Our Bedroom

Our room has been a big question mark in my mind pretty much since we moved in, but since we were on a roll with bedrooms, I decided to give it another try and figure out some way to define this space a little better.  

Very plain before, although that bench is fairly new, and we just bought the headboard last year.  Imagine what this room looked like before that! 

We have a king sized bed with enough room on either side for a nightstand, but not much else.  The shape of our headboard has always stumped me as to what should go above the bed.  It seems like a sunburst mirror was about our only choice- and there are already so many squares in the room, I didn't want to add anything else square.  Because of the tray ceiling, which already has two layers of crown molding, I didn't want to do a wall treatment that would take away from the style of the ceiling, like a shiplap wall or even board and batten.  So, after literally two years of looking for ideas on Pinterest and in other people's homes, I finally found something that I knew would work- panels that are framed out and painted a few shades darker than the rest of the room.  

So lovely!

I love light and bright in all the rooms in our house, but this room really needed some dimension, plus we already have paint that is two shades darker than most of the house from the music room.  All we needed to do was slap up some molding, paint, and call it good!

Adam has his daddy's happy-helper heart, and he helped me tape up the panels one evening.  

And once the weekend came, Jason and I got to work.

The weather was nice that Saturday, so we had lots of neighborhood kids popping in and out of the house.  We just put them to work, too.  

 The younger the child, the happier they are to help, it seems.  

 After the panels were all painted, it seemed a lot easier to envision what would go above the bed.  And not too long later, I found it!  

 The mirror is a really cool stamped foil and glass tile piece, and it was on clearance.  I like decorating spaces, but I really, really like a good deal.  I love it when I get both!  The curtains (that I bought three years ago) have the same silver circle pattern in them.  Serendipity!

All in all, the room is feeling much more complete these days.  

Before- 

And after- those painted panels make such a nice difference, and Jason admires his handy work every time he walks into the room.  It's so nice to walk into a room and feel like it's complete, rather than walking in and wondering when you're ever going to get around to it.

A panoramic view of the room today- 

 The view from the door- 

It's really hard to get the angles and dimensions right in these pictures.  There is definitely room for a plant or basket on either side of the bed (I found the most beautiful live fiddle fig the other day but left it behind due to the price tag), and another plant on the dresser, and possibly a rug, or some bigger night stands, but for now, I'm calling this room done.  Because it's never really enough, right cupcake?

1,500 Stories

Keeping it real- the view from my computer desk, complete with no makeup, undone hair, and a sunroom exploding with perler beads and kitchen stuff while the kids play and nap around me as I type.

I've been slowly chipping away at this family history of ours for over 10 years now.  This is my 1,500th post.  It's hard to believe that there have been that many stories to tell, but as I look over the blog and remember all of the little moments of motherhood and the big milestones of life, I'm so grateful that this habit stuck around.  It's a great journey that our family is on, and it makes me so happy to think that someday I'll have it all here to reflect on.

It's probably time to give the annual disclaimer of the blog- this is a slice of our life, not the whole pie.  This is a carefully curated compilation of many of our happiest moments and some of our sad ones.  It's the trials overcome and our triumphs that I share.  I don't generally sit down to blog on the days when there are doors slammed or angry silence or parenting frustrations that we need to work through. I share some of the lessons we've learned, but for every one that we've figured out we've got a dozen more that we're still working on.  Thank goodness life is long.  There is so much learning left to do.

And the content of the blog will surely continue to change over time.  The -isms are decreasing as the kids are learning more about how things really are.  I surely won't be blogging about puberty or other huge changes that are on the horizon.  I have a feeling that my kids are eventually going to figure out that Jason and I aren't perfect (I'm pretty sure at least 3 of them already know that disappointing fact).  All of the realities of life mean that this blog will continue to hold the highlights, but not the whole picture of our family life.

But I will keep trying to record their happiest childhood memories.  I'll keep sharing our journey and memories from my childhood and stories from married life before the blog was around.  And hopefully it will continue to be a book that my kids will want to read.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled life updates.  :)

Boys Room

The boys room was the first one finished of the three updates we've been working on.  They were in dire need of some kind of organization for all of their Legos, light sabers, and Lion Guard toys.  On his way home from Indiana recently, Jason stopped by both Ikeas in Chicago and got a desk, chairs, and some lighting to make this room feel a bit more intentional and functional. 

I love that Adam's feet still dangle in these chairs.  He's growing up way too fast!

 We call their awesome new light fixture the Death Star.  It's ridiculously fun to open and close. 

A perfect Star Wars light!

You can probably guess how often the desk is actually this clean... 

Ahh, the details... like a home for light sabers- 

a stack of Calvin and Hobbes books (quite possibly the most read books in the house)

 and a home for my Anamalz!  A few of them anyway.  

The Legos are organized by color in the drawers now.  I could spend hours organizing Legos... the minifigures are the most satisfying.  

Overall the boys room is much more functional now.  There are always Legos on the floor and on the desk and creations being erected, and that means this room is definitely a happy place for the boys.  

And now!  All about brothers... 

Adam and Noah are best buddies.  The real joy of having brothers and sisters to choose from is that the kids are constantly mixing up their playmate dynamics.  Depending on what mood they're in, the boys will wrestle around together while the girls are painting nails, the big kids will be writing out the script to a play while the little kids are building with magnatiles, or I can find Adam by himself playing with Legos, reading a book or doing origami while Noah takes a nap.  It's all about mixing it up around here.

Adam generally doesn't have a problem with Noah touching his stuff, and Noah is generally too young to care that he owns only a fraction of the stuff in their room.  Noah does have a problem with people grabbing things out of his hands though, and will emphatically declare "don't snatch!" if needed.  He's getting to be a bit more of a three-year-old stinker- throwing things, bonking on the head, or pretending to whack someone good and hard with a light saber.  And he thinks he's hilarious.

The boys are both significantly more afraid of the dark than the girls are, and they often ask if they can have a sleepover together.  Last week I found them bunked up together in Adam's bed (a risky move since Noah is just learning to not wear a diaper at night).  They were so cute- really, they are such happy brothers.  Adam was so excited three years ago when he found out that he was going to be getting a little brother, and he's done a great job of showing Noah the way ever since.  

We went to the jumping place last week.  Noah and Adam buddied up, and for almost the whole time we were there Adam was holding Noah by the wrist to make sure that they wouldn't get separated.  He's always willing to help Noah get buckled up, get his shoes on, or zip up his coat (although Noah has started insisting on doing most of these things himself, because that's what big boys do).  

Jason doesn't have any brothers, so I think it's satisfying for him to see his boys doing things together that he never could do (although I know he did plenty of boy things with his sisters).  Things like light saber fighting, laughing at each other's bodily functions, and ganging up on the girls together.

When Jason is gone, Adam takes his role as "man of the house" very seriously.  Most Sundays Jason is gone before the rest of us get up, and Adam does a good job of getting himself ready then helping Noah, too.  It makes me so happy to see these little acts of service. 

Adam is a lot like Calvin- loves to create and imagine and lives and play deep in a world of his own.  Noah is still my little snuggle buddy, but I can see bits of my baby melting away every day.  I've got two big boys now!

Girls Room

Last fall we started the kids bedroom swap.  Noah was outgrowing his crib and Leah and Emma were asking to share a fancy room.  Six months later, I think I'm calling the bedrooms done... for now.  The girls room is probably my favorite.  It's been such a long time coming, but it turned out that having the girls share a room was the trick- it was much easier to put together one over-the-top fancy girls room than two separate (and inevitably always comparing to each other) rooms.  And it makes me happy that they are happy to share (for now).  They chat and giggle and sing far later into the night than they should, but that means it's a very happy, girly room. 

Leah's bed- 

Emma's bed- 

The view from the beds- 

The girls really wanted canopies- but not sheer netting and not the hook-from-the-ceiling kind.  It took me a while to figure out what to do, but I love these white cornices that Jason built.  My same talented friend that helped me re-upholster my rocking chair helped me figure out how to sew together the yards and yards and yards of pink satin to create a private space for each of them to wrap around themselves whenever they feel the need.  

A panoramic of the room.  Everything fits just right, without much room to spare.  The girls refused to update their bedspreads, so I tried to go as light and simple on the rest of the decor as possible.  

Just about everything is mirrored in the room, right down to their wall decor.  Still, I asked the girls whose side of the room they like better, and they both said, "hers!"  The grass is always greener... the canopy is always silkier??

I'm happy Leah's baptism picture finally has a place on the wall.  

 And Emma's frame holds one of my favorite pictures of her from Disney World. 

The girls painted the letters themselves, which was actually the catalyst for finally getting the whole room done.

The dresser is my favorite.  The girls and I set out one Saturday morning in the hopes of finding a dresser, lamps, and some wall decor, and we found everything we wanted for a fraction of the cost we were expecting to spend.  They picked out the lamps and the frames and both fell in love with the little glass carousel box in the middle that now holds their most precious treasures.  The three drawers at the top are for coloring supplies and their personal belongings (that don't need to be on display).

I painted this water color one evening at a women's group night.  It ended up being a perfect addition to the room. 

Here's what we started with on the first night that they stayed in the room.  

It's looking much more polished and posh these days, and the girls love it!

And since this is a sisters post, it's as good a place as any to give an update on the sisters.  Leah and Emma really are best friends.  Their personalities compliment each other so well, which makes it easy for them to play and have fun and compromise and occasionally drive each other crazy.  

Leah is the calm, serious, dreamer with a big imagination and very tender heart.  Emma is the crazy, energetic,hilarious performer that has no problem fitting in with the older girls.  Just yesterday Leah had a friend over and they were at a bit of a loss for what to do until Emma joined in and got them chasing after her, then they started acting out the Granny Olympics and the three of them had a great time together.  

Emma is a much older five year old than Leah was, in part because she wants so much to fit in with the older girls (a sentiment I understand completely because I, too, am four years younger than my cool older sister Heather and generally wanted nothing more than to be accepted by her as a child).  

Leah is very patient with Emma, helps her understand important things (like the difference between the letters B and D, or when Mommy's tone of voice really means business!) and sings to her every night before they fall asleep.  

Emma gives Leah confidence (we first noticed this years ago)- she makes the perfect wingman and just makes everything more fun.  Emma holds her own just fine with her big sister and makes Leah laugh more than anyone else (they're giggling next to me while making perler bead creations right now).  They never fight over whose hair accessory is whose or who made what mess in their room, they just co-exist fairly peacefully and seem to see the benefit to being a team.  

I try to remind them often that they will have each other forever- other friends will come and go- but sisters are the best friend you could ask for because they will always be with you.  And so far, they definitely have proven me right- they are best friends.

Another One Bites The Dust

This one seems a bit more anti-climactic than the last one I blogged about a quick six months ago, but it still bears recording that we just paid off another one of those ugly student loans!

This time it feels slightly less exciting because it means that the only monster left ahead of us is the really, really nasty one, but hey!  Our debt snowball is rolling faster, we've got another student loan crossed off the list and that feels pretty amazing.

Also, I'd like to repeat all of the sentiments that I shared the last time around- I know it was worth all that the student loans afforded us, but man, I sure wish we had never needed to take them out in the first place!  But since we did, and since we're knocking them out as quickly as we can, we might as well celebrate each small victory along the way.

That little chart up there has been hanging in our closet for a year now- it's a snapshot of our top five financial goals for the year.  Time to update it again!

Reminder

 

Mornings can be tough around here.  School starts so early- the kids are out the door at 7:35, which means that we have a lot to squeeze into the first 35 minutes of the day (since I refuse to wake anyone up before 7).  The last three minutes are generally the hardest, and I run a checklist monologue that usually sounds something like this one that we had last week-

Okay guys!  It's time to go.  Get your stuff ready.

Adam, put your shoes on.

Leah, do you have your lunchbox?

Just a minute Noah.

Adam, do you have your shoes on?

Emma, I'll help you once the big kids are out the door.

Adam, do you have your book-in-a-baggie?

Okay, Mr. Rob is out there (bless our sweet neighbor who drives the kids to school all winter long).

Adam, TIE your shoes.

Leah, zip up your coat.  There is no point in wearing a coat if it's not zipped up.

Let's go!  Do I need to tell Mr. Rob to go on without you and you can just walk to school?

Let's say a prayer...Adam!  Your shoes are still not tied!  Good grief!  Who watches over you two at school to make sure that you're doing all of the things that you need to do?

Oblivious to the fact that it was a rhetorical question, Adam responded, "Jesus!"

It was a good reminder.  He is watching over all of us, and cheering on our success, especially in the most stressful moments of the day!

It's Never Enough, Cupcake

Once in the early years of our marriage, I had a very vivid dream.  

I was getting ready to check out of a jewelry store.  The cashier told me there was a huge sale going on- everything was something ridiculous like 90% off- so I ran around the store, stuffing my shopping basket full with all of the treasures that I could find (that I didn't even need).

When I got back up to the register, the cashier looked over my unnecessary pile of junk, shook her head sadly and said, "It's just never enough for you, is it cupcake?"

And then I woke up.

That phrase has been used many times in our home over the years.  It's amazing how we can be so content with what we have and what we need, and suddenly our standard shifts and we set our eyes on a new, bigger, better prize.  What we had before is no longer enough, and we're ready to find something new.  

Case in point, we have never had a headboard for our bed.  We've always wanted one, and finally last spring we combined some gift cards and Christmas money and purchased a tufted velvet headboard with a nailhead trim.  It's lovely, and so nice to not have to rest our heads on the wall anymore.  But not long after we got the headboard, I started to thing about the bare wall above the bed, the missing decorative pillows or matching lamps flanking the bed, a plush rug underneath... it's just never enough, is it?  

And so, the lesson I want my kids to know when they read this blog (a lesson that I really do understand but am always surprised by as it manifests itself over and over again) is that happiness doesn't come in the form of things.  There is no amount of stuff that will make you any happier than you are at this exact moment.  We enjoy getting new things, yes, but our happiness levels have everything to do with our attitude and our heart, and not much at all to do with the acquiring of things.  If we're not happy with what we have now, we won't be happy with more. 

I can't count the number of times that I have set my sights on some small home improvement project and convinced myself that it will be life changing (like acquiring that headboard up there).  That each one will become the one last thing that I need to do to put a big fat check mark through our home to-do list and call it done.  But, spoiler alert, not a single one of them has been truly life changing.  Neat, or beautiful, or functional, yes, but not really life changing.  That title is reserved for getting married, graduating with a degree, having babies, moving to a new state... literally life changing.  Throw pillows and wall treatments will never fit that bill.  

I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with tweaking our home to make it a more comfortable, beautiful, functional place to live.  My sweet neighbor friend Erin always says that we are like birds, constantly fluffing the nest.  It is fun to tweak our home as the years go by.  We chance and grow and take our house along with us.  In fact, I've got a few bedroom update posts in the works right now.  

But I do know that there is more to life than acquiring stuff.  I sometimes catch myself running away with the idea of finishing the basement, decking out our bedroom, over-landscaping the backyard or even knocking down walls and adding more windows... and then I realize that soon enough those things will become the old news.  We've lived in this beautiful house for three and a half years, and it's old news now.  I remember being so thrilled when we first moved in because this was the view from my new bathtub.  

Today?  Old news, although I still love it.  

I have been reading The Happiness Project (again) and was struck by this quote- William Butler Yeats said “happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”

This struck me as the answer to my problem- if it's never enough, then how are we happy with what we've got?  It was not just the receiving of the college degree that brought happiness, but the work that went into it along the way.  It's not the having of the home, it's the cultivating of it to be a place that brings comfort and joy and calm and reflects who we are as a family.  It's not just the having of children, but the joy that comes with watching them grow and and learn and become.  It's even the completion of a room so that it looks more like home.  Growth is happiness.  

Flashback to Cuteness

The kids and I spent a cold afternoon looking at old videos from 2013.  

When adorable little Adam looked like this- 

(that's Noah's coat now)

and talked like this, and coughed into his elbow all the time.  

Did I ever blog about his first preschool Christmas concert?  He kept pretending to fall off of the risers, which caused his teachers alarm at first, and then they just ignored him.  Ha!  Jason and I were mortified at the time, and we laugh and laugh about it now.

When Emma looked like this- 

 

 Whoa!!!

When she actually fit into the Cinderella nightgown that she still squeezes into, four years later.  

Always willing to break into song.  

And Leah...

 Oh Leah... this is the best video ever.  We watched it 7 times and just couldn't stop laughing.  What a difference just a few years makes.  

Even the sad videos were cute... Emma was a pretty dramatic two-year-old. 

Noah usually looked like this- 

and almost always sounded like this.  No picture needed. 

It's so hard to believe that these were my babies... this was my life... just a few short years ago.  Lots of love, lots of laughter, and lots of fun! 

And so that we'll have some good laughs again in few years, here they are today, fresh after naps and back home from school- 

and still with plenty to say- 

Facebook-Free February

(Look!  No hand-held devices!)

One of my favorite things about our vacation in January was the chance to unplug from technology.  Even with the option of utilizing wi-fi in the parks, Jason and I chose to get on our phones as little as possible for the sake of being as present as possible (although there was that one afternoon that I was sitting with a sleeping Noah and I quickly pre-registered Emma for kindergarten, but that's just because our town is growing so ridiculously fast that I knew I needed to respond to that email ASAP, lest she end up being assigned to an elementary school 10 miles away, rather than the one that is across the street!).

It was so very refreshing to remember that I am not a slave to the internet.  There will never be enough time in the day to stay on top of all of the email, texts, status updates, and blog posts that are out there- and I only use Facebook!  As fabulous as everyone tells me it is, I've never hopped on the Instagram train for fear that it will double my already distracting screen time.

When we got back from our trip I knew I had a choice to make- continue to ride that tech-free wave or get sucked back into the black hole that can be trying to keep up on social media.  With Jason heading out of town another four times in the upcoming weeks, it seemed easy to slip back into the nasty habit of staying on top of my Facebook feed for the sake of trying to stay connected to adults.  It was a ridiculous waste of time, one that I think every person with any kind of social media account understands, and although I was fully aware of the time-suck, I was still having a hard time cutting myself off.  That's pretty ridiculous because anyone who knows me well knows that I don't even post on Facebook beyond maybe a twice-yearly picture of my family smiling and being cute.  I rarely comment on other people's posts, although I do try to "like" the ones that are worth liking.  It's mostly a spectator sport for me, and a horribly wasteful one at that.

The fascinating thing about Facebook is that it will sort your feed so that the most important posts pop up to the top (having a baby/getting married/got a new job/moving across the country) if you only get on once in a while.  But if you get on multiple times a day, the content digresses incredibly quickly into political rants, pictures of what people are eating, messes kids have made, what the weather is like, as well as a ridiculous number of shared posts or videos or other random diatribes that are never- never- really an uplifting read.  So much of it is just digital junk.

Enter Facebook-Free February.

Nothing like a little alliteration to get me moving.

I've done Facebook fasts many times before, and it was time to do another one.  Starting on February 1st I became hyper-aware of any time I was spending on Facebook.  I moved the app on my phone so I couldn't open it up on auto-pilot.  I allowed myself to check it once a day at most, while sitting at my desktop computer.  I gave myself a five minute time limit- just enough time to read through the highlights but not enough time to start wading through the junk.  I unfollowed a number of "friends" that post too often or too negatively.  I checked out a big stack of books from the library.  I never take my phone upstairs to bed when Jason is home, but when he's gone I have to have it by my side for safety and for the alarm clock.  Having an enticing stack of books by my bed made it much easier to reach for a book instead of my phone once I was in bed for the night.  (FB or no FB, I sleep so much better when my phone is downstairs and on the other side of the house.  It's so nice to truly unplug every night!)

And I kept it up all February long.

I think I got onto FB a total of maybe six times.

And I realized I was missing out on...

NOTHING.

No one died (thank heaven).  No one had a major life milestone that I didn't already know about (my sister-in-law and brother had that beautiful baby Juniper right up there and my sweet friend Rachael's husband hit a huge milestone in grad school, and two close friends found out they were expecting girls, but each one cared enough about me to text me personally and let me know outside of the FB arena).  I still stayed in the loop with upcoming church activities because I go to church every Sunday and talk to people (a great source of information!)  If any mid-week activities popped up online I still heard about them because friends filled me in on the details.

Everything else I just left behind.  And that was okay.

And it was not shocking at all that no one asked me where I went, because know one really knows I'm on FB anyway.  I'm just a creepy blurker (which is what we used to call people who read blogs but never comment.  Now that is just everyone.)

Some people feel really socially connected because of Facebook, but it always leaves me feeling a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out, young children who will read this someday).  I get the feeling that everyone else is doing so well- losing weight or training for Ironman competitions or traveling to the Virgin Islands on a whim or visiting their families or having super fun get-togethers with friends or maintaining stellar relationships with old college friends (which I struggle to do, but am grateful for FB for that reason).  It's just hard to look at so much of the good that is so carefully posted out there and still feel content and happy with my life and the choices we're making (even when they're really good choices!)

But once I stripped away that constant external comparison, I always remember that I AM so happy and content with my life.  I know that.  Life isn't just good, it's great!  I blogged 21 times in February- 3 times as many as in January!- and this little family history that I'm keeping is really so much more important to me than knowing what adjective my semi-friend from FB thinks people will use to describe her or what MLM scheme an old high school friend has decided to start up.

And I become so much more productive.  I think there's a link between my Facebook-free month and the fact that I worked out for at least 30 minutes every single week day in the month of February.  And I checked three major room projects off of our house to-do list, with another one in the works.  That's  a far greater accomplishment than watching another video of silly babies or stupid cats.

I don't know that my kids noticed a difference, or if I was more kind or patient than usual.  There were plenty of other reasons that I was reaching for my phone, but to me there was a marked difference between the mindless FB scrolling and the meaningful text conversations/recipe checking/email responding/Disney cruise countdown checking.  :)  No matter what it was I was doing on my phone though, to my kids it will always just look like I'm on my phone.  Heaven knows what kinds of crutches or vices my kids will have to deal with when they are parents.  As children Jason and I both hated whenever our moms talked on the phone, but now I totally understand the desire to connect with other adults as the days drag on.  However, a distraction is a distraction, and having a FB-free month helped me see that having no screen in the face is always the best choice whenever I'm interacting with my kids.  I'm sure the day isn't too far off that I'll really wish my example to them was even better than it was.  There is so much more I could say on my feelings about screentime for my kids (who also were in need of a bit of de-tox recently), but I'll leave it at that for now.

So, now that we're marching into March, I think it's safe to say that I'm weaned again.  Grateful for the chance to check in on friends and family as needed, but ever aware that social media is a tool that I am in charge of, not one that is in charge of me.  It's all about control and moderation, and I'm grateful to be back in charge again.