Red Clogs and Green Beans

First of all, I got my new clogs!  They are adorable and I feel oh so fashionable in them, which is nice, because the other night we went out and I hadn't showered and was feeling GROSS, but I slipped these bad boys on and suddenly felt feminine and gorgeous.

Tonight Ingrid and I picked green beans from the garden.  I had just thrown some seeds in a row at the beginning of the summer and they just blew up!  So we got about a bazillion plants growing and tonight we picked them.  We got a lot.  Ingrid just kept eating them like candy!  Good for her.  (Honestly I hate green beans unless there's a lot of butter and salt on them.)

One last thing--our kitchen is looking so much better now!  I painted the cabinets white yesterday.  It was a sweaty job and it took four coats of paint on each door, but dammit, I did it!  I love it.  I'm hoping to paint the walls gray and get new floors and a new sink.  Then one room in our house will be done!  And I can focus on another room!

House Tour

Have you ever seen the blog Life Made Lovely?  They have a great section of house tours that are so cool, just pictures of the rooms, showing little snippets into the lives of the owners.  I love seeing things like their collections of vintage things, or family pictures, or cool color combos.  One house had some vintage furniture that didn't match but it just worked.  Anyway, as I was going around my house today I was imagining what my pictures would look like.  And then I started laughing because I've been sick the past week and the kids were sick before that, so our house is a bit of a mess.  I did clean a little this morning, but still there are just piles of shit in every room.  Papers that need to go somewhere, pictures the kids have colored, old cds that found their way out into the dining room somehow.  Things just laying on any available surface...

So here is my house tour, complete with piles of shit.

All the meds from all the sickness going around!

I'm telling you, piles of junk.

Primrose from the store today.  Needed some fresh color!

Naughty horse in the corner.

Best Christmas present ever.  I love this doll house!

New artwork for our bedroom from tastesorangey on etsy. (they aren't crooked, I just had a strange angle.)

This is what I mean--picture hangers, earbuds, candles, boxes from our new phones, lotion, and a bottle of Vicodin.  There has to be a better place for this shit than on our dresser!

I can't wait until Ingrid can read these books!

Ingrid's broken dresser.  I hate this thing.

Ugliest sconces ever.

New artwork from Uncle Pat.

 And there it is.  The Liddle Family House Tour!  The more I see these pictures the more I hate the colors in our house.  I am totally fine with our room and the dining room, but every other room in our house is getting a paint job this year!! 

A Look Back

Totally stealing this from Bron's blog--what a great way to remember all we've been through this year!

JANUARY
Otis was getting to be more mobile and getting into EVERYTHING!

FEBRUARY
Otis learned how to walk!  And we enjoyed being back in Milwaukee, where we belong.

MARCH
We started, and finished, our house hunting.  It was so fast, and almost a year later we could not be more happy with the house we ended up with!!  Our neighborhood is amazing, our house is cozy, and we love to be homeowners!

APRIL
Busy month of going to the cottage for the first time of the year, our first baseball game of the season, and packing up our old house.

MAY
We moved into our new house!  Ingrid turned four! 

JUNE
We took our annual camping trip to Door County. Aunt Corie came to visit.  It was HOT.

JULY
It was still hot.  We spent lots of time outside and enjoyed our air conditioning while inside.  I had a craft fair and we harvested lots of zucchinis.  LOTS.

AUGUST
The kids and I visited my mom in Michigan!

SEPTEMBER
Ingrid started school and we went to see Obama on a dreary rainy day.  (Thank god it's not election season anymore, that got old.)

OCTOBER
Ingrid and Otis were cowboys for Halloween.

NOVEMBER
We had some great family pictures taken and we visited my sister in Michigan.  All of us, even Brendan!

DECEMBER
Otis turned TWO!  Hard to believe he's such a spunky little dude.  He talks as much as his sister and has a personality of his own, for sure. 

We have just had such a great year, I feel really lucky. 

This next year I hope to see Ingrid continuing to love school, I want to work more on our house projects, like painting the rooms colors that don't make me want to barf, and hopefully getting a patioo built in our backyard.  I hope the winter isn't too cold, the summer isn't too hot, and we continue to be happy and somewhat healthy (as I cough and sneeze all over the computer, ha!)  Happy New Year, everyone!

Pinterest and My Make Believe Mud Room.

I know some people don't like Pinterest because it makes them feel inadequate, but I am a realist.  I know I will  not do the ten million crafts I have pinned for the kids, I know I will probably not make half the recipes I see on there.  I know for sure I will never get a slide staircase, even though I would LOVE one!  But I love to sit and waste my time after the kids go to bed and daydream about what we can do with our house.  Since it's our house and we can do whatever we want!

 

Lately I have been daydreaming about putting on a tiny addition to the side of our house, where the side door is.  I would love to someday add just enough space to have a little mud-room/laundry room combo.  It would free up some more space down in the basement, and give us a space to put our coats and shoes, which really pile up quickly...

 

Tonight I found these two pins that made me really want to do this!  The first is the exact idea I had--a small addition, just large enough for some storage of coats, mittens, boots.  A little bench.  Also a washer and dryer in there somewhere, too, so I don't have to go to the basement.  How cute is this?  It really doesn't look that huge, either, which is great.  We don't have a ton of space between houses, but we'd have enough for this.

 And this one shows the absolute cuteness I could bring to a muddy room with good fabric choices!  And flooring.  And maybe some cool vintage things scattered about on little shelves.  My mind is filling with ideas!  Now we just have to see how do-able something like this would even be...

Hot Hot Hot, or Thank God for A/C

It's been in the 90s here for days.  Last year we made a little getaway in our room with a window air conditioner, but this year--we have it in the whole house.  The whole house.  It's amazing. Granted, the upstairs is still a bit stuffy even with a/c on, but it's not 90 degrees. 

We have done a bit of going outside to break up the day.  Our poor neighbors must hate us, we are outside at 6am watering the garden, running around in our pjs and making a ruckus at the crack of dawn.  Sorry guys!

 Our garden is exploding.  None of the carrot seeds took, but everything else is growing like mad.  We saw a peek of a couple flowers on our zucchini, and the tomatoes are all getting bigger and bigger.  I saved one lavender plant on the side of the house and it is gorgeous.  I'm so glad to have a garden!

  Other than that, not much going on here.  Cleaning and doing laundry.  Hanging said laundry up to dry on the clothesline.  Another thing I absolutely LOVE about this house--a simple rope to hang clothes on.  It makes me so happy to hang my laundry up, how silly?  I've been trying to instill a sense of teamwork in Ingrid by making her help with little chores.  Today she washed the big window in the living room.  Doesn't she look ten feet tall?  She is growing as well as our tomatoes...

Summer is here.  Bring it!

Mother's Day Weekend

I totally forgot to post about our amazing weekend!  It was seriously the best.  Saturday was the neighborhood rummage, so we went out to look for some bargains.  It was kinda drizzly so it wasn't that great, but I did score some vintage kid's stuff for Toadstool Vintage.  Then it cleared up and we spent loads of time in the yard.  Ingrid is perfecting her baseball swing, that kid can really hit the ball!  No tee for her, she is hitting pitched balls and will not stop begging someone, anyone, to pitch the ball for her! 

After nap time we headed to the zoo.  As a family!  Usually I bow out of outings like this and let Brendan have kid time by himself so I can have mom time for myself, but I went and it was amazing.  The perfect weather, the kids were in good moods. We saw the goats, our favorite.  Ingrid couldn't stop hugging them.  My girl!

 Ingrid was super excited to go on the carousel, so of course we had to do it.  She was giddy waiting in line and she kept trying to decide which animal she'd ride.  She chose the ostrich.

 And to end the trip we took a relaxing ride on the train.  It was a perfect trip to the zoo!

Sunday was great, too.  I got to do a boat load of gardening in the new yard.  The people before us did not care about gardening.  They planted a few things but not with much planning.  For example, there are about five peony bushes by the garage, just sprouting up amidst the grass.  No flower bed, just tall grass and weeds all over the place.  So my goal is to get the grass pulled up and make a flower bed, add a couple more plants there, and attach it to the little garden on the other side of the garage, which so far has strawberries and asparagus and tons of weeds.  So  many ideas!!  But the grass is not coming up easily and it's been about three days of trying to chop away at it.  I am going to be so proud of the end product, I should go take before pictures so I remember how terrible it looked before!

Something that will help me in this endeavor is the fact I hired a babysitter!  Alex comes two mornings a week for a few hours, it's awesome.  She is a local college kid and she just jumped right in and took over as soon as she came.  I quietly went downstairs and did some work and she just played with the kids, took them to the park, changed poopy diapers.  Heaven!!  At first I felt a little decadent for hiring a babysitter being a stay at home mom, but screw it.  I am running two etsy shops, and I have two more craft shows lined up for this summer.  Instead of fighting every weekend with Brendan to watch the kids so I can get shit done, I'm gonna have someone play with the kids while I do it and thus have my weekend free for family.  It is amazing.

Also, gramma is coming today for Ingrid's birthday!  She'll be here a few days, allowing Brendan and I to go out for our six year anniversary.  God bless grammas.  It's gonna be a great weekend!

Settling In

We are slowly settling into our new house.  I got some things hung up in the kids' rooms.  I have tried finding places for the random things still in boxes.  It's a work in progress.  Otis' room was super easy, we just took what we had from his old room and hung it up here at the new house.  Viola!  A finished room.

Ingrid's room is almost done, I just need to hang a shelf for her Brewers bobblehead collection.  I hated the green when we looked at the house but man, her stuff just fit in with it so well, we're leaving it!  I just need a curtain rod for her other window so I can hang up her other curtain.  Last weekend I had a craft show and across the way from me was an awesome booth from Man Vs. George.  I had to get a couple prints for the kids' rooms, a whale one for Otis and this Eiffel Tower one for Ingrid.

 And here, just for good measure, are some pictures of Otis playing on the stairs.  Making a cute face.  Because he's adorable.



Back in Action!

Well, we did it!  We moved into our new house!  What a week it's been...First of all, we've been without internet for a week, which has not been fun.  I felt very out of touch, and not a bit relieved to be away from things.  I do like a weekend here or there without the computer, but a whole week was not fun.  I had put my Etsy shops on hold but of course got about ten orders, which I found out when I lurked in the Starbucks parking lot and used their wifi with the iPad.  Cable I can do without, internet not so much...

But we're here!  Every day I find something else about the house I love.  We were able to move right in and unpack and are now trying to get settled.  Things are not the exact way I want them but it's nice to know we can do things here little by little because we're here for the long haul, not just a year!  And we don't have to ask a landlord if we can do anything, it's our house!  So happy about that.

The other night I was doing dishes and looked out the window to see this:

What a cheerful little family picture this is!  Notice the new grill?  We have been to the store a million times picking up things we need.  Grill, dehumidifier, lawnmower, shelves, broom, new mailbox.  The list never seems to end.  But it's great!  Otis agrees.



It's OURS!

We have keys in hand and have already moved a couple boxes in.  Our house is our house!  Yay! 

Here's our bare kitchen.  The cleanest it will EVER be.

Here's our bedroom, not sure about the color, we'll see.

Here's Ingrid's room.  Definitely not the color we want, we're painting it yellow.

Here's Otis' room.  Already blue.  Perfect!

Here's my favorite, for some reason.  I love the staircase!  It's so sunny and curves a little.  Love it.

Here's the bathroom.  Again, the cleanest it will ever be.

And I got to see the basement again without any gym equipment and it will be perfect for my sewing area and possibly a little play room.  Just have to get some carpet down there. 

We have a house and it's all ours!  Our kids will grow up there, no more moving!