Can someone please explain the logic behind this?

I don't get how the bathroom ends up looking like this. It's a good thing we have that hamper. Look how useful it is!

Having a talk

Charlie came downstairs tonight and said, very seriously:

"Dad, (deep inhale, deep exhale) we need to talk."

It was so funny, we didn't even care that he followed this up by telling us that Frankie had dumped an entire container of fish flakes on their bedroom carpet and also sprayed an excessive amount of air freshener throughout the room.

Halloween

Frankie was a very cute tiger for Halloween this year, as you can see. He didn't want to stand up normal for the picture.

 And it looks like he's already picked out his costume for next year. As long as his head doesn't grow too much, he can be a popcorn popper. He's been wearing the top to our popcorn popper on his head all night (he calls it his "football hat")

Deep Thoughts

"If you turn your head all the way to the side, your nose looks like the letter E." - Charlie

And another from Charlie as I was tucking him in tonight: "When I grow up I'm going to marry Debbie. But if Debbie married someone else, I will marry Gia. And if Gia marries someone else, I will marry.....Tenly. And if Tenly marries someone else, I will marry Kaitlyn! And if Kaitlyn marries someone else, I will marry....(long pause) I'm done talking about this now." And then he fell asleep.

Happy Birthday, Frankie

Frankie turned 2 about six weeks ago. So I guess that's how far behind I am. Anyway, once again he was fortunately to have his birthday 4 days after his cousin Gabby's so my sister could make a beautiful Elmo birthday cake for them.  I made a mediocre-looking but tasty cake for his actual birthday at home.

He really, really enjoys the "Happy Birthday Song" as you can tell from this video. He now sings it whenever we light a candle. Seth and I also got quite a kick out of Sam casually dancing while we were singing.

Charlie and the Eagle

A part of me looks forward to the day when I won't have the vast majority of my time taken up with taking care of little kids. Not because I don't like taking care of children, but because there are other areas of the community where I would like to help or volunteer and I can't. And once in awhile I would just like to say "I need to go to wherever for a day (or an evening or a weekend)" without having to call up the National Guard to help watch our kids so I can go.

However, there's this other part of me that absolutely dreads the day I will no longer have small children at home - because, holy buckets, can they make me laugh!

Like the other day when Charlie and Reed ran inside "quick!" because they saw an eagle (probably actually a turkey vulture) flying overhead. Here's his reaction:

House remodel pictures...finally!

We finished our house remodel almost a year ago, but I never did get around to sharing before and after pictures. Here they are.

For those of you who haven't been in our house before, it might be hard to visualize how this all goes together. It doesn't help that I'm a pretty poor photographer, but I'll do my best to explain.

Before: this was our formal dining room and sitting/play room, separated by pocket doors:

 After: We took out the wall and made one long living room right off the kitchen. I can finally keep an eye on the kids while I'm cooking in the kitchen! Life has much improved with this change.

Before: Turn around, and you can see our formal dining room from the opposite end. This is actually a before-before picture of the dining room (before we painted it and before the remodel). This was a beautiful room that was original to the house, but functionally it was making my life crazy. This room broke up the kitchen from the "living quarters" of the house, and the kids were constantly dragging stuff into this room on their walk from one part of the house to the next. It functioned less as a dining room, and more as a perpetually messy sight and sound barrier between the kitchen (aka, my home base) and the play room & living room (aka, the kids' home base).

After: Our new living room, separated from the kitchen by an island rather than 3 or 4 feet of cabinetry. Don't worry! We still kept that hutch and the 120 year old chandelier....stay continued.

Before: Here you can see our galley kitchen with a bathroom just next to where we cooked. Can't say we miss that.

After: We were able to reuse pretty much all the cabinets, just moving them to a more efficient layout. My favorite is the "kids' counter" - made out of necessity because the former bathroom window went too low for a standard counter. Not only is it a great place for the kids to help me in the kitchen, but as short as I am, it's actually a perfect height for me to bake. Kneading and rolling out dough are especially easier.

(I will add that our floor looks normal now. We hadn't finished it yet when I took this picture.)

Before: We loved eating in our breakfast nook, but as the family kept getting bigger, it was becoming crowded when we all ate there together (not to mention that we frequently have extra kids over). It was also a trap for clutter since it was a difficult area to clean out and sweep.

After: the breakfast nook and formal dining room converge into a single dining space. Here you can see the hutch (which was quite the task to move!) and chandelier (quite the unexpected expense to move!) from the old dining room. 

Before: The isolated living room, which was off in a corner of it's own in the house. The bottom picture was taken before we repainted in case you're wondering why half the room would be green and half gray. The covered doorway there lead to the old library (new bathroom featured in a previous post). 

After: We were pleased to have come up with a solution that allowed us to keep and actually improve on our library. The old library was small and cramped; the new allows room for our piano and other instruments.

Quotes from Charlie

Here are a few of Charlie's latest comments that made us laugh.

Looking at a picture in one of his story books of a mom mowing the lawn: "Hey! Moms can't mow the lawn!!" (Seth and I fit pretty well into very gender-stereotyped roles, which looks like it might get Charlie into trouble if he ever spouts this stuff around the wrong person. In my defense, the last couple of times I tried mowing the lawn, Frankie started crying for me so much, we just gave up.)

"That's not a question mark. It's a mystery."

"Remember when Reed was 4 and then he turned 5?.....That was totally funny."

Charlie: I have to go pee.
Me: I have to go pee, too.
Charlie: You have to go PEE???!!!
Me: Yes, we both have to go at the same time (thinking that's what he's so astounded by).
Charlie: Girls can GO PEE?? How can girls go pee???

Getting in the car, I turn on the engine as Charlie is getting in his seat. He says, "Mom! I'm not in my seat yet. Don't go until I say 'hit it!'" I wait a few seconds, hear his seat belt click, and then "Ok. Hit it."

Misheard lyrics

I noticed recently that the kids have become fans the Bruno Mars song That's What I Like. I also noticed some of the lyrics aren't fantastic for young children. Fortunately KidzBop has versions of the song that sounds pretty much the same as the original, but with cleaned up lyrics so I let them listen to that version.

I probably didn't need to worry too much, though, given Charlie's tendency to butcher lyrics. The kid's version of the song changes the lyric "strawberry champagne on ice" to "strawberry milkshake on ice" (kind of corny, I know). When Charlie heard that, he started laughing and said, "They sang it wrong. It's supposed to be 'strawberry shampoo, that's right!'"

He's also pretty convinced that "Despacito" is pronounced, "Ses-flock-flee-co." And here he is singing the well known hit by Pat Benatar: "Hinowinovencha!" I'll let you see if you can figure out what song he's singing.

A new era

We've hit an exciting milestone around here. Exciting for us, I guess, probably not so much for anyone else.

Seth didn't get a chance to mow the lawn this weekend so I was hoping to somehow get to it during the week. I hadn't even really had a chance to think about it when Sam asked me if he could mow the lawn yesterday. "Do you know how to mow the lawn?" I asked. "Yeah. I can do it." So I said he could go for it.

I was too occupied with Frankie to even go out and help him get started, but pretty soon I heard the mower start, and before long he had the entire lawn mowed. He even refilled the gas at one point (I supervised) figuring out our complicated gas can (I was struggling despite the can's illustrated directions).

So yay for Sam! One of this kid's first sentences was "I help!" - and he is proving to be a very capable helper....when he wants to be, which is rarely the case when it comes to household chores.

The only problem: he knows the neighbor gets paid $25 to mow another neighbor's much smaller lawn, and he was a little disappointed to find that I was not going to pay anywhere near that much.