Saturday, May 11, 2013

Little Big Man

Riley is 5!

I know he's been 5 since January but we are now going through process of picking schools and it hit me Riley is 5!

That being said a few weeks ago I started thinking about how much he had grown. He was our third little one and there was an 8 year difference between him and his big brother and a 10 years difference with big sis.  We were in a new house and poor Greg had to give up his office. It was by far the smallest room in the house. Ok I think the guest bath and half bath might be smaller but not much. Little Riley got a 10X10 room all by himself, squished between two preteen rooms. We went all out. We wanted a cute little nursery and had a gifted local artist do a animal mural. Jungle theme crib bedding and the cutest little monkeys hanging out in the room.  It was adorable.

In the past five years I couldn't stand the thought of re- vamping the room. Our little princess surprise Bella pushed Riley out of the crib and Sydney out of the "big room". (No worries Sydney got an entire basement finished out for her personal use).  Bella inherited Riley's crib and furniture and Riley inherited Sydney's camp style bed, dresser, and armoire.  My mother, who is an awesome seamstress/ quilter/ all around crafty person added edging and made his baby quilt into a twin sized one. We made it work so we could keep the mural.  By this time we knew a bit of what we were dealing with as far a Riley's sensory stuff was concerned. He's been a bit of a crash boom bang kid and no way was I buying new furniture to get destroyed.

I'm very surprised to say that the furniture actually held up.... except for the poor nightstand which seriously never had a chance. Sydney and her friends had already carved their names in it! (yes they got in trouble...no I don't "let"my kids purposely mark-up, write-on, use stickers etc on their furniture it just happens sometimes).  Riley is doing so much better taking care of his things and I thought it was time for him to graduate to a big boy room!

I asked him what type of room he wanted and got about fifteen different answers. Hubby said "let him pick whatever he wants" but I did stack the deck.  I started by looking on pinterest and showed him tons of star wars bedrooms.  So he decided on star wars. Sneaky mom I know, but we have been down this road before (Ryan had a star wars room) and I still have lots of star wars stuff so why not! The trick is I'm trying to do this on a shoe string. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm like a bloodhound. Someone can put three similar items beside each other and I will always pick the most expensive as the one I like.   It's a gift HAHA! So for a week I've been pinning, measuring his room, going on line to price compare and just really trying to do a nice room on as little as I can manage. Ikea is going to be a very good friend in this endeavor.

First order is to paint. His poor beautiful mural and walls look like they were felled in WWIII! Today we removed everything off of walls and patched everything. We are going for a very "Industrial" style. We chose pale gray paint. It is a very neutral gray and honestly we bought waaaay to much of it for the living room so we are using it up. (My bedroom also got a few of coats of this awesome stuff). We have always used cheap paint and in the past had to use multiple coats and put it on thick.  We went with a pricey porter paint that supposedly will hid things better and cleans up nice. It rolls on like a dream and we've been really happy with it.  This is a good thing considering we spent some bucks and had a TON left over!

The biggest problem I have his closet doors. They are white, six paneled, by-pass doors and due to size of room can't do any other type of door. After a lot of research I thought the best thing to do was to paint them.  Decided to do a metallic treatment, the spray paint was $8.00 a can and we bought four cans but I think three would have worked.  I thought that was pricey for spray paint but for the convenience factor I thought it was worth it. Also when comparing price of new doors...well lets just if this works out new doors for $42.00 isn't bad. Plus we didn't need to buy paint for the room so yay!
The doors and the damage 
during :) 

Antique Pewter Awesomeness

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Blessed and Distressed

Where to start? I'd say the last two weeks have been crazy but honestly crazy is our new normal so I'm just going to say the last two weeks have been extremely routine!  I am TWO MONTHS away from my 14 day mission trip in the Ukraine. WOW! Time is passing by and yesterday I started getting into fine details...you know the logistics of packing and luggage and TSA requirements all the minute details that can mean the difference between easy travel and problems at every turn. I'm a bit of a clothes horse and ALWAYS worry that I'm not packing enough clothes. Hermione's beaded bag from the Deathly Hallows would be soooo greatly appreciated at this time!

I have felt a tugging at my heart for years to do some type of mission trip.  I've supported quite a few, prayed for friends as they have went, and always been so excited to hear how it went after they got back. My grandma Gene use to say "I'll be surprised if you don't make a missionary, I've never seen a kid with the bug to travel like you do" My dad called me the go go girl, he'd say "if I say 'I'm going...' Laraine would meet at the door with her coat before I could even say where". I choose a trip to Europe over a car when I was a teen (spoiled enough to actually get the car also).  My husband had never flown until our honeymoon...when he suggested we go somewhere we could drive I informed him unless he wanted to be home alone a lot he needed to get on board with flying.....literally. This trip is so different. I'm not going for a vacation or to see the world I'm going with my heart set on making a difference in the lives of the teens we are serving. I'm going to share the love I have for Jesus with the world and I'm expecting amazing things to happen!

This has been a big leap of faith for me. Financially, the last thing I needed to do at this point in my life is "sign up" for an expensive trip that I had no idea where the finances were coming from.  I have been amazed at the blessings I have received in the area. Our youth minister told us "send out support letters, let everyone you know hear about your financial needs, pray everyday....God will take care of this!" I do believe God can move mountains and I hear stories from others about how he provides, but for some reason I have a hard time believing his blessings are meant for me.  I'll be honest three years ago I would have just written a check, not sent out anything, and then patted myself on the back for not needing help.  The only way I could go on this trip is if it was completely taken care of. I sent out letters and have been amazed at the outpouring of love for this venture.  I needed two-thirds of the trip paid for  by May 1st.  Two Sundays ago we had a missions meeting, I needed a chunk of money to meet the deadline. I was freaking out a bit and my husband told me "I've got the kids covered, you go pray about it"  I prayed for a bit right then and then prayed on and off the rest of that day. Less than twelve hours later I get a text from someone saying that they are donating X amount of money. It was the exact amount  of money I had been praying about needing. I think after all the donations were tallied I had a few dollars over the amount due. I had goosebumps.  I still  have a way to go... I need about $1000.00 more but I'm not worried I know that it's going to get covered. I'm hoping to get enough to pay for me and then to roll over to others on the trip.( I'll add a shameless plug here if you would like to donate ANY amount....even a few dollars please contact me and I'll send you the designation form, it's tax deductible so you will get a receipt. :) )

This is also emotionally hard because since I met my husband I don't think I've ever been away from him for more than a week... yes we are attached at the hip and have been for 20 years.  He's my best friend and no matter how irritated he can make me at times, he is the first person I talk to when I need to share anything. I was comforted with the Skype/cell phone placebo, but have found out there is no service at the camp where we will be teaching.  I got a little teary eyed over the thought of not hearing from or seeing my husband and kids for a large portion of the trip.  However, I'm a Newman and we are made of pretty tough stuff. Many call it stubborness I call it fortitude! A bit of the Gray temperament doesn't hurt either. I'll be busy, they will be busy and I just have to keep a journal of all the cool things that are happening and take a lot of pics. Being a stay at home mom of four with so many responsibilities , well I think I make myself believe that I'm the only person who can take care of them.  I know that's disrespectful to my husband, and the scores of people who are offering to help with my kids while I'm gone, but I can't help but worry just a bit. I tell my husband "Just because I don't do things YOUR way doesn't mean it's the WRONG way" I need to take my own advice and let him parent the way he needs to without me here.  I swear I am NOT leaving a list....it's killing me but I refuse!!!! haha. I've been blessed with a wonderful husband who has a real heart for Jesus and his kids they will be fine.


My Ukraine language and culture book from Amazon came in the mail yesterday and now the biggest worry I have is trying to pack my bag and trying to learn the Ukraine alphabet.... Whew! Who knew fundraising would be easier than that!

The other thing that has been taking my time the last two weeks is distressing... Literally distressing. I'm a pretty boring decorator... I use lots of neutrals and go to stores and pick out all the matching furniture. I was sick of the same ole same ole and two years ago hired an interior decorator to help me punch it up a bit. She is great and has helped with color schemes and some staging but honestly I just can't afford her to redo entire house.  I've been bummed about it but then a dear friend ...Alana.....said "Girl we can do this..... I'm going to teach you to go to Peddlers mall and get you looking up stuff on pinterest and we'll do this our own way". Apparently I'm one of her more "high maintenance" friends and she's very excited to teach me DIY and shopping for deals. I found (OK actually Greg found it)  an old wooden dresser that was pretty beat up even missing a door for $59.00. It's solid wood and had all original door pulls. It came home with us it was really really ugly.... like I wouldn't have even owned this in the 80's...really ugly. I used Annie Slone's chalk paint and OMG this stuff is AWESOME. Very little smell and you have NO prep... No stripping finish off, no sanding... NOTHING.  Just paint it on the messier the better. Riley even helped he thought he was hot stuff!  Since I have a gray room I used gray paint and then bought Annie Slone's dark wax to "distress" it.  Not to be disrespectful to my hubby but he gave me the hairy eyeball that it couldn't be that easy.

This stuff dried in like an hour and then I rubbed the dark wax over the entire thing then wiped it away.  The dark wax stayed in the crevices and gave it a distressed old antique look. My husband even said "I would not have believed it if I had not seen it" I have pictures but I can honestly say it does not look as good in the pics as it does in the room! We had a college friend help us move the dresser to our room and he thought we had bought it like that. The only trouble is the Annie Slone's paint is expensive but it goes a long way and the people who sold it too me said I'd never buy dark wax again. I used such a small amount I'd believe them. I also found a huge antique mirror (gold) that I distressed using a teal wash where the gold shows through and then using dark wax to give it a bit more dimension. Again, boring ole me was going to do black on mirror but thought "lets try it I can always paint it black if it doesn't work out" The teal/gold/black kinda gives it a patina look which is neat. It's sitting in my room waiting to see how it works. I think I'm going to hang it and wait until I get my teal headboard to see if it works in the space. However, I am NOT handy at hanging stuff so must wait on hubby to do that. It's fun having these projects to do I'm pretty happy about it. Peddler mall shopping is kinda like treasure hunting but I have to go with a specific purpose or I'll try to get too many projects going. I'll try to get pics up later and I'll keep you informed on how the ongoing projects go.