Sunday Funny

little birdies perched on a roost (our weekly park group)

LMS: "Did you know we haven't been watching movies on Fridays lately?"

Me: "I  know."

LMS: "We need to get on top of that."

Bonus Sunday Funny (since it's not actually Sunday)

LMS having fun after swimming lessons

Yesterday some friends were over and the little girl (she's about 4, I think) didn't want to leave when it was time to go. LMS was anxious for them to leave because Daddy had just come home from work and she wanted to spend time with him.

As the mom tried to coax her daughter to leave, LMS chimed in "Thanks for coming, but you need to go."

The three adults busted up laughing, but LMS was not nearly as amused: "It's not funny!"

She wasn't trying to be rude, it just kinda came out that way :)

Kindergarten Time Management

LMS recently went to a birthday party at a tae-kwon-do studio and had a blast on the "adventure" they went on.

Little Miss Sunshine frequently asks me to tell her stories from when I was a kid, and she'll pick an age. "Tell me about when you were 5."

Recently I shared with her how I once got in trouble for trying to switch spots during nap time in kindergarten. Apparently we were always supposed to be in the same spot- no musical mats.

Later I got to thinking more about that experience.

I went to half day kindergarten, so there wasn't a lot of time for extra stuff, but somehow we always had time for quiet time on mats. I wonder if that was our teacher's coping mechanism. She was older, and definitely old school. My older brother had her two years before me and she tried to change him from a lefty to a righty. Because that's what they did back in the day. Needless to say, my mom was not happy about that and put a stop to it.

In any case, it makes me wonder just how much we did/learned compared to kindergartners today. I didn't learn how to read in kindergarten, so I'm sure that saved some time, but what else is different? I wish I remembered more of what we did back then.

New Couches

I've been searching craigslist for the last two years for new couches. Unfortunately, the only one I've found worth buying (within our budget, anyway) in that whole time was the love seat that is sitting in the library(last picture in the post),  which is now waiting for my sister to move so we can take it to her. It's actually a very comfortable love seat, but there wasn't a matching couch, and love seats just aren't made for stretching out on. I did find some nice antique couches, but they're not super comfortable, don't fit our style, and were out of our budget.

We used to have a microfiber couch and love seat set that we bought when I was pregnant with LMS (hmm, there's a pattern here...). But the problem with tan microfiber, which does clean up nicely as advertised, is that the fuzz eventually wears off to the point that it constantly looks dirty and grungy, even though its not. And the cushion contours aren't made for short people- I always got a headache if I sat on the couch too long.

The couch has recliners on either end, which is great for watching movies, but not great for stretching out on since there's hard ridges in between the cushions. So we moved it to the basement, where we watch movies. (I'll eventually take photos of the basement and post them- it's been a work in progress for a long time now).

We sold the love seat on craigslist, and started searching in earnest for new couches. The love seat we did buy was supposed to go in the basement, where I planned on doing our schoolwork, so we could have a comfy place to sit and read. Unfortunately, the light is best in the late afternoon, which is not when we do schoolwork. We now do our schoolwork upstairs and the love seat has migrated from room to room as we sold the microfiber love seat and the wingback chairs that I started to recover and never finished (first picture in the post).

We eventually decided to bite the bullet and actually buy new couches from a store, since we weren't finding anything we liked on craigslist. After doing some pricing and taking fabric samples home to see what they look like at our house (way different than they looked in the store, so I'm super glad we did that), we put in our order.

8 weeks later, our new couches were delivered.

Our living room went from looking like this:

(note the stack of crown molding laying on the floor- finally got that taken care of)

to this:

the gray showing under the rug is a felt pad that needs to be trimmed- but not until we decide for sure about the spacing of the rug and the furniture

I had a hard time getting the lighting right, so this pic isn't as good

We thought about getting a longer couch, but didn't want the space to feel to cramped, so went with a standard length. The chaise on the end can be moved to either side just by moving the cushion to the other end, or it can be removed entirely- we have an extra normal seat cushion to take it's place. The base of the chaise can also be used as an ottoman. We don't plan on using it as one, but's nice to have the flexibility.

lighting problems again

On the other wall is the love seat.

I think we'll put a mirror and family pictures in that massive blank space

We went with a dark grayish fabric, but there's flecks of other colors as well, so I have hopes that it will wear well. In some light, it almost looks like a dark brown. The couches are a bit dark compared to the rest of the room, but once we get the fireplace finished and the coffee table built I don't think it will be as glaring as it is right now.

The verdict so far? We all fight over who gets the chaise, including LMS, who could easily stretch out on the love seat. Though according to her, she likes the chaise because she can lay and look out the window and see what's going on (which you can't do with the love seat). The cushions are super comfy- not too hard, not too soft, and the large pillows are great for lounging on.

added color from an IKEA throw pillow and Nanny

Next up:
build a sofa table to go behind the couch to hold lamps, hide the spare cushion, and so on

build a coffee table/lego habitat
hang curtains (I have the curtains and the rods, just need to hang them)

Sunday Funny

We read The Velveteen Rabbit recently, and watched a video version of it, and I have to say that there are some definite similarities between the Velveteen Rabbit and Nanny (except for that whole having to be burned because he was contagious thing).

The Little Miss loves her little Nanny dearly, and Nanny regularly participates in whatever activity LMS has dreamed up. Nanny goes with us when we're out and about, but she always stays in the car because LMS is very concerned that she not get lost.

Recently LMS has discovered that Nanny can show a range of emotions. LMS even drew some of Nanny's expressions :)

So I now present:

Some of the Many Faces of Nanny

Happy

Sad/Scared

Excited/Startled

Angry Eyes

I love her creativity :)

Beaded Flag Neckerchief Slide for Cub Scouts

This month we made a beaded flag neckerchief slide with the Wolf Scouts. Between Flag Day (June 14), the Fourth of July, and working on Achievement 2 (Your Flag), we thought it was very appropriate.

(fuzzy cropped enlargement showing the slide my mom made) 

My mom made one back when she did scouts, but she used seed beads. For the life of me, I could not find patriotically colored seed beads locally. I did some googling and found this beaded neckerchief slide that used larger safety pins and pony beads.

In thinking it over, I realized the pony beads were probably a better option since 8-year-olds don't always have the best manual dexterity :)

I pretty much followed the directions and materials list I found here, but did make a few changes.

--- Instead of 6 beads on each pin, I only put 5- it was just too tight a fit. This had the stripes starting and ending on red, which is more authentic. We also used a few less red and white beads as a result.

--- I had four of the safety pins clipped into the piece of conduit instead of just one. I felt it made it more stable, but it also made it harder for the boys to close the pins themselves. You have to clip the pins into the conduit before putting the beads on, so it's a bit of a juggling act. I ended up closing the pins that were attached to the conduit for all the boys. Having the boys sit on the floor helped control the inevitable flying beads a bit.

Another inexpensive, quick, and fairly easy neckerchief slide- our kind of project!

A Second Visit from the Tooth Fairy

Yesterday, two weeks after losing her first tooth, Little Miss Sunshine pulled out her second tooth. It was loose before the first one came out, so I knew it wouldn't take too much more time for it to come out also.

While not nearly as exciting as the first one, she was still pretty excited about losing another tooth.

Her two bottom front adult teeth are already coming in, so I figure they helped with the tooth loosening process. I am a bit concerned about how far back they are. I saw someone online call them shark teeth because they're almost like a second row of teeth. I'm curious to see if they move forward on their own or if they need help. She'll need to lose the teeth on either side of the two front teeth to make room, so unless they fall out soon she's going to have quite the crooked teeth. Good thing we were already planning on her getting braces. Her baby teeth were crowded and crooked, and I don't see things improving significantly as her grown up teeth come in.

Did you have shark teeth when you were little?

Updated Over the Fireplace TV Hole

When I worked on the living room last fall, I uncovered a giant tv hole above the fireplace. Why you would want to watch tv when it's up that high, I have no idea. Gives me a headache just thinking about the angle I'd be at.

Awhile ago I installed a shelf across the middle of the hole to make it more useable. I had originally thought to store off-season decor items there, but ultimately decided to store our games in the space.

crappy picture, I know. and there's the crown molding that finally got hung in the kitchen, as well as one piece replaced in the living room.

Eventually we'll have some sort of door that can be swung out for easy access, but that needs to wait till we finish the fireplace. We're waiting on a chunk of log to dry out so we can have it milled down into a mantel piece. We have ideas about what we want to do with the fireplace surround, but until the mantel piece is ready there's not much point in moving forward with any of it.

In the meantime, the games were bugging me (big surprise, I know) and I wanted them hidden away, out of view. Some fabric, a couple seams, and a tension rod later, it looks much better.

Quick and easy and now I'm wondering why it took me so long to finally do.

Kitchen Crown Molding

Back in December, the kitchen cupboards looked like this: 

The rips in the paper were so we could get to the stuff inside, since I didn't empty them out first and painting took longer than I thought it would. As usual. 

Last fall, after painting the kitchen I built a cupboard above the frig since I couldn't stand the thought of that much space being wasted. It got painted when I did the rest of the cupboards.

I meant to take a photo of what the kitchen has looked like since then, but apparently my subconscious wants to forget it since I didn't manage any photos.

This is what it looked like last week: walls painted almost to the ceiling, cupboard frames painted, no doors above the frig, and doors just barely reinstalled above the counter so I could make sure there was space for the crown molding. Yes, our kitchen cupboards have been doorless since December. It's annoying, but I've been working on other things and it wasn't at the top of my list of things to do.

Now it looks like this: the crown is finally up! I've had the pieces laying on the living room floor for months and they needed to make room for our new couches (pictures in a couple days!), so I stopped working on the upstairs bathrooms and tackled the crown. I still need to putty, caulk, and paint, but already it looks so much better.

 

The crown molding extends around the whole kitchen, but I didn't take photos of that section since plain crown just isn't that interesting :)  One of my friends was gracious enough to come on a hot day and help with the long pieces, which made the whole project much easier and faster. Short pieces are easy to do with just two hands, but you need four hands for the longer pieces.

I've done crown molding before and never liked the process of figuring out the angles, so awhile ago I bought a Kreg Crown Pro after seeing it given glowing reviews by other bloggers. Wow! Such a difference! As long as you make sure all your measurements and settings are correct, your cuts turn out great. Totally worth the money since you don't end up wasting molding trying to get the angles right (not that I'm speaking from past experience, or anything.....).

I still haven't finished painting the doors, so they'll have to come back down, but it was good to get an idea of the effect. I think we'll save up for a stainless steel microwave- the white one we have is looking really dingy next to the white cupboards. 

There's more to do, of course, but slowly I'm getting the last projects around the house finished.

Sunday Funny

22 week ultrasound

Rather than call the baby "The Baby" for the next 3 months or so, we've decided to call him "Baby (Mr M's middle name)".  We haven't decided on a first name yet, though we have narrowed it down quite a bit, but we do know that his middle name will be Mr M's middle name, which is a family name.

Little Miss Sunshine likes to lay her head on my tummy to give her baby brother snuggles, and when she does, she says "I love you, Baby (Mr M's middle name)". So sweet!

The thing is, she sometimes gets things a little mixed up and calls him Baby (Mr M's first name).

Um, not the same thing at all.

As it is, I keep reminding her that Mr M's middle name will be the baby's middle name, not his first name. Possibly we're just making this way more complicated than we need to. Either way, it's sweet and funny at the same time.

May Goals Re-Cap

Our broccoli bolted instead of getting bigger. I think the heat did it?

I updated my goals in January and here's the progress I made in May.
April's progress can be seen here.

A few goals under Health:
1. Stick to GAPS
As I mentioned yesterday, that's a wash. I would still like to get back on GAPS, but haven't quite figured out how to manage that.
2. Train for and run at least 6 races by the end of 2013 (at least one half marathon, preferably two)
I'm still spending time on the treadmill 2-3 times a week, though I'm definitely doing more walking than running. At the end of May I was still at 3 races for the year- one half marathon, a 4 miler, and a 5k.
3. Consistently cross train and strength train
I haven't added cycling and strength training, though I'm still finishing projects around the house, which is a kind of strength training :) At this point, I'm ready to face reality and move my bike out to the shed to make room in the basement bedroom for an air mattress for use by guests when the baby comes. I think the cycling will have to come once I've recovered from the labor and delivery.

A few goals under House:
1. Clean up drips and do the final touches in each room
I finished the master bedroom and closet. Just need to finish the two upstairs bathrooms, then I can head downstairs.
2. Build and install shelves in all closets
Kitchen coat closet, pantry, LMS' closet, guest closet, hall closet, and master bedroom closet are now all finished. Woohoo!
3. Build homeschool cabinet
Finished the design, but still haven't had time/energy to start yet. After I finish the touchups upstairs I'll get started on it.
4. Build kitchen table
Again, haven't had the time/energy yet.

A few goals under Homeschool:
1. Continue to be consistent at keeping to the schedule
Still doing pretty good on this, though I need to get better at getting to sleep earlier and getting up earlier so we can get an earlier start. Unfortunately, eating foods I shouldn't also gives me insomnia.
2. Be more present
Still working on this one, but I suspect this is one of those on-going ones that never quite end.

A few goals under Habits:
1. Practice the piano and violin consistently
Yeah, these haven't happened yet- no time or energy.
2. Index several batches every week for FamilySearch
Nor this one.
3. Have more meaningful daily scripture study (start journaling as I read)
At this point in my life journaling isn't working for me. So I'm just reading, like I used to. Vickie left the suggestion of incorporating BYUtv discussions into my scripture study. I really like the idea, but haven't quite figured out how to fit it into my schedule (I like to read first thing in the am while still in bed and I don't have my phone or laptop handy to access the BYUtv discussions). Probably I should just stop being lazy and go downstairs and grab one of them. The only problem is that if I go downstairs that's a signal to LMS that she can get up and the house is no longer quiet.

How did you do with your goals this month?

GAPS and My Pregnancy

So, doing full GAPS while pregnant is ok, but doing GAPS Intro (what we did before Christmas) is not, as it can be too low carb.

The problem is that the foods you can introduce once you're on full GAPS still don't agree with me.
 * Nuts and coconut- nope, I feel horrible when I eat them (tiny amounts are ok, but not in sufficient quantities to help me out).
 * Eggs- nope, my throat swells up a bit (just enough to be uncomfortable, not enough to send me to the hospital).
 * Dairy- double nope, since it makes my stomach hurt and triggers my eczema.
 * White beans- nope, caused gas and other problems last time I tried to eat them.

So that leaves me eating lots and lots of winter squash in an effort to get my carb intake up where it should be. But that's not actually happening since squash makes me want to gag right now.

I'm not nauseous anymore- now the problem is more just a lack of appetite. I haven't been able to determine if it's pregnancy related or food fatigue related. Probably a bit of both.

So, if we're not doing GAPS right now, what am I doing about food?

My body needs GAPS intro-legal foods still, but it also needs more carbs. So I'm having to supplement with other things, foods that aren't GAPS legal. Right now I'm on a rotation of about a week on each: Snickers and Butterfingers candy bars (till the eczema from the dairy in the chocolate gets too bad), gluten free cereals and breads (till the bloating and mental fog gets to be too much), and potatoes (till the mental fog and food coma in the mornings gets to be too much).

Switching them out helps relieve symptoms so I can keep going, though it's definitely not the healthiest way to be eating. Even with all the problems, I still feel better than I did before I started eating this way. Low carbing it (even though it was unintentional) left me with zero energy and motivation to get anything done. Now at least I'm able to get stuff done as long as I time my eating right- the gluten free grain products interfere the most with my ability to get things done.

I'm in a bit of a quandary. I really want to be eating healthier, but I can't see the way there, given all my problems. Hopefully pregnancy brain is making me miss something. Anyone have any ideas?

Quick Guest Room Update

I recently posted about our guest room, but I couldn't leave well enough alone.

In preparation for our new couches that are being delivered this Thursday (yay!), I moved a chair and a settee out of the living room. The settee went into the kitchen (pics to eventually come) and the chair went up to the guest room. I found the chair on craigslist a couple years ago, but still haven't reupholstered it, which is handy since it makes it easier to move it from room to room while I decide on a permanent home for it. LMS's lavender chair can only be in her room- no musical rooms for it.

I had to scoot things around a little to make room for the chair. The bed ended up a lot closer to the window, which made room for the dresser to scoot over, leaving room for the chair next to the wall.

The size of the room doesn't give a lot of options for different furniture arrangements, but this is one I hadn't tried yet. I never thought having the bed a foot away from the window would work, but it does. I really like it this way. There's still room to walk between the window and the bed, and there's actually open space when you walk into the room, which makes the whole room seem much roomier.

I wasn't sure that the short chair would work well with the tall four poster bed frame, but I think it's ok. I think it'll be even better once I hang something on the wall above the chair to give the illusion of height and balance things out.

I also brought a lamp up from the living room to replace the little desk light that was on the dresser. I'm not convinced I like this one here, but it's a better fit than the other one. I wanted to put a cute clock on the dresser, but opted for a useful one instead. This is the guest room I figured our guests would appreciate an easy way to charge their phone over a cute clock that has to be wound :)  Oh well.

Eventually I'll reupholster the chair, but it's not at the top of my list of things to do. And in a weird way, I think the retro fabric doesn't look too bad in the room. Though the fabric is starting to show some accumulated dirt from its years of use, so it definitely won't be staying.

I think it's amazing how moving things around just a little makes such a difference.

Bench for our Master Bedroom

A couple years ago I bought a cheap, ugly old coffee table on craigslist. It's about 5' long, which ended up being too long for our living room. It is solid wood and its length made it just right for use as a bench, so I moved it upstairs and put it at the foot of our bed. 

Once we moved, I finally got going on the makeover. I started by screwing some feet to the legs to make the bench a little taller. The shapes don't match completely, but they're as close as I could get.

I used it to support some wood I painted, but I knew the top would get covered, so I wasn't too worried about it

I mixed up some light blue chalk paint and gave the bench a couple coats.

I brought the bench upstairs, intending to add a cushion. Which of course didn't happen for about a year.

In my recent push to finish projects upstairs, I decided to finally finish the bench. Unfortunately, this meant I first needed to repaint it. Once I painted the master bedroom light blue gray and brought in blue bedding and a rug with light blue in it, the bench just didn't look right- too many shades of blue. 

hard to tell in this light, but this just wasn't working

So instead of blue, I went with light gray- the same light gray chalk paint I used on the nightstand. After two coats of paint, a little distressing since the bench is a bit beat-up, and a coat of wax, I got to work on the cushion. 

I bought the foam on sale at JoAnns forever ago, so all I had to do was cut it down a smidge to fit the bench top. Part of the reason it took me so long to do the cushion is that it took me quite awhile to find an electric knife that I could use on the foam. Once I finally found one, I'd started on other projects and the electric knife sat on a shelf, unused.

The electric knife made short work of the trimming, and then I grabbed a piece of 1/4" plywood from my stash. I wrapped the foam and plywood in batting, and then in fabric, securing them in place with my staple gun. 

I wanted to make it a tufted bench, but had problems getting the holes lined up. Thinner foam might have been a little bit easier? Or drilling holes in the foam as well as the wood? In any case, after a couple failed tries, I decided it was not going to be a tufted bench after all. Instead I secured the cushion to the bench by screwing some screws in from the bottom of the bench and into the plywood under the cushion. Sooo much quicker and easier :)

I hauled it back upstairs, and I was done. The lighting makes it difficult to tell, but it really does look a lot better. The light gray blends in a lot easier than the previous light blue-that-was-a-different-shade-of-blue-from-everything-else-in-the-room.

The real reason I've hung onto this bench- aren't the corner details great?

First Visit from the Tooth Fairy

About a week and a half ago, LMS discovered a loose tooth. OK, so we knew it was loose before that, but it wasn't loose enough to worry about. A week and a half ago, it really started moving.

She was SO.EXCITED!

Most of her friends, including those younger than her, have already lost at least several teeth. She has felt very left out. Having a tooth that was really loose meant she was finally going to lose a tooth!

I figured it would take a while to actually fall out, but Monday afternoon she came running out to where I was in the trailer, measuring for storage bins.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"
My thought: Oh no, what happened?

"There was only a little blood!"
Why was there any blood? What happened?

Then I looked up at her and saw the great big grin, and the hole in the grin.

Ah, that's why there was blood. I'm ok with that.

Her main concern was that she didn't want her tooth thrown away. She'd voiced this to me before, so I was aware of her concern. She decided she needed to write a note for the Tooth Fairy. She stuck it and her tooth under her pillow right away- no waiting for bedtime!

Later that afternoon she even made up a song about losing her tooth- singing while playing the piano :)

Tuesday morning she woke me up way earlier than I wanted, so excited to show me what the Tooth Fairy left. She also told me she knew that I was the Tooth Fairy, and asked if I had dressed up for it (I hadn't). She appreciated the charade and suggested next time I should at least wear some fairy wings :)

The Tooth Fairy left her a dollar bill, her tooth, and a {very fancy} note. 

 I wish I remembered how old I was when I lost my first tooth, but I don't. Do you remember?