Playroom Makeover!!

Something we've been planning for awhile is to makeover the playroom. But...anything inside the house had been moved to the back burner because we had so much going on outside. 

In January when I had my surgery, Michael had moved our old flat screen TV into our bedroom so I could watch movies while I recovered. I knew I did not want that big TV in our room, but we weren't ready for it to go in the playroom either. 

Once I had cleaned each room in the house I moved onto cleaning up the playroom and then painting it. 

Pink wasn't the color we wanted as a playroom color. 

I painted the upper color the main color that's in the rest of our house and then Owen and Ella helped me paint the bottom half the brown color. It had already been brown, but there were areas that needed touching up, but we didn't have that same paint anymore. We did happen to have a gallon of a different brown so we went with that to save money. 

At this point I moved all the toys into our master bedroom and had the kids make some tough decisions because we could not have all those toys go back into the playroom. They did great and got rid of a bunch of stuff. I was so proud of them. 

And now this is what the playroom looks like....

This couch I got about a year ago on the Buy Nothing FB site. It's perfect for this playroom/game room.  That cabinet has some of the kids toys in it....Nerf Guns, Army Guys, Dinosaurs and a bunch of Ella's coloring supplies. 

This is the closet section where the rest of the kids toys are. We had 4 of these plastic drawer containers and the kids went down to having only 2...there is one in the closet you can't see. 

In that back corner are two black IKEA end tables. They are perfect for Ella's Calico Critters. All she has to do is move out the inflatable soccer chair. 

Here's what really got this remodel off the ground...I found this IKEA TV stand on offer up for only $60. It works perfectly in this very skinny room. The height is perfect and the shelves are awesome. Those four bigger ones on the bottom are perfect for Jack's Beyblade Stadiums! The kids can now play on their Xbox, Nintendo Mini NES or watch DVD's up here. 

After I took these pictures I decided to do a little decorating in here so this is now the Seahawks room. We had a few pictures that my mom had bought us and we also had the family picture of us wearing all our Seahawks shirts. I love how simple it is....it's really going to be easier to keep clean and such a fun transition for the kids now that they are getting older and toys aren't such a huge part of their lives anymore.

Back To School Bash!

We originally were planning on having our annual Back To School Bash on Sunday, September 1st. since school was starting on Tuesday, September 3rd My parents were having a BBQ at there house for Labor Day on Monday, September 2nd so we wouldn't have a chance the night before school started. Unfortunately I was feeling horrible because of my root canal pain. I wasn't having my retreat on it until Wednesday so eating wasn't even fun for me at that moment. I had basically been eating soup for the last few days. 

So we rescheduled to Thursday, September 5th. Michael and I had just recently taken the younger kids to Red Robin while the older boys were at Youth Group. We gave them the option of eating at Red Robin again or going to Black Bear Diner. 

They chose Black Bear Diner!!! 

They love getting pictures with the bears! 

Even my oldest! 

Us adults sat on one side of the table while the kids sat on the other side. 

It was nice to get to chat and the best part was I got to eat!!! I had my retreat for my root canal the day before...it was still tender, but it was feeling much better. I did have to go back one more time the following week to finish it up. One thing we need to remember when we go to Black Bear Diner is to bring coats. It's freezing in there! 

Owen and his Pa!!! 

Each of the kids got their own kids meal so that meant they got ice cream for dessert. We have realized that Zeke honestly doesn't like ice cream. He picks at it a little and then he lets it melt into soup. 

Ella ate all her strawberries and then she was done! 

Yummy!!!! 

I ended up getting a chocolate malt milkshake....it's my favorite. It was a fun night to celebrate the start of another school year. I'm so proud of the kids and can't wait to see what new adventures they have this year at school! 

First Day Of School 2019!

The Wednesday before school started we went to an ice cream social at school to meet the teachers. I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't get one picture with any of the kids and their teachers! Who am I???

Anyways I knew it was going to be too crazy to take pictures with their teachers on the first day of school so hopefully I'll remember to take pictures at the first student led conference. 

With our new storm door on the front door it made it a bit harder to make sure I wasn't reflected in the pictures! 

6th Grade here he comes!

Jackson is moving onto the middle school at our K8. I love that my big boys are still going to be at the same school as their younger siblings. Jackson is with the same teacher that Owen had last year...Ms. Sevier. She's awesome!!! 

I love how Jack is so particular about his style. He's my skinny jean, red shoes, slicked over hair kid. 

Don't let this fool you he's stoked for school! 

Ella Grace had been ready for school to start from about the second day of summer break. She loves school so much! 

3rd grade here she comes. 

This is the first year Ella will be at a different recess time from Zeke. I am happy that her 3rd grade class is still on the same side of the school as Zeke so I'm hoping they'll still see each other in passing on the way to music. PE, or library. Ella's teacher this year is Ms. Inoue (pronounced In-OO A). She is so sweet and I know Ella's going to love her. The older boys were actually jealous that Ella got Ms. Inoue because they've had her as a substitute teacher before and loved her.  

She wanted to use the older looking sign this year instead of the colorful kid one. 

Ready to rock 3rd grade. 

Showing off the stars on the side of her shorts. 

Crazy girl! 

How can I have a 7th grader!!! 

Owen is so blessed this year because his class only has 16 kids in it. Owen's teacher is Ms. Howard. He's already been in her class since she's the Science teacher for the middle school, but now she's his homeroom teacher. I love Ms. Howard!!! 

16 kids or not this is how Owen feels about school starting. 

Thankfully he can cheer up a bit though! 

He's still my total goofball at heart! 

Look at this sweet boy!!! 

How can he be a 2nd grader?!?! 

I was so excited when I found out that Zeke's teacher was Ms. Castle!!! She was so great for Ella, I know she's going to be awesome for Zeke. 

2nd grade cool dude!!! 

My silly boy! 

Buddies!!! 

I love these kids! 

They sure know how to show off their inner freak! 

Even though we had a crazy summer with the house, I really did have a great time with the kids. They are at such fun age where I don't have to help them with everything and they are good at entertaining themselves. We did have a nice structure that really helped the kids be able to stay on track with having something to do, but also helped them fit in a bit of school work to keep their minds active. 

This was our Summer Fun List! The kids had to do each of these things in order to get an hour of electronics. They did great with this system.

Bros!!! 

Cuties!!!

Like every year we parked in the neighborhood next to the school and walked. I knew that the kids would be embarrassed to have their picture with me at school so we took one on the way there. 

I'm sure Ella and Zeke would have been fine getting their picture taken with me at school, but I knew it would be crazy so it was better to get it out of the way. 

Owen and Jack's classrooms are right up front so once I said goodbye to them, I dropped Ella off at her room on the front side and then walked around to the back to wait with Zeke. I wanted to get a picture of Zeke before he walked in and then the bell rang and he just ran right in. 

I walked around to the front in time to catch Ella before she walked in.

Right after this I went straight to a 2hr appointment with an Allergist. My itching that I had hoped was just because of the foam mattress on our bed did not end up clearing up after all. At this appointment I found out I'm allergic to dust mites, grass and cats. The dust mites were the things I was most allergic too so the first thing I did was go buy an allergen cover for our bed and pillows. I also spent the next two week cleaning our house from top to bottom. We had definitely neglected it because we were working so much on the outside. Why clean the inside when you are just going to track more construction type dirt through the house. 

Now our whole house is looking good and I'm working towards getting this allergy under control. I will say it's much better, but there is still one spot on my left side that doesn't want to clear up. Hopefully it will soon though!