House Projects and Other Stuff.

Exciting title huh?

I have been super busy working on all our house projects and other resolutions on my list. I have cleared out the front closet (and got rid of a bunch of coats that we never wear), went through all my extra decorations in the cupboards on the bottom of living room shelves, went through most of the kitchen cabinets clearing and decluttering, and reorganized our entertainment center even the top of it! Our kitchen and bathroom cabinets our actually naked right now as the cabinet company came back to collect them and refinish the front of the lower cabinets doors and drawers. The finish on the top of several of them had started to peel away from water damage, we didn't realize that we were supposed to apply a wood oil to the front of the cabinets at least once a year. Whoops! Fortunately, Todd works closely to the contractor who recommended the cabinet company so they came and did all this work for free!

I also went through the kids toys and got rid of a bunch of junk. I bought some round wooden circles, had gramps help me drill two small holes into them, spray painted them black, labeled them with a white paint pen and attached them to some new and existing wicker baskets with white ribbon to reorganize our toys in the playroom. I wanted it to have a chalkboard look, but without letting my kids easily wipe the labels away! That drives me crazy, LOL! I also attached a few to the wicker baskets in our entryway.

I still have a lot left to do. I want to work on our master bedroom next. I have been putting off finishing our bedroom since we moved into our house. I have lots of plans, one of the first steps is to paint the bed frame, dresser and mirror frame black. I started to paint an armoire (that I bought almost two years ago at a garage sale) to put in our room but the black is not a true black so I am going to sand and start all over with a paint/primer in one which I found on a blog that is supposed to be fabulous. I also want to reorganize our closet, finally paint our fireplace mantel white which was put in 3 years ago, build and hang some shelves and make some art work for above our headboard. To finish off the room I want to buy a new duvet cover and a chaise lounge that I have been coveting from IKEA. So excited to get these projects underway!

I also need to list a bunch of stuff on craigslist! I am finally ready to get rid of all most of the baby and toddler things as well as a bunch of other items that I have been meaning to list!

In other news, the boys have been getting along fabulously lately! They are really at the age where they can play so nice together. Bryson is finally understanding "rules" of the games (which Jaden primarily creates;). Of course, this is not always the case and they have their disagreements too. They are both really into superheroes right now and often role-play. Bryson, especially, is obsessed with wearing his Superman cape everyday. He also loves his Superman shirt and would wear it everyday if I let him.

Here are a few pictures of them playing Hungry Hungry Hippo today in their matching p.j.'s:)



Here are the baskets by our front door with the circle labels.

The playroom baskets.

Coming Home!

So I think we know by now that I was/am a big NKOTB fan. I heard that they were doing 3 preview parties for their new dvd Coming Home (hence the title) that's coming out in February. I never thought in a million years that they would come to Seattle though. Last Friday, I read on Twitter that they were in fact coming here for their very first preview!!! To get a chance to earn a free ticket all I had to do is send in an email. I sent my email in on a Friday evening and finally on Sunday evening I heard back from them that I got a spot!!! My friend Lisa got in too!
The preview was on a Tuesday so I met Lisa at Lincoln Square theater in Bellevue a few hours before the preview was to start. We had planned on getting some food and drinks but Lisa got there before me and said that there was a bunch of people already waiting in line! We had fun chatting with some great girls from all over Washington while we waited. Tons of people thought we were waiting in line for the movie Avatar, lol!
Here's a picture of the poster.

We got really great seats up close, but in hindsight we saw a section reserved in the middle of the theater and totally should have sat in front of those seats since that was where the New Kids ended up sitting;) Here they are entering the theater, as grown women revert to their 12 year old selves and go crazy screaming!
My first love Joey McIntyre:) He is actually quite small in stature in person! Sorry, my love, it wouldn't have worked out anyway, since I like my men tall, lol!
Jordan Knight, my friend Lisa's first "love". He shook my hand as he passed me by, swoon. . .
Donnie Wahlberg, the original "bad boy" of the group but now he's the super nice one!
Jon Knight
This was during the dvd preview, one of the songs came on and we all got up to dance. The guys were throwing popcorn and making jokes, it was so fun!
After the dvd, they came down the stairs and did a Q&A. This was when I was happy once again that we were in the 4th row:)
Mr. Jon Knight
Danny and Joe coming down the stairs
Joe talking during the Q&A. It was so dark that the pictures didn't turn out well, then Jon asked people to please stop taking pictures as the flashes were bothering him.
Then Donnie came up the stairs to where Lisa and I were waiting and we both got pictures with him. He seriously was super nice and down to earth. He kept his glasses off for her picture and then right after. . .
he put them on. Apparently, he wanted to look more like a rock star with me;) Could I be cheesing more!

It's so nice to go back and relive one of your childhood dreams! I never thought I would ever get so close to one of the New Kids, let alone touch a few of them. There were meet and greets before their last 2 concerts that I went to, but it cost close to $500. No thanks, my kids need to be fed! So it was especially great to be able to meet some of them in person for free.

I was even on ENews for a second!

I am standing behind to the right of the blond girl at 0:05 and 0:39;)

Basement and resolutions

We cleared the basement this weekend, in hopes of actually working on it this winter. I have a ton of things on my New Years resolution list this year. Most of them involve organization, many have been put off for years! These do not have to be done in order, but I am hoping to work on completing most of them during the cold winter months.

1) organize and go through all closets (downstairs and upstairs)
2) organize and go through all drawers and cabinets (kitchen, entertainment and bathrooms)
3) go through all kids toys in playroom and bedrooms (make labels for the baskets)
4) hang shelf above entertainment center (buy brackets to hang)
5) finish curtains and rehang rods (we hung them too low in several places originally so I want to fix that)
6) hang wallpaper in the laundry room
7) get cabinets for the laundry room and hang
8) hang pull-out hanging dryer for the laundry room that my dad gave me for my birthday 2 years ago!
9) build shelves in the storage room upstairs
10) finish our bedroom, which will involve: painting our bedroom furniture black
11) building shelves to put on the wall
12) making art for the wall above our headboard
13) finally painting the fireplace mantel that Gramps and Todd made 3 years ago!
14) take a bunch of stuff to the Goodwill after going through toys, closets, drawers and cupboards
15) build a shelf system for Jaden to display his Legos
16) build some book racks for Jaden's room
17) find material to sew a fort around Jaden's loft bed
18) help Todd on the basement when possible
19) paint guest bedroom and move Bryson (this may not happen until next fall, but I already know what I want to do for his new bedroom).
20) list and sell a bunch of stuff on Craigslist!

I'm sure a lot will be added to my to-do list as the year progresses, mostly I feel the strong urge to get organized! We have collected so much stuff since we moved into this house almost 5 years ago and I am ready to purge a lot!

What I did on Christmas Break. . .

The day after Christmas was gorgeous, so Todd and I took the boys to Alki so that they could ride their bike and scooter and also go to Whale Tail park.

Yes, Jaden is wearing a t-shirt. In December! In Seattle!

We spent some time putting together some more toys from Christmas. The boys are loving their new treehouse that Santa brought!
I took the boys and Kailee to the zoo.




This coin collector is an absolute favorite, we do it everytime before we leave.
We met friends at the park on a much colder day at Whale Tail. Bryson is super into swinging lately, he LOVES big underdogs and going "super high"!
Jaden is my little daredevil climber and is constantly pushing the limits on what he can climb on at parks. . .
Bryson and Evan in the "baby" swings.

On New Year's Eve we met up with friends at the Pacific Science Center. Jaden and Kailee found this giant chess set right away. Jaden has been really interested in chess lately, ever since I set up a chess set in our living room. He can't get enough of it!
Bryson and Evan got in the way. . .
All set up and ready to play.

We went into the butterfly house.
Jaden and Kailee and the butterfly species map.
Bryson acting like a dinosaur!
We also saw a 3D Imax show called "Santa and the Snowman". Everyone really liked it:)

Gramps, Todd and Bryson went to a T-birds game. Bryson has to wear his monkey-hockey shirt whenever he goes!
B and Cool Bird

Todd and I took the boys ice skating. This was something I have wanted to do up in Whistler for the past 2 years but we never seem to find the time. Jaden took to it pretty quickly, although wobbly he understood what to do.
We rented a walker for Bryson. It didn't help much, because he still hated it!
I made him go all the way around, because I thought he might warm up to it and enjoy it once he got used to ice skating. The look on his face says it all!
Todd and I took turns sitting with B and skating with J.
After Bryson rested for a bit, I talked him into trying it one more time.
Bryson definitely prefers to watch the zamboni!