Chatty Cathy...er...Kellen!

Since little Mr. Kellen has been Mr. Let-Me-Tell-You-Something lately (or Mr. Repeat-What-You-Just-Said), I've been keeping a little notebook handy to write down HOW he says stuff.  My absolute favorite is that he has just started saying "I love you" after we say it to him.  OH my goodness, I crumble into tiny pieces when he does it!  It comes out - "I bub you!"  Here's the rest of the list:

"I bub you" - I love you
"Oh-mey" - Open
"Trash!" - Crash!
"Char" - Car
"Bubby"  - Monkey  (which is funny cuz that's what we call him!)
"Tee - Tao!" -  Sit Down!
"Ma - Na - Mees?" - Vitamins (said in questioning tone because he wants me to give him some)
"Boo - bah" - Football
"Tee - tot" - It's hot!  (Refers to fireplace, oven, and sun)
"Ehw - mo" - Elmo
"Baf" - Bath
"Mouse" - Mouth
"Pees" - Please
"Tank To" - Thank You (said almost under his breath)
"Mo" - More
"Poo" - Pool
"Air-pane" - Airplane
"Tee - Ta!!" - Pizza

He also says Milk, Apple Juice, Doggie, Agua (for water!), Movie, Outside, Up, Night-Night, Book, Shoes, Truck, Bus, Jacket, Eyes, Cheeks, Nose, Feet,  Cheese, Hi, Bye-Bye, Ow, Poo-Poo, Pee-Pee, Kitty, Rawr! and of COURSE, NO and MINE very well.  And there are a ton of other words he says, but I can't remember how he pronounces them offhand.  He babbles a lot too...well, I should say, it sounds like babble, but I could just not be understanding him!

Tonight, if I do say so myself, I made an awesome dinner: Garlic - Rosemary Roasted Cornish Game Hen with white wine reduction, Garlic - Parmesan Mashed Red Potatoes with Rosemary, Green Beans and Cherry Tomatoes with Basil Butter Sauce, and Salad with homemade balsamic dressing. Kellen liked everything except the vegetables.  :(  My biggest challenge is getting him to eat vegetables.  He won't even eat carrots. He'll sometimes eat green beans, and he's been known to eat lettuce at Aunt Ida's (he likes her dressing, of course!).  He'll eat spinach when it's scrambled with eggs.  I've taken to adding green veggie puree to things like meatloaf-- neither he nor Patrick ever realize it.

It's pouring rain now...THANK GOD.  We need it SO badly...

My awesome son

I just had to tell y'all about my awesome son.  He's almost two and his smarty-ness is just amazing to me.  He's starting to learn to talk.  When I was up on the stool installing hooks on the wall, he said, "Me up, me up!"  He knows possession...he gets Patrick's shoes all the time and says "Daddy shoes!"  He looooooves bananas. He used to call them "nanas", and now they are "Me nanas!"  For some reason, every vehicle is a truck.  And if he sees a bus, watch your eardrums...he will explode them with his exclamation of "BUS!!!!!"  And, if he sees Elmo...he goes nuts.  He loves Elmo.  Hence the theme of his 2nd birthday party.

His invitations....

How cute is he?  I can't stand it.  

Also very hilarious is what he does when he doesn't want to go with me or Patrick.  He will run somewhere and lie on the floor facedown....as if we can't see him!!  It's hilarious.  He'll do it in the tub when it's time to get out...don't worry, all the water is drained.  But he's so funny.

Today, I took him to the park with my new BFF, Denise.  She brought 2 of her kids, Max, 11 and Celia, 7.  They just loved Kellen and he had a blast, especially with Max.  AND, he was so much more brave than usual!  He went down slides and was climbing up everything.  He was having a blast.  Then, all the kids were collecting acorn tops for a good 30 minutes while Denise and I talked.  Funny what amuses them at ANY age.

I love that he understands most of what we are saying to him.  At school, also, the teacher told me that "He is VERY smart! He knows all the letters and he knows the pictures"  I was ONE PROUD MAMA!  I read alphabet books to him all the time, and tell him what things are all the time, and try to describe everything we see and what we are doing.  Now...Patrick today told him to "get your cuppy".  CUPPY?  What the hell?  It's a cup.  Please don't have him going around calling it a cuppy.  

Well, tomorrow I'm bringing him to church...so let's see how that goes!!

Laundry Room, done, BAM!

And this is how it all went down....

First...behold a picture of our utility room with lovely creamy white painted walls (barf).  With the rest of our house having such great wall colors...the laundry room deserved some love.  

So, on Pinterest (SHOCKER!) I was moved, nay, INSPIRED by this laundry room below.  I loved the wall color contrasting with the white door and trim and the white painted stripe (COOL!).  Not a major fan of the chalkboard cupboards, but I don't have cupboards, so....

Also...please can I have those front loaders?????  And I would totally make the wood folding board a different color.  

So, I really loved one of the colors in our guest bathroom.  It was the kind of dark gray that I wanted.  AND, we have all the house/wall colors/paints in our garage...left by the prior owner; SCORE!  So, I had a foam roller already and I got painting.  I got an edger that was recommended by younghouselove.com 's Sherry...she said it edged "like butter".  And it was only $4.99!  Done.  And she was pretty much right. 

Then, I taped off the white stripe area and painted it a semi-gloss white I also already had from prior owner (LOVE THEM!).  Problem...the tape I used, that blue stuff, SUCKS, and it bled through.  So, I took the trusty edger and edged the lines by hand with the gray paint and VOILA!!!

Next up, I had to change out the crappy 80's light with the gold trim.  ANYONE who knows me, knows how much I LOOOOOVE gold trim.  (no I don't, I hate it)  Plus, there was minimal light, and I like more, whiter light.  So, I removed the old one, EASY.  But then I remembered.  I gotta shut off the breaker to the laundry room so Patrick doesn't come home to fried-Tari.  I went out into the garage to go to the breakers and.........

Yes, that's a LOT of car parts obstructing the breaker box.  I'm thinking, hmm...great planning there, husband.  Plus a few more choice words were spoken and came out of my mouth with great force and volume.

ALRIGHT THEN!  Living dangerously it is!!  Luckily, there was no shocking revelations during my installation of the new light.  WHICH, by the way was $15 at HD and had a nice brushed nickel surface and nice white light from those new fancy bulbs that just plug in.  

I'm telling ya...I'm super proud of my light installation.  (Sans safety)

Here is the utility room in use... the walls almost look brown...but they're not...

Semi-gloss...love it.  Can you just see how straight those damn lines are??????  Seriously.  

It's a MASTERPIECE!!

BEHOLD!!!!  The completion of my project!!

Last night, I took the kiddo to Home Depot, we picked out two 1 x 2 boards, black spray paint, and some screws.  Then across the street we went to Walmart and bought some clips to glue onto the finished boards.  After putting munchkin to bed, I sanded the boards and spray painted them. 

This morning I awoke to my dry, black boards.  I sanded the edges for a little weathered look.  Then I drilled a small hole through both boards on both sides.  THEN, I drilled a larger hole that would allow the top of the screw to recess into.  Patrick was kind enough to help me screw them into the wall, while I made sure they were level with our handy level (DAMN, that thing is handy!!)

THEN, I super glued the clips onto the boards ten inches apart.  AND VOILA!!!

I had some artwork that I had saved on the fridge (a little old, but still special) and here you go!  Finished product in use!!!  Seriously....HOW cute is that???  

Our company will be so impressed by Kellen's masterpieces, they will turn right around and deposit money into his College Fund piggy bank!!

So, now what's next you ask?  (Or maybe you didn't ask, but I'm gonna tell you anyways.)  I have another idea that I have on my Pinterest site that I'm all ready to tackle.  Here's a pic of what I'm talking about.

I just want to paint the room a color similar to this, and we already have a grayish tone paint.  And I love the white stripe with the hooks!  Genius!  Now, I wish I had the front loaders...but that'll have to wait.  They also have the cabinets (which I don't have) painted with chalkboard paint.  Not sure I would do that.  Anyhoos....off to go test some paint colors on the laundry room wall!!  :)  

She's CRAF-TAY!

Refinishing the Desk Stool

Before:

After Sanding, ready for paint.  Note the white shelf/coat rack I also painted in the background.

And here is the finished product!  So PUR-TY!!  I love how it is shiny on top.  Lacquer baby...lacquer.

NEXT.....

Refinishing old bathroom cabinet from Target 

Had to sand that bad boy...it was a BITCH.  Generally, this thing is thisclose to being a piece of crap, so I wanted to repurpose it.  I had to tape the window...in hindsight, I should have just taken the window out.  I almost did and then got lazy.  Not so smart.  Below is after the first painting.  I had to paint it several times because of drips that I had to sand down after it dried.  RRRRR.

BUT...look at the finished product!!!!  Our nice china now has a place to be admired.  And there's a little hook lock on the door so Kellen doesn't get into it.  He's currently not smart enough to figure out a hook lock, thank God.

I put Kellen's College Fund piggy bank out so that visitors could deposit their change and help the kid go to college.  :)

NEXT!!  PROJECT IN PROGRESS!!!!

Here is the inspiration, from a do-it-yourself blog; as you can see it is a wall with two boards attached, clips attached to the boards for all the little ones MASTERPIECES.  (Which is says beautifully above on the wall.)

From directions on her website, I was able to download the exact same font for free.  Then I typed "Masterpieces" on my word processing program, made the letters HUMONGOUS, and printed them out.  Then I had to use an exacto knife to carefully cut out each letter; the paper left behind would become the stencil.  But look at all the pretty letters!

OH YEAH, forgot to show you the wall that I will use.  Note that the current paint color is rather dark.  It's not as evident in this picture, so you're gonna have to just trust me.  The "Masterpieces" wouldn't show up as well.  So, I had to paint it the same color as the formal dining...which was just an extension from the wall next to it.  So, there was flow.  Flow is good.

Here we go!  Wall painted (PS: edgers are AWESOME!!) I did some measuring and drew a line with a level and hung the paper stencils.  Did I mention that you should NEVER use paper as a stencil?  They have special stencil paper.  I was notsosmart.  Oh well.  

So, here I have painted over the stencils.  Not an easy job, took about an hour.  I couldn't roll it, like I thought, I had to use a paintbrush, and the only one I had was the size of my fingernail.  

TA-DA!!!!  After removing the paper.  NOT EASY...a bunch of little pieces stuck behind to torture me.

Now, in the garage, are sitting two 1 x 2's painted black.  Can I just tell you it's frrrrrreeeeezing in there???  That paint ain't drying anytime soon.  Tomorrow morning I will be able to sand the edges to give a nice worn effect.  Then I will screw them to the wall, and glue on some cool clips I got at Walmart.

MORE TO COME............