Extreme Living Room Make Over

Last month my awesome MOMS play group surprised us with an amazing make over of our living room.  It was so incredibly sweet and generous of them and I just can’t even explain the difference it makes in our home.  Here are a few before pictures:

This is the room while we were taking everything out.  But boxes (and “time out” pack n play) aside, you get the picture.  Dark wood paneling circa 1978. . .ugh.

Jackson (still in his pull up from nap) loved helping us take everything off of the shelves.  Of course here they were also a “catch all” for all of the sanding supplies.

Jackson also loved sanding!

Jay (and Heath for 4 days) spent every night for a week sanding, caulking and using wood putty prepping the room for primer. 

Thanks so much for your help Uncle Heath!

Jay was very detail oriented and it really paid off!

Friday night the group came over and we all primed away.  What great friends to do all of this work in our home!!!

And then Saturday we were at it again. 

Frozen cappuccinos were a hit.

Jen and Landy are both master painters!

These guys are the best!

Bart left a little message for us on the back of the tv!

After the weekend the room was looking fantastic.  All that was left was the trim and the bookcase.  Also you may be wondering where all of the kiddos were during this time.  Adrienne (who had masterminded this whole project) kept most of the kiddos at her house all weekend.  She by far had the hardest job.  Luckily I was able to farm out Jackson to Jaclyn on Saturday and Gaga took both boys all day Sunday.  Thank you so much to everyone who donated an entire weekend to painting and child care! 

Even after all of the walls were painted Landy, Jessica and Jennifer wanted to come back and finish the trim.  Rumor has it that I’m not a very good painter.  That being said I was on kid duty while these fabulous ladies finished the room.

These sweet kiddos watched Tangled during what would have been their nap time.

The final day of painting the kids were having a blast together.

The room is not yet decorated but even with out being totally back together you can see the massive change.  Thanks so much to all of my sweet friends for this most wonderful surprise, we are LOVING our new living room!!

Ta Da!!!

And as usual thanks so much to Lesley for picking all of our colors!

Jack and Bear

This is kind of long but I finally got Bear on film saying a few words.   And you can kind of hear Jack in the back ground calling his daddy and telling him how much he loves him. Love my sweet little guys!

Jack’s Haircut

A few days ago Jackson walks in and says, “hey mom, my hair was in my eyes but don’t worry I took care of it.”

Of course I told him that he was NOT allowed to use scissors to cut his or anyone else’s hair and that it looked silly and needed to be fixed.  Then he went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror and said, “actually mom, I look prrrrreeeeetttttttttty great!”  Even though I don’t want him doing it again I hope he keeps that great self image forever!

Uncle Heaf

Last week Uncle Heath, or Heaf as Jackson calls him, came for a visit.  He was here for 4 days and we loved having him.  He not only played with the boys NON STOP but also helped Jay sand our living room every night.  The boys (and Jay and I) were so sad when Heath left but he promised to come back soon!

Hmmm. . .

A few weeks ago Dacia had her birthday party at one of those BYOB paint places where you have someone teaching you how to paint a specific picture.  Despite my complete lack of artistic ability I had a fun time chatting with the girls (I know, imagine that:))  Anyway,we painted a fleur de lies which I have no idea about and I brought the painting home thinking it would quickly be thrown away.  Even my pack rat self wouldn’t waste space in the attic for this.  Anyway, I get home and my cheer leader husband asks if he can give it, yes like a present, to his boss.   Now, we’ve been on unemployment before and don’t want to go back so I strongly advised him against it.  He stood firm that his boss, who is a huge Saint’s fan would love this.  So, I’m just saying now that I warned him. . .if this “beauty” interferes with his getting promoted etc., don’t blame me!

Bear and Charlie

It’s so funny that Adrienne and I assumed that Jack and Ellie were best pals from birth and just knew that at 5 months old they had multiple friends and needed play dates with each of them.  With the “littles” it’s as if they just tag along with whatever the “bigs” are doing.  Anyway, two weeks ago Jack and Ellie were in VBS together and so the little guys were on their own.  They loved playing together (I think they were together 4 out of 5 days) and have really become buddies.

Bear kept pointing to things in this book and telling Charlie to “wook!”

Charlie is clearly stunned by what Baron has said.

It’s a rare treat for the boys to get to play on the big toys without having to share with the big kids.

Charlie was combing Adrienne’s hair and Baron wanted to help.

Is this how all boys get on a bike? 

Also, I have to mention that the shirt Baron is wearing was brought back from Hawaii by my grandparents to me 30 something years ago.  It was worn by all of my siblings and now both of my boys.

Jack and Bear

Here are some pictures from 2 weeks ago of the boys in the play room.  Bear is in winter jammies because he went through a phase of taking off his diaper in his crib.  Despite the triple digit weather (2nd hottest summer in Dallas history) we are blessed with a nice cool house so he didn’t mind.  There aren’t many pictures of Jack because he just wanted to help take pictures of his little brother.

Kind of hard to believe that Jack will be 4 in a few weeks!

Bear loves to play with and on everything in the playroom.  He loves all toys!

I love my baby!

And Jack is my little helper.  He does so much to help me with Baron these days!

Bear is so much fun and pretty much always happy.

Jackson and Jaxon

A few weeks ago Heather and Jaxon came over to see us.  It was so much fun because I babysat for Heather and her brother Zach from the time she was 3 years old (I was 13 at the time) until I graduated from college.  I went on vacation with her family and they were very special to me so it’s fun to see our boys together.  Although it does make me feel like an old mom when I realized that she’s 10 years younger than me and boys are similar ages!

Here’s Jackson and Jaxon:

Jackson loves babies and always wants to hold them.  He does really well with them and always makes sure that I know how well he would do with his baby sister.  I keep telling him that no sister is coming. . .

Jack’s Surgery

On June 17th Jackson had tubes put into his ears and his adenoids taken out.  The pictures are on another hard drive (story of my life right?) so I will update this post later.  But all went well and he’s had no side effects.  At the time he had 25% hearing loss in one ear and 30% in another due to fluid build up.   After two weeks the audiologist retested his hearing and he was back up to 90% hearing in both ears so we were very happy.  Ok, I’ll update soon!