Fabulous Red (Take THAT, Pottery Barn!)

Here is the finished (well, almost) kids' kitchen in all it's glory. Trust me, Pottery Barn only WISHES their kitchen was as well-built or interesting.

This "little" project has dominated our lives for the last week. Here, the kids got to play in the family room after Daddy moved some furniture and put down dropclothes for painting.

We saw a lot more of the entryway and stairwell than we normally do. Daddy had the child gate locked so little fingers didn't get into wet paint, so the kids sat on the stairs or stood by the gate a lot. Here, Rilla is making raspberry noises for the car she is holding, and clutching one of her favorite things in the world-- a little sock. She's not too choosy whether they're clean or dirty, Marilla's or Elliott's. I try not to let this gross me out.

Kind of cute, eh?

Here, Daddy starts the first coat.

Look at that, it IS Fabulous Red! (Name of the paint color.)

Almost done!

Unveiling today with the rather proud model. It isn't totally finished, but it was getting increasingly harder to tell the kids they couldn't play with it.

NOT a model face. He has the cutest little nose scrunch when he's saying "no" to a question. Of course, now that we all laugh at it, he really milks it. Most pictures of him doing The Face come out looking really deranged, but it is cute in real life.

Here is the fridge, with a freezer drawer compartment "just like Grandma's!" Evan is planning on building shelves on the door and a few internal shelves.

The stove, with adjustable oven racks, just in case you need to broil something. Evan is still searching for something that would look like realistic knobs, and he's planning on making burners.

The pot drawer under the stove.

The sink unit, with a drawer on one side. The other side has the sink and a false front on the cabinet. I'm getting a little jealous that the cabinets are more sturdy than the actual cabinets in my kitchen and they have an undermount sink and I don't!

The cabinets under the sink. The sink faucet is still in the developmental stages as well.

Finally playing with the beautiful kitchen!

Grandma and Grandpa are here! They are enroute from Florida back home, and the kids were sure excited to see them. Marilla didn't seem to remember them, but she's having lots of fun with them now.

Elliott catches up on his e-mail.

Oh, if anyone is interested, Evan will gladly sell you a kitchen. Figuring labor, the cost should only be around... umm, $1000? I think we will have to tap into a pricier demographic than the people we normally associate with!

I AM Martha Stewart

I am Martha Stewart today. And I have photographic proof. See my two gorgeously attired children sitting in a clean living room, quietly sharing markers as they draw creative pictures.

Wow, this sight was so unusual, I had to grab the camera. There are reasons for this picture, though.

1. We had company come today (Rosemary and Eun Hui) so I tidied up the living room while the kids were still up instead of waiting until they went to bed.
2. I am way too lazy to do wash for an outfit they wore for two hours, so I dressed them in their Wednesday night meeting clothes again this morning.
3. My kids actually do just play together nicely occasionally!

Anyway, it's nice to take a picture when you aren't trying to crop out the mess in the background!

Since I had the new guest room in the basement all spiffied up today, I took pictures of that, too. If I had any brains, I could draw a floor plan in some computer program and put it on here, but I don't. The gist of it is, you go down the stairs and into the door of the room. Closet is on the left, mirror and bureau are straight ahead, queen bed to your right, and if you turn around, to the right of the queen bed is the twin bed. (I don't know why I'm feeling compelled to explain this-- either you don't care or you will come see it yourself someday.)

Here are the stairs leading up from the room into our entryway. Evan just put up the handrail today, notice the elegant "return" on the end. (My husband is amazing.)

The queen bed, with grumpy curly-head, and the foot of the twin bed off to the right. Those doors at the foot of the bed lead to the electrical panel and water shut-off. My husband framed a door in so it would look nicer than our old panel box and it would still be accessible. They are bi-fold doors, because when you open them, there is maybe one inch between the doors and the bottom of the bed. The nightstand beside the queen bed is one I stole out of Mom and Dad's basement-- it was the right price.

The twin bed is in a sort of alcove-- the heating ducts run above there, so Evan had to frame the ceiling lower there. I think it looks cozy. Evan built that little niche above it this week-- it uses dead space under our stairs, and it negates the need for a nightstand, since there isn't any room for a nightstand. In yet another example of my husband's brilliance, there is even an outlet in the back to plug in an alarm clock or phone charger. The niche is empty, though, until I get money and ambition to buy a lamp and such. If I invested in a lock for the door, I could sit on that bed, lean back against the down pillows, and read a book there for HOURS!

The desk to the left of the queen bed. I stole this item of furniture from Mom and Dad years ago. I think they've gotten over it by now. The chair was at a garage sale this summer for two dollars! (And I fixed the angle of the lampshade after I took this pictures.) The window there is big enough for someone to climb out if there was a fire, and there are stairs in the well outside so you could climb up to safety. I love the deep sill-- I've always wanted window sills large enough for plants. The two books stacked there are a dictionary and a dictionary-thesaurus. I love dictionaries.

The bureau my in-laws kindly refinished for me. If it had been left to my ambition, it would still be sitting in the garage, covered in dust and scratches. The mirror hanging above it was a clearance buy years ago-- it belonged to a bureau, but they got separated somehow, so the mirror was cheap!

Blurry baby, and the closet doors. The temptation (which I have already given in to) is to cram it full of storage. I am trying to get rid of stuff, though, so guests can have room to hang stuff in there. Evan built shelves in one half, which is where we store all our puzzles, and other STUFF.

I have been enjoying this week so much. Evan has had no work, which is bad financially, but wonderful otherwise! I could sure get used to having him around all day, and not just because he's available to change diapers, too! I think Elliott is going to have a meltdown when Daddy gets work again--yesterday, Evan went to take a civil service exam (for census worker) and Elliott was bound and determined that if I just let him go outside or out in the garage, he could find Daddy! Evan is building the kids a wooden kitchen. While I'm sure the purest of motives made him start this project (he wanted his kids to have a nice kitchen to play with), I think it has morphed into a burning desire to one-up Pottery Barn kid's retro kitchen. Considering the financial constraints (i.e. we have no money!) he's doing quite the job. Both Cheyenne and Elliott can play in the garage for hours while Evan works on it.

Evan heroically took the kids on errands today so I could vacuum the house uninterrupted. While it was very nice to be able to whizz around and get things accomplished, it also felt weird! I was so jumpy, I kept imagining I heard someone breaking in at our patio door. Considering I have stayed alone here at night with three small kids, I really don't know why I was that way today! I guess it's been so long that I've been alone in my house my psyche just didn't know how to handle it!

It is raining and snowing here, completely yucky weather. Despite having almost two weeks in which it got above freezing every day, we still have a lot of snow on the ground. I noticed some very uniform balls of snow on our deck today, and I could not figure out how they were formed. Then I realized it was reverse footprints-- where Cheyenne had walked, a month ago, the snow had compacted and formed a denser, icier part. That icy ball is more resistant to melting than the snow around it, so there is a line of balls tracing wherever Cheyenne walked!

I have been updating Cody's blog every day, uploading pictures from a CD he sent me. He is in Mississippi now, pretty impressive! I desperately want to be there when he gets finished, but I know it doesn't make sense to drag three kids down there. Guess I'll just live vicariously through his pictures! For those interested in following his story, I write a blog for him at http://codywalks.blogspot.com.

Family Game Night

Last night was family game night. I'm usually not organized enough (or an interesting enough mother) to specifically plan a game night, but this was in lieu of Cheyenne going to the fire station tonight to watch a movie. Since the biggest excitement about the firehouse event seemed to be the popcorn and juice, I told her we could have A Family Game Night with popcorn and juice, too!

We have pretty slim pickings for kids' games. Thankfully, Cheyenne had got Sequence Junior for a birthday present two years ago. (Thanks, Smiths!) Even though Elliott didn't have a clue why we were putting tokens on the animals, he at least could enjoy picking a card, finding the animal, and putting his token on the board.

Here's me, full of joie de vivre.

In pajamas. The plan had been for Elliott to go to bed, and Cheyenne (who had taken a nap that afternoon in preperation for the festivities) to play games with us, but Elliott got into the spirit, so we didn't have the heart to send him off to bed.

In a rather pathetic attempt to up the number of "games" we had to play, Evan and Cheyenne played Rock, Paper, Scissors. Cheyenne always waits to see what the other person does before she throws her choice. She's remarkably sucessful.

The glee of being able to cut Daddy's paper. (And the orange mustache that results when Game Night gets moved from Saturday to Friday and Mommy realizes she doesn't have any juice in the house so she calls Daddy and has him buy an orange soda at the convenience store.)

We also had Memory, which Elliott was suprisingly good at. Evan helped a bit, but most of the stack in front of Elliott is because he'd remember where the cards were.

Here is Elliott's attempt to give himself "thumbs up" for winning Memory.

For our final game, we played Uno, where Evan and I cheated. A lot. I hate people cheating at games, but at this point, Cheyenne doesn't even now that it's not acceptable practice to look at everyone's hands. Of course, we weren't trying to cheat to win-- we were cheating so that Cheyenne would win, preferably before 7 hours had elapsed.

Much as I had planned the night for Cheyenne's sake, it was fun. We even bought Chutes and Ladders at Wal-Mart today for our next Game Night!

Just for You, Tyler Scott

When we were growing up, my mom made excellent banana bread. It was always very moist, so much so that the middle of the top had a teeny spot were it was sort of doughy-- not enough to be gross, just doughy enough that you saved that little part for last. We all loved banana bread, and it's the only thing I would actually put butter on besides toast. (I now put butter on lots of things... Haven't decided if that's progress or not.) Anyway, somewhere in those years, Mom lost/miscopied her recipe. She doesn't bake as much now, so it doesn't concern her, but I have been trying to make that kind of banana bread for YEARS! There are lots of recipes out there that bake up consistently every time, but they tend to be drier and boring. I really wanted the moist loaf! My brother, Tyler, has been through MANY of my banana bread experiments. The usual result is that I have a charred brick with some soupy dough in the middle. He never fails to remind me of these failures if he feels I am getting a little too above myself. Today, though, thanks to Recipe #25885 on Recipezaar, I made a perfect loaf of banana bread.

Here it is, modeled by my daughter on one of our lovely plastic Ikea plates we have used nonstop for the last 2 years.

See the appreciative smile on the little Banana Bread Eater's face?

Oh, here it is again, Tyler, in all it's moist, yet baked, perfection. And you're in Alaska and can't have any. So I ate a piece for you, with lots of butter, and saved the top of the middle for last.

Fifth of February (Happy Birthday, Bet!)

Cheyenne and Elliott playing Little People/Animals/Circus together-- and they weren't even fighting!



It is cold and snowy here. We should expect this, living where we do, but it still feels a little never ending. I always think of May as the real beginning of warmth, because it is not at all unusual to have snow in April. Therefore, warmth is three months away. That said, I am always pleasantly surprised at how pleasant some days are in April! We did have a couple days this week when it did get up in the 30s, so at least our snowbanks have sank a little.


I actually shouldn't be whining about the cold and snow, since I haven't had to take Cheyenne to school at all this week! Alex's mom has done it every day! I (being Jill's daughter) have been feeling excessively guilty about this, but I realized the other day that if the positions were switched, I wouldn't mind picking up another kid in our neighborhood. Lisa has three boys, so maybe she enjoys a little femininity in the car with her! I offer to babysit frequently, and hopefully there will be a way I can help out sometime down the road. In the meantime, I am just enjoying the slower pace! I do wonder about Cheyenne spending more time with Alex, though. Tonight, she was making a card for Alex, and one for his older brother, Gregory. She was telling Elliott, "Gregory is... well, you know, he is sort of my brother-in-law." (!!!!!) I really have NO idea where she gets this stuff!

Rilla turned 11 months old yesterday, and she is sure enjoying practicing walking and standing! She is doing 5-6 steps now, and standing for quite some stretch of time. Of course, if Mommy stopped being so lazy and dug her out some old shoes so she could actually stand on our hardwood floors without slipping... For right now, though, she's practicing standing on our little oasis of rug in the living room, and she's doing a good job of it! Elliott has a little milestone tomorrow, he'll be 3 1/2!


I have always been a fairly organized person, but lately I have been consciously trying to be more organized and keep my house cleaner. I have always felt a bit above decluttering and organizing advice-- whenever I read a magazine article on the subject, I always did all the things they said to, anyway! I started reading some of the Flylady information (I know lots of people follow her cleaning schedules pretty religiously) and while I don't feel like doing everything she advocates, some of the advice has been good for me! I am pretty ruthless when it comes to getting rid of things we don't need, but I realized this week how much junk I was hanging on to. I went through my bureau and got rid of things I never use-- belts, heavy wool socks, scarves, perfume, lotions, hair barrettes. It finally got through my brain that I changed the way I did my hair YEARS ago-- why do I need all the paraphernalia for hairstyles I haven't had since I was fifteen? I'm also starting to lay clothes out the night before-- such a little thing, but it makes the morning go so much better. It means less arguing in the morning-- Cheyenne accepts clothes that are neatly folded on top of her bureau, but involving her in the choosing process leads to tears and tantrums! I also try to pull supper together right after lunch, so I'm not trying to cook when the kids and I are already hungry and tired and all we want to do is sit and listen for the sound of the front door opening-- DADDY!


All this rambling on to say that I see a difference in how much "free" time I have lately. It could just be that we haven't gone anywhere for a while and no one issick right now, but however it works, I'm enjoying it! I've typed up some of my recipes, and sold clutter on ebay, and dug out my sewing machine. I hadn't sewn anything except for a little mending since last summer. I have been wanting to sew some "corn bags." I bought a corn bag last November at a craft show, and a few days later, I warmed it up for Cheyenne in the microwave after she had been out playing in the snow. She loved it. Since then, The Corn Bag is as indispensable as other people's Blankies or teddy bears. I can't believe she grew an attachment to an object when she was five years old-- I thought that was the province of babies. Anyway, Elliott has been a little jealous of Cheyenne's corn bag, and Marilla loves to hold the bag, so I thought I should make some for the other kids. I am not a crafty person, but it was fun to sew!

When I got out my sewing machine Wednesday, though, Evan reminded me of the insane moment I had agreed to sew 36 pillowcases into bags for Cheyenne's Pre-K teacher. She had seen/heard of a cute idea, where the kids put their hand prints on a bag made out of a pillowcase, and that bag is used to send their stuff home at the end of the year, and the parents have a little keepsake bag. However, she had no idea how the pillowcases were actually turned into bags. I have looked on the Internet different times without finding anything I especially liked or that looked doable with my limited sewing ability. My brainy husband, though, found a neat one in about 10 minutes on Wednesday, then helped me lay it out, cut it and sew it. It turned out great! I was dreading making 36 bags I couldn't be proud of, but I think this bag will be useful and attractive.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the bottom of the bag is flat. It can stand on it's own, and it's double thickness so it's a little sturdier than a pillowcase. Ginger has offered to come over and help sometime, and Evan says he'll help me, so this overwhelming job is seeming possible!



Today, I finally got to the corn bags, the whole reason I had dragged my sewing machine out in the first place! Elliott models them here. I actually used pockets from an old jean skirt for these bags-- look at me, crafty and thrifty! :-)

Cheyenne feeding Marilla Sunday night. She wasn't feeling the burden of responsibility, oh, no!

A cute kid, even if she's blurry.

She's blurry here from hopping down stairs.



Engrossed little boy one morning this week.

Rilla wearing Elliott's new hat. (I finally took pity on him always wearing his sister's flowery hats and bought him a hat and gloves on clearance at Old Navy.)

Some of my favorite people.

I think she's one of Daddy's favorite people.

Oh, yeah, remember how I said earlier about how I was trying to keep my house cleaner? Well, I had evidence this week that I probably do need to clean some things on a more regular basis. Evan has a little Maglite flashlight, and I had changed the bulb on it the other day but it still didn't work. Evan took it apart and realized there was a tiny piece missing. I remembered where I had been standing when I had taken the flashlight apart-- on our little 12-inch counter next to the stove. Perhaps it had fallen down between the counter and stove? I knew there where a lot of split peas down there-- I had a bag fall from the top shelf of the cabinet last week and they went everywhere. Literally. I am still finding them, lots of sweepings later. Anyway, I decided to pull out the stove to look for the flashlight part. When I first pulled it out, I wasn't that embarrassed. The stove has a drawer for pots underneath it that can pull all the way out, and I do sweep under there occasionally and harvest the stray magnets and matchbox cars, so it really wasn't that dirty. Then I saw some envelopes-- there were three unsent letters there! Then Evan found a check-- a birthday present from my aunt last year. I was really embarrassed by that. It wasn't until the next day, though, until I really scrutinized the letters, that I really got embarrassed. They were thank-you letter for Elliott's birth presents. Not birthday presents, birth day presents!! I wrote in one of the letters about how Elliott was switched to a different oxygen delivery system in the hospital! So, now I know without a shadow of a doubt, that I have NEVER cleaned down the side of my stove. We moved in this house six days before Elliott was born, and there the stove has sat the entire time. I guess maybe I do need to deep clean my house occasionally... But I'd rather sew.

Rilla's Taking Steps!

Rilla took her first steps Tuesday, and, as is typical for most third children, I still don't have a picture of her walking. I do, however, have cute pictures Evan took of her the other night, when she was sitting on the sofa.

Prospecting for gold behind the cushions. (Not that she'd find anything, of course!)

Raspberries for car noises.

(matchbox car in hand)


Beautiful smile for Daddy. And a display of markered-up hands. Mommy wasn't paying much attention to Rilla that day.

Cheyenne is Rilla's personal trainer now. She spent most of the afternoon taking Rilla's toy away and trying to entice her to walk to Cheyenne. After about the 300th time, Rilla got bored with it, but she sure does love her big sister.

I realized that I was a competitive mommy when Marilla started walking. One of my first thoughts was, "Oh, good, she walked when she was ten months!" Granted, if she got a tooth that same day, I'd be telling everyone, "Rilla didn't get her first tooth until she was almost 11 months!" (She STILL doesn't have any teeth!) Her age is dependent on how I want the story to sound! :-) We did get under the ten-month mark, though, with over a week to spare!

I got spoiled this week-- "Alex's Mom" took Cheyenne to school Monday and Tuesday. So luxurious to not have to bundle up the other two kids! This is the same Alex that Cheyenne announced was her boyfriend at the beginning of school. The romance hasn't abated in the least-- Cheyenne tells me they are getting married when they grow up. The other day (in a fit of pique at her brother) she told me she couldn't wait to get married "and not have to live with any brothers or sisters!" I've stressed that she has to wait until she's all grown up to get married, but in the meantime, Cheyenne and Alex seem inseperable. According to Cheyenne, Alex tells her every day how pretty she looks. If she can only find a guy like that when she's 27! Tuesday morning Cheyenne got to go to school early for "Running Club"-- running around the halls for 1/2 an hour before school starts. Alex's mom, Lisa, said she was reluctant to run at first because she knows the rule is "No running in the halls!" She got to go home with Alex that afternoon (they live just two streets over from us) and they played Candyland and Transformers! Quite a well-rounded friendship! On Thursday, though, we had a playdate with a girl with lots of Princess dress-up clothes. I'm not sure whether Alex's house will seem exciting after an intoxicating afternoon of wearing trashy shoes, scads of jewelry and glittery dresses! She sure enjoyed herself!

Wednesday night Bible study was at our house this week, and we had some special visitors-- the three oldest kids in the Parker clan were in town for their Mom's surgery (surgery that was way more successful than anyone though possible!). They stayed after for some brownies and ice cream, and we had a great time catching up with them. Elliott shares a birthday with Dave and Dale, so we had to have a picture of the Birthday Boys together.

By the time their birthday rolls around, the outside temperature will be rather different than now! We have reached the point where the snowbanks lining our driveway are so high that the older snowblower we have can't blow snow over the top of them. We need a thaw!

Marilla is still getting up at least twice in the night-- not that I always know that! Last Saturday morning, I slipped out of bed with her at 6:00 and went downstairs so Evan could sleep. I was sitting there in a self-righteous glow, thinking what a nice wife I was-- not only was I letting Evan sleep in, I had put Rilla back in the crib twice that night after nursing her. (Sometimes I figure that I've done the feeding, Evan can do the leg work!) Later that morning, though, Evan said something about her dirty diaper in the night. Huh? It turns out I had been up with her twice, and Evan had dealt with her twice, and neither of us had known the other person even got out of bed! Maybe we need a little more sleep, if that's how deep we're sleeping!

And for a closing note, here is Elliott in the new outfit Grandma sent him. He is trying so hard to pronounce words these days, but I really love one of his chronic mistakes-- he says "Goot" for "book." I'm never one to argue that "books" = "good."