1st day of 1st grade!

Yesterday was Meredith's first day of first grade! How did our little girl get so grown up?

I was a little bit nervous for her. Kindergarten here is very play-based, and it really isn't that much of a leap from the preschool she attended. First grade, on the other hand, is much more structured and academic. When we attended the "Meet the Teacher" night, Meredith was a bit taken aback when she walked into the classroom and realized there were no toys in there. Alex was extremely disappointed with the first grade room, and he was not happy that he had to settle for scribbling on a scrap of paper from my bag to entertain himself.

The other source of my anxiety about first grade is related to a big development from the end of the last school year. Right before kindergarten ended, Meredith was diagnosed with developmental vision delays. I'll explain more about that in a future post, but essentially, she's a very bright little girl whose eyes didn't develop properly, which makes things like reading and writing very difficult. We're working with specialists to correct the problem, but in the meantime, school may present some difficulties.

Fortunately her teacher seems very understanding about the whole situation, and I started the school year optimistic for Meredith.

Her chosen attire for the first day of school:

I asked her to smile for me, but she's only willing to do big cheesy grins and not her natural gorgeous smile. I'll take what I can get.

I'm happy to say that her first day of school was a success! She was disappointed that some of her closest friends aren't in her class this year, but she had a great time playing with them on the playground, and she's already made two friends in her new class. Her teacher called me last night just to touch base with us, and she said that Meredith was delightful and a joy to have in the classroom. Way to make mommy proud, kiddo!

Should you buy a fixer-upper?

True story: When Mike and I were looking at houses back in 2007, we walked into a house with our Realtor, looked around and made more or less the following comments:

"The floors all need to be replaced." "The bathrooms need to be redone." "All of the lighting needs to be updated." "That kitchen is awful." "Who in their right mind did the tile around the fireplace?" "It needs to be painted from top to bottom." "There's no landscaping at all in the back."

Then we looked at each other, shrugged, turned to our Realtor and said, "We'd like to make an offer."

He almost fell over in shock and asked, "Are you SURE?"

Were we sure? Well, we thought the house overall had good bones: we liked the layout, and most of what needed to be fixed was cosmetic. It had plenty of space for our little family of three (Meredith was just a baby). We liked the location: it had easy access to major roads which would make Mike's commute more bearable. We liked the neighborhood: it had plenty of amenities like swimming pools, and there was a good elementary school within walking distance.

So we looked around the house, both thinking that it looked like the aftermath of an episode of "Trading Spaces" gone wrong, and said "YES. We'll take it!"

It wasn't exactly a fixer upper in that it needed a massive addition or the roof was caving in, but it had plenty of problems. In 5.5 years of ownership, we've replaced the roof, the air conditioner, the water heater and part of the fence, all out of necessity. A mishap with the washing machine flooded most of the house a few months after we moved in, so nearly all of the baseboards had to be ripped out and replaced too. Stuff happens. It's part of the "joy" of owning a home.

As for the "fun" fixer-upper stuff, well, we're both generally handy people, and we enjoy working on a house together, so we considered ourselves prime candidates for a fixer-upper. Even so, I have to admit that it's not been easy managing jobs and children and trying to DIY it.

Our little helpers:

Meredith as a toddler, helping with the fireplace remodel.

Meredith at 3.5, helping us demolish tile in the bathroom.

Alex last Christmas, helping Mike install wood floors throughout the house:

 Alex earlier this summer, helping Mike with the backyard fence:

We've noticed over the years that those nice folks at HGTV do a great job of making renovation look easy. They send in some designers and carpenters, and in a mere 30 minutes, we the viewers watch a room or a house go for bad to beautiful! They throw out suggestions like, "Don't throw out that old dining room set - paint it and recover the chair cushions for a whole new look!" Do you have any idea how high the PITA (pain in the a$$) factor is for redoing furniture if you don't have the proper tools? It's pretty high, as one of our good friends found out recently. Do you know how long it takes to install new door frames in a house? We don't know either because we're still working on it, but we're pretty sure it takes twice as long if you have little helpers underfoot like we do.

In other words, unless you're an experienced pro, DIY renovation takes a lot longer than it appears to on television. It is also usually filled with far more mishaps than HGTV shows!

So are you thinking about buying a fixer-upper?

The nice people over at Credit Sesame came up with a funny but informative flow chart to help you decide. (Click image to enlarge, or click the Credit Sesame link above)

We'd also add that if you're considering a fixer upper, give some serious thought to the home's location: if you sink a bunch of time and money into fixing the house, will you get it back? Or are you over-renovating for the surrounding area? If the home is in a very desirable area, buying a renovating may make great sense, but only if you and your significant other can make it through the renovation process without killing each other!

As for us, so far we've managed to do quite a bit of work on this house, and we're still happily married. As an added bonus, the kids are getting a great lesson in how to build and renovate, and perhaps someday - a VERY long time from now - we'll be able to trust them with power tools. Maybe then we can get a really big fixer upper!

Then vs. Now

Since we've been in our house for five years now (has it really been that long??), we thought we'd share a few photos of our work in progress. And it really always is a work in progress, isn't it?

When you open the front door, this is what you saw in 2007:

This is what you see now when you step into our home:

Still to come: We'll probably swap out the artwork for something new. We need something on the foyer wall to your left. The main light you can see in the top left corner of the photo needs to be replaced, and we'd like to eventually have accent lighting on both art niches.

This was the secondary bathroom in our house in 2007:

 This is the secondary bathroom now:

It's hard to tell from that photo, but we replaced the ugly floor tile with 12x12 cream marble tile. The shower surround was updated with white subway tile, beige grout, and honey onyx accent tile.

Still to come: We need to replace the counter top, sink and faucet.

From the hallway, looking toward the formal dining room in 2007:

More or less the same position today:

I designed a five-foot tall half-wall with shelves and storage cubbies, ending in a column, and Mike built it himself! What was the formal dining room is now a playroom for the children, but it's not finished yet, so you'll have to wait to see photos for now. We'll do a post soon with the whole process of building the half-wall!

This is what we termed the breakfast room in 2007:

It's now our main dining room now. This photo was taken from the living room, looking back at the dining room and the hallway. Excuse the dog bed and food dishes - Dexter and Zelda are part of the package.

This was the main living area when we first purchased the house in 2007:

You can see the bar for the kitchen on the far right of that photo. I was standing in the breakfast room when I took this picture. It's basically one big open space, which was something we both wanted.

This is the living area today:

Still to come: We need a rug and a coffee table. I'm picturing a faded oriental rug in shades of blues, creams and greens, but I'm not sure how that would hold up with the kids. As for the coffee table, I love the idea of something glass and metal and square, but again, I'm not sure how practical that is with Meredith and Alex. We've also discussed replacing the back door with a full glass door. 

This was the small nook off the living room in 2007 with an awkward art niche:

We replaced the art niche with a great - and practical - built-in bookcase and wall sconce.

This was the kitchen, taken from the living room in 2007:

This is the kitchen today (and a little bit of Dexter down at the bottom):

We've replaced all of the appliances with very nice stainless steel (including my beloved gas range with double oven).

Still to come: New lighting, refaced cabinets, new counters, and an actual tile backsplash.

We still have SO much we want to do to this house, but it's come a long way in five years!

Meredith's pink rockstar cake

As of 4:36 pm EST, our sweet Meredith Caroline is SIX years old! How did that happen??? It seems like just yesterday we were holding her in our arms and marveling over the tiny little person we created... and hoping we could figure out this whole parenting thing before we screwed her up.

We'll be celebrating in style tomorrow with a very girly rock star birthday party. We can't wait! In planning the party, Meredith asked for a three-tiered hot pink cake with zebra stripes. I did a bit of Googling and realized that it was actually pretty simple to make a chocolate and vanilla zebra-striped cake, so that's what we decided to make. I can't wait to cut into it tomorrow!

This is the finished result:

The zebra stripes and purple stars are edible sugar sheets, and Meredith insisted on purple sprinkles on top. She chose a pink "M" cake topper, which we decorated with silver and purple rhinestones. We went ahead and added six curly candles.

My fingers are stained pink and purple from making this sucker, but the look on Meredith's face today when she saw the finished cake made the whole thing more than worth it!

The temptress of the playground

On Thursday, I was walking Meredith home from school, and I got an earful on the latest kindergarten drama. For most of the first half of the year, Meredith told us that two boys, Julian and Vann, were her boyfriends, and that they didn't like each other.

Our conversation the other day went something like this:

Me: How was school today, kiddo?

Meredith: It was fine. Julian and I are back together.

Me: Oh really? You are?

Meredith: Yeah, and Jace doesn't like that.

Me: Who is Jace?

Meredith: Another boy. He likes me too.

Me: Well, you're very friendly to everyone, so I'm sure he just wants to be friends with you.

Meredith: No, Julian and Jace got into a wrestling fight over me on the playground.

Me: They did?

Meredith: Yeah. They did.

Me: What happened to Vann? I thought Vann was your boyfriend.

Meredith: Oh, I'm still with Vann too, but you know mom, a lot of other girls like Vann.

[Mom's note: this last part is true - all the girls adore Vann]

Me: So you're with Julian AND Vann?

Meredith: Yeah, for now.

Then we turned the corner, and a little boy ran up to Meredith, yelling her name and trying to get her attention. When she turned around, he stammered and suddenly became very shy before saying "hi" and running off.

Me: Is that Julian? Or Jace?

Meredith: Oh, that's Luke.

Me: Who is Luke?

Meredith (very nonchalantly): Oh, he's another boy who likes me.

Our five year old is apparently the temptress of the playground. Heaven help us! I'm afraid the teenage years are going to be very scary at Casa de Mike and McGee.

Zelda

Princess Zelda Mae Butter Shine loves to lounge on the sofa and watch TV. Our dogs are smart - they always look for the softest place to rest.


Zelda may be way too smart for her own good. Yesterday I found her like this:


Alex had dragged a dining room chair over to the bar so he could climb up and down by himself. Zelda followed his lead and climbed up onto a barstool too, using the chair. They were enjoying cheese and crackers together when I caught her. When I first walked into the room, she was actually sitting on the barstool, like it was the most natural thing in the world for her. She knew she was in trouble too because she immediately jumped down after I took this photo.

It's a good thing she's cute, because she sure is naughty.

Mustache Man

He did this to himself, with markers. Thank goodness those nice people at Crayola make washable markers. Never a dull moment at our house...

Santa Claus is coming to town!

No really, he is!

I went to the mall by myself last Thursday - November 3rd - while Meredith was in school and my mom was watching Alex. I heaved a huge sigh and rolled my eyes when I passed Dillard's and realized that the mall had already set up everything for Santa. Enormous tree? Check. Fake fireplace? Check. Fancy wingback chair? Check. Camera equipment for overpriced photos with the jolly old elf? Check. The big guy in red wasn't there yet, but everything is already set up for his arrival.

I love Christmas as much as the next person, and I will confess that I've already bought a few ornaments this year because that's what happens when Hobby Lobby puts out their stock of Christmas ornaments in August. However, I draw the line at decorating my home for Christmas immediately after Halloween. Generally speaking, the earliest I'm willing to put up a tree (artificial obviously) is the weekend before Thanksgiving, and that's usually only done those years when we're going to be out of town for Thanksgiving.

This year, I have decided to go along with the retailers and let Christmas come early. At least in part. You see, I am planning to take my children to the mall this week after school. I'm going to walk them around Santa's set up and talk to them about Christmas and what they want and what our plans are for the holiday.

Then, I'm going to look them both in the eyes and say in my most serious "Mommy means business" voice, "Santa Claus is watching you." If the retailers can stretch Christmas to two months, then surely I can use Santa bribery to get two months of good behavior out of my kids.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Spiderman and his sister, the fairy princess!


This was taken last night before we walked over to a neighbor's home for a costume party. I cut it pretty close this year - I finished Meredith's costume a few hours before we snapped this picture. Her costume also had a tiara, but she refused to wear it. Oh well. Alex surprised us all by actually wearing his hat and eye mask for a good part of the evening.

We can't wait to take the kids trick-or-treating tonight! We hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!

My decor dilemma for Alex

When we set up Alex's nursery, I wanted to create a cheerful space without spending a small fortune and without repainting the walls. So we re-used the white furniture from Meredith's nursery and we left the walls their existing pale blue (also from Meredith's nursery).

This is how the room looked when he was a baby:


When Meredith was a baby, she transitioned easily from a crib to a toddler bed, re-using her crib mattress and bedding. We were able to keep her in a toddler bed until she was three years old, and then we set up a "big girl" room for her complete with twin bed and what we thought she wanted in terms of decor. As it turned out, when we asked Meredith for her decorating input at age 3, she (not surprisingly) didn't understand that she was choosing bedding and decor that we expected her to keep for quite a while. A year later we ended up redoing her room, and she now has an absurdly pink on pink bedroom.

Getting back to Alex's room... Alex didn't actually use his nursery much. He preferred to sleep in our bed, and we let him because frankly, we all got more sleep that way. Eventually though he needed his own space, and after being in our bed, he refused to sleep in the confined space of a crib or a toddler bed. So we bit the bullet and got him a twin mattress and box springs. Right now it's sitting on the floor (not as far for him to fall), but eventually we'll need to add a bed frame and a headboard of some kind.

We made some additional changes to his room. The changing table went away. The armoire is now holding a television in our room, and the nightstand is once again beside Meredith's bed. We added some enormous open shelving units to Alex's room on either side of the window that provide more than ample storage for all of his toys and books. There's also now a giant train table in the middle of the room. It was originally Meredith's, and it's one of those toys that Santa just really thought she'd enjoy, but the jolly old elf gave no real thought to the size of our home and where we'd actually store such a giant toy. Oops. We've kept all of the artwork and accessories, but they've been moved around a little bit to accommodate the new furniture arrangement.

When we set up the twin bed in Alex's room, I bought an inexpensive sheet set from Wal-Mart, and we used a throw blanket he already had. It was fine for summer, but with cooler nighttime temperatures, he's going to need warmer bedding soon. That, and cheap sheets are apparently very easy for an active golden retriever puppy to tear up. At some point Zelda must've thought the sheets would make a good chew toy because when I went to wash them earlier this week, I realized that both the fitted and the top sheet had doggie holes throughout them. Great.

So that brings us to my present decor dilemma. Alex needs bedding, but I'd prefer not to redecorate his entire room both because of the cost involved and because I really don't know how he'll want his room to look a year or two from now. I've been scouring the internet for inexpensive bedding I could work into his existing room, hopefully without having to replace all of the artwork and other decor. I'd also ideally like to have something that reflects his tastes. Right now he's into cars, trucks, trains, planes, dinosaurs, football, and Spiderman.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

The colors match the rest of the room, and I could probably paint a few dinosaurs on canvas to hang on the walls:

Yeah, it's sports and kind of generic "boy" but he does love football, baseball and basketball.
I like this, and I wouldn't have to change out any of the accessories in his room, but I'm worried this seems kind of baby-ish.
I have always loved the idea of an outer space room for a little boy. I have so many wonderful ideas for a space room, and if we went with bedding like this, I could use it as the basis for some eventual redecoration in the bedroom. My main hesitation is that this bedding is more MY choice. He has never expressed an interest in outer space because let's face, the kid isn't even two yet. I'd hate to buy it, start planning a "big boy" room around it, and then find out in a year or two that he hates it. Ahem. This is probably my least favorite bedding set. I'm not a huge fan of character-branded stuff. I also think this looks rather grown up for a toddler, but Alex does really like "Spi-man" as he calls him. He's going to be Spiderman for Halloween, and it definitely matches his interests, but I'm not sure if he'll still be interested later on.


Cars, trucks, construction vehicles. All stuff Alex loves, and the colors match what we already have. It looks a bit on the babyish side, but then again, it's not expensive so if he wants something different in another year or two, it's not the end of the world.

More dinosaurs. I like the overall look of this set, but the lack of reds and yellows mean that it doesn't really match the existing art and decor.


Another space set. The same issues apply to the above outer space bedding, but the brighter colors in this set do match what's in the room already.


Anyone want to help me choose? What would you pick for an almost two year old boy?