Dining Room

Once again, a few weekends ago I had this idea (this is becoming a bad habit of mine) of kinda sorta re-doing our dining room. Our house was the same color throughout when we bought it and its always kinda bugged me. I want the rooms to be all their own. I want you to walk through my house and have a different feel for each room you walk in. 

But, if we're being honest here, you (or at least I do) have to be in a mood to paint.. and that mood seldom comes… especially when you paint a room in the house and tell yourself you're never gonna do this again. 

Yea, you need a good 9-12 months to forget how much you hate to paint.

The time came, I had a vision, so to the paint counter we went. 

Agh! The more I look at this photo, the more I dislike what it was!

If you'll look at the window before ^, you can see that I chose to completely cover them up with roman shades. I hate to talk down on the company who painted this house before we bought it (previous owners had the inside and outside completely painted), but the paint job all over  is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e. 

It really is just awful that someone would put their name on the job. Anyways, can you tell its a super sore subject around here??

Ha!

 We have been left to "clean up the mess" so to speak. 

The windows have paint all over the glass, and the windows hadn't been cleaned in Lord knows how long, so I completely just wanted them covered, and honestly thought it wasn't even worth my time to try and deep clean.

So I didn't! 

(I didn't even bother taking a before photo because I had no hope)

Nat got the razor blade out and started scraping the paint off the glass, and then I spent about 2 hours doing the same (and could totally spend many more hours scraping paint off) and then taking the windows completely apart to scrub, 

(little shout out to Norwex… LOVE my Norwex window rag, makes cleaning windows a million times easier.)

and wowza! 

I couldn't believe how they turned out! I was SO excited that the possibility of open windows+curtains.

Gotta love the crazy mess that comes with re-doing.

Nat has also been, slowly but surely, replacing all the light switches and plugs in the house from old school ivory to lovely bright white. It makes a world of difference. Not to mention I can actually plug stuff in and it won't fall out!

(Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Anywaysss… Heres the before:

and after:

I still need to work on something for the wall. Theres a lot of open wall-age in there, so I will be on the look out!

We also re-painted all the trim and the bottom half paneling, and the stair rail. It still hasn't been put back up as we (Nat is) are gonna re-do the hardware. 

I absolutely love the way it turned out. 

Nature Walk

Fridays are our lax days. I usually try to think of something fun/field trip-ish for us to do… 

orrrr we just sit on the couch and let mom breathe air. 

(hardy har har.) 

The weather has been lovely this week

So, we went on a nature walk!  

I found some scavenger hunt papers and gave the kids each one, along with their own bag to collect things in nature to make a collage. 

(coming soon)

Texas is Texas, is Texas. 

My dream would be to take my kids on a nature walk and see all sorts of different things. Here we have 4 things: Mesquite trees, Pecan trees, cactus and weeds. As much as I wanted them to see leaves changing, pine trees, tall trees, running water…. (I could go on and on) Its just not reality.

We had fun anyways. 

We walked until we found the perfect spot for a picnic, and perfect it was!!

We stopped on the hike back to fill out an

I saw

I heard

I smelled

I touched

sheet.

I love to see what different things the kid took in!

On our way home, we went through Spring Creek. We stopped and let the kids play. Its so nice out there! 

Which then turned into lets run home and get stuff to bbq and fish.

So we did just that! 

this girl is quite the little fisher-girl! She loves it!

Our Friday night was perfect! We found a great place close to water+bbq grill+ park for non fishing children+we were the only ones out there and we had bikes so the kids could ride all over the place!!!!

We ended the night laying on a blanket by the water as it sprinkled a little and daddy and Mads fished.

On the verge of sounding cheesy, I couldn't help but to feel so joyful, blessed, spoiled, and loved. I got to spend the whole day with my special little family doing things that we love to do! 

I am so thankful for my husband and kids!

Mini project

Our house was built in the 1930's, as much as I l-o-v-e our home and all the uniqueness it is, there was a slight problem in the kitchen. There was only one option of where we could put our ginormity of a refrigerator. … and it was awkward and all wrong! 

Yep, thats our back door, and yep its a pain in the butt to try and put away groceries when you can't even open the refrigerator door all the way… not to mention it sticks out way too awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen.

This is technically where the stove should go, but where the stove is, the space is built for like a 1940's refrigerator. 

short and squatty. 

It would just never work out here in 2014.

Drama, I know! 

I, spending a great majority of my time in the kitchen, was very annoyed with the fridge like this. We've discussed lots of different options on how to fix this, and a year and a half later, we finally decided what we would do.

This is my cabinet of just-throw-it-in-there-and-shut-it-quickly. 

Im showing you.

Do you feel the love??

Anyways- this is the before shot. 

We decided to chop off a few inches of the countertop/cabinet to make the fridge fit correctly. 

Gotta love a man who takes your ideas and runs with them. ;)

and just like that, 

its turned! 

….and our kitchen magically became twice as big! Seriously, can't even believe the difference it made.

We've still gotta paint the primer-ed part of the cabinet that was cut in half and filled in, but you get the point!

Seriously, so spoiled to have the man I do… I love that we get bored on Saturdays and I get ideas, and he makes them happen! 

LadyBugs

We have a plethora of lady bugs on our pumpkins and flowerpots out front. The kids have spent so much time out there admiring them. We got their bug catchers out, made a home for them, and "rescued" a few. 

Many of them are now somewhere in our house! 

Ha.

Today when I looked at the bug catcher I only found 1… 

we had about 10. 

I asked Payton where they were and she informed me they were on the couch. Sooo, we've found them around the house here and there, and we've let the poor little guy (that didn't get to escape) go.

Anywhoo… I took the opportunity to teach the kids about the life cycle of a lady bug. 

We watched a video about ladybugs (btw-uhhbsessed with educational youtube videos when It comes to something beneficial to teach the kids) and we did a lady bug craft.

We went outside to watch the lady bugs, and the larva, crawling around our plant. It was fun to see the kids light up with excitement as they called the lady bug by which life  cycle they were currently in. 

*side note- I have absolutely loved (and been surprised) at this boys desire to learn and how his attention span has increased drastically! I honestly thought we were no where even close to "schooling" him. 

I was wrong!

little larva

Larva and an adult ladybug 

They did sooo good on their lady bug life cycle 

Stetson, the Hulk man, has been drawing Hulk, can you spot Hulk, in all his muscle glory??

P.S. Is there anything greater than the learning-to-draw-people stage???

Loooove it!!!

Homeschool update.

Well, we've got our first few weeks of school under our belts.

What a crazy, humbling few weeks its been.

Its been tough, and rewarding, with lots of learning…. on my part.

HA!

(Well, I am hopeful that they've learned as well)

I've had this post a brewin' for a bit now, but I am glad I decided to wait to finish it. I don't think it would have been a very heart warming post. ;) 

I now feel like we've got a somewhat "normal" routine down, but it was a rough first couple weeks. Everyone getting used to this big change…. me getting used to the big change. That has been hardest, and I've had some pretty down days! Poor Nat, I've sent him some pretty sad text message, but being the good man that he is, he is always encouraging! 

Overwhelming would be a pretty perfect way to put it. No matter how much I planned (and I spent many many late nights planning, preparing and planning and preparing) Nothing can prepare you quite like just being thrown into it. 

Y'all have to remember I was the person who would never homeschool her kids. I  needed me time to stay sane! Life can be chaotic with 3 little ones, and I would be lyin' if I didn't relish in the thought of one day being alone as my kids were in school (what mom doesn't think of this?!?) 

I now find myself relishing in the thought of getting to spend each day teaching my kids, reading books with my kids, playing outside with my kids, doing crafts with my kids, and mostly, I get to know what the ears of my children are hearing, I get to be fully aware of what fills my children's minds on a daily basis. 

My dad told me this: (sorry dad, I'm sure I will misquote you ;)) 

'you're pouring everything into your kids now, so that you won't have to do it later.' 

Don't get me wrong, its not all hunky dory, and I will never expect it to be! We still have rough days.  Sometimes I want to pull my hair out. Sometimes tears are shed, some days we stop. Some mornings I turn off the alarm clock and fall back asleep, some days I get up early, work out, shower and have breakfast ready for everyone. I am finding that I LOVE that part of homeschooling. We just get to do what works best for us! I have come to realize that I don't like my life being dictated by anyone but us!

 Is that bad?? 

I always cringed a little when something was "mandatory" when it came to school. 

It has been the single most rewarding thing I have ever done. I've often (and I still do at times) struggled  with feeling like I wasn't "doing my part" in life. Nat has always been fully supportive of my decision to stay home with the kids, but sometimes I just felt like I should do more. 

Lately, my "do more" cup has been full. 

The thing that I have had to make a big adjustment to (besides everything…) is all of my household responsibilities. I would dare to say that I have a "job" now… when I say job, I mean I have something that takes up a great part of my day… the part of my day that I used to do housework, laundry etc. I've had to let my house go at times (another learning lesson on my part.) 

I am a clean freak. I do not handle messes well. Clutter gives me anxiety. Too much laundry gives me anxiety. So, I've had to learn to do both things… successfully… and let me just say, I sleep well at night! 

Sometimes with laundry done, and sometimes its not. ;)

 I have also learned that homeschool moms rock at multi tasking. I have surprised myself at the amount of things I do at one time. 

Ha!

So, heres a little clippet of our days these days:

Payton has started back at ballet! 

I had a good laugh at this. Good 'ol Texas issues.

Madelynn and Stetson started gymnastics and they're loving it! 

these are our days

 

Nice little afternoon nap. This has been common for this (non napping) girl. She gets pretty exhausted these days!

A little "saving grace" has been able to send the little 2 out to do something else read: entertain themselves. I am so glad that I can concentrate on Madelynn most days as they're not ready for a whole lot of book work right now. I put a sheet down for them to read a book on… they ended up like this. They still somehow successfully read an I Spy book like this. They had entirely too much fun for it to be "school" ;)

this was one morning when we got up.. and mom didn't wanna do school. So, I let them lay in my bed and watch a movie!

Madelynn has done fantastic learning cursive! She is pretty proud of herself (as are we) she wanted me to take a picture to send to daddy.

Another one of those "moments." I was cooking supper, she needed to get in her reading for the day, so she laid in the kitchen floor and read to me as I cooked supper! 

This was quite special to me. 

Madelynn and I write notes back and forth on her little board. This was her note to me the other day. It was pretty exciting for me! I was a little anxious about homeschooling her, this has been a a reassurance .

 

… our days are filled with lots of messes!

This phrase has been close to my heart as of late.  

We have quite a few lady bugs that live on our plants/pumpkins so the kids gathered some up today and made a home for them. 

Guess what we will learn about tomorrow???