When we last left the breakfast room...

It looked like this:

Then Monday night we put the chair rail in and painted the bottom half:
Same wall shown here, but just FYI, this is what the rest of the breakfast room- where we eat ALL our meals- not just breakfast- looks like:
We are renaming it the disaster room for the time being.

Tuesday night we had sex training (Please read the link if you don't what I'm talking about. It wasn't nearly as fun as that sounds.) then Jason had a "meeting" Wednesday night. But, we did plan the layout for the squares after he got home from the bar with his friends his meeting.

So tonight I had a school board meeting (not at a bar, unfortunately), but we penciled in the places for these gems and Jason hung them while I was gone! I think it's shaping up!

We still have several squares left to do, but the majority are done.

If you noticed the big space at the top of the ceiling it's because we are putting new crown molding up there. We're using 12 foot pieces and this is what ghetto fabulousness looks like bringing home 12 foot molding:

Talk about blind spot! I had a blind SIDE.


Here are the things we have left to do:
- Paint crown molding.
- Hang crown molding.
- Hang rest of squares.
- Putty all cracks.
- Touch up with both paint colors.
- Re-install all outlets and switches.
- Decorate the darn room so it doesn't look like you're staring at the sun.

In case you're interested, all the wood supplies are from Lowe's. The paint is, too: the yellow color is Deep Cowslip #5 by Laura Ashley and the bottom color is actually left over from when we moved in. It is from Sherwin Williams and is called Creamy- because nothing is actually called white!

And the chair rail is supposed to be 1/3 of the way up your wall, but we have to deal with an air vent, so ours is a little taller than that. Our walls are 8 ft. and the chair rail is at 35 inches.

The squares are 14 inches across by 23 inches tall and they are hung approx. (depending on wall length) 6 inches apart and are even from top of base boards and bottom of chair rail.

OK, sorry to bore you, but if you are a design person that might help.

And I've temporarily moved my computer station to the same breakfast room since the office is so cold. So goodnight from the yellow surface of the sun.

The Potty

Today is the beginning of day 2 in the 3 Day Potty Training boot camp. Our house is on lockdown and Harris has been shipped off to Connie and Irv's for the weekend. I feel almost like I did when I was in the hospital after our babies were born- like the rest of the world is spinning and ours has stopped.

Owen will be 3 on August 23rd and has to be potty trained for his next class at school which starts August 9th (how's that for a little pressure?). I was super pregnant and/ or just had a baby when I thought we should have started potty training him, so I just kept putting it off. There are my excuses. I have more, but I'll spare you.

Point is, we put this weekend on the calendar about a month ago to knock it out. I was crying about it (fear, pressure, not wanting to deal with it) yesterday morning before we started, but I'm glad we did.

I found the information about this method on my friend Tara's blog and asked her about it. She said it worked great with her son- who is several months younger than ours- so I thought I'd try it. The more I read it, the more I liked it. I can't "reveal" all the secrets because it's actually patented and you have to buy the e-book yourself! I will tell you that we had to throw away all of Owen's diapers yesterday morning- he did it actually- even the hidden ones- that was mainly for us, the parents. Very scary. And we went through 13 pair of big boy underwear yesterday morning with lots of pee pee on our floor.

After that, I think he's actually getting it, though. He hasn't had an accident since yesterday around lunch time. He slept through his 3 hour nap and ALL through last night without an accident. He got up at 4:15 this morning and I went in there with him to pee pee in the potty and he got up all by himself around 6:30 and went to the potty and poo pooed BY HIMSELF. We got up when we heard him talking about it in the bathroom! HA!

This was Owen's special breakfast pancake this morning that Jason made. Pretty cute, huh?

So, day 1- not as bad as I was imagining. I'll let you know how the next 2 days go.

Here's the big boy this morning sporting some Diego undies. We have a collection of Cars, Mickey, Diego, Thomas- you name it. And I think he's worn most of them already!

As you can see from the first picture, we still have a yellow, pink and blue bathroom in our 1971 home. We'll eventually get to remodeling them, but they're working for right now. The boy's bathroom is the yellow one and I did yellow, green and black in there with bumble bees. Our bathroom is the blue one and we did brown and blue and actually already had a shower curtain that matched. And the pink is the guest 1/2 bath and I put brown in there, too. It will be a big project when we start, but I would like to eventually get some white potties and not colored ones. They make it a little more difficult to tell potty progress if you know what I mean- especially the yellow ones! OK- I'm getitng gross here. I've been in potty land- please forgive me!

Have a great Saturday!

Bathing Beauties

Since Jason has been out of town for a few days, I've been bathing the boys together. It works out really well: its a lot quicker, they love it and feed off of each other and I only get soaking wet once. Henry loves the change to a sit up tub, too!

Here is a picture from their first bath together 2 nights ago. I am so thankful, blessed, grateful- everything- that they like each other (right now- I'm not naive enough to think that will last forever!). Henry thinks Ollie hung the moon and Ollie thinks Henry is a cool toy. And he gets the girls' attention at school every morning. Not too bad to have around, you know...

And, yes, that's the kid's bathtub. Its yellow. That's right. It's the least offensive of our 3 1970's color-schemed bathrooms. We have the blue in the master bath and the guest half bath is a pink/ beige. We're talking floor tile, sinks, tubs, TOILETS and tile up half the wall. There is a major remodel in our future, but we're not brave enough to tackle it just yet. Any tips are most certainly welcome!