Table Transformation

Shortly before we moved out here to CO, Adam's parents had completed a beautiful remodel of their home.  Part of that extreme home makeover was the purchase of a new dining room set, which freed up the old oak table set they had had since Adam was a tiny boy.  The side chairs were beautiful and unique; antique pub chairs that Nicolle had found at an antiques store in Seattle and refinished.  The table and head chairs were purchased from The Oak Barn ("We'll save. you. money!"  That's one of those commercial taglines that will forever be seared into my brain!).  It was opportune that we were about to move into this house, which had a formal dining room, but we had no dining room table.  Nicolle kindly offered us their old one, which is perfect for our big family, plus a few extra, when all the leaves are in.  Honestly, most days we eat around our kitchen island.  It's much easier to do that than to move the food into the dining room, but it is still a room we use for special occasions, and one of the first rooms you see when you walk into our house so I've been wanting to spruce the room up.  However, with braces and soccer to pay for the budget is slim, so we had to go with sprucing on the cheap.

Recently I started researching ways to refinish the table, to give it a little more character and update it a bit.  I would never touch the lovely side chairs, why make real antiques look antique?  But felt the table and head chairs were fair game, sorry Oak Barn.  Thanks to Pinterest, I learned about Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, which requires no sanding (hallelujah!), and with the dark wax finish, creates a beautiful painted antique look.  I was a little nervous, I'm no pro at stuff like this, and it's a large piece of furniture, so if it came out ugly, that would really be bad.  But it was time for some change and after watching several YouTube DIY videos on using the paint/wax process, I felt I could do it.  Plus, my friend Kendra had used this process with success that I could see on her own living room furniture.  With the boys back in school, I had a little more time on my hands to take the refinishing project on, so I swallowed my fear and dove right in.

It only took me one day and it WAS easy!  I had help from Adri painting the table top and one of the two head chairs (seriously, that was the hardest part, all those danged spindles!), and assistance from Adam helping with the wax, he waxed on, I waxed off (the dark wax was the other hard part, rubbing it off took some major elbow grease and my finger tips are bruised from getting it in and around all the little crevices).  But the effort was worth it.

I love how it turned out!  It is beautiful!  My new dining room light is on its way (YES!  The ugliest dining room chandelier known to man is in its death throes!), and then the room will be much more to my taste.  It is amazing how one small change can make a huge difference in the way the room looks.  More autumn projects to come!  I am excited!

Before.  Not bad at all for a 30 year old table, but let's spruce it up a bit.

Painted and sanded...I'll admit, I was a little worried about that blue, called "Duck Egg Blue" before the wax went on.  It was a little too...bluey.

Sanding to add some character and "distress."

Post-wax.  LOVE!  The blue darkened and greened a bit with the dark wax.  I love it!!

Close up.

With the chairs.

Chair detail.

One more week of you, ugly lighting!  So ugly, apparently, that I refused to even dust you!

This is what will be.  YIPPEEEEEE!

The Bits: August 19th through August 25th

I thought this week's Bits would be short with the boys back in school.  But they are not.  Mostly because we had the most insanely packed weekend!  The early part of the week was full of finding fun things to do with just Tom.  It was strange to be packing snacks and water bottles for only one.  I shouldn't be too surprised at the length of The Bits, we are in full school/fall activities swing now.  It's quite the juggling act, but thanks to a carpool group for Ben's soccer practices, it's manageable and {most} of us eat dinner together every night still and, thankfully, we have a few evenings when all of us do!  One of the tragic losses for this autumn was Landsharks.  Josh will soon be starting swim team twice a week, and never really loved the running anyhow, Ben desperately wanted to run, but his soccer schedule is just too much, and the meets were all on practice nights, and we made the choice for Luke, with two days a week of soccer, we think he will have enough for this season.  It's a bit of a bummer, but I'm trying to let it go.

Alllllrightee....Here are this week's The Bits!

On Monday, Tommy and I baked up a few batches of melt-in-your-mouth buttery chocolate chip cookies to welcome the brothers home after their first day of school.  I believe I ate way more than my fair share, of course, I had to sample at least one from each batch!

While I was trying to get some housework done in the afternoon, Tommy's boredom without brothers was taken to a new level when he could find nothing better to do than stick a small red Lego piece up his nostril.  It did make his nose bleed a bit (which hopefully scared him enough to keep him from doing it again), but fortunately didn't require a trip to Urgent Care.

Hoping to avoid another Lego/nostril boredom disaster, I took Tommy to the library for story time on Tuesday morning and then we followed up lunch with a walk to Yo Yogurt.  Next time we go, I am only putting gummy worms in his actual cup and giving him just a few sample cups of yogurt, that's all he really wants anyhow.

Tommy and I met up with Tina and Beckett, a couple of fun friends for both of us, at the park on Wednesday to hang out in the late-August heatwave sunshine.  The boys were so cute playing together, following each other all over the playground.  Obviously two little brothers missing their older sibs!

Zac was elected captain for his soccer team by his teammates for this season.  We think it was a wonderful nod to the kind of kid Zac is, he's just a nice, respect-worthy guy!  He's so cute and bashful about the whole thing.  As captain, he helps get the team warmed up at practices and games and peps them up.  He has one co-captain, Jack, chosen by Coach Andrew, and there is a third rotating captain that will switch each weekend among the other boys.

In classic D20 style, the boys started the school year...and then stopped.  After three days of school, Thursday and Friday the boys were out again, only going in for a short time on one of the two days, so the placement tests could be taken.  I'm never sure why they don't do these before the first day so the kids can just get going, but this year I was kind of glad for Luke to have a couple of free days to recover after the initial punch of the first 3 days of all-day school. 

Testing gave us time to play on the school playground while we waited for various brothers to start and finish their tests (this year I didn't get them lined up well and we ended up at the school from 9am-11:15am).  Luke loves the tire swing!  Josh is the best tire swing pusher, and gave Luke some awesome flying spin swings.  Later, after a tire swing break, Luke spun some more with a friend from his class last year...and then barfed.  I guess there is a limit to spinning joy.

You really can't go wrong with a playground play day!  It even had Josh and Luke embracing!

More wild weather has been moving through our state.  We've had a little less of it, and it's been really hot, but on the days the storms do come, they come in mighty!  On the day I took this picture, a large section of neighborhoods just to the west of us got pounded.  The streets flooded and so did a few basements.

More than meets the eye!  Man, this kid cracks me up!

Josh is such a sweet snuggler!  I can always count on him for some love.

I don't know what it is about my boys and cursive, but they have all gotten so excited to learn cursive in 3rd grade.  It's not like it keeps.  They all have pretty sloppy print handwriting.  Oh well.  This year is Josh's turn, and he's already mastered his name.  He's thrilled!

Friday night, Adam and Ben attended our Stake 11-Year-Old Camp Out at the Air Force Academy.  Ben turns 11 next week and will move out of Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts.  With so little time before his birthday, they invited him to attend.  He had a great time helping retire old US flags (seen in the photo above), hiking around the beautiful AFA base, practicing using woods tools in the ax throwing yard to earn his Totin' Chip, and learning all about orienteering.  When I picked him up for his game on Saturday before the scout activities were over, he was torn between his love for soccer and his love for scouting.  Adam loves attending these things with the boys.  He says it's a chance for the dads to hang out with other dads living the dad life and the boys to have a blast celebrating boyhood.

Friday night, while Adam was away with Ben, I went out to water the pumpkin plant and noticed about 8 of these shiny, venomous ladies hanging out by our window well, enjoying the cool night air.  Um.  No.  It is like something straight out of my nightmares.  Seriously.  The moisture we've had this summer is really bringing out the spiders like I've never seen in CO before.  After a night of spider night terrors, where I would wake up batting at the sheets and frantically switching on the light, I purchased spider death spray.  Sorry, gals!  If you weren't poisonous, as long as you stayed outside I'd appreciate your bug-killing ways, but you are, so sayonara spiders! 

Zac's Saturday afternoon game was up in Broomfield, followed by a Sunday game in Vail.  Since the games were both so far away, we allowed Zac to play the Sunday game, which we usually don't do, and Adam and Zac made it a boys' weekend away.  However, Adam invited the two little boys to go with them at the last moment.  Huh?  I only protested for about a second with an, "Are you sure????" and then ran to pack them.  Oh boy, was it ever quiet around here for a couple of days! Adam came home exhausted, "Those little boys are a LOT of energy!" but said they had a great time, other than his mega allergy attack.  Zac came home with two ties, one 0-0 after the Broomfield game was called at halftime due to lightning, and 2-2 for the Vail game.  The second game, according to Adam, was one of the best games the boys have ever played.

With no small boys at my side who need 75% of my attention during most soccer games (leaving only 25% for the game), I decided to bring Ruby with us to Ben's Saturday afternoon game.  She was thrilled, and charmed her way into Ben's teammates' families' hearts, as she always does.  Her joy for being at the game was evident when she salivated on my shorts after Ben's team won with a 4-0 shutout.

I asked Ben to go water the pumpkin Saturday afternoon (the water was already on so he didn't have to go near the black widows!).  When I looked out to check on him, he was reading and spraying simultaneously.  That's my darling bibliophile multitasker!

Saturday night, Ben, Josh and I attended a little impromptu BBQ at the Murdocks'.  Our friends, the Maynards (of Wasatach Back Ragnar fame) were in town for a baptism.  Although it was last-minute, our friends the Nunnellys, who live in Fountain now, and the Perigos, who just moved back from Idaho, were also all able to go.  It was so FUN!  Like old times.  These were the families who were our first Colorado friends, so many gone in new directions now, but still just so treasured.

Me, Adri (and Annie), Kendra, Shaina and Becky--the color coordination was totally accidental!  These ladies are the best.  You know what they say about old friends.  They are gold.

After the BBQ, I dropped Ben and Josh off to get ready for bed and to have some reading time, and dashed to the sweatshirt-making party for my Colorado Ragnar team.  The race is just two weekends away!  We are Team Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, and now that these sweatshirts are done, we are ready to GO GO!  I can't wait.  It's going to be so fun!

Back to School: 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th

Monday, Luke, Josh and Ben awoke to a bright sunny morning on first day of the 2013/14 school year!  Tuesday Zac followed suit.  The boys have all had moments of excitement and dread over the past couple of weeks as that day approached, and I've felt similarly! 

Ben has a new teacher, Mme.  Ryan, who he already thinks is great because she played a get-to-know-you game on the first day involving throwing crumpled balls of paper at each other.  When we met her at the back-to-school ice cream social, she gave all her instructions in French.  I didn't understand a word, but Ben seemed to do all that was required, so I guess he's going to be OK.  He is excited about his turn as a fifth grade king-of-the-school and was really ready to see his pals on a regular basis again, especially those that were off at School in the Woods last year.  That was his favorite thing about day one--returning to his friends.  He did not love, however, the fact that in 5th grade he had homework assigned the very first day.

Josh is in third grade this year and, thankfully, has our beloved Mme. East!  I believe every single one of his closest friends ended up in his class this year, and that means a lot of very chatty, energetic boys, so we are already praying for and abundance of patience for Mme. East.  Josh has one play date set up for himself with a buddy for this afternoon, and he walked down the street to the home of another buddy after school on Monday, so Mr. Social jumped right back in the swing of things.  When asked what his favorite thing about the first day was he said, "It was all awesome."  So, I guess that this school-loving kid is also excited about the schoolwork part, even if all I'm hearing about are the friends!

Luke will be away from me all day this year, as he enters 1st grade French immersion with another new teacher, Mme. Cote.  {sob!}  We are both a little nervous about that, given that his June 2nd birthday places him on the younger end of the age spectrum and that he still is working through some of his emotional/sensory difficulties, but Luke is an amazing kid and has worked SO incredibly hard to overcome these challenges.  He is getting better and better at calming himself down and keeping himself in check, and rough moments and outbursts outside of our home are rare.  We've had a few clingy mornings since Monday, but once his class lineup begins the walk inside at the sound of the bell, he follows his teacher and classmates in without a problem.  And he has come home happy, excited and hungry all three days, with a lovely green square colored in on his "how was my day?" calendar, meaning it was a good day according to Mme. Cote, too!  He said his favorite thing about day one was having three recesses.   

Zac had a very good first day, which, with his upbeat attitude, was no surprise as his bad days are pretty infrequent.  He has two best buddies at school (who are also church friends), Grant (Zac's locker partner) and Jake, and he is extra excited this year to share MRMS with one of his favorite neighborhood friends, Josiah, who lived in Nigeria last year and attended TCA prior to that, so they've never gone to school together.  He said his first day was spent saying, "Hey, how was your summer?" to a lot of his classmates.  Zac is excited to tackle his academics, especially his algebra class, and is ready to get and stay organized this year to combat those late-assignment deductions that seemed to plague him last year. 

Tommy and I are having fun hanging out together, just us two, and have already had some adventures together to fill the brother-free time.  He has developed the ability to fill the quiet void with incessant chatter; it's really funny!  Tommy will have his own first day of  school after Labor Day, when he with start attending preschool twice a week at Mrs. Rachel's home.  He is really excited, although I forsee some difficulties at drop-off time because we two are Velcroed right now. 

Let the daily grind begin!

Josh looked excited, Luke looked unsure and Ben looked exhausted from a long soccer-tournament weekend.  But they all had great days!

First day jitters seriousness.

Lion waited patiently by the door all day for his special buddy, Luke, to come home.

The Bits: August 4th through August 18th

Here's a bit of what else has been going on the past two weeks:

• Our rogue pumpkin plant started growing a pumpkin!  With five boys that may be a problem. 
• We visited our favorite museum, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, with our pals, Cooper, Caden and Chelsea East, or Mme. East as the boys call her!  She has become a good friend of mine over the years of teaching both Zac and Ben in third grade, and now Josh!  HOORAY!
• Much to our chagrin, our once upon a time amazing sleeper, Tommy, has become a bedtime battle warrior.  He stays in the bedroom pretty well, but clowns around enough that we don't know exactly where we will find him ultimately passed out.  Last week it was once on the rocking chair, and once looking like he had indulged himself in one too many Mai Tais at a bachelor party in Hawaii!
• Back-to-school is upon us, and with it the painful cost of back-to-school everything.  Owie.
• I finally caught one of those lesser-known, randomly designated "holidays" BEFORE it was gone, yes!  And what a good one to catch--Root Beer Float Day!  
• Our lily garden is lovely, if I do say so myself!
• Summer storm after storm after storm!  They are so beautiful and exciting, but also so destructive and tragic to the areas that are near to the burned-out fire zones.  In the last two weeks one of the storms hit Black Forest and washed out roads and culverts, and a second hit the Waldo Canyon Burn Scar and flooded Manitou Springs, destroying homes, cars, businesses and taking a couple of lives.
• I spent a lovely morning with my friend Kristen at the temple.  It was a really nice way to start the day! 
• The boys were welcomed back to school with Grizzly Jump Start for Zac (which I failed to photo) and the AIES Ice Cream Social for Ben, Josh and Luke.  I am so ready and not-so-ready at all for school to start again...I think the boys are feeling the same way.
• With four days left before school begins, the boys had the chance to enjoy the last bit of summer vacation freedom, swimming in the sunshine with their favorite neighborhood buddies when they were all invited to our neighbors' pastor's pool. I did not mention we were Mormon as the conversation circled around religion the entire visit.  I don't know if he would have tried to start a debate or kicked us out, but I am pretty sure it would have been one or another!
• Adam and I celebrated our anniversary with dinner out and a moonlight walk.  It was a happy and sweet celebration! 
• The pumpkin keeps growing in spite of the devastation to the plant during the hail storm.  But, darn it, there's still only one pumpkin!
• Tommy always says he wants to draw during sacrament meeting, but what he really wants is for one of us to draw something of his choosing for him.  This morning's masterpiece was created by Adam when Tommy wanted a picture of his Star Wars Squinkies.
• We had a glorious sunset on the eve of the first day of school!  I hope it is a sign for the great year ahead.