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.

A snapshot of my brain... with random photos that may or may not be related in any way.....

I want to use the word "busy" to describe my life lately but that seems silly. My life has been busy for six years.... or at least I thought it was busy before I knew better.

I now know better.

We have hit overdrive here. It just seems now that Vivi is crawling and cruising around, now that Isabella has officially started homeschooling, now that only half of the children nap everyday.... its just never ending.

 Top it off with the fact that Tom has been spending every spare moment he has building a garage for his business and of course there was the usually holiday pandemonium...

well, my sense of normalcy got thrown out back at the end of November with the Thanksgiving leftover's.

When you add it all up and the chaos of a day without Daddy is over you are left with me, sitting in a corner each night looking very unkempt, and watching garbage reality shows on Hulu or weird old netflix movie to try and turn off my brain...
it is stubborn about winding down each evening.

As much as I would like to relax my brain seems to kick on some kind of backwards stopwatch.... counting down the (probable) time until the children will awaken again.
With each tick it reminds me of the things I could be doing to get ahead...

what about that laundry? TICK.
Maybe you should take a look at tomorrows art project? TOCK.
Don't forget you need to get a grocery list together! TICK.
Did you remember to file those assignments and receipts... and doesn't Bella have a quiz? TOCK.
And by the way, some one is going to get the plague from the state of the bathroom....
Also you need some sleep.... only six hours and twenty three minutes till Daniel gets up!!!!

Also as weird side note and to show how nuts I am....
I was informed by my husband (whom I do not get to catch up with often) that Daniel has been getting up and crawling into our bed at three a.m. And these last few weeks I couldn't figure out why he was suddenly taking such good naps... 

apparently it because he is up at three and then again at five at which point he asks Tom every twenty minutes or so if its time to get up yet...


Sadly all I could think at this point was Thank God for a king size bed, and I will sacrifice Tom's sleep if he naps better! Its his sleep or my sanity....

  Anyway. Then before I know it its morning.... and they create more laundry, because Bella wants to change clothes at least three times a day because her socks are falling down, or her pants are to tight, or she just feels like a boy if she can't wear a dress.... she really did say that.

And they don't like the art project, because art IS NOT about being told what to make, as any five year old worth her crayons knows... and anyway we ran out of glue stick because someone (DANIEL) painted the wall with them.

And there are more things to file as soon as I turn around... and I did them wrong anyway... that goes under Automotive NOT tools..... how am I supposed to know?

And the bathroom gets cleaned just in time for someone to miss and someone else to catch a stomach bug... possibly from the prior (and rapidly returning) state of the bathroom... that possibility is now causing guilt about my housekeeping skills....

And with four kids and someone seemingly always sick or teething I will ALWAYS need more sleep.

The clock is lying.... getting "ahead" is pipe dream. So pass the popcorn and be quiet while I watch celebrity wife swap.

Dear Me,

My leader at Weight Watchers (Hi Grace!) asked us to write a "Dear Me" note this week. She handed me a tiny piece of paper and I laughed.... I have much too much to say. So here is my letter to me. Specifically the me of January 1, 2013.

Dear Me,
                If you are reading this we have survived another year. Hopefully we have not only survived but thrived. The point of this exercise is to inspire the current me to lose weight by imagining you. The me I could be in one years time... or at least that's what I have decided is the point.            
                So me... where are we?
              
                Well.

                We should now have a six year old, a five year old, a three year old, and a twenty-two month old. And if we haven't driven him away with the craziness then we have been married to the love of our lives for seven and a half years.
                Hopefully we got caught up on the baby books as we said we would. Also we should have finished cleaning out the basement by now. And if the kids rooms aren't painted in a year or less so help me I will just jump through the space time continuum and throttle us.

                 Now lets get down to the tough stuff.... have we lost the fifty pounds we said we would? You know that we are now six months away from the big birthday.
                
                 My twenty-eight year old self finds it hard to say but.....you are staring down the barrel of the gun that says 3-0 on the side. Although I hear when you actually pull that trigger its really just a lot of confetti and confidence with a little flag that pops out and says "BANG".... I have high hopes for our thirties. They must be started out right. With a big victory like this one.
                 
                  Ironically though I am writing to you.... it's really not about me or you, but the person we choose to be everyday in between. If I start to make the choices today to exercise and eat right then I am already the person I want to be. My body just needs to catch up to my mind. We have already lost thirty pounds... that is no small thing, I know.... but really we just have to do it two more times...
                  
                   So I hope that on your anniversary you enjoyed the time with your husband more than the dessert tray, and I hope you felt great in your new clothes. I hope on our birthday you ran around with the kids in the summer sunshine and swam all day and looked great in your bathing suit. I hope on fourth of July you brought healthy food and felt a new kind of independence and freedom. I hope that trick or treat was more about the tricks and less about the Reese's cups... I hope that on thanksgiving you were thankful for staying the course and being at a new all time low weight. And I hope when the holiday smoke clears next year and I catch up with you that we can welcome a new year with a whole new body, lifestyle, and resolution.... after we do this I can't wait to see what we are capable of accomplishing next year.

                 Love,
                 Me