We Finally Did It!

I feel like we have been talking about taking the wall out between our living room and dining room since we moved in here 4 years ago.  Well we finally did it and here's the proof...

Well I almost freaked out because the guys got here to do the work while I was still in bed and I was afraid I wouldn't get a before picture!  They had already taken the moulding down but this is good enough.

9:00 am.

 Right side almost gone.

10:00am

Right and left almost gone.

12:00 pm

It took me forever to clean all the dust off of everything and put my life back together.  

Twelve hours later.  It was a loooong day.

12:00 am.

Somebody got new dining room chairs.  Woop woop! My hubby put them together for me at 1am. He's amazing. There is another guy coming tomorrow to sheet rock the beam on the ceiling and the spaces where the wall was.  I have so much decorating to do.  New chandelier is in the mail. 

 This is the view from the front door.  The room looks sooo much bigger! 

We decided to take all of the chair rail down and the stripes are going and the blue that I just did.

View from kitchen in to living room.

All of the things that were hanging on the walls.  I don't know what to do with it all!

So now we are finally talking paint colors because that will be our next step this weekend.  We have yet to paint the mantel like I said we were going to do because we want to make sure it will look good with whichever color we choose.

It's 2:28 am. I am exhausted and my feet are throbbing so I'm headed to bed.   Thanks for checking in!

When You Know, You Know

If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me when Aidan was younger that he was going to be a busy boy, I'd be rich.   I think for a long time I was in denial.  I had every excuse in the book.  He's a boy.  He's got more personality than most kids.  He'll get past this stage.  This is how perfection acts.  Well I give up. My boy is BUSY.  I don't really even know if busy is the word.  The boy is in to EVERYTHING. There is not a minute in the day that if I am not watching him while he is awake he won't destroy something.  For example:  I'll go easy on ya here in the beginning...

If I fold a load of laundry and I go to put some away, he has destroyed the pile by the time I come back for more. 

If I tell him to go to the bathroom and blow his nose, by the time I get in there he has taken the roll of toilet paper and somehow managed to plug every drain in the facility. There are pieces of toilet paper all over the house for DAYS following. 

I thought Aidan really liked yogurt. For the past 6 months I have been buying him organic raspberry yogurt and he eats like three at a time. So I thought. I have recently discovered he eats one and paints on the side of the entertainment center with the other two. Do you know how long it takes to SCRAPE weeks old yogurt off of a wood entertainment center?

A few weeks ago, Adam and I decided we would tag team wash our cars.  The radio was blaring, vacuums were buzzing, Windex was flying and we were making serious progress.  We thought Aidan was sitting in the front seat behaving.  Why? Why would we think that? He had managed to somehow finagle my brothers shed key off our key hanger and stick it in my ignition.  $300 later I have a new ignition.


Aidan has seen me feed the cats and change their litter on numerous occasions.  The last time I went to change the little box I stopped when I saw someone had already cleaned it out.  Totally out of character for Adam but I thought "it could happen."  Last time I went to feed the cats, I did my usual routine and stuck my hand in the bag, felt around for the scoop and tossed some food in to the bowl. Except it wasn't food. Aidan had scooped all the cat litter and it contents in to the cat food bag.  I found myself trying to sift the cat litter out of the food with my All Clad strainer before I finally said a four letter word and just chucked it.

I let Aidan nap in our bed and I took the opportunity to cuddle up next to him while he couldn't move and just breathe him in.  Because I do love him so.  Somewhere in between me going off to dream land and Adam coming home from the Dr. Aidan managed to wake up, slither out of my bed, take the cat's water and baby powder and create the perfect paste in which he spread all over our bathroom.  It hardened.  Then he took my bronzer, which consists of small, medium and large balls in the loveliest of pink, brown and gold tones and dumped it on the new bath mat and stomped on them.  

Do you get the picture?  He's not just busy, he is the busiest.  Sometimes I think I am going to loose my mind and most days I forget to pee and my friendships are all suffering.  But don't think I'm complaining. Sure I wish it was easier but even when he is doing something wrong, when I see that sweet smile everyday and when he is calm enough to stop and hug my leg or tell me he loves me, I forget about scraping the yogurt and I really feel blessed to have this job.  It's the hardest job I'll ever love and I wouldn't change a thing about my busy boy.

Photog Frenzy

I went to bed  playing with my camera today and I woke up and started taking pictures.  Poor Aidan will be lucky if he doesn't see flash spots for the rest of his life.  It's amazing how clear my pictures are now!  I love my camera.  I think the best way right now to try to figure it out is to just take a ton of pictures so that's what I am going to do.  When I stumble upon an extra $400 I will take the camera class down the street.  It might be a while!

Spike.  I mean isn't that the cutest little kitty ever!

Aidan

Aidan wearing Adam's sunglasses.

Hydrangeas (near death)

I started taking pics of little things in my house just to see the clarity.  Someone needs to shine her silver.

More hydrangeas.

My antique seltzer bottle. At least that's what I think it's called.

One of our cat's, Ruby. I cannot believe I caught her with her tongue out.

I have no idea how I got this picture to look this way though so I can't reproduce it. 

I am having so much fun!

Kelly's Korner-Ideas For Kids

This week for Show Us Your Life at Kelly's Korner we are swapping activity ideas for kids.   I may take the time to read everyone entries because I am always looking for new things to do with Aidan.   I am probably one of the worst at entertaining my child.  I try my best to incorporate activities for him in to things I have to do around the house.  We also have memberships to everywhere possible for kids to go in the city.  Here is a laundry list of things I do to keep my child busy. 

We have a huge art box.  It's packed with markers, construction paper, kid safe scissors, crayons, finger paint...you name it, it's in there.  When I need to pay bills online or talk on the phone for a few minutes or just need some quiet time.  I sit a few feet from Aidan and take out the art box and let him go to town. 

Water is our best friend. I thought about spending the money on a water table but then I thought I can get just as much use out of a sprinkler.  We let Aidan play with the hose and the sprinkler a lot.  We also will fill up a bucket and let him take a paint brush and "paint" the house.  The brick gets dark and he thinks he is a painter.  He's allowed to spray the cars and anything else he can reach with the hose.  We also have a baby pool.  We spend a lot of time at the splash park.

Side walk chalk. Enough said.

When I am doing laundry, I let him sort clothes with me and we can work on our colors.  He has to say every color out loud.  He gets to press the buttons to start the machine too.  If you saw our pile of laundry, sometimes this takes up 30 minutes of our day.

(For Charlotteans) We frequent Monkey Joe's and Discovery Place and Imaginon.  Monkey Joes' has discounted days and parents are always free.  We have a discounted Discovery Place (children's museum) membership because they were under construction for so long.  Imaginon has free story time and lots for kids to do and it's all free.  There is also a kids movie at AMC Carolina Pavilion at 10am on Tuesday mornings.

I let him participate in cooking as much as possible. He is so curious. I just pull up the kitchen stool and give him little things to do.  If I am doing something he can't help with, I just give him a small mixing bowl with water, a little flour in it and a spoon and he's cookin' away. 

If you are looking for activities that cost a little bit, We have done swim lessons, gym classes, and he is going to an all boys camp at the YMCA this summer.  The Y is great. We try to avoid the pool because it's nuts but their other programs are great.

We take walks and let him burn energy.  We walk on the sidewalk and he runs about 10 feet in front of us.  Adam and I get to catch up on each others day and he gets to run wild.

Our local Parks and Rec department has activities at neighborhood parks that cost $5 and under and are a lot of fun. Most cities do this.   We have done a teddy bear lunch and lots of nature walks.  Lunch is included (the $5).

The hubby has friends that live in the country on lots of land with lots of farm animals and we love to take him there and let him play with the animals.  He gets to ride horses and pick eggs from chickens and chase baby calves. It's great.  I am sure there are farms that let you come and do this for free. It's so educational.

We have a park near our airport at the end of the runway and he loves to go there and see the planes take off and land.  We also drive right to the end of our street and watch the train pass by.  He loves it.

I guess that's about it. I am racking my brain trying to think of things we do to keep him busy and while I feel like we always have something to do I would love more things to do.  I do also love a good rainy day and a Disney movie on the couch.

Look forward to reading the other entries to get ideas.

Happy Friday to you all! xoxo

The Life and Times of Spike Jones Harvey

Don't even ask where I came up with that name.

Our little Spike has been such a wonderful addition to our family.  

He is a little curious.

There is a good chance he has been in this washing machine before and I just don't know about it.

Octopus Cookies

In case you haven't heard, Aidan has a little bit of extra energy to burn these days and it's like 100 degrees here.  I have been looking for things for us to do inside so we don't burn up and turn in to a pile of dust. 

I have a million and one cookie cutters that I bought to use for Candace's baby shower and today I had Aidan pick an animal he wanted to use and we could make cookies.   An octopus it was.  Now a photo montage of our cookie making day...

Believe it or not I do actually typically make my sugar cookies from scratch but I already had this mix for emergencies so we just used it.   Aidan poured all of the ingredients in to the bowl and stirred it all up.

We called in the muscle man to roll out the dough for us.

My little baker.  He has flour all over his face.  He had a great time.  I loved hearing him say "Mommy, I  helping." Over and over and over.  He really enjoyed it.

I did not realize we were half naked baking until I took this picture.  When you are potting training sometimes underwear are optional. Spike wanted a piece of the action too.  He just loves being around his BFF Aidan. Woah my kitchen was a mess! At least we had fun.

Octopus Cookies ready to be frosted.

I used the neon food coloring gel to die vanilla frosting purple.  Yes, that's right our octopus are purple.  My fav color.

Our finished product. I had everything we needed at home to make this. I didn't spend a penny!  In the future I would probably buy different candy for the eyes but I already had these M&M's and I didn't feel like dragging Aidan out in the heat so we used them.  He loves the cookies.  I wish I could eat one but he has already promised them all to his grandpa. 

We just want to ask everyone to say a prayer for the octopus cookies that are no longer with us.

We lost about 6 cookies in the process because of my bad spatula skills.

Their cute huh?

P.S. Shout out to one of our besties Michael Caulder.  It's his birthday today. Mike is like a member of the family.  We love him dearly and wish him many more wonderful birthdays to come! Love you Uncle Mike!

Conversations With a Three Year Old

Adam, Aidan and I were in the car this week and we were chatting, driving along and before we knew it we were coming up on a yellow light going 45 MPH and Adam was forced to slam on the brakes so we didn't run the light.  From the backseat we hear this

Aidan: Daddy, you need to slow down. 

Adam:  Sorry bud. You are right.

Aidan: I know Daddy.