Someday.

I am stuck with the Spring Cleaning plan.  It lost its luster.  I did all the 'easy' rooms.  I have the office, living room, garage, kitchen, and craft room remaining.  And these are all big projects.  I think they are all a little overwhelming to me since I want to change things with the rooms, not just spring clean them.  These spaces don't make me happy.

Here are a few renovations I want to do:

Office-book shelves, re-arrange desk, get comfortable chair, put a small desk for the boys, re-paint, re-stain french doors, put up lots of photographs and other artwork for the walls.  Which really means I want to build two bookshelves to go on either side of the window, build  a new desk, and build some floating shelves for the wall.  Hmmm...and Chris tells me I am not allowed to use the saw, which for some odd reason, I really want to build things.

Living room-I don't like the arrangement of the furniture, it feels too closed off for me, but I don't know how else to arrange the couches and chairs.  And I am not a fan of the built-ins around the tv.  It is functional, but I just don't like the whiteness and the ornamentation of the painted wood.  I want to put different tile or stone around the fireplace.  And the floors need to be re-finished or replaced.

Garage-I just want to be able to park both cars in there.  And have space for the boys' toys, my garden stuff, the lawn mower, and all the seasonal items.  I guess that means we need at least a 4-car garage, huh?!?  (Maybe in our next house!)

Kitchen-Oh my!  I love all the counter space in this kitchen, but it really is lacking the storage space that I need/want.  We need to replace the floor (since there is water damage), but can't decide what kind of flooring to go with.  We have wanted to paint the cabinets since before we moved in and re-do the back splash as well!  Oh and I REALLY want granite counters and to extend our island so it has a ledge that you could eat at and not just stand around.  Plus it would give me even more counter space.  But we can't decide on what type of flooring, which means we can't do the cabinets, counters, or back splash. 

Craft Room- Oh my, this is really a sore subject.  My craft room is anything but crafty.  It is the 5th bedroom, but also the storage room.  Ack!  It is ridiculous how much stuff is packed in there.  I have visions of it being so neat, clean, and organized with my sewing table, scrapbook stations with all supplies and stamps within reach, and even a nice area for the kids craft projects.  Wow, I am really dreaming now, huh?  Have I mentioned before how much I miss having a basement???  Well, I really miss it!  Really.  I do. 

So, there are my gripes.  I wish I would just start on these projects instead of sitting around wishing they would get done with no effort, vision, or plan.  But sadly, it doesn't work that way.  They all take a lot of money and a lot of time.  Neither one of those we have a lot of.  Someday.

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Ack! Spring Cleaning...

I think now I am lacking motivation!  Just a week ago, I was going strong and completely keeping up to date with my goal of a room/space a day.  And just a short week later, I have not made any progress.  But as an excuse, we are attempting to try out new bedtime rules for Connor, which has proven to be unsuccessful and a battle.  So, that is making for a long week. 

As, I am watching the TLC Hoarder's: Buried Alive, I am gaining more motivation.  Ack!  It is so sad how some people live.  I just couldn't imagine.  Although, in all seriousness, my craft room does look like some of those rooms.  But, we also use it as the basement (since we no longer have one), storage room, and place for all the extra things crap goes. 

So, I am going to re-start my spring cleaning again starting on Monday.  I would start earlier, but the rest of the week is busy and I am trying to be realistic since I have lots of cleaning and laundry to catch up on as it is.  And on Saturday I am taking an all-day photography class.  I am SO excited.  It is an early Mother's Day gift.  So fun.  I really hope I learn something!

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Spring Cleaning!

I am ALL caught up on my Spring Cleaning.  I still have a lot to do, but doing one room (or space) a day, I have completed that.  Yah!  11 days in and still lots more to do.  Some days I wish I didn't have this many windows or I wish they weren't as big as they were or I wish I didn't have so many bathrooms or so many bedrooms with so much bedding to wash.  But I do love our house and it is what I wanted, just sometimes it is a lot of work.  I truly do wish we had less crap.  And I really wish I was better at getting rid of the crap!

Here is my recap:

Day 7- Master Bathroom.  Scrubbed the shower.  Note to self: I hate glass doors.  Scrubbed the tub.  Cleaned the window (didn't attempt the outside one yet).  Washed mirrors, counters, toilet, wiped down baseboards, and cleaned out all the drains, and used steam mop on tile floors.  And washed rugs.  Nice and sparkly.

Day 8- Stairway.  Vacuumed, dusted, wiped down rails.  Took down Easter decorations (yes, I know pathetic they were still up.)  This was an easy day.

Day 9- Downstairs hall & closet.  Another small space, but things tend to end up here.  You go through here to get inside the house from the garage, which you walk through the laundry room.  So, laundry, shoes, library books, etc ends up here.  And Chris backpack and lunch box too =)  Closet is all cleaned out, vacuumed hall and wiped down baseboards. 

Day 10- Eat-in kitchen area.  This small space has A LOT of windows.  It was a lot of work to clean them since I washed both inside and outside, plus had to use a ladder.  But I took the leaf out of the table, dusted and wiped down the blinds, used the steam mop on the floors, and wiped down the baseboards.  And it is already dirty again.  But at least I know it was clean for all of 23 minutes!

Day 11- Downstairs bathroom.  I scrubbed the shower, cleaned the drains, wiped down baseboards, washed rugs, and used steam mop on floors.  I just love clean bathrooms.

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Spring Cleaning - Day 6

Well, I have finally completed the hallway upstairs which was supposed to be day 5 of spring cleaning.  But as I am typing this, I should have included the stairs in this category.  Oh well, that will be done in the coming days..

Day 6 - Master bedroom.  I think this turned out to be the most involved so far.  I originally thought this would be pretty simple.  But then I started in and decided to pack away the electric blanket, so put new organic cotton sheets on our bed (of course, had to wash them first), then washed the mattress cover, all the pillow cases, comforter, and duvet cover.  So, 6+ loads of laundry later, the bedding is ALL washed.  However, as I went to put the comforter in the duvet cover, it was still a bit damp.  So, really, it is not completed yet.  But I did spend what seemed like 2 hours ironing all the pillow cases and duvet cover into the late hours of the night (last night). 

*I found this post just hanging out in blogger.  Obviously, I thought I ad posted it already. 
**I will give a quick update of the Spring cleaning and how it is going sometime later today. 

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Spring Cleaning-Day 2

On the agenda for today's Spring Cleaning was Connor's room.  It was pretty simple since I had just gone through all the drawers and closets and exchanged summer clothes and put those small clothes away in bins.  I vacuumed the carpet, washed the windows, washed the bedding, dusted blinds & bookcases, wiped down all baseboards, organized books, and took out anything that didn't belong in there.  Pretty simple.  Connor was helpful ( a little bit anyways) in picking up all his puzzles and  books and putting them all away. 

*I will only be doing this during the weekdays-the weekends we tend to have to much going on.

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Spring Cleaning-Day 1

For some reason, I thought today would be a great day to start Spring Cleaning!  I have something with the first of the month (first of the year, etc).  It is like a new start.  If only I could make it last all month (or all year).  So, while we were playing in the play room, I decided my goal would be one room a day!  Sounds doable, right?  Let's hope so.  So, first up is the playroom.  I could clean the play room 5 times a day and it would still be a mess.  But that is besides the point.  I vacuumed, washed the windows (on the inside and outside (yikes!), wiped down the baseboards, window bench, and dusted the fan.  I am embarrassed to say that (I think) that is the first time I have dusted that fan.  It was pretty dusty.  But in my defense, the fan doesn't work.  In which case, I found one online to order, I think.

Connor was a big helper....

My official sprayer.

Dylan got himself into trouble while we were cleaning the windows...

He got his arm stuck in the ball popper (on more than one occasion).

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Updates

The weather has been awesome here-between 70-85, which is perfect! Friday night we even had a nice thunder storm roll through, which we all sat and watched out the window-very entertaining!

We had a birthday party this weekend-Jackson turned 1! I love first birthday celebrations-so fun! I can't believe he is already 1! Which also means it has almost been a year since we have been back in St. Louis-how quickly the times flies.

Updates...

Garden: It is official...we are not cut out for starting plants from seeds! We attempted it for the first time & pretty sure we failed! We shall see. They sprouted up great, but haven't really grown much. So, instead of transplanting the tiny plants outside to our garden, we bought a few tomato, pepper, and cucumber plants. So our garden outside has everything planted! Let's hope it does well! Connor enjoys helping me water everyday & Dylan comes along for the ride :) I don't think Connor has realized he could spray Mommy with the hose if he wanted, I am waiting for the day he realizes that. We have had a few straberries, but the birds have gotten to them first-so we bought some netting to keep them out.

Spring cleaning: no updates, it has been non-existent. I can barely keep up with the laundry & dishes, what was I thinking I could begin spring cleaning?!?

Connor: still way too into dinosaurs, it is starting to drive me crazy! He enjoying being able to play outside lots & we have managed to go on several walks. He enjoys taking bread to feed the ducks (sometimes their are ducks to feed, sometimes just turtles & fish), but he loves eating the bread-he thinks it is hilarious! Crazy kid!

Dylan: growing, getting chubby! Still such a happy baby. IS still tolerating all the LOVE from his big brother, which is pretty amazing. He enjoys all our walks too-he loves the fresh air. His smiles are so cute!

New recipes: I have been doing well on trying new recipes (at least 1 a week), which part of my New Year's resolution. At least I have kept up with that :-) Lately, I have made a honey, lime, and soy sauce marinade for chicken, which has been really good. And cinnamon rolls-very tasty. Oh yes, and a shredded pork in the crockpot. Those have been the highlights.

Invention Mondays: every Monday I am going to come up with a new activity/game/thing to build/make/play. This monday we 'built' a ramp. We didn't really build one, but Connor was thrilled with the phrase, so I went with it. It was just a piece of molding (we had in the garage) and set it an an incline outisde and raced cars down it. Connor was thrilled by it & it entertained him for hours. He he brought the neighbor kids over to play show it off & they were impressed too. So, that is going to be our new thing for Mondays-since Monday is such a hard day with Chris going back to work after the weekend.

I will have some new pictures soon.

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Adorable Boys...

Well, I made the attempt to start spring cleaning, that is half the battle right? I am lacking the motivation, but I am convinced I have the right intentions. I am going off of the spring cleaning 10 day guide at SimpleMom. She has some great ideas-day one was supposed to be going through the entire house and getting rid of stuff you don't love or use as well as cleaning/organizing all surfaces.

So, this is how my progress went on day one: I started off the morning great, I was able to organize the vanity in our bathroom, not spotless, but not cluttered. I started laundry (diaper day), then got distracted with washing towels, boys clothes, our clothes, etc. Then in an attempt to go throuogh the boys clothes, fold them all, and put them away-I aquired a VERY big helper. Connor learned to fold clothes. So I took out his drawer so he could put them away in the correct place. You can see what a great job he did :) He was concentrating so hard while folding, then showed me, asking for my approval. It was so sweet. I couldn't bring myself to 'fix' them and fold them correctly-he was just so proud of himself. It sure looks like Daddy is the one who taught him how to fold, but pretty sure it wasn't :-)




Then, once he got bored of folding, he decided to pile the clothes on top of Dylan. What a wonderful and patient little brother he is. But notice, they are all dinosaur clothes-both Connor's & Dylan's. At least he is practicing his sorting skills. Dylan almost looked like he enjoyed it!



Dylan loves to hang out on Connor's bed while we fold clothes. So cute!

Connor was so proud of sorting his clothes and piling them on Dylan. Connor thinks Dylan likes dinosaurs as much as him. They are both so funny!

Adorable! I love that gummy little grin! Dylan has been smiling like crazy the last couple of days. And I finally got a few pictures of it. Those first smiles are the absolute best!

Connor decided that Dylan was feeling left out anytime the phone rang-what a great Big Brother, looking out for his Little Brother. Not sure who he is supposed to be talking to, but Connor felt like he should be talking to somone and Dylan didn't seem to mind.

So, obviously my spring cleaning hasn't been a success so far. Then last night I started going through our clothes changing out winter & summer clothes and putting away all my maternity clothes-didn't get very far on this either. We made a much bigger mess than we started with in the bedrooms & that wasn't even a part of the assignment. No wonder I don't get anything done, I get so easily distracted. And I spend most of the time taking pictures of them-they were just too cute to miss out on those opportunities. The big accomplishment of the day was getting the lawn mowed. And least something got completed.

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