Mom Confessions

Yesterday I went through the car wash for the first time ever. Chris LOVES washing our vehicles, but he doesn't have as much time as he used to, so after an oil change I ran it through. KC freaked and that's when I realized her window was down. I must have accidentally put both mine and hers down when I put in the ticket. Luckily the built in sun screen was up!! Total mom fail.

Monday I took the boys through the McDonalds drive thru. I can't remember the last time I've picked up McDonalds, but my dad picked it up for the boys at the beach and they've been begging for it since. I didn't realize a happy meal came with the main item, fries, another side, and a drink. When they asked what I wanted as a side, I said fries. When we arrived home I realized each kid got two containers of fries. Again, total fail.

I bribed the kids with cookies if they asked Chris to read bedtime stories last night. Usually they like for him to read anyway but the past couple nights they've asked me. Well I wanted to finish a book I was reading while they heard their stories so I told them if they had daddy read I'd make cookies the next day. It worked.

We moved the boys downstairs over the weekend. Monday they started basketball camp and by Tuesday no one could find any athletic shorts. I knew this was weird because I had just finished their laundry. After a few searches I found their clothes. Still in a duffle bag from our trip to Greensboro, a month ago!!! I also found a lot of other cute items they wear that I'd forgotten about - oh well. 

I had a few wins as a mom this week too. My friend and I scheduled oil changes together so the kids would have someone to play with, and my kids have eaten more vegetables this week than maybe all summer. So it's not all crazy here all the time, there's balance. 

Five on Friday

This week has flown by! I can't believe it's Friday already again. We have cinnamon rolls in the oven and friends coming over to play (which means there will be a scramble to clean up before it's all destroyed again in five minutes). 

This weeks Five on Friday starts with following up from last week -

1. The boys did great with the sitter and KC slept the whole time! Chris and I had an amazing dinner out and loved the extra time together. T invited the sitter back Sunday at 5 because having her arrive at 7 didn't give them enough time to play. 

2. A friend of mine has a sitter come once a week so she can do older kid things with her older kids. This past week she mentioned there was a Junie B Jones play and we should go together and leave KC with her sitter. I was game. KC has never had a sitter (she was aware of) but she loves the boys (twins) I would leave her with and they have a super fun house. The only wild card was that KC had never met the sitter. Within five minutes of the sitter arriving, KC was in her lap letting her put on her shoes to play outside. It was a major win! The boys and I headed out to a play and chickfila with their friends and everyone had a great morning. Even as we were pulling out of the driving KC was yelling for more time with her buddies.

 3. My big guy turned 9 this week! 9!! It's slightly unreal. We spent the day doing what he wanted and will have a party in a couple weeks (a Gametruck party - something that wouldn't fit at the old house!).

Last picture with our 8 year old N!

Official 9 year old picture at 9:11am, the exact time we met 9 years ago!!

4. And in contrast to having a 9 year old, I'm now 20 weeks pregnant! Halfway there. Starting to feel some flutters here and there and savoring every one. It's so bittersweet to know this is the last time I'll get these sweet reminders of a baby growing in my belly.

5. I had to throw in some cute pictures of my sweet girl! She is loving having her brothers home this summer and definitely enjoying our pool, park, ice cream routine :)

I hope everyone had a great week and is looking forward to a fun weekend! We will be celebrating our 9 year old with family tomorrow and hopefully make more progress unpacking at the house!

Our Old House

We always meant to take pictures and video going through our old home before we moved, but we didn't. We do have the listing pictures from Tour Factory though! Our realtor wasn't big on staging, he wanted our house to look like we lived there, so the pictures are pretty accurate (except the lens used makes everything look bigger ;) ). 

The living and dining rooms were carpeted when we moved in, we replaced it with hardwoods after a red wine incident during a holiday party (and they needed the update anyway, it was just a good excuse).

We added granite countertops and new appliances before we listed. If I'd had my way we would have replaced the tile years ago. It was the worst!! You can't see it, but we had a carpenter add bench seating under the window and around the bottom cabinets. It was one of the best kitchen decisions we made! We also added the drum light, there was a fan there when we moved in - fan in the kitchen is a huge yuck factor for me (and there's one in our new kitchen :( ).

The same carpenter added our built in desk and storage. If you follow Emily A Clark, it's the same carpenter she used for her office shelves in her old house. Her recommendations have always been spot on!

Thanks for strolling down memory lane with me! We have close friends right down the street from our old home, so we see it often. I always wondered if KC would try to run back there when we visit them but she hasn't even acknowledged it. It's fun to look at how we left this house. It makes me excited to start decorating this house and really making it our home. 

Five on Friday

Happy Friday! Who's ready to kick off the weekend? We are! Here's my Five on Friday for today:

1. Wouldn't it be amazing to wake up without a clue about the hate that exists in this world? Or even better what if it just didn't exist?  Thank goodness for the love in this world. 

2. We have a date night tonight!! It's our first time having a sitter come (in 9 years)!! My parents have babysat when they've been in town and once N's preschool teachers gifted us a night out as a thank you for my year volunteering as class mom, but this is the first time someone is coming and we're leaving and paying them to be here! I'm so excited. When my parents come I always feel like we should head back early to visit with them and with N's teachers, I felt totally guilty - they were doing it for free! One of my favorite preschool teachers is coming over and I made reservations for a restaurant we've never been to - Dogwood Southern Table. There are so many amazing restaurants near our new house, I really want to start getting out more!

2. Finding cute and cheap maternity clothes can be so hard, but I'm wearing this tonight (my new favorite shorts - shorts are impossible when you're short and pregnant)! The top is Old Navy and the shorts are Gap - both on major sale now. All my babies have been spring and summer babies so a winter baby means I need to adjust my maternity wardrobe just a bit.

3. Have you seen the new Livie and Luca fall collection?! I love their classic styles and have purchased quite a few for KC. This fall I am loving the new bunnies and bears too (sorry no picture of the bears, but just as cute)!! I just am not a fan or red or black. (Imagines from Polliwogs - my favorite children's store in Greensboro)

4. I cannot find my recipe book. I hate reading recipes off a device and I can't find my printer cord. This is a problem. But that said, we are in a recipe rut. Maybe part of it is I don't love my new kitchen (even though my yellow 1966 appliances work great), but maybe the other part is I want some great new recipes!! If you have any you love please tell me - I have a few go to bloggers (I'm looking you Katie :) ) and maybe should go through their archives. 

5. I just read Family Pictures by Jane Green. I think this is the first Jane Green book I've read. It's not totally my style, but it was fast and predictable. Now I'm looking for my next new book. Thinking of Into Thin Air or The Nightingale (although I couldn't stand Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah, but I've heard this one is much better).

I hope your week has gone well. Midsummer is sneaking by and we are already talking about new bookbags here. 

Linking up with the Five on Friday crew :)

Changing Times

We haven't chased fireflies this year. The boys have stayed up late for movie night, the home run derby, and playdates. KC has no clue what a firefly is. It breaks my heart a little. They've mentioned catching fireflies once this summer, but nothing insisting we do it. We used to make a tradition of it. Starting with smores while the sun sets, then doning nets and jars to chase the elusive bugs around the yard. It was our big welcome to summer.

My boys are older and their interests have started to evolve. It was bound to happen and I can appreciate their new interests. Movie night involves the four food groups - salty, sweet, chocolate, and sugary candy. Sometime a neighborhood friend joins us. Its a moment I've looked forward to, but it means we are leaving something else a bit behind (and I'm terrible at leaving things behind). Early this summer we visited their favorite splash park. The boys brought a friend. They played for a few minutes before moving on to the basketball courts. It feels like the change happened over night. One minute they are running through fountains laughing for hours, the next their off to shoot hoops.

We will chase fireflies again. KC is 2 now and her little sister will be close on her heels one summer night in a couple years. It's almost like a second chance to have their ages spread this way. We'll have the tradition again, and the boys, even though they will have outgrown it, will be excited for their sisters. I can see them helping catch the ones that try to escape by flying higher than the girls' little hands can reach. And I'll relish it. 

A lot of change seems to be happening this year with the move, the last baby, the boys maturing, and a few other odds and ends that make me feel life is a little too fast. It's a conglomerate of excitement and happiness mixed in with some bittersweet. I can't say I don't like it though. It feels good. My boys are growing more independent, finding their own interests, and challenging me more (in ways that aren't purely exhaustion or communication based). And through all these changing times, we're still us, our little group, that hangs together most of the day (I'm hoping I can say this until their older teenagers). So basically, catch you later fireflies!

 Linking up for Thoughts on Thursday with Annie and Natalie!

Thoughts on Moving

We've lived here for two months now and I've realized that I'm really bad at moving. Granted this was our first move, so I think I get some slack but there are some really frustrating things. Here's what I would do differently:

1. When the former owner said we could do work before we moved, I would have pushed harder to get the painters, carpet people, and duct cleaners here. Moving in while waiting for work to be done and living with multiple people working around you (with a toddler that NEEDS a nap) was not fun. I didn't see the need to rush into it, in hindsight it would have saved so much stress.

 Floors in the dining room before and after. 

The wallpaper removal/painting took about four days because the drywall needed to be repaired. Something that would have been great to have done before we lived here (it was the same in the kitchen as well).

2. I don't think we completely thought through room assignments and now we want to change them. Luckily the paint will work anyway, but this does seem like a hassle (moving beds, dressers, etc). I don't blame myself entirely because you really have to figure out how the flow works and it's hard to do that before a move.

Our dining room/office. 

Moving the kids around will allow us to have an office, but for now this is where we work. 

3. LABEL ALL CORDS. I cannot find the printer cord at all. I keep finding cords and having no clue what they are for or where they go. It is so frustrating. We left our computer and printer on until the last second (thanks to a remote close that kept needing signatures and paperwork scanned) but still we could have done a better job.

4. We planned on getting rid of our filing cabinet when we moved. It was in our old walk in attic and we didn't think we'd have room for it. Now we have files in every room (most still in boxes). Chris keeps everything. He plans on scanning it, but one we don't have a cord and two our computer is full of pictures. Luckily we still have the cabinet so now I just need to move all the files back to it.

5. I knew that not everything would go to plan with the work we had done. I expected things to cost more but stupidly didn't really how much extra time would be added to the jobs. The paint was supposed to take a week, it took three (and the kitchen ceiling with all it's coats, really needs another). The carpet was glued down to carpet, glued down to tile, glued down to the slab (yea fun). Chris has been asking me to call the plumber for a few issues, and part of me just wants to wait before dealing with more people invading and telling me how what I want isn't going to work unless, blah blah blah.

The carpet on top of carpet removed, and tile is being removed. 

Think old school tile and carpet, thin and not pretty.

6. I would have discarded a ton more stuff. A ton. There are two rooms still full of boxes. We just shut the door and don't think about them. But I need to get everything done by December (or before I'm huge and unable to move).

The former guest bedroom that will become the boys' room. 

It's hard to even look in this room two months later.

All that said, I would do it again. We love our new neighborhood and we have a great yard, even if it's been a headache getting here. Hopefully in six months things will be a little different.

Linking up with Natalie and Annie for Thoughts on Thursday.