Transformation

Little project underway in the family room.

The Good And The Random

 Most ski days are wonderful. Sometimes there are meltdowns. Some days are just hard no matter where you are.

 These little buddies have so much fun together. New Fish only goes to half day kindergarten so she has been able to spend some extra time with Nixie lately. There is nothing better than playing in the snow.

 Red Fish has decided to learn to play the violin. She is taking lessons from my mom. She will be a third generation violinist.

 Pearler beads are all the rage at our house right now.

 A little visit with Lovely L and company. New Fish was in her element reading to her little buddies and entertaining them. She loves little kids!

 Blue Fish loves to listen to Red Fish practice. It doesn't matter if it is squeaky violin or the piano he sits right next to her and listens the whole time.

 Little bit of an update to our front room.

Every single day I find this kid tucked away some place reading. She is a book worm through and through.

Golden Shrubbery

My kids won. I put up lights for the first time ever. I'm not getting on the roof but the girls like our "golden" shrubbery. These lights have been sitting in our basement for a very long time.

FIVE

 This little girl is five today.  It goes by so fast.  New Fish wanted a new big girl room for her birthday.  She started talking about it almost a year ago.  No more baby room with fish on the walls.  She wanted it to be pink and golden-fit for a princess.  I planned on painting the walls a light pink but Two Fish insisted that we might as well make it as pink as possible. Now it is definitely PINK. It is far from subtle.  Paining over the fish was a huge pain because they had to be sanded off the wall.  It took much longer than planned.  I was happy I got it all done in time for her birthday.

I just can't imagine my life without this sassy, spunky, brilliant, beautiful little girl in it.  She makes me laugh every single day.  She is loving to the point of driving people crazy but she has a huge heart.  She can't hold it inside.  She has recently started reading chapter books like Magic Treehouse.  She is scary smart and I have a hard time keeping her busy.  She makes friends wherever she goes. She is never afraid of talking to children she has never met.  She adores her older sister and her cousins.  She loves babies and wants to spend as much time as possible around small children.  New Fish dances and sings through every day. She is feisty and charismatic. She is a very picky eater and if she had her way she would spend every day with her Daddy and make him carry her everyplace. She loves a challenge. She doesn't put up with any garbage from anyone and she knows just how to push most people's buttons. She loves books, princesses, snuggling, all things girly and to make people laugh. I'm convinced she is the most fabulous five year old on the planet. I am thankful for every day I have had her in my life. 

The Swingset

 Two Fish just finished building an awesome swing set in our backyard.  It was a massive project but I think it was worth is.  (Of course, I think it is worth is because I didn't have to put it together.) The girls are completely enamoured with their new "club house" and swings.  The neighborhood kids are out there playing like crazy.  It is exactly what I have always wanted for the kids.

We even read our bedtime stories out in the club house while Two Fish was away at Google IO- this is our blurry selfie we sent to him.

Studio

It's pretty clear that the girls are prolific creators.  They want to do projects all day every day.  They paint little plaster figures from the dollar stores, write notes, do the art kits Red Fish got for her birthday etc.  all day.  I can't keep up.

 

I'm trying to create a little space in the office that will be their studio space.  I bought this awesome preschool table and chairs from a friend.  I originally put it down in the unfinished basement with the shelves of art supplies.  (Yes I do mean shelves.  It may be a bit out of control.) It is too cold down there so it wasn't working out.  As part of the home redo we moved my desk that I never used out of our office and into the family room.  That is where I do all of my work anyway.

Now the preschool table is set up in the office and I'm trying to finish organizing the office.  I'm finguring out which supplies to give the girls free reign over so they can go in there and "work" whenever they feel like it.  So far we have a lot of paper. markers, do a dots, crayons, scissors and stickers.  They are already in love with their little studio space.

The Reveal

 Before

New Curtains I made last week to replace the ratty nasty old ones that had dog claw marks and stains.  They are better looking than this picture shows.  Notice the new floor.

We bought this pre-flood.  It has been sitting the garage waiting to be put together since our house was a wreck.

So the house is coming along.  We finally finished all of the big renovations and now I must try to somehow get myself to move everything back where it goes and try and make it a house again.  So here is the only part that is totally finished.  The entry way.  Notice that it had blond floors before and you can kind of see the old carpet vs. the new darker carpet.  I still need to hang something above the sideboard that won't cover my alarm system.  I also want to put books on the bottom but will need bookends and I don't shop that often, so it may take awhile.

Weekending

It has been a crazy and busy weekend.  I did an all day cooking session to get the next month's dinners done on Friday.  Who knew cooking could be so totally physically exhausting?  We have been painting our house all week trying to beat the carpet layers.  We are in the middle of recarpeting the whole house.  It's basically like moving.  We have had to pack the entire house up and move everything.  I've decided I'm not a fan of redecorating.  I always thought I liked it- I just never had time to worry much about it.  Turns out- I hate it.  This carpeting is the last step of repairing all of the flood damage.  We had to recarpet so much of the house from the flood damage that we just went ahead and did it all.  While we were replacing the flooring in 90% of the house- we needed to make sure everything was painted.  So now we are in the process of painting the entire thing.  I had help for some of it but we are doing a ton ourselves.  Two bathrooms and a laundry room to go and the whole house will be painted.   There are other things I'm going to end up finishing because now I just want the house to be finished looking.  I hate quitting more than I hate all of this renovation business.  

The only times I've really gone crazy and painted a bunch and super organized my house is when we've been expecting a baby.  Maybe it will work in reverse?  Nest like crazy and a baby will appear?  That would make this insane amount of work worth it.  My house is going to look good when all of this is done but I'm not sure that makes it worth it enough for me.

We had to stay out of the house a lot this weekend in between marathon painting sessions. We ran a lot of errands together and hung out at the park.  We ate lunch at the mall and round on the merry-go-round.  We went to the library and picked out a stack of new books.  The girls spent 1.5 hours pouring over the children's section and deciding which ones to take home.  Books are serious business around here.

I'm not sure what the fascination with this baby headband is but New Fish has started wearing it everyday.

 We went on a hike to a nearby waterfall and gathered "rainbow leaves."  I love living in the mountains- especially during the Fall.  This hike was only a few miles away from my house.  We baked cookies.  We made collages out of the fall leaves and contact paper.  We spent a lot of time together this weekend.  We did a lot of work- paint, deep cleaning, moving things- and we played together.  I'm totally in love with my little family.

Red Fish did some leave rubbings.  New Fish wasn't interested because she already did them in school at the Buddy's house this week. 

Renovations

 Our house is slowly looking a bit like a house again.  Everything is covered in a layer of drywall dust and the floor is a mess but we've got a ceiling and walls again.  We've been to the carousel at the mall, several trips to the park, outside projects, read endless stories and have plans to go swimming.  We're just trying to stay out of the way for the most part.  After the main part of the house is painted and hopefully fixed up, I have more painting to do around the house.  Might as well do it all now.

Find the kid in this renovation

Demolition

Our house is quickly becoming uninhabitable.

Reality Hits

There is nothing quite like having reality slap you in the face when you return from a vacation.  Before we left I was obsessed with getting the house spottless before we left.  As a busy, working and stay at home Mom I feel like the feat of getting the house all clean at once is impossible.  Sometimes I feel like the universe is playing against my house staying clean.  I wanted it to be clean for a week even if it was only because we weren't here to mess it up.  Two Fish even asked me on our way home if I was relieved we were going home to a completely clean house.  The Universe had other plans.

When we walked in the door last night I could hear running water and knew something was very wrong. Apparently, the toilet tank upstairs had been leaking for a week and flooded the upstairs bathroom and hall, came through the ceiling and walls into our kitchen (with wood floors) and our dining room. It went through the floor and flooded the basement with several inches of water.  The good news is that the water missed my piano by a few inches.  It also missed my violin.  It could be worse.

Well played Universe.  Well played.

Our Old House

 So this is a random post but I want it in my blog book at some point and I never put these pictures anyplace.  I always forget to take pictures of the places we have lived.  This was our first house.  We had many good memories here and lived here for three years.  I took these pictures three and a half years ago when we were moving so they are a little sparse looking.  We still own this house (someday we will sell it) and rent it out.

Red Fish's Bathroom

Basement Bathroom

Red Fish's room

Basement bedroom

Family Room

Kitchen

Living Room

Master bedroom

Master bathroom

The only rooms not pictured are the laundry room and the third bedroom on the second floor.  I didn't take pictures of those apparently.  Probably because they were pretty empty.