To-Do-Lists

So I was wandering through my old blog posts and found this to do list from 10/27/2011:

• Need plumber to fix my wobbly sink faucet in the kitchen that might be leaking water into my under sink area. 
• Heater needs yearly service.
• Paint living room with paint already purchased.
• Sell guest bed. (FYI: Our IKEA pull out couch is way more comfortable than our guest bed)
• Move pull out couch to guest bedroom
• Move computer/desk into guest room.
• Convert guest room into a convertible office/guest bedroom.
• Move main level couches and end tables to basement.
• Sell rug on main level or move to basement with furniture.
• Sew new curtains for piano room with fabric already purchased.
• Move piano room curtains to my room where it coordinates.
• Sew pillows for my bed with fabric already purchased.

Sadly, many of the items on this list - are STILL there.  Here is what it looks like using the "cross out" font that I see on all those DIY blogs:

• Need plumber to fix my wobbly sink faucet in the kitchen that might be leaking water into my under sink area.  (fixed leaking water under faucet, but faucet is still wobbly)
• Heater needs yearly service.
• Paint living room with paint already purchased.
• Sell guest bed. (FYI: Our IKEA pull out couch is way more comfortable than our guest bed)
• Move pull out couch to guest bedroom
• Move computer/desk into guest room.
• Convert guest room into a convertible office/guest bedroom.
• Move main level couches and end tables to basement.
• Sell rug on main level or move to basement with furniture.
• Sew new curtains for piano room with fabric already purchased.
• Move piano room curtains to my room where it coordinates.
• Sew pillows for my bed with fabric already purchased.

*shrink away in shame...*

Home Decor Items we HAVE Accomplished:

• Painted Michael's room and installed chair rail
• Purchased new lamps to match master bedroom
• Purchased new couch for main level to replace main level couches that were moved to the basement.
• Decided on color scheme and curtain fabric for main level family room.
• Purchased small organizing cabinet for kitchen area for Michael's supplies and my office supplies.

Not terribly impressive.  

NECESSARY HOME REPAIRS

• Replace leaking water heater
• Replace door knob on front door, which decides when it actually wants to work.
• Replace doorbell (plastic busted on the front of it)
• Replace kitchen faucet (very wobbly)
• Call Electrician to fix light switch in the garage which always trips the electricity to the garage and kitchen when switched on.

Those are the priority items and need to be done.  NEED being the operative word.

To cut down my pretty long list up there, I am going to list 7 interior design goals I would like to accomplish.  Mind you, these are not lofty, but maybe I will do a status update on them in a month:

UNNECESSARY HOME ITEMS:

• Research and decide on home office location (basement or guest room) with layout finalized.
• Paint living room
• Purchase curtain fabric for living room
• Sew living room curtains
• Purchase curtain rod for living room curtains.
• Assemble Michael's desk and place it in his room.

I just want to use that cross out font function. THat's pretty fun and satisfies the task list making side of me.

Eel

Michael graduated from his swim class!  First try!  Even his swim teacher seemed a little surprised at his progress!  :)  Thus, he is in the "eel" level now instead of "pike plus."

Yesterday at swim lesson, he swam out to where the teacher was, turned on his back to float and kick, then turned back on his stomach, doggy paddled a bit, flipped back on his back and then back on his front!

Amazing!  So proud of our little man! AND this is with him missing swim lesson last week because we were in Texas - AND he still has 2 more classes to go - so he advanced to the next level after only 3 lessons of this current session!

Which leads me to a discussion I had with a fellow mom friend about this very thing.  Sometimes, I frustrate myself with teaching Michael something "early" just because I feel like he should already be doing it.  The reality of this (and the competitive mothering that tends to come into play) is that kids learn things when they are good and ready to learn it.  There's no point in tearing our hair out when they just aren't ready.

Michael is good and ready to learn how to swim, which explains his rather quick progression!

And that makes me a proud mama to a little "eel."

Joke

On the way to t-ball, Abbey was telling jokes she read from Highlights Magazine (as you can imagine...).

Michael decided to join in and said, "Hey, listen to my joke!"

"I was walking along and a chicken started pecking at me.  But I did not stop!"

Pause.

Huge laughter because it was hilarious how BAD that joke was!

Well, it must have been a pretty good joke if everyone in the car was cracking up.

I am thinking he gets his mom's "talent" in joke telling.

When we were getting the kids buckled in the car,  I hear this conversation:

Abbey:  This car smells funny.
Michael:  That's my dad.

Cleaning...

So I am cleaning.  Michael asked for his friends from school to come over tomorrow, which means I HAVE to clean.  :)

Around 10:30pm - I went upstairs to get something and I hear thumping in his room.

"Hi Mommy!  I was waiting for you to give me hugs and kisses."

Oops - Brian usually comes and gets me if Michael wants hugs and kisses, but this did not happen today!

Don't have to give ME an excuse to delay cleaning yet again (kind of like this blog post at 12:22am).

I cuddled up with Michael and we talked a little bit about our day.  Abbey came with us today to Michael's t-ball game so we talked a little about how he focused and did his best.  We talked about how fun it was to play t-ball and how delicious his snack of Cheetos and CapriSun was (t-ball is mainly about the snack right?!).

We talked about having friends who do not focus and distract us from doing our best - are sometimes not the best choices to have as friends.  Michael has a teammate who consistently expresses how much he does not want to be there and it shows.  So we talked a bit about that.  Michael has started to notice this "friend's" behavior and the difference between "focused, hard working, with a good attitude" and "not focused, not paying attention, and bad attitude."

In the middle of our conversation, Michael says, "Mommy, you are the best!"

Well, how about that.  It is a lucky thing that I think he (and his dad) are the best too.

Pretty glad I popped in there to snuggle at 10:30pm instead of saying, "I need to MOP!!!"

First Picture in May Downloaded

In case you wonder about my "workflow" for my personal pictures, I download pictures from my camera to my hard drive throughout the month.

Since I upload pictures throughout the month, it is always interesting to me what DAY is my first image.

For the month of May, it is the 22nd.  PRETTY pathetic.  That means - that up until today, I did not have a single image to upload.

Not-a-one.

I will post later about Christina's uber fun wedding.  

However, for now, I will share our first downloaded img in May:

Pinterest Drive in Movie box.  I tell ya - my 31 order came in REALLY handy!  :)

We had to prop the right flap up with his butterfly holder to keep his food on there.  Have to say Michael was pretty ecstatic to watch cars in this today!

Abbey is over now - took one look at it - and said - that's weird.

WELL - I have a WHOLE SLEW OF PINTEREST MOMMIES THAT THINK IT IS GREAT!

And my Michael too!

A day in the life I tell ya!

Onesies

This morning, in my groggy slumber at 7:20, Michael came into my room and said, "Mommy! I don't even think about playing Wii anymore! But now it is Tuesday and I think I will play Wii on Tuesdays. And wear onesies. Have a good sleep Mommy!" He gave me a kiss and off he ran. I went back to sleep and thought about at what age Carters stops making onesie pajamas. Will be a sad day for Michael! I will blog about the wedding later in the week as well as my experiences flying in first class. On the flight back, Brian took care of Michael. Luck would have it that this flight would be the one where we got TVs for each seat! $8 later, Brian and Michael settled in to watch Star Wars on Tv and take naps. LUCKY guys!

Caught Up and The Frivolity of It All

Here I thought I was SUPER behind on my posts.  

I wasn't.

Apparently my life is not as interesting as I thought.  Or rather, it is uneventful, which I think is a rather good thing.  I'm not one for drama.

SO - here's a post about interior design.

I'm pretty bad about making interior design decisions.  I'll buy some fabric that I'm hot and heavy about and let it sit in my closet for a year and then decide I'm not hot and heavy about it anymore.

But then - I get a kick of inspiration - and I re-do a whole room.

Perhaps you remember my split-pea-green soup traditional living room:

Well - I found this fabric at Joanns last week and decided to give it a go with a wall color I bought a year ago:

The color is a grey-light aqua-blue.  I love it still.

And the grey/white/yellow ikat/damask leans toward my more "transitional"decor style as deemed by many "reputable" decorating style quizzes I have taken.

What is transitional?  It means you like classic items/silhouettes but with a more modern twist.

So - this damask is classical - but it is modernized by 1) the color palette and 2) the size of the repeat, which is larger than standard damask, and 3) it has the kind of "painted" effect of an ikat pattern.

The yellow in the fabric pulls in with the yellow in my kitchen.  SO I think it's a GO. 

I'm still thinking though - so I do a little pairing around with a throw pillow I already have:

Then with my current pillows:

Then - with an odd assortment of items in my living room to see if it would pull together:

And I think it will!  Well, at least I like it.  If you don't, you can say so, and it's absolutely fine!  To each their own.

Originally, I thought that I would paint the walls grey - but I found some blog posts with pictures of that (or yellow walls) and it just seemed kind of flat and uninteresting and too matchy matchy.

So I threw it up with my original paint color and I like the contrast.

I'm off.  As soon as I am back from Texas, I will be painting my living room and marching forward.  All I needed was an inspiration point and I'm sold.

A pet peeve of the new blogger layout?  When I choose my size as "XLARGE" to display, my vertical pictures are fine, but my horizontal ones get cropped to squares. ARRRRGGGHHH!!!

SO I've been choosing "LARGE" for my horizontal images and "XLARGE" for my vertical.  My next plan of action to is to chk the html code and see if there is a restriction on the size width that I just need to change.  But that is for another day.

Slip 'n Slide Debut April 21

I think that every year, I need to blog a posting that's entitled the slip 'n slide debut - just to compare how early/late it happens.

This year, it was April 21.

Michael was pretty thrilled:

Brian was wishing his-former-clarinet-playing-band-nerd-of-a-wife had to do this job:

The filling commences:

And then the job gets delegated:

So dad can get back to doing this:

While mom goes around taking pictures of her azalea bushes:

I just like this picture of Michael in our yard for some reason:

Playing with the little ramp that projects you into the pool:

Getting his belly completely scratched up to do this:

Guess we should have checked for rocks and sticks BEFORE we put down the slip 'n slide.

I spent some of the afternoon on the deck, reading southern living and listening to pandora while Michael took a nap.  It was an afternoon of bliss!  Especially after having a seriously fun family session in the morning.  Wish all my sessions could have been like the one I had that morning!

Then the next week - back to highs in the lower 50's and drizzly.  Spring is so pretty and nice, but so bipolar at the same time.

First T-Ball Game of the Season!

On April 25th, Brian made his debut as an official Little League Manager/Head Coach.

He did awesomely well!  Check out this nice mitt bump props from a player:

Doing warm ups in front of the trailer park by the ball field.  

Don't get me started about the styx I live near.

Michael rocking his warm ups:

Team ready for action - not in numerical order:

Michael up to bat:

Game ON!

Michael has a pretty decent swing.  Here he is running to 1st:

The parents in the stands had lots of positive feedback for B.  They love that he is teaching their kids important t-ball skills and also encouraging a nice team spirit.

As Brian told his co-workers:

"I teach them skills.  And I don't take S&*T from little kids."

NICE.  Apparently - parents like that!  :)