T'was Two Weeks Weeks Before Christmas

I could update you on all the big things I've missed in the last few months, but since all five of my readers are FB friends, I'll just skip that and jump right to something REALLY important...

Christmas Stockings.

I have a friend who makes them. She owns Divastitch12 and is amazing at sewing awesome things. She is also the one who urged/inspired me to buy a sewing machine and a few weeks ago also convinced me I was capable of sewing stockings for my, now, family of five.

I started out on Pinterest {{where I start all my important projects}} and found a link to a pattern I love on etsy at a shop called YardsandYards. I purchased it and on black Friday picked up the fabric necessary. It took a few weeks to make time for them, but once I got going I was SO excited!!

The pattern was SUPER easy to follow. {{I'm new at this whole pattern reading thing, remember?}} But I was pleased to find very detailed instructions with pictures. I even managed to make them all the same size {{Wowza!!}} I had my friend embroider our names on the cuffs and I even managed to make all the names show and hang in the same direction {{A Christmas MIRACLE!!}}

I freakin LOVE THEM!!

Yay!! Christmas!!

I neeeeeed to blog!

Remember my post about our computer and the creeper who fixed it? Well, he didn't fix it and it officially crashed about a week after I wrote that blog. J felt sorry for me, trying to do everything I needed a real computer for on my phone and we decided the least expensive route would be for me to have a tablet, which would, in theory, get me to his home-arrival date. We have a brand new laptop, it just happens to be with him. In Afghanistan. Probably in a foot locker. Where I can't use it. I'm still not positive how that came to pass. The one we had was dying when he left {{hence, the new one}} and I'm not exactly sure how the new one went to Afghanistan and the old one stayed home to die here {{no TAPS for a laptop, huh?}}.

Anyway, for about a month I made due with the tablet and my phone. Both of which I could have typed a blog on, but niether are entirely comfortable for long winded post-typing and also {{an more importantly}} we didn't really have anything exciting going on. Our days come and go with Groundhog Day-esque monotony, broken only by random appointments and pay day errands. Fully narrated {{for your viewing pleasure}}, not by Bill Murray, but by the awesome observations of an almost three year old. She tells me what we are doing from the moment she enters my room in the morning until it's time to find her princess flashlight for bed. "Mommy, you wakin up now? Mommy, you changing baby sissers butt now? Mommy, You making cereal? Mommy, that noise is the coffee pot. Haha! Beep! Beep! Time for coffee, Mommy! Mommy, you eating toast? I like to make toast, can I help? Mommy, you unloading the dishwasher? Mommy, you walking up the stairs now?" It. Goes. On. AAAALLLLLLLL DAAAAAAYYYYYY. Sometimes, the narrative stops {{thank you, sweet Jesus!}} and she uses a series of clicks, beeps and bops to communicate {{womp, womp}}. My point is, if I posted about our days of this I would very quickly lose any readers I may have, so I just haven't posted.

On the up side, lately I have thrown myself full into getting my long list of projects done. I have made a nice dent in the list but this funny thing happens when you accomplish one project, you think about another one to add to the list. So, while I may be getting a lot done, I can't seem to get to the bottom of the to-do list. The biggest project is re-doing the rooms upatirs to accomodate our pending arrival. The bonus room {{currently our active living area}} with the girls room. What is currently Bugs room will be the man cave. What is currently 2.0's room, will be the Mama-cave {{I wish my name was Wanda so we could call it "Wanda-land"}}.

Here is where "we" are in our massive room re-dos: {{Some day each of these rooms will have their own post}}

I painted the man cave in the NFL colors of Js favorite team. {{It's funny because the princess bed is still in that room and it just looks silly!}} From where he is, J has been Ebaying team paraphernalia and chotchkies to fill his space and make it a happy home for his butt. The room will be loaded to the gills, but hopefully, in a classy way and not in a bad Applebee's way.

The girls room has been painted. This has been difficult because it is still acting as our family room, so trying to decorate around the sofa {{any one want to buy a giant couch?}}, tv and my office has been kind of a pain. I bought one color to paint the whole room and it turned out to be the same color the builder used {{womp, womp}}. We decided to paint the top half of the room in the light cream color and do a pink that coordinated with the fabrics I am using on the bottom half of the wall.

I love the way it turned out and with the way I am using everything, I think it will be girly without being punch-you-in-the-face-pink {{not what I was going for.}} I also finished the girls name art. I mod-podged my fabric scraps to the letters for their names and each girl will have a wall with their name and maybe pictures of them {{or something?}} I haven't really decided on that yet.

My next project is to get the furniture I have purchased for their room painted. So far we have a nice three drawer nightstand {{free from a friend}}, a five drawer dresser {{$45 from a local thrift store}} and some shelves that we had, that I decided to up-cycle for their reading area.

I have also been doing a TON of sewing {{hello? How come now one told me how addicting the sewing machine was?!}} and I have decided I'll be using Wal-mart flat sheets for everything in the future. Inspired by the awesomeness of the little reading tent I made, I am making matching duvet covers for each of the girls.

{{Still a work in progress}}

Sadly, the Mama-cave has taken a back seat to the other rooms. I really want to have a nice place for J to go to relax when he gets home and I also want the girls to have a fabulous room. That being said the Mama-cave re-do will probably not be done until after the new year. However, I am already pinning ideas and I know how I want it to look, and that's half the battle, right?

Stay tuned for more projectopia and a very late baby update {{whoops!}}

I will do anything to keep from doing dishes

See?

Remember this from my last post? The tutorial was very easy to follow and I'm Bug is in LOVE with her "sand castle" {{that kid is SO cute!}}

ugh! Now for the dishes... womp womp

Inspiration

Since J left and I found out I was knocked up again, I have been suffering from some serious lack of motivation to do anything. My house is clean enough, the girls are fed, work is getting accomplished, but other than that, everything else is just sitting. It's not all from a lack of motivation. Between the kids and the dogs, some days I feel like I'm fighting an up hill battle trying to make a nice clean home. Pretty much every time I accomplish one task, one of my children {{be it furry or not}} destroys something else. It's very frustrating and in my case motivation-killing.

However, now that we know that baby3 is a little girl, we have to do some serious rearranging of the upstairs of our house. Right now, we have one child in each bedroom {{us in the master, obviously}} and we use our large upstairs bonus room as a family/man room and an office. Well, that won't work now. We have decided the best way to accommodate three girls is to put them all into the large Bonus {{which conveniently has three walk in closets}}. Then J will have his own man room and I'll have a proper Mama-cave. The room is big enough to last the three of them until J can retire and then we'll be on to bigger things {{and houses}} anyways.

I have been having fun planning a nice girly room for our little princesses and thought I'd share some of my inspirations for their room.

Color Palette

Source

Source

Wall Decor

Source {{LOVE!!}}

Source

I want to do something fun for each girls name, above their bed.

Curtains

Source

Maybe some ombre ruffly curtains to match their color palette?

Something Fun

Source

One of the BEST things we have done for Bug {{and eventually our subsequent children}} is enrolling her in the Dr. Suess book club {{a GREAT gift for any child!}} She loves to read and LOVES getting the books for her in the mail. We signed her up when she was 18 months old, so she has developed quite the collection. I want to turn what is now the office, into their reading/ color area. It'll have book shelves, a black-board wall, a small coloring table and hopefully a nice little place for them to curl up with their books.

Lot's to do... and I can find motivation in the fact that when it's all said and done, this mama will have her own hiding space!

Today...

It is fitting that today is Valentine's Day because all I can think about is chocolate. Not because it's V-day either. I'm a little sad and, I don't know about you, but when I'm sad I have this nervous habit of baking. {{KILL THE EMOTION WITH BROWNIES!!}} It's the weirdest thing...

They moved J's leave date again {{Yes! A-FREAKING-gain!! That's four times if you're counting. But I'm definitely not.}} He now leaves five days sooner than we were thinking. So, I have been thinking all day about goodies I can make for the guys on their trip. J's last trip home they got stuck on a plane for three days and all they got to eat was plane food. Yum. I was thinking it might be nice to send him with a shit-ton {{real measurement of weight}} of baked goods in case they get stuck somewhere {{and to kill the feelings}}. I know I don't talk about Pinterest very much {{Ha!}}, but I've been scouring it for a good part of the day in between my online retail therapy sessions trying to decide what to make. The problem is it all looks DELICIOUS and when I'm in this mood, I can't be trusted to make such important decisions. How do you decide between them all??

{{Images are property of their respective owners. If you'd like the link to any of these recipes let me know and I will send it to you. I'm too lazy to link them all up right now.}}

I've been drooling over all these recipes most of the morning and if I end up baking as much as I'd like to I'll need to stay on the elliptical for the better part of the next three weeks... But you cant serve food you haven't tested and you can't kill feelings with brownies you don't eat.

True story.

The chair

As with everything I do, when I decided to reupholster our office chair, I jumped right in without doing any research. As with most things I do, I GROSSLY underestimated the difficulty of this project. I was prepared to photo bomb you with pics of every single step in the process. But having just finished this bad boy, I'm tired.

So here are the cliff notes:

What you need~
~ Furniture with good bones and horrific upholstery fabric {{check Craigslist}}
~ A Tack Hammer
~ A Staple Gun
~ A BOAT load of staples
~ A flat head screw driver
~ Needle nose pliers
~ Band aides
~ A Current Tetanus Shot

Step One: Bask in the disgust glory that was our office chair.

Sewing For Grandma

When I was in third grade my little brother and I lived with my Grandma for the school year and the summer after. It's one of the best years I remember. We went to school with cousins and they were always about to play with. Total kid-chaos.

One thing I fondly remember from that time, is sitting in my grandmothers sewing room with my cousins while she made us stuff. Nothing of any real importance, but it was stuff made just for us. Just-for-us-stuff. My grandma was handy like that. She even used to make my clothes. I remember one outfit in particular. It was a red & white sailor-esque button up shirt with the square collar part that hung down in back? Totally mortifying to think about now, but I LOVED it then because it was made just for me.

A couple of weeks ago, while perusing Pinterest {{*shaking fist* DAMN YOU PINTEREST!!}} I decided I needed a sewing machine. Then I could do all the fun things my grandma did with me, with Bug. How fun! Never mind that the last {{and first}} time I ever used a sewing machine to sew, {{as apposed to using it as a junk rack}} I made curtains that hung at an angle. But hey, I spent that one summer with my grandma when I was eight, watching her sew. I should have caught some kind of talent through osmosis. Right?

I don't know how, {{especially after reiterating my curtain story}} but I managed to talk my husband into letting me buy a nice one that my neighbor found for me on Craigslist. My neighbor sews for a living. It's what she went to college for. She has a cute shop on Etsy and sells neat stuff. I tell you this not so you'll go buy her stuff {{which you could do if you want}} but so you know when she says, 'it's a good machine,' you can take her word for it. So I bought this great sewing machine this week. Then went and spent all sorts of money on fabric and things to 'practice' on. The girls will each get a blanket, a stuffed toy pattern and a wheelchair organizer for my Grandma.

The fifth time I pulled a seam on the chair organizer, I had to laugh. Osmosis. No one learns sewing through osmosis. Osmosis is for filtering water!

;)

Projectopia & A Wonderful Milestone

I'm taking a break from removing a thousand upholstery tacks {{not an exaggeration, I actually thought it was a tack strip. Nope.}} I need a minute so my poor arms can rest {{Yes, A. You were right. Ouch!}} and I thought I'd write down a few things for you about living in Projectopia {{a.k.a. the place where there are currently ten things going on/halfway finished/or given up on - usually your desk.}}. When I got on to post I found that my blog had reached an AWESOME milestone over night: 5,000 hits!! You guys Rock! So high five yourself and read on! ;0)

I blame Pinterest for this new need to take random crap and turn it into cool stuff. Most of the things pinned look really easy. Making something look easy I guess is easy to do. Having an idea and following through with it is the hard part. {{Especially in this house.}} Thinking things will be easy {{like say, sitting down to take a tack strip off}} and finding out how hard it truly is, {{a thousand individual tacks that have to be removed ONE AT A TIME}} is all part of the adventure of DIYing, No?

Here is the current list of Projects I would like to complete and start here in the next 30 days:

Painting: {{Every room in this house needs it, but we are starting with these ones}}
The Living Room
The dining room
My office {{Mom's Hide Away}}
The upstairs Hallway

Sewing: {{this may or may not be a joke. I am getting a sewing machine soon and I have NO IDEA whether or not this will be a hobby I'll actually enjoy.}}
Curtains For our French Doors in the Office
Roman Shades for the office, the master bathroom and for Bug's Room
Plus a whole bunch of crafts I've pinned that look easy.
Book Slings for Bug's Room

Crafts:
The frame for the map {{We have to make one ourselves. Having one made that big would cost BIG!}}
Reupholster An Office Chair {{The one with all the damn tacks}}
Make Pallet Furniture {{with pallets we thoughtfully 'picked up' in our neighborhood}}
Clean up and paint an old Army box
And there is also this little beauty {{while excusing the messy garage, of course}}

Be jealous at its awesomeness, before I have even done anything with it.

I've got myself quite a To Do list. Things to keep me occupied during the first few weeks of the deployment. I can't wait to try some of these new things and see how they go and how I like them.

Guess for now I'll get back to pulling tacks.

Yaaaay.