More House

Now that our latest visitors have headed back home, our guest room is lonely. That is, until the boys have nightmares or feel sick and crawl into Eric and my bed....then one of us head to the guest room for some SPACE! In the meantime, there is a free place to stay waiting for more family and friends!

We really did very little to this room. No painting at all. Just some deep-cleaning, moving in some furniture, and hanging pictures.

More House

When I look back at that last post, it looks like our house is all kid chaos. Let me assure you that is not the case. Eric and I have our place to chillax and watch tv too....with out the chaos of kids toys looming. Here are a few pics of our family room, just off the kitchen/dining area.

Here is Eric steam-cleaning the floors, pre-furniture.

And...post-furniture. I do love the can-lights and the natural lighting.

But don't be fooled. Just because we don't have kid toys in this room, it doesn't mean there is no evidence of little ones. Check out the fingerprint smudges looking out the doors.

More House

Today, I thought I'd share some more of our new house. As many people would probably agree, the formal living room is a lost art. We have no need for one. When guests are over, we all gather in the family room/kitchen area. Having said that, in both of our last two houses we had and maintained a formal living room at the front of the house....which was rarely used. The kids used it to play games when I was trying to watch tv (good mom) and Eric used it to practice putting. After moving into our new house, I knew I was not going to use the front room as a living room. I decided it would be the toy room. We painted it off white and used Caleb's favorite color to accent the room....RED!

We got the toy room started with a tv and video games.....but we were lacking in furniture and style. The sea foam green had to go. We needed something a bit more kid friendly.

We finally finished painting and upgraded to furniture. The room is bright, kid friendly, and very usable.

My puppet theatre, see through curtains shall be replaced by large, colorful polka-dot ones someday. (As soon as my mom comes back into town. :)) And I LOVE the train table/coffee table. Perfect for our wooden trains, assembling puzzles, and playing board games. Plus it is bright and colorful.

We are still debating the chandelier. I was against leaving it a first because I thought it wasn't kid friendly, but now I think I like it. Although, in AZ, a ceiling fan would be much more practical.

We needed some major storage. Thank goodness for our local IKEA store. Max storage, made for small spaces, in fun colors.

And fun, colorful ways to store our video games.

We used the kids' artwork to decorate the room. We bought a few new frames and spray-painted several old frames white. Again, it is bright and colorful, which we love, and I think it makes the kids feel special. Plus, there are several pieces that look store bought.

Just today, we finished hanging the last shelf....the perfect spot for the boys to display their Pez dispenser collection.

And yes, when you enter through the front door, this is the first room you will see.

The Boys Room

Since you've already seen the new house....or at least Noah's version, I suppose it is time to start posting some pictures. We'll start with the kids' room. The boys decided they wanted to share a room in the new house leading to some new bunk beds! We were going to have to buy a new bed for Caleb anyhow, as he was quickly outgrowing his toddler bed. Their room is super small so we, meaning I, had to shop around a bit. I knew we could only do twin bunk beds but I was hoping to score a trundle bed, for extra sleep space when visitors are in town, or friends are spending the night. I finally found exactly what I needed at hayneedle.com. Their room started with ASU (or Winnetonka, according to Uncle Dave) maroon and gold walls. We covered most of the gold with light blue, left one wall and the trim maroon, and the back of the door gold. It turned out pretty cute, I think. Noah is still looking for a Star Wars picture to complete his "area," but all in all, we have one room done!

Here is what it looked like before.....

And after....

Noah's shelves...

Caleb's shelves....

Last night we had our first "sleepover" to try out the trundle bed....Dad and Molly and I slept in the boys room. Caleb and Noah slept on the top bunk, Mom on the bottom (until everyone fell asleep, then I headed to my bed :)), and Dad and Molly on the trundle bed.

I love that my boys share a room. I can remember so many nights of chats and giggles with my sister, growing up sharing a room...always so fun.

I love that they have fake hardwood floors. So easy to keep clean and great for puzzles, trains, and cars.

I love their closet. Tons of shelf space that has now replaced both of their dressers. If only I can keep Caleb from climbing the shelves like a ladder. Plus the mirrored doors are fun for kids. My boys lay in bed and make faces at each other in the mirror.

Yay for one room being done!

Cribs Episode #2

When I got home from work today, Noah had surprised me with a video of our new house. He told me, "I was randomly watching Ni-hao Kai-Lan, and I thought...everybody hasn't seen our new house. I should show them for the blog."

Here it is.....enjoy! (Good luck seeing our new house.)

Oh, Kingsmere

I love memories. Funny, because mine is terrible. Memories are always better than the actual experience. The older I get, the more conscious I am of this. While standing in line at an amusement park, sweating like a pig, with whiny kids, starving for a real meal, I think about how miserable I am. I instantly become aware of how I will remember this day as being SO FUN! The same holds true for our old house. I recently came across some pictures of our Kingsmere house during the move. As I look at the pictures, I think, "Oh, I loved that house. It's so cute!" But I distinctly remember being at the house and hating it. The moment we decided to sell the house, I detached myself from it. I can recall many a conversations with Eric that included, "I hate this place! I can't wait to sell this house."

But for my selective memory, here are a couple of my favorites...

The dark, hardwood floors revealed beneath the terrible carpet. And the kitchen that began with mustard colored counter tops and strawberry wall paper.

And then there was Noah's bedroom. What do you do with all your free time during maternity leave with your second child...paint a mural for the older one, of course! It still looks good.

Cribs Episode #1

The time has come....I have finally taken a video of our new house. It is just a lease for now as we will begin ANOTHER house search soon. (hence the episode #1)