Chairs & Table a la paint!

For those of you who saw this on facebook, forgive the repeat. But I wanted to show my dining set transformation!!!!! This is a solid wood dining table and chairs we graciously received 3 years ago but I wasn't quite sure how to make it match my style....the following pictures show the transformation.

First there was A LOT of sanding. The top had varnish and a wood-grain layer that needed to be thoroughly sanded off.

Next I experimented with different layers of paint, first primer, then yellow, then bits of white and gray on top of the yellow. The yellow I mixed myself by buying inexpensive Rustoleum pints of paint and then getting it to a color a liked. I used oil paint which is stinky and a royal pain to clean out of your brush but it is worth it because it dries verrrrrrrrry hard.

In the meantime I started hand scuffing the chairs after unscrewing the chair bottoms. The chairs were all sprayed with primer and then hand painted with a nice thick coat of solid gray.

I love this fabric!!!! After having well loved (read: stained) cotton chair bottoms, I was ready for something much more durable. Enter the best thing on the planet: LAMINATED COTTON. Fun prints. Thinner than oil cloth. Wipes off like a dream. Run to fabric.com to get some. No food is too penetrating for this bad boy. It all wipes off lickety-split. Did I mention that I love this? And, Hello?! It's Amy Butler!

After I did all of my yellow and white layers, I put a coat of gray over the table top, and darker gray on the legs. The top has flecks of colors poking through and the legs are solid. The nice thing is, now with the paint, I was able to appreciate the woods detail features, such as this, more.

The backs of the 6 chairs took quite a while to paint. Every time I looked at them at a new angle I'd find a spot I missed. If you turned them upside down you'd probably find some more spots. But as it is they look pretty good.

Voila`!

My ($17!) New Best Friend

Can I just tell you that for a good 2 months of my life, my freetime and mental space was filled with what kind of vacuum to buy?

This is an important decision. Second to deciding who to marry!

The saga starts here: My 4 year old vacuum has not been holding up too well. It does the big jobs but what I really needed was a quicky vacuum I could boogey with every day. You see- my kitchen is carpeted. And I have 2 small children who get food on the floor after every meal. Cheerios. Rice. Pasta. Orange bits. Apple bits. Bread crusts/crumbs. My trusty previous friend was not holding up to the daily drama.

Had I done this post earlier, I would have put up a poll asking everyone's opinion. Such was the quandary I was in.

First I needed convenience. I steered over to the cordless, rechargeable vacuums. Shark was first on the list. It was portable but required charging time after every use. Plus it's full size head might not fit under my counters well or inbetween my pedestal table legs. Did I really want to spend $70 on a so-so product?

While I was looking at cordless, this little Electrolux number caught my eye one day at Target. I loved its modern orange color and sleek design. If it did the job I was willing to pay the $100. I coveted this.

On a side note, part of my research included online reviews (which weren't helpful) and browsing at Costco, Target and Walmart every time I went in. I became quite the vacuum nerd.

My husband brought up the point that perhaps we just wanted a $60 regular vacuum that we can run into the ground. I was all for that idea until I saw how large their base-heads were. No way those would fit into my little crevices. No way I would want to lug that beast out 2-3 times a day either. Let alone daily.

But what about bagless? I wouldn't have to buy any more bags and could dump the junk into the garbage. I had heard about how dirty those were.."it releases the dirt!" mainly from Oreck infomercials whose bags trap that dirt. Speaking of Oreck maybe that was the vacuum for me. Costco was carrying one that had a mini shoulder vacuum plus the full sized plus a year's supply of bags! $200-300 later and I would be all set. Or would I? I briefly considered that option. I even looked into restaurant grade "hokeys"- all mechanical, not electrical at all. They didn't hold my attention for long.

Then on one late evening when the whole house was asleep and I needed something from Wal-Mart (the only store open) I perused the vacuum section yet again at 10:30 pm. I searched high. I searched low. I studied every specimen. And then I found...THE ONE We fell in love. My beautiful, blue, corded Eureka stick vacuum. $17 later and the rest is history. It is a match made in heaven (as long I don't vacuum up popcorn). Two months later and it is still a thriving relationship. I didn't believe it could be true- the cheapest was the best?! But it is everything I need: lightweight, small head to maneuver between small spaces, corded so I never have to recharge it, disposable cup that easily dumps out. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Happy SIGH.

Now my next research item is finding the perfect pet for our family. I feel like we need to be on one of those shows with an expert. This one could take a while. I'm not in any hurry. It could be a year, but mainly I'm interested in good dog breeds that do well with small children and are a right fit for our family. The search is ON!

Going Local

(not loco!)

I don't know if it has been the increase in media attention or my own personal feelings or both but in the last year I have made more changes in where we get our food than in the previous 8 years I've lived here.

My first step was buying beef and pork locally. Last September I went to a fruit stand that had grass fed beef and fresh pork. Turns out the actual farm was just down the road. I called the number and voila! I soon had Kirk"the-meat-man" to buy from. I love how fresh it is and the prices are comparable to Winco meat! The beef is incredibly lean and justs tastes healthier. I have yet to find quality chicken at a price I love...still working on that one.

The next two steps have occurred in the last week. I just found fresh milk from a farm that is very close to my house. I have never been a milk drinker but I must say this milk is absolutely DELICIOUS. Paula, my new milk woman, talked about how it will stay good for 3 weeks and she has had customers tell her they have to work at souring the milk if they are trying to make buttermilk etc. It has all of the original enzymes and the cream- which I need to figure out how to skim and make butter or something (...baby steps..) Mira loves it too. She totes around a little bottle drinking it which is pretty adorable. Calvin isn't used to drinking milk so I offer him a small glass at every meal to warm him up to the idea. What can I say- I trained my kids to love water. As of right now we have a giant glass jar- looks like one of those deli pickle jars- filled with milk in the back of our fridge. Come on over and try a glass!

Finally, I joined a farm CSA (community supported agriculture) where we'll get fresh vegetables every week. I like the one I joined because they let you pick which vegetables you want instead of just making up a box for you. For those of you who have never heard of this- here is how it works. I pay a membership fee for the summer. I chose a small share which allots me 6 vegetables a week. A pound of carrots or bundle of chard will count as a vegetable. Their season lasts from June-October. It will even out to about $15 a week. We will still buy some fruit but as far as veggies this will be it. I was so excited to eat the radish and chard today. My kids loved the fresh carrots too. I think this will get our family to eat more veggies. I feel good about the quality of them too.

I'm experimenting with some other things like soaking my grains before I cook them. It is all a process. Some of these things I've been thinking about for a while but never had the know-how/guts/perceived funds to move forward.

One more thing: I forgot to add that I'm getting eggs from my sis-in-law's (hereby known as Lindsay) co-worker. They are fresh, they are free range and they are delicious. They vary in size (some are huge!) and color (white or brown) and are $3 a dozen. We go through a good 2 dozen a week. Egg-central!

If any of you are interested in my contacts I'd be happy to share them.

Happy vegging!

Show and Tell

Hey everybody!

How've you been?

We've just been hanging around.

Carving Bob-the-Builder pumpkins.

Wrestling each other in spy glasses.

Dollin' it up at gymnastic class.

Hammin' it up on our bikes.

Or reading a book with Dad.

Ya know, the usual.

The holidays passed by way too fast.

This is what we ate at Thanksgiving. Jealous? It was delicioso.

This is our family Halloween pic. As you can see we all coordinated for the event (not). But we had a lot of fun. Calvin still wears his cowboy vest all the time.

The kids are great friends. They can be seen conspiring in a number of things as shown here. Climbing into the dog's bed, playing walking-the-dog, busting into the apple chips. Again, the usual. Not shown is a picture of them both sitting in cooking pots. One of their favorite pre-dinner activities.

Christmas was cold and fun in Idaho and Utah. Too many fun memories to pick just one. We got to see all of our families and had a wonderful time. And we had clear roads the whole time!

SO-- Happy 2010!!!!

See if this one rings a bell:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

They're the world's most fearsome fighting team!

They're heroes in a half-shell and they're green!

When the evil Shredder attacks,

These turtle shells don't cut him no slack!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Splinter taught them to be ninja teens!

Leonardo leads and Donatello builds machines!

Raphael is cool but rude, Michaelangelo is a part-y dude!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Heroes in a half-shell,

TURTLE POWER!

Yes. I do know the whole theme song to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It may not be resume worthy, but it definitely puts me in a cool zone with certain 3 year old boys.

And in case you're wondering, my son is "Michaelangelo the Party Dude"- he even had me write it on his cup at Thanksgiving. Sometimes I'm Splinter but usually I'm April. Sean is usually "Raphael, cool but rude" The dog is usually Shredder, sometimes RockSteady or BeBop. We're all caught up on the names because I rented a season on DVD once. We'd let Calvin watch it for 10-15 minutes a day for a few days, but then quickly noticed that he wanted to play-fight a lot more. A little too much for my taste. So TMNT got the plug.

But I still get a lot of requests to sing the theme song while driving around town. And I do it. Repeatedly. And when we go on walks and see a sewer cover, Calvin shouts, very excitedly: "Look Mama! A TURTLE LID!" Once we even counted all the turtle lids we saw on a walk. Sometimes the small hose-sized ones even count. He also has a green puffy down vest that is appropriately named his turtle vest.

I love it. The blissful playfulness of childhood.

p.s. I've had considerably less time to post, but we do still exist and love to keep in touch. Don't give up on our blog yet!

September...in review, a little late

Have you ever seen a cuter 1st birthday girl? I think not.

On September 2nd, Mira had her FIRST birthday! Happy first birthday sweet heart! We invited some friends over for dinner and had a little celebration. She wore her party dress and had to bear crawl around in it. Then she smeared her cake around and only took a tiny nibble while we all drooled over its chocolate-raspberry-ganache yumminess.

She is the happiest baby ever and I am grateful everyday to have her in our lives.

On Labor Day we canned peaches for the FIRST time! We love working hard on 3-day weekends. It always gives us a sense of accomplishment. I was quite apprehensive about canning because I'd never done it before but it actually was pretty easy and fun, and of course the results are yummy!

Mira started to walk!

And then she started to climb.

And I knew my sleepy newborn days were far behind.

All I could do was wildly stare.

And exclaim, "Mira how did you get on that chair?!"

She turned to me and smiled,

As if to say, "Don't you know that I'm a little bit wild?"

How could I argue with that?

So I gave her head a pat-pat.

And grabbed my camera just in time!

Somewhere in the middle of all this we had our 7th anniversary!

I am so lucky to be married to such an awesome man.

Especially one who can sport a mullet wig and handle-bar mustache so well. This was our last Halloween before we had kids and we had fun scouting out the thrift stores for our costumes. I was supposed to be a gypsy but could have passed for a downtown Eugene hippie. Happy Anniversary sweetie! Feels like we just got married yesterday... Here's to 77 more years!

Sean's softball team also wrapped up their fall season. This has become one of our favorite summer activities, going to the ball field with the other moms and kids to watch our husbands/daddies play ball. And they ended their last game with a win! Yay!

We got our FIRST dog! I haven't mentioned that we've had a dog for the last 4 months. We inherited from Sean's parents. His name is Archie. He is an 11 year old Boston Terrier. The kids love him to death.

Archie was Mira's first word after mama and dada. We have the best video of her perfectly saying "Ahh-chee" and patting him on the head. Sometimes he'll try to sneak into Calvin's room to sleep. One night, this is how they both went to bed...and then we promptly put him back in the laundry room after Calvin was asleep.

Last but not least, on the last day of the month, September 30th, Calvin got his FIRST stitches, after he rode his bike off the front steps...with no helmet.

Yes that is real blood on his face. Let me tell you it was drama.

He was bawling.

I was bawling.

Every time I looked at his cut I would cry again.

His forehead was split wide open.

I was not a calm mommy.

But he was very brave for his 6 stitches (well, with me and two other nurses holding him down and him screaming)

and afterward I realized I was glad that we at least made it to 3 years old before experiencing head trauma like this.

I have to remember that he is his father's son so there may be many more dare-devil incidences like this to come. But it all ended well, complete with the "nee-nah" (fire engine) coming to our house and wrapping up his head. Since fire engines are his favorite thing in the world, it was the icing to a too-exciting day.

(Don't even ask about the leak in our front lawn that was spouting 2,900 gallons of H20 a day into the lawn)

The month was also filled with lots of rides in the laundry baskets, especially as Mira perfected her ability to climb in and out of them.

I'll forever remember the morning I played a kids' version of "Thriller" and they danced their little hearts out. Kids have natural rhythm.

Cal says way too many cute things every day for me to remember them all. Sometimes he'll tell me out of the blue- "Mama you look pretty!" My current favorite is when he calls the air conditioner the air confreshener.

Life is good.

Happy Halloween!

This one's for the DC-Team

Last week, Calvin had to say good bye to one of his best friends. It was a sad day for us all.

These two had the click factor from day one. People would comment on how cute they were, giving hugs and playing together. They both had a love of sports, just like their dads who played softball together. At our houses, they each would talk about the other one frequently.

See how cute they are each holding their respective sport balls? I didn't even tell them to do this, this is just how they are together.

But I think their relationship can be best described with this photo story from our last hike.

Friendships like this don't come around every day.

Wisdom Bites

Whoever said that teething doesn't hurt was wrong.

They obviously never crowned their wisdom teeth.

Cuz, let me tell you- it stinkin' hurts!

And not just a wussy hurt: it hurts like you can't sleep in the middle of the night because your jaw is throbbing with pain.

That kind of hurt.

I, unlike those expert baby book authors that indicate babies are just being babies when they're teething, have been fortunate enough to experience this wonderful wisdom pain. It first started right after my first pregnancy and comes and goes. Usually I feel nothing, but periodically they do, well, hurt.

I am also fortunate enough (can you feel the sarcasm oozing?) to have room for these babies which is why they haven't been pulled yet. Theoretically I could go get them pulled but then I would just be paying for pain and I don't see any sense in that.

The silver lining and the wisdom (pun intended) in all of this is that experiencing this pain has given me more compassion when my kids are teething. I know how they feel. I still may not always know what to do, but I know their pain is real baby, their pain is real.

And the winner is...

How is it, that in a house filled with toys, that some simple sticks and mud out-trumps them all?

Would somebody please explain why we even bother buying toys? I guess I should've figured this out before I went to Target for their birthday presents.

Could've saved some serious cash.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll just be out back getting another stick off the tree for my kid. Oh, no, he broke it?

No problem, we've got about a thousand more.

And if we run out for some strange reason, we've got enough dirt to play in until his fingernails turn permanently black.

The cost for these gems?

$0.

The best things in life really are free.

Campaign for Less Pictures

This won't be nearly as witty as I would hope because I'm really tired.

But---what do I do with all these dang pictures that I take?!?!

My Picasa album is filled to the gills, organized by day of all my pictures, most containing my kids in various "must capture" moments...blueberry covered faces, climbing on the fireplace, in a favorite outfit, smiling so cute...whatever...you name it. And as I am 2 YEARS (TWO years people!) behind on printing and placing all these pictures in albums, I've started wondering

"why do I even have these many pictures?" I have more pictures of my kids' short lives than of my childhood combined.

Who is going to have time to look at all these pictures, let alone catalog and scrapbook them?
I survived my full and happy life with only a handful of baby pics of myself, enough to know what I looked like & that my mom took me to the portrait studio with the orangey rug for me to rest on...and you know what? I'm good. I don't really need much more to tell me about myself as a kid.

Ok, maybe a select few home videos would have been fun to hear my voice and personality, and maybe a few entries in the baby book (I was the 5th kid, I got handed an empty book for me to fill out) about my favorite food and color-- and then really, I would be done. I would read/watch them, smile and think "that's nice," maybe associate a trait or two with one of my kids, and be done with the whole thing. If that's all my kids need then I have well exceeded these demands. I think we have 2 hours of home video just from Calvin's first 10 months alone!

This all being said, I am on a slow and steady race to take LESS pictures, if I take a video I try to limit it to LESS time, like 20 s. It is all part of my plan so I can actually get caught up, because as my friend April said, I need a system. And she is right, I am totally lacking a system. I think I'll do something about it, someday. But I'm not really sure what, so, uh, that is the end of my rant.

p.s. the silver lining is that blogging helps me feel like I'm "publishing" my pictures so they don't all go to waste, so here are a selected few for your viewing pleasure:

This makes me think of dreamy childhood summer days

Going down the slide on Calvin's 3rd birthday!

Our tomatoes have taken over our front porch, literally

Our sweet almost 1 year old in her party dress!