Room Reveal

Earlier this fall I mentioned to Jake that we could redecorate his room if he wanted.  Initially he wasn't so gung-ho about it.  He said he liked his room.  A week later he asked what I'd had in mind.  I offered up newly painted walls, a new bedspread, and maybe some accessories.  A week after that he wondered what colors I had been thinking - I told him it was up to him.

A week later he told me gray and orange.

After, that we were off and running in the idea department.  He really liked the pictures he already had hanging up.  Which was good, because so did I.  That and they have such great memories for me.  He was around 4 or 5 years old when we first set up his room and we had been at Target and he pointed these pictures out to me and said he really liked the race cars.  He asked me about them all the time.  However, they were way beyond the budget we had set.  I told him we could keep an eye on them to see if they ever went on sale and maybe we could buy one.  He kept that in his head and because it was summer, he and I were soon walking to and from Target every single day.  After a little over a week our persistence paid off.  His pictures were on sale....for 75% off!  We were able to get all three for around $25.  It just makes me smile to think of how excited he was to be able to get all three and how every day he asked if we should walk to Target to check on his pictures.

Anyway...here's what his room looked like pre-makeover:

And rest assured - this was abnormal.  Most days things were scattered all over his floor, but we'd made him shovel things out that day.  

I brought home some paint samples and he and I sat in his room looking at different walls, with different lights on and off and he finally chose the paint color he wanted.  It took me about a week to get the painting done, including the orange stripes.  When I showed him my original striped idea, he changed it up, then rechanged it, then changed it again, only to decide that the original idea was the best one.  (Life was so much easier when our kids didn't have an opinion!)

Things came to a standstill.  We bought something to hold his Legos.  Then it sat for awhile before I finally put it together and sorted all his Legos by color.  Then the room sat some more.  

Last week without telling him I enlisted the help of my parents.  They showed up about 10 minutes after he left for school and we ambushed his room.

Ta - da!!!

(All the paraphernalia under his bed will be going.  Mike and he plan to build a wall of Nerf guns in his closet.  Hopefully there will be room left for his clothes.  I'm not joking - he has that many Nerf guns.)

The gray on the walls ended up being far lighter than we had envisioned, but he still liked it.  On Friday my parents and I talked a little on his furniture placement and tried to come up with a way to give him separate spaces for his different activities: a reading/Lego area, a school work area, and his drum area.  I didn't think it was going to be possible until we just moved the bed to try things out and it worked perfectly.

I spent a few days last week working on these signs.  I had printed up some mock ideas for Jake to look at to see what my plans were to incorporate the cars he LOVES into his room design without getting all theme-y.  I had tried painting them by hand and that was a bust.  I ended up printing out my graphic design at OfficeMax and using Modge Podge to adhere them to some canvases.  Neither of us was too impressed with them once I finished them, but my mom suggested we put them on the wall anyway and in the end we all decided they worked really well.

A couple weeks back the kids, my mom and I ventured to Joann's where we found the perfect orange and gray fabrics to make a bench cushion.  Enter mom: she did all the work.  On Friday we realized we had enough orange fabric to make a pillow cover for a pillow form I already had laying around and she whipped one of those up too.  The Lego storage is working out AWESOME and he loves having everything sorted by color and it's actually staying that way!

These shelves were a bit of a fluke, but worked out perfectly.  We were looking for some plain ones at Target and I spotted these right away - because they were the only ones on sale!  This gave us a chance to nicely display his treasures from Grandma Murphy's house but keep them off the furniture tops where things were being piled on top of them.  My dad spent a good deal of time trying to get these hung just right - they were super annoying to hang.  In the end my mom was chomping at the bit to be able to decorate them so I offered up trying to hang them with 3M Velcro strips.  I'm happy to report they haven't fallen off the wall!

While my dad worked on the shelves my mom and I cleaned up Maddie's room and hung up her bulletin board (which Jake also received though I didn't picture it) as well as a new full length mirror for the back of her door she's wanted forever.  Two rooms for the price of one!

Thanks to my helpers!  I thought we'd bust this out in only a couple hours.  They were there for about five!  There's no way I would have been able to complete this all on my own in one day and surprise Jake like we did.  We kept saying it was like we were one of those HGTV shows...kind of fun and exciting to surprise someone with a makeover!

On Our Bookshelf

You may remember last Christmas when a new author was introduced to our household.  We received a book written by my mom about stories surrounding the playhouse she had as a girl.  I was so happy to receive these little stories from her childhood!

This past Christmas we were given a new book:

Each family received a book.  As we were opening them, she explained the story behind the book.  There are many times when we will be discussing something and mom will suddenly come up with a new topic...completely random from what we were discussing.  It throws us all off for a few seconds, and we generally tease her for her complete randomness.

She decided that for a few months she would write down every random thought she had and present the compilation to us as a Christmas present.

Actually, there are a lot of golden nuggets of wisdom in here - as in real, honest to goodness advice.

Then there is the random thought thrown in to keep everything in balance...

It must have really been miserable for her all those years while driving down the freeway and my dad would have a little phlegm problem.  Down the window would roll, dad would quickly hock a loogie, the window would roll back up, and life would continue on as normal. I think though that the three of us in back were more in awe that the car never needed to be washed after those episodes.

But even with all those family memories - I don't think any of were surprised to see #2 on this page...

He actually is.  It's scary that you can actually see the wheels in his head start to turn when presented with a problem or outrageous contraption that possibly needs to be invented.

Some "random thoughts" should be taken as outright warnings...

This one is so completely true.  We knew growing up to NEVER go to mom if we were bleeding.  Ever.  Paper cuts included.  Also, do not see her if you are going to be throwing up.  She'll ask how you are from the other side of the door, but don't expect her to hold your hand through the ordeal.  Barf and blood?  Go find dad.

(It will be much like the stories my kids relate of  me running into the other room while they are brushing their teeth and simultaneously spitting or talking or looking anywhere but at the mirror.  Makes me queasy thinking of it all...)

There are some other gems in there.  I wish I could post the whole book.  It's a fun addition to our shelves and I can't wait for the next installment.  *wink, wink*

Week #4

I was really sweating this week out by Wednesday.  WE ARE NOT GIVING UP four weeks in, people!

I casually - as in stopped everyone at breakfast - and "reminded" them that it was Wednesday and I had ONE picture for the week.

My family came through.  Maddie and Jake each threw in a photo and I managed to find the "everyday" in the pictures I took.  I even ended up not using pictures for lack of space!

Bad Sign

Maddie has missed a lot of school this year either due to headaches or just plain being sick.

Yesterday she had a headache and said her stomach felt really yucky.  She ended up throwing up last night and this morning said she still had a headache.

I called school to let them know she wouldn't be coming in.

Kerry:  Hi. My daughter will be home sick today.
School:  Oh, that's too bad.  Is this for Madison?
Kerry:  Uhh...yeah.  Wow.  That is not a good sign.
School:  Oh, not a problem.  I just saw the caller ID and recognized the number.

That last sentence did not make me feel better at all.

Ice Cream Stop

When we are in Iowa, we ALWAYS make sure to hit the local ice cream parlor that Mike worked at through high school: Whitey's Ice Cream.  During our Christmas stay in December we were so busy that I wasn't sure we were going to get a chance to stop in.  On our drive out of town, Mike looked at me with raised eyebrows, "Do we stop?"  It was 10:10am.  Whitey's had been open for 10 minutes.  We decided 10:10am was as good a time as any to have a lunch break.

Inside we were able to meet up with Mike's former boss.  She pretty much runs the show and because not many people were there at 10:10am, we were able to talk a little longer.  She's been with Whitey's for, I believe, 30+ years.  She's always so friendly and I just love that she recognizes us and takes a minute to catch up each time we see her.  (Our kids stopped by without Mike one time and she even recognized them without him along!).

After all these years I was able to snap a picture of Mike and her together...

We grabbed our large shakes and malts and hit the road after this.  Have ice cream, will travel!

Our Week in Review

I promise all the posts won't be our updated week - but I guess they will lately!

I thought this past week there wouldn't be anything to report on.  But my family came through with pictures and I ended up having a lot to say about the week!

Project Life 2013

I read a lot of blogs.  Actually, I subscribe to a lot of blogs on a lot of different subjects (decorating, piano teaching, decorating, food, crafting, decorating...)  I read them when I can.  One blog I follow is a well-known person in the scrapbooking community who is also a St. Paul resident.  All through 2012 she worked on and completed weekly pages for her family album through Project Life.  I was super inspired each week. I love scrapbooking, but the whole "print the pictures...pick them up...design the pages...pick the accessories..."  -  I just don't have much time for it right now, despite my total enjoyment of those pages.

On January 1st during our celebratory lunch out, I told my family of my plans to try this scrapbook project.  They were SUPER supportive of me during my 365 project and constantly asked me questions about my picture of the day and helped hold me accountable.  The caveat with this project though: I wanted it to be a FAMILY project too.  I told everyone that I wanted pictures OF everyone, BY everyone.  We all have regular cameras or phones, or tablets or iPods.  I really didn't care about the quality - I wanted pictures of our everyday life each week.  And I wanted to be IN them too.  Mike and I have seen the effects of not having pictures from special people in our lives.  He was disappointed to realize he had very few pictures of his mom when he was growing up; I don't want my kids to know that feeling.  I want them to know I was/am involved in their lives. So, I made a general plea to get me in some of those pictures too.

What's been great?  I've seen the kids taking pictures of things.  Jake snuck a picture of me last night.  We are getting pictures of our regular lives.  The pictures aren't all stellar - many are grainy or badly colored.  But at the end of the last two weeks I've asked everyone to email their pics or I've downloaded them from cameras.  I've picked out the ones that tell the story for the week and drop them in the templates I've created.  I didn't buy the whole Project Life digital set because I'm cheap frugal.  The templates took me - maybe - 45 minutes to create.  The actual pages are taking me a bit longer than I expected before I started but that's because I've been creating the cards to use as I go.  Once I have a stockpile of designs to use, I think it will go faster.

The results?  Here's week one:

Page One:

Page Two:

Week 2 - Page One:

Page Two:

I'm loving my time editing the pictures - ESPECIALLY the crummy quality phone or tablet ones.  I'm super excited to be catching the little conversations and writing them down before I forget them.  I signed up to a website that emails me at the end of each day and I reply with our day's events.  It's Oh Life.  There is another one called Day One that I would probably prefer because it can be set up to prompt me for info whenever I want reminders.  However, it's only available for Apple stuff.  (Hello App creators??  Android stuff covers 47% of the market...).  My pages are all digital which is completely new to me so adds to the fun.  I literally just drop in my pictures after minor editing and the layout is practically completed.

Anyway - I'll try posting our weekly recaps - at least we know something will get on this blog then.  I'm just super excited about this project and LOVE the fact that we are ALL involved.