Hadley's room part 1

I'm still working on Hadley's room (at a very slow pace), but I thought I'd start sharing what I've done so far.

Here is her room a few months ago (the "before" pics). We are renting and this is what the house came with. Lovely.

I found this room on pinterest and decided with Hadley that we were going to do her room pretty much the same. I'm good at copying.

I patched up holes and painted the ceiling, then painted 3 walls a very pale blue. It almost looks white. I like it, but would have been happy with it being a little more blue. I painted the accent wall white.

We decided to do a chevron striped wall instead of the grid one on our inspiration blog, and it took me about 27 hours to figure out how to do it. I was using all my trigonometry skills and finally figured out that it was very simple. Each up and down of the stripe forms an imaginary equilateral triangle because I wanted the angle of the stripes to be 90 degrees. Anyway, I drew it out to scale and decided to have the base of my "triangle to be 20 inches and the height to be 10 inches  I don't know if that makes sense, but here is the picture I drew. I wanted the stripes to be big, but not too big and I wanted an odd number. This worked out good enough and I liked the easy numbers.

I drew a grid of 10" x 10" squares on the wall using a large level and a pencil. A chalk line thing would be easier, but I was worried about washing the lines off after, so I stuck with a pencil (which ended up being hard to get off too)

Then I taped the diagonal lines, making sure that the thickness of the tape was in the white stripe section. I put pieces of tape on the white line, so that I wouldn't accidentally paint it.

Then, time to paint!

Then time to take off the tape!

After getting the edges all painted too, and fixing a couple spots, I attempted to wash off the pencil. It wouldn't come off with soap and water, so I used Mr. Clean magic erasers. It worked but left streaks because it took off some of the shine. You can't really tell unless the light hits it right, so it doesn't bug me too much.

I am so please with how this wall turned out! It took a long time to do, but it looks just how I wanted and was relatively simple to do.

Stay tuned for more of Hadley's room!

John got old

John turned 30 last month. After trying to come up with something special for his birthday, I came up with this wall collage. I found all the pictures of him and put up a picture for each year of his life. I'm not sure all the pictures are right, but I think it's pretty close.

I think that Hadley and Elijah look a lot like their Dad. What a cute little guy!

It is weird to think that John and I have been together for a third of his life! It still feels like we are 20. Man I like that guy.
 Aside from this, I threw together an impromptu party and we had a fun night with friends and family.

our valentine evolution

2011
I found cute ideas on the internet for Valentines and let the kids pick what they wanted to make. Hadley picked these robots:

Brian picked these airplanes:

And Elijah picked these guitars:

And after hours of cutting, gluing and stapling, I vowed I would never do that again.



2012
I toned it down quite a bit and just found some simple printables that could have a small toy attached.

I picked 3 different ones and the kids chose which ones to use. Easy peasy, right?

No.



2013
Boxed Valentines. John was so proud.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Hadley is in ballet. She loves it sometimes. They had a class viewing day in December and it was fun seeing all that she has learned so far.

2. I have been working on Hadley's room since October. It was supposed to be her birthday present. Sam took a sneak peek picture for you. I'll blog about the room once it's all done.

3. A while ago John got a little mini octopus from Safeway to take home and try with the kids. They thought it was cool and everyone tried a little of it. I did not. It was nasty looking. Here's Elijah with one of the tentacles.

4. We have a dog. It's a good thing the kids like him.

5. I need to start exercising. I'd like to do it in the morning, but so far, that seems very unlikely. I did exercise one morning with a 10 minute youtube workout I found on pinterest and was sore for 2 days. Yikes.

6. I've been teaching Hadley piano for the past couple weeks and she has been doing well. She plays the "heart and soul" duet about a million times a day and is learning some easy version Primary songs too.

7. I got called as the Primary Music Leader a few weeks ago. It's a lot of fun and so far Nellie has been fine with John for the last two hours of church.

8. I quit Show Choir. I was one of the directors for the past year and a half, but it was just too much this semester. I went to the first practice in January and after wrangling the troops there and back, I decided that surely there was someone else who could do my job that didn't have 5 little kids. I decided to step down and wait until the kids are older. I was surprised how emotional I was about it and even cried after my last director's meeting. It has been fun and I really enjoyed teaching the Tenors. I feel like this is what I should do though, so all is well and life is feeling a lot simpler lately.

9. I'm loving the weather this week. I'm ready for summer!

10. Nellie is asleep. Time for a shower.

Nellie's blessing

Nellie was blessed in Church on Sunday by John. I loved hearing about Nellie's unique blessings and know that our Heavenly Father knows her individually. My parents, John's parents and Kati, Fred, and Jim and Livi and kids all attended. That evening we had a turkey dinner at our house. Delicious.

Nellie's birth

I was due to have Nellie on November 27th (our anniversary.) On Sunday Dec 2, I started having mild contractions in the morning, so we stayed home from Church. My Mom came and got the kids in the afternoon and John and I stayed home and waited out the contractions. I cleaned the house in hopes that it would help get things moving. The contractions were coming off and on so we went to my parent's for dinner and hung out there for a while.
In the evening the contractions started getting closer and started hurting, so John and I went home and the kids stayed at my parent's for the night. I tried to sleep, but the contractions were hurting , so I hopped in the shower hoping to get things moving again. After about an hour, we decided to go to the hospital. I wanted to wait until I knew I was in labour cause I didn't want to get turned away. My body is slow moving at the start, but once I'm in labour it usually goes fast. So, we headed to the hospital. I was checked there and I was only 2cm, so they were going to send me away, but John talked them into letting me go in the shower for an hour and see if things progressed. The shower seems to be magical for me in labour and helps me relax. After and hour I was at a 3, so I was admitted.
I went in the shower again for a while until I felt like things were near the end. I was only 5cm. Argh. It was around 3 or 4 in the morning I think and I was tired. Labour was different this time and I wasn't sure I could keep it up without something to help. I had planned to not have an epidural. I had asked for one with all my other labours, but things went so fast that I never was able to get one (which I was glad about in the end), so I thought that mentally, this time it would help to plan to not get one. Well, I felt good about getting one, so we went ahead. 20min later the pain subsided to a manageable level. I soon got fully dilated and started pushing. Pushing was so weird with an epidural. I didn't have the animalistic get-this-baby-out-of-me feeling, so it was harder to know what I was doing exactly. Nellie wasn't descending, apparently because her head was sideways. My doctor (who was fabulous) suggested trying different positions to push. I went on all fours, squatted, on my side, still nothing. Nellie's head wasn't turning. It was decided that I should be given oxytocin so that the contractions were stronger to help get her out. I was told to rest and wait for it to kick in before pushing and move around to hopefully get Nellie to move.  By this time the epidural was worn off and I felt like I was dying, so they refilled it. Soon I was relaxed and ready to try again. After pushing for a while longer, Nellie still was not descending and her heartrate was lowering, so they used the vacuum to get her out. Because of this, they had to check her out before she was placed on my chest. She was fine and soon nursing. She was born at 11:24am weighing 8lbs 11oz (the same as I was when I was born). It had been a long night!
We got cleaned up and admitted to the maternity ward where we tried to sleep for a little before visitors came.
It was so fun for our kids to come see their new little sister. It is a little crazy to think that we have 5 kids now!

Progress

I'm hanging out with Nellie right now, waiting until she's asleep enough to go to bed. She's cute.

I've been reflecting a bit on how I have parented in the past. I think about how Hadley was 2 when the twins were born - the same as Sam is now with Nellie. I treated Hadley much differently than I do Sam. I hope I didn't mess her up too much. I am embarrassed by how I would put her in time-out when she threw a little tantrum. So dumb. I can't believe I actually ever thought that that was a good idea. How grateful I am that I have matured or something. I guess with your first kid, you feel like you have to do things like everyone says to, and time-outs seemed to be the go to for disciplinary action.

I'm glad that my parenting has evolved over the years, cause parenting a 2 year-old is much more enjoyable when you realize that their defiance comes from their natural desire for independence and autonomy. They are becoming their own little people and want to be in control!

So, when Sam throws a fit when I pour the cereal in the bowl the "wrong" way (not that he even knows what the "right" way is), I can be patient and help him figure it out.....and try not to get frustrated....and certainly not put him in time-out! Ha!

Who could get mad at this kid anyway?

I'm back....

I've been debating whether or not to keep going with this blog, and I guess the decision is to stay....so here I am!

Here's a quick update of the goings on around here:

 Hadley started grade 2 and loves it! Her friend Lucy is in her class again, so she is happy.

 We got a dog. John and I are not really dog people, but something inspired John to go to the animal shelter one day and pick out this dog. He is a great dog........but still a dog. I am learning to love him and hope that I can be more patient with him and his dog-ly attributes. The kids named him "Scout".

 Brian and Elijah are in hockey. They are in the beginning level again because they weren't quite ready for games. I love watching them skate around.

 We added this little lady to our family. She was born on Dec 3rd and we named her Nellie Elizabeth after her Great-Grandma Nellie. She is such a nice baby and is starting to smile at us. So fun. I'll write more about her birth later.

 We celebrated all the kids birthdays. All the boys are born in November and girls in December. Kind of crazy, but fun. Sam is now 2, Brian and Elijah are 5, and Hadley is 7. It still seems crazy that we have 5 kids!

So, that's where we're at now! I will try to update more often.