Its finally happened!!

Brian is done school!!!!! He took his very last final yesterday! Done! He got to ring a gong as he was leaving the testing center for the last time. So glad its over! Now its time for the big bucks! haha. I need to plan him a graduation party...

Coming soon...

I Promise that pictures of my actual house will be coming soon! I just need to get it together and start taking pictures. Unpacking has been slow this time, maybe because I know I am not leaving here in a year or less, but I think I have everything out of boxes. So now I just have to put it all where it belongs. Then the real fun will begin! Painting!! Yes, I do have plans to paint every single room in the house. I think I will leave the closets alone and for now the stairwell hallway, its like gigantically tall. But things are moving along and soon...pictures!

As for the house, I am loving it! And particularly I am loving my washer and dryer! They are awesome! I never knew that clothes could come out of a dryer smelling THAT clean and be fluffy and soft and get oil stains out of a 2 year old's shirt! Its like a magic machine! THey are fast and very quiet. It dried two very fluffy adult sized blankets and Brian's sweater in less than 20 minutes and then there was hardly any lint to take out of the lint shield - that was shocking! Plus I love my fridge too! Its got a water filter inside the fridge and dispenses the water inside. So I love it!

The girls like their new room which is pretty big. THey have not gotten into having a separate playroom as much as I thought they would, but I htink it is because its not all set up right yet. Oh and Gwen's favorite hobby is watching the washer perform! She screams each time it changes directions in the spin and loves it when the water comes out. Hilarious!

Living Room stuck

So, I am pretty clear about most of the ideas I want to do in the house. I am, however, stuck on the living room. Right now it is red and that will do perfectly all through Christmas time because its Christmas! Anyway, eventually I want to switch over to blues and greens in the living room. Usually what I do is fine an inspiration room and take ideas from that or a few inspiration rooms. I am having trouble find just the right inspiration room though! I found one that I like the colors ok, but the walls are tan. So, any suggestions on what color I should paint the walls?? Here is my quasi inspiration room:
I really don't want it to look too beachy! I don't like the beach house look very much for my house. So any ideas?

I am really going to have to start painting soon, at least the girls room and maybe the kitchen because all of the tan is driving me crazy! Maybe I'll paint ALL the little rooms and then do the living room last. I am excited for the laundry room because I am going to paint it a pumpkin orange because you've got to have a bright laundry room!!

Here is my idea for the girls' bedroom. Its the easiest one for me to do because I've been planning it so long. Here are my inspiration rooms:



And then this is my inspiration colors for the Master, we will not have the zebra stripes though!:

Haunted Apartment

I'm currently wondering if our apartment might be haunted - or perhaps it was one of those dreams where everything seems real. Last night i was aware that I was having a dream about a ghost haunting our apartment. When I woke up from the dream with fright, I felt a slight tickle on my ear as if someone was breathing on it. I get tickles often so I just pulled my covers over my ear. When I did that, Brian suddenly leaned over very close to my face and was breathing heavily onto my face. I thought it was weird because of the timing. Its almost as if the "ghost", if you will, made Brian do that so it could keep breathing on me. That was the first time I wondered, "Am I dreaming now? or am I awake?" What's odd is that I kept having that dream about the ghost throughout the night. At one point I woke up and looked into the kitchen area and thought I saw a figure standing there, I'm pretty sure it was just the stack of boxes. Another time I woke up I thought I heard people talking, could have been the neighbors. Then just before i woke up I heard a basketball bouncing as if it was right next to my bed. My initial thought was that it was Brian bouncing a basketball right next to our bed and I thought he must be crazy! But he wasn't even home. Even more odd was that neither one of the girls got up in the entire night. Usually at least one of them wakes me up for something. ANd lately its been Naomi having bad dreams and coming into bed with us. (She is oddly dreaming about wolves again which happened right after we moved into Wymount and she was terrified of the wolves!) I feel like there were some other odd happenings in the night but I can't remember them all right now. Weird, right? Its either the stress, the fact that its Halloween, or there really is a ghost. If there is a ghost then at least we are moving out, unless its attached to one of us! woooo!

Tips

I'm looking for some tips for organization/storage.

What do you do with your kids' stuffed animals? Right now I have them in a hamper which is ok, but there are stuffed animals in the bottom there that NEVER get played with and I feel sorry for them. What do you do with yours so that the kids can play with them, but they aren't just strewn about the room (which honestly ours are sometimes just strewn about the room for days on end).

Also, for any crafty people, what do you do to store all of your supplies? I have mine in this awful box that I bought at Ikea and its falling apart. It was cardboard so there was my first mistake, but I didn't have very much when I purchased the box so it all fit nicely, now I have a lot of craft supplies and its just bulging over and I have things in plastic bags and I don't like it!! What do you do to keep your stuff in order and make it findable and usable, but still somewhat portable. I don't ever need everything from the box, but I also don't have a craft room, its just the box in the closet. In the new place I might have a more permanent spot for it, but it still won't be a room. I've thought of getting little plastic storage boxes and separating things out by type and then putting all of that in a bin or bigger box. Anyway, any tips would be great!!

Future Playroom!

I have to, have to, have to do this in what will become the girls' playroom in the new house! It will be tons of work, but I love it so much! I can't wait! Sadly, my dreams have me painting every single room in the entire house! haha. why can't I just settle for tan paint? Oh yeah, cuz its boring!! haha. I'm ready for color!

Scary!

We have a lovely little back patio that the girls like to play on. Usually I just let them play out their by themselves while I do dishes or read. Today I heard them talking to someone while I was in my bedroom packing a box of books. When I came out to see who it was there was no one there. I asked who it was and Naomi said it was the tall boy. This means nothing! So I stayed in the living room to watch. Then a boy who was probably 8 or 9 comes running along the building and comes over to our patio and then asks if he can come in. I said no. He asked why. I replied, "well, we don't know you" So he introduces himself which was nice, but still we don't know him, nor do we know his parents, or even where he lives for that matter. So he asks again, can he come in. I once again say no and get the girls to come inside so we don't have to deal with it any longer. When I told Brian about it, he just says "awww." I was like, "awww"???? He thinks its sad that the time that we live in has gotten to be like that. But even so, we don't know him, he's twice Naomi's age, a boy, who once again we don't know! Naomi and I had to sit down to have yet another talk about talking to strangers and why its not ok to have them into your house.


On a lighter note:

Gwen has decided that her hand is a baby! Yes, instead of playing with a babydoll or any of the myriad toys they own she has decided to pretend that her hand is a baby. Its cheap, at least! The baby cries and needs to be swaddled sometimes. It also eats! Now when Gwen plays with her toys, I can sometimes see the baby playing along with her. She "walks" it through her pop-up books or Noah's ark. Its funny and strange I think too!