All about me.

I had my first massage of the year today, and it was an excellent idea.  Aaah.

I also had my first male massage therapist and you know what?  I prefer a woman.

I spent 4 hours making dinner today.  WHAT IN THE HELL.

I call this one me and my bitches:

 Jack and Ben had hockey last night, and the rest of us played Pie Face. It was super fun:

Tomorrow is the last day that Ben and I have with no kids home in the morning. We're planning a day date to celebrate.  Winter break is the best.

"New" Room

The Facebook "On This Day" app consistently reminds me that I am boring and my life is all about doing the same things over and over gain.  Luckily, I am developing an alarmingly bad memory, so not only do these old things feel new again, I am consistently surprised that I have done them before at around the same time of year, and I always like to look at the pictures.

Around 3 years ago, we went to IKEA to get stuff to move Harry and Jack downstairs before Dorothy was born.  When I looked at those pictures, I was surprised by how neat and cute the room looked because it really took a beating in the intervening time.  We set that room up for a 6 year-old and a 4 year-old, which explains the train table.  In the past 3 years, though, their cute IKEA duvet covers both ripped from frequent washing; the train table fell apart and got super glued and moved upstairs for a brief sojourn in Cooper's room before being thrown away entirely.  We added another IKEA EXPEDIT shelf to hold toys and books and gave the Step 2 toy box/book shelf (it's indestructible!) to Dorothy.  They broke all 3 lamps in their room, and we added some mismatched bean bag chairs and a TV so they could play their Wii U and a shitload of scrapes and smudges to the walls that were painted the same boring cream as the rest of the basement.

A few weeks ago, though, Harry came home from a friend's house speaking longingly about the friend's desk in his room with a place to hold all his pencils, and we felt bad and figured a desk was the least we could do for them.

So, almost 3 years to the day (thanks for the reminder Facebook!), we went BACK to IKEA for desks, chairs, duvet covers-- I had replaced the ripped ones with random clearance navy comforters from Target that are the perfect thing to stuff INSIDE a duvet cover), and lamps.  Ben spent 2 days painting the walls (2 walls pale yellow; 2 walls pale blue) and assembling and rearranging the furniture and bam!  A makeover on the cheap (less that $300 for everything!).

(Now Dorothy would like a pink wall, a purple wall, a blue wall, and a green wall, and she'd like to share a room with Cooper.  So, stay tuned for more bed shuffling!)

We relocated the EXPEDIT shelf and added a decoupaged ampersand to the wall

 Here's Jack's little hipster work station:

 And here's Harry's:

 (The desks actually looked cuter side by side and cutest facing each other in a little pod, but fighting!  So much potential for fighting!  And they almost came to blows this morning over optimum homework lighting, so I am glad they're far away from each other.

Harry immediately tacked his spelling list on his bulletin board.

Keeping with the hipster vibe,  Jack chose 4 supremely weird Instax pictures from the stack he has shot since he got a camera for Christmas.

 Harry picked out this cute little clock duvet, and he still has a heap of stuffed animals.  Phew!

 Jack has random animals doing stuff on graph paper and also lots of stuffed animals and Packers pillows.

 WORST PARENTS EVER:

 Still have the awkward sauce electrical cabinet.

 I love these chairs.

 I love lamp.

 And mostly, I love that they still need a place for toys.  Because they are babies.

A room makeover ate the last 2 days and all I have are these lousy pictures.

 Beatrix was either making a break for it OR she wanted to take an end-of-winter-break picture.

Some idiot bought Cooper this giant Play Doh thing from Costco.

 Ben and I have been working on Harry and Jack's room for the past 2 days, so Dorothy and Cooper have had the run of the basement.

 Dorothy: always accessorized.

 Cooper no longer sleeps in his bed because he prefers the Star Wars tent he got for Christmas, which makes his room much easier to clean in the morning.

All we have done for the last 2 days is work on the boys' room and watch Making a Murderer.  But now we're done with both.  Phew!  Pics to come.

He's a Keeper

I am on the elliptical at a fairly leisurely 5.3 mph pace. Let's see if I can truly multitask and exercise while blogging. 

I remembered the mildly funny story I wanted to tell you yesterday when the bubbly obscured my memory. 

I had the unrivaled pleasure of spending two hours all by myself at a semi-decent/sort-of-okay mall out-of-town on Saturday where I found some of the adorable Olivia collection at Gymboree on sale for $9.99 (I KNOW), tried on everything at the Gap and bought nothing because it all sucked even though it was all 50% off the ticket price and then another 30% off your total purchase at the checkout, spent a ton of time in Sephora thinking about how to best cover the ravages of my 37 years of resting bitch face (and, let's be honest, active bitch face, too), and hit up the Victoria's Secret semi annual sale which is pretty much the only time of year I buy new bras. 

Ben and I do a ton of laundry-- 3 to 4 loads a day depending on our whites situation-- but we are actually pretty shitty at sorting it effectively, remembering to wash clothes with cold water, and stocking those color catching sheet things that are made for people who are bad at sorting. As a result, most of my underwear eventually turns greige. This is really not something I care about because I have 4 kids and have been with Ben since the nineties, so as long I don't have bra back fat and a VPL, I feel really good about myself. 

I thought I was being really practical at the sale because I bought a plain black bra, a plain beige bra, and blah beige underwear, planning ahead for bad washing. But Ben, ever the optimist, was really excited when he picked me up (at Corner Bakery, where I enjoyed soup, salad, and the really fascinating Wright brothers biography I am reading) and saw a promising Victoria's Secret bag loaded with fun-looking pink tissue. I assured him I only bought mom underwear, but he sweetly thought I was just hiding something racier  from the kids. 

This was, obviously, wishful thinking.

But the moral is actually a really happy one. How lucky am I to have been with the same guy since Third Eye Blind was on the radio who still wants to see me in pretty underwear and doesn't care that I always look a little bit pregnant and that my former almost-champagne-glass boobs are now definitely champagne-FLUTE boobs?

School TOMORROW

 I swear I had actual things to talk about today, but then I decided to go ahead and drink champagne tonight because I am for serious not drinking on week nights, so I figured what the hell, especially since we had a champagne toast at dinner, and now all I have is random pictures and run-on sentences.

But seriously, that first picture.  Calico Critters are SO FUN to play.

And this picture below-- look at her blowing the New Year's Eve blower!

 A friend of ours gave her some hand-me-down princess books and dress up shoes, and she was THRILLED.

 Fancy dinner to celebrate the lest night of break for the kids.  Ben and I have 2 more weeks!

 They were SO CUTE toasting

Tomorrow, the bog boys have school (!!!) and Ben and I have big plans to PAINT THEIR ROOM.  Yikes.

IKEA part one million

We went to IKEA again today in advance of another room reno for the kiddies, this one involving PAINT. 

We have lived in our house for 5 years this summer and damn do we need to paint some walls. We're starting small with Harry and Jack's room. So exciting! Do you know what we like to do more than put together IKEA furniture? It's definitely a tie between taking apart a huge heavy bunk bed to move it away from the wall and PAINTING THAT WALL. 

At least the cinnamon rolls are awesome.  Especially when they're smeared with cart. 

RESOLVED

1.  More play.  Cards and games with the kids.  Cards and games with friends.  Tag in the back yard.  Sledding.  Hide and Seek.  Interminable pretend play with preschoolers-- all of it!  As much as I can this year.

2.  Less phone.  So cliche, I know, but more play has to go along with less phone.

3.  Massages every month.  Such a good stress reliever for me, and we have a complimentary medicine benefit through our HMO-- it's silly not to take advantage, so I will.

4.  Pedicures every month.  Such an easy way to feel pretty-- why not?

5.  NO MORE PROCRASTINATING AT WORK.  It just makes me feel bad and prevents me from doing fun projects.  So.  I teach EARLY on Tuesdays, and I am also going to be at work by 9:00 on Thursdays, too (yes, for me early is 9:30.  I KNOW).  I just generally want to be more conscious of compartmentalizing my time.

6. More Blog.  A post every day would be AWESOME, but I'd settle for most days of the week.

7.  A book a week.

8.  At least 10,000 steps, 5 miles, 10 flights of stairs, and 2150 calories burned EVERYDAY NO MATTER WHAT.