What do you call a Buzz with one leg?

To look at Owen's playthings, you'd think our rugs and carpets were full of toy-sized landmines.

It's 26 degrees outside

But I didn't need the weather lady to tell me that.   

B & A: Laundry Room

I've still got one final coat of paint to put on the trim and a lot of organizing to do in the closet and cabinets, but those things don't show on the internet so that means it's debut time!  The 'befores' are on the left and the 'afters' are on the right.

As usual, I got all excited about getting the process going and didn't get a good photo of the original walls.  You can see the former grey wallpaper just peeking out from behind the door on the left below.

And there are just a few remnants of it left in this before photo.  

Our main purpose for the mini-renovation was to get more usable storage space out there.  The room is a trapezoid and has a really awkward angle in the corner to the left of the window.  The black and white cabinetry that was originally there was only partially usable because the left-side drawers and cabinet opened into the wall.  With some floor space planning help from Sarah and the handyman skills of Tim, we flip-flopped the arrangement, added a butcher block countertop over the washer and dryer for clothes folding space and put in a tall cabinet on the right.  The funny angle still leaves us with a tiny awkward space to the left of the washer, but I have my eye on a basket at Hobby Lobby that I think will fit perfectly.  I'm just waiting for it to have it's 50% off week.

Here's the drying rack I whined about a few weeks ago.  My parents took pity on me and drove into their Ikea in Houston to buy it.  That's just one of the goodies that came in the mail the other day.

The sign on the side of the cabinet in the bottom right photo is the other goody.  My Papa owned his own appliance store for decades in my Texas hometown, and my grandmother Meme had a gift shop next door.  I have a gob of wonderful memories of playing there while my mom worked.  I remember riding a red toy motorcycle all through the aisles and going out to the warehouse and crawling through empty appliance boxes.  The big refrigerator ones were my favorite!

And Owen is so proud to have his own hooks to hang up his stuff now.

So that's all for the laundry room.  Next up is Owen's bathroom.

We got mail!

And all three of the kids (2 of them furry) loved it.  Some pretty awesome stuff came inside the box too.  Thanks DD & Coach! I'm putting the finishing touches on the laundry room today, so tune back in tomorrow (I think!) for pics of what they sent.

Our house was peanut trashed for a good 3 or 4 days, and even though I've cleaned it all up now, Coby keeps finding little pieces of styrofoam to eat. Probably not good.

Those things stick to everything- even Owen's chin.

Tire Swing

I noticed they've upgraded these things since I was a kid and put this swivel contraption up top so the chains won't twist and pinch the ever livin' stew out of your fingers.  

Isn't that first shot joy personified?  It's a little blurry, but I smile every time I look at it.

Getting Dressed (and Dumpster Diving!)

I decided to turn the tables on myself and let Owen pick out our clothes today.  Don't know if I would have done the grey on grey shirt layering he has me wearing, but all things considered, he was kind to me.  And it was a fun way to nix the getting dressed power struggle we've had around here lately.

Now to the dumpster diving...

On my way to teach ACT classes yesterday afternoon, I spied some mid-century chair legs poking out of a neighbor's remodeling dumpster.  I couldn't stop then, but I went back around 10 last night (in the rain, with 3-inch heels on) and dug this old guy out.  I couldn't find any manufacturing info on it anywhere, but look what I found while doing a Google image search!  The only difference is mine has 5 legs.  That makes it worth 20% more right?

You've Got a Friend in Me

What I learned from Owen yesterday

• All total, there are one thousand, eight hundred and twenty cards in the games Apples to Apples, Outburst and Cranium. 

• He is a dang thorough shuffler.

Look up

There you have it.  Short and sweet.  It's time for a long-needed update to our blog header.  And the baby belly photo couldn't exactly keep hanging around either.

I don't suppose I'll have to change the name again though.  By the time TexBamaTeen and TexBamaMan apply, Owen will have found a way to hack my blog and shut me up.

Ikea is my playground

Scott and I made our semiannual pilgrimage to the Swedish megastore yesterday.  I'm sure I would feel more jaded about it if we had one within a hundred miles of us, but I triple heart Ikea.  For the last two weeks, my bedtime ritual has been to walk the virtual aisles of Ikea compiling my online shopping list and drifting off to sleep while visions of haloed A's and clever storage solutions waltzed in my head.

With pro advice from my s-i-l Sarah and the help of our handyman Tim, we are fixing up Owen's bathroom and our laundry room.  Hopefully we'll have some after pictures to share in a week or so.  All those boxes you see on Scott's cart up there are for countertops and cabinets.  We did some serious (yet still pretty amazingly affordable) shopping, but we underestimated all the cargo space those boxes would require (see photo Exhibits A and B below).  I have a slight crick in my neck from wearing a butcher block countertop on my head like a French beret for the 2.5 hour ride home, but there is no greater source of shallow happiness for me than driving toward home with a carload of Ikea goodness.

Owen didn't make the trip with us.  Scott's parents were gracious enough to loan us their Honda Pilot and keep Owen for the day.  Every time I heard a kid throw a tantrum on the next aisle over, I sent up a prayer of gratitude for my in-laws.  And since Owen barely turned his head to look at us when we got back home, I think he had a pretty fantastic day too.

The only bummer for me was that they didn't have one of these in stock for our laundry room.  To any of you lucky ducks who have an Ikea near your house, I'll send you a gift card with enough to cover the cost of it AND get something for yourself too!

Not even

Owen has discovered the art of exaggerated pessimism.  If things are not going his way, the glass will not only be viewed as half-empty, it will be made from plastic that's full of BPA and have a dead bug floating in its lukewarm water.

We needed to run errands yesterday morning, and I enticed Owen with a promised lunch at Chick-fil-A, which he was all for until he realized it meant he'd have to change out of his pajamas.  As I wrestled him into a pair of jeans, he dove into this monologue (picture lots of open-palm hand waving and over-enunciating):

And ACTually, I don't EVEN like chicken nuggets anyway.   I don't like Chick-fil-A.  ACTually, I don't EVEN like eating anymore.  And I don't EVEN want to wear blue jeans.  I hate tennis shoes.  

And when he ran out of relevant things to complain about, he just started free-styling.

I don't EVEN like this house anymore.  And ACTually, I don't like walls.  I don't EVEN like ceilings.  I hate this carpet...

I had to agree with him on that last point.  Hardwoods would have been a much more attractive option for the upstairs.

Special Message

Stop, collaborate and listen

And yeah, those are Old Navy socks on his hands.

Ready or nah-ought!

Can you see Owen's face?  It's like a photo from one one of those lame paranormal shows on cable.

If you happen to be on our street around seven in the evening and see shadowy figures moving through our house with flashlights, don't call 911.  It's just us playing hide 'n seek!  We've had to adapt our after-dinner flashlight walks to an indoor activity for the winter.

Owen loves it, but he's terrible at hiding.  First, he refuses to turn off his flashlight, and second, he giggles like a 6th grade cheerleader the whole time.  

Zug, the Pilot

A recent conversation I had with Owen while we were tidying up his playroom:

O:  I hate this.
Me:  Hate?!  I didn't know you'd started hating things.  What do you hate?
O:  This... this pick-upping of my stuff.

The Letter F

Fireworks + Fundertorms + Fever = Fitful Forty winks

But Happy First Day of the Year to you anyway!

Merry Christmas!

Almost there!

Stuffed Animal Autopsy

Manner of death: Ursicide

Cause of death:  cotton batting evisceration via dorsal wound

Circumstances of death:  Victim attacked at his place of employment, where he worked nap-time security.  Accused is victim's boss, a preschooler, who did not want to nap on day of incident.

Run, run, fast as you can...

Owen has been asking to make gingerbread men for several weeks now.  All I can figure is there's this one page in one of his Christmas books where a little girl is making them, and he got his mind set on doing the same.  And since I can't resist a Christmas wish, I should be grateful she wasn't making something like fruit cake or eggnog souffle.  So this morning he had one of his cutie pie friends over, and they played Cars, ate reindeer PB&J's (that didn't look anywhere near this cute), and then decorated and promptly dismembered a few gingerbread men.  It was an overall tradition-worthy experience.