Works for Me Wednesdays - Getting Paint out of Carpet

Yeah, ask me how I know this one.

We’re in the middle of several painting projects, and they’re not going so smoothly. I normally love painting, but lately? Not so much.

We are painting our dining room a rusty reddish-orangish color. Like my technical description? It’s actually called Paprika, but you just need to know that it’s a dark red color. And of course, the carpet in there is a light beige.

It was almost midnight and I had one more little area to go when the dreaded mistake happened. When I went to refill my brush, it fell out of my hands and landed smack-dab in the middle of our dining room. On the cream colored carpet. It was one of those slow motion moments where you know it’s happening and you can’t do anything to stop it.

Now, I must point out that we were not painting recklessly. We had plastic drop cloths down all around the room, but of course the one spot I dropped my brush had nothing underneath it.

But guess what? Here’s my tip to share…

If you take approximately 1 teaspoon of dishwasher detergent (I used Cascade) and mix it with 1 C. of warm water, it will take all your paint stains out! It takes awhile, but just keep blotting until all the paint is gone. Just be sure to work from the outside in, so you don’t spread the color further.

Red paint on the cream carpet? Completely gone! This worked so well for me that even I can’t tell where the paint was. And that’s a bright spot that I just had to share!

Wake Up Calls

In the perfect world, I would get up each morning before my children awake. I'd have time to grab a shower, start my day in God's Word, visit with hubby a little before he leaves for work, and maybe even get a few chores done before the little ones get up.

Most mornings?

My alarm goes off in the morning and I hit snooze several times until either
a. Josh crawls in bed with me or
b. Sarah starts yelling through the monitor, "Mooooommmmy, I'm awake!"

But the other morning?

It was a Saturday and my mom was here, sleeping in Josh's room in his trundle bed. (Enjoying her great accommodations, I'm sure...meanwhile, my dad was at the Hyatt Regency for a conference.) Hubby was already gone to a basketball game and I woke up all on my own.

For whatever reason, when Sarah woke up she didn't call for me. Instead she sat in her bed and sang all sorts of songs. The Itsy-Bitsy Spider. The song from Sleeping Beauty. The song from Land Before Time X. The Wonderful Cross. Even another worship song she must have learned at church, because I didn't know it.

It was so very cute and such a great way to start my morning.

And while I was enjoying my concert through the monitor, my mom was snuggling in bed with Josh. She even said to me that she thought of this blog because that was such a bright spot for her.

I thought it was pretty cool that before 8:00 a.m., we both enjoyed some bright spots. And knowing that I am definitely not a morning person, this makes the bright spot all the better.

If only I could start every day that way!

Our Wild and Crazy Saturday Night

You know, nothing makes for a better Saturday night than deciding to paint a two-story entryway which leads to a stairwell and an upstairs hallway.

Yeah. What were we thinking?

Well, we actually were pretty smart, if I do say so myself. My dad had a conference in town this weekend and my mom decided to come along and hang with us for a couple of days. Our thinking was that it'd be much, much easier to paint all that if there was another adult around to keep an eye on the kiddos for us.

And oh my goodness, I can't imagine undertaking this project without her help. So, mom, THANK YOU!!!!!!

Here. You can see for yourself. These are all of our entryway. Obviously, we had some serious whiteness going on that desperately needed some color therapy.

Have you been blinded by the white yet? (And yes, that is a basketball goal right by our front door.)

Well, we the good news is we got started today. The bad news is that halfway through, we realized we once again had a terrible streaking problem. (We got three coats into the dining room a couple of weeks ago and gave up after such terrible streaking. We'll have to fix that soon...)

Let me stop here and show you more pics. Here is the halfway through shot...

And here, look closely....see the streaking? Ugh...

So now, we've decided to follow the advice given by all those professional painters. We got primer.

We've spent the last couple of hours priming our walls and over the next few days, we hope to finish up with the paint – hopefully without streaking.

I do admit, this hasn't been the most fun, but I do normally love painting very much, and I really can't wait to have it all finished! I think it will be quite beautiful.

And definitely much more welcoming than all the white!

Don't you think?

Hold On to the Lasts

Have you ever read the children's book by Karen Kingsbury, Let Me Hold You Longer?

It's a beautiful story about cherishing the lasts with our kids. No one needs a book to remind you to celebrate all the firsts - first roll, first steps, first words, and so on. But the lasts? Somewhere along the way, your kids stop doing special things and you don't often even notice until you look back and say, "huh...haven't gotten to fill in the blank for awhile now."

Well, yesterday I may have had a last with Josh and I'm cherishing it in my mommy heart.

He actually fell asleep during his rest time. Yes, he'll be six soon. And yes, he does still sometimes take a nap.

Sarah, my sweet 3 year old, on the other hand? Hardly ever. She sings and plays and needs to go to the bathroom 800 times during her rest time.

Anyways...it got to be rather late in the afternoon, so I went up to wake him up so he'd still sleep at night. I went in his room and softly kissed him and told him it was awfully late and he could get up and go play. He literally popped up out of bed and walked over to his door. Then, he turned around and muttered something to me. I have no idea what he said as he certainly wasn't speaking English.

This is the good part...

Then, he came over and snuggled into my lap and curled up in a ball and went back to sleep. In my arms. All snuggled and warm.

Oh, sweet mommy moment.

It's not too often you get to snuggle with a sleepy kindergartner. It is quite likely I may never again have a moment with him like that. And so today, my bright spot is noticing and cherishing this precious last with my son.

Life goes by so fast. I don't want to wish it away, and I never want to take it for granted! Thank you, Karen, for reminding me to celebrate the lasts, as well as the firsts.

Ten Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today, I woke up absolutely giddy with excitement.

Just a few moments later, though, my mom was in my room saying, "We need to talk."

Apparently, 18 inches of snow fell overnight and getting around town was more than difficult to do. Not to mention, that there were orders from local authority that if you were on the roads for any reason other than an emergency, you would be fined.

This poses just a slight problem when it's your wedding day!

But alas, (did I just say alas?)...no need to be upset. I seriously didn't freak out about any of it! I just called my sweet soon-to-be-husband at the hotel and asked him to go door to door and tell our guests who were staying there to just head to the church - we'd figure it out from there!

I tell you what - no one who was part of our wedding that day will ever forget it! Everyone chipped in and made sure we were able to have our special day! Friends with vehicles that were able to brave the weather headed to pick up grandparents or the grocery store to get the staples - you know, meat trays, cheese trays, champagne. (Did I mention that we couldn't have our reception as planned, and had to throw together an impromptu one in the church basement?) Hubby's uncles used their trucks to dig out the snow plow (yeah, I'm not kidding!) and clear off the church parking lot as best as they could.

All in all, it was an amazingly special day. I don't think anything could have wiped the grin off my face. Our goal was to become husband and wife, and that was achieved.

10 years ago today, I married my best friend.


And the last ten years have been filled with many, many happy memories. Three beautiful children, some amazing vacations, new homes, new jobs, lots of great times together. Yes, some troubles too, but those have only brought us closer together.

Today, 10 years after that beautiful (yet very snowy) day, I am more in love with him than ever before.

And I can't wait to see what the next ten years (and beyond!) bring.

Enjoying the Break

Ahh...it's so nice to be on break! We had a great Christmas and I hope you all did, too!

Hubby was home from work for 5 1/2 days and we loved just having some downtime as a family. We celebrated Christmas with my side of the family Christmas Eve day and again on Christmas morning and had so much fun! (We spent the previous weekend with Hubby's side of the family and had a blast there, too!) After that, though, it was just the five of us. Doing a lot of relaxing, playing with new toys, and enjoying each other.

Well, plus the puking.

Josh and Sarah either caught a little bit of a bug or just ate one too many cookies...either of which are complete possibilities. They just didn't seem quite like themselves for a couple of days. But for the most part, it didn't interfere with any of our celebrating. The only time it was bad was when Josh threw up on the letters to Santa. Of all the places he could have thrown up! I thought Sarah was going to lose it, she was so sad.

In all seriousness, we had a great time celebrating Jesus' birthday and making lots of great family memories...

• Josh pumping his fists by his side and saying "Yes!" on every present he opened
• Sarah requesting the "ax" song while singing Christmas carols around our tree on Christmas Eve (what we finally figured out she was wanting was Angels We Have Heard on High...you know Gloria...in "ax"celsis deo.)
• Megan squealing and waving her arms with excitement at her family
• Playing lots and lots of Wii and Connect Four

I'm just so grateful for my family! We're taking the rest of this week off of school, and enjoying a little more down time before it's back to business next Monday.

Ugh...that just doesn't sound right!

I guess I'll just focus on being grateful for the down time we do have, for the job that Hubby has, and that we all actually like to be together! Those are all definite bright spots!

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to wish you all a very merry Christmas! I hope it is a special day for you to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Merry, merry Christmas!!

A New Tradition

We started a new Christmas tradition this year! I don't remember where Hubby got the idea, but he thought it would be fun if each year at Christmas time, we spent a night in sleeping bags around the Christmas tree.

The kids were so excited!

Well, Josh and Sarah were. Megan was too little, so she had to still go to bed in her crib.

We let them stay up a little late to watch a Charlie Brown Christmas movie on TV and then we tucked them all in and shared some of our favorite Christmas memories before heading to bed.

In all truthfulness, the storytelling ended around 9:30 when Josh said, "I'm tired. Can we just go to sleep?"

Too funny.

So we all settled in our sleeping bags for a good night's sleep. On the hard floor. Okay, maybe not the best night's sleep, but a lot of fun.


Any guesses on who was the first one asleep?

I had one squirmy, snuggly, love bug on one side of me and another squirmy, snuggly, love bug on the other side of me. It wasn't me. It wasn't said squirmy, snuggly love bugs Josh or Sarah.

It was hubby.

But we were all soon behind him. And we actually slept fairly well. The kids, in fact, didn't wake up until 8:30!

I'd say it was a success and we'll do it again next year!

What about you? Any fun or different traditions your family has at Christmastime?

A visit with Santa

My kids love our annual outing to see Santa.

Yeah, they get a little nervous about it - especially Sarah, but there's just something magical about sitting on that jolly guy's lap and sharing their desires for new toys.

This year their requests seem to be based on whatever is on a commercial or in a sale flyer. There just hasn't been that one thing they just have to have. I don't have a problem with that, except that I don't really want them having the "gimmies."

You know...I want this, I want that...I want this, I want that...

So before we left to visit Santa I tried to work with them to come up with something that they really wanted, so they didn't just ask Santa for a candy cane because that's what was hanging next to him.

We practiced a ton of times. Sarah wanted a Barbie or a Sleeping Beauty doll, but it had to have a pink comb. Josh still changed his mind every time I asked. He really thought he wanted a Kota My Triceratops, but that's a lot of money for something that says its for ages 3 -5 and he turns six in a couple of months.

So we met Daddy at The Children's Museum for a special midday treat and waited in line to see Santa. When they get up there, Josh looked at Santa and said, "Do you still have Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?"

Santa answered that yes, he did, and that he would need his help if the weather is bad on Christmas Eve. Then Santa went on for awhile about how scientists figured out exactly how long he had to stop at each house (I think he said .42 milliseconds?) and how he would really need Rudolph's help, but that he had some extra help, too, by changing time zones. He kinda lost the kids in the explanation and then when he asked what they wanted for Christmas, all our practicing was forgotten.

Josh said he wanted a "stand up gun", and Sarah thought and thought and finally said she wanted a castle "like that one over there" and pointed across the room.

Kids.

Cute, cute kids.

Hopefully Santa can find them just what they want.

Good luck, dude!

Cute Glasses

Since I missed a couple of weeks of blogging, I never got to share a picture of Sarah in her new glasses.

So, without further ado, here she is....

Her world is so much brighter now! We've even had comments from people that she seems more outgoing. Poor little lady just couldn't see!

We love you, "Sis!" You are so stinkin' cute!!

The truth behind the quiet home

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I hope you all did, too!

I have so much to be thankful for - my family, my friends, my health, my home, and my salvation, for starters.

This morning I'm thankful for quiet.

Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love homeschooling. I love having the first-row seat to see Josh learn and grasp new concepts. I love being there to watch him read something for the first time. I love watching him and Sarah become the best of friends. I could go on and on...

But I also love that we're part of a co-op where every three to four weeks, I get two hours to myself. I don't have to teach. I don't have to do childcare. I get a day off. All three of my kiddos are at co-op, and I'm not.

Sometimes I run a bazillion errands - you know, the kind where you have to run in somewhere for 30 seconds to grab one thing. Yeah, the kind that aren't fun to do with three kids in tow.

Today I opted to return home and have two hours of quiet to do my own stuff. I've downloaded and organized all my pictures from the last 6 months. I've done two loads of laundry. I've updated facebook. I've blogged.

Wanna know a secret? I say it's quiet, but truthfully, the whole time Christmas music has been blasting through my speakers.

I love it.

Because nothing says "Welcome home, Honey!" quite like this...

Lovely, I know. Poor little Megan ralphed all over herself, me, and the kitchen floor seconds before we were expecting hubby home on Friday after work.

Normally when he comes home on Fridays, we all meet him and cheer, "It's the weekend!!!" This Friday, I said, "You get her. I'll get me. Then we'll get the floor."

Yum.

Not really a bright spot, but kinda funny.

At least now, anyways.