Hosting Book Club = Motivation

When we bought this house 2 years ago we went crazy painting almost the entire house, stripping wallpaper, getting new carpet put in, putting up brand new light fixtures and fans. By the time we got to the 1/2 bath on our main level we were just burnt out. I had started taking down the wallpaper border but just kind of forgot about it. Funny how things like that can become invisible because you get used to them.

Fast forward to the present.

This month I hosted book club at our home. We read The Emperor of Ocean Park. It was very long, but I liked it & I really love our book club. Anyone is welcome to come & we always have a good time.
I'm not sure why but knowing I was going to be hosting this month seemed to motivate me to get some unfinished projects completed. Which is kind of strange because we have had many people in our home in the past two years.

So, feeling thus inspired I headed to Lowe's in the pouring rain and bought some supplies and FINALLY painted my main level fireplace doors.
They had a gold trim with gold handles that really bothered me. They are now black. Check that off my list. I think it took me 10 minutes, including taping newspaper all around the hearth. 10 minutes vs. 2 years...I think I might have some issues, OR maybe I'm just a busy mother to 3 little boys. I like that reasoning better.

Next on my list the GOLD mirror and GOLD light fixture in the aforementioned 1/2 bath. I spray painted those bad boys silver. I also bought new glass fixtures to update it a little. It now matches my sink. This house seems to have a lot of silver fixtures mixed with gold, & the mix for some reason bothers my brain.
The most time consuming task was stripping the lovely wallpaper border that the previous owner had plastered right onto the drywall. It was basically triple the workload with all the peeling, scraping and re-scraping that needed to be done.

Next painting and then putting it all back together. Since I had to work around kids' sleep schedules the entire project took me about a week to finish. It's very simple, but I think it looks a lot better.
Oh & guess the total number of women that needed to use my newly refurbished bathroom that night?
ZERO! I should have listened to Matt and served a LOT of water.
Now my question is what motivates you?

Conversations with Jaydan River

Me- (cutting a row of brownies)
J- WOW, is that all mine?
Me- In your dreams!
J- Dreams come true.
Me- You're right they do, but not this time.
J- (trying to convince mom to believe in dreams) But mom, dreams really DO come true!

*Mom, a girl at the dance, she had 9 cookies! She snooked them.

* I could do this all week!
(while demonstrating his newly acquired skill of hoola hooping)

*A Family Home Evening prayer:
"I thank thee for my family. (pause) Please help Asher to fold his arms, close his eyes, (long pause) and not peek.
And please help us to obey Heavenly Father & Jesus & not listen to Satan."

Out of the mouth of Asher

I have about 5 sheets of paper floating around our house that Matt & I use to write quotes down when the boys say something that strikes us as cute or funny. Here are a few of Asher's I thought I'd share.

*I smooshed dat spider Jay...is dat good news or bad news?

*When I'm oder (older) I'll like olives. (2 days later) I wike (like) olives now.

*(Potty training humor Asher counting his successes) One, two, frwee...pause... frwee? dat's weirwd!

*It's pointy wike (like) a snail. Wook mom!
Me: O.K. go some more.
A: No tanks.

*While Jay was crying-- My bruddah, (Is Jay my bruddah?) Yes. My bruddah is crying like a baby and a giwrl. (girl)

*Family Home Evening lesson on the 10 commandments, or Heavenly Father's rules. Matt giving Ash a hint, tell the truth, or don't tell _(lies)__. "MOMMY!"
Matt says Shhh!

*Mom, what if a REAL monster came? Not a fake one?!

*After waving goodbye to Matt..."Mom, I wike (like) our daddy berwy much."

*My muscles are feeling bad. (he was sick).

*A: Whewr is Jay?
Me: In San Diego with daddy. You are here with me & Jay's with daddy.
A: Because you don't love Jaydan?
Me: No, I love Jay & I love you.
A: But we DON'T love Swiper! (cartoon character from Dora)

AND my most recent favorite:

* Jay asks: You're kissing a girl?!
A: No (sigh) but girls look wondewrful!!!

I think we're going to have to keep an eye on this guy.

"How can I be? " I love this! Kudos to my sista Sariah for sharing her fun find!

Jay's bad dream

EARLY this morning:
Jay comes in and taps me on the shoulder.
Jay: Mom, I had a bad dream.
Me: I'm sorry Jay, do you want to snuggle with me?
Jay: Do you want me to tell you what it was?
Me: Sure, if you want to.
Jay: I dreamed I turned into a bridge, (starts crying) and then.... I BROKE!


The GOOD news:
No one woke up with fevers this morning!

Sick & Allergic

The changing of seasons while wonderful, is a sore spot where allergies are concerned. Matt & I both suffer the adult onset kind and the Show-Me state of Missouri has a lot to offer in that area. We are basically miserable. We thought the boys were starting to get them too, but they have recently developed fevers, in reverse birth order.

Here, is poor Ridge who just collapsed down on the kitchen floor with his soft blankie & a random hand towel. The kid carries around dish towels and shirts too. Anything soft that fits into the neck area.

Asher found a toad & a fever.

Jay made it through the school week and had picture day today. Upon arriving home he too had a fever. Good thing we all have the weekend to get our health back together.

I just love this one with the toad on the head.

I think Ash looks a little jealous of Jay. We are working on sharing & taking turns with him. He does love the animals.

Ridge on the stairs

So I noticed Ridge doing this the other day & was so surprised, I had to get it on video. He already was a great stair climber, but now he has turned into a slider. His repertoire now includes chairs & tables. Nothing is safe.

What Ridge has been up to

At 15 months, Ridge is the caboose of our family. Therefore, he gets to put up with a lot of bossing from older brothers. Lucky for all of us that most of the time he enjoys being bossed. We all know that won't last forever.

Here is a picture of some kind of diaper fortress that Asher built for Ridge to sit in. (Lined with pillow walls for security of course.) Notice the gentle coercing that is going on.

Ridge stays so busy he has been falling asleep in his high chair a lot lately.

Messy frosting face.

Ridge enjoys carrying this pool ring all around the house. He loves to sit in it, and wear it around his neck.

Another diaper themed type of play going on.

First ice-cream cone in the park

Trying to grab the camera!

Reading scriptures with daddy

This picture makes me a little sad. He is growing up so fast, & is starting to prefer being out of my arms as opposed to being safely in them.

Asher starts Preschool

Asher started Preschool last week. He is really enjoying it. If I had only known that later this SAME day we would be locked in the basement together, I might not have gotten all teared up at how big he is getting.

Locked in...the basement

One constant factor in my life, is that when Matt goes out of town SOMETHING always happens. His D.C. trip last week did not disappoint.

The two older boys had asked to watch a movie down in the basement, so I headed down with them to turn it on. I could hear on the baby monitor that Ridge was waking up, but thought I'd hurry and put the movie on then run upstairs and get him. After the movie was playing I went to run up the 2 flights of stairs only to discover that the basement door was LOCKED, & we were on the WRONG side of the door! Not too worried yet, our basement being a walkout, I walked around and opened our garage to go in through the kitchen--but someone ("not me") had locked that door too. Every single door was locked and my baby was crying in his crib!
I was starting to panic a little.

One of my bright ideas was to use a butter knife from the set of utensils we keep in the basement thinking I could just turn the lock. But alas, this lock is keyed, and someone ("not me") had shoved silly putty into the keyhole so I don't think a key would have worked anyhow. After messing with the knob for a long time FRUSTRATION set in. I threw down the knife and yelled something like "AHHHH!" Jay who was happily sitting far away on the couch looked at me and asked "Mom, are you going to cut me with that knife?" Talk about a guilt trip! I then calmly explained, that I would never cut him with a knife or hurt him in anyway. He was satisfied with my answer and went back to watching Shark Tale.

I could go on with this saga & my various bright ideas, but to cut this short my wonderful neighbor Cindy B. came over with her hammer. She took the pins out of the door hinge, but we couldn't get the door to budge. The lock was a really good one. After that I attacked the doorknob with a hammer. Thinking "I've got to save my baby!" Yeah, that didn't help either.

Cindy knew of a fireman who was home during the day and went to go find him. I'm of course crying, and not much help anymore. Cindy comes back with Mark, who I found out later, wasn't the fireman, but had been innocently waiting for his daughter to get off the bus along with tons of other parents in the neighborhood. (Yeah, everyone knew my bizness that day.) Mark was able to get the door off after a few minutes. Our entire sentence in the basement lasted 55 minutes.
Mark & Cindy were the heroes of the day. We delivered cookies the next afternoon.

To top it all off Ridge had gone back to sleep and didn't have a clue that we couldn't get to him.
My friend Heidi told me "you better blog about this!" It's taken me a week, to calm down but here you go.


Here's the door off the hinges.



Door knob damage from a crazed mother. This did nothing to remedy the situation, and now we just have a door knob that looks like this. Matt says we will buy a new one. Probably one without a lock.



Screw driver damage on my beautiful moldings. Mark (the guy who is not a fireman but still super cool) had to pry the door open. Can you tell that I think my story would be a little more dramatic, if he HAD been a fireman?






The culprits. Neither of them will admit to locking the door. I guess at least they have brotherly loyalty.