Crazy Week!

This week has been crazy!

Late last week our contractor called us and told us he'd be here Monday morning to start our patio. He wasn't supposed to come until mid-August! So we spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at home while the guys worked on our patio and retaining wall (pics to come - I promise!).

Then, as the last bricks were being laid for the wall, the phone rang. Guess what's here a month early? Our bed and mattress! Yay! But we didn't have any sheets yet, so I had to sneak a late-night Walmart run into our schedule.

Craig and Ryan are at a baseball game tonight, and Maddie had a playdate with a friend, so Jacob and I spent the evening at my mom's house. It is my sister's anniversary today, so we got to play with my nephew (my mom was babysitting him).

Tomorrow is a big day for all of us. I received a call from work (a local college, where I usually work just Saturday mornings during the school year) and was asked to cover for someone's vacation. I'll be working all day tomorrow (a first for me since having kids!) - from 7:30 AM - 5:00 PM! My mom agreed to keep my children and they are excited for a day with Grandma. Craig is actually going to do the drop-off and pick-up for me (since his work schedule is a little more flexible than mine), but boy am I going to miss those kiddos tomorrow!

Also, my best friend from high school is coming into town tomorrow. I haven't seen her for over a year, and I am excited that we are trying to arrange for a time/place to meet tomorrow night. I rarely get to go out with "the girls" so this will be a treat! To be honest though, I actually did go out with the girls this week - another good friend (who lives in Japan) is home visiting family and I was able to get together twice with her this week. While out the first time, we randomly ran into another friend from high school (who lives in SPAIN) and included her in our second outing. All of these trips were especially fun because they included all of our children too!

I will post some photos of our new patio and wall soon, as well as the bed (once it's delivered on Saturday!). I am working hard on picking paint colors for the bedroom now - I thought I had a month left to paint, but looks like I will have to work around the new bed now!

Alone

I spent the day all by myself today. Craig took the kids to his parents' house and I stayed back to clean, declutter and organize.

I love days like this, but I always feel so guilty too. Guilty for not spending the day with my kids and husband (even though I spend nearly every day with them!). Guilty for not visiting my inlaws (even though we seen them frequently). Guilty for taking a little time for ME in between the cleaning I am doing.

I know some moms have no problem spending time away from their children. I could never figure out how to do that. I used to think it was a sign of being a "bad mom" - who could possibly want to spend time apart from their children????? But I know now that it's a very healthy thing to do (I wish I was better at it).

I guess these alone-times will start coming more frequently now that the kids are getting older. I am still not used to it, but I am trying very hard to enjoy it!

I think I am going to make a run to Goodwill to drop off the 3 garbage bags of junk (!) I pulled out today. Then maybe I'll use my coupon for a free Chicken Salad sandwich from Chik-Fil-A - and perhaps a Redbox video for Craig and I to enjoy later tonight.

Bedding - again.

Okay - I think we have this figured out. :) I am keeping the quilt from Walmart, because I really do like it AND the colors work very well with what is in our Master Bathroom already (so I won't have to change that!). I found this pretty bedskirt at Kohl's


I also bought the matching KING eyelet pillow shams. We have decided to use 3 standard pillows to sleep on, so I will have to buy open-stock sheets, but that's not too big of an issue.

Now I have a question - the king shams are ivory with eyelet trim - very pretty but very plain. I know I want a throw pillow to go in front of them too. I did buy 2 standard shams that match the quilt, which I was planning on returning. But now I am thinking that I could perhaps keep one and use it as a "throw pillow?" Do you think that would look okay, or like I forgot to put another pillow with it?

I am having bedding issues

argggghhhhhh! I thought the hard part of all of this was picking the mattress and bed, but it turns out bedding is even harder!

The new mattress and bed are king. There is no problem finding beautiful king-size quilts. But the pillows are driving me crazy!

First, Craig insists he needs to keep his memory foam pillow (which is, of course, standard size). No problem - I just bought a rather expensive (okay - not so expensive, but not the el cheapo $5 Walmart-special either) memory foam pillow for me last year too. We'll just use 3 standard pillows and return the king-size ones.

Oh - but then I can't buy sets of sheets - everything will have to be open-stock so I can buy king flat & fitted, and THREE standard pillow cases.

Okay - I can do that (even though it means returning the sheet sets I already bought, but no big deal).

BUT - why on earth do people make king-sized quilts and only make standard shams to match???????????? I really don't want 3 standard shams on my bed - I want two king shams.

I am having the hardest time finding something I like that has king shams!!!!! I want a pretty quilt and two king shams - I don't think that's too much to ask.

I am off to look at more bedding....

Sleepover!

Tonight, Maddie is sleeping at her friend's house for the first time! She has had her friend stay here, but she's never gone away on her own. I am hoping I don't get a call at midnight!

I still can't believe she is old enough to be sleeping at someone else's house!

The new bed is coming....

in 6 to 8 weeks.

Isn't it horrible to have to wait for new furniture????

We bought a new KING mattress tonight, and a new headboard/footboard to go with it! The mattress is a Serta (from the Vera Wang collection - who knew mattresses had to be as fancy as a wedding dress????). And here is the bed

I bought this bedding too
I am not sure I will keep that bedding though. I am torn about what I want in the room. The bedding is from Walmart, from their Better Homes and Gardens collection. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the items, but I am thinking of going with a pretty tan toile set I saw on ebay. Not sure, not sure!

Bubbles and gardens and mattresses - oh my!

Maddie is at girl scout day camp this week, leaving me and the boys home together for most of the day. We've been getting a lot done around the house. Today I gave my bedroom a good cleaning (including the windows!), cleaned the kids' bathroom, did 4 loads of laundry and decluttered another dresser drawer (making it the 4th one this week - Goodwill is going to love me!)

Ryan and I played a few games this afternoon, but soon he wanted to try something new. I just got the newest issue of Family Fun magazine in the mail and had torn out a page with a cool bubble activity on it. We decided to try it.

All you do is take an empty bottle (water, soda etc) and cut the bottom off of it. Rubber band a piece of towel or washcloth around the bottom, wet the fabric and then dip it in a shallow pan of dish detergent (we use Dawn). Just blow into the bottle and here is what you'll get
Aren't those the coolest bubble "snakes" you have ever seen? This was so east to do, but be careful you don't hyperventilate! Ryan was blowing so hard (to make longer snakes) that he nearly fell over! The best part about this (aside from how easy it is to do) is surprising others with it. Ryan loved showing his brother and sister what his new bubble blower does - they were all pleasantly surprised!

While Ryan blew bubbles, I checked the progress of the garden.
We have lots of green beans on the plants (had some with dinner a few nights ago) and the lettuce is getting bigger (I planted too close to the beans, and most of my lettuce ended up not growing at all - we'll try again for the fall). Lots of carrots plumping up too. We have some nice green tomatoes:
The squash has some nice flowers on the plant, and the peppers are turning from flowers to tiny peppers this week! we also have TONS of flowers on the cantaloupe plants and some starting on the watermelon too!
Tonight, we went mattress shopping - with all three kids. Needless to say, it was quite an experience. We currently have a queen-size bed which is about 10 years old. The mattress is getting saggy, and after sleeping in king-size beds on vacation we started talking about upgrading to a king.

Mattress shopping is very frustrating! Craig seems to enjoy laying down in hundreds of beds, but I find it tedious and exhausting! The kids want to jump on every bed (you have to admit, it does look tempting), and Jacob had an accident while we were in one little mattress store! Yikes! (I was kind of hoping perhaps the salesman would give us a great deal just to get us to leave his store!).

However, we did make some progress. We know we are interested in a traditional innerspring mattress - something right in the middle of plush and firm. Hopefully we'll make a decision this week and order something - then I can have fun shopping for new bedding!!!!! I love this brown quilt from Kohls.com
Tomorrow - I'll show you my very undecorated bedroom. We'll finally paint and decorate once we get the new bed!

Mooooooooo!

Can you even stand it?????? I love Cow Appreciation Day at Chik-Fil-A! The whole family dressed up as cows and enjoyed a totally FREE dinner tonight! Yee-haw!

Bye-Bye Hair!

Here's the new me! I cut several inches (in the back, it could have been almost 8 inches?????) and had the back "stacked." This was a pretty bold move for me, but it paid off as I love the new look! Craig liked it a lot too (which is great - I thought he would miss the old, long hair). What do you think?

ps - these pics were taken with the self-timer and were the best I could get. :)

Walking

I carved a little time for moi tonight and took a nice long walk. I like walking (once I get going) - it's so nice and quiet and the perfect time for me to relax/daydream/unwind. I love to look at all the homes as I walk past and imagine what the families who live in them are doing. :)

We had a busy day today - library, returns at one store, paying my charge bill at my dear friend Kohl's and lots of laundry.

Tomorrow we're heading to the opposite end of town to try to pick up a gift certificate for my sister's birthday (she's turning 30 this weekend - and her husband is trying to pull off the impossible and have a surprise party for her). She loves getting her nails done every other week, so I figure a gift certificate for that is PERFECT!

Speaking of things that cost a lot of money but make you feel pretty and pampered, Craig got me a lovely gift certificate to a spa (yes, a real honest-to-goodness-spa!) for Mother's Day. I still have to book my day of pampering - but first I need to decide what to get done. There will certainly be a pedicure and massage involved! I can't wait to find the time to enjoy that gift!

New Routines

I can't believe the 4th of July has come and gone! The summer is nearly half over, and I feel like it just started!

We returned home from our vacation nearly 2 weeks ago. We had mostly good times. :) The kids turned out to be good little travelers (despite the fact that poor Ryan either had a big case of the nerves, some car sickness, or a 24-hour bug on the ride down - he was sick an hour into the ride) and did much better than expected during our long, long drive.

The Orlando portion of our trip was wonderful! I can't say enough great things about the pool home we rented, and Disney World was everything I hoped it would be (despite REALLY hot weather and some tired kids). Craig did work during our trip, but we still had lots of fun!

Myrtle Beach was a great way to end our vacation. We had perfect weather and stayed in a hotel that was very nice. I think we will end up visiting Myrtle Beach again in the future - we all thought our 3-day stay was a little too short!

Since we have been home, we've all been adjusting to our new "normal" - I am done babysitting and spend the days with my own three children. I won't lie at all - I am loving it! We are free to do whatever we want! We've done the pool, the library, grocery shopping, visited family and friends and more. We eat dinner at 5:00. We're all a lot happier; however, there is still a lot of adjusting going on.

I am rarely on the computer anymore! we're so busy doing "stuff" that I never have time to sit down at my desk. My goal for the next week or so is to really settle into a rhythm where I can balance housework, time with kids and personal time - I haven't really been able to hit that balance yet (meaning lots of kid time, but little time for the house or me). I think we can do it - we're just still in the Honeymoon Phase.

Hopefully I'll find more time to update more frequently here.