Best Birthday Ever

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 34. I'm not thrilled to be moving from "early 30s" to "mid 30s" but oh well. The day started off kind of crappy when Wyatt woke up at 1:45 a.m. with a nightmare. He's had a few of them now and they are awful. He doesn't wake up and he just keeps crying and screaming and then finally he will wake up and stop. Then I have to settle him down and get him back to sleep. I feel so bad for the little guy when it happens. I do everything I can to help him but it's one of those things I can't really fix. So he finally got back to sleep a little after 3:00 a.m. and then was up and ready to go at 7:00. The morning was full of the usual household business like cleaning floors, changing diapers and doing dishes. The day really picked up though when Rob came home early from work. He took over Daddy duty and gave me my present. Technically he gave me a flyer with a bunch of different Macs on it but that was so I could go pick out the one I wanted. Yippee!!!!! My iMac was 6 years old and out of date. I went out to do a little investigating and then we all went out after naptime and Rob bought this for me-



Hmm- I probably should have taken a picture of the actual computer and not the box because now it looks like I just got a big box. The new computer is so wonderful! It is big (27 inches!) and fast and has a webcam and the newer version of iPhoto works so much better and I'm sure I will find even more to love as I continue to get familiar with it. I already used google talk and skype to talk with my family and Nanette back in California. We had dinner (pizza was my choice) and I opened the rest of my gifts from my family. Lots of gift cards and it looks like I have a lot of shopping to do. Rob got me a little birthday cake too that we all shared. Rex, who sings "Birthday To You!" every time he sees a cake or box of cake mix, wouldn't sing to me but Rob did. Thanks honey. I didn't get a picture with the cake but here's one after pizza and before cake.



Despite an awful start to the day, I think it turned out to be my best birthday ever.

Wyatt's First Restaurant Experience

On Wednesday Rob left work a little early and we packed up the boys for a little trip to Des Moines to look for a new table to go in the kitchen. This trip was going to be during dinner time too so I packed up stuff for Wyatt and prepared for his first meal at a restaurant. I fed him lunch at the Jordan Creek mall food court last month on a trip to Des Moines but this was different. We opted for the Machine Shed restaurant since it is a big, noisy, family place. It went pretty good. Wyatt was excited and he likes to scream when he's excited so that was unfortunate. Other than that, Rex did awesome and we had a good meal. Wyatt did eat pretty good when he wasn't looking all around trying to soak up the new experience. We took some photos but didn't want to use a flash so they turned out a little blurry. Oops.





We visited a few places looking at tables and were finally successful at Homemakers. The table and chairs will be delivered next week- yay! Rob finished the painting in the kitchen so by next Wednesday, our kitchen is going to look awesome. We won't have to do any more projects in there for a very long time. There are still lots of projects to do other places though so there are lots of visits to Lowe's and Home Depot in our future. Here are Rex and Wyatt on a recent trip to Home Depot.



Rex loves riding in carts that look like cars- in addition to this one at Home Depot, the supermarkets around here have them too. They don't look like Joey Logano's car but they are still pretty cool.

We were taking a lot of walks and playing outside a bunch but that has ended. It was in the 50s and 60s for a while but now the temperature has dropped and the highs are only in the 30s and 40s. Yikes. It should be warmer by next weekend. Here we are enjoying the sunshine we had.




That's all the excitement that I can think of for us over the last 10 days or so. Wyatt ate a graham cracker, even fed it to himself, this week. That may not sound too exciting to you, but for that guy, there should be a parade in his honor for such an accomplishment. He is such a picky eater. I have no idea where he gets it. [For those of you who don't know me so well, he gets it from me. I only pretend not to know.] Today Rob is going to put the curtains back up in the kitchen and hang the new ones in Wyatt's room so I'll be posting photos of those two areas soon. It feels nice to have some parts of the house looking how I want them and how Rob wants them. I could dwell on all there still is to do but I think I'll just leave it at that and enjoy what we have accomplished so far.

Home Improvement

Rob has hated the kitchen paint color for a long time now and this past week, he decided he was going to do something about it. I liked the color but I have to admit, it was pretty dark.



First we were going to paint it green. A search began for the perfect green, not too minty and not too yellow-y either. As I finally got it narrowed down to two choices, Rob tells me he doesn't want green after all. He wants cream with white trim. So we had a big discussion about design choices in general and what our style is. We both complain a lot about our house not having any color but realized we love the Pottery Barn look which doesn't use a lot of color. A neutral look with a little hit of color here and there is what we like. Now that we had that figured out, it was time to pick the right cream and white color. Back to Lowe's and Ace for more paint sample cards. Finally, we decided to go with Valspar Churchill Hotel Vanilla which is what all our bedrooms are painted. On one hand, I felt like we were stuck and not branching out but on the other hand, I felt like we knew what we were getting and we are keeping a continuous look. The house I owned when I was single looked like a box of crayons, with every room a different color, and it did bother me a little that I didn't have a cohesive look. I'm trying to make it a point this time around to make sure the house looks like it has one personality instead of 20. We picked up the paint and supplies Friday night and Rob got to work on Saturday. I was taking care of the boys while Rob painted so I wasn't much help. Rob got all the taping and prep work and primer done Saturday and then got the color on the walls and ceiling yesterday. It is so bright and lovely in our kitchen now!



As you can see, there is still a little work to be done. The trim all got primed but still needs to be painted (we chose Valspar Swiss Coffee for that). It's really nice to have a kitchen I can work in again though- we ate out too much this weekend. In fact, Rob made it a point to wrap things up early enough last night so we could make our own dinner. We have a kitchen table issue that we are having a hard time resolving. Our little table we used to have can't fit the 4 of us so we have this temporary one set up for now while we try to find one we like and that will fit okay. I think a trip to Ikea may be in our future!

Rob had a little home improvement project last weekend too- he got a new toilet for the main bath and installed it. Not a very sexy project or my favorite way to spend money, but it sure is nice to have that done. I didn't take any pictures of that project because it's a toilet. It's shiny and white but I still didn't feel like I want to put a picture up of our new toilet. I did my own little home improvement project yesterday in Wyatt's room and put up the giraffe and tree wall decals I bought months ago. I was afraid they wouldn't stick to our walls- I had that problem with the ones in Rex's room. These were a different brand and seem to be doing fine. Wyatt is asleep now so I can't in there to take pictures of his room. I also bought curtains for our little rooster's room (he's been waking up so early lately!). I will try to get a picture once the curtains are hung and everything is looking good. Hopefully the curtains will help block out the light and he will start sleeping later. The time change seems to have helped with that too. Anyhow, that's what we have been doing lately. Now that it is warming up, I am sure there will be a lot more projects, indoors and outdoors, going on at our house.

The Curious George Room

When we took Rex out of the crib last summer and put him in his "big boy" bed, it was time to also do a new decorating theme in there. It didn't have much of one before so really it was just time to do some decorating. Rob and I were planning on doing a mountainy, lodgey kind of theme. As I was planning that out I realized that was more for us and what Rex would love is a Curious George room. I started looking for George things to decorate with and came up with nothing. Well, a few posters to choose from and a package of wall decals. No bedding though. Ok, that's not true. There was one set I could find but it was red gingham and not very cute and a little on the girly side. Pottery Barn Kids has some cute bedding now but nothing at the time I was looking. So I commissioned a Curious George quilt to be made by my mom. She found the fabrics and put it all together and it is awesome. I didn't even have to ask him to pose with George; he already had him in his hand.



Then I needed a rug. I thought it would be cool if I could find a rug that looked like a Twister mat. After some internet searching, I found one from Company Kids. The brown chair is not used much so I think we will relocate that when we get the family room done.



Finally, we needed some storage. There were a couple of bookshelves that the previous owners left behind in the basement so we brought one of those upstairs to put toys and books on. I have no idea where we kept all this stuff before. I think a lot of it was just piled on the dresser and the rest was out in our living room. It's also great if you want to cruise through and steal your big brother's toys.





We put up some of the decals around the room but found they didn't stay up too well on our bumpy walls. I put a bunch on the lampshade so he has a Curious George lamp which worked out good but it was a bummer that they don't stay on the walls very good. There were some yellow curtains up that were not very functional so we swapped those out for some red ones that matched and worked better. The alphabet poster finished it off and that is Rex's new Curious George room!

And here are a couple more fun photos from our little photo shoot this morning.

Slacker.

Wow- almost 4 weeks since I posted my last blog entry. I haven't been slacking though; it's just been crazy busy around here. I'll work my way back.

My parents returned to California after being at our house for a week. It was so good to see them and we had a good time. We played cards (the boys KILLED the girls- it was ugly), they watched the boys while Rob and I had a very nice dinner out and went to look at laptop computers, and we just had a good time playing with the boys and catching up. We didn't all go anywhere since the weather is still not the greatest and our car doesn't even hold 6 people anyhow. Rob smoked a turkey breast in the smoker and it came out so, so, so very good. We decided we should try and do a whole turkey for Thanksgiving. Here are Nana and Papa with the boys.



The weekend before they got here (almost 2 weeks ago) we took Wyatt on his first trip out of town and went shopping in Des Moines for a little while. I got some new running shoes and Rob got something- I can't remember what right now though. We met some friends for lunch and ate at the food court. I know that sounds kind of lame but we haven't taken Wyatt to a restaurant yet and I wasn't ready to attempt going out of town, shopping and a restaurant experience all at the same time. He did great though. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the trip but I didn't. Bad mommy. Here's a picture of Wyatt and Rex in their matching robot shirts instead.



We got our taxes done a few weeks ago and were happy to learn that we will be getting enough back (I think) to finish the family room project we started last fall. Rob redid the roof (with some help on the shingles), put up some new siding and replaced the six windows before the weather turned cold and snowy. He still needs to put up rain gutters and window trim but most of the exterior work and the things he had to do are finished. We are busy making decisions on what needs to happen to get the room finished. Heating and cooling and the access from the rest of the house are the hot-button issues. I wanted to enlarge the existing single door and have double french doors but since that wall used to be an exterior wall and is therefore a load-bearing wall, it's probably not worth the money and trouble to do that. Anyhow, lots of research to do and decisions to make before we get going again on it.

Wyatt is now 9.5 months old. He had a check-up with his doctor a few weeks ago and he's doing great. He's kind of skinny but I think that has to do with his refusal to eat solid foods until he was 8 months old. Now that he's eating good, it should go up. Rex is doing good too. He drives me crazy sometimes because he completely ignores what he is told to do but just when I've had it up to here with him, he does something so sweet or so funny and I remember what a great kid he is and that he is just two and being a pill goes along with being two. Except when he hit me in the face with a water bottle the other night- then I was just mad. I deserve the presents when he turns 3 I think for getting through the past year. Seriously, he's a good kid, just full of a lot of energy and it is time for spring to come so he can get outside again and get those wiggles out!

Both kids are melting down now so I better end this and get back to them. I haven't taken too many pictures lately but here is one more cute one I found from the past month.