random and family room

A bit of random and then some pics of the family room.

On Saturday Zach took his yellow belt test in Karate.

 And passed. Yay Zach! He has worked super hard and is extremely excited about continuing. I'm excited that he has found something active that he loves doing.

 Remember how I said the boys were doing well keeping their rooms nice.....well last week Aiden threw a tantrum and decided to "rearrange" his room, including his bed, he pulled down the curtains (this pic was after Chris put them back up), and all of the pictures in his room got taken down and rearranged. 

Sigh.

 It is 1:25PM and Aiden is still asleep. The sweet boy is sick today so instead of doing anything on my mile long to-do list I am hanging out in bed with him. (the white streaks in his hair are paint...he helped me with some projects this past weekend :)

And now onto the family room....

Before pic one.....

 blurry before pic 2.....

 Ta-da. Here it is now....I painted the walls a very soft gray/beige (a color the boys helped pick out) it's almost white but not white. I also painted the beams white so they would blend into the ceiling and make the room appear bigger, thankfully it worked :)

 This is looking into the kitchen....more on the kitchen later, we are making progress but it is so not done yet. We keep the family computer in here instead of the playroom because I want to be able to monitor what they are doing and this is the best place to be able to do that. The white slip cover is from www.uglysofas.com. I got it for $30 and it is a "lottery parn" slipcover. (I can't say who it's really from because the tag has their name crossed off but you get the idea.)

The big open doorway off to the left leads into the sunroom...more on that room later too.

 This is the couch wall, pretty self explanatory. I did just buy new end tables from the Thrift Store for $5 each. I plan on painting them yellow, or maybe red to bring some color into this very neutral room.

 Another of the couch wall.

 Chris built these shelves. I love them but they are full already so I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I start scrapbooking again....

Chris also built these shelves for right around $10 a piece. I am excited to be able to fill them up with all of our family photos once again.

 A reminder of before....

 ....and after!

With the exception of the beams this was by far one of the easiest rooms to paint. 

A break down of what we have done so far:

*replaced all the outlets and lightswitches

*replaced the sconces beside the fireplace

*painted the walls and beams

*replaced the heating vents

*built bookshelves

*built photo ledges

Still to do:

*make curtains (my mom helped me pick out the fabric and I'm SO excited about making them and getting them up, hopefully next week but maybe not until the kids go back to school on the 31st.)

*paint the window trim

*there are quite a few places on the walls that I need to touch up

*order large family picture for above the fireplace

*put more pictures on the photo ledges

*paint new tables and get them into the room

I'm very happy with how this room is coming along and with all the work we've done. Yay us!

Aiden's room before. 

2 wallpapered walls. 2 painted walls. Lots of spongebob.

We kept as much sponge bob as we could.

Here is his room now.

Like Zach he was allowed to pick most things himself. 

I left his fan alone but I still may spray paint it.

The walls were painted blue "like the ocean"

The curtains are orange "like spongebob's pineapple house"

I bought him a spongebob poster.

I need to hang up family pictures between the window and closet. I have them framed, just not hung up.

 He also has up some artwork from school and some posters of animals.

For his original artwork he spray painted the background a color that almost matched his wall and then traced fish shapes that I made. He painted the insides of those some fun colors.

While spray painting the canvas it was moved and I accidentally dropped it in the grass. Aiden decided to keep the grass on because it looks like seaweed.

For the closet I lowered one shelf so he could reach it and added a higher shelf for extra blankets and such.

Another before:

And the after:

His room also took a week to complete. 

1 day for wallpaper.

1 day for painting.

1 day for carpet removal.

1 day for clean-up/set up and closet.

The boys have been in their rooms for almost two months and they are both taking very good care of them. Their rooms are the most completed of all the rooms with just little things left to do.

Up next: the family room

the construction zone kitchen

and maybe some help me pictures....this house is full of projects and some still have me just tilting my head in confusion about what to do......

Zach's room

Before I introduce Zach's room I have a little vent first. 

I was trying to sew some stuff for the house and my sewing machine is broke-again. Ugg. I paid over $100 last time to get it fixed and I've only sewn 4 curtains and some ruffles since then. Sigh. I am really thinking about getting a new one.

Okay. Here's a shot of Zach's room from the home inspection. 

Notice all the wallpaper. 

Sigh.

From the doorway. 

Notice the carpet.

To earn some money so he could fix his broken iPod touch Zach removed his own wallpaper. 

I just had to spend a day on the adhesive....

And now here it is......

Zach chose everything for his room. 

The color is a gray/blue.

It took him forever to choose. The other colors are yellow and red because those are the colors of Gryfindor from Harry Potter.

On the right are some small movies posters we sprung for.

Zach chose a whole bunch of pictures to put on the wall. Mostly Beyblades, some family pics, and some of his artwork.

I really wanted to replace Zach's fan but we settled for spray painting the blades red and the brassy parts yellow. I was a little worried how it would turn out but it looks great.

Zach used an old canvas from the Cinci house to make his own artwork.

He painted the canvas gray, spray painted streaks of red, added some pics from the Harry Potter movie. 

And ta-da.

No Harry Potter room would be complete without Hedwig. Harry's pet owl.

A rundown of what we did.

Zach spent 2 weeks removing wallpaper.

I spent 1 day removing the adhesive.

Chris spent 30 minutes scrubbing the walls.

I spent one day painting two coats of paint.

One more day to remove the nasty carpet.

And one last day to hang up things on his wall and work on his closet.

So here's a reminder: 

The old:

The new:

I still want to:

paint the trim white

repaint the doors

add a few more pictures

in a few years the floors will get refinished

A note on Zach's blinds, he is allergic to dust mites so I have to keep fabric in his room to a minimum. These blinds are ones I can vacuum, which seems crazy but anything to help Zach with his allergies.

Do you ever become so ever become so overwhelmed by all the things you want to post that you feel paralyzed to post anything? 

Well that's where I am right now :) 

I have been super, super busy removing wallpaper, painting, pulling up carpet, mowing the yard, cleaning, laundry and of course cooking and doing fun stuff with the boys.

 I promise to post pics of the house, and all that the boys and I have been up to but for now I'm going to start with the most recent stuff and fill in with the goodies from that last few months as I have time.....so here it goes:

We just got back on Friday from a trip to Chicago. 

For Chris it was work, for the boys and I it was a mini vacation. 

It was so much fun and what made it better was the free rental car and free hotel. The boys and I had PB&J everyday for lunch making it even cheaper. 

Yippee for cheap Chicago vacations!

On Monday we headed to the Museum of Science and Industry. We took the boys 2 years ago so I wasn't sure they would want to head back but they were all for it and we spent a good 5 1/2 hours exploring. I love that they love learning so much. 

The museum had a special "Bodies" exhibit but they didn't allow pictures inside the exhibit. The boys sort of breezed through and I kept slowing them down and talking to them about what they were seeing. 

Aiden was most interested in the effects of smoking, they had lungs, a "slice" of a smoker's leg and other body parts stained with tar.

Zach was most interested in the effects of fat. Looking the longest at the displays of hearts and movie about cholesterol and artery blockage. As well as staring at the "slice" of a healthy body next to one of an obese body.

Needless to say the exhibit definitely made us all think a little bit more about what we do to our bodies and what we put into them.

This giraffe was in the lobby of the museum. The body exhibit was much the same except with humans. Very, very interesting.

This was a shadow wall. The movie reacted to your shadow and you could "catch" the falling sand. Zach is in the background with his arms in a Y and you can see Aiden up next to the screen with his arms out stretched trying to "catch" what was falling from Zach. 

Made me think about their relationship as brothers. 

Aiden always in Zach's shadow. 

Zach always competing to be the biggest, the most, the first.

Aiden trying to catch his brothers overflow.

Sorry this is blurry. The quote totally made me think of Aiden. "The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers; he is one who asks the right questions." Claude Levi-Strauss

The boys and I in the fun mirrors.

I would have loved to have taken more pictures but I loved exploring, learning, and being with my boys more.

Tuesday we headed to the planetarium. It was pretty run down, not much for the boys to do but they did enjoy the show on constellations and it sparked such an interest for Zach that we are considering a telescope for him for Christmas.

The boys outside the planetarium.

The boys in a simulation of take off.

What trip to the planetarium would be complete with out seeing and taking a picture of a fecal collection bag?

Zach "holding up" the earth.

OK. this is a picture of Target.

After telling the boys about a target in Atlanta that we used to go to that had an escalator for people and one for your cart as well they were all about going to one in Chicago.

 Thank goodness for Google as I was able to find a 2 story target. We headed there after the planetarium and I think the boys would have stayed there all day just going up and down if I had let them.

Wednesday we spent the morning shopping. Container store, IKEA (3 stories tall with cart escalators--we were all in heaven :), land's end outlet. 

Because Wednesday was also Zach's birthday we went to Olive Garden for lunch, I so wish I had remembered to take a picture.

Chris left work early so that we could head out to Navy Pier. I got some pics of the boys by the water.

He may still be my baby, but he's growing up. 

Sniff. Sniff.

And Zach. 

My tween. 

With an attitude to match the title.

Boo.

All of us. Waiting for our speedboat ride to watch the fireworks.

Yes, I said speedboat.

And fireworks.

On Zach's 10th birthday.

What a fun way to top off a great day celebrating a wonderful boy.

On the boat. 

Such excitement :)

Chris took a vacation day on Thursday and all four of us headed to Shedd Aquarium.

Funny side note: 

On the highway one day we passed a sign for Brookfield Zoo and I asked the boys if they wanted to go there instead of the planetarium.

Aiden said "no we're not zoo people, we're museum people." :) Ha!

Luckily they are aquarium people.

Front of Shedd.

They had an exhibit about jellyfish. My favorite exhibit of the day.

A spotted stingray. Love the polka dots.

Boys with the big fish.

Photo taken by Zach.

Dolphin show.

Aiden and I sat in the front row. 

He didn't want anyone to block his view.

He asked questions the whole time. The. Whole. Entire. Time. His mind never stops.

Zach and the otter. For some reason Zach really attached himself to the otters this time.

Maybe it had to do with this shirt?

Harry Otter.

It was $25. Too rich for his blood. And mine. So we took a picture instead.

He bought this otter.

$7

Named him Harry.

They are best friends.

Made me think about how hard 10 must be. Still a child. Yet trying so hard to grow up and be independent.

Last night at the pool. Such fun being thrown by dad.

Zach's too old for that kind of silliness. 

Boo.

 Chicago traffic.

Double Boo.

 At Shedd looking toward Navy Pier.

 Chicago Skyline. From the Fireworks boat.

Best thing I bought.

A dog bed/travel pillow.

Well that was our trip. We had so much fun. I'm glad that I went. I was nervous about the traffic and managing the boys in a big city but I put on my big girl panties and just went for it. 

And it was awesome.