Fun Amidst the Stress

Since finally settling down in a home of our own, it seems we've just had one trial after another, plenty of stress to go around. I've been all hormonal/grouchy from the miscarriage. And "when mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" right? Right. It's been pretty bad. But we have had some fun amidst the stress. Here are some of those moments.

This pretty little lady has enjoyed pretending to be a puppy. This is her doghouse.He gave me trouble today, but that's a rarity. He's still a good napper occasionally even telling me he's ready to go. He's given some trouble at night, just pushing those limits. But it's all good. His latest is, "I gotta go potty!" Eugh, what do you do with that one?

My latest decorative purchase. This was Chloe's hide and seek spot. We love hide and seek.

A fellow Dr. invited us to spend the Fourth at his lake house. So we decided NOT to join Chad's family at the beach house. Dr. had to cancel, but still jaded by the crowds at Disney, we still decided to stay home. I'm grateful it all worked out that way, because that's when all the miscarriage fun began. So we had an extremely mellow holiday. I didn't plan anything, but we had bought some fireworks to share at the lake. So we invited a family over, did fireworks, and had dessert.

Pretty lights, and blowin' stuff up - something for everyone! We ended up having a lot of fun "competing" with the rest of the street - NOT fighting any crowds! Even though it sounds like there are plenty of fun options around, I believe this may become a tradition. Except we'll buy more fireworks and cook out on the grill we don't yet own :) (Have any of my readers noticed? We're dreamers. We always have lofty concrete plans for the future.)

This was the best one, awesome! We'll be getting more like this. You just light the box and a series of honest to goodness fireworks went off in the air.

We've finally inflated the kiddie pool. The kids have spent gobs of time out there! We battle the in/out game. I swear they're going to ruin the hardwoods by that door, but they have fun jumping on the trampoline and then back in the pool. Chloe and I went to a pool play group this week too. We had fun. I've decided I HAVE to return to my adventurous side and start checking out the local pool and children's museum... weekly, maybe bi-weekly, kids' outings (if only to the sorry local library) are my goal. Love these goofy kids!

Another fun tradition:

Each morning that the sprinklers come on, the kids ditch their breakfast, sometimes throw on a swimsuit, and run out and play in the sprinklers. Usually they b-line for the trampoline. It's fun. Everett loves the idea, but the water's cold. Sometimes he'll grin and bear it like Chloe, but not this time.Gigi sent a package of fun things the other day, including a bunch of stickers, CARS and princesses of course. Everett just plasters them all over himself and then he's done. Chloe tries to save hers "forever."

But it got him some attention, so she tried to copy him as usual. Then she carefully placed them back on the page to save forever.

Also in the package was a box of CARS undies. That's right folks, we are diaper free during the day baby! Everett's been amazingly easy; I'm so grateful!

I love it when Everett interacts with the TV. Chloe never did any of that. He's so fun to watch. Little Einstein's is the best. It's very interactive.
I also love to catch them playing alone quietly. Chloe has to be forced, but every now and then I'll catch him.

Everett has said a few really funny things lately. The other night, during dinner, Chad said, "Chloe's just silly." Everett said, "No! She's not a bouncy ball!" Goofy kid.

Here's the general idea of Chad's evening nap time. My mom has a similar picture of us when we were little. All 5 of us piled on top of daddy while he was trying to rest on the floor after work. (Yeah, that was his first mistake, second was laying on his stomach. He was asking for it.) Fun huh? I love the kids' crazy faces here. It's totally typical.

Chad has initiated some much needed family fun lately. The other night, we went out to the arcade near our house.
Chloe said this roller coaster ride was her favorite. We spent most of the time in the kiddie section. But Everett's favorite was the grown up bug shooting game. It was a little intense for a kid his age, but he loved it.

We had loads of fun. Even Chad got in on the action.

It wasn't long before we were done. So we came home and played with one of the prizes, a parachute man. He hit me in the head with that one. Good shot.
And of course my projecting obsessively blazes forward until the money runs out. This month, I've been painting the kitchen. We started out with a dull lemony yellow.
I added a golden yellow called "pencil," the color of a #2 pencil. With all of the texture going to happen in that room, I couldn't just do flat walls. But I couldn't have too much texture either. I did a subtle rag treatment over that dull yellow base. It's quite a bold color, but I love it. The more walls I got done, the more excited I got.

These are the chairs I grew up with. I'm quite sure they're older than me. I've always loved them. But they needed a face lift.

LOVE it! Even with the brown oak table that my bro-in-law refinished when it belonged to them. As you see I spent some of my decorating money elsewhere and was left with only enough to do one chair, haha.

I hate not seeing the image in my head come to fruition, but I should've planned better I guess. Oh well, maybe next month you'll get to see the finished eat-in area. Here's an idea. I don't love the window treatment except that the colored piece is a table runner from Mexico. I had to put it somewhere. The whole room is sort of based off of that and the tile wall hanging I did a while back.

The rest of the kitchen, however looks pretty bad with golden paint, golden cabinets and purple formica. So, sorry, no pics of that half of the room until years from now.

Last night we went out for a bike ride. The kids loved it. We had fun too. I don't think I'd ridden in about 3 years. I was pregnant with Everett and didn't really realize how pregnant. I kept hitting my belly, hehe. We'd been hauling them around all this time. And somehow, last night I broke Chad's breaks. Oy, I'm cursed! And tonight Chloe and Chad went on a date.

Whew, I guess there was a lot of fun going on throughout all of the mess. That's good. It certainly didn't seem like it at the time.