Moving Out

Not all of us. Just our oldest. As I suspect it always is, it was a move of mixed emotions: excitement, sadness, relief, and even a little regret. But at 20, it was time for her to leave the nest.

She's renting a room in a house with a family, so I feel good about that. At least even though she's not with our family any longer, she's with a family. 

Now, what will we do with this empty, empty room?

Baking Soda Apocalypse

Last night, the girls got into the big bag of baking soda I keep in the kitchen for cleaning. It all started innocently enough, with scooping from bag to bowl keeping them occupied while I made dinner. They even swept when they were done.

When we thought they were done.

 We didn't know that Maxine sneaked a tin full of baking soda into the playroom.

I don't know what she was playing, but with everything covered in white dust, it looked like a crazy post apocalyptic scene, right down to the discarded household objects and clothing.

Happy (Homemade) Easter!

Every year, about a month before every holiday, I make the same ambitious declaration: "this year, I'm making all of the gifts." We're kind of laid back about holidays, and gift giving, so it never seems like that big of a task. So I put it off until the holiday is four days away, realize there isn't any time to make most of the things I'd planned to make, and place a bunch of last minute Amazon Prime orders.

But not this Easter. Not because I planned better, but because Easter falls on a Sunday. And since it was Thursday when I realized that Easter was this Sunday, there wasn't time to order anything. So I was stuck.

Fortunately, I wasn't a complete slacker this year. I'd already made this little Popover Sundress for Maxine,

and another Lazy Days skirt for Lissie.

I was planning to make fabric buckets for the girls to serve as Easter baskets, but I've never made one before, and they looked too complicated to tackle for the first time with a looming deadline. Instead, I used this tutorial to make a little Sleeping Beauty drawstring bag for each (little) girl.

Ariana, the cat lover, got a little Owl and Pussycat bag.

We filled each bag with a few goodies. I didn't mean to do so many little dolls, but found the gnomes while Ariana and I were making the butterflies. The little purses came from different grandmothers. Do all grandmothers collect lots of tiny purses, or is it just the ones in our family?

Pastels for Lissie, and lots of red for Maxine. It's her favorite color. Had you noticed? Lissie's purse was bigger, so Max got the baby gnome. She loves it, as predicted. Let's not discuss the "branch with berries" I embroidered on the belly of one of Max's gnomes. At least we know why that one was packed away with the craft supplies!

There was a little surprise for everybody at the top of the stairs too. Ariana stayed up late and made a bunny for each girl, and left them there with a little note. Lissie noticed right away that the handwriting was not mine or Brad's, and decided it must really be from the Easter bunny. I wondered if she would also notice Ariana's trademark "X" eyes, but she didn't seem to make the connection. She was thrilled to finally know whether the Easter bunny was a boy or a girl. Who knew it was such a burning question?

After our low-key Easter morning, we headed out to the country to visit some friends.

The bow and arrows were not an Easter gift, but Lissie just got them this weekend. She recently became interested in archery while reading Robin Hood, and my father happened to have a youth set that he bought years and years ago for Ariana. Ariana never used it, but Lissie has been having a lot of fun with it!

Maxine got to hold the quiver,

and help collect the arrows.

She didn't seem to think it was nearly as fun as shooting them!

Fortunately, there were lots of other fun things for a three year old to do.

So everybody was happy.

Wolves!

This morning I was serenaded by a couple of wolves in pajamas howling at the dining room light fixture.

I can't imagine missing moments like these because Lissie was in school all day.

Working Dog

How did we ever manage to keep the floors clean before we had dogs?

Bedroom: Done

Finally! I know I've mentioned before that our bedroom was the last unfinished room in our house. When we bought our house, it was painted blue. Bright blue. Smurf blue.

You can see it behind Lissie here. Also, check out four year old Lissie--it's so strange to see her with all of her teeth!

It wasn't a bad color. It was actually very pretty, in some ways. It was just a very intense color, and I always felt kind of overwhelmed by it.

So I painted the room. I can't remember how long we'd lived here then, but under a year. I chose a pretty bluey-greeny-gray color (depending on the light) that every bedroom seemed to be around that time. I believe the exact color was Sherwin Williams Window Pane. And it was better. Sort of. It was definitely less intense, but one thing I didn't consider when choosing the color was that our north facing bedroom was already kind of gloomy. And in winter? Yuck. Seriously, it was cold, blah, and frankly, kind of depressing.

You can see it used in a sunny nursery on Apartment Therapy, where it's gorgeous. It doesn't even look like the same color.

Then I just kind of left it that way, for the next two years. Obviously, as you'll see in the other "before" photos, there was a lot more wrong with the room than just the paint color! But I knew I didn't love it, and I was never inspired to do anything with our room.

I finally took some pictures last month, and sent them to Ellen Kennon. I'm sure I've talked about her here before, because she's fabulous. She has helped me chose all of the paint colors in my house, and I don't know what I did before I knew about her--wait, I do know: I constantly repainted everything!

In my e-mail, I told Ellen that I wanted the room to feel warmer and cozier, and that I'd like a color that feels refreshing when I wake up in the morning. She sent back a list of five colors, and Brad and I quickly picked the one we wanted. Then, I ordered the paint, and due to a few mix ups, waited an agonizing month to get it.

And then, this:

So now when I wake up in the morning, instead of seeing this:

I see this:

The couch was moved to our porch, because nobody ever sat on it in our bedroom. This meant we could move the desk back to the other side of the room, across from the bed, which left space for us to bring the third dresser back up from the basement.

That gave me more drawer space--so no more t-shirts crammed in (and peeking out of) the drawers!

Ugh. Also, I moved a heap of "clean enough to wear again" clothes off the dresser before I took this picture:

Voila! No room for clothes:

Notice the pictures stacked under the dresser? I won't tell you how thick the layer of dust was, but I will tell you that there were more pictures stacked under the couch.

The blue plate is one of only two new things in this room. It's a "Pisces" (Brad's astrological sign) plate I found in a thrift store. I thought it was funny, and I liked the color, so I got it.

The other new thing is the gold branches on the wide dresser, also thrifted. Everything else was stuff I already had, and most of it was already in this room. It's crazy to me how different the room looks and feels, with just a few relatively simple (and cheap) changes. Unfortunately, it also means I really have no excuse for how bad it looked before!

Now, if I could just find the right curtains.

The Snowy Day

This obviously wasn't staged. If I'd planned it, I would have used my camera instead of my phone!

Our New Additions

Our family has grown, by two. Two cuddly, snuggly, adorable little rescue dachshunds.

Greta, on the left, is three, and Lotte is four. They are both retired breeders who were rescued from a puppy mill. They were at the same puppy mill and knew each other well, so although we got them a month apart, there was no real adjustment period. In fact, Greta was immediately happier and more relaxed with another dog in the house.

When they came to us, they had never lived in a house before. They didn't play with toys, or eat food off the floor (which, let's be honest, is half the reason we even wanted a dog!). They'd spent their lives in cages, and even had to be taught how to go up and down the stairs.

They are the absolute sweetest though. They love the girls and are great with other dogs. They are still learning to walk on leashes, but I'm thinking they might enjoy that more once the weather is nicer.

They are happy and healthy here.

And they love pooping on the rug in the living room.

Room for Posterity

Well, I entered a room in Apartment Therapy's Room for Color contest again this year. This time, in the "cool" category. I wrote about last year's entry here. Unfortunately, we had a lot going on, and I didn't have a chance to post about the contest while it was was still going on. I'm going to post about it now, even though the contest is over, because I still think it's exciting!

This is our "green" room, which I already posted about here. Here is my entry: Natasha's "Outside In" Room. Be sure to check out the other entries too. Even though you can't vote anymore, there is some great inspiration there!

Here are the photos from my entry, along with a couple that didn't make the cut. I took new photos, because I wasn't thrilled with the first ones I took right after I painted the room.