A Glimpse of Summer Fun

Most of our summer has consisted of work on the house. Sullivan doesn't mind.

Penelope's swim meet this year. It was so cute watching her swim I got a little lump in my throat and felt like crying. My big girl!

 

Of course, everyone had to try the swim cap on, even Morgan. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Morgan with it on. That would have been blackmail worthy.

Penelope has been honing her make-up skills. This is her batman mask she created for Eleanor. It took half an hour to get the makeup off but it was lots of fun while it lasted.

We had lots of fun this summer but it has now ended, all too soon, and Penelope is back to school. My big first grader.

Kid update

Penelope played her first note on the viola yesterday. It took her 2 months to get there but it was so great! She has been working really hard. I need to get a little video of her playing her "D." Such a little thing but still so much fun. Penelope is also in a little group called "Strings 'N Things." They performed "I am a Child of God" at a community Easter concert a couple of Sundays ago and Penelope got to do a little solo. She sang the first verse by herself and I was so impressed that she just stepped up to the mic when it was time and sang just like we had practiced. Strings 'N Things is doing a benefit concert on May 9th. The younger kids, including Penelope, are doing 3 or 4 singing numbers and then we will have a variety of violin/viola pieces and other singing pieces. ( am so excited for my part. I get to sing "Pie Jesu" with the violins.)

Eleanor is just waiting for the day when she can start taking viola too. She brought the ukulele up to me the other day so I could help her put it under her chin like I do for Penelope's viola. She and I are starting to work on pre-school stuff at home and she is looking forward to being in real pre-school next fall.

We moved Sullivan to a big-boy bed about 2 weeks ago and he loves it! I think he sleeps better than he did in his crib. This week is spring break and I am going to try potty training with him this week while I have nothing else going on. Everyone fingers crossed!!
Sullivan's favorite thing right now is being a super hero. He "flies" around the house in his cape that Grandma gave him shooting bad guys and talking about his powers. The other day I was on the floor being his horse. He climbed on and then almost immediately, hopped back off, grabbed his gun and put it in his waistband on his pants. He then swaggered back over to me, cowboy style, hopped back on my back, said "giddy-up" in a low, gravely voice and then jumped back off before I could even move; shooting bad guys. It is so much fun to have a boy.

 Of course, this happens a lot too.

  It must be because he has 2 older sisters that love to dress up.

Couches

I was over at a friend's house the other day, helping her get things cleaned up because she was moving, when she mentioned that she wasn't taking any of her furniture with her. She was giving most of the furniture but then she told me she was just going to throw away her couches. I think I may have had a small stroke at that point. :) Well, maybe not, but I did tell her that there was no way I was going to let her throw away her couches.

 

So that is how I learned how to clean microfiber couches.

 

The couches are in pretty good shape overall but needed some cleaning. Unfortunately, the cushions on the back are not the type that you can just unzip and clean in the washing machine. So what did I do? I took a seam-ripper to them, took all of the filling out, washed the covers in the washing machine (twice), refilled them and then sewed them back up. A little time consuming but they are soooo clean now.

The arms are the major issue. They are quite dirty. How could they not be? The couches are almost white and my friend has 3 kids, 2 cats, a dog and a husband. Anyway, I did a quick search online and found that rubbing alcohol and some hard work are the best bet for cleaning microfiber.

The rubbing alcohol worked! It took quite a bit of scrubbing but they are so much cleaner.

 Now we have some nice couches in our movie room downstairs. Oooh, they look so pretty. (I really need to get some decorations on the walls. I'm thinking cool, framed, movie posters. Someday.)

We used to have green couches in the movie room. They were given to us by another friend who didn't want them anymore. (I'm seeing a pattern here.) I really didn't want to get rid of them because they are good couches, so I decided we could have a really fun (and comfortable) double couch on the other side of the basement by the playroom.

The kids are totally loving this! They have been playing in here and we read books in here. Aaron was thinking that we should have just done this all along. That would be the best movie couch ever! But it is going to stay where it is. The girls even slept in it last night and I told them they could sleep there all of spring break too. So fun!!! (Notice the lack of décor? Yep. I have plans for this wall though that will be happening soon.)

The moral of the story is: Other people's junk + hard work = fun for the whole family

Bookcases

I finally put some books in the bookcases and added the other furniture to the room. It makes way more sense in real life. :)

I still need hardware on the cabinets and a new light fixture but I love how it is looking so far. We finished re-doing the other chair that we got (for free!!!) and the little table in front of the chairs still needs a couple of coats of polyurethane but I wanted to get a picture. 

This table in the center of the house is WONDERFUL! The kids do all of their coloring, etc., on this table which leaves my kitchen table for meal time only. Just loving the way everything is turning out but I wish my pictures showed a more accurate depiction of how if "feels."

I Have the BEST Husband in the World!

Really, truly, the greatest husband ever!

We moved into our house pretty quickly this summer. Everything was unpacked within 2 weeks of moving in, except my books. There was just no place to put them. That was really the one and only thing this house was lacking; bookshelves. There is one bookshelf in the basement but that is only enough for my kids' books, so my books have been living in boxes. Poor books.

But, of course, I had a plan. We just had to wait until we had a week or so to complete the plan. (I hate starting a project if we don't have time to finish it because then it just goes on and on and on.) And since our play, The Ten Virgins, is now over, we have time again.

The way our house is set up we have 2 dining areas right next to each other. The people who owned the house previously, regularly had large family dinners so they needed the space. I wanted to turn one of the dining areas into a library space but still have enough space to put an extra table when we have a dinner party too. We have been in the planning stages for these bookshelves for about 4 months and the plans have changed a little over time but they are basically the same.

We bought unfinished wall cabinets from Home Depot and built the bookcases above. As you can see, we have a vent in the floor that we had to accomodate, so we just added some cute little legs to one of the cabinets.

Yes, honey, you deserve a tropy. Probably not the Heisman, but a trophy for sure. Oh wait, you already have a tropy wife, does that count? LOL!

The other thing we had to work around is the window. It is not centered in the wall but we still wanted to center the bookcase around it, so there is a little wall space remaining on the right side, but it just has to be that way.  

First coat of paint done, but this is a different kind of paint then I usually use. I wanted a hard finish so I used a Benjamin Moore Advance paint and the directions say that you have to wait 16 hours and sand between coats. Not as quick as I wanted it to be but hopefully the finish is worth it.

Here it is after 2 coats of paint. There is still a lot to do in this room. I need to paint the surrounding walls and figure out if I want knobs on the doors or not. I'm thinking yes, Aaron is thinking no. So we'll see. We are planning on replacing the chandelier at some point but, for now, it is staying. Now, I have to wait about a week for the finish to harden before I can add books and things. I don't know if I can wait that long!!!