Pajama Shame

Never wear your pajamas to the store. 

Even if your day includes cleaning the whole house and making snacks and dessert, going to your in-laws for dinner and then hosting your hubby's co-workers for a movie night, resist the urge to wear your pajamas on your lightening fast run to the grocery store, even if you've been up, quite literally, all night with a cranky baby!

Why, you ask?

It is guaranteed that not only will you see your neighbor (who probably didn't mind your pajamas) but you will see someone whose blog you follow and you've wanted to meet and you will hide your head in shame and hope she doesn't notice you....

It's inevitable that when you're dressed cute and run errands you will see no one you know but if you make that quick run to the store with your hair in a messy bun and in your sweats you will see everyone you know or want to know.

Am I the only person this happens too? Please tell me it happens to you too...

Reminders

Some days as a parent are hard and discouraging. Some days I get frustrated and impatient and wonder how to keep doing this day after day.

But then I look at these sweet, cute girls and realize that I can't even imagine our family without them, and I just want to snuggle them close.

Meetup with Kristen from When At Home

When At Home has become a favorite blog of mine. I continue to go back and read it because Kristen writes about real life and I love that. She is totally relatable, down to earth, and funny as can be! The Alt Summit for bloggers was in SLC this week and while she was here she did a meetup and I was able to go (I even got a babysitter, how awesome is that?!). 

I was a little nervous on my way to the meetup but it was great fun! Kristen and her friend Gabby were awesome and it felt like I was chatting with old friends. If you ever get a chance to meetup with Kristen, take it! You will be glad you did. Check out her blog, When At Home.

And as a sidenote, now I totally want to go to ALT next January! It looks like so much fun and a great place to find new ideas.

Have you found new, awesome friends through Blog meetups?

Basement Bedroom Transformation

Over the next MANY months I will post updates as I get my house and family ready for our first PCS after my husband graduates from OTS next year. You might ask, why am I starting now when I have so much time between now and then? Well, when you have two kids who follow you from room to room when you try to get things done and undo the things you have just done, the things that you think will take an hour take a day(at least), the things that should take a day, take a week, etc....

In addition to de-cluttering, getting rid of things, getting organized, and packing the things that I don't want the movers to pack, I will be getting our house ready to sell and it will be mostly me since my hubby is busy with school and work. Our house was built in the 1920's so it needs quite a bit of updating before we sell it. There will be a LOT of wallpaper stripping, wall patching (our walls are plaster) and then painting. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, let me tell you, our kitchen has white wallpaper ON THE CEILING! Who puts wallpaper on the ceiling...?

We put made progress on the bathroom last night and I'll fill you in the details later but for now, here are some pictures of the basement bedroom we worked on last summer.

We did:

• sealant around the windows, 
• nasty carpet removed (found laminate tiles underneath the carpet pad that we will do more with later),
• new paint for the whole room, including the ceiling and windows
• We used Beige Buckthorn on the walls and white on the ceiling and around the windows
• Rug that my in-laws gave us

What started out as this:

Morphed into this:

(I love that in the middle pic you can see the bizarre green and some other strange color that were in the room when we bought the house, book-ended by the new beige wall paint and white ceiling paint)

And ended up as this:

Eventually I will either make or buy new, fun curtains for this room and put pictures on the wall.

Thing Two loves having this as her playroom. That being said, I'm hoping that if our next house has space for a play room it will be on the same floor as the main living areas. 

The other downstairs bedroom will be one of my next projects. Right now the walls and ceiling are throw-up inducing yellow. I use it as a craft room/exercise space. It's almost twice the size of the playroom. What color do you think I should paint it?

Teething Trouble

Same days I just want to go back to bed, bury my head under my pillow and come again after my kids have all their teeth! I'm always amazed when friends tell me about how easy teething was for their kids or how their kids got 6 or 8 teeth in one fell swoop and didn't teeth again for like a year. 

Those. are. not. my. kids.

My kids teeth almost constantly from about 12 months on. The Pediatrician says that's normal for some kids....

Thing Two is 16 months old and only has 6 teeth. She woke up Sunday morning super cranky and I discovered two long awaited teeth coming in. We attempted church but left after about 35 minutes. She was so cranky and wasn't satisfied with anything. Not to mention that the family in front of us were collecting her toys that she was throwing on the floor, playing with them and then when the kids refused to give them back to Thing Two the parents just shrugged their shoulders and ignored the situation. Hello! You know I hate it when people don't parent their children and it affects my family. Deep breaths Melody, deep breaths. After about 10 rounds of climbing into my lap, whining to get down and then instantly wanting back up on my lap only to be unsatisfied again, I had had enough. I wasn't going to do this for the next two and a half hours! Hubby stayed at church with Thing One while Thing Two and I walked the 2 blocks back to our house.

She was content to cuddle on my lap and play simple games for the next hour before taking a nice, long nap. 

Fast forward to Monday morning and as we are getting ready to take the girls to their first swim lessons I put my finger in Thing Two's mouth and discover that she actually had 4 teeth break through the gums over the weekend!

Monday was misery, the poor girl cried through most of her swim lesson and then slept through the afternoon, thank goodness!

Yesterday she just wanted to be held, ALL DAY LONG. I almost lost my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids like crazy and will do anything for them but when you are trying to fit in dishes, and laundry and other miscellaneous things that need to be done around the house it can be a little frustrating. At the end of the day, while looking at all the things that didn't get done and will have to be done the next day, I just try to remember the sweet feel of her arms around my neck and her little body cuddling into mine. Knowing that I have the ability to comfort her makes all the frustration of the day seem a little less important. 

A moment of happiness in a miserable day. I felt like a rock star mom when I found a way for her to get the yogurt out of the tube.

Thing One reading to her little sister to make her happy! 

FINALLY!! Sleeping with a spare pacifier in each hand. Cause you never know how many you might need.

My girls are the sweetest and the best. Even when they are cranky and crabby and drive me up the wall I couldn't be happier that they are mine. They challenge me to be the best me I can be. They challenge me to find the strength and patience inside that I didn't know I had. And I am rewarded by sweet smiles and sleepy little voices telling me they love me as they snuggle in my arms.

What do you do for your kids when they are teething?