The Foyer

So I have decided to get back to my one room a month routine. One month I will tackle putting together, organizing and setting up a room. I keep telling myself this will take forever and I would like to be "in" the house, fully IN our new house earlier. But it's not going to happen. It's just not a logical approach (yes, I am part Vulcan apparently... and if you haven't seen Star Trek, go see it. Now.). The one room a month IS logical and will get me further on my path to being IN the house and also it engages AB better because he knows whiat the priority for the month is.

The remainder of May (since I just started this) and all of June is the foyer. It doesn't sound like a lot, it isn't a huge area, but it is the first area people see when they walk in my house. And I have ideas and plans to put into motion.

The post from a few weeks ago is where I started.

Here it is during the Memorial Day weekend paint-fest:



Skadi loved painting and she was terribly helpful. When she decided she was done she had two green feet - and I had more paint on me than she had on her favorite "Icky Mouse" pajamas.

And here is where it stands now:

Favorite black and white pictures are up.

I have a great mirror to hang perpindicular to the pictures, but AB lifted it up, chastized me a little for thinking I was going to use nails and suggested he was going to need anchors and screws (same as in the other house I guess) to mount it and he didn't have time today. So the next task is to hang the mirror.

Next task after that is the touch up stuff. I have a lot of green edges to touch up.

And white on the ceiling... somehow.... somewhere I will find a white that matches. Yes, I am a klutz with the paint and am apparently no longer allowed to tape the ceiling... or paint near the ceiling.

I also want a bench. A nice bench to put under the photos. I had wanted a bench and coat hanging thing, but we don't use the front entrance to go in and out and we have a coat closet *right* there. So instead I will get a bench.

And maybe a side table to put across the arch in the photo above by the coat closet?

Yes, with it being summer and all, it WILL take me all of June to do this list.

Month of July is Leif's Star Wars themed room. Goal is to have THAT done before his birthday on July 29th.

A Belated Mother's Day

Leif was somewhere doing all this... soccer, stomp rockets, squirt guns... any of the above. My mom made the dress for Skadi last year and it fits this year! Last year the hem was about to the ground, this year it is perfect. This year's dress is "little girl yellow dress" as Skadi calls it. Or according to daycare it is "Me Skadi dress" since it has a little red haired girl with pigtails on it. Pictures of that will come later. (Once I get it hemmed... not that that has prevented her from wearing it a few times already.)

Upcoming Holiday Weekend

I am really looking forward to the coming Memorial Day weekend. Since we have yet to sell our house, we will be hanging out here. One of the downsides to listing a home For Sale By Owner. If someone wants to see it, you are on the hook to show it. And Open Houses? That’s up to you. The good thing though is that we can Open House it every weekend if we want to. Try and get your real estate agent to do that.

Not that I have anything against real estate agents mind you. My mother in law was one for a long time and we adored our real estate agents who we bought our house with… just wish their commission and brokerage fees were a little less than $13K… that’s a lot of money and so far, worth our time to put into selling it ourselves. We don’t get the traffic that homes on the market with an agent do, it just requires more diligence on our part.

Since we will have a three day weekend without houseguests and with no major plans other than swim lessons, a playdate, a pedicure (much needed by me) and an open house, I am thinking this is the perfect opportunity to sink further into our living quarters. I still have boxes stacked in regions throughout the house and I really need to get those emptied. I have loads of boxes in my formal dining room that are full of wall hangings – art and photographs.

This is where I start trying to figure out cart before the horse and egg before the chicken issues.

I want the boxes emptied.

I want my art on the wall.

I want my photographs on the wall.

I also want the walls painted that will house many of these items.

Do I put them on the wall, then take them all down when I get around to painting and put them back?

Or do I leave them in the boxes, paint, then put them all up on the wall.

My inclination is towards the later. While AB (my tired of painting husband) leans towards the former.

I am currently fighting a very ambitious notion of painting my entryway this weekend.

Not the whole entryway, and certainly not the very, very tall area.

While my mom and stepdad were here this past weekend they helped me line out what to paint and how. I am leaning towards an olive green in the entryway where AB and I think some of our black and white photos will go best.

This is the foyer area:

I am not a big fan of the stenciling here.

So I am leaning towards an olive green - mahogany/Japanese maple color - and creamy white combination for the formal dining room and office with foyer and half bathroom region. The olive green an Japanese maple in more accent roles.

Office:

Formal Dining Area:

So what do you think?

Happy Mother's Day!

My Mother's Day was great this year. It was low-key, but very nice.

We got up and ate the remainder of the lefse as well as fried eggs (Leif's favorite) and Little Smokies (Skadi's favorite courtesy of Bompa). The kids gave me cards as their gift wasn't complete yet from Artsy Fartsy - I can't wait! Leif wrote "Happy Mother's Day" on the card for me all by himself! He learned this at school and was terribly bummed that his teachers would only let him write one card. I made enough of a fuss about it to him that apparently he wanted to do another and one for grandma too.

We released our butterflies (see below) and then hung around the house. Friends came over for a playdate with the kids. Then for dinner AB made filets - which were fabulous and we opened a nice bottle of wine.

See how unsuspecting they are. They have no idea I am taking their pictures. This is about the only way I can get photos anymore...

Because as soon as they find out I have the camera... THIS happens:

It used to be just Leif that would act silly... he has pulled his sister in on the antics.

This *could* go on for hours.

Me and the kids - ignore Skadi's short dress. I was going to try on all her summer clothes (that were found) from last year but we started with this dress and stopped with it too. Something about my daughter putting it on and saying, "I a princess now!" Oh and that she would NOT take it off. I will wash it and put it away after today. *Sigh*

Loving my front yard right now. Check out the Japanese maple and the blooming rhododendrons. Hope they are still blooming when my mom gets here.

Another unsuspecting photo - AB has the waterfall running. The kids are a touch obsessed with it.

Love this one - just ignore the ketchup on the face.

2nd Annual Butterfly Release

So the weather has sucked and so we didn't get around to releasing the butterflies as soon as we should have. Not all of them flew off as the kids expected. Some of them just layed there...

Leif is retrieving the butterflies:


Leif showing off his butterfly:

AB "said" he was going to help with this...

Ok, ok, Skadi needed help...

Oops, flew off her hand and onto her dress!

Then it flew onto the ground!

Then you *might* be able to guess what Skadi turned around and did...

Next butterfly please!



AB is saying, "no squishing this one!"

It crawls onto her tummy - she is terribly pleased with this!

Note Leif off in the background - this is where I was yelling, "don't fall in the waterfall Leif!" (He has once already.)

Then it flew to the rhododendron:

Catching up

A few people have recently been harrassing me about not keeping my blog up. Yes, I admit it, I have been unusually quiet here lately. It's a combination of things - my being superbly busy at work - no, I don't blog at work, but when I am sitting there trying to figure out answers to my research problems, managing a team of 20 scientists on a multi-million dollar project, or writing proposals, then my time to think about witty things to say, or to jot down the funny things the kids did recently is limited. My brain hasn't been on my kids so much at work lately.

The second issue would be my ability to keep it positive. Some really crummy things have happened in the past few months. I don't like to read or write whiney blogs, so I haven't delved into that aspect here. I try to keep it positive.

That's not to say that there hasn't been plenty of good stuff to write about! There has been. We moved into a great house and we have our other house for sale by owner. The kids are wonderful, Skadi learns more words daily and Leif continues to crack us up with the things he comes up with.

Then there is my other addition that cuts into my blogging time. Facebook. I am strangely obsessive about keeping up with what everyone everywhere else who I may have known at some point is doing. I can get easily sucked into an evening on Facebook instead of blogging. Must.extricate.myself...

So I am making a Mother's Day Resolution to get back on top of my blogging!

Here's a quick update:

New house:
Bought new house.
Moved into new house.
Finally.
Unpacked about half of stuff in new house.
Boxes still sitting around.
Wondering if boxes will unpack themselves?

Old House:
Worked on old house.
Worked on old house some more.
Worked on old house even some more.
Grew increasingly sick of working on old house.
Bought signs to sell house.
Worked on old house some more.
Gave up and put the sign out.
Open house.
Show house three times.
Open house.

Freya:
Had dog three weeks.
Dog tore the fence board off and ran away.
Found dog.
Enrolled dog in obediance classes.
Discovered dog was trained with hand signs at one point.
Much happier with a few hand signs.
Wonder what else the dog knows.
Dog still missing housetraining gene.
Dog spends lots of time outside.
Thankfully the weather is nice and her counterpart loves being outside.

Speaking of weather:
Rain.
Cloudy.
Two days of decent weather.
More rain.
Grey.
Dreary.
Rain.
Wind storms.
Wind and driving rain.
Two days of sunshine.
(Speak softly out of fear of jinxing it all and returning to grey and dreary.)

Work:
Plodding along.
Got follow on work funded.
Got a new start funded.
Got an early start funded.
Enjoying the project management.
Team fails to meet deliverable.
Not liking the project management so much.
Spending as much time in the lab as possible.

AB:
The best husband ever.
Took the kids (together) to the paint your own pottery place for Mother's Day gift making.
The best husband ever.

Lefse making

I would love to say that as someone who is part Swedish, that lefse making is in the blood, or runs in the family, or share a story about standing in my grandmother's kitchen watching her practice her well honed lefse making skills.

But that wouldn't be me. If my mom and I have anything to say about it, we will bring it back to our family. A tradition that should have been adopted, and a recipe that should have been handed down. I guess maybe you have to know my grandmother, but she is anything but a lefse making Swede. Her specialty was spaghetti sauce made with canned mushrooms, tomato soup, hamburger and Velveeta.

Sure, turn your nose up. But if you grew up eating it you wouldn't. It is freakishly good. (Just don't ask my husband about it - he claims it is an acquired taste.)

Back to the lefse. See VargasGirl's Swedish grandmother DID make lefse. But few of her relatives learned the recipe. So when she was telling me that she didn't get time to eat lefse recently while visiting Fargo (umm, I wonder why, I still can't figure out how they fit in everything they did in less than two days!), I offered to one up that and "let's make it ourselves".

See my in laws are lefse making Norwegians. The first time I had lefse was in Alaska and when we visit, lefse is a Christmas tradition... and I am learning. Recently my mother in law brought lefse making supplies down to us. So needless to say in my suggesting to VargasGirl that we take this on - I had ALL the supplies readily available.

We had two ricers, four lefse sticks, a lefse mat and a lefse griddle. And a day with no kids.

Check her out!

Cute top huh? I had lied to her and said it was going to be in the 70's ALL weekend.

It rained.

Check out my new rolling pin my mom bought me. It rocks.

We are masters. Look how thin and perfect it is.

And the sugar and butter is sitting there for no reason at all... we would never cook and eat and cook and eat... honest... there are some in the freezer!

"Skadi's Song"

11 years from now…

I am pretty sure I will be putting my head in my hands and wondering where I went wrong. And if I look back, I may come across this post and it will be immediately apparent.

The other morning I had a cd on in the car when “Son of a Preacher Man” came on. I turned it up and lost myself in the song and driving for a little while. Then the song ended.

Clapping came from the backseat! “YAYYY!” squealed Skadi. “Do again!”

“The song?” I ask her.

“Do song again!” she says still clapping.

So we listened to it again and when it finished she repeated her Yays, clapping and repeats for it again.

So we listened a third time.

So far she has been relatively indifferent to the music in the car… but that has changed. The past few days when we get in the car she immediately asks for "my song". Leif has taken ownership of the subsequent song ... Soul Coughing's "Circles". He particularly likes the "doom da doom da doom, I'm goin', I'm goin..." This phrase is second only to "chicka mao mao chicka mao mao" thanks to watching Alvin and the Chipmunks at school.

“Can she bake a cherry pie?”

Earlier this week Leif came home from preschool with a new obsession. Cherry pie.

I don’t believe that he has ever had cherry pie. Like most kids, Leif isn’t a big fan of pie in general – though he will be – it is inherent in our family’s genes that you must like pie.
Four days now we have had questions about cherry pie.

“Can we bake a cherry pie?”

“Mommy, do you like cherry pie?”

“What goes in cherry pie?”

“Can we bake a cherry pie?”

“Can I take a cherry pie to school?”

“Who all likes cherry pie, raise your hands!”

Repeat the above over and over and you have the jist of it.

I love making pies (now that I have mastered the crust) and so my answer to “can we make a cherry pie” is invariably yes. Of course I need to find the time, and I really wish this question was coming in another 2 months whereby we could go the really yummy route with fresh cherries since I am not a fan of jelly fruity fillings that you buy at the grocery store. But to indulge my son a little, we will get at least frozen cherries or something.

I asked him how he would make cherry pie and he said, “Weeeelllll [how he always starts a sentence when he is thinking] I would mix ice cream and cherries, and more ice cream…”

Hmmm…

I am not sure he really KNOWS what cherry pie IS!

I talked to his teacher on Friday who found this to be just the funniest obsession she has heard about. They are learning about Australia, not cherry pie in school and she has no idea where he got that from.

I checked with his teacher and she agreed that sure, if Leif would like to bring cherry pies in for snack day one day, she is fine with that. We will probably throw in a quart of ice cream too.

On a spring day