Teepee for the Boy: a Tutorial

A couple months ago I saw a play tent over at Cape27 and knew Little M NEEDED one right away. When I showed S the tent, he suggested a teepee so that it would take up less storage space when folded. Our lives revolve around storage space. I argued that a tent could fold flat and slide under the couch; he said a teepee would fold up and fit in the corner of a closet – any closet – easily whereas we only have one free under-the-couch storage spot. So I turned to Pinterest for inspiration and after landing on an Etsy page where teepees had little flags flying from the tops of their poles, was convinced that teepee was the way to go.

Materials

We took a family trip to the orange store and to the fabric store for our supplies. We priced out wooden poles at a cost of $35 v. 3/4” PVC water pipe (white is for water, gray for electrical) for a total cost of $3.20. I begrudgingly agreed that it made zero financial sense to buy wooden poles to then conceal them with fabric and chose two of the only 10’ lengths of PVC without any writing or UPC codes stamped on them. Our cashier did not thank us.

We bought canvas drop cloths to use for the fabric, but when I got them home and opened the packaging I decided that the weave was so loose that by the time I pre-shrank them before sewing they would become so small that they would no longer be a cost effective choice over buying cotton canvas fabric. So I returned the drop cloths and bought 5 yards of 12oz cotton canvas from fabric.com. I also bought a yard of navy blue 9oz canvas, the same fabric we used for the glider in Little M's nursery. The total cost of the fabric with a 15% off coupon that I found online was $32 – the exact cost of using canvas drop clothes had they shrunk as I expected. 

Cutting

While I waited for my fabric to arrive (I’m always so frustrated that I live in a major city and we have the crappiest options for great fabric) S cut the PVC pipe and we did all our calculations. It brought me back to high school math except in high school I didn’t have my friend Google to help me find the formulas I needed to calculate the length of the sides of a triangle. I must have been some kind of genius to be able to remember stuff back before Google. Especially since I just did this and I can’t tell you off the top of my head which triangle formula we used.

S held our four poles together on our living room carpet while I spaced them out into a teepee size that could comfortably fit in the small space. I sat under the poles. We decided that 40” between the base of each pole made an area wide enough for Little M to play and still tall enough that he could stand or so S or I could sit inside with him. 

I did all my calculations allowing for ½” seam allowances. I didn’t allow for a bottom hem because I used the canvas’s selvage edges for the bottom of each panel. This diagram shows my panel sizes. 

I cut three of the same size triangles for the side and back panels and two panels for the front flaps. I show sizes for the flap panel, but I just winged it when I cut them. I basically traced one of the side panels, but after tracing the bottom and right side, I moved the triangle over two inches and then traced the left side. Then I cut the whole thing straight down the center. This gave me an extra 1” on each side to sew a ½” hem (½” folded over twice) at the opening of the teepee.

If you want a different sized teepee, then just use a calculator for a right triangle (a²+b²=c²) where a = ½ the length of your base (plus seam allowance) and c is the length of your pole (plus seam allowance.) Solve for b, the height of your teepee panel. Make sure to leave room for tying your poles near the top.   

My calculation looked like this:
420.25 + b² = 2500
b² = 2500 - 420.25
b² = 2079.75
b = 45.6

Confused yet? I just did the hardest part of this whole project for you with my gorgeous paint diagram; I promise the rest is easy!

Sewing

Hem each of the two front panels at the center of the teepee opening with a ½” hem folded over twice.

Hem ½” on one end of each of the four contrast strips.

Fold each the four contrast strips together lengthwise, right sides facing and sew the end you did not hem together using a ½” seam allowance. Turn right side out. You’ll end with four long strips that have one short end sewn together and the other short end with a nice, neat hem. 

Fold prepared contrast strips with right sides out.

Make a sandwich with one front half triangle, one contrast strip with the sewn shut end at the base of the triangle and the hemmed end at the top point of the triangle panel (this is where your  pole will stick through), and one side panel. The right sides of the panels should face each other and the contrast strip should be sandwiched inside so you just see 4 rough edges. Pin.

Sew with a ½” seam allowance.

Make a similar sandwich with the other side of the side panel you just sewed, contrast strip 2 and the back panel, pin and sew.

Continue on by making and sewing another sandwich with the back panel, the third panel and contrast strip 3. Finish with contrast strip 4, the remaining side of the side panel and the remaining front panel.

Snip any loose ends off your masterpiece and insert the four poles through the openings at the top of the contrast strips. Mark the poles about an inch above the top of the tent panels. Drill though the holes, lace twine through the holes and secure them with several tight knots.

Flags

I didn’t do any calculations for my flags, I just folded a piece of canvas into fourths, cut a flag shaped triangle and hemmed along the two “flag” edges with contrast stitching.

I cut the 5^th contrast strip into four, hemmed the bottom edge of each and then trimmed them all to the length of pipe sticking out above the twine, adding ½” for a seam allowance. This was about 7” on our teepee. 

Fold the strips right sides together, roll the flag up so it fits inside the narrow strip pocket and sew the flag between the two long edges of the strip. Sew across the top to close the top of the strip.

Turn right side out and stick on top of your teepee.

Bring your toddler down from nap and make the grand reveal. 

Burst when you kid flips the blank out and gives you a reaction way more enthusiast than you ever imagined. 

Get all mushy every time your kid brings all their toys into their “tent” and gets all cozy in there.

After my big reveal to Little M I added a 40" strip across the front to keep the front two poles from sliding open too far on our wood floors (ahem, from making the teepee fall over on top of my baby.) It also helps keeps the teepee upright when Little M decides to crawl out under the back panel! You can see it in the crummy photo below. It's just a 41" strip of canvas folded over a few times and sewn shut along the long end that I sewed to the bottom of the front two contrast strips. I also plan to add one or two ties to the doors so Little M can hide away in his "tent" (teepee is too hard for the little guy to even try to say). Right now he stands up, holds the front panels shut and shrieks with laughter when we peek in under the flaps.

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Bids.

We are four weeks into the bid process on our addition project and I think we're close to pulling our hair out. We had no idea it was going to take over a month to get all our bids. We were thinking more like two weeks. Today marks four.

To be fair, we did get one bid within two weeks and the second at three weeks. The third came in on Monday, but four and five are still outstanding. One we've been promised "tomorrow" at least a half dozen times. That should raise a red flag, but we like the guy so much and he comes so highly recommended! And number five, who knows where the heck he went. He threw out an arbitrary number based on nothing that was twice the amount of bid number one. I think I may have snarfed a little when he threw out his number. So needless to say, he's not really in the running. And the snarf is probably why we haven't heard from him again.

Right now bid number three is looking really good. I had a good impression when I first met him and all his references so far, love him. Two of them have used him for multiple projects. And I don't think they're his relatives. Or on the payroll. But we still need to work out several details to bring the whole project within budget. That means we're looking at another week 'til we're giving our architect the green light to draw up the final plans. 

We really wanted to be breaking ground on June 1. But at this point I think we're looking more like June 15 at best and July 1, if I'm being honest with myself. Our architect needs two weeks to finish the plans and our county takes up to a month to approve plans. Let's get going already!

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Final Floor Plans

After polling you guys, lots of friends and family, we decided on the two window option for the addition. Which means we were finally able to start developing a final floor plan. The first one gave me a GINORMOUS closet and four linear feet of hanging space in S's closet. Not really the his and hers master closets we dreamed of.

So while I came up with a floor plan for the first floor that took the windows out of the pantry and put them in the entry and powder rooms, I sent a note to our architect and asked him to rethink the second floor. No matter what I did, I couldn't make the second floor work. What we got back from him was perfect. Perfect.

Our existing bedroom will stay, but its closet will go (S and I will build one back in later on.) The current linen closet will also go to create a hallway into the new master. S and I will each have a walk-in closet, mine just a bit bigger than his, but his will still be quite big. Our bathroom will have a tile shower with a glass door (hopefully) and double sinks, but no tub. We decided that having a tub in the existing bathroom was enough. We need to remove the entire existing exterior wall apparently, which means that our existing bath will need to be updated too given that we'll be removing the entire shower wall. We intended to update it at some point, so we'll be doing it at the same time. We're going to keep it simple and hope to keep the same tub and toilet. The cheap, particle board vanity will go, and the tile which is cracked in several places will have to go too.

I'm in love with my closet and with the size of the bedroom - plenty of space for dressers, side tables and a bed. We'll be able to walk without shimmying next to the bed.

As much as I love the second floor, I'm totally head-over-heels for the first floor.

We'll have a mud room! With an eight foot wide coat closet! That's a serious closet. I'm from Maine, I've still got serious coats. That I wear a dozen times a year. If that. Across from the coat closet we'll have a bench with cubby space for hanging coats and hats and for storing shoes underneath. S told me he didn't think hooks and cubbies were necessary given that we'd have a closet right there. If I had a dollar for every time I've asked S to pick up his clothes and hang up his coats, we'd have cash enough to pay for the addition twice over. So in the spirit of designing for how we live, we'll have cubbies and hooks And the beauty of all of this is that it can't be seen from the new living space.

Next to the entry we'll have a powder room with a pocket door. Because one of the two windows will be in the powder room, we can leave the pocket door open to let morning light into the living space. The toilet and sink are tucked behind the door opening enough so that you won't be able to see anything but floor and window from the new living room.

Our pantry got quite a bit smaller in the two window plan, but it will still fit a few linear feet of shelving from floor to ceiling and a large upright freezer (our current one in the basement will need to be replaced in the near future and so far we haven't been able to find one small enough to fit into the space we built for it downstairs. Ugh.)

One of my favorite parts of the new space is the addition of another kitchen counter/breakfast bar. It will have an overhang large enough for 3-4 stools and will have cabinet storage below. We hope to be able to match the cabinetry in our current kitchen, but haven't decided what to do about counter tops yet; we're not fans of our current counters so we're not so inclined to try to match them. Maybe stainless? Maybe butcher block? I'm sure the budget won't allow us to replace all the counters, but that could be an option too.

The new family room will have two sets of double windows facing our side yard and two individual windows facing the back yard. We should be able to get some serious afternoon light even though it's the north-west facing side of the house. Just having all those windows will let in so much more light regardless of the sun. I love lots of light.

We designed the eight foot coat closet wall to accommodate a sectional sofa in the living room, something I've wanted for a while now. I'm sure we'll make do with the furniture we own for a while, but we wanted the option. We cut little pieces of card stock "furniture" to scale and tried out several furniture placement options before settling on this plan. This one gives us the most flexibility and leaves the least amount of wasted space in the entry. We're already planning to section off an area for M's play space.

Some of the exterior details like the added pergola, moving the patio, and the giant porch may need to wait so we don't blow our budget. We thought we'd be building the porch ourselves, but it got a bit bigger and more complicated pretty quickly . . . I hope it doesn't look to weird without a new porch at all, for now. We're planning on building the pergola ourselves, but its included in the plans for now.

We sent the plans out to four contractors this week for bids. We've got all our fingers and toes crossed that we aren't bowled over by the quotes. I'm sure we will be. That porch is going to kill us I'm sure. But we're hoping for the best.

Now as we wait we're making lists of all the interior details we should incorporate. We've only got one shot at making this our perfect home - what details do we need to add to our list? A place for dog collars and leashes for sure, for hanging scarves in my closet, hardwired Internet . . . what else!?

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The Best Carrot Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting (really!)

I love, love, love carrot cake. Of course that means I'm nuts for cream cheese frosting too. I only make carrot cake once or twice a year, usually at Easter, so it really needs to be delicious 'cause I'll probably eat half of it. This carrot cake recipe is chock full of carrots and is lighter than your standard bakery cake since it uses very little oil. That means you can have a second piece for breakfast the next morning. I will.

This cream cheese frosting is the best I've ever tried . . . and I've tried lots. It's cream cheesy, not too sweet, and it's not super runny - my biggest pet peeve with cream cheese frosting. It holds up beautifully and is delicious. I wish I had doubled the batch just so I would have had enough left to lick from the bowl. So good.

Lighter Carrot Cake 

with

Amazingly Delicious Cream Cheese Frosting

for the cake
2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 c. unsweetened applesauce
1/4 c. canola oil
1 t. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
2 c. shredded carrots
8oz can crushed pineapple in juice
1 c. coconut, packed loosely
1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

for the frosting
16oz light cream cheese (2 bars)
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar, sifted very well
1 t. vanilla
1 c. heavy cream, cold

Bake the Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8" round pans

1. With an electric mixer beat sugar and eggs until pale and fluffy

2. Add canola oil, applesauce and vanilla, mix well

3. Add flour, soda, powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg, mix until combined

4. Add carrots, pineapple, coconut and nuts, mix to combine

5. Pour evenly into prepared pans

6. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until a tootpick in the center comes out clean

Allow to cool completely before frosting with cream cheese frosting


Make the Frosting

1. Sift the powdered sugar

2. With an electric mixer beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla just until smooth

3. In a separate bowl and with clean beaters, beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks form

4. Add whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture and mix just to combine - DO NOT over mix

This cream cheese frosting is very stable, but the frosted cake should be stored in the refrigerator.


Enjoy!

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We've Got Some Drawings!

I mentioned that we've been thinking about adding on to the side of our house. I think it all started with several freak-outs over shoes and coats in the dining room. We use our kitchen door as our main entry so it's understandable that no one walks all the way to the tiny coat closet in the living room to hang their stuff up. And Little M can't walk yet so he's exempt. Bottom line is this whole addition thing started because S doesn't put his coat and shoes away. Expensive lesson to learn, no? Ha.

But we'd also like a powder room on the first floor because someone told me a first floor bathroom is a must for potty training. And I'd like to have a master bathroom so I don't have to share a bathroom with a little boy learning to aim. I bet S wishes he'd wished for a girl right about now.

Perhaps most of all I want a closet that's big enough to fit all my clothes in one place. Right now my clothes are in the guest closet, the armoire in the guest room and a bunch of boxes in the attic. In all fairness, the clothes in the attic don't fit my squishy post-baby body (as if the ones in my closet do), but they will, damnit, and I want them lined up nicely with the rest of my clothes. All in one place. A bonus to having all my clothes in one place is that it's then easy to purge those clothes when I accept that by the time these clothes fit again, they most definitely will not be in style anymore. I fully expect another huge Goodwill donation deduction on our taxes this year, assuming this addition is finished this year. There's some motivation to get the work finished this year!

So armed with all our ideas about what we'd like in an addition and why, we started talking with contractors. And they all gave us rough ideas of what they'd do. One of the guys we spoke with is the guy who did our basement. We adore our basement. In his quote he allowed for an amount for an architect. We decided to interview a few architects in addition to the guy he recommended. That's when we found Rob. Unlike many of the architects in our area, he gave us a fixed-price quote to design an addition within the scope we laid out, which, by the way, went from 8'x10' to 15'x28' over the course of this whole several month long process.

We first met with Rob six weeks ago. A month after we met he presented us with three ideas - small, medium and large. S and I both liked large - it maximized the use of both the new and old spaces. But we weren't in love with the exterior of version 3. It was really similar to lots of houses in our area with additions on the side (there really aren't that many), but it didn't leave me saying "wow." So Rob went back to his office and whipped up a version with dormer windows, based off a house near us that I love.

I adored how cute the addition looked, but when we learned how the dormers would affect the interior space and that it meant losing a bedroom to accommodate the master bath, we nixed it. Well, I nixed it since S had already nixed it based on his opinion that it looked liked two entirely different houses slapped together. Whatevs.

With my beloved dormer version off the table, I left version 3 printed, sitting on the dining room table (next to S's coat) so I could see it all day long. It was growing on me last week.

But something about the gable end facing the driveway/road made the addition seem too big. I love how our house is small and cute, this version seemed to get too far away from "cute." Yes, I did use the word 'cute' repeatedly with the architect. I'm sure it is maddening for him to work with a woman who wanted 15'x28' on a 22'x28' house to look "cute." I do know when I'm sounding irrational, but there's no other word to describe what I want the house to look like.

So in a conversation earlier this week I asked for a hip roof version. Our house does not have a hip roof, but outside of my office window I can see a couple houses that do. It seems as though the original developer back in the day alternated hip and regular roofs in our neighborhood. I've always been a little envious of those hip roofs. And of all those non-corner lots where people can put big 'ole additions off the back and not worry a bit about how it affects the facade of their home. But I digress.

This is what we got:

 

And I fell in love. 

We chatted a little more, I asked for a two window version so we could rule that out since we'd decided that on the original version 3 drawing we liked one window more than two. I sent Rob a photo of a brick house with and addition with dark gray siding that I liked and a house with a porch with chunky columns that I liked. And I asked for a pergola. Because who doesn't like a pergola?

This is what we got:

And I said "wow." And "that's cute."

Adding a little color makes all the difference, no? I don't even mind that it's siding and not brick (brick is not in our budget.) I love the addition of the trim board between the two stories like I'd find in a historic colonial back at home.

So now our big decision is to choose between the double window version above, or the single window version below.

I thought I was going to like the single window version more, but I like them both a lot. Enough that I can't decide. At all. Seriously, it could be a coin-toss kind of decision for me.

My knee-jerk reaction is that more windows is always better, but more windows could mean less room for an entry closet downstairs. And it could mean that having an open bathroom door upstairs wouldn't flood light down a center hallway into the master bedroom at the back of the house. This would make much more sense if I had an electronic version of the initial floor plans to share. But I don't. So just trust me, it's a hard decision.

We've resolved to design the inside around the exterior plan, so I need to let go of my initial ideas of what the floor plans will look like. But I know I want lots more storage and windows don't work well with closets. But most of all I want the outside the look good, so it doesn't matter what I think about windows and closets. Oh the decisions! They're paralyzing I tell ya! What do you think? Which would you choose?

All I know is that now that we've nailed down an exterior style, this whole addition daydream is feeling a whole lot more real and whole lot of exciting. And cue the sleepless nights worrying about budget....

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My Favorite Kitchen Tool

My mom came to visit last week and while she was here she helped that with a little cooking. While cooking chicken or something like that she accidentally snapped the handle off my favorite kitchen tool. I didn't realize it was my favorite kitchen tool until I no longer had it to use. I was totally lost without it this weekend.

What's my favorite kitchen too? The lasagna spatula.


I'm not even a fan of pasta and I don't like tomato sauce so I'm certainly not using my lasagna spatula for lasagna. But the thing is just so useful. I use it for cutting, turning, sautéing, cooking everything, even cleaning cooked on stuff off a skillet. I forgot that she'd broken it and on Saturday I was looking all over for it while making scrambled eggs. It's the best for keeping the eggs from cooking to the pan. It's just my favorite tool ever. I could go without any cooking spoons and just use my lasagna spatula.

So today armed with my 20% off bed bath and beyond coupon I bought myself a new what lasagna spatula. Thank goodness they still make it. I resisted buying two to have a back-up, but now I'm thinking I might need to go back. Totally ridiculous that this is my favorite kitchen tool, right? What's your favorite kitchen gadget?

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Bye Bye G. Reader

I've been a fan of Google Reader forever. Apparently I'm the only one and I can't believe it's going away. Tonight I downloaded the Feedly app on my phone and for Mozilla on my laptop. I thought it was a possible replacement for reader on my phone, but on my laptop it's just kinda confusing. Ok maybe not confusing, but it's different. How well do you handle change? Yeah, me neither.

Maybe I don't need an alternative to reader. Maybe I need to work my bookmarks a little more, visit blogs and enjoy them as they're meant to be read. No one does that anymore do they? Either way, I'm sad to see reader go. Not as sad as I would have been two years ago when I was keeping up with reading it daily instead of monthly as I do now, but I'll miss it. 

What are you all doing to replace your reader? Or are you in the majority that doesn't use reader?

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Ruler Growth Chart - Pinterest Challenge

I tackled a couple of projects for this round of the Pinterest Challenge, but the second one requires a really intense session with the glue stick that I have yet to schedule. Maybe we'll get friendly this weekend. I did, however, finish a project that I've had pinned forever - the GIANT ruler growth chart that I'm sure you've seen before. I've loved it since I first laid eyes on it, especially since we move so often (in theory, knock on wood we haven't had to lately.)

I was pretty sure that my mom had never seen a giant growth chart ruler before. I sent her a couple of texts all coy saying something like "you'll never guess what I'm making." Then when I talked to her later and told her what it was, she said she'd cut one out of a magazine and thought it was a great gift idea for M. She probably knew about giant ruler growth charts before any of us.

Materials

• 1"x10"x6' pine board
• stain of your choice
• mailbox stencils
• black acrylic paint
• stencil sponge
• sharpie
• ruler
• any square edge tool
• polyurethane 

We started out with a 1"x10"x6' piece of pine that I stained with two coats of "special walnut" from a sample we had leftover from when we were trying to match our pine basement stairs to our oat floors (not a match at all.)

When that was relatively dry I put a drop cloth down on our dining room table, stuck Little M in his tower and started making my marks. I promise he's not all limp from the fumes, he's just begging for more food.

I decided to start at 6" to allow enough room for baseboard molding when we mount it. This allowed for a 6'6" growth chart. All of M's uncles and grandpas are well over 6' tall, but I think 6'6" is good, no?

We paused for a snack.


I began by marking the foot marks lightly in pencil. Then I measured a half dozen times to make for absolute sure I marked them in the right place. I'd marked the 2' mark wrong. I fixed that and continued. Then I pulled up a picture of an old-school wooden ruler on S's iPad and used that as a guideline for how long to make each of my marks.

On the old-school ruler photo the foot mark (or inch mark on the actual old rulers) was a tad shorter to allow space for the black number, so I made my ruler looks the same. The 1/2' marks are the longest, the foot marks the second longest, the 1/4' and 3/4' marks as the next longest and the inches are the shortest.

After I had all my light pencil marks at each inch, I pulled out a quilting square an a regular sized black Sharpie. I used the square edge to make sure each of my inch marks ran precisely perpendicular to the edge of the board. Maybe overkill, but it made the whole thing look really crisp and even. I started each line 1/4" from the edge of the board just to make things look all neat and tidy too.



Once all the inch marks were made with my Sharpie and my back was killing me from hunching over for hours, I moved on to stenciling the foot marking numbers. Let me save you some time here. The stencils I used are from the giant orange home improvement store. They were in the paint area hanging near the stain. Not with the mail boxes. Not at Target, JoAnn, Michael's or A.C. Moore. They had no stencil numbers of any size. Little M was so annoyed I hadn't thought to go to the orange place first.

So I took those stencils that cost less than the fuel it took me to finally find them and taped them down to the ruler using painter's tape. I hope to use them again someday and wanted to use something that would come off the stencils easily. Regardless, I think I'd probably only get two or three uses out of the cardboard stencils before they would start to fall apart.

I used a foam stencil brush loaded very, very lightly with some black acrylic paint I used a few years ago to paint our front door. I very gently and lightly dabbed on the black paint, let it dry and then did a second coat.

Once everything is good and dry, you'll want to brush on a few coats of a good quality poly sealer. I have yet to do this step because that's definitely an outdoor projects and we haven't had poly friendly weather lately.

I'm not in too big a rush to seal it up since we're not going to hang it 'til we've figured out our whole possible addition project. I want to make sure it has a prominent location, possibly in the new mudroom. We are, however, keeping track of Little M's length measurements so we can add them with a thin black sharpie as soon as we've got our GIANT ruler on the wall. It's hard to believe he's grown a whole foot in one year. Crazypants.

So there you have it, my favorite pin is done. What did you all do this time around for the Pinterest Challenge?

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What’s Going On?

We’ve been talking space around here – as in an addition. Given the market where we live, it makes sense to invest in our home, so after months of deliberation we hired an architect to help us figure things out. Because we’re on a corner lot our only real option is to add onto the side of the house. This means the façade of the house is going to change significantly. I don’t want to lose the cute colonial look…hence, the architect. It’s been a few weeks since he came out to measure every wall in our home top to bottom; we hope to see some sketches in a week or two. It seems like this is a slow process. I'm trying not to wish the time away since every week that passes means my baby gets bigger. 

Stop growing up so fast, Little M.

S has been home for.ev.er. Since Christmas he’s only been on one overnight trip and it was for one night. One! Hello? What happened to being gone 50% of the time? I’d say I’m not complaining, but I am. In order for this here today, gone tomorrow lifestyle to work, Little M and I have to practice our solo time. Besides, I want cheese and crackers for dinner.

Mamie and PawPaw were here this week. Little M has so much fun with them. I love it when they visit. He went on a play date to his Nola’s house today (S’s parents) with my mom. A nannies and baby play date. How cute is that?

Feeney pulled my mom over  and hurt her arm while lunging for another dog when we were out for a walk yesterday and then today he ate Little M’s ribs & mashed potatoes straight off the kitchen counter when I walked out of the room to change M’s diaper. He’s in the dog house. At least he would be if we had one.

I’m hoping to move my sewing area from downstairs up to my office. It’s such a nice space with all the windows that I’m thinking it would be nice to do projects in there on the weekends.

Who am I kidding thinking I have time without a monkey hanging from my leg to do projects on the weekends?

Last weekend I worked on a project I’ve had pinned for months  and months. I’m pretty psyched about it. It needs a few coats of poly, which will have to wait ‘til the weather warms a little, and then it will be ready to hang. Of course S is telling me we can’t hang anything (including curtains in the living room) until the addition is finished. So that’s like months from now. Hopefully not a dozen months.

Speaking of weather, Feeney is desperate need of a shave and a haircut, two bits. We have a hot water faucet outside for winter baths, but I can’t very well bathe him outside if it’s 28 degrees and spitting snow like it has been every weekend lately. I’m ready to throw in the towel and shave him in the bathroom and just have the shop vac going to suck up all the fur.

How do you teach a seven-year-old dog to stop freaking out at other dogs? Short of a lobotomy, of course.  We’re told he wasn’t socialized properly as a young pup.

I picked the trash of a neighbor in broad daylight a couple weeks ago to grab a stacked glass ball lamp. The bulb assembly was broken. I replaced it for $3.99 and bought a new shade. Love it. And I’m only mildly uncomfortable with the fact that the neighbor probably saw me. It’s ok though, I don’t really know any of them well so I’m mildly uncomfortable every time we’re together anyway. Nothing lost there.

Little M didn't want to nurse very much a couple weeks ago. I freaked out since I have a breastfeeding goal of at least 18 months, but really want to go to 2 years. My body went nuts with the sudden supply decrease and the happy breastfeeding hormones must have dropped because I was really unhappy. I worked to get my supply back, Little M is back to nursing regularly, I'm happy again and I've decided I can never stop. Ever. 

Hello Time Magazine.

I've started running much more in the past month. It's not hard to run "much more" when the baseline for the past year has been once a week. Running affects my milk supply hence the issue above. End of the TMI.

On any given day our house is perfectly neat and tidy, but doesn’t look beautiful anymore. The monkey gets into everything so we don’t have too many decorative items out. And then there’s the space issue; namely that we have everyone’s shoes, coats and a drop-your-shit-here stuff in our dining room by the back door. It drives me mad. Absolutely MAD.

I finally pulled out our winter duvet that I bought at West Elm two winters ago. I never brought it out last year because I had a newborn and swapping a duvet was the last thing on my mind. I like the way our bedroom looks. Minus the pile of crap on S's dresser. I need horse blinders so I won't see the pile anymore.

Why on earth did they have to kill off Matthew?

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Our Toy Rotation Plan

We've been slowly amassing a hoard of toys for little M since he was born. Throw in the holidays and his birthday, and things were getting downright overwhelming. Before he was born I thought that we'd have a dozen or so toys for him at any given stage, and that I wouldn't let toys overtake my house. Now I realize that not only do toys last through more than one stage, but buying toys is fun! And free and really cheap toys off my local mom's list are nearly impossible to resist.

We certainly don't have as many toys as most people I know. But we have a small house that we try to keep as clutter-free as possible, and just after Christmas I was feeling overwhelmed. So I set out to figure out a toy rotation plan. After searching for inspiration, I found a few posts on the website Intelligent Nest about "rethinking the playroom" that resonated with me. She explained that her kids would play with the same few toys all the time and ignore the rest. In one of her toy rotation posts she explained that kids learn from new experiences, but if they keep seeing the same toys in the same place all the time, they lose interest and stop playing with them because the toys have become predictable. She explains that toy rotations, which are most effective for infants through 5 or 6 year olds, are done in early education environments all the time. She really hit the nail (or the bright peg toy) on the head: little M was bored with toys he found fascinating just a few weeks ago.

I read that an every-fifth-day rotation is ideal, but we decided on a once a week rotation to keep things easy and because little M is only home and awake for a couple hours, max, each day. (We rotate Friday night, but I should point that little M does get noticeably less interested in his toys by Thursday.)

One night after little M was in bed, I printed out a list of 13 categories and went through all of Little M's toys, assigning them to categories. I determined that based on the number of toys, we could do a three week rotation. I pulled out all of little M's toys and made three piles by taking an equal number of toys from each category - from some categories I took one toy, from others I took two or three. I made the weeks loosely themed - we have airplane week, which has his toy planes and books about planes and tractor week with his tractor toys and some farm books. Because he's learning to walk right now, we kept out his walker to use as a bin for his soft toys each week and his stacking cups, which I occasionally use to give him sips of my tea or soup. His play kitchen is always out in our dining room, but I move around the kitchen accessories so he has new stuff to play with each week.

13 Toy Rotation Categories

1. Active play - riding, pushing, etc.
2. Art (we don't have any of these yet) - drawing, cutting, painting, taping
3. Building - blocks, Legos
4. Dress-up & Dramatic play - tool belt, princess dresses, baby dolls
5. Science - gears, cause & effect toys, mixing colors
6. Math - counting, shape sorting
7. Manipulating toys - small items that are used to focus on fine motor coordination like screws and latch boards
8. Literacy - books & pictures
9. Music - we have an abundance of music toys, our favorite!
10. Logic - puzzles
11. Wheels - any kind of vehicle with wheels
12. Stuffed animals & dolls
13. Balls - this is little M's favorite category!

I neatly packed two weeks of toys into two bins that I store in my office. Because we spend most of our family and play time in our living room, I arranged the third pile of toys in the cubbies of our coffee table.

I was skeptical of the rotation plan at first. We have some really nice toys and I'm all too aware that little M is growing and changing at lightning speed; I was afraid he'd "outgrow" a toy in the two weeks it was in storage. But we decided to give the plan three weeks, and three full rotations before deciding if toy rotation is for us.

OH MY GOODNESS! I am a total toy rotation convert! Saturday mornings have been like Christmas here since we started the rotation seven Saturdays ago. Little M is SO EXCITED to see the new toys when we come downstairs on Saturdays. He goes through them like a hurricane and plays with everything! Nothing goes untouched. My fear of his outgrowing toys was totally unfounded; he's still interested in everything. Best of all, I haven't bought a single new toy since we started the plan; there hasn't been a need at all. And our house isn't overrun with toys anymore. Whew!

Do you have a toy rotation plan? Are you ready to try it out and join me as a toy rotation convert?

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Blue to Gray to

Waaaay back when Hurricane Sandy hit, Bower Power and friends were hosting a fall Pinterest Challenge. I was so in. I had a photo pinned of a living room with a navy blue accent wall, a huge window and a white couch. I've loved that room forever. It was my inspiration for M's nursery (well that and our navy and hot pink wedding.) I jumped in, psyched to finally be painting my navy blue living room accent wall.

In anticipation of the hurricane, we stocked up on much needed essentials - a couple gallons of water and a gallon of navy blue paint. I got to work painting the wall behind our mounted TV in the living room while S played with Little M. I pinched a few pennies and didn't buy our usual Benjamin Moore paint, so it was a little stinky in the room. I opened all the windows and screen door to air the place out at bit while I painted. Then, at 4:30, I heard a huge crash, turned to see a tree falling across the street one house down from us and the lights went out. The house was about 55 degrees at that point since I'd let all the heat out. And it was getting dark. Aaaaand I've got a ton of frozen milk in our freezer so panic set in. The TV anchor panicked along with me:

We saw that our neighbors had extension cords strung across the street to homes where they still had power. In the morning we knocked on the door at the house across the street, asked to borrow power, and strung a cord across. We had just enough juice to power the freezer and a light in the living - just enough light to continue painting. Whew.

By the time our power was restored we had a dark blue accent wall. Just like my inspiration photo. Except we don't have a white couch. Or a huge window. And our light gray walls suddenly looked pale blue. The navy blue I loved in my inspiration photo, that I adore in my nursery, looked...juvenile. It was not what I'd hoped for at all. Womp, womp, womp.

I tried moving the chairs around. We hung a pendant above the green slipper chair that we stole from my office. I added some fall pumpkins. But nothing really worked. It was ok, but it wasn't great. I didn't love it.
 
We lived it with for exactly four weeks...until S went on his next trip and I zipped over to the Benjamin Moore store and bought a quart of the darkest gray on same color card as the living room's pale Iced Cube Silver walls, which, was appropriately called gray.

Since the label on my quart of Aura paint said I had exactly enough paint to cover the square footage of the accent wall with one coat and I needed two, I decided to paint the entire wall with a 2" brush and not waste any paint on a roller. I painted that entire wall with a 2" brush twice over the course of two evenings after Little M went to bed. And because it was Christmas time and a giant tree was secured to the wall and fortified against little monkeys, and because I was all by myself and couldn't move that tree, I painted around it.

When S got home, he thought the light from the Christmas tree reflected oddly on the wall. It didn't occur to him that I'd painted the wall around the tree. In three years he hasn't yet learned that he should assume I've painted something every time he returns home.

And my mom thought we bought a new TV because it blended so nicely with the gray wall (she'd seen the blue wall two weeks earlier.) It didn't occur to her that I'd painted the wall again.

see the perfectly artistic outline of the tree?

It took us a few weeks after taking down the tree and one embarrassing conversation with an architect where I mentioned that we like to DIY projects and caught her glance at the tree-shaped blue area on the tree-less wall. I waved my arm and said, "and we were more apt to finish those projects before Little M came around." Of course I haven't taken an after photo of the gray wall yet. Little secret - I'm missing the curtains we took down a few months ago. The room doesn't look finished without them, but I'm hesitant to put up new curtains when we've got other big projects in the works that will affect the curtains in here. Maybe I'll ask S to hang the rod back up this weekend for me, just a little interim maneuver.

I definitely learned my lesson about coveting rooms that don't resemble mine at all. Navy works beautifully in Little M's room, but I adore the dark gray wall downstairs. And in hindsight this gray would have been the perfect gray for below the chair rail in the dining room - a decision I obsessed over forever!

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Valentine's Bento

Little M totes a bento to daycare each day along with a couple of bottles of mummy milk. On Valentine's day he'll be opening his lunch box to find this little treat.

Ok so his daycare momma will be the one doing the opening. And it's unlikely he'll notice anything except that mummy packed all of his favorites, if he even notices that. But at least I had fun packing this lunch! And I'm sure he'll go nuts for the brownies - a treat he rarely gets.

If all else fails, I'm sure he'll notice the big, red mylar balloon waiting for him in the living room when he comes downstairs tomorrow morning.

Now this is what I looked forward to most when I had a baby! Are you doing anything special for Valentine's day?

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