Deidra's New Room

We're swapping rooms.  Deidra just took over Emily and Tracie's room and they'll be taking over Deidra's old room (and eventually Melina too).  Deidra picked out all new furniture and paint colors for her room.  We used the Behr paint and went with Pressed Flower (the pink) and Tart Apple (the green).  We still have to figure out curtains, but I think we're going to go with a zebra print as it'll match her bedding and then I'm going to get customized peace print pillows with her name and room colors mixed in for her couch.

The Little Bathroom--Before and After

BEFORE...I decided that since we've been in this house for just shy of 2 years now, it's time to decorate and paint and give this house our personality.









AFTER....the walls are a pretty Blue Feather. The picture we used reminds me so much of Michigan with the beach scene and the lighthouse. The hutch is complete with a bowl of sand and shells. I even put a little vase up on the top shelf filled with Sea Mist potpourri. Now to just get a blue Yankee Candle for the very top.

Fresh Flowers

Little E, Baby J, and Baby T helped me plant flowers this morning. We ran up to Home Depot and got some moss roses for around the tree and some bright flowers for the planter on my porch. The kids had fun playing in the dirt! I'm just happy that we have some color again!

New Bed

We went out and picked out our new bed today since we found out after we ordered the Queen sized matresses that our old bed was a full size and not a queen like we thought. So, problem solved...we just buy a new bed which we really needed to do anyway. We picked this one and we're getting the end tables too (one for each side of the bed so we each have our own). The bed has 2 drawers that pull out on the end of the bed so we'll his/hers drawers too. I really like it. It's almost like a knotty pine.

New mattress...

We are finally getting a new mattress and box spring for our bed...I'm hoping a new bed is in our future as well...but one step at a time. We got a Serta Pillowtop! They will deliver it on Wednesday.

Santa brought me new living room furniture!

Here is my Christmas present from Santa! It all is so comfortable and nice! Little E tore the zippers off of our old couch pillows and so I went looking at a new sofa. Andy surprised me by letting me pick out a whole new set. Finally new living room furnite and I love the way it looks in our new house!

Decorating the 4th Bedroom...

We got 2 new foster placements...2 cute little girls! I went to pull out some of Deidra's old clothes so the girls would have something to wear since they didn't come with much. I found all of her old Pooh bedding and so I pulled out the set for the toddler bed and I pulled out one of the crib sets and I got to thinking that I could hang some Pooh pictures and wall art and that room would be so easy to finish up for them. So, I went and ordered some Pooh appliques,



and a plush wall hanging for their room.



and I think after we get blinds for that room this weekend, I'm going to go ahead and order the valence for their room.



I think it will be cute once it's all done.

We are SO exterminating this weekend!

We have so many of these spiders in our house lately. They're big and they're fast! The boys think it's funny to go find them and try to hit at them and stuff with their toys. I won't touch them (the spiders I mean). The speech therapist killed one for me the other day. Andy just killed one in the kitchen today. We had one that he threw out the slider door a few days ago. I'm tired of them catching me by surprise. And I certainly don't want one crawling on me. I have the heeby jeebies!

We got some Hot Shot stuff from Home Depot to spray to get rid of a zillion insects (one being spiders) and we are putting it down this weekend. I hate HATE spiders! Yes, I'll be the first to admit that I'm severely arachnophobic. I used to hate any type...now I do ok with the small ones. But, I still don't like them!

Landscaping the front yard

We wanted to get out there and do our landscaping this weekend. After numerous trips to Home Depot and one trip to Lowes and one trip to Wal-mart we completed the front yard. We're saving the backyard for next weekend (if the weather cooperates). We're happy with how it all turned out! Here's the before/after shots.

BEFORE--Big Flower Bed


AFTER--Big Flower Bed



BEFORE--Tree



AFTER--Tree



BEFORE--Small Flower Bed


AFTER--Small Flower Bed


BEFORE--Full Shot


AFTER--Full Shot

Our master bathroom disaster...

Most of you heard that the boys flooded our bathroom the other day when they were supposed to be napping. I took some pics of the incident just in case we needed some for any insurance purposes or Andy needed to show them to work since he left early to help me gain some sanity.

I never thought two toddlers could be so quiet while making such a HUGE mess. They stopped up Andy's sink and let the water continuously flow on full blast. I was trying to clean downstairs while I thought they were napping (Baby J was asleep when I left their bedroom and I left Baby D rubbing his eyes and I thought he was quickly on his way to napping...WRONG!). Anyway, after I cleaned the guest bathroom downstairs, the playroom, and went to unload the dishwasher I heard the footsteps and a giggle. I went upstairs to find my master bathroom door closed and them laughing. I opened up the door, saw the huge mess, and proceeded to slip and fall on my butt. What I didn't see at first was all the water ALL over the floor... I got the water turned off, the boys changed and put back to bed and went to put down all the towels that I could find. That wasn't nearly enough. I went and got all the blankets that I could find...that STILL wasn't enough. By that time, I called Andy in tears and he said he'd take lunch and come home to help me. Right after I talked to him, my Mom called. She was able to get me the number for some emergency people that deal with flooding (THANKS MOM!) and they came out right away. By that time, I had taken every bin of dirty clothes that we had and dumped them all over the bathroom floor to sop up the water and that helped get more up off the floor. I came downstairs to grab my mop and found that the water had started to pour through the laundry room vent over my head. I cleaned up the water downstairs that was on the floor and ran back upstairs to make sure that I got all the major water soaked up. I discovered that Andy's cabinet drawers were FULL of water...so I quickly dumped those out and got towels in them to dry them out. Unfortunately, they have some water damage...but it's only on the inside of the drawers so he's not too worried about it. By that point, Andy was home and the emergency people came shortly after. They probed our floors and walls and the downstairs ceiling and thankfully only a section of our drywall and baseboards and ceiling had anything to worry about. He recommended setting up 3 huge fans and a dehumidifer to those areas for 3 days to dry them out. They're coming out tomorrow to probe again to make sure it's all dried up. We did wind up with a small crack in the downstairs ceiling, but I guess it could have been a whole lot worse. We'll have to putty it and patch it up and repaint.

This is the only photo that you can honestly see that there's water on the floor (reflection of the window on the floor). But, they sure had a field day in there in the 15-20 minutes that I was THINKING they were sleeping. Now, they have a safety knob on their door so they can't get out and we're installing a door alarm as well so we know when they've opened the door for SURE.




Yeah, I think the cats will be glad to have the blowers and stuff gone too. They're so loud that they freak the cats out too....

We're constantly having to yell over them too and it would be nice to just be able to use normal voices to communicate with one another. UGH!






Yeah, they completely dumped out all the contents of my bathroom cabinet and scattered it all over the place. Then they dumped the cat litter all over, turned Andy's faucet on and plugged his sink and let the water flow out all over (did I mention that the water was also on full blast), dumped our hand towels in the cat's food and water dishes, they just had a grand old time and could not seem to understand why I was just not so amused when I found them having field day in all the water. There was not a dry spot on my bathroom floor at all! They also got into some ebay stuff that was in our bedroom and they tried to throw some stuff out of the window after they pushed the screen out. Little terrors! I did learn one thing though...I'm not opening up the upstairs windows anymore...I do not want them falling out!!

One thing that I am grateful for though is that it wasn't as expensive to clean up as we thought it was going to be...don't get me wrong it was still a pricey event to take care of, but we were more concerned that we thought we were going to have majoral structural damage when we saw that the water had made it through the ceiling and so forth. I'm just grateful that we had a real emergency fund built up and that it was only a small fortune to take care of it rather than the big one we thought it was going to be. Thank You, Dave Ramsey who we're taking our baby steps after!

House Spending Spree

Well, I had $75 to spend on the house...I went up to get the stuff for my little bathroom and they were all out of stock on the things that I needed for it. So, I figured that I'd get all new towels since we've been using the same ones since we got married and I want nice matching ones. Anyway, I got light purple ones to match our bathroom and washcloths to match and I got two purple handtowels with the butterfly print on it that matches our shower curtain.

Then, I went and got the kids all new washcloths and towels in the green that matches their froggy theme in their bathroom.

I realized in trying to listen to the "I'm hungry" and "I'm thirsty" and all that mess that I forgot to kid the frog trash can for their bathroom and a new toothbrush for Little J since the boys threw hers in the toilet. Oops! So, I'll go back for that later. I need to grab a Tinkerbell trash can for the girls room too.

Oh! And the best part...Andy will be oh so proud of me...I'm under budget!!

House Stuff

Well, since the weather is warming up and everything is starting to green up, we wanted to get some stuff for the house and for the kids to play with in the backyard instead of just going out there and pushing their carts around and playing with their big bouncy balls or just running around. So, we got them a turtle sandbox which kept them all entertained and so occupied for hours.


We were also going to get this swingset, but we couldn't get any set answers on how big the boxes were so we weren't sure if it was going to fit in the van. So, we decided to go out next weekend instead to go back and get the swingset.



We also got the girls new nightstands that match their beds and we got them a big white wooden bookshelf for all of their books. I told Andy that I'm going to take the house envelope to Target tomorrow and get the stuff to finish my little bathroom as well. We need to get more focused on making our house a home and getting things little by little.

The Inside of the House Decorated for Christmas!

Well, we decorated the house for Christmas! The girls had a lot of fun decorating the tree and all the kids enjoyed seeing their stockings hung! It definitely looks Christmasy in here!

Deidra helping to decorate the tree....



The mantel...Little J made the little Advent chain so we could countdown to Christmas!


Andy putting the ribbon along the stairway...

The House Schedule

I've been asked by a couple of friends how I have been keeping up with the kids and the new house. So, I thought I'd share my schedule. Laundry for 6 people is nuts...but I think I came up with a do-able solution and I stay on top of my housework too.

Monday
------
Deidra's Laundry
Deidra's Bedding
Wash Towels
Pick-up and Vacuum Downstairs
Deidra Cleans Bedroom and Vacuums Room
Cat Boxes

Tuesday
-------
Baby J's Laundry
Baby J's Bedding
Pick-up Downstairs
Boys Clean Playroom
Sweep and Mop Floors
Vacuum Boys Room
Budget
Cat Boxes
Bath Night

Wednesday
---------
Baby D's Laundry
Baby D's Bedding
Pick-up Downstairs and Vacuum
Clean Bathrooms
Boys Pick Up Playroom
Cat Boxes

Thursday
--------
Little J's Laundry
Little J's Bedding
Pick-up Downstairs
Little J Cleans Bedroom
Budget
Cat Boxes
Bath Night

Friday
------
Wash our laundry
Wash our bedding
Pick-up and Vacuum Downstairs
Movie Night
Clean and Vacuum Bedroom
Cat Boxes

Saturday
--------
Budget
Cat Boxes
Bath Night


Sunday
------
Grocery Shopping
Cat Boxes

Surprisingly, it goes pretty well. The girls get notes from the House Fairy and prizes once in awhile when she's been watching for awhile and they've stayed on top of their messes and have practiced their manners. So, they're always eager to help. Baby D helps me unload the dishwasher too. The House Fairy has definitely made a difference in our house! They know that they have to keep things clean and picked up if they want her to visit, but yet they also know that she doesn't leave surprises every time..but yet she could be watching at any time. So that keeps them on their toes. I didn't put dishes or anything else down either as I have to do them sometimes once a day and somedays we run the dishwasher a couple of times per day. I just do it as we need to. I try to sweep the kitchen floor once or twice a day and it's mopped once a week. Anyway, that's how we're keeping up with the house and the chores. The girls take turns doing the cat boxes now too...they think it's fun...hey, if they're willing to help...we'll let them. We just make sure that they scrub their hands really well once their done. Usually one girl does the ones downstairs and the other girl does the ones upstairs. Otherwise they fight over who's night it is to get to do it. We help too of course!

Christmas Shopping for the House -- Our Wish List

So many people have asked us what our wish lists for Christmas were going to be. We both agreed that we just wanted stuff for the house this year. So, we went and made our list at Target entitled "Our New House List" and it's searchable by mine, Andy's, or Deidra's first and last name. The event date is Christmas. We also have an ID number for our list if anyone wants it: 012399301061426. This is what we have picked out for each room and we've been picking up things little by little. It's exciting to see the house come together slowly!

We have our security system now!

Our security system was installed tody! So much to remember, but very cool. It tells me on chime mode when the doors are opening so that I can keep track of the kids at all times. And when we leave the house or go to bed, I can arm the alarm so that if anyone breaks in the police are automatically notified. There's also a way to call the police and fire dept right from our alarm and if anyone ever followed us home and told us to turn our security alarms off, there's a hostage alarm that they'd never even know about...they'd just think we were disarming the alarm. The police would instantly be notified. Very cool! Not bad for $30 a month for the extra security.

Some house shopping...

Well, we had Deidra's birthday party this weekend in our brand new house. I wanted our small little guest bathroom to look nice since so many people were going to be using it. So, I went out and got the accessories for it along with the little hand towels that match. So, it looks spiffy! I also got the kids their matching toothbrush holder and hand towels that match their froggy pattern in their bathroom. Everyone thought their bathroom was so cute! I've been buying things little by little for it and it's almost complete.

Our new vacuum!

We have been in need of a new vacuum cleaner. Andy found this one when I was sick with the flu after we moved in. We got it from Home Depot on sale! It works really well and it's nice to see what's being sucked up in the container!

Features:
The Dirt Devil i is an innovative new bagless upright vacuum cleaner with Advanced Cyclonic Technology that provides powerful suction at the nozzle. Designed to have the best performance and ease of use, the i vacuum is loaded with features that take the hassle out of cleaning. Right at your fingertips is an on/off Brushroll switch that allows you to effectively clean on all surfaces in your home. Turn the Brushroll on to clean deep within your carpets, or turn it off to safely clean hardwood floors. An Automatic Cord Rewind eliminates messy tangling and with the push of a button, automatically retracts--eliminating time spent wrapping up the power cord. A live, easy grab hose with attachment tools gives you extended cleaning ability to get into those hard-to-reach areas for thorough cleaning. The Rotating Power Brush Tool is perfect for vacuuming stairs, pet hair and upholstery. With a Clean Release Bottom Empty Dirt Cup, you can easily empty vacuumed dirt into a trash container with the push of a button--no messy bags to replace and no more dirty hands! Lifetime HEPA filtration traps 100% of common dust and allergens in your home--perfect for those who suffer from seasonal or pet allergies!



Notable Features:

Advanced Cyclonic Filtration means powerful suction at the nozzle!
Auto cord rewind
Fingertip controls with on/off brushroll
4 Seasonal Scented HEPA Filters
Rubberized, no-scratch wheels safe on all surfaces
Live, easy grab hose
Bagless technology - Never buy another bag!
Lifetime belt
5 year warranty

All moved in!

the front of the house...it looks so much more like a house with the sod put in and the shrubs and the tree. And a cool thing about the shrubs and the tree...we didn't purchase the landscaping package to add those...we were just going to do our own and I had finally gotten an idea of what I wanted to plant up there. And the day that we closed...we were in our final walk-thru with the builder and were asking questions about the grass seed and whatnot and he told us that they were giving us some shrubs and a tree. Apparently, they had been goofing up the final paperwork and giving everyone a landscape package recently and they've just been letting it go through...so we got some shrubs and a tree too!




the back of the house...you can even see some of our grass patches coming through after we planted the grass seed!