When the cat's away....

The mouse goes to Home Depot for "Brown Teepee " and "Barn Door" paint and has her own "While You Were Out" experience.

When my husband goes on his business trips, I need a project to keep me sane , busy occupied. So, this last time, it was the kitchen, family room and powder room that were hit.

Here's the result:

I did a faux tile backsplash:

Painted the bay window area the red. I used wrought iron candle sconces as my curtain tie-backs and put a pillar candle as accents.
My picture wall is probably my favorite. I wrote the words "Laughter", "Honor", "Love", "Devotion" and "Dreams" around the pictures.The powder room: I took the inspiration from the French picture I found in the $1 section of Target. I wrote the french words of objects in the room like "L'image", "La Porte", "La Serviette", "Le Miroir", "La Fleur" etc. I had a plate/picture holder that I didn't have room for anymore so I used it as a towel rack. Martha Stewart......look out! There's another crafty one in the house!

It was even a fun bonding experience with Lauren. I did most of the work at night after the other kids were in bed and I would let her stay up late. I told her it was to keep me company which made her feel special. I didn't realize what I was setting myself up for though when I taught her how to use the remote. She can now access her movies on the DVR by herself. Not only that, but she can also "fast backwards" ( rewind ), pause, and fast forward her favorite shows as well. I can now quote the whole "Spy kids II: Island of Lost Dreams" movie.

Maybe I should teach her the "delete" option as well.

The evolution of language and other silly phrases my kids say...

When Lauren was a baby, she would get a lot of diaper rashes. Without really noticing it, daddy would calmingly say to her as he changed her diaper, "It's ok. Daddy will fix the owies with the white stuff on the bum." ( "White stuff" = Desitin )

When my daughter began to talk, she created her own version of this saying. At first it was "Daddy bix dee owie with da wee da bum."

And then it became, "Bix dee owie wee da bum."

And now three kids and six years later, we don't say Balmex/Desitin/Vaseline but rather a morphed version of our phrase. "Will you hand me the wee da bum?".

For Christmas when my daughter was about 18 months, she unwrapped a stocking stuffer that was in one of our stockings from my mom. It was a small, purse-size hand lotion. After my daughter opened it she said in a very disappointed tone, "Oh. Wee da bum." We all had a good laugh.

We're going through the "trying to understand what your three year old is saying" phase with Jack. One problem area he has is with his L's. I suspect if he were to have a conversation with a Japanese speaking person, they would probably actually be able to understand him. Lauren is "Roaren". Lake is "Rake". It's especially hard to contain your laughter when the conversation goes like this:

Jack shouting with glee: "Look mom! I'm crapping (clapping)."
Me: "You're crapping ?"
Jack: "NO! crapping !"
Me: "OOOOH! crapping !"

It never gets old. He used to have trouble with the "K" sound too which was unfortunate since all of the males in the family have that same sound in their name. He pronounced his own name "Jatch". Kirk was "Church". Erik was "Eritch". Kick was "Chich". (For hours of fun....see dialogue above)

Sometimes he has trouble understanding what we're saying too. For example, one Sunday I asked Lauren what she learned in Primary. She said, "We talked about goals." Jack then piped up and said, "And boys too!" Glad to see he unknowingly inherited his mom's wit.

We went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday last night. YAY me! I'm now 36. ( Grunt. ) Lauren thought she would be a big girl and ask the waiter for a refill all by herself. Only....it came out "Can I have a refund?" This is the same girl who called the phone the "Ya Ya Ya" because to her, listening on her end it sounded like we were saying, "yea. yea. yea."

And now little Erik is saying a few words of his own. We're so proud he can say "Bla" ( block ) and "Da" ( dad ). For "mom", he just points. That's ok. He knows I have the goods and that's all that matters.

How I Survived My Summer Vacation.....

You might notice I added a ticker on the side of my blog. It's a temporary one. I only need it until August 9th. But I DO need it because we're only a week into the summer vacation ( which I use the term "vacation" loosely ) and I'm already going nuts. I had plenty of things going on last week to keep me and the kids busy. This week? Not so much.

When I was young, summer vacation seemed to last forever. Days were filled with fun, games, swimming and picnicing. Climbing trees, watermelon spitting contests, playing tag, catching fireflys, birthdays and staying out until the "streetlight" came on to let us know it was time to come in for dinner. The options were never-ending.

I suspect if I had to write an English 101 "What I Did Over My Summer Vacation" paper now as a 35 year old mother of three, it would probably go a little something like this:

How I Survived the Second Week of Summer Vacation
by The Mom

My alarm clock baby would usually wake me up around 5am. After his feeding, I generally could sneek in another hour or two to "sleep in". If you call 8:00am "sleeping in". (Funny, when you're a kid, "sleeping in" meant waking no earlier than 11am.) That is until the older two children woke up and were overheard arguing over the color of the plastic bowl for their cereal. One bowl is a dark green. The other is a light green. For some reason, the light green bowls were the only clear option if one were to eat Fruit Loops. One day, the dark green bowls ended up in the garbage. As did the plastic light green cups and plastic orange plates. I know. Completely illogical.

Once breakfast was over, and the baby was scrubbed down, hosed off, all nice and clean, we would have "quiet time" which meant the TV is turned off and we find something non roughhousing, fun to do. One day we played "Can you find?" where the kids had a pad of paper and a pencil and had to find objects around the house. For example: "Can you find three things that are blue?" They then would draw a picture of things that were blue. This game lasted about 30 minutes. And now, it's only 9:00am.

But it's still quiet time. Atleast there's no sound from the TV. But echoing through the house one can hear, "OUCH! Stop it! I'm telling Mom." Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. "MOMmmmmm!?! ( insert child's name ) is bothering me!"

Mondays and Wednesdays we have swimming lessons. That eats up a whopping thirty minutes on those days. And not a day has gone by where one or the other of my children has asked me while looking at the Coppertone Waterbabies Sunscreen bottle, "Why is that little dog pulling the girl's swimming suit off?" I don't know. I JUST don't know.

But so far, we have had some little accomplishments.

Lauren has learned a couple of new songs on the piano. She is also doing really well with her swimming lessons.

Erik is walking almost all of the time now and finally drinking from a cup/bottle. He'll give you "high 5's" and "wave" proving that he can be taught.

Jack has been my work out buddy when I do my Tae Bo video. (Which I will probably regret later on....) He likes to have me feel how "sweaty" he gets and feel his muscles. Must be a guy thing. Lauren worked out with me once when I did my pilates video and was sure to remind me that I could just "follow the one girl in the back if it was too hard for me." Thanks.

At the end of the day, well, it's the end of the day. And tomorrow is another one. And another. And another.......

I think even as an adult, summer vacation seems to last forever.