Kids, house, dog. My life!

It's been a while since I updated! I honestly haven't had a whole lot to blog about. I'm working on finishing the family room right now. As of now, I have the popcorn ceiling scraped, repaired and painted, the walls and trim painted, curtains hung, and I need to finish the fireplace and accessories and it'll be done. The fireplace is the big job right now that I've just been putting off...as much as I love home projects, that one is going to be a big one and I'm not really looking forward to it!!

Here is a sneak peek of the family room! Isn't the ceiling just lovely?? I'm pretty proud of it, I must say. It's certainly not perfect but it's still a hundred times better than the popcorn.

 Here's a before picture for comparison - you can't really see the popcorn, but if you look close you can tell it's there.

Popcorn ceilings are tricky to show before/after pictures of, because it's a HUGE difference in real life, and you simply can't show how amazing it is on camera! The thing that shocks me every time is how much higher the ceiling feels without it.


Other than little home projects here and there, I've been doing a lot of crafting and trying to keep the kids and dog entertained.

Here is a recent project:

I got the idea on Pinterest and re-created it. The wood is plain old pine boards from Lowes that I "weathered" using vinegar and steel wool. Soaked the steel wool in vinegar, rubbed it on the wood. Repeat 5 times or so, over the course of a few hours, and that's the color I got. Then I used acrylic paint to finish it. Easy peasy, much better than regular stain, and I love how it turned out!


Yesterday I let Benjamin try finger painting for the first time. He did better than I expected. He tried to eat it first thing, but after he tasted it one time he didn't try again. I guess it isn't very tasty stuff! I think today I'll try making edible play dough. I remember my mom making that when I was little, and I loved it! I bet my kids will too. :)

Ginny is getting big. She is still VERY much a puppy though, of course. She's almost house trained, but still has accidents here and there. And she's pretty bad at using her designated spot in the yard, she prefers to go right outside the back door, but...we're working on that. *sigh* Nothing like going outside in the morning to find a pile of poop. Blech!

She's really good at sit, stay...sometimes. She automatically sits when I get her food now, and doesn't go to eat until I say so (at least, for a couple of seconds! haha). I think that's pretty good. In the first picture, if she could talk, she would be saying something like "HEYCANIGETUPORWHATTHISISN'TVERYMUCHFUN!!!!!!!! YOUHAVEABOUTASECONDOKAYI'MDONENOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It was extremely difficult to get that picture of her sitting. Just saying.

Isn't she cute, though? Sometimes I have to remind myself of how cute she is, because she sure drives me nuts. She and the kids like to work together: they take turns being naughty so that I don't have a second of calm. But, yesterday I was feeling sick, and I was able to take a nap. So I really can't complain. Life is good!