May Fun

I am supposed to be paying bills and organizing our office right now.  I am finding anything on the planet to avoid this apparently.  Julia is on her "supernap" break in her car seat downstairs, so I know I am on borrowed time.  But, a couple people have asked for pictures.  And this translates to me thinking there are blog fans, and who can disappoint fans?  Well, me usually, but not today.  Today, I post.  And the bills wait, again.  Unless Julia stays asleep for a while longer.

I am going back to work on June 1 - with mixed emotion to be sure.  I am kinda looking forward to it, but realistically think that excitement will last all of a week and a half.  Elliot and Samantha are at such a fun age right now, and Julia & I are so simpatico, I am going to miss her attached to me for 10 hours a day.  I will fortunately be working from home 2 days a week - though admittedly easier on the commute, and the dry cleaning, it is hard for the girls to be home and not all over me, even if sequestered in my office.  Kassi will have her work cut out for her.  She is staying on with us through the summer, until Elliot starts kindergarden.  I also just dropped off our deposit for Samantha's new pre-school.  Another mixed emotion...the school was chosen for its overwhelming and awesome award-winning:  location.  It is next door to Elliot's elementary school and both are 3 blocks from our house.  We interviewed 6 different preschools and concluded that we do not LOVE any of them, that the one they are in now, is much better than we have been complaining about, and we might as well go with the convenient one if the differences are marginal to us.  Tho, as I walked the deposit up to them, I was worried about the decision.  And when I am driving 90 minutes round trip to pick them up from their current school tonight, I am sure I will feel better about picking convenience.

Well, now I did it.  Bills are not paid, PICTURES are not posted and Julia is wailing.  Let's see how fast I can get these up:

See what I mean about fun ages?  They picked their outfits for the Cordova sculpture walk on Mothers Day.

Kassi's crazy tire-goth idea...

My crazy Keith Herring inspired idea.

Kassi is taking a new photo class, for which my babes are more than willing subjects.

My babes.  No time to airbrush dinner off of them.

Julia - cute as anything.  And this is the 3rd tummy time we have done.  Bad mommy.  

The length of her at 14 weeks.

Check out the crazy cool chick.  Mindy MADE that!  And she did not even know we have a chickie nursery.

Mindy ...this is the room shot of Julia's room.  We did not do anything in here, except rip up the carpet and polish the floors.  Big plans for curtains and a chandelier re-do.  I love the butterfly mobile at Pottery Barn and think it would be dandy in here!

Dining Room Makeover

Here is our dining room as purchased with the house: 

 And here is our dining room after we completed the renovations:  made the rough plaster ceiling smooth, removed wall paper, painted all wainscoting and built-ins and below, replaced the hunting horn chandelier.

We are in the market for a new dining table and chairs.  In fact it pains me to see this table in this room, b/c I have a vision for what will go here.  And it may still have the Easter egg table cloth and the Easter Bunny cake on it, but not those chairs, not that table and not that color.  

 So our house had 15 chandeliers when we bought it. Now it has 16, though one is dismantled in the basement.  So when you visit, don't diss this one below (above is the horns up close).  I love it, and Ben indulged me.  Beth, you asked about lighting, we found this one at West Elm for just under $300 - seemed like a steal from all we looked at, and I do love it.  It comes in a dark capiz shell too.

 I loved it so much, I had the fun task of un-taping/unwrapping each individual shell by hand (feeling bad for the sweat shop workers whose job it was to wrap them).  Ben had the fun task of installation...did I mention I love having a super handy husband?

Sammy likes the Suburbs!

So after the Easter Feaster, Ben and the girls reenacted a scene from This Old House and basically alienated our guests into leaving while they dug up a tree in our backyard to immediately stop the "mulch volcano".  They did not like being questioned about whether this was good for the tree, or what to do to clean it up, tho they may have admitted later to biting off more than they could chew in the middle of Easter Feast.  But, Samantha was again in her element.  She was more than ready to get her trike and go for a walk with me.

Side note:  one benefit of living in New England is that is where This Old House is usually filmed.  So when your husband accidentally digs up the root system of a 100 year old tree, maybe murdering it, maybe not, you can track down the specialists from the exact episode and invite them to your house to assess the damage or benefit done.  Of course this comes with a fee, but hey, our celebrity arborist will be visiting us tomorrow (amidst 4 preschool interviews for Samantha tomorrow too, but that's for another post...hey, should she wear her overalls?).

Oh Yes We Did

Put Julia in the dress.  She's a little young for a quincenera, but she would fit right in.  Julia was representing for all of us on Easter, who were otherwise wearing jeans and t-shirts.  Our tiny baby girl happily chirped the day away in ruffles and bad headbands making us all feel more festive.  Here are the highlights of the Dress.

Oh, and if you put Ben in charge of the outfit while you by chance make Jacques Pepin's recipe for cheese souffle, Julia will come out with the headband like a sweatband and her lacey scratchy collar tucked under her chins for most of the photos...and chives will sneak their way into your cheese souffle.