Madie is 13!

My Madie Moo is a teenager!  She turned 13 yesterday and, so far, we've handled the first day and a half of teenager-hood without any disruption. :-)  To prepare for this special day, Madie and I decided to work together to make her cupcakes.

I had bought zebra and pink decorations, so I bought zebra cupcakes to go along with it.

We had to layer the chocolate and vanilla, so they would bake into zebra-stripes and it totally worked!

I frosted them and she decorated them with pink sixlets and chocolate curls. :-)  They were delicious!!!

I didn't do a ton of decorating, because she wasn't really having a party.  But, still wanted to have something on the table, as is our tradition.

She had dance on Saturday morning, so we didn't have a lot of time before she left to do any celebrating, but she definitely had enough time to open the one present we got her, that had been sitting on the buffet for a week staring at her. :-)

We got her an electric fingernail dryer.  She is currently in her bedroom with her friend Ella and Livie using it right now in their "nail salon". :-)  We also got her a North Face jacket a few weeks ago.  It was the only thing she actually asked for.  She said all of her friends have one and she really wanted one too.  So, we got that for her a little early, so she could wear it.  Sadly, the zipper broke, so we are waiting for its replacement to come.  But, she was really happy to have the nail dryer to open on her actual birthday.

For her birthday, she wanted to take some friends and go shopping together.  So, I picked her up early from dance, so we could leave and get the girls and head up to a big mall about an hour north of here.  I had never been there, so I was just as excited as they were!

When I asked the girls where they wanted to eat, thinking they'd pick something yummy like Olive Garden or Applebees, they picked the ever-popular McDonalds! :-)  Guess kids don't want "fancy food".  They want the yummiest fries around for their lunch.  To give them their independence, I sat at another table, so they could enjoy chatting together and being "grown up".

I had to take a photo of them as soon as we walked in.  They were ready for some shopping!  None of them had been to this mall before and no one but Madie had ever been in a place with escalators!  So, this trip was quite an experience for them all!

They went into the very first store they came across, but thankfully only one girl bought anything there.  I tried to explain to them that we had 3 floors to explore and they wanted to spread their money out.  I gave each of them $20 to spend - Madie had $50 total (some from us and some from her papa), plus a $25 Justice gift card from my besties.  The second store they entered is where most of them spent their money.  They had some cute stuff there.  Madie walked away with a vest, dress, and a shirt.  They all tried on the shirts they liked and were so cute complimenting each other on how nice it looked.  They were so cute and so sweet!

We went up and down the escalators several times, since it was the first time they (except Madie and I) had been on one.  We went on the elevator a couple times too, which they thought was fun.  When you're from a small town, it doesn't take much to excite a person. ;-)

They had this big double-decker carousel and all the girls, but one, went on that.  They thought that was a lot of fun too.  We got ice cream for a couple of the girls while we were down in this area.

Madie was the only one that had ever been in Build-a-Bear, so we stopped in there to check it out.  We went to Justice, where Madie bought a few things with her gift card and the other girls spent most of the rest of their money. We stopped in the Disney store, where the "Let it Go" song was playing, so they were standing around listening and singing to that.

Of course, we hit Claires and then the candy store. I told the girls they could eat get a bag, but little did I know how BIG their bags would be!  $50-plus dollars later, we walked out of the store with 5 very happy girls and one very empty wallet. ;-)

They really wanted to do the photo booth and I'm so glad they did.  It was so funny!  Madie's friend Sarah bought the photos, since I didn't have a $5 on me and then shared them with Madie for her birthday.  Very sweet!  Because there was a screen on the outside of the booth, I could see everything they were doing.  They tried to make duck faces, which sent them into hysterics.  It was so, so funny!!

Here is the roll of photos.  Isn't that adorable?!

After the photos, we decided to leave the mall (all of the girls were out of money anyway) and head to Old Navy.  They were carrying lots of packages and big bags of candy, so they were pretty excited!  They told me over and over again how much fun they were having, and Madie made sure to let me know she had a great birthday!  We went to Old Navy for a little while and that's where I got to shop.  Next time we'll probably go there first, because the girls were lamenting the fact that they had no money left when we went there.

We got home about 6pm and I was glad to be home.  Madie had a great birthday with her friends and I was so glad we could make it special for her, but I was definitely tired.  Here's what she bought when we were up there.  She bought this dress and this vest.  They are separate things, but I had her wear them together for this picture.  The dress is a really soft cotton material.  She loved it!

Madie's candy bag is on the left.  Then she got that Ocelot from Minecraft, the "M" brush, and face buffer from Justice.  She bought the heart key ring from Claires.  The little "Happy Birthday" t-shirt she bought at Build-a-Bear to go on her Ocelot.  The bouncy ball was at Old Navy.

This is the T-Shirt she bought at Rue 21.  She picked that out herself and I think it's really cute!  It's fun to see her finally fit into some Jr. Sizes.

After she showed off all of her stuff to Pete, Noah, and Livie, we lit the candles and sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

She blew really hard and blew them all out!  So glad we were able to celebrate her birthday in such a fun way!  She's our first to reach teenager-hood, so it was definitely something to be excited about.  So proud of the young lady she is becoming and excited to see what these teenage years bring. :-)

Solo and Ensemble

On Saturday, Madie had her Solo and Ensemble Contest at a school in our area.  She had three performances that day, so we were there for most of the day.  She caught the bus by 8 am and had her first performance at 10.

Her first song was a quartet.  They did a wonderful job (you can see a snippet of their song below)!  They all have beautiful voices and sounded so pretty together.  They got a first place rating. :-)

We had an hour and a half between her first and second performances, so we decided to stick around and wait, instead of driving all the way home.  We hung out in the cafeteria and ate some yummy junk food while we waited.  This school is so tiny, just a little country school.  Several of Noah's buddies were there, because they were singing, so he sat and played on his ipod and talked with them while we waited.  He eventually wanted to leave and walk around with them, so we let him kind of have some freedom with that and he loved it!

Livie also had a great time hanging out with some friends.  She was unable to take a picture that wasn't totally silly that day.  She is my outgoing, social girl, so anytime she's able to be with people, she's excited and happy.

Here's Madie with some of her friends.  She tried to go see all of her friends' performances too, while she was there.  I loved seeing how many of these students went to see each other's performances.  They were so supportive of each other and gave each other pats on the back and would tell them what a great job they did.  I told her choir teacher how impressed I was by their encouragement of each other.  It was a really wonderful thing to see.  :-)

Seeing how many of Noah's friends were there performing made me wish Noah would perform too, but I think he's just too shy to want to do it.  He has a really great voice too, but I haven't been able to convince him of that yet.  We'll see if he changes his mind next year. :-)

More silliness before Madie's vocal solo.  She did a fantastic job on her vocal solo (again, you can see some of it below).  She has a beautiful voice and even the judge commented how well she did.

She had over 2 hours between her vocal solo and her flute solo, so we went home for lunch.  Pete's parents came out to hear her, so they arrived during that break and went back with us to hear Madie's flute solo.  She's so comfortable in front of people when she performs.  I don't know where she gets that, because I'm always a nervous wreck when I have to do that!  But, once again, she did a really great job and got another first place rating.  She was three for three with her first place finishes.

We were so proud of her and all the great stuff she did that day.  I can only hope she continues to sing and play as she gets into high school.  She definitely has a great talent!

Here she is showing her first place ratings.  So, it was a really fun day to see how her hard work and practicing paid off.  Definitely a whole lot better than her mother was at that age.  I remember a trumpet duet that went horribly wrong due to the giggles and a total lack of practicing. ;-)

Here is her ensemble performance.

Here is her vocal solo.

Here is her flute solo.  Enjoy!

It Is FINISHED!

 After two/three weeks of chaos, I am happy to say that our room is re-taped, re-mudded, and newly painted!  I'm sure it's very busy for anyone going through a room redo, but add in 3 busy kids, 4 babysat boys (is that how you say that?), and one rambunctious dog and the crazy gets a little bigger.  Here are a few BEFORE pictures...

The walls are covered in the primer that was put on them when we bought the house.  We bought it new from a contractor who was building all the homes in this area.

There were marks on everything, because primer is not forgiving when something brushes up against it.  We painted the 2 lower walls, but they were pretty beat up too after housing all these kids and pets.

You can see the dry wall tape that was peeling above the shelves.  It was like that everywhere.

Another before picture...

Here is the empty, painted room.  She ripped out all the dry wall tape and put new in.  She re-mudded it with 3 coats, so it would really look clean and nice.  She painted the ceiling - which just shows me how crappy the rest of my ceilings look now. ;-)  Then, finally, she painted the walls.  I can't even tell you how new and clean it looks now.  It's fabulous!  Now, here are the AFTER shots...

We rearranged the room and it's much more open now.  I painted the back of the bookshelves to bring in that soft turquoise (or muted turquoise, like I like to call it).

I bought new curtains in that same turquoise color.

Then highlighted it with this turquoise cabinet.  I saw this in one of my preschoolers' homes when I went on home visits last August and fell in love with it!  This cabinet and the curtains are the only new things in the room.  Everything else is stuff we already had. :-)

We moved the pictures around.

And, that is the finished product!  We're going to take the week off and tackle the kitchen next.  I had/have high hopes for that room, but some of my ideas might have to wait.  So, onward we go with home improvement projects!

Making Progress

Things are moving along in the living room.  Today she came in and sanded everything.  It created a huge mess, of course, but the walls are prepped now and ready for paint!

She put up this big plastic sheet to help keep the dust from spreading too much, but dry wall dust still finds its way into everything around it, regardless of plastic walls.

At least it only left a fine coating and not a heavy one.  But, you can see by the smiley face here, that it's all over the place.  I vacuumed as much of it as I could and will keep vacuuming each day to keep getting more up.  My wood floors will need a thorough mopping when everything is said and done!

Over the weekend, Pete and I did a little painting of our own to get things moving.  We worked on getting the hallway painted and it looks so fantastic already, that it makes us really excited to see the paint on the walls!  That hallway (as well as the whole living room) is so covered in marks and stuff from things hitting those primered walls, that it makes a huge difference seeing those marks disappear under the paint.

I decided to try a little something fun too, so we'll see how it turns out once it's actually in the room, but I decided to paint the backs of my bookcases.  We're doing that tan color on the walls, so I thought this muted turquoise would look neat as an accent color.  I've even ordered a new little table in that color and am getting some new pillows to use to continue that accent color throughout the room.  I'm really hoping it comes together when all is said and done.  

So, that is our latest update on the progress in the living room.  She has a bit of sanding to do tomorrow, because she added one more layer of mud to the top of the ceiling, and then the painting begins.  She will do 2 layers of paint on the ceiling and then 2 layers of colored paint on the walls.  So far, I am thrilled with what she's done!  She was recommended to me and she's definitely living up to the recommendation. :-)  I'm definitely anxious to get things back in place however, because this house needs a THOROUGH cleaning once it is.  I'm not used to living in such chaos.  I almost had a breakdown about it yesterday, because I'm not used to living with all that mess and clutter, but I cleaned my whole bedroom today and it was quite cathartic, so I think I can make it the rest of the week until I get things back in their rightful place.  

Once this is done, we'll take a week off and start the kitchen!  Never a dull moment around here! :-)

Living Room Redo

After many LONG years of waiting, we finally are getting our living room redone.  This room hasn't really been touched since we moved in.  I painted the two short walls green about 2 years after we moved in, but I wasn't able to paint the cathedral walls, because they were just too tall.  All that is on there is primer and, after living here for 12 years, that primer is beat the heck up!  Not to mention how all the drywall tape, along all of the seams, has been peeling and I mean peeling really badly!  So, we worked last weekend to get everything out of the room to be ready for Janee to start working on it this past Tuesday.

Noah wanted to help his dad climb the ladder and get things off the plant shelf, once we moved all the furniture out of there.  He's braver than I am!

We moved all the furniture into every available room - mostly on the main level, with just a couple chairs in the basement.  This is our kitchen right now.  Not really easy to maneuver around, but we're making it work.  It's only a couple weeks, right?  The tv is in Noah's room, which he is loving.  It's not hooked up to anything, but the Wii U, but they are all having a great time hanging out on Noah's bed and playing. :-)

I don't know if you can see the tape peeling in the picture above.  It's almost completely loose and it was like that on every seam.  It looked AWFUL!

I finally saved enough money to get it done.  I asked a friend of mine if she could recommend someone and she did.  I found out later, once I met her, that it was my former ZUMBA coach. :-) She's so nice and I've been so comfortable having her here working.  And, so far, I am really, really pleased with her work!  You'll see on the first day she was able to rip out all of the old tape.  It was peeling so badly that it was pretty easy to take down.  She just grabbed an end and it would come off in long strips.  This is the top of our ceiling.

You can kind of see it better here.  They had 2 layers of tape up there, so once it was taken out, it left big treads.  She will probably mud it one more time on Monday, because it left such a thick gap there.

Each night, after she finished that day's work, we would vacuum up all the crumbling pieces and get the floor cleaned up again.  Noah worked on Tuesday night taking down an old Uppercase Living Expression, and helped me take off all the outlets and light switch covers.

For the past three days, she's worked on putting up new tape and mudding it all.  She likes to do three layers of mud to make sure it's really secure and lasts longer.

This is a picture from today.  All the mudding is done, with the exception of the very top of the ceiling that might take another coat on Monday.  Next week, she'll start sanding it all and then painting.  I can't wait!

It's coming together so nicely and looks so new and clean, just like it was when we moved in.  And, look!  Tater is back home!  He spent the week at the Walkers, aka our babysitters, so he wouldn't be in the way with all the mess.  He seems to enjoy the big, open room - unlike Olive who is terrified of the ladders and will claw her way out of your arms if you even attempt to bring her upstairs. :-)

So, that is the update of our room so far.  Really looking forward to sharing our "Before" and "After" pictures next week.  We won't have any Property Brothers makeovers or anything, but it'll look really nice, I'm sure.  At least it will to those of us that have stared at the grossness of it for a decade!

Changes Are Coming

This month we're about to see some pretty fun changes around here!  We're getting our living room painted next week, which is a HUGE deal after living with primer for the past 12 years!  And, we're going to be painting the kitchen and making some minor changes in there too.

We started with a small change today to our laundry room.  I know it's not exciting to pretty much anyone but me, but since it's the start of everything, I figured I'd post about it too. :-)  As you can see, our laundry room is teeny-tiny.  We had to take the door off the hinges to get the washer and dryer in there, when we first moved in.  It's small.  We haven't done a single thing to it in all the years we've lived here.  That little shelf at the bottom is all I had for storage, so it was usually packed with clothes and baskets of misc. items.  Well, today, we bought two large shelves and these baskets to store things and what a difference it makes!  I know it's not all that interesting, but I'm thrilled with it and so glad to have a little extra upstairs storage!