Balance

It's been a discouraging couple of days.

If I have learned anything from being a mother it is that, somedays, no matter how motivated and productive you WANT to be, your little ones may have different ideas and that is that. Forget it.

Last week was wonderful, I had gotten the house in order and I felt so much freedom! I noticed a huge difference in my husband's attitude towards me. I had more time to play and blog and do other things I wanted to do.

Then the weekend came and Sullivan started being really fussy (like waking up every 10 or so minutes throughout the day and night) and my house is filthy and I'm beyond achy and tired and Barclay has watch 4 shows on Netflix already, because I have to finish editing some pictures.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of fighting every single bite during every meal with Barclay. I'm tired of every time the baby falls asleep, Barclay falling down and sobbing for 5 minutes, and when that sobbing is over, the baby waking up. I know it's selfish, but I'm tired of these babies getting in my way of being productive.

I have come to the conclusion that I will never ever accomplish everything I want to in one day. Yesterday I excercised and edited but I wasn't able to really play with Barclay and I didn't read my Bible and I didn't clean. I cooked but I had zero energy or patience with my husband. I took a meal to a friend (which I LOVE doing) but I didn't brush Barclay's teeth last night. It just seems I should try to do all of these daily things in the space of 3 days, because there simply isn't enough time.

I'm really really trying to loose some weight. Not a diet but I am doing weight watchers (my skin cringes when I say that for some reason). I have come out of both pregnancies weighing about 8 lbs less than my prepregnancy weight. This is due to the fact that I throw up almost every day of the entire pregnancy. But as soon as the baby is born I become this ravenous beast. Breastfeeding plus the fact that food stays down makes me feel like I can eat and need to eat every single thing I see, and a lot of it. But I desperately want to focus on my body and be healthy. I feel like I've really beat it up the past three years. I want to feel attractive and proud. I just want to get back down to a size 10 (because all my favorite clothes are that size). I'm probably a 12/14 now so it's not a lot. Every single day I am tempted to quit, because there seems to be sooo many other things I need to focus on. But I am pressing on. I am determined to have a little bit of self control. I like weight watchers because it isn't drastic. I am able to eat salad for dinner if I know I am going to a party and might want to partake of some goodies. It's about portion control and really for me, self control. Don't worry, it has alloted me an extra 15 points because I am breastfeeding. I think they should have a box you can check entitled, "Are you breastfeeding a 16 pound two month old who likes to eat every hour and eats like a pig?" Ha!

So I just feel overwhelmed with all the daily stuff I need and want to do. With the trying to be healthy, with the maintaining of my marriage when at the end of the day, all I want to do is crumple into a ball in front of the TV and escape. I want to be a more imaginative mom and teach my little Barclay all kinds of wonderful things. I want to hold my baby who is growing a pound a week, and love on him instead of try to just get him content enough that I can do something else. I feel like the worst friend in the world to all my wonderful friends. I take like 6 days to return calls and texts, I never check up on them...

But there are only 24 hours in a day, and I'd LIKE to sleep at least 7 of them.

Hall

Ta Da!

This is the first time since we moved in three months ago that no boxes were lining the hallway! This beautiful hallway is my favorite part of the house. It makes it feel so much bigger!

This little guy is sad that his obstacle course is ruined and now it is easy to navigate:-)

On top of the wardrobe, we have a 100 year old bowl that I use for my baby photographs and at home I store baby blankets in it. The basket next to it has baby toys...so Barclay wont steal all of Sullivan's toys:-) That painting to the left is one of my favorites I've done. I did it in a dark time in my life when I was really struggle with Bi Polar Disorder. It's a woman crying and next to it is a jar of tears. Because of the verse that God bottles our tears. I love it. It's modern and emotion. My husband isn't a fan, but it reminds me of how good God has been to draw me out of despair into His hope.

The wardrobe where we keep our linens and towels and our blanket basket.

I got this awesome vintage poster (I usually am not a fan of posters) at a yard sale for 2.50.

Our wonderful little dresser that we keep mail, and things we use almost every day in. Those brass busts hanging there were inherited from Noah's grandparents. I love them, I think I'll probably move them though. They look odd there.

I love this old, weather pewter bowl I bought at a yard sale. It holds change, our keys and cell phones and a timer that I use when I clean.

This is one of my favorite parts of the house. This was such a big space behind the front door but not a lot would fit there. I created a little station. A wooden bench that we can put all our bags on when we come in and out. The basket is my "to-go-to-people" basket. So if I know I'm going somewhere and need to bring something to someone, I just put it in the basket that day. Then all the diaper bags. It works great!

The little bird hooks I bought at Maste General in our downtown. They are iron and I LOVE them. I had my grandfather put them on a piece of old barn wood from my mom's farm. The painting above it is one of my favorite that I did in college. It's of a dandelion field. There are actual bugs in the paint because I did it on site one spring day.

My big project with the hallway is to line it with all sorts of family pictures from our parents as youngins down to our newest little one. Should be fun, and HARD! Hard to pick just a select few!

Bathroom

Ta Da!

I love this bright shower curtain I found at walmart. I hated having just a plain white one because it showed dirt and because when you walked in you were distracted by dirt...and now you're distracted by the curtain;-)

This room was pretty much in working order as well. But we had 2 problems. 1 being that our single bathroom is pretty far away from the laundry room and our bedroom so we were constantly leaving our dirty clothes on the floor after our showers. Especially when you are wrangling 2 naked babies, taking the clothes into another room to put in a hamper didn't work. And the room is far too small to put a hamper in.

I was so excited when I found this back of the door hanging hamper. I know it's a little dorm roomish, but I don't care. It's so functional!

When we moved in I was really annoyed with the medicine cabinet. It was HUGE and every time I went to wash my hands, my face was almost pressed against it because the sink is pretty small and the cabinet stuck so far out. I finally convinced Noah to let me take it down. It opened the whole room up so much! Unfortunately I don't have a before picture of the cabinet, but I replaced it with this pretty blue mirror my mother in law handed down to me. After we paint, I'll eventually hang it on the wall, but I kind of like it leaned instead of hung..but I'm 5'3" so it works for me:-) You would think that lack of storage would be hard for us, but we are a very simple family who hard use anything other than what's in the shower. I blowdry my hair about once every six months, I brush my hair three times a week, I put lotion on about every six weeks...we're simple so we can keep all that stuff in the bedroom for the random times we will use it:)

I got this awesome photograph already framed for a dollar at goodwill. It's developed in a really cool way.

I love the little turquoise vase to the right, a gift. And then a framed picture of my cute little Barclay's bare butt, and then I filled an old glass bottle I got for free with dried green peas.

I got this painting at a yard sale in Asheville. It was an artist who was selling all her work to move to the west coast. I met her and she was so cool. I spent a little more than I do at yard sales for it...$20. But I felt like it was more of a gallery sale than an actual yard sale. It is fabric stitched and then painted. I love the colors and the simplicity. In all our moves, the matte actually got damaged so I got a new, offcentered one at Michaels. Here's the funny thing...I forged the artist's signature! But it's an original piece of art and I love it!

I got this tiny shelf that fits perfectly next to the opened door and the sink. I want to decorate it and maybe get some small baskets to put on it. It's good for extra rolls of toilet paper and the very few toiletreis we use.

All I want to do to this room is repaint, hang up a towel rack, and decorate the little shelf.

Lovesick

I really cannot even breath sometimes I just love my boys so much.

Living Room

So after several grueling days with the slave driver...my house is now completely in order! I feel so relieved and happy! I still have a lot of decorating I still want to do, but for the most part, it's done!

I'm just going to post one room a day...starting with the living room!

Ta da!

This room was already pretty much in working order, but I decorated a little more.

The fireplace. I adore it! I love the brick!

I got this old window off Craigslist for $10. It's from an old schoolhouse. I love how chippy it is! And I wanted an old window here so you could still see the brick. I was going to hang it with the glass and I would have had to have anchored it into the morter, which would have been a pain). But we had a big storm and it blew over on my porch and most of the windows broke. So I broke the rest and it was light enough to sit on the mantel. I wrapped that "G" with twine (took like an hour!) and the other two vases were gifts from a friend. The little lime green painting to the right was a gift from my grandmother. It has a little friend painting that has to be reframed. They are some of my favorites. I love the lime with the light blue.

Cute little metal basket with Barclay's books in it. Got it for free from my father in law.

Our awesome bench and red chair. Those black and white charcoal drawings we inherited from Noah's grandparents. I love them!

Got this awesome shabby chic dresser off the streets of DC:-) It was 20 dollars but it took like two months to get it home to me:-) The basket under it is for toys.

My random wall:-) I still want to tweak it and I have a picture to put in the empty one. Every single thing on that wall is from Goodwill or yard sales except for the lock near the top...3 dollars at Ross.

One of my favorite pieces of art! I got it at a local thrift shop (which is NEVER good). It is an original watercolor on silk. It was just sitting in the corner, unframed. It's pretty large and I got it for $2! I saved it for two years and recently had it professionally framed (since it was an odd size). I am in looooove!

One problem we need to fix is all this mess of wires! The walls are so thick in this old house that the wireless doesn't make it to the back room so we have to put the router sticking out into the hall. That little table runner I LOVE! Goodwill for 2 dollars:-)

All I want to do with this room is to get some bright pillows and some more pictures and art on the walls.

Dresser Redo

I'm kicking myself for not taking a before picture! I've tried to see if craigslist still has it, but they don't.

We seriously needed storage for our clothes and so we found this awesome, solid wooden dresser on craigslist. It has 10 drawers! My grandparents bought it for us as a baby present:-)

For the before, imagine beige and navy alternating drawers. And the drawer pulls were the opposite color of the drawer. Really teenage boy room.

NOW...Ta DA!

I ALMOST painted it white, but I decorate with a lot of white so I thought I'd spice it up. I got this color from Walmart and really went out on a limb...but I am in love with it! Drawer pulls were from World Market (they were only 25 cents more a pull than the cheapest cheapest ones at Lowes).

Now if I can just put my clothes IN the drawers:-)

Project HOUSE

Since we moved into our new (smaller but cuter) house during a winter storm and I was

a.pregnant on bed rest

b.had a 2 year old terror:-)

c.had a very depressed sister living with me who was also pregnant.

My house never got set up. I love entertaining but I still haven't gotten it together enough that I'm proud of my home. And having things not be in their place to begin with, makes keeping a house up way harder...especially for someone like me who is terrible at cleaning to begin with.

Pregnancy and bed rest turned into having a newborn...that turned into having another newborn in the house. So here we are, more than three months after moving in and I'm really ready to get it set up.

My mom "lent" me a sister this week. Miss Sarah Grace is a 13 year old drill sergeant who is relentless at making me stick to things.

Imagine this. We start working on a room, I all of a sudden see something that reminds me of an art project I want to do. So I start doing it and little miss drill sergeant says, "Helen Joy, focus. You have to focus. That isn't important."

Anyhow, she's been here less than 48 hours and I already feel like we've accomplished more than I have in 3 months. Maybe it's the baby holding, the encouragement, or the companionship, we're making headway. I wanted to give you all a couple "before" pictures. Although take the before pictures and multiply them by about 30 and THAT's how bad it was when me moved in.

My husband turns 30 tomorrow and I'm hoping to give him a somewhat inviting home:-)

Enjoy cringing at my pictures and patting yourself on the back that you have it a lot more together than me:-)

The laundry. The laundry. It never ends.

Noah taking a nap. You see our very non useful cradle being used for laundry?

Actually the kitchen is the most put together. Which is strange since regularly this is my hardest room to keep clean usually. This is after the drill sergeant worked on it for a while after dinner.

The back room which has become our/impromtu guest room/stroller storage room/to sell on craigslist room/computer room. Inviting isn't it?

Bathroom doesn't look so bad.

Not too bad...again this is after the drill sergeant was there for a little while so it was worse.

The second bathroom which is located next to the other bathroom. Although it was used as a closet before and we figured out why...in order to use the bathroom in there privately, one must be locked in from the outside!:-) So we will be using it mostly to store all of Barclay's toys that he likes to get out all at once. That lock is going to come in handy!

Living room. It's pretty much set up just hard to upkeep with a busy bee little toddler running round.

Next to our front door.

Oh the hall. Imagine 30x's as many boxes piled high. Sigh. We've come a long way!

The boys room. It's tiny but I LOVE it! We are moving Sullivan in there tonight so I'll have to post when everything's done:-)

Yeah, it'll never be perfect:-)

Well, I hope you enjoyed that tour of my home. If you're my friend in real life, don't give up on me!

Pretty posts soon to come...

Everyone always says how fast time goes when you have children. I did not find that true with Barclay. I felt it went by at a perfect rate to enjoy everything. I never left a stage of his thinking, I never had time to enjoy it!

Now I know what that means! I'm not joking when I say that literally an hour goes by (that's 1/ 24 of a day!) when I am trying to get the boys together, clean, fed, and in the car...equipped with everything I'd need if one of them gets dirty, hungry or tired. I blink and the day is over. I feel so sad sometimes because I feel like I am just feeding Sullivan a tiny bit (while trying to get Barclay to not sit on his head) then I have to put him aside to take care of Barclay....by the end of the day I feel like I've not even paid any attention to the littlest one! When this newborn stage passes, I am so worried that I'll feel like I didn't soak up every minute!