Busted

Ben totally got caught texting while flying.

Happy Birthday, Ollie!

It’s no secret that newborns aren’t my favorite creatures. I've shared my testimony of one-year-olds here and here, and now I’m ready to do it again. But it’s blowing my mind that it’s been a year since Ollie was born. How is that possible?

How can I still be fighting with my secondary insurance company about the hospital bills an entire year later? I swear that the first year of Liam’s life lasted the equivalent of three years. That kid took FOREVER to turn one. This time it flew by at the speed of sound. Or light, even.

Ollie has just started interacting with us like a little human. He signs more, finished, and milk, waves hello, and claps. He laughs hysterically at his siblings—especially at his BFF and roommate, Liam.

He still has that delicious smell that I love so much—probably the one reason I fell in love with my screamy newborns. I wish I could bottle that baby smell.

He wanders around on his hands and knees all day, scavenging for crumbs or sticking his hands in the toilet. He’s a pro at unrolling toilet paper. He’s pretty content to just do his own thing, maybe because he already knows his sassy older sister is always going to demand all of the attention, so he should just give up now.

I used to think my third baby should be a girl, because every girl needs a sister. But now I see how wrong I was. Ollie is the perfect little ending to our family (and the last thing Eliza needs is a mini clone following her example).

I just adore this boy, and I hope his next 20 years go by a little slower than his first one.

Still Rambling about My Fireplace

You’re probably wondering if I’m ever going to shut up about my new fireplace.

Probably not.

I still love it, but I felt like maybe the black and white were too contrast-y. My furniture suddenly seemed so dark. So I switched out my couches, tables and fireplace cover. I’m still not sure whether I made the right decision, but I feel okay about it because at least I broke even.

Before:

After:

I found this lovely little number at the thrift store. I think it might have had a glass top in its former life.

I found a piece of wood luan (left over from the fireplace project) in the garage and glued it where the glass would have gone. Then I painted, stained and got new hardware and it’s good as new.

I found this end table on KSL. I didn’t take a before picture, but it was all white. I started sanding down the top and found wood underneath. Eureka! So I stained it to match the coffee table and switched out the hardware. Don’t they look like they could be siblings?

The couches are from Ikea. I really wanted the cream slipcovers, but they were dry clean only and three times more expensive. So I bought white covers and washed them with a tiny bit of tan Rit dye. They came out just how I hoped they would. I love it when that happens.

I made the fireplace cover from the cheapest wood you can find at Home Depot. I think it’s supposed to be for fences. I bought 30-feet of it for like $6, chopped it up, and attached it together with a couple of hinges.

Sometimes I wonder why in the world I would buy white couches when I have little kids, but people all over the Internet say they love their white slipcovers because they can just throw them in the washing machine any old time. I might have huge regrets in a month or two, but for now I think I love them.

Right Here in River City

We've got TROUBLE.

"You think you can do something productive for 5 seconds while I'm alone with this bag? THINK AGAIN, MOTHER."

The Removal of Red

Since we took out the only bit of color in our front room when we transformed the fireplace, I decided to keep going with the neutral theme and remove all traces of red from my kitchen, too.

Here it is last week:

And here it is now:

Last week (actually like two years ago, because I didn't take a Before picture and this is the only one I could find):

And now:

Turns out it's really cheap and easy to make art out of wood. Who knew? 

And the wall above the stairs went from this:

To this:

And here's my favorite part. This little homemade box with too-tall grass is serving not just one, but TWO purposes.

It's hiding all 45 electrical outlets that someone thought we needed on this wall, and it charges Ben's gadgets when he gets home from work and stashes them there. Multi-functional! I'm like an inventor.

Fireplace February, Part II

About five years ago, Ben and I thought it might be fun to makeover our ugly fireplace. It took six weeks and ended up being more like the opposite of fun, but after it was over I thought it was totally worth it. Ben disagrees. His memory is a little better than mine.

To celebrate the 5-year-reunion of that fireplace makeover, I thought it might be fun to do it again. Ben was totally opposed. But I talked him into it, and this time it only took a few days, spread out over a couple weeks. We didn’t even make it to February.

And look! It's better, right?

We started with floor-to-ceiling red brick, with a nice hole cut out for the mantel. I'm sure it's totally normal. What better way to attach your mantel than cutting into your brick wall?

The Internet told us we could use something called wood luan, and that we could just glue it to the bricks with PL Premium. So we did.

We bought a mantel leg and skirt kit from Home Depot. This was the only expensive part of the project. It cost $139. Maybe we could have built the pieces ourselves, but Ben wasn't 100% on board yet and I couldn't have done it without him. So then I caulked and primed it.

And then paint. I considered stopping here. Maybe I should have, but it’s too late now so don’t tell me if I made a huge mistake. 

Then I painted the bricks white.

And then added some moulding. Again, with glue. Maybe I went a little overboard with the tape. Big deal.

Then I caulked and painted the moulding, and now I love it! And the best part of all is that Ben loves it, too. Well...likes it, at least.

Unpredictable Is His Middle Name

I’m head-over-heels in love with this boy, but sometimes I just wish he were even 1% similar to his siblings. A couple weeks ago he got a double ear infection, only instead of getting a fever or crying about it, he just weaned himself. I was so confused.

Luckily I did a poor job of clipping his fingernails that week, so he ended up with a bunch of tiny red scabs where he had been scratching his right ear. That was my one and only clue to take him to the doctor.

I pumped for about a week before my milk was gone, and today I am throwing away all of my nursing bras. If two months’ worth of formula didn’t cost $59,823,375, I would be singing HALLELUJAH at the top of my lungs. But since it does, I’m just singing in my normal voice. 

The Obligatory Blue-Striped, Paper-Ears Shot

What? Doesn't everybody take this picture of their 9-month-old?

One Month Ago

…I had a 7-month-old baby, still on reflux medicine, who slept swaddled in his bouncy seat in the bathroom. He screamed in his crib; he screamed when his arms weren’t swaddled; and he screamed when I tried weaning him from the medicine.

Tonight I have an 8-month-old baby who sleeps flat on his back, unswaddled, with no medicine.

 HALLELUJAH.

The Bright One

Yesterday we had our first big snowstorm of the year, and Liam and Eliza wanted to play outside. I told them they needed to get their snow clothes on, so Eliza changed from her t-shirt and jeans into this little number: