Our Family Project

BEFORE I've never sold a house before. In fact, it's been a HUGE learning process. There are a lot of things I didn't know I needed to do before, and there are many things that I'm glad I did that I didn't have to figure out needed to be done. Decluttering -- that's one of the things I'm so glad I did before we had the house on the market; I can only imagine how the house would show if we hadn't done that. Now, staging ... that's something that I've been completely clueless about for years! I've never really taken the time to add those little "homey" (as Eliza calls it) touches to our house. That's been one of the things that I've had to learn recently, and extremely quickly. We had a realtor do a preview of our house this last Thursday. She said the overall quality was good, but that the staging was fair (out of excellent, good, fair, or poor). Granted, she only gave me 10-15 minutes notice before coming. I cleaned up, and ...

I finally made us some throw pillows! I've had plans to make pillows for our couches for probably a year ... well, at least I think that's as long as I've had the fabric. I just love this fabric and cannot wait to get the rest of the pillows and table runner finished. It just happens to be the only fabric that I don't have packed away. And, I just LOVE my pillows! ;-)

Perhaps it's not the typical use for a stool, but it works for Maryanne just the same!

A couple weekends ago we sold our piano. It has been very bittersweet for me. We needed to sell the piano so our living room would look bigger and more open to potential home buyers. And, to be honest .... it wasn't the greatest of pianos, and we always said when we moved out of this house (at least if we were to move cross-country again) that we would sell it and buy a new piano after reaching our new location. So, when I listed the piano on Craig's List all I thought about was a new piano ... one that would be a little easier to keep in tune, one that would be a little smaller, and one that would have a better sound quality. Little did I realize how much I would MISS this ugly piano! A day has not passed in which I haven't turned the corner from the kitchen, or walked down the stairs, with every intention of sitting down at the piano and playing a restful tune. I MISS THIS PIANO! Playing the piano is so relaxing for me, and it's been really hard to not have a...

A couple days ago I was expressing come concern to Jon about Maryanne's eating habits. She basically eats bread stuff and milk and that's it. ( See this post .) So, Jon suggested I try one of those Gerber toddler dinner thingys. I'm not quite sure whether Maryanne liked it, or hated it. She definitely ate the sauce for the ravioli, but everything else ... well, you can see what she did with it. At least she tried to clean it up.

The Sunday that Jon flew out to Arizona, we stayed home from church. I know, I know ... we are slackers. But, we felt that we needed some family time since most of the time before Jon left was dedicated to getting the house ready to sell. So, we just hung out together. Jon and Maryanne shared a banana on the floor of the kitchen. Then, Jon read a book to the children. (I just love Andrew's eyes in this picture.) It was well worth it to just spend time together.

I put Maryanne's hair into pigtails yesterday. So cute! And, they really make her look like a little toddler instead of a baby. When did that happen? She's not old enough to almost be a little girl ... yet she's starting to act and look like it. Ah, where did my baby go?

**I added a couple posts below this one, just in case you missed them.** Tonight we made pizza for dinner. I didn't remember to make the dough ahead of time, so I just made easy bisquick pizza dough that I altered with a little bit of Italian seasoning, olive oil, and parmesan cheese. They turned out better than I thought they would. The children always want to help make dinner. I don't know why it's so hard for me to share the duty; they love it when they get to cook. I hope these pictures can remind me to include them more often. The harmony in the house is much better when I do. Oh and can you tell which pizza is Andrew's? Yeah, I think he just piled the pepperoni and ham on his pizza and then ran off to climb the couch. BTW, Jon, we had a stern talking-to about that. ;-) (Kate's button: It is a 5-year no cavities button she got at the dentist on Tuesday. She's so proud of it ... she's been wearing it ever since. But, all I can say is, "Wow, that...

This is post is for her daddy, who is working in Arizona right now. Jon won't get to see Maryanne for a few weeks, and I know how much a little girl can change in such a short time. Today, while I was making soup for dinner, Maryanne was pretty fussy. See, she had her 12 month shots yesterday and she was a little fussy and clingly all day today. So, I set her on the counter with a couple of sationary toys while I cut up the veggies for the soup. But, she wouldn't have that ... she wanted the celery. Yes, the celery. This little girl will not eat peaches, pears, strawberries, peas, green beans, corn ... just about everything that everyone else in the family will eat. But, she reached out for the celery and started chewing on a stalk. And, she appeared to like it. So, these pictures are just for her daddy ... the only "other" person in the family who likes celery.

Today, I woke up a little bit earlier than usual. And, because I did that, we had time to play around with our breakfast. Recently, I've been on a color kick. I don't know if that has to do with the lack of color around us during this time of year, or anything else, but I do know that it helps to wake us up in the morning. I've started "coloring" our pancakes and waffles. This morning we had bright yellow pancakes. I put the batter into a squeeze bottle and made letter pancakes. Each of the children got to eat their names for breakfast this morning. I also took the time to make sure each of the girls had made their beds and picked up their rooms before leaving for school. So glad I did. At 9:15 the realty office called and asked to schedule a showing at 4:30. Aaaahhhhh! I was not ready for that at all ... I had a huge list of things to do still. Oh well. Thankfully, the boys and I had just cleaned up the bathroom a little bit, and the dishwasher had been unloaded....

This last Monday was our first day without Jon. So, I decided that I'd try a new experiment: to take some pictures, maybe not everyday, but as close to that as I can ... just so Jon can see what's going on at home. Hopefully, everyone else will bear with me. On Monday, following the advice of our realtor, I got out a basket for prospective buyers to place their shoes in while they walk through our house. Maryanne decided "other things" needed to go into the basket. She had a blast playing around in this basket. When I first saw her she was just sitting back, chillin' in the basket. As soon as the camera came out she started playing around and goofing off. I love that she will be such a willing participant in my new little experiment.

It's taken me a long time to get these pictures up. But, I wanted to share the gifts I made this year for my sister and her two boys. She wanted something for them to keep there things in when they go visit my brother, so I made them each a backpack like one that we got from Jon's work. I LOVE these backpacks ... and cannot wait to make one for myself! I totally just based my pattern off of the backpacks that I use for everything! These are made out of some camping vinyl, so they'd be great for taking to the swimming pool ... all the wet stuff goes inside! I made my sister some oven mitts to go with the new casserole dish I sent her. These are the oven mitts that I've had on my "projects to do" list for quite some time. Putting the binding on following the directions proved to be a little bit difficult. Next time, I'll just bind them like I would a quilt and call it good. Another thing I cannot wait to make for myself!