Hopefully the only thing I learned from Kate

With the contractors here I feel like I can't leave the house in case they have a question.

I wracked my brain over something creative to do with the boys to keep them occupied.

Then I remembered an episode from Jon and Kate plus 8.

Yes, I watched that show, and yes I feel like I am partially responsible for their divorce since I did watch the show and was intrigued by their life. I feel like I should apologize to them.

Any who, I remembered one time the kids painted with pudding while at the beach. But I remember that they painted all over their bodies and considering it is only 70 degrees and breezy here and we are just getting over colds. I didn't think I wanted to boys outside without a shirt on.

So we painted pictures with pudding, with old shirts on.

The boys loved it.

I highly recommend doing this... outside... on a warm day... with a hose... and a damp wash cloth nearby.

Now before you look at these pictures, I do realize that there are some people that have a phobia of getting their children dirty. My husband being one of them. He could barely watch them playing. When he can outside, it was like he couldn't control his body anymore he had to grab the nearest cloth and clean them up immediately.

So you were warned look at these pictures at your own risk.




Romeo wasn't quite sure what to do with the gooey stuff I was handing to him at first and being a true little brother he then watched what big bro did and eventually dove right in.

Not only was I creative (well really a copy cat) today but I was also resourceful. Notice on the boys shirts I used Ikea chip ties to tie up their shirts.

Ikea should use that in their marketing.

"Can keep chips fresh and your children's clothes pudding free!!"



It took my boys about 2 minutes before they realized that the gooey stuff was edible.



Romeo even put a little pudding on his face to emphasize his dimple.



Don't worry people I cleaned to table beforehand.



Romeo was all done.



Wild Man admired his masterpiece.



Then the cleanup was a cinch.

the bathroom so far

The Joe and his workers have been here for the past two days. Getting the bathroom done makes Mr. Genius and I want to get the whole basement done.

I have taken pictures of the progress.

Here is a picture of the basement before all the construction started.



Don't you like the my sophisticated way to show where to build our new bathroom.

Here is how much they did the first day.




And here is what they just did today.



We got a shower wall moved to make the rest of the room bigger and the shower a little smaller. They also closed in the shower and finished the plumbing and just about finish the electrical.

Tiling starts on Monday. I am nervous about it all coming together.

I have been staining the vanity and I think that I am going to have to get another mirror. It isn't going to make like I had hoped after staining.

Well darn I guess I will have to go back to ikea and pick out one there.

It is a crying shame.

I will be crying tears of joy the whole way.

We're still here

Sorry I haven't been blogging but we have been up to our eyeballs in snot and projects.

We have all been stuck in the house since Sunday.

A cold in July.

What is up with that?

The other reason is; if you don't know already, I LOVE craigslist.

I have been finding A LOT of stuff for really cheap and one of those things was a contractor that was having a sale from his services for 30% off.

He gives free estimates so we thought why not.

I found another contractor too just so we could see how cheap he really was.

He was considerably cheaper with the discount and we really like him. He is a sweet christian man.

So with that said. Starting tomorrow we are going to have workers in our house building a bathroom in our basement.

So I have been frantically picking out tile, flooring, colors, hardware, lighting, and figuring out how I would like the arrangement of the room.

I had already found a toilet, vanity, sink top, faucet and beadboard on craigslist earlier in the month.

Joe the contractor thinks that he should have it done by the middle of next week!

Just in time for my mom, grandmother, and aunt to come and visit.

These are the bathrooms I really like that I am using as my guides.






I hope it all turns out ok.

I guess we will find out next week.

A tale of a dimple

I, like everyone else, has always thought that little kids with dimples were so darn cute, but I never thought that I would get a little dimpled child of my very own. Due to the fact that neither Mr. Genius or I nor any of our siblings have such a cute ensemble.

So right after we moved up here Wild Man nailed Romeo on the cheek with some toy.

Which in turn gave him a nice bruise.

Right after he got this bruise we noticed that it looked like Romeo had a dimple right in the middle of the bruise.

I thought I was seeing things and waited patiently for the bruise to go away and of course when it started going away Romeo fell and hit right at the same spot to incur another bruise.

*Sigh*

So I waited again.

And sure enough that bruise went away and this sweet little guy...



HAS A DIMPLE!!



I am sure that dimples are not man made or in our case Wild Man made, but I will always wonder.

Another Zoo

From talking to all my new sweet neighbors I was told about a free zoo in our area.

I thought we would try it out today because it was another pretty day and because I have a problem with not being able to stay at home for an extended period of time.

I really wasn't expecting much since it is a free zoo, but was pleasantly surprised. It is a small zoo but was very clean.



It wasn't crowded so I could let the boys walk around on their own. Which was nice considering the last time we went to a zoo.



The boys favorite thing was a caboose that they converted with all these animal education stuff inside.

Here are the boys trying to share.



*sigh*


They had the biggest rabbit I have ever seen. It is hard to tell in this picture, but if you stood him on his hind legs he would have been as tall as Romeo.



What do they feed him?! Steroid carrot juice?


There was also a giant bird's nest, that the boys posed for us in.



Then they showed us how they can flap their wings like birds.



Being that we live in the windy city we thought that we should invest in a toy that uses the wind to its advantage.

A kite that cost a whole dollar.

I know, we go all out for our kids.



Wild Man loved the idea of the kite but then realizing that all you do is stand there when it is up in the air... the excitement subsided.



He stood there for about 5 more seconds and then he was done.

With the way that Wild Man is holding his head in this picture, it reminds me of Forrest Gump and his son.

Just thought I would share that.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Can't say we didn't try

You may notice on my blog page that the Google ads have been taken off.

With all the clicks I have been getting (which thank you all very much) there wasn't enough buying activity compaired to clicking activity.

Apparently Google hasn't heard of window shopping.

So Google took the ads off.

Oh well, thanks for trying to help.

Pictures and first incident

First I will start with pictures of the new paint color.

Here are the before pictures.






During...



And the after...



Notice the light above the table is now centered.

Yep, that would be one of the to dos that Mr. Genius did because he loathes painting.



I am really happy about the color. It really warms up the place. The walls in the den before hand were the same color as the ceiling. Ugh, so not welcoming. Now it is starting to feel a little more like home.

Now there is one think that drives me crazy about the den that I didn't notice until after we moved in.

Look at the ceiling and see if you notice.

You see it?

Well probably not cuz it isn't there.

There is not a overhead light in the den!

What in the world was the thinking behind that decision?!

Even though lamps are what you are suppose to do for the correct lighting. I am not a fan of them with two young boys knocking everything over.

So you can add the ceiling light fixture to the "Things I would like to have done to the house but may not due to having the tear up the ceiling to get done" list.

Now on to today's events.

First it started off a great morning. When I got back from walking this morning I got back at 6am and everyone was still asleep!

That will be a first since living here.

But it only lasted 2 minutes because Romeo has ultra sensitive ears when it comes to me. I think he heard my sigh of relief from walking into a quiet house and immediately woke up.

It was a nice 2 minutes though.

Then Wild Man didn't wake up for another hour!

A relaxing morning.

It was suppose to rain today and it turned out to be sunny.

So I have heard about this butterfly house that it near us and free (gotta try it out if it free).

It was really nice.

They have beautiful flowers and grounds. There is an 3 story observation deck that you have to climb up a windy staircase. It was neat but made momma a little nervous.

There are also 2 and a half miles of trails though the prairie land reservation. I couldn't get the boys to run the whole 2 and a half miles but I did get them to run some of their energy out.

Here are some pictures of the boys in the butterfly house.

Romeo was more interested in the little waterfall and Wild Man was trying to figure out the names of all the butterflies.





Then after lunch Wild Man asked to play outside again. Who am I to object to getting more energy out?

I didn't tell the boys to put their shoes on because I am 1. lazy and 2. thinking we are only going to be outside for 15 minutes before nap time, what can happen?

Wild Man and Romwo starting fighting over some cars, so being the proactive mom that I am I took the toys inside so that no one can have the cars if they can't share them.

For the 2.3 seconds I was in the house, Wild Man started crying, not screaming, but I could tell that something was wrong. I came back outside to see Wild Man's top of his big toe cut open. Actually a big flap of skin was hanging off.

I honestly don't know what happen. I looked over in the grass that he was playing in to see if there was something sharp.

Nothing.

Poor guy. He was really trying to be brave, but I could tell he was hurting really bad.

So after we cleaned it all up, I send Matt out to get some bandage tape and gauze. (It was bleeding pretty bad).

Wild Man sat in his chair with his foot elevated.


Trying to be smile despite the pain.

Then Romeo was a little jealous of the extra attention Wild Man was getting so he sat his whole body on a pillow rather then his whole foot.



I am pretty positive this was the first of many accidents we are going to be having.

At least this one didn't end in the ER.