll just return the $10, 2.5" brush.  (They're not even that great of brushes!  Am I just a cheapskate!?)

Why "closer to completion"?  Well, I thought it'd be fun (and probably outta my league) to paint a jungle motiff on the door panels:  a palm tree in each one with a tiger in one and a monkey in the other that match the style of the shower hooks.  It was either that or let H go at it with some colored paints.  The shapes we just did with the towel hooks won't exactly go along with the jungle theme, unless I figure out some crazy way to make them fit in, but I don't think I'll be able to pull that off, especially considering that one of H's "shapes" is actually a house.  Oh, yeah, we have yet to paint on the door and window, but Monday's another day--and H's out of school then still.

Someday I'll get pictures up.  Someday!  Right now it's time to feed a munchkin . . . a very cute, very hungry munchkin.

DIY, Day 3

Okay, so, really it's Days 2-3. . . .

Continuation of Day 2
Find out how much money your husband spent on the stuff you asked him to get at Home Depot during trip #2 (polyester/nylon brushes, $18; painters tape, $5; polycritic protective finish--bad idea--$18; grand total: $43!!!!) and make a plan to return everything but the painter's tape on the next trip that direction. (Gotta save time and gas, folks--especially gas when it's $4 a gallon!!)
Take pictures of bathroom for blog while I brush my teeth.  Brainstorm design ideas while lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep.

Plan for Day 3
Pack the kids into the car around 9 a.m. and drive the 20 min. to the nearest craft store.  (There's gotta be one closer than that, seriously here.  Well, I guess I don't live in Idaho anymore, huh. . . .)  Pick up cheap-o foam brushes.  Paint the cabinet doors during nap time.

What actually happened on Day 3
Woke around 8 a.m. (thank you, children!), realized I couldn't follow plan for Day 3 with S having taken the car to get to the dentist for a broken filling before the man leaves town, sent H to get dressed, fed kids, snacked on the gingerbread book sitting on my kitchen counter (that book is another post), and retreated to the bedroom to get dressed.  Just as I finished getting dressed, I heard a knock on the door.  Who in the world could that be?  Oh!  Lil'S's language therapist.  Guess it's good S took the car, eh?  Wipe Lil'S's gushing nose, sanitize his hands--poor kid still has his pink eye cold that I really don't want to share with anyone--and sit back to nurse baby boy while observing Lil'S's therapy session.

Progress did still occur on the project, however.  Once Lil'S and N were down for their naps, I worked on prepping to paint around the towel hooks.  (No, that's not exactly moving the cabinet project forward, but, hey, this is impulsive DIY, remember?  And what else was I supposed to do, not having a car?)  Removed hanging towels, removed 2 hooks, finally got H into the bathroom (she was finishing her lunch), showed her how to unscrew a hook, helped her unscrew a hook.  Showed H how to wash the wall afterward, and let her wash her area of the wall.  Put H and myself down for naps!   After naps: feed everyone, show H how to tape wall, tend to toddler and infant, check out H's performance, take pictures of H's fantastic job with her posing alongside. (Sorry, you'll just have to wait to see them until S gets them loaded to our computer.)  Endlessly debate the whole foam brushes / expensive brushes thing.  Hmm . . . I wonder if I could borrow some. . . . And, of course, blab forever about the mundane details of those whole, eternal endeavor!

Plan for Day 4

Get brushes (Does Walmart carry foam ones?  What about Target?  I know it has simple roller ones.) and paint shapes taped onto the wall and front of cabinet doors.

Can you see why I don't typically even attempt to tackle anything that could be termed a "project"?
;)

DIY the Impulsive Way

So, I've tossed around doing something crazy to my "armpit of the house" bathroom just for the sake of having something else to look at over the next however many years it'll take us to save up the money to remodel.  Well, last night, after a morning spent touring a little local art shop and a bit of UNC's art museum, I sent S off to Home Depot (which we really see as the Walmart of the home improvement world; many of the items we've purchased there have broken or had other problems, so I don't recommend shopping there if your project is really important to you) with a request that he pick up paint to match the yellow and one of the blues of two whimsical shower hooks (they're super cute, aren't they?) we have and a paint brush.  H and I were going to paint the bathroom--just that one, small wall!  Okay, just the bathroom cabinet . . . 's doors!  Knowing myself, we'd have to start small, see how that goes and what we learn from it, and then work our way up.

Yes, I did say H was going to help.  It might end up being blue and yellow (ha, and likely green) splatters all over the place, but at least it'd be something, and the way our bathroom is and it's current paint job, I really don't think it could get much worse.

S surprised me by actually getting the paints color-matched to the hooks, instead of just having Hannah find a paint that was close--and he bought Behr, not just some cheapie brand.  Ooo!  Guess we'd better do a good job, eh?!

Day one - get paint and brushes
Day two - get painter's tape and polyester/nylon brushes, return bristle brushes; tell 6-yr-old that if she naps today she can help paint during tomorrow's nap time
Day three - don't dare type it for fear it won't happen. . . .

Toddler Busy Bags

I read a couple books on toddler activities (ages 1-2/1-3) a while ago that I posted on earlier, but just now I've learned of the smarty-pants idea of women getting together to make toddler busy bags: One person makes 15 (or whatever number) of an activity and swaps with the others who each make 15 (or whatever number) of other activities.  There are a bunch of great ideas out there (thank you, Blogosphere!), many of which I think were mentioned in those books I'd read, or at least they shared the same concepts.  As I'm not in a position right now to start up on those activities but want to be able to reference them later--and as it's always fun to share cute, helpful ideas--I'm posting them here.  I'm not a crafty person.  Ok, clarification:  I appreciate cute, crafty things and would probably be able to think of lots of fun things to do and ways to do them, but when it comes to ME actually putting them together, well, expect it to take hours longer and much more frustration than one would ever expect.   (Guess why I also don't sew!)   So, anyway, most of the ones I've included are totally simple, thus increasing the likelihood of my actually starting and finishing them.  ;)  Most of them are also geared toward little ones who like to put small things in their mouths.

This first link here is my favorite.  It shows all the projects that a group of friends put together, and although links are included to how-tos, you can figure out how to put them together just by looking at most of them.

http://therigneys.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/toddler-busy-bag-swap/

 - Mini Reversible Felt Board (much cuter than what I already have, but the two I have do work fine)

 - Matching Color Shades

 - Button Snake (I think I actually have some fabric samples I could use for this, as well as everything else I'd need.  Nice!  That increases the likelihood of my completing the project by four-fold!)

 - Lacing Cards (I would need to buy string for this, sadly, but at least I have the foam for it.)

 - Popsicle Stick Puzzles (This one....well, I'd seen the idea before, but I don't remember it turning out so well if I had tried it.  I'll have to think about this one.  I do have popsicle sticks, though!)

 - Homemade Number Boards (I really like this one, as I have everything I'd need AND it's SUPER easy to do!)

 - Pushing Puff Balls (Ok, I really like this one too, but I wouldn't do it with shaped tops, just circles, as I'm not asking the kid to match shapes like his shape box.  The con to this one is the into-the-mouth factor.  I'd have to really keep an eye on Lil'S, which is not the point of these activities in my book. ;) )

 - Shades of Color (I think my daughter and husband need this one too.  They don't understand the difference between dark pink and red!!!!  What's with that???  Maybe I should ask H's eye specialist about that one!)

http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/tag/busy-box/

 - Pushing Puff Balls (this is the puff ball one I'd make)

 - Color Sorting Pipe Cleaners (or I'd do this instead to avoid the in-the-mouth factor....although, they certainly would get all bent out of shape after not too much time...hmm...)

 - and instead of threading sponge jewelry, I'd have this larger version that someone else put together from the parts of her caterpillar counting project for an older child. 

I've tossed around doing texture collections (cards or even just different materials collected together), but haven't had the guts to search out different things around my house yet.  Here are the ones I like anyway.

http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/homemade-toys-texture-cards/  (Super cute, but can't see myself tackling this as beautifully as she did!)

http://learningdevelopmentactivities.blogspot.com/2009/12/texture-cards.html

One-year-old ideas

  - all these but the dice at the bottom. (Yeah, there's a repeat, but that's what happens when you use the same source twice.) I'd probably use velcro for the cupcakes instead, and probably just do different shapes instead of cupcakes as well.

Clothespin drop Little more work / potential frustration involved, but I love the idea.  I would probably have different decorations on mine as well.

Plastic Egg Activities:

 - Egg Cartons I wouldn't add small pieces in the eggs unless I was in a position to tend to Lil'S closely, as much fun as it would otherwise be!

 - Mix & Match (better for preschooler than toddler, but cheap, everything on hand, and super simple), number matching fits the above too

And maybe just some good, old-fashioned sponge curlers. 

Special thanks to unsolicited advice's list, which was the springboard to many of the finds above.

Happy Pioneer Day!

What's Pioneer Day? Check out S's post on early LDS History on Duke Archive's blog. :)

Our Pioneer Day celebration included a pancake breakfast and games for the children: corn-husk doll making, face-painting (yeah, I'm sure pioneers painted their faces!), even a buffalo chip toss! (Yuck! at least they were fake, right?) H had been looking forward to it for weeks, ever since her Primary leaders told the children to tell their parents about it. Being a very attentive child, H was quick to let me know of it. The fact that Curious George also attended a pancake breakfast of course increased her excitement. She's been begging for pancakes for the past two weeks! :)

Me? I was excited about the corn-husk dolls! Having been a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan since childhood, I was eager to help out at that kids' station so that I could learn how to make them. I was not disappointed: they are SO EASY to make! No, seriously! They're my kind of craft: you only need three things to make them (corn husks, string, and scissors--oh, and some water to soften the husks if they're hard), and they only take 3-5 minutes for a novice to assemble--an expert could easily make one in 90 sec. or less, I'm sure. Loved them, loved them, loved them!

Hey, look! They got the instructions from online. (Go figure.) Although, I have to say, there at the very beginning we tied the pointed ends together, not the wide ends, so that the edges of the dress were flat. Check out NativeTech for fancy-schmancy corn-husk dolls.

H was also excited about the dolls. She stood patiently and watched me make her one. When I was done, she colored it with markers and then carried it with her the rest of the morning. As of right now, she's even sleeping with it!

I think Providence was kind to us today. It was another heat-advisory day (at least 100, but supposed to feel like 105-110), but it didn't feel nearly so bad thru the morning when in the shade--especially when a breeze began to blow near the end of the morning. I was quite surprised! (And grateful, as I'd expected to have to bail early.)

H and Lil'S waiting for Mama a couple days ago.

Another smile for the day.

WHAT is THAT?!?

S found this little guy burrowed in a lump of clay while planting our tomatoes.

HE DID IT! HE DID IT! HE DID IT!!!

Yay!!!

S installed the dishwasher!!!

Before Baby Boy arrived, too!!!

Yippee!!!

Doesn't it look great?!?

doesn't he look great?

I'm so proud of my Love!

I have a dishwasher!!!

Okay, so a dish washer I'm not married to. . . . S has spent many loyal hours standing at that sink for me these past nine months, for which I am truly grateful!

H's pict of the dishwasher box

we spent some of the morning decorating.

It was the happiest she'd been all day--okay, so, really, it was probably the longest she was happy for the entire morning. Let's just say it was one long morning for the both of us. . . .

Now all we need is Aqua America to come figure out why our water has turned brown, and then we'll be able to wash dishes! ;)

Things that make me SMILE

I'm 40 wks. I look around my house and think, "Am I really ready to have 14+ people come and visit, all at one time? (No, not everyone is staying here! Wouldn't that be crazy???) Then, I sit and the computer and blog some more. It's Sunday. I'm sure I could be doing something better with my time today. But, that's okay. I'm 40 wks. I think I'm just going to enjoy sitting. It's a lot easier than a lot of things I could be doing right now, and I think I'll be plenty busy enough by next week--at least.

So, for your reading pleasure, here are some things that make this 40-wks-along woman happy.

1. What every pregnant woman needs: a pedicure!

Dear A is an amazing friend. She spoiled me with a gift certificate and took care of H last week so I could go get pampered. I was nervous going into it--I've never been one for manicures and the like--but she'd told me about the great massages they gave at this place, so I figured it'd be worth it. IT WAS. And I have to confess . . . I like having metallic blue toenails!

2. Cute, new pajamas!

(pict coming)

My mom mailed these out to me last week. We were both surprised to find they're actually pretty comfy now. (I'm sure they'll still fit post-partum, at least for a while.) Cozy, soft pajamas. Mmmm....just thinking about them makes me want to go lay down and sleep.

3. Springtime!

There are lots of things that come with springtime that make me happy!

My shrubs are blooming.

My violas are blooming.

My basil is sprouting!

I realized while planting it that it'd probably start

coming up around the time baby was due. . . .

I've discovered more flowering bulbs were planted by previous owners. I wonder what they are. . . . (I need to mark these so I can dig them up in the fall. Most of them are actually growing outside the flower bed!)

And last, but CERTAINLY not least. . . .

5. A new dishwasher!!!

S got all the dishwasher connections prepared yesterday! Now we just have to wait till Wednesday when the one we ordered from Home Depot will be delivered. I wonder if I'll still be home to see it. . . .

Couch & Nursery Picts

Here's my new sitting room! (front room, living room, whatever you want to call it) Next up, replacing the winter quilt with real blinds for the window behind it and replacing the carpet. . . . or not. . . .

The boxes in the middle are just the last boxes of books to be unpacked once we get a new bookcase. Again, maybe this Saturday?

Next R project:

Or maybe this should be the next R project:

I keep cleaning out this nursery, but it keeps getting dumped on again as we continue on to various other projects around the house. I guess I'll just have to wait until I'm nesting to clean it up if I want it to stay cleaned up!

And here's my Love. He returned some books to the library last night.

Can you tell?

Oh, and how's his project coming? The dishwasher? Well, he's got most of the plumbing in, and last night he picked up parts for the rest of the plumbing he needs to do. The permit for the electrical work is also filled out, turned in, and paid for. Next, it just needs to be done! Well, if it isn't done by the time baby comes, like most of my projects, it's not like he won't be taking time off work anyway, right?

Spring Cleaning

So my long-time girlfriends and I, despite the cross-country distances, have spent the past month (or more!) in cleaning mode. There really must be some kind of cleaning instinct, or else all that traditional spring cleaning our mothers pushed onto us while growing up has made its sneaky way into our very beings. Here's my little blurb about it.

I keep trying to get my house in order before Baby Boy comes, but it sure seems like the moment I get one room clean, I turn around and the room I had cleaned before that is already a mess. Well, I guess that's really how things have always gone; maybe it's more of an annoyance now because I'm doing more cleaning than I used to! ;) My main goal now is to at least get each room vacuumed between the time I get it all cleaned up and it all falls apart again. Tonight that involved staying up until midnight in order to get the sitting room and the hallway vacuumed, as well as doing the weekly pre-Sunday sweeping of the kitchen and entryway--not to say I only sweep once a week. In reality, I sweep nearly every day, and some days twice! I guess floors have become my cleaning obsession . . . probably because I walk around barefoot all day and don't like the feeling of stepping on crumbs or dirt or whatever. It always seems there's something that I try to keep decently clean while the rest of the house goes to pot around me. Is that a typical mother-of-children survival technique, or is it more a sign of OCD? Anyway, I started typing up all the things I've completed, but then I decided to delete it because it was just depressing to see how little progress I have really made. So much of my cleaning is simply shoving junk around from place to place, despite how badly I want to and try to get rid of so much of it. I still haven't fully figured out how our previous apartment hide it all so much better than our three bedroom, two living room house!

Well, anyway, today we worked on the sitting room (where we've piled everything we haven't unpacked the past 9 months and anything else we just wanted out of the way for a while), passing on more empty boxes to Freecyclers (thx, S!) and filling up the car trunk filled with the donations that have been piling up in that room for the past six months (thx for carrying everything out, S!). It's nice to be able to actually walk around in that room again, although I'm sure that won't last long. Something will happen. Just you wait and see. And this is even though I'm trying to get it cleaned out so it's open for G&G S to stay in the last week of the month.

However, as I try to do for my own sanity, my "once it's done it's done" project is nearly complete! We picked up blueberry bushes this week, and I know S was able to finish planting at least most of them. I also ordered raspberries and blackberries from a friend who was doing an online order, and I received quite a surprise when I got an email from her this morning saying that they'd arrived! Poor S. That wasn't exactly what he'd wanted to hear, though, with already needing to get four berry bushes in the ground! He always has to bear all the brunt work of my projects. . . . at least there's not much brunt work required for the indoor planting I've been doing!

I put berry bushes before the dishwasher installation. . . . Probably not the wisest thing. I hadn't expected (ha, as usually happens with anything I attempt to do or have done) the bush planting to be such an ordeal, though. How long can it take to dig a hole, set in a start, cover it back up with the dirt, and spread a little mulch on top? Ha. . . .

Well, the "topsoil" here is heavy, heavy stuff--not as bad as the hard layer of solid, orange clay underneath, but it's pretty bad nonetheless. We had to mix potting soil and the clayey topsoil together by hand, picking out rocks and driveway gravel as we went. That's not nearly as easy as it sounds--at least if you've grown up with dirt that actually fell apart when you handled it. This stuff . . . I'm trying to avoid being crass, but this is the only accurate comparison I can think of . . . it's the consistency of poop--the kind when your infant/toddler hasn't gone for quite some time. It doesn't just mix together with anything. You have to get your (gloved!) hands into it and squish and squash the hard, nasty bits apart. It was gross! I finally had to admit that my next project of trying to salvage our ground for growing our veggies is just not going to work. S is a happy man there! It just seems ludicrous to me to spend money on dirt when you're surrounded by it--not to mention to have to pay to grow things!--but I now see it's just plain what we're going to have to do if we want to garden. Kinda loses the whole money-saving point of gardening, though, doesn't it? Maybe I will just stick to a couple pots of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. . . . That is, after these bushes are in!

Well, at least our dirt isn't nearly as bad as our friends' ground in Hillsborough. They don't have the benefit of a "topsoil" layer, and their rock is embedded throughout their thick clay. . . . Although, now my fear is that this topsoil layer really won't drain water as I had naively supposed--it's on an incline, so it'll drain just fine, right?--and that our well-prepared holes will just become stagnant ponds, drowning our newest investment. I guess we'll just have to see.

It's 1:30 a.m. I was afraid I'd stay up late after not napping. (Sounds backwards, I know! And if I nap too long, I'm up too late as well; it's a careful balance, but at least I've been doing much better the past week or so.) I'd better go. . . .

They did it! (Cabinet install)

Yay!!!

S and our good friend M removed a 3-foot section of cabinet and replaced it with a 1-foot section. We're halfway through our first major project! (Well, major for us!)

Up next: installing the dishwasher!
It's pushed into its new home under the counter, but S had to work this afternoon, so we'll have to tackle the rest of this next week.

We found this on Craigslist for about $80, which was less than Home Depot and Lowes would have charged us by about $50. It's not a perfect match--not that HD or L would have been either--but we're quite happy with it. We're expecting baby's arrival in 6-8wks, so it's more important to us that this project is DONE.

Thanks, S & M!!!! :D You two are awesome!
(I love you, S!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!)

(I guess including some actual action shots would have been better than only taking thinking shots, huh. . . . oops!)