Fireplace

Just before Thanksgiving our fireplace got finished & I never shared pictures. We absolutely LOVE how it turned out! I think the transformation is amazing & I love the way it changes the look of our living room. You see it right away when you walk in our home.

(The inspiration fireplace is from a PB catalog)

Before


After

all in a day's work

Literally.

How lucky are our girls?! My sister Kayleigh asked if they make this in her size. It's so fun!

We'd been letting Ellie sleep in Callie's bed with her on the weekends for the past couple months & the bed sharing wasn't going well. Which is too bad for me since when we bought Callie's mattress & bedding Jeremiah thought we should go with a twin so we could eventually do bunks or 2 twins. I didn't ever want bunk beds since they're so hard to make & plus I thought it would be nice to have a full bed for our occassional guests (which I was also wrong about - a queen would have been better for that). And my argument was that I shared a bed with my sister growing up so our girls could do it too. Yeah, well what I didn't take into account was that my sister & I were a lot older than our girls when we started sharing a bed. Big difference. So after having problems with the girls sharing a bed we decided it wasn't going to work. Jeremiah has said "I told you so" several times! Enjoy Jeremiah - you don't get to say it very often! haha!

On Friday morning I was checking out bunk beds online even though I thought we'd wait another month to buy & officially move Ellie in with Callie, but after a lot of searching both new & Craigslist I came across the doll house bed by Tradewins. It was $400 from someone in Bullhead (45 mins away) who claims they paid $2500 in 2005. I checked it out a lot online & was able to find it new for $1100, but honestly if I'm going to spend that much on a bunk bed (which I realize is what you can expect to pay for a new set) I was going to go with a well made traditional set. I forwarded the info to Jeremiah who at first asked if I didn't think that seemed like a lot of money for bunk beds (he lives under a rock). I told him about all the bunk beds I'd found on Craigslist - metal or corral fence looking wood ones - & assured him this was a great find. He agreed to it & he was able to pick up the bed that evening.

So the all day part is because the guy we bought it from is a complete jack-a & totally screwed up & ruined the bed in so many ways! He drilled all kinds of holes all over in it that were completely not necessary. Not only were they not necessary, but he apparently didn't know how to use a tape measure either because in some places his first hole wasn't in the right place so he drilled a 2nd one close by. He also didn't know how to use a drill bit because he didn't pre-drill any holes before screwing stuff in. If you've ever worked with wood you'll know that that's a big deal because otherwise your wood splits from the screws. So yeah, total jack-a. Jeremiah said on Saturday night that if he'd known before we bought it how badly the guy had screwed it up he wouldn't have bought it. During the construction process he had to make 3 trips to town for supplies (because of course it was missing half the hardware). We also had to get creative for a lot of fixes. And I have to make a trip to Frazee (Paint store. That's not open on Saturdays.) with a part of the bed to get it color matched so that we can patch the billion screw holes from the idiot & do touch-up paint. I also have to call the manufacturer today to buy a new hardware set since none of the hardware stores here had a couple of the pieces we needed. (Don't worry, it's safe for the girls to sleep & play on for now.) So even though it's put together it still needs a bit of work. I think if we'd bought it new we could have had that baby up in an hour. For reals!

But the girls LOOOOOVE it! It's awesome! I just wish we'd been able to get it for $200 instead - it would have been more worth it. But I am stoked cause I found the matching bedding I need for the twin mattress that I have to buy on eBay. Not only is the auction for the quilt & sham, but also the exact sheeting that I have had a hard time finding. Yay!

Ellie's Pinkalicious room!

Well I'm to the point in Ellie's & Callie's rooms that they're about as good as they're gonna get. I might eventally add a vinyl phrase above the closets, but any more than that would be overkill. So here's Ellie's room. I'll have to remember to take pictures of Callie's room sometime. Jack's room is pretty much done too, although we still haven't added closet doors to his closet! It's on Jeremiah's very long honey-do list! :)



In the middle bottom picture Ellie has a binky in her mouth. Every time I change her & she doesn't have a binky she gets upset & tries to grab the one in the picture! I think I'll have to change the picture when we take the binky away!

This banner is from Byrdie Graphics' Etsy Shop - I LOVE it!







Each of the kids has {and LOVES} a Classic Pooh animal. Ellie loves her Piglet from Aunt Tara!

Jack has an obsession with this flower mobile & it makes me SO mad! He batted it down with a stick one day & there were flowers all over the room! I was really upset but I had a calm talk with him about it & explained why he couldn't do it. He also had a long time out. 2 days later he did it again! I was furious! He had to sit in time out for a bit while I fixed it & I told him no tv/computer for 5 days. Yes, he's only 3! They don't even use the computer every day & some days no tv, some days 1-2 hours. But I figured that would be a more painful punishment since he's not too attached to any one particular toy. He hated not being able to watch tv for so long or play on the computer if Callie had a turn. The day after he was ungrounded he pulled the mobile apart again! I gave him 2 more days of no tv/computer & he said, "well that's not so many." I added one & he said it still wasn't so many. After I added another one he quit. So after another 4 days of being grounded he did it AGAIN! He spent a long time in time out that time while I fixed it yet again & glued the strings on the wires & when Jeremiah got home & I told him about it Jack got a spanking. Let me just say that we rarely spank our children. I just don't think it's usually the answer. For me anyway. Some people might think we're terrible for ever spanking at all & some people might spank a lot, but anyway, since we rarely spank I think it did the trick for Jack - he hasn't touched it again. It's been a week so hopefully he's over it!

"At the top of Dragon Mountain"

That's from The Backyardigans (we {heart} their cds) and the kids sing it as they're climbing up to the top of their dirt volcano!

Jeremiah brought the skid steer home from work on Saturday & worked on moving dirt so we can get started on our backyard. And just to be nice he made this volcano for the kids to play in/on. The backyard's going to be a long, slow & expensive (and that's doing it on the cheap) process. We're very fortunate though that we have lots of the equipment we'll need for our backyard & we can also do lots of the stuff at cost & hopefully find a hookup on a few of the other things we have planned.

I'm glad that the kids are loving the dirt pile, but can I just say it sucks! Somebody (won't give the guilty party away) came in for a time out the other day and when he/she went back outside I had to clean off a layer of dirt from the time out chair! Jack took off his pants to get in the bath & a cup of dirt went all over the floor. I'm NOT loving the dirtiness of the dirt. But the kids are having the BEST time! I figure I can endure it for one summer. It won't kill me, right? Right??

And just for fun & because I'm not in many pictures with my children, Ellie & I on Mother's Day.

Jack's Room

some house pictures

A few of you have wanted to see some pictures of our house. Here are just a couple rooms although they're not put together yet. I have several things I plan on getting & then there's the stuff I already have that's still in boxes or piles just waiting to be hung. Sometime I'll get to it. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the other parts when the house is picked up. I snapped these ones before we moved Ellie's crib into Callie's room when Jonny came (Jan 18). Jonny's here till April so maybe once Ellie has her room back I'll get to the decorating part of it.

Ellie's room:

Callie's room:

Oh, the wall behind Callie's bed used to be a double door into the entryway. We added a new door (it's where I'm taking the first picture from so you can't actually see it) & filled in the old. I just thought it was kind of strange to have a kids' bedroom door go into the entryway & since we never plan on using the room as a den it made sense to put a doorway going into the hall by the other rooms.

The kids' bathroom with awesome hotel rod per Tara's request: