Babies Don't Keep

I'm sort of a total neat freak. Order and organization make me happy. Newly dusted furniture, freshly vacuumed rugs, sparkling toilets...I'm over the moon. However. I also have a 2, 3, and 4 year old. If you've ever been around a child for more than 10 minutes, you probably have figured out neatness and children don't exactly go hand in hand. I've become less and less crazy, though, the older and um, wiser (?!) I get. I've learned a lot these last almost 5 years of being a parent, and it's helped me chill out with my Monica Gellar-ish ways, and almost embrace the mess...I said "almost..." ;)

I've learned over this time that fingerprints can be cute. I actually giggle sometimes when I see them on the stainless steel freezer door handle. Makes me picture my 2 year old holding on for dear life, begging for a "quawk qwackxxx" (popsicle)

I've learned that dirt and sand in a bathtub are not evil - they are quite the opposite. It makes me so happy when the kids get out of the tub and there's a ring of all things outside left behind. Makes me think about the fun day we had outdoors, at the pool, maybe the park, and not sitting around on the couch watching tv all day.

I've learned that a mess of dishes in my sink can actually make me smile. Especially after a big Saturday morning pancake breakfast, or a Sunday night after feeding my family for 9+ hours while we watched football.

I've learned that not making the bed is not the end of the world. Sure, there are days I must. do. it. or I feel like I can't accomplish one thing, but some days, my kids like to use it as a trampoline, and I'd much rather them remember the fun times jumping on Mommy and Daddy's bed than hearing their neurotic mother scream, "YOU KIDS GET OFF THERE! I JUST MADE IT, CAN'T YOU SEE THAT??" I've been that mother. Once. And I vowed never to say those words again.

Who knows, maybe it's parenthood, maybe it's wisdom, maybe it's the fact that my oldest baby is starting kindergarten in a month (again, tearing up just typing this!), or maybe it's all the darn adorable signs on Pinterest I've been seeing lately, but I do know that one day you're rocking your newborn baby to sleep, and then you blink. And you're a mother of three, and a neat perfect house isn't all that important anymore. Do I want my kids to have this picture of their mom walking around the house with Pledge in one hand and a vacuum in the other? Or do I want them to picture their mom as the one who chose to go out for ice cream instead?

I had one of those days yesterday, when the dust, the mess, the crumbs all. over. the. rugs. was starting to drive me batty. And I don't believe it was a coincidence that I stumbled up this blog on that very day. It was like God's way of reminding me that the mess isn't important. The mess will always be there. The kids will not:(. Susan, the author of the blog, included the words to a poem that is one of my absolute favorites - one that my friend Jess told me about a while back, and it's one I refer to often:

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait for tomorrow,
For babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs,
Dust, go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby,
And babies don't keep.

So take a look at our house around dinner time last night...

Oh. my. Word. Those of you who know me, are probably speechless at this very moment. You know what's even more shocking about this scene? I didn't mind it one bit. I'm not kidding. I stirred my spaghetti sauce, had a glass of wine, and smiled. My girls played playdoh (among other hundreds of things), while my son ran circles around us with his cars. I embraced the mess - truly, I did. Not lying. I pictured many years from now, when they're married with kids of their own, and the quiet house. I pictured my husband and I actually completing a conversation at the dinner table without being interrupted a hundred times, and while that will be nice, my heart will ache a bit, I'm sure.

So when I woke up today, I was faced with this dust:

I left my bed just like this:

The girls asked me if I'd carry their dollhouses down to the family room (at 7am - for real). So I did:

And while in the family room, I was reminded of even MORE dusting that had to be done:

But you know what we did instead?

We went to the pool. We played pirates on the playgound (isn't that the cutest pirate you ever saw by the way?;))

Then we stopped by our favorite summer place and had some snowballs.

Memories were made today, but they sure wouldn't have been if I had chose to clean instead. Kinda shuts up the neat freak inside of me when I think of it that way...funny how I thought I'd teach my children everything, but instead they seem to be teaching me.

Chalkboard Fridge

Another project involving chalkboard paint. I know, you're SHOCKED!! I'll totally admit it, I'm hooked on this stuff. My family teases and says if they stand still long enough, I will paint them. Probably not too far-fetched, I'm afraid;). Have you tried it? The spray or the can - both are FANTASTIC. I got my trusty can out this weekend AGAIN and made this:

Cute! Started it Friday night after the kiddos went to bed and Paul left for a lacrosse game. Quiet house, you know I was gonna get into something, right?! I picked up some magnetic primer at Walmart last week:

That stuff is pretty cool! Read the directions carefully - it says to stir, and STIR you must! It's very settled on the bottom, so it took quite a few minutes to get that sucker going. It's very thin and watery at the top, but once you stir it, it gets more of a paint consistency. It also says to do a few thin coats rather than 2 thick ones, so that's what I did. And it says to wait 30 minutes between coats. So I did. A fridge is way too important (and costly!) to not follow the directions, am I right?!  Can you imagine, "Sorry, hon, ruined the fridge..." So yes, I was a teensy bit scared starting this project! Most things I do are from yard sales or something, and the worst that could happen is I ruin a 50 cent cake stand, ya know?! You might be wondering why I bothered with the magnetic primer in the first place, since it was already a magnetized surface, but that's so it remains that way after several coats of chalkboard paint. I used a foam roller (as I was told):

And after an hour and a half (drying time for 3 coats), it went from this:

to this:

So that was Friday night. It says to wait 4 hours until painting it with whatever paint you want (in my case, chalkboard paint), and I was not about to stay up until 1:30am - even I'm not that crazy! Ok, maybe I am, but not that particular night;). I got out my chalkboard paint the next day during naptime:

Man I love that stuff. I painted 2 or 3 light coats (I think 3, but they were very thin coats), letting them dry about a half hour or so in between coats. Then, being the good girl that I am, waited 24 hours like the can tells me to, before I wrote on it;). In the meantime, Hubs and I got to work on the molding. We measured the distance around the fridge to see how much we'd need, and he went to Lowe's and picked up 2 large pieces of (already painted white) wood molding. We already had some downstairs from a previous project, so I'm not sure the exact amount of footage he bought.

Wish I had a picture of this next step, but I ran out to do the grocery shopping, and while the kids were napping, my lovely husband got out the miter saw and surprised me by cutting it to size. I have to say, I was tickled when I got home and he told me he had done it already - that's love, right?! In my bizarre world, that beats a bouquet of flowers! What a weirdo I am...

So the pieces of molding looked like this:

with the help of this

He simply cut the pieces to the length of the side of the fridge, then did the corners, so it looks like a frame. I'm reeeeally bad at this lingo, I know. Sorry 'bout that. Still pretty knew at all this molding/miter saw business.

Then it was onto figuring out the best way to attach the molding. I figured, it's a magnetic surface, so why not magnetic tape? Bought 2 of these rolls, and used every last inch:

You'll need to double up the tape like this:

 I placed one strip on it at first, and it didn't hold well enough. Then you just have to stick those bad boys on the fridge and you're done!

I love it! And it's hard to see, but if you look at the middle picture, on the right wall, I made a chalkboard menu a few months back framed with the exact same molding. They sort of mirror one another, which I like. This is what it looks like:

AND my AWESOME black and white island that I just painted goes so well with it! Bonus! I think it's super fun, and perfect for the kids to play, make grocery or to-do lists, or countdowns to the beach or Christmas or last day of school...(I LOOOVE me some countdowns!!). It really wasn't hard, or expensive, which is always a good thing too! Don't you just love it when a project is smooth sailing? Doesn't happen too often, but it's awesome when it does!

Anniversary Gift (and didn't pay a dime!)

Big day in our household! It is not only our 8th Wedding Anniversary, but our son's second birthday! So needless to say, our anniversary will always take a back seat to our sweet boy's special day. We joke that we'll be spending our anniversaries at Chuck E. Cheese's in the future, and my sweet hubs will win me some great prize with his tokens;). Romantic, isn't it?! We've never been big gift-givers on our anniversary though, even before the boy was born to share our day. Always treat ourselves to a fancy dinner, get each other cards, maybe get flowers, and call it a day. But 2 years from now, we WILL treat ourselves to a trip back to Bermuda, where we had our honeymoon. We made a promise when we were there, that for our 10 year anniversary, we'd be back. Words cannot express how much we love that place!! That was one of the happiest weeks in my WHOLE life. That sand, that water, nothing to think about except where to go for dinner...and with the love of your life doesn't hurt either;). I am already counting the days...only 730 to go!

So even though we agreed not to exchange gifts, especially with the money we spend on our son's gifts, party, etc., and are going to be hit next month with ANOTHER child's birthday extravaganza, AND vacation, I had an idea that would not cost me a cent. I have been coming across some adorable uses of maps lately and had a thought. You know I have a thing for collecting picture frames, and I happen to have quite a collection of spray paint in the laundry room. And I just happen to be a sucker for grabbing maps/sugar packets/matchbooks/receipts - you name it, if it in some way makes me think of a special place we've been, I snag it! So I had all the necessary materials to make a pretty cute (and special) gift for the hubs without spending a dime! I didn't have a mat for my frame, so I used posterboard, which I did have. I'm not kidding when I say this was a 100% F-R-E-E project!

Here's how it started:

An old frame I found at my parents' house, I believe. Sprayed it white.

Then I found a picture of Hubs and I on our honeymoon - not the best quality, but it was taken by US with a waterproof disposable camera (we're actually swimming in this pic!). I cut the posterboard to size, then laid the 4x6 picture on top, traced it, and cut it out.

Then I cut and taped a handy reference map of Bermuda to the "mat" (I had the map in my honeymoon keepsake shoebox!).

Here's how it turned out:

Didn't notice until I sprayed it, that it had some cracks in the corners, but they don't bug me too much. Maybe someday I'll fill them in, but maybe not;). Look at those happy, happy faces! Makes me smile. Had NO idea what life had in store, and that one day we'd become parents to the three most adorable, smart, AWESOME kids EVER! (Not that we're biased or anything...hehehe). That was such a happy memory. And isn't that what should fill your walls? So went ahead and bent the "no gifts this year" rule, but I don't think Hubs will mind;). Now if you'll excuse me, I have a birthday cake to ice!

Dollar Store Decor

Happy Naptime, y'all! While the glue is drying on my latest project (hope to finish in the next couple days), I thought I'd take a few minutes and post something I did a couple months back. Are any of you obsessed with the Dollar Store like I am??!! I BIG FAT LOVE that place!! In fact, I was just there this morning, but had the trio with me - the trio that is made up of 4 and younger, so you can imagine - needless to say, we went in for the purpose of buying some inner tubes for the pool, and (this is a first) actually LEFT with JUST the inner tubes! Number 3 was not a happy camper this morning, so it was strictly an in-and-out trip, much to Mommy's dismay. I was just itching to go down those aisles with the glasses, candles, frames - you know what I'm talking about, right?! Not this time. I should know better than to think I may actually do some Mommy Shopping with 3 kids 4 and under. Especially in the Dollar Store, where everythingisthisclose, and within reach of those little hands, including ceramic soccer ball banks, which I won't get into, but let's just say I have a boy. A TWO YEAR OLD boy. Who LOVES balls. And does NOT know the difference between soccer ceramic bank ball and soccer ball. Bottom shelf (and he's a shortie). Get where this is going? Let's just say I'm glad we were at the Dollar Store and not Pottery Barn. He's really not the devil, I promise. That'd be Number 2...KIDDING! Ok, maybe not totally kidding. I digress...

One day when I was there, I found some cute lil' mirrors, in different shapes. The frames were silver and a vintagey/crackled/blue/grey. PERFECT for my bedroom (the one I'm dying to redo and add splashes of color too, but Hubs is not sold...) And it just so happened that we needed to fill a wall above Hubs' nightstand. It's a small space, so it was nekkid for a while. I was constantly on the lookout for some awesome sconce of some sort, but never found one (at least never found one that fit the budget!). So I grabbed a handful of these mirrors, hung 'em, and 6 buckeroos later, I have a completely decorated wall! Score!

Not bad for six bucks, am I right?! LOVE Dollar Store finds like that. Never know what you'll find there. And in case you're looking for a ceramic soccer ball bank, they have plenty. But maybe not for long if my son is on the loose.

Count The Steps!

Something has irked me since we've moved in, and I honestly have NO clue why it's taken me 5 years to do something about it. For some reason, because of the timing between when the carpet was put in, and the banister was completed, or something or other, we didn't paint the inside of the staircase. It was left this unfinished-banged-up wood, next to carpet and a dark stained banister. Like this:

It's always bugged me, but I assumed painting it at this point would end up in a ruined/paint-stained carpet mess. But The Voice got inside my head, and lately, every.single.time I walked by it, I was itching to try it anyway. I thought maybe I could get the painter's tape down that itty-bitty space between the carpet and banister, without ruining the carpet. And THEN I thought, I have those cute stencils that I've been using to death lately, and they came with numbers- how cute would that be to number the steps!? I'm happy to say, there was little paint spillage, and turned out pretty cute:

What a relief to finally have that yucky wood painted a nice fresh white! One more before and after for you:

I know, probably nothing too exciting for anyone else, but it sure does look nicer to me! Plus, it's fun since I always say to the kids at bedtime, "Time to count the steps, kids." And now they can. Literally. ;)