Painting

We have big plans for this weekend. We are going to paint the rooms and go furniture shopping. Honestly the rooms look so much even when they are just covered in primer. Here we are getting started.




I figured it would be best to just get it out of the way and let the girls paint a bit. We knew they would do it anyway. It is always better when they do things in front of us, instead of trying to do things in secret. Much cleaner.

After a while Serge's attention wandered and he began to play with the camera. This is not unusual for him. Very cute Babe.



What do you think of the color?

Bye Bye Wall Paper

The wall paper is gone. Look! The wall paper is gone.



Now for the priming. Got to love oil based paint. Look at Serge go. What an adorable man.

Remodel

Well, Serge and I have decided to work on another room. Really two rooms but they are both a part of our bedroom (otherwise know as mom and dad space). We started out with this.



Okay, so this is a little bit after we started. Let me put the wall paper into context for you. The bottom part is forest green striped with gold. The border is antique maps of Pangaea. The top part is forest green snake skin print. I am not sure who made these decorating choices, but there you go.

Serge and I just keep telling ourselves we will get all of the wall paper off eventually. So far we have one wall done.

Dance Recital

Look! We are at a dance recital. The girls were adorable. Nora of course worked very hard to stay with the other girls. Lucia, of course, seemed to have her own routine.

Mom's hats

I have been working on hats for my mom for some time. She has ovarian cancer and is now losing her hair due to the chemo. (Don't worry she is doing great. They were able to remove all of the cancer.) I made five hats in all, but I only have pictures of two. Here are Chase and I doing a bit of modeling. I don't have the other pictures anymore as she already has them. I can't wait to send these to her.



Chase wanted me to say that this is not the hat he would chose to wear. It is not his color or style. Hm. I think he looks cute.

I have also been working on this for myself.





It is a Pi Shawl by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I am completing it with unspun Icelandic Wool from School House Press. I love this yarn. It is a bit tricky to work with at first, because it pulls apart. However, I am finding it very therapeutic because I have to have very steady hands or risk the yarn breaking.

The next day

Another day of really, really low temperatures, so the kids were home again. They were great and well behaved. The fort did the trick. The played all day. There were snacks, cleaning, and Connect Four intermittently as well. Mainly though it was all fort. Here is an adorable photo of the kids sleeping in the fort. They slept there all night. The dog even slept with them. The thing that I get the biggest kick out of is that not only did we create the fort, but the kids decorated and furnished it as well. They crack me up.

Snow Days

A moms guide for Snow Day survival. My lovely husband is working in Orlando, FL this week and our school has closed because of extreme cold temperatures and I had the kids home. So think 48 hours of full on kid time. This is what I did to survive.

First, engage the children in home improvement projects. We are removing some horrible wallpaper from our sitting room.



Second, play games. Get the children to play as many as you can.





Third, when you can't take the noise anymore. The computer. Never let them play for more than an hour though. If you do that, it makes the kids more crazy than the pre computer time. Don't ask me how I know.



Finally, when all else fails, nothing works better than a fort. The kids and I had a great time. We missed daddy but I loved every minute with them.