When we were first looking at this house we wondered the same thing all potential homebuyers wonder…Why did they move? It turns out, that was an easy question to get answered: After 10 years the previous family had grown out of the house.

This house? Who can grown OUT of THIS house? It’s almost three times the size of the house I grew up in!

Turns out…they had eight kids. EIGHT. And oddly? Something about that made me love the house more. I think of all of the joyful chaos three kids brings into my life and I think that these walls held almost three times that. I look at the chunks out of the kitchen cabinets and I wonder how many trucks rolling across the kitchen floor made those? I look at dents in drywall and imagine some sort of wrestling match or tickle torture session. I fall back on that fact a lot when we’re talking wear and tear on this home: Well, there were eight kids living here. It explains stains on the carpet and loose handrails on the stairs. It probably explains why we got the house for $60/sq ft – because how can you afford the time or the cost of making a house perfect that has contained EIGHT WILD ANIMALS. You can’t. And I see the signs and I smile.

Like all of the goodies the landscapers dug up in our flowerbeds this week. All of the things left behind to become a type of Playschool Compost.

This? Is a Pokemon ball. It brought me total flashbacks from E’s youth.

I mean – this is all stuff they gave up on. With 8 kids – how can you keep track of missing shoes or toys? Seeing these things makes me wonder if any of our missing items from the old house could be found under the dirt somewhere in our yard.

When we met the couple at closing, the wife was pregnant. (NUMBER NINE.) She was about the size of my pinky finger and gorgeous. Kinda made me hate her a little. But I looked at her and the most surprising feeling crossed my mind: Jealousy. Not because she was so tiny even pregnant with her ninth kid. Not because she dressed nice and knew how to put on makeup. No, I was jealous because of her eight nine kids. Not that I’ve ever wanted that many kids, it’s a thought that has never crossed my mind, but I imagine the joy and fun and vitality one child brought into my life for 10 years, and now I have that times three. So, looking at that Mom-to-be-again, I kinda wish I had it times eight nine.

I know the reality is with 8 times the joyful chaos, comes 8 times the PAINFUL chaos. If someone offered me a family of 8 kids today? I’d punch them in the face and run in the opposite direction as fast as my feet could carry me. But it’s still fun to think about. Never a dull or lonely moment. I feel the energy in this house sometimes, when it’s quiet. Like the wall are bursting with the laughs and screams of the family before. It’s a neat feeling and I hope that as the years go on, the walls continue to hold the joys of our family.

But maybe the house will let us keep our shoes.

Tuesdays are trash day at the Zoot house. And just like Mondays (Curbside recycling pickup day.) I spend the morning with my ears tuned in for the sound of the BIG TRUCK coming up the street. We often miss the recycling truck as he comes around naptime, but the garbage truck usually comes right before we leave to take E to school so we often hear him and sit on the stoop waiting for him to come take our garbage. Yesterday we caught him, and like usual, Wes waved frantically at the driver. The driver waved back yesterday, which we thought was the MOST AWESOME THING EVER.

We were wrong.

Since Wes kept waving at him, even after he waved back, the driver honked his horn for us. And right then? Wes died. He could not believe what had just happened. We had to call Daddy at work and tell him all about it. We told the E on the way to school and we told the preschool teachers when we dropped of Nikki. He was just beside himself with excitement. CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED, Mom?

(Sidenote: My Dad would have LOVED that. He was kinda fascinated with big trucks too.)

Well…just when Wes thought he had reached the high point of his day, we came home to this.

See…our landscaping on the front of our house is not really the type we either like OR want to manage. It’s a bunch of big shrubs that would require some massive trimming and then maintenance to keep them from growing over the stairs. There’s a hodgepodge of stuff going on in the flowerbeds, none of which is low maintenance. And there are weird issues where obviously things died and they were just removed leaving gaps in whatever design there was going on. I called a local landscaper (whose receptionist immediately bragged about it being the only female-owned landscaping business in town – which I LOVED) and she came out and priced digging EVERYTHING out (except 3 crepe myrtles and one non-maintanence needed shrub) and starting over. So they brought the bobcat in yesterday morning to dig the stuff out. When they’re done I’ll show you pictures of all the stuff they found in the shrubs/flowerbeds. Have I ever mentioned that the family that lived here before had 8 kids? Well, half of their shoes were left behind in our flower beds.

I never took a “before” picture, but here’s a coupled “just got started” pictures:

Basically they’re digging everything up and planting some Azaleas and some ground cover in the beds that I wont have to think about. I want LOW MAINTENANCE since I have no interest in taking care of anything. It needs to be able to survive on it’s own around here. Just ask our kids.

Wes and I sat out IN THE RAIN yesterday and watched them dig everything up. I don’t think Wes understood at all what was going on, but he did NOT want to stop watching when we had to take the kids to the vet. I didn’t think the bobcat would still be here when we got back but it was and Wes watched out the window until they left. I’m certain the entire time he was thinking, “If only I could drive that thing…”

I know – without a doubt – that today will be nothing but disappointment after yesterday. As a matter of fact, it may just go downhill from there. That was a damn good day for a 2-year old little boy.

This is the view of the TV in the Man Room. We called it the Man Room because it allows Donnie to finally have a nice TV watching setup and I left him in charge of picking out the furniture we needed in it since he let me do the sitting room. The couch tables are hand-me-downs from his parents but he picked out the couches and we both found the TV table. The bean bag is a Comfy Sack and before we got the couches it was the only thing to sit on in the room – which was FINE because I LOVE THAT THING. I actually slept on it several nights. All of the animals love it too and even though it weighs a trillion pounds and is impossible to move, it is probably the best couch I’ve ever sat on. LOVE IT.

We’re not close to having everything set up for the TV yet. We just hooked up the DVD player a few weeks ago and we have 47 game systems that were hooked up to the TV in the old house. BUT I HATED THAT. So, I’m not going to hook them up here. If someone wants to play one (which they rarely do as we’re all very busy) then we’ll hook it up. Until then? It stays in the blue box next to the TV. Which somehow makes me feel better.

Now…for the point of the entry…my GALLERY! Let me start by saying I had to attach the frame wire on these frames myself and that is NOT an exact science. Each one is just a hair different as I may have twisted it tighter, or the hooks may have been more loose, or something. So, the fact that they’re not perfect will be rectified as time goes on. I want to wait until the weight of the frames settle on the wires before I make any adjustments so I won’t have to RE-adjust later. But for now? You get the idea.

Disclaimer: Two of my regular-read bloggers often talk about home renovations or updates. When I post pictures of my small-scale improvements I feel a bit silly as it doesn’t compare to Kelly Rae’s gorgeous home rennovation or Heather’s office remodel (Which, I wasn’t planning on watching those videos because my ENVY is too great, but it was totally worth it as it cracked my ass UP.) – but it’s my new home and I should be PROUD. I just felt the need to point out that I am aware that my scale of upgrades is not as impressive as others. But still…GALLERY!

This is the shot from the upstairs hall. The wall on the other side of the window, I haven’t decided on yet. I wanted to get this wall up first. I don’t want the walls to match in layout, but I do want there to be similar photos in similar frames so the entire back wall is somewhat uniform. I’ll think about it for a week or so before I start laying something out.

Here’s a close-up:

Do you see what I did? I combined color AND black & white. I really like the look of it and kept stopping on Sunday going up the stairs to just stare at it. Look! My photo wall! My photos! Here’s what I said to my husband,

“Who needs art when your wife is a photographer?”
“What do you mean? That is art!”

2-points for saying the PERFECT THING. I’m quite proud of it. I’ll be even more proud when I get the wires on the back adjusted so they all line up perfectly, but for now? I’m happy with it.

I wrote an entire entry this morning defending my parenting choice to teach my children to say, “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir.” And then it occurred to me…why do I care? It’s a very difficult thing to explain to people who truly hate it, and the people on the fence? Don’t judge me about it, they just might not teach their own kids the same thing. So why am I wasting an entire blog entry on defending myself to people who just hate it and won’t ever understand why I do it?

Instead…let’s look at cute pictures of my kids. And trains.

I took my kids to look at some old trains this weekend. Wes is obsessed with trucks and trains and anything BIG and LOUD. I decided to take my fisheye lens out, but I put it on a camera that I had previously set the iso to 1600 for a low-light situation and forgot. So, all of my fisheye photos from our adventure turned out grainy. This was a bit depressing as I took some cute ones with the kids and the trains, so I opted to do a few Photoshop tricks to try to make the grain look intentional.

(Sidenote: This is why I could never be a professional portrait photographer. I do this kind of screwup ALL THE TIME.)

Did it work? Does it look like the noise (or grain) in that photo was totally planned? Or is it obvious I was covering up a mistake? Either way…the grain just added some interesting texture to the photos of the trains. So, no FAIL there!

The kids were bored because they wanted to get in the trains, but I promised them we would ride the train on September 11th. This museum takes the trains out several times a year so we made sure to get tickets to the next ride. I can’t wait. I’m hoping Wes will really enjoy it since he’s so into things like that right now. Now, he has his favorites. He’d probably poop his diaper over excitement if I could figure out a way to get him on a Blue Recycling Truck! (his favorite) or a Big Yellow School Bus! (his second favorite) – but for now? The train will have to do.

I really like making things. There are just two things that stand in my way:

1) I have absolutely, positively, NO PATIENCE.

2) I have no natural talent.

So, basically I have to take on project that require little inherent skill and can be done RIGHT NOW. Some projects take a little longer and my impatience is always noted in the careless mistakes. Take, for example, the garlands I made yesterday. (Thank you Mrs Priss.) I was trying to get the garlands done while the kids napped so I was rushing and I put the glue on the wrong side of the paper. Did I throw it aside and get a new one? NO! Takes too much time! Must hurry before patience runs out!

I just flipped it over knowing the glue would kinda be invisible after it dried. Ta-da!

Either way…this garland project? I loved it. I’ve already started draping them around NikkiZ’s room and I’m trying to think of a “boy” way to do several more in Wes’s room.

This one shows where Nikki requested jewels. Of course.

This is also a good project because I have a strange weakness for stacks of scrapbook paper in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby. Pretty paper is my Kryptonite. SERIOUSLY. I have a truly unhealthy fondness of all types of pretty paper. In other words? I have stacks of it.

Only a very small representation of my collection.

This project allows me to play with my pretty papers EVERY DAY. Because god forbid I – you know – scrapbook with it. I have no desire to scrapbook (THIS is my scrapbook!) but I luuurrrvvee scrapbooking supplies. I sometime just organize the craft storage area just so I can play with the papers and ribbons and brads. *sigh* So, DIY Paper Garland? The perfect project for someone like me.

I also bought some cardboard letters and covered them with scrapbook paper and embellishments for Wes’s room. They turned out great but I’m not sure the best way to hang them. This is going to work for now, but I think I may try to put twine or something on the back and hang them higher up and horizontally. The letters are too big to go vertical, they come too low to the ground. But for now? For Me: Super Miss Impatient Lady? They let me enjoy them. I hate waiting. HATE WAITING. Which leads me to also hate precision, so don’t look at the letters too closely, okay?

Next time I think I’ll buy the kind of letters they sell at Paper Source. They look a little bit easier to work with if the instructional video is any indication. These letters I used for Wes’s room were narrow and not at all pretty on the edges so they had to be covered. The Paper Source letters are pretty all over, and look like they’d stand up on their own.

And while we’re talking Wes’s room, the garland and letters both became projects as I’ve struggle with ideas of things to hang on his walls. I’ll show you what we did with the canvases from our group painting session.

I’ve also hung up some giant animal stickers on his doors and a needlepoint D’s Mom made for his room when he was 2. I have two more pictures I found at Target to hang up and Wes’s room will finally be done! Equal parts store-bought and Mom-made. I think that’s a pretty good combination.

Sometimes I wish I had the design asthetic and desire to make my kid’s rooms look pretty. You know, like from a magazine. Mine are just…kids rooms, I guess. But I hope they’ll have fond memories of fun things on their walls and can ignore the fact that their Mom kinda has weird taste that sometimes makes it look like the actual children decorated the room instead of an actual adult.

Also all that matters? Finding any way I can justify playing with my scrapbooking papers. And if the kid’s rooms become vomit pits of color in the process? WHO CARES?