Step-by-Step Guide to Landscaping with Small Children

This tutorial will give you a step-by-step outline for how to complete a landscaping project while managing small children. These tried and true methods are certain to help any parent complete a simple project in just a few hours (or days). 

1. Put together your plans for the project. You will need to complete this task between the hours of 10pm-1am because this is the only quiet time in your house. Order all necessary plants online because 1) there is no way you could successfully bring your children to a nursery and actually make a knowledgeable purchase while simultaneously screaming at them to stop running out into traffic and 2) they are much less expensive online and your credit card is still licking its wounds after registering four kids for Summer camps. Don't be alarmed when your "tree" arrives looking more like a stick. You get what you pay for, after all!

2. Set your kids up in front of the tv, feed dog and put her in her cage. Pull out all necessary tools. This includes a shovel, rake and gardening gloves. Donn your gardening attire and get started!

3. Dig two shovelfuls worth of dirt up. The kids have now discovered that you are outside and want to "help," so drop everything and help them put on jackets, shoes, gardening gloves (painstakingly sticking each finger into each finger hole), hat and sunglasses. Pull out shovels and rakes for the kids and get started!

4. Dig two shovelfuls worth of dirt up while one child tries to simultaneously dig the same pile of dirt and yells at you for taking it from him and the other child throws your previously dug dirt and rocks back into the hole. Repeat this task for approximately 5-15 minutes depending on the moods of the children, making sure to stop every 1-2 minutes to assist children in putting gardening gloves, hats, sunglasses and shoes back on because they decided that they wanted to take them off but now want them back on.

5. Kid #1 needs to pee, so race into the house, tracking mud across the kitchen in order to avoid an accident.

6. Resume digging. The kids have now decided that they are done "helping," and will now begin dragging every toy they own out of the garage so that you can put it away later.

7. In approximately 20 minutes, drop everything again because Kid #2 needs to poop. Rush into the house again, dragging more mud across the kitchen. False alarm. Return to digging.

8. 10 minutes later, Kid #2 comes walking outside with no clothes on and muttering something about meatballs. Drop everything and head inside to clean up his poop and put on all new clothes, now tracking mud upstairs. Realize that the kids have let the dog out of the cage and she has now dug a hole in your carpet and pooped on the floor. Clean up poop, put dog back in cage and head back outside.

9. Resume digging. At this point the kids are now screaming for food because, apparently, you have not fed them in at least two weeks. Dish out snacks, then head back out to resume digging. After about 20 minutes, drop everything and give into your horrible Mom-guilt and the pleas for a trip to the playground. The big kids arrive home from school and are eating a snack so, of course, the little ones are starving again so you will need to dish out more snacks.

10. At this point you will continue with your project for about 1 hour, with regular interruptions to resolve fighting between the unsupervised children in the house. Ignore all noises and keep working so you can finish this project before the screaming for dinner begins! It is very likely that the kids will be coming out on regular intervals to talk to you and/or play outside. Every time this happens, you will need to drop everything to assist the 2 year-old with putting his shoes, jacket and gardening gloves back on - which will all be taken off within 5 minutes.

11. Step back and admire your work. Immediately enter the amount of time you were gardening into your fitness app so that you can calculate how many extra wine calories your earned for tonight (hey, everything counts, right??). No time to rest just yet though. Time to clean-up the 8 million toys that are scattered in the yard and street, then clean-up the mud tracked through the house, take the dog for a walk, help with homework, cook dinner and drive kids to evening activities.

Once the kids are in bed it is finally time to kick your feet up and enjoy that extra big glass of wine! That Charlie Brown Christmas Tree is going to look pretty damn fantastic in about 10 years:)

Find Your Inspiration

It is Snow Day #89, I think. So I am doing what every responsible, excellent Mother would be doing - hiding in my study and quietly busying myself with unnecessary tasks while hoping that the kids don't find me. Hey, don't judge. At least I'm downstairs and not hiding in a closet like I was doing the other day:)

Today let's talk a little more about finding your inspiration. I've mentioned this idea in previous posts and want to reiterate it again. Although you may be anxious to get started with decorating a space, don't begin the project until you have found your inspiration. Once you find that inspiration, build around it.

When looking for a new house, one of my "must haves" was a mudroom. With four boys, this is an absolute necessity for my sanity. I wasn't sure what route I wanted to go with this mudroom. It felt very dark and cave-like, so originally I was thinking that I wanted to do something to brighten it up, but just couldn't come up with the right colors.

My mudroom inspiration:

One of the boys decided to decorate my wall. Notentirely sure he thought the idea completely through when he later tried to deny that it was his work;)

But, this did offer me the inspiration that I needed to begin the project. Although I had originally planned to brighten this space, a chalkboard wall just seemed to be what I was looking for. I've always wanted to put one in somewhere, but it didn't quite work in my other spaces. Because this area is essentially separate from the main living areas, I felt like I could treat it a bit differently and give it more of an individual personality. One of my big pet peeves with a chalkboard wall is the chalk dust collecting on the ground and baseboards. We tried to assist a bit with this issue by putting a small piece of trim along the bottom to catch the dust.

I'm kind of obsessed with organization and all things Pottery Barn, so I had to make my calendar a big part of this decor. It is strategically located as you exit the house so that my husband knows what we are up to that day since he never really pays attention when I tell him;)

I think one of the more important items to have in a mudroom is a table to place keys, mail and other items as you are walking in the door. I found a small table on Amazon for relatively inexpensive that works well because it is not very deep, therefore not getting in the way too much as you are walking in.

This space is quite narrow, so I wanted to add visual space to it by emphasizing the high ceilings. I purchased inexpensive wood frames from Michaels, painted them in a variety of colors, and hung them nice and high to draw the eyes upward.

In this mudroom we were lucky enough to have a little alcove already built into it. In the model home and many others, people have had Pottery Barn inspired built-in lockers created in this space. I love the look of these and they are absolutely gorgeous, but not quite in my price range right now. Instead I decided to re-use the cubbies that we had built years ago for use in our old garage because we didn't have a mudroom. My husband built these for me with my design created from the preschool cubbies at my children's school. They have turned out to be quite functional although as the kids get bigger, I'm finding that we are going to be running out of space in them pretty soon.

I couldn't handle the super boring, builder-grade white flushmount that came with the house, so a fun upgrade from Lowes was a necessity to complete the look.

 I stumbled across this large letter "L" at Michaels and decided that I just had to have it for the house. With a bright red for a pop of color, it worked perfectly in this space!

And there you have it - a completed mudroom! With the fun pops of color, the darkness of this room doesn't bother me too much. And it offers me a place to leave necessary messages for my more forgetful child as he is getting ready for school:)

Upcycle Your Furniture to Create Style While Saving $

As I've mentioned in my introduction post, I want a champagne house but on a beer budget. I love to decorate, but have had to become more creative in order to achieve my desired effect while remembering that I will soon have four teenage boys that will need braces, lots and lots of food, and money for college (sigh...can't they just stay babies??).

So along comes furniture upcycling. This trend seems to be on the upswing with many new shows such as Salvage Dawgs, and incorporated into existing shows such as Rehab Addict.

upcycle: (verb) reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original.

I wouldn't necessarily say that upcycling gives the product higher quality or value than the original, but more like it gives it higher quality or value than the state in which it was found. My family lives on the edge of an area where Antique shops can be found all over the place. I used to look at these stores with rusted and broken furniture laying all of the lawn and think, "ugh, who would buy this junk?" Now that I've taken to upcycling, I have definitely gained a new appreciation for these items. Although, I find that many of these shops offer these items for a hefty price too, all for the label of "Antique". So why would I want to spend a lot of money on an old item, then more money and time to refinish it? Then I stumbled upon the goldmine which is Craigslist and Facebook yard sale sites. I have come across many furniture items that are deeply discounted mostly for the fact that these people want to get rid of it quickly. But again, I'm still spending money to buy old furniture.

And then along comes the dumpster diving (hanging head in shame...:)). Okay, not literally dumpster diving. But have you ever driven along a dirt road and saw an old pallet lying in the woods and thought, "hmm, I bet that doesn't belong to anyone, I could probably make something cool with it." No? Um, yeah, neither have I...;) Freecycle offers a more respectable form of dumpster diving. You have to be on top of your game to get the good stuff before others grab it, but you would be surprised at how many gently used items are given away for free. And that was how my garage and dining room filled up with dusty, broken "junk" and my husband began eyeing me as a crazy hoarder.



So the first item that I upcycled was one piece of an old media cabinet. I actually obtained this item from a friend who was given it by a friend who found it being thrown out. There were actually three pieces that were supposed to be stacked on top of each other to create a monster media cabinet meant for an old-style tube television. I decided to take one of the sections, add legs to it, and turn it into a buffet for my covered deck. It is amazing how perfect this ended up working for me. It is very long, but not very deep, so created a nice accent piece on the deck with functional space, but still leaving plenty of room for my table. I decided on Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Emperor's Silk to create a bold accent piece. Because chalk paint isn't necessarily meant for outdoor use when finished with wax, a local stockist recommended that I create a dark wax wash instead with a mixture of dark wax and mineral spirits. So far it has held up okay, but I'm interested to see how it is looking at the end of this Winter and Spring. I am still undecided about whether to put a more protective coat on the outside of it.

Before, with legs added

After

After a great response to how this piece turned out, I took another section of it from my friend to create a buffet for another friend's house. She actually decided to cut the legs a little shorter and is now using it as a sofa table. I love how this piece looks in her house and how your eyes are really drawn to it as you walk in.

The third section was kept by my friend and she did a similar upcycle of it to turn it into a media cabinet to sit under her mounted flat screen. Even her skeptical husband has agreed that it looks good and it has really transformed her space and given her a launching point from which to begin decorating the rest of the room, not to mention storage for media components, DVDs, toys and blankets.

I think the biggest piece of advice to take away from this article is to try and think outside of the box. Don't walk into a shop, fall in love with an amazing piece of distressed furniture and spend a fortune on it. Take a picture of it, then brainstorm how you can re-create it:) With a bit of creativity and elbow grease, you could easily stumble upon a free or very inexpensive item that can be turned into a one-of-a-kind statement piece for your home.

Eh, Good Enough!

Today's post is less about ideas and more just some ramblings. I noticed that I hadn't posted on my blog in awhile, and honestly, I had just lost the motivation. The holidays can become overwhelming between parties, school events, shopping, decorating, traditions, etc. I do love the holidays, but my goal this year was to cut back and keep it simple.

I think it is easy to look at others and think, "I wish my house was that clean," or "I wish I could decorate my house like that," or "I wish I could eat healthy and stay in shape like them." With Facebook, Pinterest and just the internet in general, it seems that our society is in a constant state of feeling like they aren't good enough. And I think perception is a big part of it. I've had so many people say things like this with regards to me and I think, "uh, what?" They can't possibly be calling my house clean considering the bathrooms have about 2 months worth of number 1 AND number 2 smeared all over them (did we all forget that I have 4 boys??). And hopefully they don't actually touch my kitchen counters. Because the granite design does a great job in hiding the couple weeks worth of dirt and grime on them. They can't possibly be calling me healthy considering I just hid in the pantry to eat a few pieces of chocolate after breakfast so my kids wouldn't see me and ask for some.

I feel like I am constantly battling off similar thoughts about everyone else. How come they all have children happily participating in the soccer game and mine is in the corner picking his nose or running across the parking lot? Why do I cringe when my kids ask to paint knowing that it will be a hassle to clean-up afterwards even though I know a "good" mom would encourage crafts (I just tell them that art class in school is a better resource for these things, lol)? When we were having the 2nd oldest evaluated by the Speech Therapist, she remarked that it was amazing how advanced his vocabulary was. I was like, "oh, he learned that from Little Einsteins." Let me just put it out there - my kids watch a LOT of tv and are obsessed with video games. Mother of the Year over here:) They are ridiculously smart because of it, but I know that I should limit their screen time...sigh. Yet, I don't. I accomplish a heck of a lot more when they are in electronic comas and frankly, my house is just so much more peaceful. Yeah, yeah, I know, Mother of the Year.

My point here is that we all need to give ourselves a break. Instead of trying to be perfect at everything, just pick a couple of things to work on. Everything else? Let's just aim for "just good enough." Back when I had only one child, my house was very clean and freshly baked goods were coming out of the oven when I hosted playgroup, often with a craft or activity all planned out. Now with 4 kids at home, today I tossed enough toys in the bins so that the babies wouldn't trip, grabbed some store made bakery items at Teeter last night during my son's Tae Kwon Do practice (forgetting juice boxes and deciding that the kids would be happier with water anyways!) and just managed to clean the toddler and puppy pee and poop off the floor before people arrived (we're potty training this week!). I had meant to scrub down the Powder Room as well since I like to have a clean bathroom for guests to use, but I just ran out of time. So I wiped off the nutella finger prints on the toilet that looked an awful lot like poop and then said, "eh, good enough" and shut the door:)

Basement cleaning? That is SO 4 years ago. Now I just make sure there aren't toys on the stairs so kids don't trip. And then I encourage the parents to stay upstairs so that they can't see that the basement hasn't been picked up since I hosted playgroup 2 months ago and that the colony of stink bugs have already had about 7 generations of babies and have all died in the corners of my basement. Heading out to the store in the middle of winter? My kids are wearing shorts, one sock, mismatched shoes and no coat. But they are clothed and in the car - "eh, good enough." The dish I'm baking for a party burns a little? I just cut off that piece and put it on a pretty plate - "eh, good enough." I forgot to sign-up to bring something to the class party? Well, I still showed up, even if I spent most of the time chasing down the screaming, half-naked toddler - "eh, good enough."

You get my point, right? OF COURSE mine and the lives of everyone else look perfect. Why would I post pictures of my dirty toilets on Facebook? Instead I will post my picture perfect photos of all of the boys sitting nicely together and smiling - definitely not the one of them wiping boogers on each other and throwing a tempter tantrum in the middle of oncoming traffic. And I won't be posting status updates about that 1/4 of a cake that I just pounded down before my kids could ask me to share with them. Instead I will be posting pictures of my stats as I'm out running. So choose your battles. No one here is perfect. The trick is to not let those imperfections get under your skin. Embrace and excel in what you can and to the rest just say, "eh, good enough" and move on.

Just finished my first half marathon! Feeling great!

(this is what you will see me post on Facebook)

In reality: I decided to train for this race so that I would have a good excuse to take a few days away from my kids:) - just add that one to my Mother of the Year application!

Thrift store inspiration for the Thanksgiving table

This year was the first year that I have hosted the big family Thanksgiving get-together. With a burst of motivation, I decided to dress up the table a bit. My inspiration for this table came from 2 candlesticks that I found on my trip to the Unique thrift store. When walking through this store, these candlesticks immediately caught my eye. They were priced at $15 each, which was a bit high for my budget, so I initially passed them up and moved on. But I kept circling back around to them. In the end, I decided to go with my gut and get them. They are very heavy duty candlesticks, as in: "Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick" heavy duty:)

I knew I wanted to paint them a cream color to match the neutrals I was planning for my table. I had never painted a metal like this with chalk paint, so it was a new experience, but quite easy. I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Country Grey. 2 coats, both watered down slightly. I didn't distress this piece like I usually do because the paint seemed to come off easily when bumped and I didn't want too much silver showing through. I then used a coat of clear wax and then a coat of dark wax to bring out the intricate designs.

My table was a compilation of ideas from Pinterest. A burlap table runner from Michaels that was tied on the ends with twine - very easy to make because they sell burlap in a roll with the exact width that I needed. I took mason jars, filled them with some extra dried corn given to me by a friend and added tea lights. The table was strewn with some extra faux Fall flowers. Our table was pretty crowded, so there wouldn't have been room for placemats. Instead I purchased chargers from Michaels. I couldn't find enough all in the same color, so I ended up with 4 different variations of brown/gold and am very happy with how they turned out. We were way too short on utensils for everyone, so I opted to just buy the more upscale plastic ones at Party City. One day I'll get around to getting my fancy China and silverware, but for now I decided to keep it within budget. I had enough dinner plates for everyone, but was short on dessert plates, so decided to stick with heavy duty plastic ones. When it was time to clean-up, I was so glad I made that decision:)

At the last Easter dinner I hosted, I chose to not do seating assignments and everyone complained! Apparently they liked being told exactly where to sit. So I, of course, had to make place cards for this dinner. I found a lot of very creative ideas, but they just seemed too time consuming on an already busy day. I opted instead to use a faux Fall flower on each setting with their names written with a chalk marker. Took almost no time at all and looked very festive!

All in all, I was very happy with how the table turned out. Not entirely sure what I will do with the candlesticks right now. For now I have them sitting on the new piano we just bought off of a yard sale site.

And what Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without some turkey nails? :) I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Day Trip to a Thrift Store

This week I was lucky enough to be invited by my friend and Marketing Manager, Joy Toburen, to a Mommy Blogger event at Unique Thrift Merrifield, part of the Savers company. Being so new to the blogging world, I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I was just thrilled at the idea of a few hours of adult time and a nice lunch:)

I have to say, I really enjoyed my trip to Unique. I will admit that I am new to thrift store shopping. It really just hasn't appealed to me much in the past. I tend to do most of my shopping online around 11pm when my house is quiet. But as I move my way into the world of upcycling items and saving money, it seems to be a great fit for me. Unique sells just about everything that you can think of, excluding mattresses and certain baby items like car seats and cribs. I'm not much of a clothes shopper in general, but I was pretty blown away by the selection of barely worn children's clothes. With my boys growing like weeds, I anticipate a future shopping trip down here when they need new pants. I did, however, purchase a nice fleece jacket that I could use as a throw away item (clothing that you discard at the starting line and is donated to homeless shelters) for my Richmond Half Marathon this week - which is going to be freezing!

We were given a tour of the store and an explanation of how they operate. One of the neatest things I learned was about how they remove items from the shelves after a certain amount of time, compact them and then ship them off to third world countries. That idea alone makes me want to support a store like this.

Unique is all about reducing waste, reusing, and helping others. This is a world-wide chain of stores, each supporting different charities. This particular store gives their profits to support Vietnam Vets. They collect donations from the community in a variety of ways and pride themselves in putting out good quality items for sale.

A very interesting concept that they presented to us is their fundraising program. Organizations such as Scouts, PTAs, etc. can collect items for donation. A truck will then come to pick up these items and the organization is paid based on the number of pounds of items donated. This is such a brilliant concept that encourages people to donate unused items while fundraising for different organizations. I personally am very anti-selling fundraisers. I've been doing it with our kids for the past few years and I can't stand the poor quality and overpriced items we buy. I love the idea of doing something like this instead and getting to teach our children some great lessons in the process. I have already set the ball rolling to start a fundraiser with our Cub Scout Pack.

We were each given a budget of $25 and asked to purchase things that we could use for a project of some sort. I, of course, could not contain myself and ended up with way more:) Luckily we were also given a 30% off discount. They quite frequently have discount shopping days and offer a special program where you can earn greater discounts when you donate items.

So here are my goodies that I collected. I can't wait to get started on my transformations. With my credit and discount, this entire lot (including the table!) only cost me $18!

To top off this fun day, we were treated to lunch at Matchbox. Phenomenal pizza and dessert. And I so enjoyed a meal free of children and in the company to some pretty amazing Mommy Bloggers. I was just in awe at everything they know and felt like such a newbie. And, of course, I used the excuse of "carb-loading" for my race to overindulge:)

I want to thank Joy and Unique for inviting me on this day out. I learned so much and am definitely excited to shop more at this store. I actually had my eye on a piano (yes, a piano!) to restore, but it was a little over my head in terms of restoration. Hoping another one pops up in the future for me. Stay tuned in the coming few weeks as I post the before and afters of the items I purchased.

Cashing in on an I.O.U.

So I spent last Friday cleaning up projectile vomit off of myself/my kid/my cabinets, running PTA errands, shuffling kids to/from school, doctor's appointments, the pharmacy, grocery store, etc. Meanwhile, trying to clean my house and prep for my first live Jamberry party. When my husband didn't show up at his usual arrival time from work, I frantically threw my kids in the car and tossed them a slice of pizza so I could rush them off to evening activities, silently counting the lost minutes that I needed to prep for my party. Turns out it was the typical "couldn't get out of the meeting" situation for him (and one of the big reasons why it would be so hard for us to both work full-time!). So I was ready to just write it off as a crap day and move on. But the hubbie came home from work stating that he owed me after leaving me high and dry that evening. Who was I to hurt his feelings and not take him up on this offer? ;)

Little did he know that I had a project that was just waiting for the perfect opportunity. So this weekend we accomplished the fun task of painting the 2 story stairwell. He wasn't nearly as excited about this as I was:) Nothing exciting, but so glad to have the dirty builder-grade paint covered up and the upstairs hallways complete. I typically like to do as many of the painting projects as I can on my own, but unfortunately this one required two people. The front 2-story foyer will require a professional to complete the job, but I was able to get all surfaces that could be reached done first.

One thing that bothered me for years was how to fill the large spaces on your upstairs hallway walls. In my last house, I decided to put up this tree. It is a sticker decal that I found on Etsy. Kind of pricey, but exactly what I was looking for. Moving it to the new house was a painstakingly long process, but I managed to salvage it. Hung from the branches are pictures of each of our family at about the 18 months to 2 years old range. I bought the frames for fairly inexpensive at a craft store, then added the ribbons to hang them. The picture in the background is an awesome painting of my kids done by my very talented friend, Monica Hoke. Again, this is another place where I was incorporate my beach memories. We took the picture on a beach vacation and then I passed it on to her to replicate into a painting. I may still add a few large pictures or artwork leading down the back stairwell, but for now it seems more complete and homey.