I'm Dying

Don't panic.  Just my hair.  I know that most of you are thinking "big whoop."  But aside from a messy middle school experiment with Kool Aid, I have never (I mean EVER) dyed my hair.  So to me, it is a big whoop.

So here's how it all went down.  I have been secretly (and not so secretely) wishing for my grandma's hair.  She had black hair with just a tiny gray patch until the day she died.  But unfortunatley, the hair God's had other plans for me.  The first time my hair dresser yanked a wiry gray hair from my head, I cried in her chair.  Too bad for her, she doesn't know me as well as some and she was not prepared for that.  And since that time (which may or may not have been more than four years ago) I have been thinking that it might be time to dye my hair.  There was only one problem.  You see, I'm not what you would call a high maintence girl.  You've probably noticed.  The truth is that I have no idea where to start with hair and make up so I just don't.  Where was YouTube in 1994?  I could have used some tutorials!  My biggest problem was that I liked my hair color and as you know I am terrified of change.  And I had no idea how to pick out a color. So I didn't.  Until last week.  With a rare few extra minutes while our running errands alone (that NEVER happens!) I snuck into Rite Aid and spent 15 minutes with my hair in front of my eyes while I tried to find the box that matched perfectly.  To be honest, they all kind of look the same to me.  And not a one seemed to match my hair.  But I finally settled on this:

 And then at dinner my friend said, "Did you get the foam?  As long as you got the foam you'll be fine because you can do it yourself."  What?!?!!!?  I can't do this myself!??!??  I wasn't taking any chances.  So back to the store I went.  And this time, you bet I got the foam:

Now this is kind of my deep dark secrect because if my husband had his way, I would not color my hair.  Something about how he likes the "salt and pepper".  He's crazy.  Now I don't make it a habit to lie to my husband but he is color blind and unobservant so in this case what he doesn't know won't hurt him.

I waited unitl the kids were spending the night at Grandma's and Robbie was fast asleep before I locked myself in the bathroom.  I figured if it worked out like half of the other beauty things I have tried I didn't need any witnesses.

But what do you know?  It worked!!!!  And better yet, no one noticed!  And I didn't even need a YouTube video!

Applesauce

 

Yep. We made some. So easy and so good. And of course I had my little helpers with me the whole time.

 

They washed the apples

 and the dishes.

 They mushed the apples

 

 and labeled the bags.

And the best part of all, they ate it!

I Feel Like I'm Nesting

Well, it's that time of year again.  Yep.  Back to School.  As a teacher, I have a lot to do to get my classroom ready and as a momma, well I'm not ready to talk about that just yet.  I'll cry.  Again.  But between rearranging tables and buying new school clothes I have had back to school on the brain for the past couple of weeks now.  And once I start thinking about something I can't stop.  And I don't sleep well because I keep thinking of things I need to do and running over my list in my head so I don't forget anything.  Constantly.  I do realize that this is ridiculous.  And I probably need professional help...or a Xanax.  Or both.

 Anyway, it's times like these when my (self diagnosed) Adult ADD kicks in and I decided to finish all of the things on my summer bucket list.  Well not all.  Just the ones involving painting and organizing because I have come to terms with the fact that the scrapbooks are not getting caught up anytime soon.  So I tricked my husband into a Home Depot trip  (like that was hard) and loaded up on paint and supplies and got to work.

I filled the garage with all of the things I needed to paint.  My sewing machine table (along with a couple of shelves for the craft room)

 Ben's new Lego storage system

 Some cupboard doors that I had big plans for

 And the trim for the gigantic mirror in my bedroom.

By the time I went to bed, the garage smelled of fumes and everything had a couple of coats of paint.

In the morning, I finished it all up and yesterday was organizing and decorating day!!! Yay!  First up, the craft room.  Now my craft room has always been functional (thanks to the gigantic desk the contractors built for me) but as you can see it lacked excitement:

 Enter some pretty turquoise paint and ta da!  It's like a whole new room.  Here, I'll take you on a tour.

 One of my favorite parts of the desk is my paper storage shelves. So easy to find everything and so pretty!!

 Abby has her own little corner of the room with a desk and chair, courtesy of my dad.  He volunteers at the Habitat for Humanity store nearby and is able to find us almost everything we need (and sometimes things that we don't need!)

 Abby has all of her own craft supplies that she got from Santa.  Santa (AKA my dad) built the shelf in his workshop so that it would fit perfectly in her little corner.  She loves all of her supplies and sometimes spends hours up there making everything from one eyed star monsters to a scrapbook of baby pictures titled "Win We Wer Babees".

 This wall has always been a little bland.  But not anymore!!

 My dad got this shelf for me and it is just what I wanted to add some color and details to my room.

 And this is a project I have been wanting to do for a long time.  Remember the cupboard doors I was painting?  Here they are.  A little paint, some clothes pins and now I have an instant place to hang things.  Of course my dad got the doors for me.  I first saw this on my favorite blog (pretty much the only one I read that isn't written by someone I know) I Heart Organizing.  She is a girl after my own heart, I tell you.

 The other side of the room has my sewing area and all of my supplies.  I really debated whether or not to paint the sewing table and I am so glad I did.  So much better!

See that little cupboard above the sewing machine?  It's a thread cabinet made by my grandpa for my grandma.  I'm still working on my thread collection but sometimes I just like to open it up to look at it because colors make me happy.  I mean really...look how pretty it is.

 The cabinet in the corner might be the best thing that happened to my craft room.  When my friend, Michelle, redid her kitchen, she gifted me their pantry to hold all my craft supplies.  And it works perfect!!

So there you have it.  My new craft room.  But I didn't stop there.  I also painted the shelf that we keep Ben's Legos in.  Because it was white.  And the rest of the furniture in the craft room is

black.  And it was driving me CRAZY!!  But not anymore.  It looks so much better and matches the rest of the playroom.  Ahhhhhh I can sleep at night again.

 

 

 I also have been wanting to fancy up the laundry room a bit.  Enter some more cupboard doors (thank you Dad!) and some pictures of dirty kids (thank you Pintrest!) and it's just what I was hoping for!

 Now as you know, my laundry is usually piled high on that counter but the benefit of all this craziness is that I have been cleaning constantly.  Even folding laundry.  I know!!!

So there you have it.  Three new projects in two days.  I'm still waiting on the mirror.  The bracket we had to hang it wasn't sturdy enough.  And I DO NOT need seven years of bad luck (I'd probably end up with another kid or something) so we didn't want to risk it.


So there you have it.  3 projects crossed off the list (you know how that makes my heart pitter patter), a clean house, the kids closets cleaned out and stocked with new clothes...I feel like I'm nesting!  (Don't worry.  I assure you I am not.)

Question: What is better than a clean house?

Answer: Nothing.

Dinner's Ready

Seriously.  Like from now through Halloween.  No joke.   It all started with the mac and cheese I offered to make for my friends that just had a baby.  So why not make one for us at the same time?  And why not whip up some other things that I can freeze and eat later?  After all, school is starting soon and a freezer full of dinners would sure make the evenings go easier.  And so I went shopping today to get all of the stuff I would need:

I recruited the best little chefs around:

 And got to work.

 Poor Auntie Katie came over to visit and got put to work.

 After two hours, my kitchen was a DISASTER

 but we had 16 dinners!

 Why did we stop after two hours?  Well we had to go watch a movie in the park, of course.   Even though yesterday was 94 degrees, we had to put on our fleece jammies tonight because it was only 64 tonight.  Yep.  A 30 degree shift.  Welcome to Washington, people.  Once we were all cozay and snuggled in, we watched "Happy Feet Two."

 I wasn't sure how long we would last since it was way past bedtime and the last time I suggested that movie I was shot down by Ben who apparently doesn't like "penguins OR dancing".  But the big screen set up in front of the water changed his mind.

 It didn't, however stop the endless stream of questions that I have come to expect when watching movies.  But we made it through (despite Abby asking if we could just go home and go to bed with 20 minutes left in the movie)  and once the kids were in bed I got back to work.

Any one who knows me well, knows that once I start something I can't sleep until it is finished.  And while 16 dinners was good, it was only about half of the things on my list.  By 2:00 (yes, in the morning.  I told you I don't sleep) my mission was accomplished:

 And both of my freezers were full:

So there you have it.  For just over $100 (and 5 and a half hours), I made 27 dinners and enough "grab and go" breakfast items for more than 2 months of work. With leftovers and all of the times we eat with friends and family, I figure it will be November before I have to cook again. After tonight, I like the sound of that.  And everything I made is either oven or crock pot ready so all I have to do is remember to pull it out of the freezer before work.  Yeah, I'm kind of impressed with myself right now.

And I'm kind of sleepy.  And my feet hurt.  And I'm hungry because everything I made looked sooooo good!  (Can you say pizza stuffed pretzles?!?)  So off to bed I go.  Because 7:30 will be here in four hours.  Whooops!  This sounded like a better plan a few hours ago...

Oh How I Love Summer

Seriously love.  It is my absolute favorite time of year.  And what's not to love?  Sunshine, tan lines, sunscreen (oooooooooh I LOVE the smell of sunscreen!!), boating, swimming, barbecuing, late nights, sleeping in, walks in the middle of the day, time with my kids, time with my friends.  Man, I wish summer could go on forever!!  And just when summer can't get any better they throw in the Olympics which I cannot get enough of.  Ahhhhhhhhh!  I love it so much!!

This summer we have been going like crazy people and I have loved every second of it.  Between visiting my grandpa in Portland to camping for our TENTH anniversary, we've barley even slept in our own beds.  Oh and did I mention that in between all that we had two sets of house guests and spent almost 3 weeks at our lake cabin?  I'm telling you, we have been busy!

So here is a quick glimpse at what we have been doing.

Once our house guests left, I had a little incident with a pitch fork (don't even ask) and spent the next three days on the couch.  Which turned out okay because the weather was gloomy, we were all exhausted and the Olympics were on!!!  We cheered for our country "A-mer-i-ca  A-mer-i-ca!"  and learned about sports we had never seen before (they were particularly fascinated by water polo).  It was just what we needed to get rested up for two more weeks of fun in the sun.

Once I could walk again, we headed back to the lake for the hotest weekend of the summer.  Apparently it has been two years since we last saw 90 degrees and I couldn't have been happier to be sitting on the dock for those three days!  And we had so much fun!

We did a little rowing

 And some tubing (yes, they are a little big to have all three of us on there at the same time and no, I do not know why Ben is facing backward but he rode that way the whole time.)

 We did a little more skiing

 And spent HOURS jumping into the inner tubes

 and swimming in the lake.

 We did a little fishing

 and even caught 4 fish!!

 And I found out that she really is my girl.  When Grandma asked her if she wanted to go for a bike ride she said, "No.  I just want to stay here and sit in the sun with my mom."  I am so in love with her!

 All that jumping and swimming

 and boating and fishing

 made us REALLY tired!

 When we got home from the lake, we had 16 hours to do all the laundry and repack (oh and sleep too) before our first family camping trip.  We headed out to Lake Tanwax where the lake was brown (something that I never really got comfortable with) but pretty, none the less.

And we went back to doing what we do best.  Jumping and swimming and skiing.

 The kids both tried to ski by themselves and they did it!!

 Ben even got brave enough to ask to go faster!!  As soon as one was done, the other would request another turn.  All.  day.  long.

 And they couldn't get enough swimming either.

 And have you ever met cuter kids?!??

 Our trip wasn't all about the water.  We also did some biking

 And rock painting (thanks Mom and Dad for the supplies!)

 And of course, we did some mallow roasting!

 And once again, we slept well!!  (Don't laugh at the interior of our camper...it is older than us!)

 The next day, Abby went wake boarding with Robbie and loved it...

 until she felt like we were going too fast!

 But she recovered quickly...

 We spent our evenings by the campfire

 and playing "Ticket to Ride" which I have probably played 87 times this summer.  (Because it is so much fun!!)

And all of this to celebrate that we have been married a decade!!

 
While it feels like forever ago, I find it hard to believe that it has been 10 years.  3 houses, twins, a number of jobs and building our dream house...who would have guessed?  10 years from now, who knows where we'll be.   We'll have two teenagers (Lord help me) getting ready to drive (I can't even think about that!) and hopefully we will have gotten some things done in our yard by then (at least I'm hoping that the wood shed is finished).

Today, the kids each have a friend over and I am having the best time listening to them play together.  And while summer will be winding down in the next few weeks as the three of us get ready for our first days of kindergarten, we plan to play as much as we can.  In the yard, the pool and hopefully a couple more trips out on the boat.

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE summer?!!