Under Construction…Always!

Okay, So I am fully aware that this is a less than flattering picture of myself, but it adequately depicts how I feel about the state of our house. Insert high pitched shriek. I’m sure it is mostly a bit of cabin fever ready for a healthy dose of some massive spring cleaning, but for goodness sakes!!!!! So. much. stuff.

Being “organized” seems so short lived in our home.  I feel I’ve been mislead, that once you get organized that is it, everything has a place and all is wonderful in the world. The problem seems to be that it only lasts as long as the stuff that you need to organize does. For instance we have our garage organized with shelves and totes, but what needs to be in some of  those totes continuously changes as do the other items in the garage.  So the trick is having the time to sort and label the items to go in the bins. And until then things just get shoved everywhere. Much with our closets in our home, everything can be folded and put in its place but after a couple months everything seems to be everywhere. Maybe I’m not as organized as I think I am? All I know is everything is everywhere and I need the garage organized before I can move things out there, and it is too cold to do that so everything seems to be “under construction” until the weather improves.

As if getting everything together wasn’t enough, we are also working on painting the interior of our home. We have opted for a slow but steady option, I say this because mostly the Hubs may leave if I asked him to tackle it all at once.  Mostly because I haven’t figured out how to do the painting and watch 3 children by myself.  So we have painted a little of the trim and doors every weekend over the last month or so and then we will paint the walls.  It hasn’t been decided if this really is the best way to carry this out, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. So now we have stuff everywhere and partially painted walls.

 

Zippercow thought it would be best to paint our test spot in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Mostly because he can’t handle a random square on the wall. So we have this green over the pantry door, and a tan color in our dining room and kitchen. I promise pictures when we finish!

Here is our messy living room with partially painted trim down the hall. We are almost done with all the doors and trim in the hall.

So as you can see we have a lot of work ahead of us,  but I really wanted to share our progress with everyone. Why? Because when it is all done it will seem that much more fabulous!!! So over the next couple of days I will be posting pictures of our home in its pre-spring cleaning state and then (of course!) share the after pictures. I will tell you one thing, taking time to organize is always worth it, because it makes re-organizing  that much easier. Welcome to our decrapification!!!

A Proper Goodbye

I like to pretend that I don’t get attached to material things and I like to think that I am pretty good at letting go of the things we no longer need. But then we had our last baby. Now every time our Littlest Moo grows out of something I get a little sad when I think of parting with it. Like the cute little onesies  he wore as a newborn. Or the ones that both he and Little Moo wore. Those are hard. But of course there are a few things that we are ready to get rid of that we won’t be sad about. Like the baby bathtub. Those things are so huge and ridiculous and in a small house there really is no where to store it. man am I glad he no longer needs that thing! Also the baby swing. While a dear friend to us in his early months it takes up tons of floor space which is at a premium in our house so we were not sad to see it go!

I thought that I’d post to pay homage to those baby items in our home that served us well and deserve a proper send off.  These items being the cutest and most importantly served to make parenting just a teensie bit easier.

One of our favorite baby item was this bouncy chair. Zippercow and I still say it is the BEST $25 we ever spent! It was the ONLY place that I could put Little Moo down when he was a baby that he wouldn’t scream like a banshee and sometimes he’d even nap in it allowing precious moments to use the bathroom and brush last weeks morning breath away.

This is the magic baby chair.

It once had a toy bar

with cute little giraffes and a little blue ball.

It has served this household well

Both Little and Littlest Moo loved this chair! I wanted to cry when it was time to throw it out. Sadly it was too loved to pass on to someone else as you can probably see from the pictures above. The toy bar would not stay screwed on and the fabric was tearing. But it made it through my two kids and my niece so it seemed right to retire it. Still, it was hard to say goodbye. It just seemed…wrong. 

So how about you? Do you have a much beloved baby item that you just can’t  part with? Maybe you’ve already gotten rid of it but it made you sad to do so? Share!

I’m High-Jacking Our Blog!

The Zippercow so rarely did anything with our blog previously and we only used it to update friends and family on our little family, but now there is facebook so... As some may be aware I’m not the greatest at keeping our blog going, but this time will be different (I’m serious!). I felt our family blog in its previous form read more like the holiday letter that everyone sends out every year. My hope is to have more of my style (I know, I know, who needs that right?) honest mom moments, how we save money,  inexpensive decorating ideas and anything else my crazy brain comes up with. Zippercow may add his input  from time to time but mostly you just get me, and you know you love it!

A Little Sunshine

Look at this little sunshine! It is so smiley and unassuming. You would never know the evil things it is capable of. You might ask, "How can such a cute little sunshine toy be anything but cute?" Oh let me tell you!

We were fortunate enough to have some nice friends loan us their excersaucer for our Littlest Moo to use. And man does he love to sit in it and play! But I recently discovered the little sunshine is not so sweet and sunny because he doubles as a spit sling shot. Sadly our Littlest Moo spits up quite a bit (much like Little Moo did) so while he's playing he spits up and we wipe it up. Littlest Moo finds this little sunny guy the most appealing and can often be seen chewing away on it, which requires him to bend it towards him. Well sometimes he spits up and before we can get to him to clean it up he will have gotten some of the spit up all over this sunny little face and then it will slip out of his hands. But don't you worry, the sunshine shares!As he snaps himself into his upright position he flings all of that lovely spit up all over my living room. Yes, baby vomit in little specks all over my living room.not cool! I didn't realize how bad it was until the other day I found spots of orange on my couch in a couple places. I don't let the little kids snack in the living room so I had to ponder for a few minutes before realizing it was regurgitated carrots that was all over my couch.FAIL. So unassuming he is, just politely smiling. I'd consider taking it off but again, it is Littlest Moos favorite and how can you deny such a sweet face a little sun? So instead we just take cover from the sun.

Here Kitty, Kitty!

Yikes again! We were so busy and during that we all had 3 terrible colds back-to-back. Now that we are all finally feeling better I have time to get back to things (such as this blog) that take a backseat when things get crazy!

We do have some very sad news that I would like to share first. Last week, April 20th, we had to make the very tough decision to put Harry down.  It was a heartbreaking decision for Zippercow and I to make and Little Moo still asks if we are going to pick him up from the vet, which means we have to explain to him all over again that Harry passed away. He asks less now, but the retelling just makes it hurt more. He was with us for 16 great years and if you had ever met him you would know that he was quite possibly the friendliest cat ever. He will be missed. 

 

Moving on to things that aren't so sad, Zippercow has completed a very important phase for getting ready for our little baby boy on the way. Oh yeah, we haven't shared that yet, we are expecting a BOY!!!! Little Moo wasn't too keen on a brother, it took some convincing but now he is excited. Anyhow, back to what I was previously sharing. Zippercow built a cat cage for in the garage. It has a door on the front so that the litter boxes can be accessed as well as any clean ups that are necessary. And now there is also a cat door that leads from the house to this cage, so the litter boxes are no longer going to be in what is now the baby's room. We even put some toys and a new scratching post in the cage for them. It took them a few days to get used to going through the kitty door, but they are getting used to it. I'm so proud of my Zippercow he made the plans, and built this great cat cage and put the kitty door in. They may seem like small things, but each time we do something (even small things) we customize our house to be the home we want it to be. Next will be painting! Three rooms, double yay!?!

 

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Testing, Testing?

Some things have changed with how we can post to our blog so I wanted to see if it still works. If it does I will post more later. If it doesn't..well I'll post tomorrow. 

And so..

Again, a month goes by before I've even noticed it, yikes! So here is what is going on.

We purchased a minivan. Yes a minivan. When we had discussed the eventuality of needing a second vehicle Zippercow was set against a minivan. He had grand ideas for medium sized SUVs and had no desire to be one of THOSE people who drove minivans. I personally never minded, but since he didn't want one I went along with the other options he had researched. And as we would soon discover those other options were at the high end of what we could afford and we were trying REALLY hard to keep the payments close to what we were paying for the Mazda (which is now paid off, hurray!). So we started looking into the smaller SUVs with third row seating. Now I'm sure you are thinking "crazy lady you are only going to have two kids why on earth would you need a third row?!" and as I've had to explain a couple times,  I watch my niece during the week as well so once Little Moo starts preschool (not to mention appointments and now we will actually be able to go to the park!)  I will need to have room for three (yes three) car seats. Anyone who has had the pleasure of strapping the behemoths into a car will tell you, you can never get more than two into a backseat safely. Anyhow,back to how we ended up with a minivan. We looked into smaller SUVs with third rows. Smaller is an understatement, cramped and uncomfortable is more like it. We did a lot of looking online and just were not finding what we needed so we went to a couple dealerships. First I must say that I hate working with salesman more than..well anything. The first place we went she took down all the things we were looking for, high on our list of priorities was price, and though we said it repeatedly she didn't ask what our price range was . After all the info she gathered she brought around a vehicle. It was not ANY of the vehicles we discussed and was about twice what we were willing to spend. She was excited and had it ready for a test drive. I took one look at the inside and new it was out of our price range. I wouldn't even get in, which I'm sure disappointed her. I know how it works, they hope you love it enough that you'll find a way to afford it. We aren't those kind of people. We do a lot of research, we always sleep on our decisions, and the more pressured we feel, the less likely we are to just leave, which I have done before. We left and went to another car lot. The salesman was nice and while he still didn't show us anything we wanted to see he paid attention to what we wanted to pay and that we needed it for a family. He pointed out how difficult it is to buckle children into the smaller SUVs because you have to fold the seat down to get to the back row, which for me would mean taking the seat out or climbing over. Yikes! He did pull around a 2008 Kia Sedona that was perfectly priced and we fell in love. So roomy, no climbing over things, space for the stroller or groceries behind the third row..lets just say I was sold. And surprisingly so was Zippercow! But since we had not researched this vehicle we "slept on it" did some research and discovered that it is quite safe and reliable. So now our driveway houses another vehicle. One of which excites Little Moo so much that he asks multiple times a day if we are going anywhere, apparently he was sold as well!

Other than the purchase of the van we are still slowly working on making way for baby. Mostly we are waiting for the temps to be steadily about 10 degrees warmer so we can open windows and paint. The weather has been so beautiful that everyone around here has just been itching to work in the yard, but it isn't quite warm enough yet. We are also trying to patiently await the ultra sound that will hopefully tell us the gender of our little baby (who has been moving all over the place!). March 18! We are counting down the days, hopefully the baby will cooperate!

So that is what has been going on, but I'm sure I will think of other things. Mostly I'm just enjoying the magic of the van, but more on that later!