Playroom Painting

Aaron's sister was living with us until recently. When she moved out we decided that we wanted to turn her old room into a playroom for the kids. Before moving everything down there I wanted to do a little redecorating. We decided the best way to do that would be to paint. Upon much deliberation on colors, we settled on a Mango Orange wall with Kiwi Green stripes for an accent wall. The colors we picked out are purposely bright, we wanted to help lighten up the basement.

To start off we painted everything in a creamy Eggshell color. After that we taped off the accent wall and painted it with the green. I call this Hello Green! because when I walked in the room after painting that color, that's what I said. Once the green was dry I taped the stripes.

After taping the stripes I did another light coat of green to help prevent the orange from bleeding through the tape. This would help give us a more sharp line with the stripes.

Next we painted over the whole wall with the orange. It took three coats to make sure the green wasn't showing through.

As soon as the third coat was on we pulled off the tape and admired our new stripes! There were a few spots where the orange bled through the edges, so I had to do some touch-ups after everything was dry. Lastly, we did a clear coat over the top to seal things off. We love it! What a fun way to help brighten up a basement playroom.

Halloween 2010

We had a super fun Halloween weekend! Saturday morning we got up and decided to take the kids to Gardner Village to see the witches. We were early enough that we beat the crowds that swarm the day before Halloween. It was a great way to start the day!

The Ducks are our Favorite Part!

Dancing With the Witches

We had a wonderful lunch at Archibald's. I love that place! They even had the restaurant decorated for Halloween with little spiders hanging from the lights. Zack and Lexi had fun reaching for the spider. Zack even drew a spider family for our new friend.

That night we got the kids dressed up for the tricks and treats. (Ok, it was mostly treats!) Zack was Dash from The Incredibles, and Lexi was a prettyful princess. She loves her new costume.

Despite the cold and rain we had a great time. For Lexi's first official Trick-or-Treating, she sure caught on fast. She had been asking to go all week. I don't think she even realized that she was getting candy at each house until the next morning. She had a blast running from door-to-door following her brother.
Spending time with my family is the best part of any holiday!

Flashback Friday: Zack is a Super Hero!

Aaron was really excited when Zack was finally old enough to truly appreciate super heroes. He has always been eager to teach him all he wants to know. Zack loves to soak it up. You may remember the post (clicky if you don't) I did last year about Zack pretending to be a super hero. Yesterday Aaron was cleaning a few things off the computer and started playing in the photo albums and found this little nugget of gold.

I think we sometimes forget how small and cy-oot he used to be!

He still loves super heroes, and loves to pretend to be anything from Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. He likes to get t-shirts of them, and was pretty excited to get a toy of The Thing from Fantastic Four the other day. Aaron is now excited because Zack is old enough to appreciate sitting down to watch these movies with him. It's great to have this little super hero in my life to help me!

Art Time!

One of the things that used to bum me out was that Zack didn't like to color. He didn't care for it for longer than about 30 seconds of scribbling. Now that he's learning to write, he's more interested in drawing.
Lexi, on the other hand, loooooves to color.

Since Zack didn't much like to color, we never needed to worry about leaving crayons within reach. Nothing ever got colored on that wasn't supposed to with him. And now that he's starting to show an interest in it all, he knows better. The other day, we learned that we should know better than to leave a box of crayons on the table.

Do you think she's trying to help me with my redecorating? Turkey Girl.

All About Zack

Zack starts his second year of preschool this week and we get to meet his new teacher tomorrow. One of the things we are supposed to bring with us, is a paper All About Me. I had Zack sit down with me and fill this out. I let him write his name on the top, all by himself. Then I asked him the questions and he told me what to write for everything else. (I would have loved to let him write it all, but the boxes were too small.)

After we were done filling it out, he was not done with the paper. On the front, it asks us to tape a picture. Zack wanted to draw his picture, so I told him to do it on the back. He drew himself, then wrote his name again. Then he drew Dad and Mom and wrote their names. Finally he realized he missed his sister, so he drew Lexi and wrote her name. I only had to help him a little with the spelling. I love to see how smart he is getting!

Redecorating

I got a beautiful new piece of art to put in my house. My sister Britta hosted a class where we got to make our own temple pictures. We painted the frame pieces, glued the picture onto a backing, glazed the picture, stapled the frame together, and then attached the picture to the back of the frame. It turned out sooooo beautiful! I've been wanting a good temple picture to put up in the house and this was a great opportunity to get a good quality for a really great price. I had a great time putting this together for myself. It was also fun because I got to do this along with my sisters. Ranna and I were working together to staple the frames, and we joked about how many projects we've done together over the years. We make a great team, and we had so much fun!

After I got this home, I realized I would need to redecorate the living room in order to find a place on my wall to put it. Where the temple is now, I used to have my family pictures. I moved the family pictures to a wall on the other side of the living room.

In order to make room on this wall, I needed to move the lamp that was there to the other corner. The other corner had a CD rack and the drum set for our Guitar Hero. I cleaned out the coat closet and put the drum set and guitars in there. They fit so well even with my vacuum. Then I boxed up the CD's, which we already have all downloaded onto the computer, and we took the rack to the DI. This cleaned out my corner perfectly. I now had a place to put all my lovely pictures. I am so happy with my new walls! Now I just need to get my new family pictures printed, and it will be perfect.

Family Collages

Along with our family pictures every year we like to do a few collages. One of the family and one of each of the kids. Since my sister, Britta, did our pictures this year, we asked her if she would be willing to do our collages as well. She loves to do digital scrapbooking, so this was a fun project for her. We are so grateful she was willing to do this for us!

Thanks Britta!!!

Father's Day

I have been meaning to get Aaron a grill for quite a while now. We enjoy cooking on a grill, especially during the hot summer months when we don't want to heat up the house. This year for Father's Day we went down to the store and let him pick out the one he wanted.

Dad got a new toy, that I am benefiting a lot from as well, and the kids got one too.

Aaron cut out a door and two windows for them. They played with this for a few weeks, until it wore out enough to throw it away. The simple pleasures childhood brings.

Flashback Friday - Zack Loves Me

When I was about 6 months pregnant with Lexi, Aaron recorded this little video for me. It was on his phone, so the quality isn't that great, but he did this so he could send it to me at work. It was a really good pick-me-up for the day.

I still keep this little darling on my phone so I can refer to it anytime I'm having a rough day. Who can resist that cute little voice, "I love you very much, Mommy!"? Sometimes just knowing that we are loved by those around us can help us more than we realize.

Family Pictures

Every year around our anniversary, Aaron and I like to update the family pictures. We wanted to get some outdoor photos this time, and to save money and the stress of finding a professional photographer, we decided to ask my sister Britta to take them for us. She's been taking some Photoshop classes to help her with her digital scrapbooking and it's really paying off, and she's starting to be a better photographer from it as well!

We planned on Wheeler Farm for the pictures. We had to reschedule twice. The first time because I ordered the wrong size for Zack's shirt, and had to send it back. The second because it was rainy and crappy out, and for outdoor pictures I wanted it to be sunny and green and beautiful. This week it most definitely was sunny and green and beautiful!

My other wonderful sister Charlene and her friend Buffy came along to help keep the kidlets entertained and smiling for the pictures. It's a good thing we brought them along, because we needed all the help we could get. Despite having two naps Lexi was distressed at the slightest things. She had a rough time sitting still for anything but her personal shots. If anyone tried to touch her, especially Zack, she freaked out. This made things quite difficult to get a good shot of the kids together. But Britta did a fabulous job with what we had!

Whenever I look at Zack in pictures, I wonder when he could possibly have grown up. What a little stud! He is going to be one heartbreaker when he gets older.

When Britta got home she started downloading the pictures onto her computer, she had over 900 shots! After deleting all the crying, screaming or otherwise bad shots, she was down to 205. I've only put a selection of my favorites here, but I am so grateful to her for getting so many wonderful pictures to just have for our albums.

Thank you Britta! You did an AMAZING job! (And I can't wait to see the edited versions.)

And thank you Charlene and Buffy! We really couldn't have done so well without you.