the little things

the latest updates

home improvement is moving a bit slowly, but it's happening little by little.  one thing at a time, right?  hubby started work on the hole in the brick wall where the oven should go in the kitchen.  on saturday morning when i was looking forward to sleeping in, i woke up to this 

and this

 

i didn't get to sleep in, but it's all good because we are just that much closer to finally being able to install this

 

can't wait!

next up, is our solution to the bathroom/closet/bedroom situation.  there are two entries to the main bathroom.  the hallway, for the kids, and our bedroom via the closet.  anyone in the bathroom can lock the doors for privacy, which is good, but the door that leads to our closet is not a dual lock and there was no door at all going from the walk-thru closet to our bedroom.  following me so far?  that meant that anyone in the bathroom could walk into our bedroom whenever they felt like it.  so we decided to add a door between our closet and our bedroom.

 

this photo was taken from the bathroom looking into the closet. i still need to paint the door (probably should have done that before the install, eh).  and yes, that is my unmade bed on the other side of that door, along with the pile of clothes that should be hung up in the closet but aren't because the closet system isn't put together yet.  here is another view of the door from the bedroom side

 

sorry, it's a little blurry.  now we can lock our door!  this is our solution until we add on our new private bathroom.  see that blue ikea bag?  the hardware for the closet system is in there!  hopefully hubby will do that next.

it seems hubs is the only one working around here, huh?  not so!  i'm busy thinking about what to do in the kitchen!  i'll post more about that later ;)

hump day ramblings

i love it when adrienne does her ramblings so i thought i'd give it a go with some things rattling around in my head.

it's 3:42.  A.M.  i have been up for 2 hours :(

i have two boys with fevers over 100 degrees.  this is day 3 for deacon, day 2 for keith.

work on the house seems to have halted.  i still need to paint rooms and base boards.

since we are still having plumbing issues, we are thinking of making the laundry room bathroom a walk-in pantry and adding on a new bathroom to the master bedroom.  let me tell you that i am very excited about that prospect.

i committed to something i now wish i could get out of.  not gonna happen though, so i'm stuck.

i emptied quite a few boxes this week! trust me, it's an accomplishment.

deacon has been awake with me for almost the whole two hours.  he just went back to sleep.

i made potato soup in the crock pot yesterday and it was delish!  it's totally gone.  no leftovers!

our disney trip is less than a month away!  i can't wait!  need a vacay!

i need to gather the kids together for a new christmas photo.  the ones i took last week are unsat.

jay and i have been talking about putting keith in school.  i am okay with sending him, but keith says he wants to be homeschooled so there you go.

we take little things for granted.  like having an oven in your kitchen.  how i miss having an oven!  who doesn't have an oven?! 

i hope the boys don't have the flu and that no one else gets sick.  

it is now 4:20am.  jay is up and working on his computer.  maybe i should try to catch a few more z's...

google reader is insane!  i am finally down to 340!  so if i haven't commented on your blog in a while it's because a)i just have so many to read so it's a time issue, b)i deleted it. again, a time issue.  gotta get the numbers down to a reasonable amount or c) i just haven't gotten to it yet.

it's so cold in the house right now. need to go grab socks.

i am so over halloween.  can we be done already?  i see people are being passionate about it and decorating their houses with bats ans skulls...i'm just not feeling it.

i love my iphone.  it's like my new baby.

it's freezing, socks aren't working, time for uggs.

don't i look a sight- oversized sweatshirt, holey pajama pants and uggs.

it figures, i'm getting tired and want to go back to bed.  it is way too late for that now.  why i didn't listen to myself 2 hours ago...

jay is taking the day off.  it would have been nice to take the boys to the pumpkin patch.  too bad two of the boys are sick.

soccer season is almost over!  3 more games then i can cross soccer coach off my list.  i will not be coaching track...repeat.

why do i have to be superwoman?

drew just left for school and i just woke cam up to get ready for school.  she hates getting up.  she goes to bed at 8:30 and sleeps til 7am and still has a hard time getting up.

whew!  it's 7:45. just got cam off to school.  daddy took her.  i love that he takes her to school.  he takes her everyday except for mondays because he is already at work by the time we get up.  or unless i have pto business at the school, then i take her myself.

carter is up.  it's just me and him right now. everyone else is asleep still.  he wants a warm brown sugar cinnamon poptart and some hot chocolate.

thinking about what to make for dinner tonight.  maybe turkey cutlets, mashed potatoes and a veggie.

it's 8:00.  my two sickies are awake now, dev still sleeps.  fevers are down, as i expected since i gave them both motrin about 1:45 this morning.

off to start the day. even though it started a long time ago.

my girl

my decision to put camryn in school was hardly hard.  after homeschooling her all these years i knew she was ready.  she's brightly smart, and a quick learner.  and importantly, she loves learning.  so yeah, putting her in school was not an issue, but finding the right school for her to go to was.  the school she is in is perfect for her.  it's a magnet school with a focus on sciences and arts.  she is not so much into the science part as she is very into the arts part.  she has been wanting to get into this school solely so she could try out for the school play.  each year it's different and every year the play is a hit so we usually try to go see them.  this school year it's guys and dolls.  she auditioned, but didn't get the part she really wanted.  she did land a role as one of the dancers because of her dancing experience so she is ok with it.  since starting school, she has had to quit ballet because of scheduling issues but she is keeping her mind off of it by keeping busy at school.  she is in ASB, yearbook club, math counts(an after school math club and they do competitions), and now the play. 

she is also making friends.  she has one friend, who is also new to the school, from china named sally.  sally has been in this country for a little over a year and is still learning about our language and culture.  camryn noticed her struggle right away and made it her business to be there for sally.  i had a talk with camryn's english teacher because i had concerns that camryn's work was suffering because she is always helping sally with her work and not getting her own work done (and also because when i asked cam if she was making friends with anyone besides sally she looked down and answered, "not really", because when other kids would invite her to sit with them or hang out with them sally never wanted to go along and cam didn't want to leave her by herself).  she spends all of her time with sally and her teacher said that she noticed that camryn was the only one out of all the students going out of her way helping sally and that she would make sure the other students helped out too.  i don't know how that's working out, but camryn is still there for sally.  they have become very good friends and i can see that cam cares a great deal for her now.  i picked camryn up from school on friday and she was really upset because a girl teased sally in the girls locker room.  i thought she was going to cry she was so upset.  i felt bad and glad at the same time.  bad, for obvious reasons, but glad that my daughter has compassion and knows what's wrong, and isn't trying to do what others are doing to fit in.  she was very offended one day in p.e. when she heard the way some boys were talking during a conversation. she wouldn't even repeat to me what they said. most of the kids in her school have been together since kindergarten and i know cam has a desire to fit in with them since she is not only new to this school, but to public school itself. i am so glad that she is fitting in just fine in a positive way, and not a follower of the crowd.  that's my girl!

to conclude my update on how well cam is adjusting to public school, we got her first progress report yesterday and she has all A's and 2 B+'s.  so she's doing pretty good!

double crap

i had no problem falling asleep after seeing that movie, but then i woke up at around 2:40am and have been awake ever since.  i am  barely hanging on right now folks. 

this reminds me of when i was a kid and i saw amityville horror for the first time. anytime after that, if i woke up at 3:15 i was freaked out.  wondering if i'll see beady red dots that are supposed to be eyes looking at me.

ugh.

demons are real.  so are murderers, but they don't creep me out as much.

no more scary movies!!

crap.

i went to see this with my husband. what the heck was i thinking?!!!

did you know

that typepad has been tinkering again, so now when you comment on someone's comment it shows up on your blog, and not as a private email that goes to the commenter? 

just checking.

some photos

here are some photos of the boys i have been meaning to post:

this is carter's "i'm looking at you, but i'm not" face

 

he wanted this pose for some reason...

 

 

october

i can't believe it's october already-and we are already in the middle of it!

i have a kinda love hate thing with october.  i love the weather.  it's cooling down, so i get to wear my sweaters.  even my uggs have had to make an appearance a time or two so far- sweet!  the colors of the trees here in my area are pretty. today i actually watched a few leaves float from the tree to the ground and wished i could catch that action with my camera cuz that would be cool to catch a falling leaf in mid air.  the pumpkin patch is coming up too!  everytime we pass pete's pumpkin patch carter wants to stop and go pick pumpkins, but we haven't had the time :(  hopefully we make it there before october is over!  i have a hankering for some pumpkin bread!  normally by this time, camryn has baked several loaves but we don't have our oven installed yet so that ain't happening :( but, jay bought the wood to start building the stand for the oven so maybe by christmas?  i'm just kidding honey ;)

ok now, the part i hate about october.  halloween.  i believe i have shared this here before but for those who missed it here it goes.  i have 6 children.  all of them want a costume.  and not just any costume either.  the boys all wanna be star wars characters or power rangers or some super hero.  the girls wanna be musketeers this year because of the new barbie movie that just came out.  these costumes are expensive and lisa can't sew.  the last couple of years i have told the girls that they need to get creative and make something up that costs very little money.  i went to the halloween store today and got devyn a musketeer hat and a sword.  we went to the fabric store and got fabric for a cape.  i told her that was all i was contributing to her costume and she would have to come up with the rest.  camryn has plenty of costumes in her closet.  she has ballet costumes and tap and jazz costumes from her dance recitals, but does she want to use them? noooo!  i don't think i will be contributing any money towards her costume until she can come up with something using what she already has.  then i might consider adding accessories or something.  is that unreasonable?  drew is 14.  do 14 year olds still dress up?  i don't think i dressed up anymore once i was in high school...  still, just a mask will do esp since he isn't even trick or treating?!!  he wants to go to a friend's house and help him pass out candy!  speaking of candy, that's the other part i hate.  with all the kids i have, the loot of candy they bring home is ridiculous!  and they want to eat it all. the. time!  they drive me crazy with it!  oh well.  what are ya gonna do, right?  i mean, i finally just let them start dressing up for halloween a few years ago- i avoided halloween altogether- can't go back now can i?

so anyway, there's my rant and rave about sweet october.  i believe there'll be another one in december...

video

how bout a video break- got time for a laugh?

nook ideas

we have a nook in our kitchen that is in some need of furnishing.  we haven't yet decided what is going to go there yet, but i am almost certain that it will be a banquette of some sort.  i have been checking out bhg again and found lots of ideas.  let's have a look at some of my faves, shall we?

this is a light and airy space.  not too much going on here, just a bench(built in) a small table and a couple of chairs and that's what i love about it.  we don't have a lot of space to work with so something like this is what i want to try and go for.

here we have extra bench seating on the far wall and an extra chair.  we still have the room for that, and with six kids it might be the better option...

this one has a bit too much white going on for me, but i still like the design...

you can't really see the bench seating here so i'll have to admit that it was the table and chairs that drew me into this one...love it- and the fact that they're black is a score!  take a sec to admire that wood flooring...ok, moving on!

i like this one because i love the fact that you don't have to go with a square table, a round one looks just as nice!  but, for practicality, a square or rectangle would work best for my family i think.  loving that circular mirror too!

i had been drawn to the L-shaped bench seating along a wall but then i saw this.  this bench(looks more like a pew) is attached to an island.  that's different...

we are a family that likes to read while we eat( i really do try to discourage it)so a built in book shelf would be great!

fancy!  my kids would so destroy this...

this was the very first banquette i looked at when i thought i wanted to keep with the 1950's theme of the house.  ....it's just not me though.  i think the red leather is just a bit much.

and this is the table jay and i talked about getting when we went to ikea last week.  with these chairs

yep.  just like the ones in the restaurant.  i think i wanted to go with it just because it was different.  i mean really, who has a nook that looks like a cafeteria?  no one i know!  i am kinda glad we didn't get it.  it goes with nothing else in the house.

so.  i am pretty much sure that we will end up with L-shaped bench seating with a table and a couple of chairs in our nook.  now to find someone to build it.  oh, and in case you're wondering, it doesn't have to be a built in.  it's just what i prefer.  it would be easy just to buy a couple of benches and set it up the same way.  it's always an option.