Life…

Some friends gave Caleb some bubble bath. The next morning when he woke up, he reeked! The scent would have been fine in moderation, but it was potent. Brett had given him a bath, so I figured the bubble bath was really stinky! All morning, I could barely get close to Caleb because he smelled so strong. I gave him a bath, but it did not really help. After his nap, he walks out of his room, carrying a bottle of my perfume. He had sprayed probably half the bottle all over himself. No wonder he smelled so strong!!!

I will be out of town for the weekend. I am taking Chloe, but Brett is keeping Caleb. They are having a man’s weekend. I will blog about my weekend upon my return home!

I have this weird compulsion that I have to clean the entire house before I leave town. I stayed up until 1 am. The whole time I knew that Caleb and Brett would be here all weekend, thus negating my reason for cleaning (I like to come home to a clean house). However, I could not stop!! Well, I did restrain myself. I did not mop and sweep the floor. It definitely needed it, but I was zapped!

Chloe is almost crawling. It is so cute to see her reach for stuff, but she gets SO frustrated when she cannot actually crawl.
Caleb is so sweet to Chloe. Today, he kept bringing her toys. Usually, he snatches toys from her, so it was cute to see him giving her toys.

I feel there is so much more to say, but I am so tired that my mind is not working!

I thought this post got deleted, but it did not. Yay! I thought this would take longer, but I scanned some pictures today, finally!! Painting has put a halt on my life, it feels like. Here are some pictures we had taken recently. It is the first time I have taken Caleb and Chloe to a professional place together!

(my scanner cut this off)

A freebie thing with our purchase…

The Flatopper!

I am fairly certain that I have blogged about the “Flatopper” at the salon I go to. This is exactly the device you are thinking it is: a comb that is used to cut a perfect flatop. In case 1987 calls.

I did my best to snap a picture very discreetly with my phone. You know when you act like you are making a phone call, but you are really taking a picture. Oh, the generation we live in. When the Flatopper was last used, cell phones did not even exist. But Kid n Play sure did. And I thought they were cool.

After the long awaited anticipation, ladies and gents, I debut the flatopper…..

In other news, today was a super fun day. I attended a baby shower and a graduation party! So fun!! It was a busy day, but I even managed to get some painting in. Our living room is now done! Yay! No pictures yet, but we are making progress. Very slowly. Now that I see how much I love the paint, I wish we would not have waited so long to do it. (I know you are sick of hearing me talk about painting, but it is consuming much of my time right now…..so I will probably keep writing about it).

Something else consuming my time is the fact that I just walked upstairs to find Caleb sitting on the stairs in the dark. At 10 pm. Fully awake. The problem with his door is that the knob does not catch entirely, so the door comes open easily….and nothing will change that (unless I get the door fixed). I must come up with something!

When we drive in the car, Caleb’s seat faces forward, while Chloe’s faces backwards. So they can see each other pretty easily. Recently, they have started communicating a lot with one another while riding. Mostly, they just laugh and laugh and laugh at one another. Sometimes they scream back and forth. It really is the sweetest thing!!! I love watching them interact.

It warms my heart when my sweet kids play together. We have the occasional pushing Chloe over or stealing her toy (that is more than occasionally, actually), but for the most part, Caleb is so loving to Chloe. It will be so fun as they get older! Chloe is really close to crawling, which is exciting…..but she still has no teeth! It seems like she should by now, but I am enjoying not having bad teething experiences!

Brett is preaching at church tomorrow. I cannot wait to hear him. I love to hear him preach!!!!!

You Can Totally Nominate Me

Have you ever wondered what happens when a two year old learns to open his own door and said two year old’s mother is in the basement??

Wonder no more:

Yes, internet friends, that is my son covered in my mascara. My mascara has yet to surfaced. However, to my surprise, it washed off Caleb pretty easily.

And in other news, which should further win me a nomination for Mother of the Year, angels protected my sweet Lulu yesterday. My children and I were out yesterday. It was time for Chloe to eat. When I feed Chloe in the car, Caleb plays in the driver’s seat. He likes to “drive”. I was done nursing, and he was done playing, so he climbed over to the passenger seat (where Chloe and I were). In trying to juggle both kids, I put Chloe in her seat. I climbed out of the car with Caleb to put him in his seat. In the four seconds it took me to get from my seat to his, Chloe somehow catapulted out of her seat on to the floor of the car. Out of the corner of my eye, as I was exiting the car, I saw something, but I figured Chloe was just throwing a toy. Imagine my horror when I open Caleb’s door (reminding you that it had literally been 4 seconds later), and Chloe is LAYING ON THE FLOOR!!!! No crying. No thud. Nothing. Just a sweet girl playing on the floor. I am confident that angels caught her and placed her sweetly down. The whole way home I was in that panic mode of “Thank you, Lord, because things could have been much worse”. Needless to say, she will not ever be placed in her seat again without being buckled in immediately!!

On that same outing, we met my friend, Katie, and her family. We ate lunch and went to Babies R Us. While there, Caleb ran off from me. A sweet employee of the store approached me and recommended I buy a toddler leash for him. She meant well, and I was not at all offended. It just made me laugh!

This all goes to prove that my children are in the Lord’s hands, and He is so faithful to protect them!

And, in case you were in eager expectation of my painting journey……I completed the 1/2 bath and have started on the living room. I have taken a few days off because we have had super busy schedules. I will resume tomorrow, probably!

Have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend!!!!!!

Pictures….

I planned on waiting until I had painted the entire house to show pictures. However, that is going to take longer than I imagined (which I expected). The painting is actually going fairly well. It is the fact that life does not stop for my home improvement projects. And my two babies do not entertain themselves! (On that note, they are just precious. I love being a mom!)

Anyway, as you may remember, here is what the kitchen looked like….

And the after (there is still some touch up to be done, and my kitchen is not entirely back in order)

I absolutely love the red. The rest of the house will be neutral. I wanted a bold color in the kitchen!

And because I love these people more than life…..here is us playing outside sometime in the past week!

Have a great week! I will come back with more pictures……soon!

An Update…..

Day 4:  Kitchen is done.  There is touch-up painting to be done.  Quite a bit, in fact.  It should not take long, though.  Also, the half bath in the kitchen has the first paint coat done, and I will finish that up tomorrow.  It is small, so it was very easy.  Painting near the toilet grossed me out, but I survived.

After tomorrow, we are taking a hiatus for a day or two.  Painting is consuming and tiring.  Plus, our house is a wreck.  So, I will finish the half bath tomorrow, and I will get the kitchen back in order.  I would do it tonight, but I can barely see straight.

I am so tired that I actually got on here to blog about something entirely different, but I totally forgot what it was.

Oh, wait, I now remember.  I am getting my hair highlighted and cut (nothing major) on Wednesday.  Which reminded me that 2007 will go down in history was the worst hair year of my life.  I may have already recapped the year, but it definitely would make VH1’s “Worst Year Ever” (does that show exist?  I know Best Year Ever does!).

January:  I find out two days before January that I am pregnant.  With pregnancy comes hormones.  Hormones that turn my hair curly.  Not a cute curly.  Just a pain in the rear curly.  (Not a literal pain in the rear, although, a few months more of pregnancy will bring such a significant pain in the rear that it is hard for me to walk….but I digress….)

Fortunately, hormones have effected my hair, but they have not effected my brain….yet.

August:  Possibly in the worst hair decision ever made (I never have had a perm, and I have never had bangs….so I was saved from those 80s/90s disasters), I decide to have my hair done at a beauty school.  Eight months pregnant.  Five hours of sitting.  Two hours of that under the hot dryer.  In August.  At 8 months pregnant.  And after all that, my hair comes out orange.

December:  The night before I leave for Brett’s cousin’s wedding, I get the bright idea that I should dye my own hair.  Being thrifty, this sounds like a good option.  Until it comes out looking like a spotted owl.  Or maybe a leopard.  Whichever is uglier.  I, then, make another bad decision in what is quickly proving to be the worst hair year ever and go really dark brown.

Me = meant to be a blonde.  Me = looks bad in brown hair.

Which all leads to my journey back to blonde.  Folks, it is a lot easier to turn blonde hair brown than to turn brown hair blonde.  Which is why it’s a journey.

A journey that shall end on Wednesday.  I hope.

Am I Crazy?

Brett and I have decided it is finally time to paint our interior walls. We have been putting this off for quite some time. Our walls are just hard to paint, and with an open floor plan, we have to paint everything or nothing. I cannot stand it any longer, so we are going to start painting at the end of this week. My friend is an interior decorator, so she is coming to help us pick colors!

I will probably come back in a few days complaining how much work painting is, but in the end, I know I will love my new walls!!! I like change, and it is time for change.

Here are the before pictures…..stay tuned for the after pictures!!

Wish me luck.

Life….

Life, it has been crazy.  As I mentioned before, everything is fun.  Just busy.

I am not even sure where to start on what has been going on.  So, instead, I will talk about the future.  Brett and I are leaving on Monday to go to a ministry conference in California.  It is impossible to convey how excited I am.  I am expecting this conference to impact my life in a dramatic way.

We are leaving our children.  They will be in the great hands of my sister and parents.  But I am so nervous!  Chloe is nursing exclusively and is not taking a bottle…..so that should be interesting.  My sister is the most nurturing person I know, so I know she (and Chloe) will be fine.  I am just not sure how I will be.  The thought of being away from my babies for four days is too much to think about.  However, the thought of four days of focusing on Jesus, spending time with my most favorite man on the planet, and seeing one of my very best friends from college is worth it!!  God is going to rock my world, and I am looking forward to that.  I am also looking forward to exclusive adult interaction.  And, I am also looking forward to getting spiritually and mentally refreshed.  Part of being a good mom is knowing when it is time to get away for a few days for refreshment.  It is good for me.  It is good for Brett.  And it is good for our children.

But I sure am going to miss them while I am gone.

We got our economic stimulus money today.  I was a little bummed because I thought I would get $600, but apparently, you have to have more income than I have.  Can you really put a price on my job as a mom and wife??  Surely, it would pay six figures, if life were fair!  We still got some money, which is always a blessing.  We plan to use some of the money to paint the walls in our home.  I have wanted to paint for a really long time, but the thought of it overwhelmed me.  However, I want my stark white walls painted so bad that we are finally going to do it!  My friend is going to help me pick out colors.  I am going with a neutral but noticeable color (in a brown tone) for most of the walls (we have an open floor plan).  One room will be a sage green color.  And the dining room will be a shade of red.  My friend is an interior decorator, so she will help me with exact colors (and let me know if my ideas will flow well or not).  I will post before and after pictures.  It may take us until 2009 to finish!  The hardest part with stuff like this is that I want to just get it done, but obviously with children, we will have to work during naps and bedtime!  Wish me luck!  Painting is not our thing, but I know the end product will be worth it!

My sister is flying in tomorrow.  YAY!!!  I just saw her last week, so it seems weird that I am seeing her again.  But all the same I am so excited.

We have people over about 3-4 nights a week, as I have mentioned before.  The best part about it (besides the fact that I enjoy having people over) is that my house stays really clean.  I deep clean usually sometime on the weekend (not every weekend), then maintain it during week.  School is out next week, so our students–for the most part–will be going home for the summer.  We will still do things with the students who stay around during the summer, but the consistency of having people over a lot during the week will fade.  The break is good, because by the fall, I am ready to start it all over again!

It is Brett’s birthday today.  We are mostly celebrating in California, but we did rent a movie (Martian Child….really great!) tonight and hang out!  He also hung out with some college guys today and celebrated!

I probably will not write until after my trip.  So have a great week!!!!!!!