Ah Man!!!

Tonight was one of those nights.  It started with Keith sneaking into the apartment and eating half a stick of butter.  He then moved on to drink the remaining (4-day old) Diet Rock Star on my scrapbooking table.  Patrick and I enjoyed dinner, Keith refused to eat anything at all.  He did beg for chips, maraschino cherries and chocolate covered oranges.   all. night. long. 

He climbed on the couch, he tried to break his brother's art project, he tried to destroy $100 worth of frames....he was behaviorally challenged all night.

Granted it wasn't a very long night.  After five time-outs and forcibly removing BaaBaa, I turned on the football game (which I never do when Kevin isn't here).  Keith laid on the floor in a stupor, happy and quiet (finally the BCS pays off!).  Then he and his brother wrestled and chased each other for the rest of the evening.  Great times!  So long, farewell, good night.

BTW, "Ah man!" is Keith's response whenever he doesn't get his way. heh.

Food of Love Baby

Soup.  This is the time of year for soup, you can't beat it.  And I can't stop myself from making it.  I blame my mother, the soup queen.  One pot! Veggies included! Bread and Butter! A big pot of love! 

In the spirit of soup season, I wanted to share one of our favorites.  Pasta e Fagioli, minus the pasta.  Frankly I don't know what fagioli is but I think I still put that in there.  This is an Olive Garden knock-off by Top Secret Recipes guru Todd Wilbur.  Go get the recipe here and I will tell you about my version.


Patrick asks for this soup by name, as in, hey can we have that soup with the meat and beans.  If you have ever had dinner at my house during the winter you have probably had this soup.  I made this soup for kids before I had kids and they have all loved it (except Keith, who would probably eat it if I put the pasta back in it which I hadn't really considered until this very minute...hmmm.).

Other than dropping the pasta (because really this soup is plenty hearty and who wants to get another pot dirty), I also put an extra can of V-8 in instead of the tomato sauce.  With or without the pasta the soup isn't very brothy and this gives it some more liquid.....some lovely liquid veggies. 

A little bit of this.

As much of this as you want....

A bit of meat and wonderfulness in a bowl is all yours.

You can top it with fresh Parmesan and we love it with bread and butter (I mean: we love bread and butter)  You may be tempted to skip the vinegar but it is a necessary addition.  Dig in, you will love it.  Plus this is pretty cheap too...

I'm a believer

This is too exciting to wait for my Slow Decorating (TM The NESTER) mantra, attitude and lifestyle.  And I mean exciting for me, you probably don't care.  Remember, I told you I would find lots of projects to distract me from "getting to my after".  Here's project #1: My ($7.50) Red and Black Valentine's Mantel.

We all need a love banner just to remind us.  The heart garland is (garland is singular, yes?) a Martha project. It is all scrapbook paper (on sale at Joann's) and card stock.  This is the bulk of the budget.

We got our wedding pictures right before Christmas: LOVE INDEED.  We were very blessed to have such a talented photographer capture our special day: Tad Craig

 And finally.... I sat back assessing my handiwork and decided that something was missing.  Silhouettes!  So I made them really quick.  I absolutely love them.  Keith was such a pill, taking his picture was the hardest part of the project!

I don't know if I did this right or not, I just did it.  Whatever, I love the finished product.  I know I am the last person in the blogging universe to make silhouettes.  I've seen them a million times before but haven't ever wanted to do it.  Now, I believe.  This wasn't even in my IDEA BOX!!!

So the price of the scrapbook paper and cardstock were the only expenses.  Everything else I already owned or paid for as part of a wedding package :) 

Two truths and a lie

Most weeks my favorite day of the week is Friday, the day I spend a couple of hours working in Patrick's classroom.  I love these kids (in less than two hour doses especially).  One of the best parts is watching all of the different personalities emerge.  The thing about kindergartners is that they are equal parts inquisition and honesty.  They happily interrogate you and offer candid and random information.  "My dad is sick and won't get out of bed." "I have pink socks on." "My mommy yelled at me." "I have to go to the bathroom."

Patrick seems to have on-going input about my hair.  Given his age, it is more observational truth as opposed to judgment.

• A month ago he was attempting to color a picture of me.  When he got to my hair color he was stumped.  "It's black, no brown, no light brown, no yellow.  I think I'll make it half and half."  Which given the state of my roots was incredibly accurate.

• Two weeks ago, David (my hair boyfriend) decided that loving Jay-Z wasn't enough, I needed to look like Beyonce.  And the 2.5 inches of roots were the first thing that needed to convert.  Can you tell what color my hair is now?
  

 That's me on the left, David doesn't have me That Blond yet.

Anyway, when I got home Patrick says, "Whoa! Your hair.  That isn't your hair.  You don't look like our mommy but I know you are still our mommy."

In other news, Keith learned the ins and outs of the white lie.  You may not want to clean up your toys but when you lie about cleaning up your toys your friends (Baa Baa and Bunny Bear) will be jailed for the evening and you will be very sad and lonely. 

You know you're the mother of boys if....

you turn on the bath water only to hear the stampede of little feet coming in your direction.  Once the feet carry their owner to the bathroom, said owner (without hesitation) stands on his tiptoes and pees over the side of the tub.

THAT'S MY BOY!!!!

Tomorrow we open our Etsy store

My sister-in-law Katie has been thinking about adding an art wall to her play room for months.  Tip Junkie had an entry "How to display your child's artwork" just in time!

She had considered a magnet wall like the one that took me a year to finish and still isn't done I did for the boys but in the end the simple board with clips was neat, cute, cheap and easy.  We hoped.  I found cute art boards on etsy for $34.  CUTE but only three clips and expensive!  So we set out to make it ourselves.

The total project cost: $70-80 for four six-foot art boards
Total project time: About 5.5 hours (including: shopping (Home Depot and Michael's), poop detail, nursing the baby (Katie's Job, not mine), eating dinner, breaking up fights, cleaning crayons off the table (compliments of Keith and Taleen), making milkshakes and of course five little helpers)
We had a lot of fun.  I love my sister-in-law and it was so nice to spend time with her today.
Here's the project details.
We bought two twelve-foot paint grade baseboard trim pieces.  No painting!  We went on a treasure hunt to find someone at Home Depot to cut them in half and really that never gets tiresome.

Then we went to Michael's to find the perfect paper for three girls and a boy.  We found CUTE stuff.  Luckily the fire didn't happen until after we were done with the paper.... it isn't a party until something catches on fire!

 I thought that these decoupaged clips featured on Blue Cricket Designs were a perfect way to take the art boards to the next level.  So we got out the MOD PODGE once again (YES!!! you can applaud if you like).  This was a really easy one, cut 32 strips of paper the same size as the clips and go for it.

 

Look, do you like it?  Taleen does!  Her's are the Green Ones!

While the clips are drying (and you are warning children every five seconds not to touch the wet clips) we laid out the boards.  Each board got eight clips and a name.  This meant measuring... not exactly my long suit so I was sweating it.  I kept waiting to find out that one board was the wrong size or something but it all worked out.  This never happens when I spend time with a tape measurer.

Once we had the names on the boards we mod podged the board and while that dried we added the buttons to the clips.  Then we glued the clips to the boards.  I didn't get a great shot of any of Teegan's board but his clips are black with little fire and rescue vehicles.  We didn't get his clips on because we needed an extra "E" which we scrapped together with an "F" and mommy ingenuity.
Here are the girl's!  LOVE THEM!  When Katie gets them up I will get a shot of all of them (with art!).  Great project.  We rocked it.

We're taking orders!

Living in the "BEFORE"

Do you remember that old HGTV show "Before and After"?  It was great.  The host had a mustache that could have had a show of its own.  That wasn't what we liked about the show (however amusing), we just liked to see the pay-off..... old and dingy turns new and fancy.  Maybe this is the same reason I like a good makeover movie (almost watched Devil Wears Prada last night!).....

If you spend any time at all (or perhaps hours on end whilst your husband is at work) on decorating blogs you have been exposed to plenty of "before and after" shots.  In fact one of my favorite sites is "Better After"  a blog devoted to all of the great Before and After stories in the blogging universe.  This is the kind of stuff that inspires me (and makes me feel kind of small and insignificant).

Here's the problem (you have to have a problem, it's part of telling a story): our house is a BIG, FAT before.  And not in a crazy tartan wallpaper, dark wood paneling, hunter green carpet kind of a way.  More in a beige on beige, blah tract home kind of a way.  I know, you had this problem too and you painted it.  Good for you.  My problem is bigGER.  There is not enough valspar to deal with this issue(z).

On Wednesday, we stripped Serenity of the Christmas Clutter (tree is still up, just bare and dry).  Yesterday we went to Home Goods (where I have been known to spend hours on end) to look for a new something for over the fireplace.  We didn't find anything that made us jump up and down so we left empty-handed.  This is quite mature of us since we have been known to grab whatever is available in the moment only to hate it a year later.

While we were in Home Goods we couldn't help but bemoan the amount of stuff we need to do to our house.    Let me tell you all about it.
OUR BEFORE
1) The Kitchen

2) The Family Room

3) The Dining Room

4) Keith's Room

5) Our Room

6) The Boys' Bathroom

I could go on but for the purposes of this post I will keep it at six.

And the AFTER.... TADA! crickets
I've got nothing.  Well, maybe nothing is an exaggeration.

I've got ideas. Because the ideas aren't hard, it's the execution of the ideas that I find so challenging.  I keep no less than five lists/compilations of my ideas.  Here's a peek at "Idea Box"

So this year we are going to do it, I have no money and no time but we are going to make it happen.  And "we" is me until June because Kevin is going to work on conquering his Masters (including a thesis!). Some of the major projects (Mr. Kitchen!  Floors, counters, remod.) will have to wait due to funding and time  but I'm going to spruce and organize and paint (grrr. I hate painting) as much as possible with the time and money I have.  I am going to be an after (in at least 6 rooms).  I will promise you that I will get distracted by a million other things that need to be spruced, organized, and painted.  I just figure that six specific project rooms in twelve months is possible, even on my schedule.

And I'm going to remember The Nester's famous advice “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful”.