Mommin' It Up!

August 12, 2011

What I learned on my summer vacation

Just in time for back-to-school, here’s a “What I learned on my summer vacation” essay. Ha! Whatever. You guys know summer isn’t a vacation when you’re used to having your kids at school and then all of a sudden they are home and IN YOUR FACE all day (11 more days, 11 more days, 11 more days)…nevertheless I DID make a goal for myself to learn something this summer.

I wanted to learn how to French braid Sophie’s hair. My mother passed down to me a tradition of not being able to fix hair, and I’ve never been able to do it, never thought I could, and never really tried. PLUS, before this summer, Sophie never would have sat still for me to do it. But this year she is a little less like a wild animal and a little more like a human child, so, now she’ll sit for me to braid. And God Bless her, she has been patient this summer.

It literally has taken me just about all summer to learn this. I’ve wanted to give up several times, and honestly the process didn’t do much for my self-esteem. I am NOT a natural, and it was hard for me! But finally, I think I’ve about got it. Wednesday at Sophie’s gymnastics class her braids were just about perfect and they stayed in wonderfully even after 45 minutes of bouncing around the gym and tumbling. I was super-proud (of you know, myself.)

Of course I forgot to take a picture.

I’ll take one next time I achieve French Braid perfection.

But anyways, I am excited to send Sophie back to school with a hair-do that is adorable and keeps her hair out of her face (and her glue and paint for that matter!)

What did YOU learn this summer?

August 10, 2011August 10, 2011

Death by FUN

Remember my FUN ROOM? Well, it is still fun. For the kids anyway. But you see, when we (and by “we” I mean, “My husband”) painted the door in the FUN ROOM with dry-erase paint, we *ahem* forgot to specify to our four-year-old that the door frame was not dry-erase.

Oopsieeeeee.

So, Sunday I spent a great deal of time scrubbing dry-erase marker off the door frame. First with dry-erase marker remover (ineffectual) and then with hairspray (slightly less ineffectual) and THEN I went to Rite Aid an spend some +UP Rewards on the best invention EVER, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. And I scrubbed that dry-erase marker right off that door frame. I am now a firm believer in good ol’ Mr. Clean. But it took a LOT of “elbow grease” to get all that marker off the wall.

And my back, neck, and shoulders hurt like a MOTHER. I do not know what I did with that scrubbing, but I messed myself UP. Four days later, and it’s just getting worse. I’ve been sleeping with pain patches on my neck and back at night, and have to take some good old “PM” drugs just to get to sleep it hurts so bad.

As I sit here this morning, it’s not feeling any better. I think I’m broken.

Which is why, I’m going to be like Mrs. Duggar, and just get myself totally made over with robotic parts. Because clearly, that is the only way all that Duggar business is possible! I may start rusting after awhile but at least I won’t feel the pain!

August 8, 2011

The FUN room

Now you may have ascertained from reading this blog that I am not the fanciest, neatest, house-decoratiest person around. I don’t have a knack for it, I can’t afford expensive things, but one day when I can I am gonna pay someone to make my house fancy.

Nevertheless, I do LOVE my house, and there are a few things in it that I really love. One of them is, of course, my Granite Transformations Kitchen and the floor my wonderful hubby put in it for me.

But off of the kitchen there was a kind of useless room called the “mud room” which through the years, we would once in awhile eat in (it had a lovely little table) but mostly it just ws a resting place for extra trash and boxes and other things we didn’t have room for. Also, off of this room is a teeny-tiny, very ugly bathroom. More like a water closet.

Last fall Bobby and I decided (with some inspiration from Maria) that we would make the mud room into the kids’ art room – a place for all their many books, crayons, markers, paper, play-doh, puzzles, games, etc. So after Christmas we took out Christmas $$ and went to IKEA and bought a bunch of the Expedit shelving. We turned our useless room into a very useful room!

We were looking to get rid of our old chalkboard/easel so a couple of weeks I sent Bobby out to Home Depot to see if he could get a dry erase board cut to fit on our bathroom door, which is right behind the desk you see in the picture. And he did SO much better than that!! Turns out they now have Dry Erase PAINT for walls and doors! As well as Chalkboard paint! So Bobby purchased one can of each kind and now we have the coolest bathroom door EVAH.

dryerase door — Front of door - dry erase

chalkboarddoor — Chalkboard on the inside!

I LOVE it and so do the kids! They have had so much fun coloring on both sides this weekend!

A bathroom door you can WRITE on – do you think I’m in danger of becoming a FUN MOM??