March Madness

My house is torn apart. I am not coping as well as I would like to.

Today is better than yesterday though because I know things are going to start to move along here this weekend.

I am surprised how annoyed I am by all this.
 I can't wait to see it done!
But really I just want to dust and sweep and redecorate my walls!
I have too many cute spring decorations and I NEED to use them....


Life mixed in with mess and power tools....

We have taken out two main walls and the dining room ceiling and there is dust everywhere.
My Aunt Jeanne came in and said "wow."
 Turns out part of her amazement was about how "clean" it was....
that is because I am following Tom with a dust pan and vacuum.

But is it any wonder? Between the two little ones alone any little project easily becomes a big one and this is no little project.

 

I am having mini heart attacks about the kids going up and down the steps without a railing... I keep telling them no walking, sit and scoot. 

And the table has been strategically place to break a fall should the unthinkable occur....

 mother of the year!

Another thing that seems to be taking longer is we keep changing plans and tweaking things. 

We were going to leave that little bit of wall to the left. But then we got cabin fever and decided we were loving the opened up feeling to much to stop where we had planned...

So Sunday after Church down came the other side of the living room wall.

More dust.

But also way more light!
The kids are loving the chaos and seeing Daddy use all the mysterious contents of his tool box.
Bella is constantly concerned about the house falling down.
Daniel has taken to trying to "break" all other walls in the house as Tommy tells him he isn't that stwong yet.

Hopefully this weekend will be less dusty and involve some painting!
One Birthday down and one to go!

And I need to clean!
We have a little birthday bash for our two March girls in just over a week!

Dear Vivi,

You are one year old today.
 How it has flown past me. I feel as though I am always saying that but it is true.

Your Aunt Kristin says we got an extra day of you being a baby because of leap year.

 Time is a funny thing isn't it.
There really is no such thing as extra is there?

I haven't put a moments work into your "first year scrapbook".
Your sisters was done by her birthday.
Even Tommys was almost done.
At least Daniels is started.

But it is not that I love you less. And you are not deprived of attention being number four.
 In fact you get so much from your siblings its often overwhelming.

No my darling you are actually benefiting from your place as the youngest.

You have the luxury of my time. I have found its value now.
I have watched three of my babies first years scream by me at an alarming rate.

I have blinked and found myself graced with a five year old ballerina,
or a four year old with a cellphone where a sleepy newborn once was.

I simply have no time to waste. For it belongs to you and your sister and brothers.
I must spend it wisely for your sake.... teaching, playing, cuddling.
And for my own sake as well, so I will not look back with regrets about these moments.

Vivi... what a joy you are to me.
You seem to fill this perfect  role in our family.
 How can your presence be so strong in this house when you have only been here a year.
When you hardly talk. Barely walk.
I melt when you do say Mama, or Dada or kiss. Your three favorite words right now.
And I could swear that you are trying to say Bella, you are so in love with her and your brothers.

Your spirit seems to so fit your name. Do we grow into our names?
Does a name speak something over us at birth... a truth or blessing that will be ours?

 You seem as thought you fit your name more than most...
 filled to the top with life and sweetness.

On more than a few hard days I will find myself heading in the direction of your smile.
Like magic it can help cure anything.

I can't believe you started walking at eleven months.
You are clearly here to break records and show what you got...

Even your brother Daniel who is the original wild child didn't start till fourteen.

 I know that's late but it is normal for us and our abnormal family.
I think you must know you have big things to do.

Places to go.
Adventures to be had.
Life to live.

Remember baby....  “It's not what the world holds for you. It's what you bring to it.”
~LM Montgomery 

My beautiful bright eyed daughter.
May the years ahead be as sweet as you and as filled with joy and wonder as this first one has been....

Let's paint our room... or gut half the house?

Our weekend was messy....
Have you ever read "Little House on the Prairie"? How about "The Long Winter"?

What we have lacked in snow and cold here we have more than made up for in random illness.
Someone in this house has been sick almost constantly since the new year.  We have had to stomach bugs. Three children with ear infections another with a cold. Three had some kind of virus that caused a high fever for a few days.

So what did we do with all our time stuck in the house daydreaming and dealing with sad sick little kids?

We decided this was the ideal time for some major renovations.
 Ok, maybe not "major" but every little thing is major with little ones underfoot. 

First I wanted to paint our bedroom.

 I made the epic mistake of choosing green when we moved in and we thought we would soon replace the green carpet...
yeah...
we never did, still haven't and it is STILL way way way too much green.

And green is my favorite color so yeah....

We are slowly also realizing that we need much much more privacy than our bedroom has given us. Its the whole second floor and we had no door all these years. The kids have the two downstairs bedrooms.

Tom finally got fed up with the ninja like way our children were creeping up on us and decided that there will be a wall and more importantly a door.... easy when we just painted it already right?

see the door past the debris? yeah me neither.....

And then the train of thought became a run away....

If we are doing that might as well re-wire the lights...
we could build in some shelves too.... never too much storage....
You know why not do something with that ugly chimney that runs through?
 Maybe we should price out replacing this flooring also...
You know since we are already into it why don't we put in a banister on the stairs?
It would really give more light in the dining room!

Somehow we took a left at ambition and landed in "This Old House-Reality Edition!"
 Can this couple survive a remodel on a two week time crunch???"

  That's right. Two weeks.
 We have a birthday party looming on the horizon. I would like to be able to not cringe when people come in. Tom swears I will be beaming and delighted and proud...
and also not exhausted or touching up paint ten minutes before the guests arrive.

Did I mention he just finished building a garage? This may explain my dread a bit more.
I haven't even gotten around to blogging about that one yet... it is BIGGER than our HOUSE.

This is sort of an old picture but you get the idea. 

 I am a little weary of build and fixing and doing every evening. I am sure he is even more than me!
And when it will make my house look prettier how can I really complain?
Also he gets this sparkle in his eye when he makes a plan and I just hate to kill that...

Saying no reminds me of when someone says they don't believe in fairies in the movie Peter Pan...
it's just not ok.

I think we will make it.
 He is an amazing man of many talents, not the least of which is looking good... so even if he doesn't get it done in time it will still probably be ok cause I just can't stay mad at that face...

Icky Day Randomness....

Today I feel just icky.

Nothing I can say can fix anything.

My back hurts like crazy from moving furniture and a sick kid in my bed.

Sickness continues to run rampant here. We have just finished two kids on antibiotics only to begin another today...

Three down and God please strengthen Tommy's poor little immune system.

I don't even have the words really but let just say that I read and article about a cloistered nun and her lifestyle choice sounds so appealing right now...

I wonder if they have any sort of daycare situation in the convent?

ah well. Tomorrow is another day....
Is that supposed to be encouraging???
I think we should be more specific about what kind of day I want tomorrow to be.

I want a day where things get done.
Where there is more giggling than screaming.
Where misunderstandings are nonexistent.
A day in which we learn, we clean, we craft, we create, we cuddle and nap.
I want it all but really its such simple stuff isn't it?

One Year Ago....

One year ago today I was officially past due with my fourth little bundle of joy and trouble.

It is hard to imagine how different our life was just a year ago.
Its hard to believe we didn't even know if our new addition was a girl or a boy.
Its even harder to imagine that I still had twelve long days of pregnancy to go.

Twelve days that seemed to crawl, but now I look back and somehow a year has passed in a blink.

The ticking of the clock on the wall breaks my heart sometimes. I just want to keep them little and close forever. It seems it could kill me to watch them grow up.... but really what a way to go.

Little Luke Skywalkers Everywhere....

Do you know what I remember of my conversations with my husband from today? Besides the obvious stuff... 

did you call the vet? Did you pay that bill? What time again is that thing on Sunday? 

Besides that I remember him saying over lunch... "Did you hear that Elmo Peed?".... I was sure I had heard wrong but no... that was what he said and what he meant. 

He then made Daniel tell me his Alphabet. "H-I-J-K- Elmo Peed"......

 He really thinks that's how it goes.

Oh homeschooling... are we failing him??? Already??? 

Of course we are but so is every other parent.

No I think he is better off at home really. He has a love for all sorts of weaponry and I hear they frown on that sort of thing in public school now a days..... the above picture is what Tommy picked out with his birthday money at the dollar store. He got three, one for him, one for Daniel and one for Daddy. And he waited without spilling the beans for ELEVEN days to give them as Christmas gifts. 

He even hid his with theirs so as not to spoil the suprise.... I was truly impressed.

This was just  Christmas for weapons I suppose.  All they wanted for Christmas was a light saber... scratch that... it was ALL Daniels idea. 

We tried to redirect. "Don't you want a new train!?".... we would say, and he would say "No actually. I want a lightsaveer!!!!" He thinks he is big stuff because he says "actually".

 

He got Tommy on board, they brow beat us in tandem and he got it even thought the package says three and up...... 

and then he wanted to kill everyone in his line of sight. Mommy first.

Are all two year old boys this violent? Tommy wasn't. But I can see that his sisters good sense that was instilled for the first two years is wearing off and his brothers ways are turning him toward the dark side.

More

I have decided less is more.

 Brought on by so many things it would be nearly impossible to list them all I decided to delete my facebook account. If this weekends awesomeness is any indication of the way I had let constant connectivity encroach on my actual life with these precious people who share my home then all I can say is good riddance.

Maybe it seems like nonsense that I am writing about being less connected on my BLOG... and maybe it is but to me this is in a whole other category. This is sharing my family with friends and long distance family, this is keeping track of our lives and stories at a time when there is barely any time to snap a picture.

Facebook is something else entirely. And while it had many good points it seemed to me to have far more bad and ugly ones. And I am just plain to sensitive to begin with.....

So this Friday I shut it down and this weekend was a perfect mix of slowing down and checking things of the "to do" list.  We had three out of four kids sick to varying degrees in rotation so we spent a lot of time cuddling and feeling justified watching one movie after another.

But before everyone got sick we had begun to paint the kids rooms. We switched them a while back when Vivian moved out of our room because the girls NEED the bigger closet of course... more shoes you know.

Since then the girls have been living with blue and the boys have been living with purple.
You never saw little kids so excited for white paint in your life.... Tommy even went so far as to declare it his favorite color..

Tom called this my Valentine's Day gift and I was totally happy.... love translates differently when you have four kids and almost ten years together.

To top it off after he had done all this work all day Saturday he proceeded to make me feel even more inferior and blessed by making a yummy and healthy dinner after the kids were in bed. He even knew the weight watchers points... the man knows me.

(speaking of weight watchers all this illness has thrown me for a loop... but I am maintaining and ready for a comeback!) 

Since we put it all back together we have added decals and things to make it less boring than plain old white. I really love the white though, I used to hate plain walls but now it seems like the lack of color actually makes it easier to make it more colorful.... scope for the imagination.

So less is more. Less paint colors and more imagination and homemade artwork.
Less facebook... more blogging.
Less surface time and more serous family time.
more fun,
more laughs,
more moments.

And for this one less crawling and more walking... she decided Monday to give walking equal time and practice. Eleven months old. Here we go.