House Update: Basement Family Room

Five Vs are currently allowing their heart rates to return to normal. Tonight was a big night: The Cleaning of the Fish Tank. Mike and Dec got most of the way through the process, started the new water nitrogenizing, and came down for dinner. About 20 minutes later, Mike ran up to check the water and came down looking concerned. "We're missing a fish!" WHAT?!?! So off five Vs ran to search for Ron. Somehow I spotted him on the floor next to Mike's foot (we will never know how he did not get stepped on), Mike scooped Ron and dumped him back in the water, and he righted himself and started swimming along. Whew! During the next Cleaning of the Tank, there will be a deeper bowl. Or a cover. Or both. Oh Ron!

So, now that Ron is safely returned to the tank, join us for a small tour of the family room area in the basement. Come on down!

Right at the bottom of the stairs (and 90 degrees to the left), we have a little hallway bar area. It's a fantastic overflow storage for our barware, bakeware, paper products, and giant roasting pan. There's a fridge, a microwave, and our keurig (for when the grandparents come to visit). It will be the perfect prep area when we host a party in the backyard - and is also great for movie nights. My favorite thing is that our shot glass shelf and collection are back on the wall!

The end of the mini hallway opens up to the main family room area. If you look to the left, you see my office area. When we moved, we got rid of the old (very small) desk that I still had from college and got both Mike and me new grown up desks. Mine can even convert to a standing desk, which I love during long conference calls. I work from home 2-3 days each week, so having a functional, dedicated workspace is awesome. [Graduating from using the camping table as my desk is also very awesome!] Mike is currently storing his outdoor speakers on top of the bookcase (he's clearly an interior decorator at heart). And you can see just a peek of the slider curtains on the right side of the photo. I have fantastic natural light pouring in during the day and love it. 

[The guest room is on the other side of this wall and that's where Mike's desk is. I will show that room another time as I am hoping to paint it first. Stay tuned.]

Continuing to circle, the slider is in the middle of the family room. It opens out onto our patio and gives us a great view of the back yard.

Another view of the back yard from the slider. On days the kids are home, I can almost always hear giggles from the trampoline while I work (you can see a corner of it on the left). That rounded area of the patio is the perfect location for a fire pit - and we finally invested in one last week. Fall and winter fires are our favorite!

If you walk out the mini hallway and turn to the right, you are in the family room. Our sectional fits beautifully down here and the art shelf as been repurposed as a bookcase and photo display. Behind the sectional is an entertainment center that is no longer needed and we hope to sell - but the plan is to put our sofa table (still in storage) here. So we were using the entertainment center to get a feel for furniture in this spot. 

And finally, the new piano lives down here too. All three kids are taking lessons, so the piano is a popular place. Last weekend, Mike dug out the laser level and we hung up the kids' artwork along the wall and created the expansion plan for future masterpieces. With the weird school years and lack of art class, we only have one piece of art up from Kinder Dec. We are very much looking forward to adding a few more of the Dude's masterpieces over the coming years!

The door at the end of the room leads into the toy storage closet and the basement bathroom - which will also be shown a different time. The bathroom is on the short list for things that will be painted very soon!

Thanks for joining the mini basement tour. As with any house, things will continue to change and evolve. But we are very happy with how it is coming together and how inviting it feels.

Backyard Pool

'Twas the night before school, when all through the day
Mom ran around like crazy while the children did play;
The backpacks were hung on the coat hooks with care,
In hopes that the school bus soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
As parents stared at laundry that 'cross the floor was spread;
And yet, while we were all thinking about school,
The blog is so behind, we're writing about a pool!

When we bought the new house, we noticed a circular spot in the yard that quite clearly had been an above ground pool at one point. It was poorly reseeded and the grass was not growing in well. When Mike replaced the old inflatable pool with a new one, we took note of how the kids always wanted to use it and were disappointed every time we took it down. 

After much discussion and research, Mike found an above ground pool that he felt would fit the circular area and would give the kids enough room and depth to actually swim. He ordered it, told the kids, told the kids that he might not even put it up until next spring, and then actually put it up within 36 hours of it being delivered. All pretty predictable operating procedures!

We started filling it on a Friday morning and by mid-afternoon, he let the kids in to test it out. They are very brave because we filled it with hose water - and that could not have been warm! But they loved it! There were shrieks and giggles .. and then lots of shivers. A few short days later, a solar cover arrived at our house!

I think the pool is about done for the season (no one seems interested in getting in these days at it is in the low 70s for highs), but it was very popular during all of August. In fact, Dec was known to swim multiple times a day! It felt like we were washing the beach towels and swim suits every night. 

We have pretty strict ground rules around pool usage and friends - and everyone has been very respectful and responsible. Mike's stern warning of "you won't be allowed back in the pool" was quite effective. Our kids - and their friends - are already looking forward to a full summer with the pool next year. I may install a clothesline to cut down on the pool-induced laundry. 

Both Mike and I agree that the month of giggles and constant requests to go swimming made the purchase feel well worth it!

House Update: Kids' Bedrooms

I suspect we will never get to the point of calling the new house "done." [We lived in the old one for almost 15 years and it was never done ... Mike and I are tinkerers and will always find something to work on.] Honestly, we are really not even closing in on "fully unpacked" yet ... but there are a few zones that look pretty good. First up are the kids' rooms. We made it our top priority to get their rooms feeling like home. I think you'll agree they are looking good!

Quinn's Room

Right when you walk in Quinn's door, she has her desk and her play kitchen. Q delights in organizing the bins in her desk and is super proud of the pink memo board hanging above it. The pink star was a craft she made at drama camp this summer. The kitchen is probably her favorite part though. She loves setting up restaurants and bakeries and McDonald's drive thrus.

Her bed is in the corner, with her quilt from Gma. The nightstand is one of Mike and my old ones and the frame above her bed was my sister's when she was Q's age. The two-tone pink curtains (and curtain hooks) are also new. Currently the nightstand houses an animal hospital ...

Q's closet is a walk-in that is not optimized in the current shelving arrangement (story of several closets in this house), but it will work for now. She has one of the old dressers from their room and is waiting [mostly] patiently for me to scrape those letters off the drawers. We still owe her a mirror for above the dresser ... it's on "the list." Q staked claim to the pink hooks from the old playroom and has put her favorite things on it ... see: robe, unicorn onesie, Shakopee baseball hat from Uncle Brad, glitter unicorn bag. 

As you can see, Q's room is sunny and happy and one hundred percent her!

Declan's Room

This is the view from Dec's doorway. He has his loft bed, with the desk and bookcase tucked underneath it. Also found underneath his bed are several pairs of slippers, a lot of beyblades, and his animal hospital. He has the other dresser from their old room, as well as the dresser that goes under his bed. We opted to keep it out to give him a "fort" space - and to have a place to put his fish tank.

Dec wanted the geometric mustard curtains that were in Quinn's old room. They actually look really great with his room color. We also put the toy shelf from the playroom in there and it is filled with hot wheels, dinosaurs, and so many nerf guns and bullets. 

Ron, Harry, and Hermione live on top of D's second dresser. At least once a day, you can find multiple Vs in Dec's room, just hanging together and watching the fish play tag. We hung both shelves from their old bedroom and they hold D's trophies, medals, and sports memorabilia - including my old collector plate from the 1991 World Series and the baseball Gpa brought him from spring training. 

Fiona's Room

Fiona has requested to keep her room mostly private, and I have promised to honor her wishes. She and I compromised on a peek from the hallway so you can see how wonderfully delightful her room is. 

The main thing she wanted in her own room was a window seat. You can see just a peek of it under her window ... I was able to find the perfect size bench online. The seat cushion is a pretty boring beige color, but I've promised we can spice it up with some colorful pillows. She also has my old dresser, her great great grandma's rocking chair, and an old desk from our neighbors (we need to get her a new desk. It's on the list.). There is also so much Barbie stuff in there!

Fiona's room is not usually this clean ... in fact, it's usually a hurricane. We've compromised on the fact that if she can confine her hurricane to her room, I will keep my eye twitch to myself when I walk into it. And will only make her clean it up once in a while. 

The Move

When Mike and I discussed the actual move logistics, we quickly decided that hiring movers to carry the big stuff was well worth the money. I had no interest in helping move our giant sectional or hoisting the grill off the deck. Then after we lined up the movers, our sweet next door neighbors offered us their piano - meaning I had even less than no interest doing the heavy lifting ourselves. [It took two movers plus Mike to move that piano, so movers were a great call!] 

Moving day came and brought sweltering temperatures with it. The radio later told me was the hottest June 5 in 96 years. It was too hot to blink. So thank goodness we weren't relying on the strength of our friendships to move our crap. No one should have to be that good of a friend!

The movers showed up just after 8am Saturday morning. They were ... unorthodox ... to say the least. We are 99% sure that they were drinking on the job - but they were really hard workers and very careful, so we are going with it. While Mike had hired them to only move the big heavy stuff, they did so much more than that. Which was both good and overwhelming. We were not prepped for them to basically grab anything not nailed down. Mike finally told them to hold up in the garage - because they were throwing random things in random boxes. We will have to fully unpack every single thing. I finally found the rain coats tonight - buried under beach balls and bike helmets. We still can't find the levels. Sigh.

My favorite movers story comes courtesy of Thurman. Thurman was a tall, lanky guy. Probably 6'3", maybe 160 lbs. He was 60 years old and had a heart attack last year. Honestly, he looked like I should be lifting heavy things for him. Mike and I have a two-drawer file cabinet. It is heavy and takes both of us to move it. So when Thurman wheeled it into the new house on a two-wheel cart, that made perfect sense. Then he looked at the stairs to our basement and the 180 degree turn he needed to make at the bottom of it, decided that wouldn't work, crouched down, lifted the dang thing all by himself and carried it down the stairs! You are probably thinking "yeah, but you emptied it first." We did not. Moral of the story: don't mess with Thurman.

Once the movers were done, Mike, Gpa V, and I headed over to the new house to put beds back together and make sure things were ready for us to sleep here for the first time. Meanwhile, Auntie had come down to visit and was spending the afternoon in the tiny blow up pool in our old back yard with the small Vs. Turns out, hose water can be quite refreshing! It was an emotional day and the kids needed the fun that only Auntie can bring.

Sunday morning in the new house was interesting. We hosted an underwear scavenger hunt. Because the kids now have their own rooms, we have a bedroom furniture shortage. F got my dresser, Q got the big shared dresser, and D got the other shared dresser. M's dresser was built into his old closet. So if you are keeping up with the math, that leaves Mike and me with zero dressers between us. 

But I hadn't yet had time to switch the dresser contents. So ... F's underwear was in D's room. Her clothes were in Q's room. Q's clothes were in D's room. My underwear and shorts were in F's room. And M's underwear was in a suitcase. We lived like that for a week. It was a very happy day when I re-aligned the dressers. Unless you are older than 11. Then your underwear is still in a suitcase. Or sitting on the shelf of a bookcase, which is doubling as a makeshift dresser. [Have we had time to go buy new master bedroom furniture yet? Nope.]

Since we got rid of or redistributed all our master bedroom furniture, night one in the new house, we slept on a mattress and box spring on the floor. Like we are 19 again. The movers accidentally switched our mattress with the guest room mattress - so Brad was invited over on Sunday to help with a mattress swap. Because if we are going to sleep on the floor like college kids, we at least want to do it on our own mattress.

The New House

We closed on our new house on May 27. Since that day, our lives have been peppered with statements like “there are swimsuits in a yellow bowl on top of a pile of boxes in the living room” and “does anyone know where the Philips screwdriver is?” Facts: the swimsuits were in the yellow bowl. Why? No one knows. And it is virtually impossible to keep track of screwdrivers in a house where the previous owners must not have owned any. I’ve never in my life tightened so many screws.

Mike and I took the 27^th off of work. I would love to say that after we closed, we got so much done. We did not. Pretty much all we did was wander around aimlessly, feeling overwhelmed – feelings that were not aided by the rainy, gloomy day outside. But we got that out of our system before we picked up the kids at the bus stop and brought them over to finally see the house [because we had to move so quickly, the kids had not actually seen it in person].

The timing worked out so that we closed right before the Memorial Day weekend – which meant we had an extra day to work without having to burn down vacation. And holy smokes did we work. I spent the weekend painting Fiona and Quinn’s bedrooms while Mike and three of the best friends ever moved our playset over to the house. Thankfully the weather was perfect for hard labor outside and our friend J has moved many a playset over the years, so his expertise and muscles were invaluable.

F’s room painting went very smoothly, which put me in the dangerous position of over-confidence. The color was stunning from the get go, there were no major drips, spills, or mishaps, and we could almost get away with one coat (we did two because it just looks better). So naturally, Q’s room did not go smoothly at all. Yellow is such a tough color and after one coat, it looked terrible. Like it made me question my painting ability less than 24 hours after F’s room went just fine. Ultimately, Q’s room took three coats – and other than feeling like you are on the surface of the sun, it looks good. There are a couple spots that could maybe use a fourth coat, but I think only Mike and I and our sun-blinded eyes can see them. Most importantly, Quinn LOVES it.

By coat #3 of Chickadee Yellow, my over-confidence had been shattered and reality set in. We had made great progress over the weekend. But not enough. So we called in the pros – and Gma and Gpa J headed down on Tuesday with their paint brushes in tow to help out. First up with the Dude's room. He had been quite patient while the sisters' rooms transformed, but the lower lip was getting a bit out of joint as the days went on. So Gma and Gpa painted his room on Wednesday, to his great delight. It is Smoked Turquoise, which you may or may not remember is the same color their old room was. He is delighted. Then the grandparent painting team tackled the kids' bathroom on Thursday to get rid of the cave-like almost black navy blue color in there. It is now a happy gray and is much more cheerful.

Grandma also washed some walls and cleaned out my kitchen for me, so it was ready for me to unpack as soon as I packed it up in the old house. Gpa started mowing our new lawn ... and promptly joined the dark side, known as Team Mike, in the great We Need a Riding Lawnmower debate. Shortly before lunch on Friday, Gma and Gpa headed home while Mike and I continued moving things over and packing up - as the movers were due to show up first thing Saturday morning. 

Were we feeling ready? Not quite. Was it happening anyway? All one can do is buckle up.

Fiona's room: before and after

Quinn's room: before and after (coat #1)

Declan's room: before and after

Kids' bathroom: before and after

Thoughts on Moving

Mike asked what we were having for dinner tonight. We had just picked up the groceries, which meant there were options, and I proudly announced "Waffles." [It was another soccer to hockey Saturday where we ate lunch at 2pm and a lighter dinner was just the ticket.] Mike said, "didn't we pack the waffle maker already?" And then there was about ten seconds of awkward silence. Maaaaybe ... Thankfully, my decluttering self had long-game vision and the waffle maker was still on the shelf next to the crockpot (which we also need this week). Whew!

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We close on the new house on Thursday. Last weekend, we took the kids to the store to grab paint cards so they could start to pick out colors for their new bedrooms. That was an interesting experiment!

Fiona picked out the most delightfully Fiona aqua color immediately. Then completely doubted herself, decided her room would be "too blue" (is that a thing when your favorite color is blue?!?!?), and talked herself into bubble gum pink. I vetoed that choice, taught her about accent colors, introduced her to pinterest, and think we are back on the aqua train. With aqua and hot pink curtains. And a pink crystal lamp [Auntie and Auntie, you may get an itemized list of room decor when you ask her what she wants for her birthday!]

Quinn has decided she wants "bumble bee yellow" on her walls. I don't know why. The colors she's leaning toward are very bright. Perhaps like the sun has taken residence in her room. However, she is dug in on it and neither Mike nor I have the will to argue with her. So it will likely be in-your-face yellow. And she will rock it. I also taught Q about accent colors and she's delighted that she can bring additional bright colors to the mix. My suggestion about a yellow and grey room - thanks but no thanks. 

Turns out, six year olds have no idea how to pick a room color. Dec grabbed fire engine red, I told him it was too aggressive, and then he grabbed pretty much every color available. "Mom, will you grab me the light purple?" No. You don't want a purple room, bud. So I'm going to pick and then talk him into it and that will be that. 

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For the past two weeks, it has felt like the fights around room access and privacy have been escalating. We don't actually think they have. It's just that we had to make the daily fights about "I can't get my pajamas because someone is changing in the bedroom" or "Stop touching each other and just grab socks" or "don't climb in a bed that is not yours" white noise because otherwise Mike and I would be bat crap crazy. Now that there is an end in sight, we are so over sock and pajama drama. As are the kids. We are literally counting the days [for real. the kids made a paper chain] to life where they can get their clothes and get dressed in their own rooms. Without touching each other. It sounds magical.

Abandon Ship!

Have you missed us? Been wondering where we are? Well, it's been a liiiiittle busy around here. Thankfully, things are settling down and it's just your standard work, school, hockey, soccer, horse camp, piano balancing act. Perhaps related: Quinn had her first soccer practice of the season tonight. Mike and I may have been in the small human section of Scheel's earlier today buying the one pair of soccer cleats left in her size ... because when she tried on last season's cleats this morning, she couldn't even get her heel in. Allegedly.

Also perhaps related: Quinn has a soccer game on Saturday. That she will have to leave 15 minutes early in order to get up to Minnetonka on time for her Saturday hockey game. This is the current version of "settled down."

Anyhoo ... we spent last week prepping, repairing, and cleaning the house as showings started on Friday afternoon. Mike and I had to work, so during lunch, we hurriedly cleaned and staged and moved our valuables out of the house. We were quite proud of our project management. Our goal was to leave the house at 2pm - and I mopped us out the door at 1:59pm. We headed over to the school to pick up the kids early and then pointed the car north toward GR. We had told them to go to the bathroom at school because no one (and no one's sticky fingers) were allowed back in our house until we returned on Sunday.

We had 15 showings on Friday night and another 20 between Saturday morning and 10am Sunday. We also canceled an additional 5 showings that were later in the day on Sunday. We received texts from multiple neighbors about how busy our house was and Where Were We? We told them that we had abandoned ship so as to not deal with the insanity. Based on the zoo-like atmosphere they all described, it was the right decision.

Thirty-five showings ended with 14 offers (including one that came in last Monday "sight unseen" that we declined because of some funky terms). 14 offers sounds like a great problem to have. And it honestly was. But it was also extremely overwhelming. By late Saturday night, I simply laid down on the floor of my parents' living room. I was done.

We did not take the highest offer (it just didn't feel right), but we are pleased with the one we accepted. It's a young family with a dog and a little boy, who are very excited about our back yard. The terms were great and the price was right. We had the papers signed Sunday morning and returned home with the house under contract! The next step is for all the closing date dominoes to align so we know what we are working toward. Hopefully by the end of next week, we'll know the close date on our new house and then can work out the close date on this house. 

Since we are in a bit of house transfer limbo now, we've taken that as permission to temporarily pause the packing process. I have packed exactly zero boxes since we returned from GR. I also may have left something in the middle of the kitchen counter when I went to the office on Monday. Because I could.

Again. Allegedly. 

We Did a Thing ...

Friday night, I was cleaning up dinner, got interrupted to help Declan with something, and when I came back, I looked at the dishes in the sink and thought "did I wash them? or do I need to wash them?" So that's where we are around here for brain capacity. The adrenaline high I had been riding for a week and a half was officially tapped. I know that's true, because normally I can remember if I washed a pot 90 seconds ago or not. [I decided I had washed them. We live dangerously here.]

Why is my brain fried, you ask? Because we bought a house!!! Can you believe it? After two years of limbo (will we? won't we? will we ever find one? will we ever get an offer accepted in this insanely hot market?), there may actually be a plan that ends with the children not all sharing a bedroom. 

The market is red hot right now in Shakopee. Yet somehow, we found a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood we were hoping for. It's the main feeder neighborhood for the kids' current elementary school, so they don't need to change schools. Declan's best friend A (you may remember him from our skate night) lives in the next cul-de-sac over - as do a couple of Fiona's good friends. And Q's friend T lives about half a mile down the road. In fact, A's mom sent me a text picture of the "nightly street hockey game" and said they can't wait for a couple more players. We will miss our current neighborhood friends so much, but are excited for a 'hood full of kids!

The house we bought went on the market at noon on Tuesday. We saw it at 3:30 and had our offer in by 7:30 that night. Let's just say it was an aggressive offer. The sellers set an offer deadline for 9am Wednesday morning and they had over 10 offers. In less than 24 hours! We found out after the fact that we were not the highest offer, but had the best terms. The letter I wrote helped as well. 

We spent last week decluttering, cleaning, and staging our house for pictures on Friday. It was a lot of late nights and trips to the storage unit. Real truth: Mike does not like decluttering. He has two speeds: Pack a Room Entirely or Wander About Not Knowing What To Do. When it comes to house stuff, there are few moments when my skillset is more useful than Mike's. So I have to record it when it happens. This week is house repairs and paint touch ups ... so we're back in Mike's court. 

We are also continuing the declutter and cleaning progress, so don't worry, I'm not bored. Our house hits the market tomorrow as a "Coming Soon" and showings start Friday afternoon. We are heading out of town to not manage life around people parading through our house and have our fingers crossed that it will be sold by the end of the weekend (pretty pretty please). The constant rate of change is wearing on all of us, but especially the kids and we need to get back to a more normal lifestyle ... you know, where you are allowed to touch the walls and put things on the counter. 

We are taking advantage of the move to thin out our possessions. So I'll leave you with the following questions that were raised as I cleaned out our storage room:

- How many Barbie houses are too many? Is it five? Plus two campers and an ambulance? Because the Barbie village feels excessive. 

- Why do we have SEVEN Halloween trick-or-treat pumpkins? Seven. Are there children living here I don't know about?

- Why does Mike insist on keeping a 200 disc CD changer? That monstrosity is going to follow us forever, isn't it?

Paint Job

The day after Quinn's birthday, Mike was informed that the living room was finally going to be painted. Dec was going to a friend's house for an outside birthday party (where he was the only guest - and this family keeps their bubble even smaller than we do) for the afternoon, so we had one less energetic 6-year-old to keep out from underfoot. [Fact: the kids don't remember how to play with their other friends anymore. D was so nervous to go to Kyle's house. But he warmed up and had the best time! I suspect they will relearn quickly ...]

Sunday morning, after we sent Gpa V on his way back home, the living room was emptied into the dining room and the taping and wall scrubbing began. Quinn was SO excited about the painting and was extremely unimpressed with how long painting prep takes. We kept telling her that the prep work is longer than any of the rest of it. Then once the prep work was done, we had to edge and paint the popcorn ceiling. It was like we were trying to torture her with the wait!

After the floor lunch picnic in the dining room/living room mess, Quinn was ready to paint. Fiona was ready for the furniture to be back where it belonged and decided to make a bench out of the entertainment center so she could read her book. Moral of the story: painting is putzy work and people here do not like furniture in the wrong rooms. 

Because we were painting the ceiling, we had fully dropclothed the floor. So when it was finally time to start trimming out the walls, we handed Quinn a brush and let her help! That was all well and good, but what she really wanted was to roll. So once the trim work was done, Mike let her help with that too! We got the first coat done, retrieved our buddy from his friend's house, ate dinner, put the kids to bed, and then Mike and I brought in a lot of lamps to finish the second coat that night. 

Monday morning, we pulled off the tape first thing and then Q and Mike put the living room back together. It was our first week without Nanny J, which was the other reason for the project timing - no worries about the house chaos impacting the nanny! Everyone was thrilled with the return of the furniture to its normal place (although we did rearrange things) - and they tell me that they are "getting used to" the new color. It's still green - just a darker olive green. Personally, I love it!

Down a Toilet for Two Weeks

The updated look

The master bathroom update is completed and we are still married. Both of these things were questionable mid-project, so we are very happy to report success on all fronts.

I mentioned that my parents came down in early February to help remove the four layers of wallpaper from the bathroom. Turns out, removing wallpaper was the least of our concerns. It's not a true house project if you don't go to the hardware store multiple times ... and sometimes around 9:00 at night ... because your toilet is leaking.

Mike took our toilet tank off for the wallpaper removal project. Once that was done, we needed to do some major patching on the walls (seriously, our towel bar and toilet paper holder had been sunk into the sheetrock), paint the ceiling, paint the walls, and replace the light fixture, medicine cabinet, and towel/toilet paper racks. Before any of that happened, Mike threw his back out. So we had a bit of a delay until he could move again. He got the patching and sanding done the weekend of our Polar Plunge. Then I had a crazy week for work and he was basically a single parent ... so we paused again. At the end of that week, we finally painted the ceiling and walls.

When we moved in ....

As the girls were getting ready for the Daddy Daughter dance, Mike was putting the bathroom back together - including our toilet ... two weeks later. Fun fact: we are not a one toilet on the main floor family. Holy moly were the mornings interesting as five people got ready with one toilet! We made it work, but it was an adventure. Luckily, Mike and I could still use our shower throughout the process.

Last Monday night, while Mike took Q and D to gymnastics, Bugs and I cleaned the bathroom and put things back in the new cabinets. As I was cleaning the floor, I noticed some water by the toilet. Long story short, the toilet tank was leaking so I suuuuper casually mentioned it to Mike when he got home. He worked on it for about 3 hours that night and a few more hours the next morning before finally getting it fixed (with a very creative solution).

Mike hates plumbing - and the very old, very odd plumbing in our house is not his favorite. But he's awesome and always figures it out. It just often causes a few gray hairs. And a strong desire to shoot the messenger.

Sheetrock of Ages

My parents came down a couple weekends ago (oh February blogging ... how you have gotten away from me) because we missed them, we needed help with a bathroom remodel project, and we also needed a babysitter. They are like a super fun three for one.

Saturday morning found my dad and Mike removing FOUR layers of wallpaper from our master bathroom. It's the last vestiges of wallpaper in our house and it really needed to go. It's needed to go for many years, but knowing that there were multiple layers of wallpaper to remove constantly demotivated us. After the customary trip to the hardware store for additional supplies (in this case, a whole pile of chemicals), they were able to get all four layers stripped off. This was extra impressive since our bathroom is tiny and two grown men were a tight squeeze in there.

My mom, the kids, and I ran some errands while the guys worked and then brought tacos home for lunch. After a quick meal, Mike and I got ready to head to downtown to meet my sister to see Rock of Ages. There had been a lot of weather that week, so I was happy to just be a passenger and let Mike do the driving. We got there a bit early and hung out in the skyway. As we were waiting, my sister called to say that she was stuck in traffic. About the same time, we all realized that the Cupid Undie Run was happening through downtown ... and my sister was stuck on the other side of the race. Basically, we had to wait for a whole pile of people running in about 12 degrees in their underwear to finish up. And then for a policeman "directing" traffic to actually decide to direct it ... instead of letting it just sit there.

We could see her from our perch in the skyway and her calm(ish) phone calls were very entertaining. When she finally got the parking garage, we connected and booked it over to the theater. Unfortunately, because of the race delay, we were late for the start of the show - but we clearly weren't the only ones impacted. It wasn't a big deal and after the first song, we were able to get to our seats. They were nosebleed seats, but the play was phenomenal. The music was all 80s hair band songs and the kids can now definitely identify Whitesnake when Google plays it.

While we were gone, my dad was scraping glue off the wall in the bathroom. Mike took over for the evening and by the end of the day, all wallpaper was gone and the scraping was done. We got the glue scrubbing done on Sunday and I cleaned everything up to the point that our bathroom was usable - except for the fact that our toilet was in pieces [and still is. Fingers crossed by this weekend, we'll have a toilet again]. We were quite pleased with the progress and thankful for my parents' help.

Mom and Dad were planning to catch D's hockey game early Sunday afternoon and then head home. A pretty major snowstorm blew in that morning and after a lot of back and forth between the four adults (and some of my best marketing and pulling out the kids to try to convince them to stay), my dad decided they were going to leave before lunch to head home. The storm was pretty bad and I wasn't thrilled about it - but I understand. About 15 minutes later, Dad called me to say they were coming back to my house. There was simply no visibility and it just wasn't worth it.

To celebrate extra time with them (and the fact that we had fresh snow), Mike and my dad got the snowmobiles out and took the kids on the trail. Everyone enjoyed the outside time and the extended snowmobile rides. We grilled steaks for dinner and Mike and Dad entertained everyone with their reactions to horseradish.

My two favorite quotes from the weekend were Mike saying "I need to go shovel out the grill so I can cook the steaks" and me saying to Mike "can you remove the toilet from the tub so I can wash the kids?" Honorable mention to my sister shrieking "I'm dying and stuck behind a million naked people" while on speakerphone in the skyway.

A Decade on the To-Do List is Cool ... Right?

We’ve found, recently, that our kids are moderately self-sufficient at times. Which means that we can actually tackle some of the house projects that have been on our list for an embarrassingly long time. That’s not to say that situations like Girls, for real. I’m holding up a very heavy microwave and your dad is securing it to the wall. Will someone please go wipe your brother’s butt? don’t happen (hypothetical, of course). But they are less constant and often solvable through bribes or sheer exasperation.

Over the summer, we chipped away at our lingering entry way project. We painted the door from the entry to the garage – and then the one from the garage to the backyard. We painted the frame of the door so that it matched the trim better. And then, one lovely weekend in September, Mike put new ceramic tile in the entry to replace the old, not-in-good-shape-and-partly-already-ripped-up-from-when-we-replaced-the-banister laminate tile.

There was a bit of drama during tile installation when one tile was 1/8 inch smaller than the others and it messed with Mike’s perfect grout lines. And then he and Quinn decided that three of the tiles were a slightly different pattern than the rest (which no one but Mike and Quinn will ever notice). After a few days of debating whether the whole thing was jack-hammered up to be started again, we left things as they were. Because it really does look great. And once that was done, we created an awesome picture wall going down into the basement of some of our favorite moments at the lake.

It is a project that you appreciate from the fact that you don’t really notice it. Instead of walking through the landing area and sighing at how much we didn’t like it, we just waltz through now. It is still too small for a family of five plus giant dog. But it’s a “pretty” small. It was a project that has been on our list for years and we were both happy to finally have it checked off.

Then, with the recent additions of my instant pot (which takes up a lot of counter) and my new Nespresso machine – plus the fact that I’m baking more with Quinn and would like my big KitchenAid to actually be accessible, we finally ripped out the cabinet and hood above our range to install a new (shorter) cabinet and an over-the-range microwave. Thus, the microwave on the counter is gone. Hallelujah! A short 11 years is all it took for us to get that done.

Now I just need to rearrange the contents of the kitchen cabinets and decide what gets to stay on the counter. Organization and decluttering – this is where the magic happens! Oh, and some super glue removal from the door of the new cabinet. Because you can’t do a house project without a little drama …

Labor Weekend

We took the Labor Day weekend off, relaxed, and played at the park. However, during all that relaxing, we finally found the bunk bed arrangement we wanted for the girls - at a good price. So bunk beds and mattresses were ordered. I've been telling Mike that once we made the move to bunk beds, I wanted to paint the kids' room. It was a newborn yellow color, perfect for a baby nursery. Except ... there are no babies in there anymore!

We didn't have plans last weekend, so we doubled down, made a team game plan with the kids, and got their room painted a lovely shade of smoked turquoise. We emptied a few things out on Friday night. Saturday morning was the big move and a lot of wall prep - washing, patching, sanding, etc. We got the first coat up during naptime. We let each of the girls paint a little V on the wall before Mike finished rolling it. They loved to be part of the painting! Quinn stood in the doorway for almost 20 minutes, just watching me trim and Mike follow me with the roller. She was really intrigued by the whole process!

Little painters

Since the room wasn't finished by bedtime, we had a family sleepover in the basement on Saturday night. We brought the girls' mattresses down and Dec got the pack and play. Once they were settled in, we painted the second coat. The late evening lighting wasn't the best - but we made it work. And it was worth it -  because everything was dry in the morning.

On Sunday morning, we hit our stride - aided by the 90s Pop Hits station on Pandora. We "amazed" the kids with our outstanding duet on Everything I Do, I Do It For You (formative years in the 90s. Knew every word, thank you very much!). Dec totally rocked out to Backstreet Boys (that's my baby!), Quinn was partial to Spin Doctors (she has good taste), and Fiona, as always, prefers Spice Girls (she makes Auntie proud). By D's naptime, all the furniture was back in the right spot. 

When your beds are in the living room,
you may as well watch cartoons from them

We haven't hung anything other than the curtains. We'll wait until all the new furniture is in place before we put holes in the fancy turquoise walls! The bunk beds came this week and hopefully Ben and Uncle Kyle will help with assembly over the weekend. The girls are super excited for their new beds - and a little more room when they sleep. 

Overall, we were so impressed with how well the kids did with the chaos and busyness of the weekend. They are so proud to have a new big kid room - and they gave us so much hope around getting some other projects done around the house. A little teamwork, a well-timed trip to the park, and some 90s pop go a long way in the V house!

Leanin'

The team approved of the wood pile

Not Lean In, the book on how females can break that glass ceiling. Leanin' ... as in what our deck was doing!

At the end of last summer, we were standing in the backyard when Mike let out a word we typically don't use in front of the kids. When asked to identify the cause, he just pointed at the deck and looked like he wanted to be sick. One side of our deck was visibly lower than the other side. Further investigation showed that the support post was rotting out under the ground. Super ...

Dinner on the new deck.
Buggy making faces at my phone

While we have never been thrilled by the small size of our deck, its leaning ways leapfrogged it to the top of the priority list for this year's construction project. Mike braced up the support beam so the deck - and anyone on it - were in no danger of plummeting while we figured out what to do. Mike missed his calling as an architect. He's seriously good at building plans. However, he can get into a bit of a design paralysis and 59 graph paper sketches later, he's all up in his head about making a bad choice and I'm perhaps less than enthusiastic when sketch number 60 arrives under my nose.

We settled on a pretty simple design, but expanded the footprint from 12x10 to 12x16 and moved the stairs from under the drip line - and made them wider. Mike and his dad spent a weekday digging the holes for the new footers and spent a fair part of that day trying to get the auger unstuck from a tree root. Then Mike and my dad poured the footings that weekend and tore down the old deck. Mike's dad came back the next two weekends to help build the new deck and stairs - and put the railings on. It was a lot of work and we are ever so grateful for the grandpa assists!

In progress picture

Mike finished out a few final touches and got it officially inspected and approved just before the big birthday party last weekend. And then he spent part of today cutting the posts to the same height and attaching the post caps. It is officially done - and looks fantastic! We ate dinner on it tonight to celebrate its completion and the final day of summer.

A lot of time was dedicated to the deck project this summer, but as we all sat on the deck in the beautiful weather, eating our burgers, with room for Yogi and people to walk, it definitely felt worth it. Best of all, we aren't leanin' anymore!

Do You Wanna Be a ...?

Dress up area

Fairy? Princess? Fireman? Birthday tiger?

As I constantly said this spring, the great spring cleaning/house clean out was not simply "nesting." While on my maternity leave, I continued my pursuit of decluttering the house. We finished the upstairs with Mike putting in two closet systems before he went back to work. The one in his closet enabled us to get rid of his dresser and the one in the kids' room allowed me to get three kids in one closet. It is a thing of organizational beauty!! I'm ridiculously proud of it ... and you'll likely be forced to admire it if you come by to visit.

My cousin Lori made them tutus
Super cute - and twirly

Then I moved downstairs. Mike also built some additional shelving for our storage room while he was on leave. And thanks to Declan's awesome napping, I reorganized the whole room. And then turned my attention to the toy room. They are kind of a package deal as toys go in and out and rotate and reappear ... and there was just not enough order. While doing this, I realized how much dress up stuff the girls had, but how they didn't really play with it much. Because it was spread all over the place. So I created a dress up nook in the play room. Mike built them a hat rack with the scrap lumber he took out of the closets. And our neighbor brought over a couple of the cutest wood shelves that she didn't want anymore. The area is a hit and they love that all the stuff is in one spot. Cleanup is also so much easier!

Now that I'm back to work, my cleaning is going slower. But I am closing in on it! And it feels awesome to purge some of the extra to make room for us and find better places for the stuff we do use.

Landscaping: Phase 2

Last April, I posted pictures of the first step of our 10-year landscaping plan. Mike and his dad raised and edged my garden in the front yard. We (again, Mike and his dad) also added the shed to the yard last summer - so it was a pretty productive Landscaping Year 1 for a 9-month pregnant wife and small toddler!

When spring rolled around this year, we started talking about what we wanted to tackle on the plan this year. We talked. And talked. And talked. And didn't really "do." Then I was offered a bunch of river rock by a co-worker and Mike spent all of Father's Day weekend clearing parts of the back of the yard (otherwise known as our "hang your head in shame weed garden") to put the rock. Long story short, the rock offer fell through. But by this point, the project had already started rolling. Mike took advantage of the extra time and was able to do the edging that we really wanted.

The rock arrived today and it looks great! We plan to add some perennials either this fall or next spring. But the hardest part is done. The best part is that we even have some extra rock for Phase 3 of the landscaping projects.

A finished picture of the shed
and the "BEFORE"

One view of the "AFTER"

Another "AFTER"

The New Addition

Again ... NOT the baby (who, by the way, is happily camping out in utero). As the outside toys overtook our garage this summer, Mike finally convinced me that yes, we do, in fact, need a shed. So after A LOT of research, he decided that he was going to build it. He spent time with his graph paper plotting it out and got his dad to come down about three weeks ago for construction weekend 1.0. They got everything done except the door, soffits/fascia, and siding.

So dad came down again this last weekend and they did the soffits/fascia and sided three/fourths of the shed. The front siding will wait until the custom door is here. But Mike tells me it's a one-day project. The boys do great work and Mike is quite pleased with his shed. Now to just get the stuff out of the garage and into it ...

Here is the progression of the shed's arrival. I'll post a final picture when the door is in and the siding work is done!

Mike starts the neighborhood gossip with the materials delivery

 The workers and their cute assistant

Ready for siding

We had our 40 week appointment this morning. This kid is officially fully baked and NOT interested in moving out. We looked sufficiently pathetic when she told us there has been no progress since last week. So we are scheduled for a C-section on Wednesday morning. While not our preferred birth plan, as was the case with Fiona, it just doesn't look like this baby is going to come out on its own power. So stay tuned. Baby Vanneste 2.0 should be here in just a couple days!

The Dead Thing ... or the Melted Thing

The source of the "dead thing" smell has been identified ... and I'm thrilled to say that it wasn't something that was dead. Instead, it was our main circuit breaker melting!!! AGH!

We've been noticing some weird power pops, flashes, and outages in the past few weeks, but were blaming the transformer trying to keep up with everyone's AC. There was a huge storm last night and the power went out. That didn't seem too strange with all the lightning - until I got up this morning and there was power in our bathroom, but not our bedroom. So I woke Mike up with that joyous piece of news and headed to work.

He called me at 11:00 to tell me that he was finally heading to work after he, Grandpa, Buggy, and public utilities had spent the morning cutting power to our house and replacing the main breaker. Thankfully Grandpa is an electrician, there were two of them to help keep the toddler from electrocuting herself, and the house didn't burn down. Hopefully that is our last bit of excitement until Baby comes! I don't think Mike can take much more.

Doubling the Size of Our House

I'm tired. Not pregnancy tired (although there is definitely some of that ... hello 3rd trimester). But work as hard as you can after bedtime tired. And I have the easy jobs. Mike is really the guy who has been doing the lion's share of the manual labor. I've got a keeper in that one!

But we are getting really close to putting together the family space in the basement that we've always dreamed of. We never really used the basement when Matthew lived here - not because he didn't want us to. But you do want to let a guy feel like he has some privacy. So we just tossed old, mismatched furniture down there and called it good. Then when Fiona arrived and kicked the guest bed out of the nursery, it ended up pushed against one end of the long family room. A guest bed - but zero privacy. Not ideal.

Since Matthew moved out, we've painted and recarpeted his old room and made it a bedroom/office. We're still working on some of the final touches, but it is fully functional for visitors. Hooray!

Last weekend, Mike and Brad moved said old, mismatched furniture out the basement (hello Craigslist!) so that the new sectional could be delivered. We LOVE it and Fiona totally approves! We also got a new entertainment center and Mike got permission to buy a new flat screen TV. He came home with one bigger than what I remember agreeing to - but he stayed within budget so I don't care!

The Craigslist app on Mike's phone has thus far proven useful in Operation: Get Rid of the Crap We Don't Want Anymore and Is Taking Up Space In Our Garage. However, he has also found some good outside toys for Buggy - so it's cost us more than it has made us. I'm holding out hope we can break even as the pile of stuff in the garage continues to disappear.

Here are a couple pictures of the new space. Next on the list is really working on the back end of the family room - which will be the toy area for the kids. But we do have a few toys in there and Fiona thoroughly enjoys playing downstairs. So while we technically haven't doubled the size of our house, it sure feels that way to everyone!

Ready for visitors

New sectional (imagine me saying as I take this,
"Buggy, do not color on the new couch")

Start of the toy room

Nothing to do with the basement, but I love the CHEESE face