DIY Furniture Factory

Since moving, the desire to nest and decorate our home has been burning bright.  In all of our other homes, we've just kind of gotten by with whatever, but this time, I am bored with that and it's time to do some decorating.  

I think it's because we've been married for 10 years and we've never really made an effort before and now it's time.

Dr. C blames it on Pinterest.

Either way, we've been focusing on home decor lately. 

Our division of labor goes something like this:

1.)I scout out furniture that I like
2.)I show Dr. C a picture of something similar to what I want
3.) I make a zillion changes to the piece until it only slightly resembles the original picture
4.) Dr. C builds it for me

Isn't he a nice husband?  Love that man!
This was his first project, bunk beds for the boys--last fall while we were still in the South.  Um, yeah, that room was a little too blue, don't you think??  We repainted it.  (Plans for the bunk beds can be found here)

Since we've been back in the Midwest, Dr. C and I have been cranking out the projects.  We had some old chairs that desperately needed a makeover.  I forgot to take a "before" pic, but just imagine green, with a little less sanded down spots and a light oak seat.

So far, Dr. C has completed three bookcases and a shelf.

Dr. C just made up the plans for these two big bookcases. 

Isn't he amazing?? 

Swoon.

(We modified these plans for this shelf.)

(Plans for this shelf can be found here)

Dr. C's list of furniture I want him to build continues to grow--Adirondack chairs for the deck?  Sewing/Craft table for me?  Another bookshelf for the cookbooks?  A new bed frame for Miss B?  Desks for the boys?

YES, please!

We're making progress, folks.

Fall Travel Journal: A Perfect Ending.

Sometimes people come into your life that aren't technically related to you, but they might as well be family.

While Dr. C was working on his PhD in Nebraska, we had the privilege of getting to know some these un-related family members.  After we moved to The South, we unfortunately don't get to see them as much, but when we do see them, we pick up right where we left off.

On Wednesday night, before we all left San Antonio and headed home (us to The South, some back to Nebraska, some back to Brazil)--we had a mini-un-related-family-reunion at a fabulous brazilian grill, Fogo de Chao. 

It was a perfectly lovely evening.

These un-related family members are some of my favorite people on the planet.  An evening with them is like being home.

Thank you for the wonderful time; spending the last night of our trip with you all was the perfect ending to a fabulous vacation.

Next time, let's all meet up in Brazil.

Dr. C Gets Another Year Older

We are currently taking a break from our Summer Travel Log programming, for Dr. C's birthday.  And since Dr. C is the love of my life, he deserves a whole post  dedicated to him on his special day.

 Happy Birthday Dr. C--here are 10 Things I Love About You:

(in no particular order)

 10. You make me laugh.  A lot.

9. You go along with all of my crazy schemes.

8. You rescue me when all of my crazy schemes get out of control and I'm in over my head.  Like the time I did a full-on luau for T-Man's first birthday for 50 people with the ocean/island/volcano/hula dancer cake that took me a week to make and you ended up cooking all the food as I finished the decorations and icing palm trees.  Thank you for waiting until after the party to tell me that I could never do that again.

7. You trust God and walk by faith.

 6. You are an extremely hard worker--like that last year of grad school when Miss B was born and it was crazy stressful and yet you busted your butt to write the last 3 chapters of your dissertation so you could be done with it before Miss B's open heart surgery, which then meant you could graduate on time and start working to provide for our little family right after graduation.  Even though it was wicked hard, you did it.  And you still work hard everyday to provide for our family and to make our lives easier.

5. You know how to fix just about anything; or, if you don't know how, you will figure it out.  Like all the times that the dryer has something random break and I want to just buy a new one, but you figure out how to fix it so it works even better than before.

4. You set a good example for our children by being honest, trustworthy, loyal and genuine.

3.  You do the dishes, fold laundry, change diapers, vacuum, mow the lawn without complaint...and one of the first things you say everyday when you get home from work is, "What do you want me to do?"

2. You've seen me at my worst and you still love me anyway.

 1.  You're my best friend and I couldn't make it through life without you.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!!

I made these Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes for Dr. C's birthday...find the recipe at Out of My Sister's Kitchen.

Hello. Goodbye.

It finally happened.  Our 1995 Ford Escort that Dr. C bought before we were married, died. 

It's last act of service was filling in for the van which had been stuck in the service department at the dealership for a couple of days.  The little red car carted us all around like a champ.  When the van was ready, we drove the the 35min. drive to pick it up.  As we got closer to the dealership, little red hiccuped, but kept going until we pulled into the parking lot.  I got all the car seats switched back over to the van, ready to head home.  Dr. C tried to take off in the little red car; it went about 10 feet and then...it completely died.  Never to be driven again. 

It was so thoughtful of "The Little Red Car" to wait to take its final guzzle of gas after we had our main car back; it full filled its mission of hauling us around and being our backup car right to the end.

Poor thing!

I think it was taking notes from Silverstein's "The Giving Tree", except without the apples.



The kiddos had to play in it one more time before it was taken to it's final resting place.

And now, after a month of being a one-car family... 

We're over it.

And there's a new kid on the block.

Dr. C has always wanted a truck, so when he asked one of his co-workers if she would sell her not-for-sale truck to him and she surprisingly said yes...we bought it.

And now we are the proud owners of a truck.

 

Or at least Dr. C is.

 

I am not really a truck-girl myself, so I feel like a bit of a poser driving it.  But it makes Dr. C happy and the price was fabulously affordable, so I guess that makes me a truck girl despite my personal feelings about it. 

P.S.  There is something about guys and their trucks...I don't think I've ever seen Dr. C so excited about purchasing something!  I pretty sure that means having a truck is going to become a permanent thing. 

Choice and Chocolate Fondue

I had a whole post written out about my rotten day yesterday.  In it, I complained about waking up to stinky diapers smeared around the crib, unknowingly sending Fearless to preschool with strep throat, finding out about someone having a blatant disregard for my input and feelings, and Miss B hating the annual Valentine's Day Fondue Dinner.

It was whiny.  It was complainy.  It was a rotten post.

Before I could finish my gripe session, I had to go pick up T-Man from school.

The sun was shining.  The weather was perfect for opening the sunroof, rolling down the windows, cranking up the radio and singing along.

And as I sang The Plain White T's very singable "Rhythm of Love" at the top of my lungs (much to the dismay of Fearless) and felt the warm spring air...I snapped out of my complaining funk.

Sure, a bunch of bad things happened all in one day--all on the one day that love should abound--but it is my choice to feel the love.

One of my favorite quotes from the Harry Potter books is from Dumbledore, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." 

So maybe I don't have the ability to have the picturesque pottery-barn-Norman Rockwell-Valentine's Day I had envisioned.  But I do have the choice to feel happy or not. 

And I chose happy.

So instead of the intimate look at all the not-so-great parts about this past Valentine's Day, I'll leave you with the highlight--Chocolate Fondue. 

Seriously, I love that stuff.  And, as if chocolate fondue wasn't a treat on its own, T-Man and Dr. C made it so I could take a break.

The love of my family and chocolate covered fruit--what more could a girl want on the Day of Love?

Medical Adventures with Miss Banana: The Swallow Study

On Monday, Miss Banana finally had her swallow study done.

I was not looking forward to driving three hours to The Big City, then sitting at the hospital all day for the study and the Dr. Guts appointment afterwards, then another three hour drive home. So Dr. C took pity on me and took her to The Big City himself. (I really think his entire motivation for doing it was to ensure that I didn't stop at Target or Kohl's while in The Big City. So I'm not sure that he did it for purely altruistic reasons.)

Anyway, thanks to my wonderful husband, I unexpectedly found myself with four, childless hours. During which time, I worked in Santa's workshop. (Yes, I know it's only August, but Santa's work takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R.) I love being with my kids, but those hours were fabulous. Thank you, Dr. C.

Okay, back to Miss Banana.

Dr. C and Miss B had to leave the house at 5AM to get to The Big City in time for the study. Since Miss B wasn't allowed to eat or drink for 4 hours before the test, we just snatched her out of bed and put her in her carseat, hoping she'd fall back asleep on the drive. Um, no such luck. Good thing she is a very mellow baby because by the time they got the test started, she was happy but starving! They gave her a drink, some pudding, and some cracker/pudding mixture all laced with barium to check out what was going on in her when she swallowed.

She sucked down her drink with no problems.

She slurped down the pudding without a hitch.

It was the cracker/pudding combo that gave her a bit of an issue...apparently she slurped down the pudding and then stored the crackers in her cheeks squirrel-style, until she could mash it with her tongue (instead of using her teeth). This isn't entirely surprising--we've witnessed her squirrel eating before. The technician didn't seem to think that it was a major problem and that she would just grow out of it, but we will still be practicing with the chewy tube more, just in case.

Dr. Guts met with Dr. C afterward and said he thinks Miss Banana is doing fabulous and that there are no signs of aspiration. (Hooray!) She still is having reflux issues, but with daily Prevacid, we seem to be keeping that under control. We'll go back in 3 months for a follow up about that.

I'm relieved that she doesn't have any aspiration problems, but it still leaves me wondering why she got so, so many respiratory infections last winter. Maybe it was just a hard winter? The world may never know.

In other news, Dr. C ended up stopping at Kohl's and buying a new shirt on the way home.

Maybe I should have gone after all.

And Then There's a Rainbow

Last week was a hard week.  Dr. C was out of town; we had the toilet episode, then the faucet on one of the bathroom sinks broke, then the air conditioner in my van broke during a solid week of 100+ degree heat index days, then the dryer (that was already taking bites out of our clothes) started squeaking in that make-dogs-go-crazy way.  Then the phone company and the Internet company had some miscommunication and turned off our phone service.  Then I hit the wall for the first time running.  Needless to say, it was not a pretty week.

Sometimes I think it takes those low weeks for me to recognize all of the good things that I have going. 

One of my favorite hymns:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings; name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Now I don't think that last week counts as being "upon life's billows" because we've certainly had harder weeks than that one.  But when something seems to go wrong everyday, my usually-sunny disposition gets overrun by dark thunder clouds of grumpiness.  Ironically, the weather the past few days has seemed to mirror my mood.

But then the other night we were driving home in the rain with the windows rolled down (no air conditioning!) and the rain cooled things off a few degrees.  Grateful for some relief, I could feel my irritability lessen a little.  And then T-Man yelled from the back seat that he saw a rainbow.

A rainbow.  One of nature's simple, beautiful phenomenon.  A flash of color over a dismal gray sky.  A small reminder that the gray doesn't last forever and there are wonderful things just around the corner.

In an instant, as I appreciated the wonder of the rainbow and heard my children oooh and aahh over the beauty of the colors, my grumpy clouds started to disperse and life was good again.

To top it off, Dr. C has returned and has been fulfilling his role as my knight in shining armor.  He fixed the faucet, restored our phone service, figured out what was wrong with the dryer (waiting on a part to get it totally fixed) and the van will be fixed hopefully by the end of the day today.  I love that man.

Today, I am thankful for rainbows--the ones that show up in the sky after rain and for the people around me that break through my grumpiness and remind me that there is beauty ahead.

Wordless Wednesday: A Saturday Car Wash

Love

I know it's February and everyone has love on the brain.  And I guess I do too.  But not necessarily the sappy-Kay's-Jewelry-commercial type of love (although Dr. C does still make my heart race), but the deep down, life-changing, boundless love that I have for my family. 

After Dr. C and I got to unwind  last night(and catch the last of the Saints' big win), we went to check on the boys.  They'd pushed their beds together and then fallen asleep--apparently the 4 feet that normally seperates their beds was too far.  It was just a little sign that they love each other.

T-Man and Fearless take good care of Miss B.  They are the only ones that can get her to smile while eating vegetables.  When they play with her, she is enamored with them; she is completely ecstatic to be the center of their attention.  She loves them, and they love her.

As for how I feel about my family--Oh how I love them!  Dr. C and how hard he works for us and how he still does things around the house and never complains when I forgot to switch over the laundry.  And how he will do anything to make me happy--including taking me to The Big City on a random Saturday b/c I just really miss Target.  He is the.best.husband.ever. 

And T-Man with his amazing ability to understand and comprehend and communicate way beyond his little five years.  Sometimes, I forget that he was ever is still little. 

And Fearless with his endless energy and his surprising quirks and ability to make me laugh and keep me on my toes.  And how he always has a kiss and a hug for his mama (even when he's mad at me.) 

And Miss B--when I cuddle her, I'm intoxicated by the love I feel for her.  She has taught me more in her short 10 months of life than I could have ever learned without her.  She taught me that my love for my family is deeper than I even knew and just how blessed I am to have them.

So yes, love is in the air...but more importantly it is in my home, in my family and in my heart.

Merry Christmas!!

We have been busy doing all things Christmas this month.  We cleaned, we baked, we shopped, we wrapped presents and tied bows, we drank egg nog, we laughed, we celebrated, we enjoyed.  It has been a fabulous month.  How grateful I am for the birth of Jesus Christ.  Because of Him, I have hope and peace.  I am so blessed to have my three wonderful children and my amazing husband.  Celebrating life with them is the best gift ever.

Here are random pictures of our month.  Yes, all the finger licking during the pretzel dipping was not sanitary at all--but the boys had fun with it, so what's a few germs among family members?  :)

I hope all of you have also had a fabulous Christmas season!