Home Improvements

John and I generally do a home improvement project two times a year. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the cost of the prior one. We've been debating redoing the master bath, taking down some trees in our backyard and putting in built-ins in the family room. We were five seconds from buying our new bathroom tile when we suddenly changed our minds that we must do the built-ins immediately.

Every since I bought my 27 inch iMac (aka my fourth child... after my two actual human children and my 6D), and it has been sitting on my dining room table all out of place, and our lack of office has really become an eyesore.

Insert the built-ins. We decided we'd do an entertainment center on one side of our fireplace and an office on the other side.

Years ago, we got an ASTRONOMICAL quote on someone building, finishing and installing. It was insanely expensive, so we decided we'd order the built-ins and install and finish ourselves. We saved about $5k by putting in some sweat equity.

before:


after:



Before we ordered, John and I debated doing something over the top, but he was pretty apposed. So I dropped it. Now that they are installed, he agrees we need something over the top. We'll order that in the next few months. We are so happy with how they turned out!

One more photo:

Our garage full of the unfinished furniture. It took two FULL minivan pick ups, and two long nights of painting, but we got it all installed over one weekend. I'm thankful for my handy hubby.

Project 365 - Week 24

The past few weeks have been slow blogging weeks. Maybe it'll pick back up soon, maybe it won't. I'm still going strong with my project 365 though. Although on Wednesday I was informed by John that he thinks it takes too much of my time. So right now I'm trying to multitask. I have Max on my lap, and Frances is whining "mine" because I'm not holding her too. All while John is sitting across the room with no one demanding his attention.

siblings


the coolest birthday party ever.


beautiful girl


summer!


siblings take 2 for the week


frances loves washing her hands


bath


someone fell asleep reading his yearbook

Project 365 - Week 23

So now that I've changed my kids' names in the blog, occasionally a friend will call them by their "blog name". I caught myself doing it once as well. That is the only time I've caught myself. I probably have people I know in real life thinking my kids' names are really Maxwell and Frances. :)

Siblings


Ignore that they are wearing the same clothes. Max sleeps in his clothes. He refuses to wear PJs. Frances wears PJs until the mid-morning on the weekends.


Sweet girl.


An uninspired evening. I practiced with my flash.


Cute kid. Frances running in the background.


Probably my least inspired evening yet.


Then I came back for the win on Thursday during tropical storm Andrea to catch Frances hanging out by the window watching the rain.

The Pen

Max loves his leapfrog pen thing. He'll read his books or play with his maps for 15 to 20 minutes at a time.

He especially loves the maps. And asking questions like "why does the state map have some countries?" and "why are Hawaii and Alaska the only states on the world map?" These questions are mostly awesome (because HELLO? he is thinking), but when you've heard them 20 times in one day the whoa factor diminishes. For that I shake my fist at leapfrog for being inconsistent.

Tuesday night, Frances grabbed a peg from one of those wooden toddler toys and took it over to one of the maps and started putting the peg onto the map. She had her own pen. It was cute.



This all went down on an overall pretty crappy parenting evening. So even in those nights where it all sucks, there is some good.

Selfies.

For the photography class I took last month, I ended up having to take a lot of selfies because my kids aren't so psyched about taking photos in a very specific light looking a very specific way without drooling (mostly joking about the drool).

Because I'm a narcissistic blogger, I'm going to share them!

 There you have it folks. I just took narcissism to a whole new level.

Maxwell at 4 Years 1 Month

Suddenly he is an "upper". That is what they call non-nappers at school. He has discovered that uppers get to go outside and play, so I'm afraid this no napping business is here to stay. He is a bear at night. We'll adjust. 

Due to his non-napping state, we've reintroduced a 7pm (or earlier) bedtime. 

He loves maps.

Maxwell loves flags. 

He loves to find and announces that he has found flags of the USA and/or Florida and/or Israel.

His favorite book is still Go, Dog Go.

He loves acting out the "do you like my hat" part of the book.

Max likes finding rhymes.

He loves babysitters.

Max loves playing in the water table or the pool.

He still refuses to any dish that is an all in one dish. Like lasagna or enchiladas.

He told me the other day that he likes water and milk better than juice.

Max lies.

He sings pop songs that he hears on the radio with John. There isn't anything to sing from NPR from when he is in the car with me.

He graduated to a real twin bed because I found an awesome deal. He is no longer sleeping in a too small toddler bed. Part of the graduation included reducing the number of blankets he sleeps with to two. It has worked so far.
His favorite toy these days is a toss up between his tag reader and blocks.
He likes to say "I haven't been there since I turned 4" to try to convince me to go somewhere -- like whole foods or starbucks or panera or barnes&noble.

 

 

Project 365 - Week 22

Max riding a rocking horse in the mosquito invested backyard all so I can get a photo.


Frances at the beach.


Cutie.


Playing games on her cell phone.... errrr... playing with the remote.


Southern belle building.


I took photos of the junior league house to help show off the recent renovations.